“In 1969 an interracial R&B group from Washington, DC posted their one and only Top 40 hit,” (45RuminationsPerMegabyte). “The song, ‘Color Him Father,’ is written from the point of view of a young man explaining the role his father has in their house. He sings of coming home from school, and how his father stresses the importance of education, and how the man he calls father helps his mother, and all of that. At first, it seems like just another cute song with simple lyrics (‘My mother loves him and I can tell/By the way she looks at him when he holds my little sister Nell’ isn’t the greatest rhyme ever written, but it works). After a quick bridge, the tone abruptly changes:
My real old man he got killed in the war And she knows she and seven kids couldn’t have got very far She said she thought that she could never love again And then there he stood with that big wide grin He married my mother and he took us in And now we belong to the man with that big wide grin
Yep – this is a song about step-parenting, and it just got really, really dusty in here. The song went on to become a huge hit, making it to #7 on the pop chart, #2 on the R&B chart, and claiming the Grammy award for Best R&B song in 1969.”
After running in Ab major through several verses and choruses, a brief instrumental interlude (1:59) shifts us up to A major for another verse and chorus.
“Yes’ ‘I’ve Seen All Good People’ (1971) is an unlikely rock masterpiece. The song, an arrangement of two separate pieces (‘Your Move’ by Jon Anderson and ‘All Good People’ by Chris Squire), contains many elements not commonly contained in rock music,” (Something Else Reviews). “The combination works in this case, however, producing the most-played Yes song in the band’s cannon.
‘I’ve Seen All Good People’ starts with a compelling three-part harmony a capella opening by Anderson, Squire and Howe. The Yes choir has never sounded so resolved … Instead of an electric power-chord introduction, Steve Howe utilizes a Portuguese guitar in a fleet-fingered opening to accompany Jon Anderson. His vivid lyrics are in turn buoyed only by the bass drum of Bill Bruford. In another unusual move, Yes utilizes a non-band member in Colin Goldring, whose recorder adds additional colors to the song. By this time, Anderson’s lyrics shift from person to spiritual: ‘ … ’cause his time is time in time with your time’ … The harmonies build to a powerful wave of voices … Tony Kaye’s Hammond organ joins over a background chorus, which references John Lennon’s classic ‘Give Peace a Chance’ … Howe provides a now-classic electric guitar solo … while Bill Bruford and Chris Squire continue to amp up Yes’ energy. By the coda of ‘I’ve Seen All Good People’ … you’ve experienced one the very best songs recorded by the world’s greatest progressive rock band.”
Beginning in E major, the track grows from the a cappella intro to a gentle first verse and onward from there, eventually expanding to an expansive pipe organ accompaniment. At 3:32, the second movement begins — at first apparently also in E major and built around a hard swing feel. The bass motion wanders all over the place, with passing hints that we’re continuing in E major, A major, or B major. But the most prominent feature is bass motion from E down to D natural and then down to C natural, ruling out any of those options. At 5:58, the grooveless outro features multiple downward modulations as the volume fades — along with any chance for a clear guidline on the tonality of the second movement!
“Where did Survivor’s soaring power ballad ‘The Search Is Over’ come from? It’s partly a mystery,” (The Tennessean). “The group’s Jim Peterik — who penned the tune with bandmate Frankie Sullivan — believes the title came from something he heard on a news broadcast. But as for that daring key change, which turns every chorus on its ear? Thirty-five years later, Peterik still doesn’t know how he came up with it, or why it works so well. But it did: ‘The Search Is Over’ became one of Survivor’s biggest hits, and a staple of its concerts.”
Peterik: “‘The Search is Over’ is still on the radio partly because it really has a message that sometimes you take for granted what’s right in front of your eyes, and you have to go full circle around the world to come back to where you started … one of my favorite royalties, and it’s not money — It’s the stories. ‘I got married to that song, and that’s our song.’ I get, ‘It was at my father’s funeral.’ Even Alcoholics Anonymous meetings use that song. ‘The search is over.’ You’ve got it right here.”
Built in a slightly de-tuned Eb major overall, the beginning of the chorus shifts to C major at 0:55. But partway through the chorus, the tonality returns to the original key (1:10). The pattern continues from there. Be forewarned: the video is 100% industrial-grade ’80s! Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for submitting this tune.
“If 1980’s Bob Gaudio-produced The Jazz Singer marks the point at which Diamond crossed over from respected, rugged torch balladeer to schmaltzy cabaret act, he could take solace in phenomenal sales,” (BBC). “His biggest in the States, it shifted over six million. This despite the fact that the film which it soundtracked, in which Diamond starred as a Jewish singer opposite one Laurence Olivier, was generally panned. (It was a conceptually bizarre remake of the Al Jolson classic.) Still, it spawned songs as emotionally domineering as ‘Love on the Rocks,’ ‘Hello Again,’ and the patriotic (and therefore enormously commercial) ‘America.’
