Sting | Sister Moon

Derived from Shakespeare’s Sonnet #130, the title of Sting’s second solo album …Nothing Like the Sun (1987) doesn’t appear as the title of one of the album’s songs, but rather only as a lyric in the tune “Sister Moon,” the tenth of twelve tracks.

In an interview with Spin, Sting noted that the album was the first which he’d recorded in all-digital format — a novelty at the time: “Although recording digitally was difficult and kind of alienating, it allowed me more flexibility in terms of arrangement … and that drove me crazy. I could change the key, add whole sections to the song when it was already finished, change the tempo, everything. But basically I knew there was a core in each song that worked that you couldn’t destroy.” Q Magazine‘s review of the album focused on the artist’s growing maturity after his years of rock/reggae/pop with the Police and a debut solo album from two years earlier: “It’s a measure of what makes solo Sting special that after so many years in the hype machine, living a lifestyle based on god only knows what riches in the bank, he has finally found the will and the voice to sing simply and affectingly … “

This 2021 performance of “Sister Moon” was recorded remotely for the Sanborn Sessions, an echo of host David Sanborn’s groundbreaking 1980s music TV series Night Music. The tune begins in F# melodic minor, with plenty of emphasis on the natural 7th degree of the tonic chord. 2:02 brings a shift to A# minor at the chorus, but at 2:25, we return to F# minor well before the chorus ends.

The Grass Roots | Temptation Eyes

“Temptation Eyes” is featured on The Grass Roots‘ 1970 compilation album More Golden Grass. The tune spent 18 weeks on the charts, and lead singer Rob Grill dubbed the tune his favorite song the band ever released. The key fluctuates between A minor on the verses and A major on the choruses.

Linda Ronstadt | Still Within the Sound of My Voice

“For well over four decades, Jimmy Webb’s songs have helped shape the American musical landscape,” Rolling Stone‘s Anthony Decurtis writes. “And ‘landscape’ is the operative term. A native of Oklahoma, Webb imbues his songs with a cinematic expansiveness and a musical sophistication that smooths the edges of his rootsy sources. They sometimes evoke specific places – ‘Wichita Lineman,’ ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’ – but more often Webb’s songs summon an internal realm of the imagination. Yearning and regret loom large in Webb’s songbook, as does a particular kind of American loneliness, the emotional flip side of the country’s obsession with individualism.”

The Webb tune “Still Within the Sound of My Voice” is clearly related to the title of the 2019 documentary which recounts American singer Linda Ronstadt’s sweeping career. “She didn’t write her own songs, but she owned the ones she performed with rare authority,” (New York Times) ” … someone uses the word ‘auteur’ to describe Ronstadt’s relationship to her material, and it doesn’t seem exaggerated. Starting out in the ’60s at the crossroads of folk and rock,” over time, she performed styles from New Wave, Great American Songbook standards, Gilbert and Sullivan operetta (on stage and in film), and Canciones de mi Padre, “an album of traditional Mexican songs that explored a family heritage many of her earliest fans and collaborators never knew she had.” Ronstadt retired in 2011 due to Parkinson’s disease, which has profoundly affected her voice. But the documentary seems to speak most to her groundbreaking influence on many facets of contemporary music.

The 1989 release, a long overdue MotD debut for Ronstadt, is on the gentle side of the artist’s releases, but still features moments of her famously effortless belt. It begins in C major for verse 1, shifts to Eb major chorus at 1:07, touches briefly back down on C major at 1:22, then travels on to Ab major at 1:25. At 1:43, we’re back to C for verse 2, and the cycle repeats. At 2:43, there’s an interlude Ab major; at 3:15, chorus 3 steps up to F major. 3:43 brings an outro in Bb major as the tune fades toward the horizon.

