“Beautiful,” featured on King’s breakout 1971 album Tapestry, became one of her best-known songs and is the title song in the 2014 Broadway musical based on King’s life. Reflecting the message in the lyric of finding hope and determination even amidst darkness and hardship, the key fluctuates fluidly between C minor and its relative Eb major. Prior to the last verse, the tune modulates up a half step to C# minor (and E major) at 1:35, where it remains till the end.
Tag: 1970s
Steal With Style (from “The Robber Bridegroom”)
“Steal With Style” is from the 1975 Broadway musical The Robber Bridegroom, adapted by Alfred Uhry (book & lyrics) and Robert Waldman (music) from a 1942 novella by Eudora Welty. The score is one of only a handful in Broadway history to be bluegrass-inspired — the band consists of a guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, and harp. The show was revived Off-Broadway in 2016 starring Steven Pasquale, featured here, and is regularly performed at regional theaters.
The song alternates between E major and E minor throughout before ultimately modulating to G major at 2:25 for the final chorus.
Kenny Rogers | The Gambler
“‘The Gambler’ was written by the Nashville songwriter Don Schlitz. With the classic chorus lines, ‘You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,’ the song is told from the first-person perspective about a conversation with an old poker player on a train,” (Songfacts). “The card shark gives life advice to the narrator in the form of poker metaphors, before presumably dying in his sleep. According to the Reader’s Digest Country and Western Songbook, Schlitz wrote the tune in honor of his late father, ‘the best man I ever knew.’ ‘He wasn’t a gambler,’ he explained. ‘But the song was my way of dealing with the relationship that I had with him.'” Kenny Rogers’ 1978 version became a #1 Country hit and even made its way to the Hot 100 “at a time when country songs rarely crossed over.”
The tune won a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song … but “before he recorded it himself, Kenny Rogers offered ‘The Gambler’ to Willie Nelson, who turned it down. ‘I was doing a song every night called Red Headed Stranger which has 100 verses in it … I just didn’t want to do another long song, so he said, Okay, I’ll record it myself.'”
The tune, which Rolling Stone describes as “the one country song even non-country fans know by heart,” modulates up a half step at 1:37.
Many thanks to our frequent contributor Ziyad for this submission!
Barry Manilow | Looks Like We Made It
” … there’s a good chance you’re Facebook friends with your ex. But in 1977, when people still had to run into their exes at parties or whatever, that feeling still got a drippy Barry Manilow ballad dedicated to it,” (Stereogum). “Around the time that Barry Manilow got to #1 with 1976’s ‘I Write The Songs,’ he apparently figured out what the world wanted from him. He could sing silly, frisky, jazzy numbers, but those songs weren’t what the world wanted from him. They wanted big, grand, feelings-on-display adult-contempo ballads full of pianos and woodwinds and showy Broadway notes.
… you can hear that formula at work on ‘Looks Like We Made It,’ Manilow’s third and final #1. As with (his) two previous #1 hits, Manilow didn’t write ‘Looks Like We Made It.’ Instead, the song’s music came from Richard Kerr, the pianist who’d already co-wrote the 1975 #1 ‘Mandy.’ (No surprise that it sounds a whole lot like ‘Mandy.’) The lyrics, meanwhile, were written by Will Jennings, a ballad specialist … Manilow’s got an impressive voice, and he’s not shy about showing it off. He and producer Ron Dante pile on the strings, which makes for a whole lot of big, crashing moments.”
After a start in C major, a short bridge at 2:28 starts sweetly, continues with the piled-on strings mentioned above, and ends with the drummer sounding like the host of an “instrumental petting zoo” at an elementary school. After pulling out all the stops, 2:44 opens the curtains, shines the spotlights, and sounds the figurative trumpet fanfare as the new key of Db major arrives.
The Beach Boys | Disney Girls (1957)
“The way the story is sometimes erroneously told, The Beach Boys were nothing more than a convenient vehicle for Brian Wilson’s incendiary songwriting and brilliant producing,” (American Songwriter). “Of course, that misconception overlooks the crucial contributions of the talented men at Brian’s side bringing his artistic vision to thrilling life with their vocals. It also neglects to take into account the years when the troubled genius contributed only sporadically to the band’s output. Consider 1971’s album Surf’s Up, where the rest of the band picked up the songwriting slack for their leader and Bruce Johnson’s wistful waltz ‘Disney Girls (1957)’ stood out as one of the disc’s finest moments.