Neil’s acting gained him nominations for both a Golden Globe and the first ever Razzie Award for Worst Actor (he won the latter). To add painful injury to insult, he’d recently been wheelchair-bound for months, having had a tumour removed from his spine. So for all its gaudy sentimentality, The Jazz Singer was a personal triumph over adversity. If he now traded in the tingling presence of his earlier, rawer recordings, he hit on a polished soft-rock sound that even today is being rehabilitated by hungry ironists. ‘Hello Again’ is a Lionel Richie-style weepie, the lady in question awkwardly addressed as ‘my friend.’ It became Diamond’s calling card for the next few years.”
‘Hello Again,’ released as a single in 1981, was co-written by Diamond and Alan Lindgren, hit #70 on Billboard’s year-end singles chart. After a cinematic intro whose sustained chords at first seem to be written in G major, 0:17 brings an apparent shift to F major. But at 0:25, C major takes over. Neil’s voice is beyond center-stage — it’s absolutely primary, with a gentle piano-and-strings ensemble backing him up. At 3:11, a half-step shift up to Db major unfolds. Many thanks to our regular contributor Rob P. for this submission!
The US-based brother act Sparks, founded by Ron and Russell Mael, “are the epitome of the genre-defying act,” (Nialler9). “Over the course of a career spanning four decades they’ve released 23 albums and undergone several major metamorphoses … their stylized sound and sensibility varies radically from album to album … Yet while there are chapters of the Sparks saga that aren’t to everyone’s taste, these chameleonic fluctuations should be seen as symptomatic of a determination to constantly evolve.
While there is frivolity in some of Sparks’ songs, there’s nothing frivolous about the audacious aesthetic decisions they’ve made in their attempts to find new ways of presenting their work … While a tendency toward radical change characterizes the music of Sparks, there are also elements that have remained consistent throughout. It is these facets that make Sparks so special … never willing to sacrifice aesthetic convictions for the sake of mass success, their integrity and resolute sense of adventure remains intact … This is why numerous bands from New Order to Nirvana have lauded them and why they continue to be contemporary and significant.”
“Amateur Hour,” a track from 1974’s Kimono My House, features a rhythmic concept known as a hemiola in classical music terminology; it isn’t very common in pop music! A hemiola occurs when a short phrase is repeated, but doesn’t fit perfectly with the meter of a piece — so it’s slightly rhythmically displaced each time it’s consecutively repeated. For this track, the concept is most clearly stated in the opening bars, by the guitar: the four-note upward step-wise melody is repeated multiple times, but begins both on and off the beat due to the displacement. It’s repeated later in the vocals during the choruses … a lot. At 2:08, the track shifts up a full step from Bb major to C major.
“Lee and the Leopards, like many Toledo groups, were swept up in the explosion of the Motown powered Detroit R&B/soul explosion of the early 1960s,” (DooWopBlogg). “The group started around 1961, and included Lee Moore as the namesake and lead singer, George Miller Ross, Prentiss Anderson, and James Porter … The group had brought some of their own songs, but (Motown’s founder) Berry Gordy wanted them to sing some of the in-house songs. The group went back to Toledo and they reworked one of the songs ‘Come Into My Palace.’ The group returned to Detroit a few days later and within a day, they had the song recorded at Motown.
… The record was a big hit on WOHO and WTOD in Toledo and also on Detroit stations. The group did some promotional shows with WTOD. The record was picked up by Laurie records because the Motown operation did not have a full scale national promotional system. The group recorded a second 45 at Fortune, and a final 45 for K-Lee label from Adrian, MI. For the last record, the group recorded their own song “The Gypsy Said” backed by a band called the Rivieres from Adrian. When the record came out, the label credited the Rivieres instead of Lee and the Leopards. Some of the copies had stickers for Lee and the Leopards. After the group ended, Prentiss Anderson spent many years backing up various Motown related groups.”
“Trying to Make It” (1962) is primarily a blues in G minor. But the tune’s midsection is a brief bridge (1:26 – 1:42) that’s mostly in G major.
“Rushed to market to capitalise on the white-hot momentum of his debut, Kershaw had just two weeks to write and record the demos for Human Racing’s follow-up (The Riddle, 1984). While The Riddle has its flaws, it’s a tribute to the songwriter that he managed to get this over the line at all,” (Classic Pop Magazine). “The fact that album two is amongst the most consistent of his career is even more noteworthy.
The success of Human Racing had spread across the Atlantic, too, with its jazz-pop-prog stew turning the heads of Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock … However, Nik’s jazzy background remained at odds with the marketing department’s teen heart-throb vision of him at MCA – Smash Hits called him ‘the thinking man’s Limahl’ and that’s Kershaw looking all moody at Chesil Beach in Dorset on the cover, a cut-price The Joshua Tree (U2) if you like.”
