“Separate Ways” is featured on American country singer Rick Trevino’s 2011 studio album Whole Town Blue. The track was initially released as a single in 2007, but when it failed to reach the Top 40 the album release was delayed. Trevino, who is of Mexican descent, has made it a practice to release both Spanish and English versions of many of his songs, one of the first mainstream artists to do so.
The song begins in E and shifts without warning or preparation up to F for the second verse at 1:47.
“The Capitols, an R&B doo-wop trio originally known as the Three Caps, was formed in Detroit in 1962,” (BlackPast.org). “… The group primarily recorded dance-themed songs in the Detroit area.” After struggling for several years, “in 1966 they released the top ten hit, ‘Cool Jerk.’ The song composed by Don Storball and recorded at Golden World Studios in Detroit with the legendary Motown house band, The Funk Brothers, became their biggest hit. It was the lead single from their first album, Dance the Cool Jerk, and peaked at #2 on the Billboard R&B and #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
During their limited career, the Capitols released 6 albums and 19 singles … The group finished the decade in 1969 with the single ‘Soul Brother, Soul Sister’ that peaked at no. 42 on the Billboard R&B chart.” Very little additional information about this track is available online, but the trio’s signature sound is as clear here as it was on the smash hit single ‘Cool Jerk.”
After a short break in the groove, the tune shifts up a whole step at 1:26.
“Only Us” is from the Tony-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen, which had its closing performance on Broadway this past weekend. The tune is performed here by Ben Levi Ross (who played Evan, Connor, and Jared on Broadway) and Taylor Trensch (who played Evan) in a new arrangement by music director Alex Lacamoire. Beginning in B, a modulation up to Db leads into the second verse at 2:06. That is followed by an unorthodox pivot up a perfect 5th to Ab for the final chorus at 2:48, where it remains until the end.
“The Adagietto is undoubtedly the single best-known piece of Mahler’s music,” (MahlerFoundation.org). “Its popularity skyrocketed primarily as a result of its use as background music for Visconti’s film Death in Venice. There was some controversy, however, about what Mahler intended the adagietto to communicate. Villa Mengelberg, an intimate friend and colleague of Mahler and an early champion of his music, claimed that Alma Mahler had confided to him that Gustav sent a manuscript of the finished work to her as a love letter when they were courting. Certainly, the romantic nature of the music can support this contention … like an orchestral song without words … Mahler’s work orchestration is spare, employing only strings and harp to enhance the music’s lyricism and give it a serenade-like quality … “
The Mahler Foundation continues: “Inner harmonies are subtle and harmonic progressions are frequent for such a short movement … Mahler uses overlapping sustained tones in transition passages … The stream-like atmosphere begins with vague harmonies that lend a sense of weightlessness, and end with a long suspension of sustained chords that very slowly progressed to closure, creating a feeling of endless time.” It’s difficult to overstate the prominence of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (1902) within the composer’s overall body of work. It’s “sometimes compared with Beethoven’s own of that number,” (The Guardian).
In addition to several transient key-of-the-moment passages, the overall key of F major shifts to C major at 7:47 before reverting at 8:13 to F for the movement’s dramatic ending.
Brazilian vocalist Milton Nascimento “remembered how as a boy he had been obsessed with female singers and grew despondent when his voice began to break,” (The Guardian). “Only after hearing a Ray Charles recording of ‘Stella By Starlight’ age 13 did he grasp the beauty of the male voice. ‘He cured me that day,’ he said.” After many decades and 40+ albums, “News of Nascimento’s (Spring 2022) retirement has sparked an outpouring of nostalgia, a box office rush, and celebration of his astonishing vocal cords and vision. ‘[His voice] is strong at the same time that it’s delicate and fragile. It is precious … something that can convey such conflicting ideas at the same time. It’s unique,’ said Maria Rita, shedding tears as she described her affection for a man who took her under his wing after her mother’s premature death. ‘It feels like it’s from the soul … from a place that is familiar, but we don’t know yet – and I think that’s what my mom meant when she said that if God had a voice [it would be Milton’s].'”
” … Nascimento enjoys a vast global audience,” (AllMusic). “In addition to a resonant reedy tenor, he possesses an otherworldly falsetto that has led many to describe his music in spiritual terms. His self-titled 1967 debut established his meld of MPB, Brazilian folk forms, Tropicalia, rock, and samba” He went on to win several Grammy awards and recently completed a farewell tour at age 80.”
Released in 1976 as his material first became available in the United States, “Raça” (which translates to “race”) features a short melodic theme which alternates between two keys and cycles through many different strata of groove. The key shifts from C major and A major at 0:57, then back at 2:12.
“You To Me Are Everything” was released as a single in 1976 by the British soul group The Real Thing. In an interview last month with the Guardian, Ken Gold, who produced and co-wrote the song, recalled that he and Mick Denne came up with the chorus quickly and wrote the whole song in less than an hour. “We were in the studio – the Roundhouse in London – the very next week,” Gold said, discussing the subsequent recording session. “Chris [the lead singer] wanted to take the melody in his own direction. He said he was trying to put some soul into it. But sitting up there in the control room, it just wasn’t working for me and I remember getting very nervous because he was starting to get a little combative. I said: “Honestly, Chris, I’d just like to hear you sing the melody exactly as it was written.” And that’s what we did. If you can write a melody that gets into someone’s head after just one play, then you have something people can sing.”
