“I Just Called To Say I Love You,” written, produced, and all instruments performed by Stevie Wonder, is his best-selling song ever. It was his tenth #1 song on the R&B chart, and his fourth on the adult contemporary chart. The song received Grammy nominations for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
Beginning in Db, the song modulates up and down by half step multiple times: up 3:01 to D Major, up again to Eb Major 3:35, back down to Db at 4:21, up to D at 4:56, and finally up to Eb at 5:29.
“Sarah” was a single first released by Dublin Ireland’s Thin Lizzy in 1979; it reached #24 on the British pop charts and #26 in Ireland.
The Academic, a band from just west of Dublin, met while attending the same secondary school during the 2010s. AllMusic reports that the group ” … rode a series of punchy, melodic singles to national success when their 2018 debut album topped the Irish charts. They soon netted a deal and followed up with a couple of dreamy singles … “
“Sarah” was apparently a live one-off for the band; the track wasn’t included on either of its studio releases. This performance was live on Today FM, an Irish radio station. After starting in A major, 1:48 brings an instrumental bridge, followed by a shift to Bb major at 2:08.
German composer Hans Zimmer has scored more than 150 films since 1980, including The Lion King, the Pirates of the Carribean series, and The Dark Knight trilogy. Widely considered to be one of the most best in his field, Zimmer has been recognized with four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. In 2002, he collaborated with Canadian singer/songwriter Bryan Adams on the music for the DreamWorks picture Spirit: Stallion of theCimarron. “Homeland,” the main title theme, helps establish the American West ethos of the score and features the trademark orchestral swells Zimmer is known for. The cue begins in C major and shifts to Eb at 2:45.
Expatica.com notes that the French composer and lyricist Hubert Giraud, whose works were recorded by vocalists from Edith Piaf to Tom Jones, “started out as a musician playing with the likes of Django Reinhardt’s jazz group the Quintette du Hot Club de France in the 1930s and on Ray Ventura’s big-band tour of South America.” He also wrote the theme for the 1951 film Sous le Ciel de Paris (Under the Sky of Paris); the song was later recorded by Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Juliette Greco, and more. Giraud died in 2016 at the age of 95.
Starting in E minor, the waltz progresses to E major at 1:03, reverting back to the original key at 1:49. Utilizing rubato as more of a rule than an occasional flourish, Palma throws in a last-minute whole-step modulation at 2:20 — quickly leading to an unexpected ending.
Many thanks to our frequent contributor JB for this submission!
“A shimmering, textured guitar line gives way immediately to huge gang vocals,” reports the Alternative Press in its review of Boys Like Girls‘ 2009 release Love Drunk. The Boston-based band’s ” … slick production values, airtight harmonies, charging disco-rock beats and crowd sing-along prompts (a trick they resort to throughout) prove the band are capable of condensing the recognizable signifiers of recent modern-rock history into sugary pop adrenaline … if (the) overall enthusiasm and high-energy pop doesn’t win over even the snarkiest of reviewers after a few listens, then they probably don’t have a heart. Everyone else will love it anyway. Pop-rock like this is popular for a reason.”
Unfolding like a CliffsNotes version of a contemporary pop songwriting textbook, the tune delivers a whole-step modulation at 2:38.
Written in 1957 by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, “All The Way” was made famous by Frank Sinatra, both as a single and in the film The Joker Is Wild, for which it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The tune was later covered by Bing Crosby, Same Cooke, Brenda Lee, Etta James, and Billie Holiday among others. Key change at 2:15.
For his first solo album after his groundbreaking work with the Police, TheDream of the Blue Turtles (1985), Sting formed a new band. Rolling Stone reports that the group included “young jazz hotshots from Weather Report (drummer Omar Hakim) and the Miles Davis group (bassist Darryl Jones), plus saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland. These aren’t the usual sleepy gang of veteran sidemen; they never bothered to learn pop-jazz clichés, but they know their Jimi Hendrix, Chic, Herbie Hancock and Led Zeppelin, along with their Duke Ellington … Sting still writes short, modal melody lines … if you listen to the way verses and phrases end, there are new twists, surprising extended chords by way of Steely Dan, Weather Report and Ellington … (with) delicate-to-martial dynamics.”
In Musician magazine, Sting explained: “‘Fortress’ is about appeasement, about trying to bridge the gaps between individuals. The central image is a minefield that you’ve laid around this other person to try and protect them. Then you realize that you have to walk back through it.”
The verses leave a light footprint in terms of feel, belying difficult subject matter and complex harmonies. Three keys are touched on during the verse (0:45 – 1:22) before the tune opens up into the relatively straightforward chorus. Calling it “one of the most complex pop songs ever,” Rick Beato dissects the tune’s physiology in detail here (1:57 – 8:13).
Actress and singer Carmen Ruby Floyd has appeared in the Broadway productions of Avenue Q, the jazz revue After Midnight, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Chicago, and Hello, Dolly!, where she served as a cover for the title role under Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, and Donna Murphy. “Ellington’s lyric-free but gorgeous “Creole Love Call” is delivered by Carmen Ruby Floydwith hypnotic simplicity,” critic Charles Isherwood wrote in his review of After Midnight in the New York Times. “Her voice taking flight in tandem with swooning melody, which seems to glimmer visibly in the air before you.”
In addition to her theatre work, Floyd has performed with Gladys Knight, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Fantasia, Hugh Jackman, among others, and most recently toured with her mentor Vanessa Williams.
Earlier this year, Floyd released her first EP featuring “Unexpected Blessing.” Key change at 3:25.
Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda was a versatile musician and composer. An adept harpist, pianist, organist and vocalist, she had an extraordinary career spanning many genres and six decades. According to the biography on her official website, “Her interest in music blossomed in early childhood. By the age of nine, she played organ during services at Mount Olive Baptist Church.” She collaborated with the likes of Carlos Santana, Charlie Haden, and John Coltrane, the last of whom she married in 1965.
After her husband’s death in 1967, she embarked on a solo musical career, which merged with her quest for spiritual enlightenment. Her religious exploration took her to India, whose musical influences manifest in much of her work. Her albums display her virtuosity, and a mastery of a wide array of musical genres. Coltrane’s biography on AllMusic – authored by Chris Kelsey – remarks that her first seven albums “wove together the strains of her musical thinking: modal jazz, gospel hymns, blues, Hindi devotional music, and 20th century classical sonorities.”
From the late 70s to the early 2000s, Alice Coltrane stepped back from music, focusing instead on the creation and operation of the Vedantic Center outside of Los Angeles, though her biography states that she continued to play music regularly for services at the Center. She died in 2007 after returning to the recording studio for her final album in 2004. That album, entitled Translinear Light, features the tune “Walk With Me.” Coltrane displays her talent for arrangement as she weaves the melody of a gospel hymn (“I Want Jesus to Walk With Me”) throughout. The piece begins with some brief noodling around Bb minor before the hymn’s theme emerges at 0:30. She then explores the primary melody, pausing momentarily to meditate on a few motifs and ideas. The first modulation occurs at 2:14, launching into a joyful bridge, firmly rooted in the relative major. Coltrane’s soaring improvisations move effortlessly between gospel and jazz, evoking feelings of praise and spiritual elation. She brings it back home to Bb minor with a modulation beginning at 4:55, after which she weaves the original melody around meditative contemplation once again, through to the piece’s end.
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