After a verse built in C major, the chorus shifts up to D major at 0:57. But between the two is some unsettled key-of-the-moment territory (0:41 – 0:57). The patterns continue from there until 3:17, when the a late half-step key change closes the tune.
“Damiano David’s … second solo single (is) ‘Born With a Broken Heart’ (2024). A soaring, synth-pop tinged offering, the new track follows ‘Silverlines’ – Damiano’s first release independent of the Eurovision-winning band (Måneskin),” (DIY Mag). “‘When I wrote this song I was getting out of a very dark place, I was feeling emotionless and I was afraid that I had lost my ability to feel things, either good or bad,’ the Italian star has shared. ‘This was happening while I was starting the most meaningful relationship of my life and the fear of not being capable or ready was big. I think the song was a way to make myself make sense of what I was feeling and look at it from a less scary prospective. I’m happy to say that today I don’t feel like this, but I think a lot of people can relate with the feeling of not being good enough.”
The track hit top 100 status in several dozen countries, but climbed to the top 5 in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Poland, and Spain. Built primarily in B major, the tune shifts up a whole step to C# major at 2:39 after a post-bridge grand pause.
“Saxophonist Stan Getz came up at the very end of the swing era, a star soloist with Woody Herman’s orchestra in the late 1940s,” (NPR). “From the start, Getz was known for his rapturously beautiful ballad playing, much admired by peers like John Coltrane … It’s hard to overstate what a terrific tenor saxophonist Stan Getz was because there’s nothing dated about his style. He had a light, gorgeous tone that might convey great tenderness. He made swinging sound utterly natural and necessary. And he had an enviable melodic imagination as an improviser. His inspiration Lester Young famously said a good solo tells a story. And Getz could spin a tale.
Stan Getz fell into a lucrative career as the American standard bearer for a new musical fad, Brazil’s bossa nova, even before he scored big with “Girl From Ipanema.” Suddenly, Steaming Stanley really was out of step, replaced by his own more laidback self. He still improvised solos like a poet. But with so many tenors and others jumping on the bossa nova wagon, now everyone was copying him. So much for being old-fashioned.”
Well before Getz’s fame as an interpreter of bossa nova, his track “Crazy Chords” was released in 1951. After a short intro, the tune starts in earnest at 0:07. The 12-bar blues blazes by so fast that the second chorus hits at 0:17 — and the third at 0:28 and so on. Each chorus brings the tonality up by a half step, but Getz’s ideas (and those of his pianist, Al Haig) routinely bridge the borders between each chorus.
“Listen to this track by Motown titan and smooth as silk soul-pop provider Marvin Gaye, along with his vocal counterbalance, and no slouch in the soaring vocal department herself, Tammi Terrell,” (The Delete Bin). “It’s ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,’ a single from writing partnership and real-life couple Ashford & Simpson. The song was a top twenty hit single in 1967, released on the Tamla label, a sister label of Motown, eventually appearing on the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell joint album United.
The song was thought of by its writers as being their golden ticket into the Motown stable, even turning down Dusty Springfield who wanted to record it herself. Ashford and Simpson held it back , and it was eventually offered as a duet to Marvin Gaye, and to Tammi Terrell who made it one of the most prominent songs of the Motown catalogue, and an important record of the whole decade. Later on, Diana Ross would record it when she split with the Supremes and went solo in 1970. It would be a number one hit, and become a signature tune for her.Yet, it’s the alchemy that the Gaye-Terrell version offers that makes this the definitive version of the song.
… Their collaboration yielded several hits of the classic Motown era, including ‘Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing,’ ‘You’re All I Need To Get By,’ and ‘Your Precious Love,’ also all Ashford & Simpson songs. They would record three albums together over the next two years, with this period being looked upon by many as one of the finest in Marvin Gaye’s career, with Terell contributing significantly to that success.
But, there was something very wrong. Terrell had suffered migraines for many years, and one night during a concert in Virginia, Terrell stumbled on stage and collapsed in Gaye’s arms … Later, it was discovered that she was suffering from malignant tumours in her brain.” No treatments were successful in the long term, and “Tammi Terrell died in March of 1970 at the young age of 24, the same year Diana Ross recorded her version of this song. Retrospectively, ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ is an anthem to Terrell’s determination to succeed despite her cancer diagnosis … The song’s epic quality would attract cover versions from many. But, this original version is the one by which all others must be judged, including Diana Ross’, largely due to the sheer defiant vitality that Tammi Terrell brought to the performance. Marvin Gaye would of course continue to make his mark as one of the most gifted vocalists of his generation. But with Terrell gone, this vital phase of his career was at an end, with that combination of voices bursting with personality never to be repeated.”
Packing a complex arrangement and a true wall of sound into its spare 2.5-minute length, the track climbs to its bridge at 1:18, then shifts up from D major to Eb major at 1:37.
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