Stevie Wonder | For Once In My Life

“Stevie Wonder turned 18 years old during 1968. Since the age of 12 he had been producing hits and had become one of the most commercially successful artists for the Motown label,” (Seattle Post Intelligencer). “Motown was known for the control of its artists and their output. Wonder, however, was beginning to establish his own identity and take control of his career. His contract with the label was coming to an end and Motown desperately wanted to sign him to a new one and so began giving him leeway in the producing and recording of his albums.

Wonder co-wrote or wrote eight of the 12 tracks on For Once In My Life, plus took production credit for the first time … It was one of the four compositions credited to other songwriters that became the album’s title track and biggest hit. Ron Miller and Orlando Murden wrote ‘For Once In My Life’ for the label and not specifically for Wonder. His version, however, would become the definitive one. Artists such as The Temptations and Tony Bennett would record the song in a ballad style. Wonder would change it into an exuberant, up-tempo, and soulful classic. It reached #2 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and #1 on the Rhythm and Blues chart.”

“Wonder and his producer, Hank Cosby … sped it up, gave it a string arrangement, complete with an animated piccolo motif, and turned it into his biggest hit to date, kept from the US #1 spot only by his fellow Motowner, Marvin Gaye,” (Yahoo). “Wonder’s probable lack of enthusiasm at singing someone else’s song is concealed by his exuberant performance.” The grand scale of the tune’s arrangement, coupled with Stevie’s overflowing energy, would never hint at its short run time of only 2:49. But with apparently astounding precision, the tune’s half-step key change is situated at almost exactly the half-way mark (1:25).

Mame (from “Mame”)

“The musical Mame was a hit in the 1960s, originally starring Angela Lansbury … The musical leads us through New York in the Prohibition Era and the Great Depression,” (Mancunion.com). “It follows an orphan boy named Patrick, who is sent to live with his last remaining relative, his bohemian aunt Mame, who declares to him: ‘Life’s a banquet and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death.’

.. Although disapproved of by the trustees of Patrick’s late father’s estate, Mame is incredibly loving to her nephew and progressive by our modern standards: in her group of artist friends, we see several same-gender couples; she proclaims sexual liberation for women, and later vows to open a home to support single mothers. Other than some outdated language, Mame translates well into the twenty first century … Mame is a show that features many platonic relationships between women – something that is rare in musicals – and also emphasizes the comedic abilities of actresses.”

Both the music and lyrics of the title theme of the 1966 musical were written by Jerry Herman, also known for Hello Dolly and La Cage Aux Folles. Starting out in Bb major, the iconic tune shifts to B major (1:17), C major (2:24), followed by a frenetic instrumental section featuring several other keys, landing in Ab major at 4:24 and then — finally — A major at 5:20.



Alanis Morissette | Joining You

“Once you’ve scaled the heights of pop music, where else can you go? In Alanis Morissette’s case, the answer is trading altitude for depth — digging deeply into yourself, unearthing all manner of neuroses, questions and thorny realities in the process,” (Dallas Observer). “It’s saying something that Morissette followed up 1995’s seismic, multiplatinum Jagged Little Pill with a record even more psychologically and emotionally bracing, but she did just that with 1998’s Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie.

… Robert Christgau offered backhanded praise in the Village Voice: ‘The mammoth riffs, diaristic self-analysis, and pretentious Middle Eastern sonorities of this music mark it as ‘rock,’ albeit rock with tunes. And in this context I suck it up, feeling privileged to listen along with all the young women whose struggles Morissette blows up to such a scale.'”

“Joining You,” a single from the 1998 album, wasn’t the same level of smash hit as “Thank You,” its predecessor from the same release. But it cracked the top twenty in Morissette’s native Canada and the US, as well as Italy and the Netherlands. Following a start in C minor, the chorus shifts to E minor (0:58 – 1:37) before reverting to the original key.

Saint Motel | Save Me

“Saint Motel are a Brit-indie band trapped in the bodies of four svelte, stylish Californians,” (The Guardian). “Although when we say Brit-indie – and add that they specialise in Brit-indie-ish anthems – we’re not talking Kaiser Chiefs or Oasis as influences but rather groups like Pulp, Divine Comedy and the long-forgotten My Life Story, with a soupçon of the Smiths: indie with some glam pizzazz featuring a singer not averse to flamboyance, a suave croon and lyrics that verge on the literary.

We’re wondering how we missed them. Each of their songs announces itself with a flourish and no little élan, and there’s a light sprinkling of Caribbean rhythms, tropical flavours and lounge-jazziness throughout … their music has featured in HBO series Boardwalk Empire as well as an advert for Dewars Scotch Whiskey. Where were we? Truly, we are ashamed. To make amends, some facts: the band met in film school in Southern California, they recently played something called a Zombie Prom, and they write about everything from plastic surgery to ‘the taboo bonds of friendship within the Heaven’s Gate cult’. As frontman A/J Jackson says: ‘Many of the songs have various levels of subtext that I hope the listener will decipher with repeated listens.'”