Adam Ant | Goody Two Shoes

The Guardian proclaims that in 1980, Adam and the Ants “were a riot of makeup, feathers, tribal drums and surf guitars – and, for a spectacular moment, they became the biggest band in the UK.” But by 1982, the flashy glam-fueled New Wave band probably best known for 1981’s “Stand and Deliver,” had largely disbanded. Frontman Adam Ant “cast around for a new angle,” reports FreakyTrigger. “It was a moment in pop history when sudden changes of image and sound were respectable – even expected for some stars. Compared to today’s performers who tend to cover bandwagon-jumping with a figleaf of artistic intent, there was a refreshing honesty about this pursuit of a new look for a new season: pop and fashion were merging in a blare of colour.”

The tune went to #1 in the UK and Australia; top 5 in Canada, Germany and Ireland; and top 20 in Belgium the Netherlands, and the US.

Regular contributor Kent adds to his submission: “Not only it its entire ‘verse’ a simple cycle of tonic, supertonic, subtonic (which is already disquieting if your ear is trying to settle on the key), but it migrates through through other keys before returning to the original (A, 0:00; D, 1:56; B, 2:15; C, 2:25; A, 2:35)!”

Theme from “Barney Miller”

The Boston Phoenix reviewed the sitcom Barney Miller (1975-1982) as best-in-class TV. “Aside from The Honeymooners, Barney Miller was the sit-com that most approximated a one-act play. Almost every episode took place in one room of a rundown, filthy police station in Greenwich Village. Barney Miller managed to develop its main characters without showing their home lives (or their bare butts), thanks to perceptive writing and scenes that were long enough for actors to breathe.”

The theme is introduced by and built around the electric bass. NoTreble, one of the internet’s most comprehensive sites for all things bass-centric, profiles the session musician whose sound was featured: “As a member of the Wrecking Crew, Chuck Berghofer helped change the sound of popular music. His big, warm bass sound has laid the foundation for artists from A to Z with recordings by Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Christina Aguilera, Frank Zappa, The Beach Boys, Diana Krall, Robbie Williams, and more. It has also set the mood on over 400 movies like Rocky, True Crime, Bird, and The Majestic.”

ArnoldFaberVibeman.com adds: “The team of Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson wrote this theme. Elliott was musical director for the Grammys for thirty consecutive years, Judy Garland‘s musical director, and creator of the Henry Mancini Institute as well as composer of many, many television and movie scores. Ferguson was among the founders of the Dick Grove School Of Music, musical director for Julie Andrews, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and Johnny Mathis, as well as scoring for countless TV series and movies … When you heard that funky solo bass line, you knew what you were in for! (It) has all the elements of the show in that opening line and then, as soon as you get into the groove, all hell breaks loose with that trumpet. It’s hip, cornball AND nostalgic all at the same time.”

Clocking in at just over a minute, the theme features two modulations. At both 0:42 and 0:52, there are minor third shifts upwards.

Don Broco | One True Prince

UK rock band Don Broco‘s “One True Prince” is a single from its forthcoming album Amazing Things, scheduled for release in September 2021.

IndieIsNotAGenre details lead singer Rob Damiani’s thoughts on the track: “‘(it’s) about finding comfort in the fact that whatever you’re going through and however bad it may feel, nothing lasts forever. In these moments I try to remind myself how insignificant I am. Just one person amongst billions, on a rock orbiting a dying star, in a universe that will eventually implode on itself.’ … Amazing Things is the band’s fourth album, and follows the release of 2018’s Technology, which was a Top 5 album in the UK charts upon release … “

After starting in C major, the track dies down to a quiet grooveless interlude from 2:39 – 3:05, but then returns in the same key at full power at 3:12. The shift to a Db Lydian scale drops like a 10-ton anchor on dry land — in the middle of a phrase, no less — at 3:25.

Dionne Warwick | Walk On By

“Walk on By,” written by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David, ended up as a sizeable early-career hit for vocalist and Bacharach favorite Dionne Warwick (1964). JazzIz.com reports that it was originally a B-Side for “Any Old Time of Day,” but prominent NYC DJ Murray “The K” felt that “Walk on By” was the superior song, and played it instead.