If you’re not listening closely enough, you might read the title, hear some of the references in Johnston’s opus, and think that it’s easy nostalgia, something in which The Beach Boys have been known to trade. But what you come to realize, either by perusing the lyrics or listening to the subtle ache in those ‘oohs and aahs,’ is that the ‘fantasy world’ on which the narrator fixates is just that, an idealized vision of happiness that he hasn’t yet attained. ‘Oh, reality, it’s not for me / And it makes me laugh.’ … The unspoken context is that this song comes from a touring musician leading what was likely a hectic life with one of the most famous bands on the planet …”
After starting in F# major, we reach a dreamy bridge at 2:07. At 2:28, the groove falls away as the layered vocals briefly take on the oblique, rubato harmonies of a Barbershop quartet, proclaiming that “… she likes church bingo chances and old-time dances.” At 2:37, a strong IV/V in the new key (G major) leads us to another verse (2:45) as the 3/4 time resumes. The track could be a more grown-up echo of the band’s 1966 hit “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
George Jones | Bartender’s Blues
This is Galen C.’s second MotD submission. Thanks, Galen!
“Bartender’s Blues” was originally written and performed by James Taylor in an attempt to imitate George Jones’ sound; it was released on Taylor’s 1977 abum JT. George Jones covered “Bartender’s Blues” a year later on his 1978 album of the same name, with Taylor on backup vocals.
In an interview with Billboard following Jones’ death, James Taylor said that he wrote this song as a tribute to George Jones, trying to create a song that was “…100 percent George Jones…” Jones’ version is unique from Taylor’s original in that Jones added a key change at the start of the final verse (2:32).
On a personal note: Since learning about Modulation of the Day, I’ve been listening specifically for key changes. I heard this song on Willy Nelson’s radio show while visiting my parents in Florida — and rushed to write it down while the song was still playing!
JT’s version, for reference:
Thin Lizzy | Do Anything You Want to Do
“If you want to see the platonic ideal of a rock band, go to YouTube and search ‘Thin Lizzy Rainbow 1978’,” (The Guardian) ” You’ll find the band’s classic lineup … in full flight, and even the degradation of old dubbed recordings can’t diminish their power. Gorham and Robertson flank Lynott, the trio in motion, the two guitarists criss-crossing and taking to the monitors, Lynott in the centre, bass held high, a beautiful, heavy-lidded man half seducing his audience and half assaulting it.”
The Irish rock band is probably best known for their 1976 release “The Boys are Back in Town,” which was a top 10 hit in the UK, Ireland, and the US; it placed 272 on the 2021 edition of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.
1979’s “Do Anything You Want to Do,” from the album Black Rose: A Rock Legend, reached #25 on the Irish charts and #14 in the UK. The tune starts in a de-tuned G major, shifts to Bb major at 1:37, then alternates again between the two keys.
Abba | I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
“I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” was the third single released by the Swedish band ABBA for their eponymous third studio album, recorded in 1975. The trade magazine Cash Box praised the tune for its “richly textured vocals, [which] give this fifties sounding shuffle an extra push, push, push, push.”
Beginning in C, the song modulates up to Db for the last chorus at 2:22.
Tower of Power | Maybe It’ll Rub Off
“In the realm of power funk and jazz-rock, Tower of Power was an original voice, one carved from a unique place within an exceptionally heady moment,” (AllAboutJazz). “And this convergence of forces, clearly, has yet to cool some 53 years hence. Horns? They’ve carried up to six at a time, to hell with diminished door splits. A big band of scorching funk, Tower of Power traces its roots to 1968 Oakland, where it flourished in a thicket of sound tearing at industry barriers. The band, initially dubbed the Motowns, was founded at the juncture which begat Blood Sweat and Tears, Chicago Transit Authority, and Earth Wind and Fire. Even then, the soul—if you will—of Tower of Power was born in the muscular arrangements and searing leads of the former as much as the latter’s R&B core.”
Tower of Power released Urban Renewal in 1974 — one of three releases by the band that year, just four years into its history. Although the album lacked an uptempo hit like “What is Hip?” or a stand-out lush ballad like “So Very Hard to Go” or “You’re Still a Young Man,” the release was a snapshot of the band hitting its stride.
“Maybe It’ll Rub Off,” built in F major overall, features an instrumental mid-section that meanders through several other keys between 1:45 and 2:31, when it returns to the initial key.
George Harrison | My Sweet Lord
According to the video description on George Harrison’s Vevo channel, in honor of the 50th anniversary of George Harrison’s classic solo album All Things Must Pass, “a suite of new releases including a stunning new mix of the classic album by Grammy Award-winning mixer/engineer Paul Hicks, overseen by executive producer Dhani Harrison,” George’s son.
“…That’s the problem with being a really good songwriter in a band with two great ones,” (American Songwriter). “Since Harrison was only allotted one track per side of a typical Beatles album, his accumulation was substantial as the group disbanded around September of 1969. When he started recording what most consider his first solo project in 1970 … those tunes gushed out of him … The resulting collection is on anyone’s shortlist of finest Beatles solo releases, many placing it near the top.”
After starting in E major, “My Sweet Lord,” considered by many to be the centerpiece of the album, shifts to F# at 2:33. The video, released this month, stars dozens of noted actors, artists, and musicians, including Mark Hamill, Fred Armisen, Jeff Lynne, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Jon Hamm, Shepard Fairey, Olivia and Dhani Harrison (George’s widow and son), and many others. Many thanks to our contributor Ziyad for this submission!
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