Elise – Page 84

Johnny Cash | I Walk the Line

According to WideOpenCountry.com, “Just weeks after the song’s 1956 release, Johnny Cash performed ‘I Walk The Line’ at the Grand Ole Opry and was met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation. Audiences instinctively connected with Cash’s unique track and vocals while musicians tried to put into words what was so special about Cash. ‘It was different than anything else you had ever heard,’ Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone. ‘A voice from the middle of the Earth.’ And NPR quotes Cash’s former son-in-law Rodney Crowell as saying, ‘You know, if Mt. Rushmore could open its mouth — any one of the sculptures on Mt. Rushmore could open their mouths and sing, that’s what it would sound like.’

WideOpenCountry reports that the song “stayed on the country charts for a solid year and sold over 2 million records. It even showed up on the pop charts for a while, giving Cash a bonafide crossover hit.”

Lacking a traditional verse/chorus structure (unless “because you’re mine/I walk the line” constitutes a chorus all on its own), the bare-bones tune takes a standard three-chord structure and jumps it through multiple modulation hoops. In the process of all of the key changes, we get a full tour of Cash’s bass/baritone vocal range, covering over two octaves.

Black Artists for Black Lives | Feeding Off the Love of the Land

As described by the performers, Black Artists for Black Lives, “This arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Feeding Off the Love of the Land’ was born out of grief, and evolved into a communal message of healing. In the midst of our grief, we sing with renewed strength and love. We sing for them… We sing for US.”

Stevie’s original appeared under the credits of Spike Lee’s 1991 film Jungle Fever, but didn’t appear on any of Stevie’s studio albums.

Starting with a gorgeous a cappella arrangement in B major, an instrumental accompaniment sneaks in at 0:30 and swells at the early modulation to D major at 0:48. The energy continues to build until the ensemble hits its fullest stride at 2:04.

Stevie’s original, which doesn’t include a modulation:

Rufus Wainwright | Trouble in Paradise

A July 2020 piece in FLOOD magazine suggests that singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright is “the reigning king of elegant, earthen and sophisticated art pop. He still has a knack for crooning smartly piquant, yet deeply emotional lyrics with cosmopolitan melodies that come across more Tin Pan Alley, London Palladium and Topanga Canyon than something out of today’s more nebulous and steely AutoTune universe”

His 2019 song “Trouble in Paradise” is the lead single for his most recent album, Unfollow the Rules. In an American Songwriter interview, Wainwright said “After the opera world and natural aging, I can now sing at the full power of my abilities, and this record really shows that off.”He also shared a this synopsis of the song for his website: “Drum beats herald a romp through the inner mind of a bob-haired fashion doyenne on her drive from the town to the country. She reflects on the true price of glamour, and weighs its spiritual costs while eyeing her future legacy, and eternity.”

Typical of Wainwright, the arrangements are layered and ornate — but never overpower what FLOOD calls his “slippery, oboe-like vocals.” Starting in Bb major, the tune modulates up a half-step at 2:13. At 2:49, the song ends in an ambiguous swirl of layered notes, somehow suggesting falling and ascending simultaneously.

Ella Fitzgerald | What’s New

JazzStandards.com reports that “What’s New,” a classic standard, was written by Bob Haggart with lyrics by Johnny Burke. “In an era when cute and romantic had given way to urbane, Burke devised a clever gimmick to tell a love story: casual conversational lyrics telling only one side of the conversation. The result was ‘What’s New?’ … introduced by Bob Crosby and His Orchestra with vocalist Teddy Grace in 1939, (it reached) number ten on the pop charts.

“Recognized worldwide as “The First Lady of Song,” AllMusic reports, “Ella Fitzgerald is arguably the finest female jazz vocalist of all time. Blessed with a highly resonant voice, wide range, and near-perfect elocution, Fitzgerald also possessed a deft sense of swing, and with her brilliant scat technique, could hold her own against any of her instrumental contemporaries. Over her 50-year career, she earned 13 Grammy Awards, sold over 40 million albums, and picked up numerous accolades including a National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A hugely important cultural figure, Fitzgerald made an immeasurable impact on the development of jazz and popular music, and remains a touchstone for fans and artists decades after her passing.”

The bridge, normally a ‘B section,’ is simply the same tune and chord progression with some slight melodic alteration in the last two measures (an A1/A1/A2/A1 form). The A2 section modulates up a perfect fourth. Ella’s version here starts in F major and jumps up to Bb major (0:54 – 1:21).

Bonnie Raitt | Something To Talk About

“Something to Talk About” is a single from Bonnie Raitt’s smash hit album Luck of the Draw (1991). The album exceeded even the strong success of her previous career-topping release Nick of Time (1989). These two albums helped Raitt transition from a respected but lesser-known Americana/blues musician to expanded fame as a blues-inflected rock artist — quite a tall order.

According to Songfacts, the Shirley Eikhard-penned tune “won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, beating out a field comprised of Oleta Adams, Mariah Carey, Amy Grant, and Whitney Houston…this was by far Raitt’s biggest chart hit in the United States.” Discogs reports that the liner notes included a dedication to blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in 1990. Vaughan had encouraged Raitt to stop her longtime alcohol abuse. The dedication is the simple phrase “still burning bright.”

The tune modulates up a minor third at 2:30, at the beginning of a section which sounds at first like a bridge but functions as an extended outro.