“His insistence paid off. ‘Walk On By’ became a hit and went on to become one of Warwick’s most famous songs. It has also been covered by many artists, including numerous jazz artists, earning it jazz standard status. For example, guitarist Gábor Szabó included his own instrumental cover version of the song on his debut album as leader, Gypsy ’66 (1965). Vocalist George Benson released a jazzier version of the track on his 1968 album Giblet Gravy. More recently, it was featured on pianist and vocalist Diana Krall’s album Quiet Nights (2009). Bacharach thought of his songs as ‘three-and-a-half minute movies, with peak moments and not just one intensity level the whole way through.’”

You could listen to this tune for decades and never realize that you’ve been walked through a modulation multiple times — yet also feel that there’s a certain something which propels the song’s motion forward with unusual force. After starting in A minor, there’s a shift part-way through the verse (0:15) to the closely-related key of D minor. In keeping with Bacharach’s polished style, the shift happens just as the title is mentioned for the first time. At 0:54, we move on to verse 2 and the cycle repeats. There are many brilliant live performances of Dionne Warwick performing this classic, but we chose this one for the sound quality.

The Jam | English Rose

“In May 1977, a three-piece rock group from Woking appeared on Top of the Pops. You can see what happened on YouTube: the presenter announcing an ‘effervescent new 45 called In The City, and the 140 seconds of wonderment that followed,” recalls The Jam’s website. “The song fizzed with the energy and sense of purpose that was firing what had been called punk and was now mutating into New Wave, but it had a lot more: a melodic charge – as in the glorious opening riff – that betrayed its makers’ love of classic British pop, and the clear sense that the band’s main creative force was already thinking like an accomplished songwriter. Between 1977 and 1982, the band released an incredible array of music. In the UK, there were five albums and 17 singles, a stack of number 1s, and a journey which encompassed no end of influences, styles, and textures.”

The punk/New Wave/mod revivalist band was best known for hard-edged, uptempo rave-ups like the debut album title track, but also for more reserved, carefully constructed New Wave songsmithing like 1981’s “That’s Entertainment” (listed by BBC 2 radio as the 43rd best song ever released by any artist) and the UK #1 hit “A Town Called Malice.” But its spare acoustic ballad, “English Rose” (1978) shows a different side of the band, with the extra weight of invoking England’s national flower and one of the nation’s most venerated symbols. The tune was written by band member Paul Weller, who later continued his success with the soul-inflected band The Style Council, founded just as The Jam lost steam in 1982.

The track modulates up a half-step at 1:39, propelled by many unexpected inversions along the way. Many thanks to MotD regular Rob Penttinen for identifying this mod in the wild!

The Sylvers | Hot Line

“There were so many Sylvers,” Stereogum reports. “There were 10 Sylvers siblings … If you watch the Sylvers on any of the big TV shows of the era — The Midnight Special, Soul Train, American Bandstand — they make for a breathtaking spectacle: All these kids, most of them with towering afros, all doing complicated and busy dance routines while belting out some almost absurdly catchy music, looking like the damn Polyphonic Spree.”

Other than their smash #1 hit “Boogie Fever” (1975), perhaps the group’s best known single is 1976’s “Hot Line,” which made it to only #5. Stereogum continues: “The Sylvers played some kind of crucial connective role within pop music, acting as a bridge between early-’70s Motown and the disco explosion that followed. The Sylvers’ success couldn’t last, and it didn’t … In different permutations, the Sylvers kept recording until 1985, when they finally broke up.”

With a super-saturated arrangement and a tempo that percolates in the high 130 BPM range, this tune was hardly in need of a boost. But a half-step modulation does indeed drop at 2:01, with all of the siblings’ voices united in a huge syncopated kick.

Laura Osnes, Meghann Fahy | My Heart Is Split

“My Heart Is Split” is from the experimental 2007 musical The Freshmen Experiment by Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk. Envisioned as a story based on the lives of two young bloggers who are sharing the story of their first year at college, the show was not ultimately produced, but the songs that were written continue to be performed. The song modulates from F to G at 3:18.