“From 2007 to 2021, dream-pop band Saint Motel has been making listeners move and groove to the soothing beats of their soft funk, both in person and on TikTok, where 2014 hit “My Type” went viral last year,” (Riff Magazine). “While their first album in 2012 didn’t grant them much popularity, “My Type” worked its way up various Top 40 charts around the world … An album, saintmotelvision, followed in 2016, and Saint Motel is now onto its third, The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.” The video for each of the album’s tracks has the look and feel of being part of a film soundtrack, but in this case the film doesn’t exist. After an ethereal intro and a substantial pause, “Save Me” (2021) begins in earnest at 0:28 in C major, then shifts into C minor for a brief bridge from 3:10 – 3:28.

Helen Reddy | The Way I Feel

“The feminist anthem that put Helen Reddy (1941 – 2020) over the edge is the rousing ‘I Am Woman,'” (SheilaOMalley.com). The Australian-born performer “could sing very softly, gently even … so that when she opens up into that belt, it’s a surprise … The pushback Reddy experienced was severe. She wasn’t glamorous. She wore pantsuits. She wore her hair short. Such silly things, but people found it hugely threatening … Her voice – the instrument itself – is so unique. She’s got a jazzy sense of rhythm and phrasing. She’s HIP. So contemporary. She was representative of the sea change in the culture, the 1970s breaking-down of expected gender roles.”

“It is interesting how the pop divas of the ’70s and ’80s took some risks, Olivia Newton-John with Soul Kiss; Linda Ronstadt singing in Spanish or performing with Nelson Riddle; and Helen Reddy’s 1983 project, Imagination … ‘Looks Like Love’ and ‘The Way I Feel’ are among the best work Helen Reddy has ever created,” (JoeViglione.com). “Both songs should have been huge hits, and the entire album is more sophisticated in idea and execution than any that came before except, perhaps, Live in London … With superb songwriting, crisp production, and her best rock performance on record, Imagination is one of Helen Reddy’s finest albums. Not as popular as those which contained her chart hits … it’s a sleeper that deserves another shot at success.

The tune makes its start in C# minor, with its emphasis flipping over into the relative E major for the chorus (0:54 – 1:20). After a second verse, second chorus, and an instrumental verse, 2:41 brings an unprepared upward shift to F major. Each chorus features a section in its second half built around a key-of-the-moment upward leap of a whole step, as well (first heard between 1:02 – 1:11). The updated, polished pop sheen of the track certainly left little trace of her 1970s sound, but The Way I Feel” wasn’t a hit for Reddy.

Theme from “A View to a Kill”

“The gold standard of poppier James Bond songs … is Duran Duran’s title track for A View To A Kill. Band and film were a perfect match for the Roger Moore era— playboy lifestyle, playboy attitudes,” (Aidan Curran). “Duran Duran’s stock-in-trade of cinematic videos, supermodel consorts and gibberishly portentous lyrics meant the thing virtually wrote itself, shouting ‘DANCE! INTO THE FI-YER!’ right out of the womb. Each stab of brass is the delivery mechanism for a cheesy grin. Plus, ‘the name’s Bon … Simon Le Bon!’ was a pun too good not to happen … “

Released in May 1985, the track peaked in Duran Duran’s native UK at #2. In the US, it reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and remains the only Bond theme to achieve that distinction. “The song was the last track recorded by the most famous five-member lineup of Duran Duran until their reunion in 2001. It was performed by the band at Live Aid in Philadelphia in 1985, their final performance together before their first split,” (Wikipedia).

The tune begins in C minor and transitions from 0:54 -1:09, when the chorus starts in Ab minor. At 1:47, the next verse begins in C minor after some electronic flourishes that scream “1985” — there are plenty of cheesy grins on offer, for sure. The pattern continues from there.

Cher | The Way of Love

A single from Cher’s 1971 album Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves, “The Way of Love is “a career highlight … The Stillman/Dieval tune was originally a British hit for Kathy Kirby, and both Cher and Kirby drove the song right by the censors,” (AllMusic). “The song is either about a woman expressing her love for another woman, or a woman saying au revoir to a gay male she loved — in either case this is not a mother to daughter heart-to-heart: ‘What will you do/When he sets you free/Just the way that you/Said good-bye to me.'”

The tune “broke the Top Ten in 1972 a few months after ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’ became her first number one solo hit toward the end of 1971. Both songs lead off this disc with a one-two punch … Cher never minded androgynous or neutral gender identity in her songs; her deep voice could carry both the male and female ranges for the duo with Bono and, musically, her solo material could soar to heights not possible in a partnership — ‘The Way of Love’ being one example.”

After a start in A major, the groove drops out for a grand pause before a huge brass fanfare heralds a shift to D major 1:12. It’s difficult to grasp that a track with such a prodigious sense of drama clocks in at only 2.5 minutes, but somehow it does. Cher’s full-throttle belt technique, easily matching what eventually becomes a full orchestral instrumentation, certainly never sounded better! Many thanks to Scott R. for this wonderful submission to MotD — the second we’ve published, although we’re grateful for the others that are also currently in the queue!