The Who | Joker James

The Who, already very well-established in 1973, indulged in an ambitious adventure: the rock opera Quadrophenia. The soundtrack spanned a full double album. AllMusic reports that the plot was “built around the story of a young mod’s struggle to come of age in the mid-’60s…re-examining the roots of (the band’s) own birth in mod culture. In the end, there may have been too much weight, as Pete Townshend tried to combine the story of a mixed-up mod named Jimmy with the examination of a four-way split personality (hence the title), in turn meant to reflect the four conflicting personas at work within the Who itself.”

“Joker James” begins in D major, loses a bit of steam as it transitions to the bridge at 1:46, and then returns with renewed energy as it modulates to E major at 2:02.

Many thanks to MotD fan Aaron for submitting this tune!

Utopia | Only Human

An unapologetic ballad on Swing to the Right (1982), an album generally driven by uptempo tunes, Utopia‘s “Only Human” covers ground familiar to fans of Todd Rundgren, the band’s founder, primary frontman, co-writer, and guitarist. AllMusic.com reviewed the album as “doggedly pursu(ing) a weird fusion of new wave pop, arena rock, and soul, all spiked with social commentary” — perhaps not surprising, as the lead vocal and composition duties were distributed among the rock quartet.

The lyrics touch on existential challenges which confront us all, at one time or another. But there is also a typically Rundgren-esque affection for humanity overarching the melancholy. In the end, “Love Is the Answer” and mutual understanding is the end goal: never guaranteed, but therefore prized all the more.

After an intro and verses in B minor, the arrival of the chorus flips over into the relative major (D major) at 2:17; the pattern continues throughout. Utopia’s trademark close four-part harmonies overlay a harmonic complexity typical of the quartet.

Flight of the Conchords | I Told You I Was Freaky

AllMusic describes Flight of the Conchords as “New Zealand’s self-proclaimed ‘fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a cappella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo,’ (who) became international stars in the 2000s thanks to a successful television series that fictionalized their exploits. Formed by actors, comedians, and musicians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, FotC were the rare comedy band whose music was often as celebrated as their gags. Their songs fused witty lyrics with music that often parodied various artists and genres.”

The title track to the 2009 album I Told You I Was Freaky strays a long distance from the duo’s early days of acoustic self-accompaniment: an electronics-driven absurdist funk romp which lands somewhere near the stylistic confluence of Prince, Cameo, and George Clinton. Starting in G major for the intro, the verse transitions to a static G7 chord with a flexible “blue note” third degree at 0:18; at 0:53, the chorus transitions to Ab minor, then back to G7 at 1:11 for the next verse. At 2:05, the percussion drops out to bring us a hushed bridge in A major; 2:34 returns to G7 for a rap outro.

The shorter version included in the TV show lacks the rap outro, but gives an idea of the series’ fearlessly eccentric visual style.

My House (from “Matilda”)

After breaking through at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Australian comedian/composer Tim Minchin first made a name for himself as an edgy self-accompanying music satirist/social commentator. His piano style, ranging from raucous to refined, made him at home self-accompanying solo or playing out in front of symphony orchestras in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House. Describing himself as a “hack pianist,” he was quoted by Interview One as saying “I’m a good musician for a comedian and I’m a good comedian for a musician, but if I had to do any of them in isolation, I dunno.”

In more recent years, he’s branched out into acting (including the TV series Californication; the TV series Upright, which he also wrote; and stage roles as Mozart in Amadeus and Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, among many others). More recently, Minchin has composed music and book for the musical Matilda, based on the 1988 Roald Dahl book of the same title. The show had successful runs on Broadway and the West End as well as tours of the US, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, winning myriad awards in the process.

Minchin is not generally known for his use of modulation, instead relying on his gifts for wide-ranging melody and evocative lyrics. But he throws a gorgeous key change into Matilda’s “My House” at 2:52 (the music starts at the 0:30 mark).

The Lawrence Welk Show | One Toke Over the Line

San Francisco-based folk duo Brewer + Shipley scored a top 10 hit in 1971 with “One Toke Over the Line.” Their website details that “while the record buying public was casting its vote of approval by buying the single, the (soon to be disgraced) Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, labeled (us) as subversives, and then strong-armed the FCC to ban ‘One Toke’ from the airwaves just as it was peaking on the charts.” The band was even added to Richard Nixon’s notorious Enemies List!

Songfacts.com reports that “some radio stations refused to play this song because of the drug references, but not everyone got this meaning. In 1971 the song was performed on the Lawrence Welk Show by the wholesome-looking couple Gail Farrell and Dick Dale, who clearly had NO clue what a toke was. Welk, at the conclusion of the performance of the song, remarked, without any hint of humor, ‘there you’ve heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.'”

The original tune has no modulation, but the Welk crew’s cover, which broke the earnestness meter from its first few bars, added a half-step upward key change at 1:36. The AV Club adds that “Welk’s big band had been carefully pulled together over his years touring and on the radio, and it was filled with the sorts of nice, Midwestern boys like Welk himself (a North Dakota native). The primary goal of the program was to make sure the music never stopped playing, and that it never got to be too much for the show’s predominantly older audience. And that audience was loyal, sticking with the program as it moved from a locally based Los Angeles show to a national one to one that ran in first-run syndication. Welk had a program on the air somewhere in the country from 1951 to 1982, a staggeringly long run that no other musical variety program can really touch. And he did it all without catering to changing whims or fashions, outside of the occasional badly misjudged musical number, such as …”