This track was the group’s only #1 hit, sitting atop the UK Singles chart for three weeks. The tune begins in C and shifts up to D at 2:41.
The late Egyptian recording artist Amer Mounib “excelled at playing the Oud (a stringed musical instrument) through extensive learning sessions with the dean of Helwan University’s Faculty of Music, Atef Abdel Hamid,” (Egypt Today). “He further excelled at playing the piano and created a small band, performing covers of songs by the late singer Abdel Halim Hafez in major hotels around the country.”
During his career, the late artist accomplished 12 albums and enjoyed an acting career which spanned several popular films. Mounib passed away from cancer in November 2011 at the age of only 48.
Mounib’s release “Allah Alaik,” (God Bless You) shifts up a half step at 2:42. Many thanks to regular contributor Ziyad for this submission!
“Get Happy” was the first song composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Ted Koehler wrote together, and was made famous by Judy Garland in the 1950 film Summer Stock. In 2019, actress Renee Zellweger starred in the movie Judy, a biopic of Garland’s life, and recorded this arrangement for the soundtrack with singer Sam Smith.
The tune features a succession of three half-step modulations: from the original home key of G up to Ab at 1:08, rising to A at 1:52, and finally landing in Bb at 2:26.
“Guitarist Steve Hackett left Genesis in 1977, following their Wind & Wuthering tour, and the remaining trio (Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks) struggled to find their creative footing on the next year’s lukewarm …And Then There Were Three,” (Rolling Stone). “But they rebounded in a major way with 1980’s Duke, a more cohesive set of songs that balanced virtuosity with accessibility. ‘Evidence of Autumn,’ a starry-eyed ballad driven by Banks’ lush keyboards, was recorded during the sessions but pushed aside – winding up as the B-side to pop staple ‘Misunderstanding’ and rounding out the original studio section of 1982’s Three Sides Live. It’s a classic Banks composition, built on a deceptively complex chord structure and a winding, winsome vocal melody.”
You have a pretty good idea that you’re in for a complex ride when a tune starts with nothing more than a gently pulsing yet forboding tritone. But from the time Banks’ angular right hand part enters at 0:08, the listener descends — at first gradually, and then with all the force of a cinematic thriller’s score — into the first chorus at 0:45; the chorus-first form is quite surprising! The intro passes through several brief keys of the moment, but simplifies into Db major at the first verse. At 0:52, the bass note hammers on E with a strong syncopated kick and doesn’t move away until 1:01 — but the chords layered above it couldn’t shift any more profoundly over that pedal point.
At 1:01, the verse shifts to Ab major/F minor, ending with a small snippet of the intro’s piano theme (1:16). The verse (1:21), which also cycles through several keys of the moment, features a comparatively light texture and the song’s only mention of the title (you’d be forgiven for thinking that the tune is called “The Girl from All Those Songs”). The transition from the verse (which ends in A major) to the chorus’ return at 2:03 in C# major is a high point. At 2:34, the intro snippet is back, but is soon obliterated by a bridge in C# minor (2:44). Next is a gratuitous double-time instrumental break in C# major (3:20 – 3:32) that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Keystone Cops movie, but which serves as nothing more than pointless buzzkill here. At 3:31, we’re back to the tune’s overarching nostalgic feel; as the lead vocal exits at 4:21, Banks once more revisits the intro, coming full circle. Starry-eyed, indeed.
“The underground — any underground — tends to find peculiar and unintended routes into the spotlight,” (Stereogum). “Madonna was always a creature of New York club culture, and it wasn’t particularly out of character for her to get interested in a particular facet of that culture, which kept evolving after she got famous. But it was pretty weird that Madonna managed to take a small slice of the deep underground and mainstream the absolute hell out of it. And it was also pretty weird that Madonna pulled this off with a would-be B-side that got stapled onto the hoochie-coochie retro-cabaret album that she’d recorded as a tie-in with her big summer-blockbuster movie … Madonna was prescient about a lot of things, but she can’t have predicted the ripple-effects of all the moves that she made. ‘Vogue’ wasn’t even supposed to be a single, but it became one of the defining smashes of a hall-of-fame career. That happens sometimes.” The single reached #1 in the spring of 1990 and remained there for three weeks.
The Guardian further describes the drag scene of the late 1980s: “Contrary to popular belief, Madonna did not invent voguing. (Her hit song) was a euphoric celebration/appropriation of a dance form that emerged from the Harlem ballroom scene in the 80s. ‘Balls are part of a broader history of black queer performance and spectacle that stretches back at least to the early days of the 20th century,’ says Madison Moore, assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Poet and playwright Langston Hughes described these balls in his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea as ‘spectacles in color’.”
After an intro and a verse in Ab major, the chorus shifts to Ab minor at 1:40, with a brief but dense series of syncopated compound piano chords layered over the bass, which never migrates away from the tonic throughout the entire tune. Since the melody also centers around the tonic, the harmonic variety of those compound chords is pivotal. At 1:56, verse 2 reverts to Ab major; the pattern continues from there.
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