Styx | Too Much Time On My Hands

“Styx’s co-lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Tommy Shaw wrote ‘Too Much Time On My Hands’ from the image of a pub patron ‘sitting on this barstool, talking like a damn fool,’ and detailing the lack of any more attractive options,” (UDiscoverMusic). “The song turned out to be a good thematic fit for (1981’s) Paradise Theatre concept, which used the opening and closing of a classic Chicago theater to symbolize the rise and fall of the American dream, chronicling the lives of underdogs struggling for a better life.

Musically, ‘Too Much Time on My Hands’ was probably the most au courant track Styx had yet recorded. A Kraftwerk-worthy synth locks in with the bass line and lends the track a distinct synth-pop/New Wave vibe. And the fraternal rhythm section of Chuck and John Panozzo puts a dab of disco into the groove, making this the closest thing to a dance tune in the band’s repertoire at the time. All of the above helped ‘Too Much Time; climb into the Top 10, which didn’t hurt the album’s rise to triple-Platinum status. The endearingly goofy video boosted the cause too, alternating performance shots with images of the band camping it up at a funky gin joint.”

After starting in a slightly up-tuned A mixolydian for the intro, the first verse settles in at 0:36 in D mixolydian. At 1:39, the emphasis flips over into the relative B minor for the chorus, guitar solo, etc. There’s a return to D major for the next verse at 2:53; the pattern continues from there. And yes — as they rode the crest of the early-80s pop/rock wave that corresponded to the advent of MTV — the band consistently maintained a shamelessly hammy stage presence, as documented here …

Gentle Giant | Proclamation (fan version)

“The Power and the Glory (1974) is, like Three Friends before it, a concept album featuring intricately woven arrangements … ” (Progrography.com). “You’ll also find quite a few ‘classic’ Gentle Giant songs … (including ‘Proclamation’) … Alternating between soft and harsh sounds, it’s an album of dreams and nightmares.

At this stage, there’s no denying that the band’s music had become, if not formulaic, at least idiosyncratic. There are the dizzying arrangements, classical excursions, heady subject matter and heavy rock all intertwined into four- and six-minute musical puzzles that are unique to Gentle Giant. I’d recommend you start with Octopus and Three Friends first, as they arrived earlier and achieved the same (or higher) highs … As the years have shown, albums about corrupt, power-hungry politicians are never out of fashion for long.”

The tune is built in D dorian until 2:07, when a huge unprepared shift to a Ab major chord drops like an anvil. But it’s not until 2:16 that we settle properly into the new key of F dorian. A few more harmonic shifts follow, but are often dwarfed by unexpected changes in meter, sudden instrumental/textural changes, imposing walls of tightly clustered vocal parts (3:25, for example), etc. As the extensive end credits of the video show, it took scores of fans of the storied UK-based prog rock band to create a cover version (2020) of this densely complex track!

From the video’s description: “This video marks the first time in 40 years that all members of Gentle Giant appear on screen and play together in a ‘virtual reunion’. Some notable contributors also make an appearance such as Jakko Jakszyk of King Crimson, Billy Sherwood of Yes, E.L.O. bassist Lee Pomeroy, Dan Reed of the Dan Reed Network, Richard Hilton of Chic, and Mikey Heppner of Priestess.”

Don Blackman | Since You Been Away So Long

“Pianist/singer/songwriter Don Blackman, born in 1953 in Queens, New York, grew up surrounded by jazz influences; a cousin was McCoy Tyner’s friend and saxophonist Charles McPherson — a Charlie Parker disciple — was Blackman’s neighbor,” (Qobuz). “Blackman played with McPherson’s group in 1968 alongside Sam Jones and Louis Hayes when he was 15 years old. He switched to electric piano and toured with Parliament/Funkadelic in the early ’70s. He later became an original member of Lenny White’s Twennynine (‘Peanut Butter’), a key piece in Jamaica Queens’ ’70s jazz-funk explosion.

A deal with GRP/Arista birthed the solo LP Don Blackman (1982), a good set saddled by poor promotion. His extensive résumé included Kurtis Blow sessions and singing ‘Haboglabotrin’ on Bernard Wright’s ‘Nard album. A fixture in New York studios, he worked on sessions for a long list of artists including Najee, David Sanborn, and Roy Ayers, and his composition ‘Live to Kick It’ graced 2Pac’s R U Still Down? (Remember Me) release. Don Blackman died on April 11, 2013 after battling cancer; he was 59 years old.”

A track from Blackman’s eponymous 1982 album, the ballad “Since You Been Away So Long” draws from R&B and jazz influences. The tune starts in Bb minor, shifts to A minor at 0:29, then B minor at 0:46. More shifts continue from there. Complex backing vocals, etherial instrumental countermelodies which seem to float down from the skies, and a flighty vocal/guitar duo feature are among a few of the intricate facets on offer with this sadly overlooked release.