“Next to Me” is featured on the 2006 album Behind the Levee by American roots/rock group The Subdudes (and produced by Grammy-winning blues artist Keb’Mo’). Based in New Orleans, the group synthesizes folk, cajun, blues, and country influences, and substitutes a tambourine player for a drummer.
The tune subtly modulates from A to B at 3:00. Thanks to Carol Cashion for this submission!
Released in 2005 as the third single from her second studio album, Breakaway, Kelly Clarkson’s “Because of You” has claimed its place as one of the most iconic 2000s songs of all time. While at first listen one might assume Clarkson’s hard-hitting lyrics were written about an ex-lover, the song was actually inspired by her relationship with her father, who left her and her mother when she was only 6 years old.
Shockingly, Clarkson had to fight for this song to be released. She wrote the tune before her American Idol debut when she was only 16; when she brought it to the studio, it was quickly shot down by her producers. Clarkson stated in an interview with The Guardian: “The song really is the most depressing one I’ve ever written. I tried to get it on Thankful, and was laughed at and told that I wasn’t a good writer. So then I tried to get it on Breakaway and the label saw the results, people responding to it, and allowed it to become a single. Then took credit for its success, of course.”
The song is one of strength, intensity, and drama, living on in all the edgy glory of its time, residing on many nostalgic playlists for all of those emotional flashback listening sessions and car ride singalongs. The powerful and slightly cheesy key change at 2:51 is quite appropriate!
Originally written by Jule Styne (music), Betty Comden and Adolph Green (lyrics) for the 1960 musical Do Re Mi, “Make Someone Happy” subsequently became a jazz standard, and has been recorded by dozens of singers including Perry Como, Aretha Franklin, Judy Garland, and Jamie Cullum among others. Featured here is a live 2009 performance by Barbra Streisand at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Starting in C major, the tune modulates down to B around 3:29 while Streisand is ad-libbing some dialogue and stays there for the final chorus.
The lead single from Buble’s 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible, “Everything” is a departure from Buble’s typical big-band style — driven by the piano and guitar rather than a horn section. The music is co-written by Alan Chang, a frequent Buble collaborator, and songwriter/author Amy Foster-Gilles (also the daughter of mega-producer David Foster.) Buble’s lyrics were written with his then-girlfriend, actress Emily Blunt, in mind, but have a broader reach as well. “I wrote the song about the great happiness of real love,” Buble said, “but at the same time I was making a statement about the world. We’re living in really crazy times, and I wanted to say that no matter what’s happening, this person in my life is what really makes it worthwhile.”
The music video has over 107 million views on YouTube, and features cameos by Whoopi Goldberg and Bono. A whole step modulation from D to E occurs at 2:29.
Pitchfork‘s review of Real Gone, Tom Waits’ 18th studio release (2004), goes a long way towards the difficult task of describing this singular artist, whose sound is often (and insufficiently) described as a mix of blues, rock, jazz, and experimental: “Tom Waits sings with his eyes closed, face squished tight, arms jerking, elbows popping, his entire body curled small and fetal around the microphone stand. Waits’ mouth is barely open, but his ears are perked high, perfectly straight, craning skyward, stretching out: Tom Waits is channeling frequencies that the rest of us cannot hear … Real Gone, like most of Tom Waits’ records, is teeming with all kinds of mysterious noises … it lurches along like a junk-heap jalopy, unsteady and unsafe, bits flying off in every direction, stopping, starting, and bouncing in pain.”
Waits describes himself as a person who is likely at home with his unsettled sound: “If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it’s good. I’m not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don’t cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don’t stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you’ll never see it again.”
Built on the utterly familiar elements of a minor blues, from the harmonic progression to the bass line to the intermittent guitar riffs, “Shake It” still manages to channel a rattling bucket of bolts that may or may not have some razor blades mixed in. Starting in F minor, 2:03 brings a transition to F# minor. The modulation doesn’t arrive at the end of the blues form, but unnervingly announces itself right in the middle of a verse. 2:55 jerks us back into F minor — this time with a tempo shift and a change in feel. The bull’s arrived at the china shop after recently enjoying a wallow in the mud, and the marked-down red table linens are on display.
Many thanks to our regular contributor Jonathan “JHarms” Harms, who submitted and summed up the track: “All hail the dirty, unannounced modulation.”
Jazz Times calls pianist/composer/arranger Christian Jacob “a post-bop modernist touched by the souls of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett.” Jacob’s website outlines his multi-faceted resume: “Multi-Grammy nominated pianist and arranger Christian Jacob first gained widespread exposure as music director for Maynard Ferguson and later as leader of the Christian Jacob Trio and co-leader of the Tierney Sutton Band. Christian is also the musical director for both Broadway legend Betty Buckley and American icon Jack Jones.”
A French native, Jacob “fell in love with classical music at age 4 and discovered jazz at age 9.” After winning top honors at the Paris Conservatory, Jacob continued his studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Jacob went on to teach at Berklee, tour with Maynard Ferguson, and win an accolade from The Japan Times as one of the best-selling foreign jazz pianists in the Japanese market. He is a multi-time Grammy nominee for his work with vocalist Tierney Sutton, drummer Ray Brinker, and bassists Trey Henry and Kevin Axt.
As an arranger, Jacob received a Grammy nomination as an arranger with The Phil Norman Tentet; his arrangements have been performed by John Scofield, Billy Cobham, Charlie Haden, Phil Woods, Joe Lovano, Ron Carter, Gary Burton, the Swiss Youth Jazz Orchestra, and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. In 2016, he composed the score for director Clint Eastwood’s film Sully; the next year, Eastwood again hired Jacob to score The 15:17 to Paris.
Jacob’s composition “Little Eyes” was recorded in a live 2007 trio performance in Japan. Jacob recounts the performance: “In 2007 I was invited to tour and record in Japan. I always loved Japanese audiences, and to make this recording special, I chose four Japanese melodies that every Japanese person would recognize, and arranged them for trio. They were the highlight of the tour … I was happy to bring my two longtime partners: Trey Henry on bass and Ray Brinker on drums.” The tune begins simply and peacefully in G major. But after a restless transition through several keys of the moment (1:30 – 1:49), we land in G minor. The cycle begins again at 2:05.
AllMusic details that “gospel singer, composer, and choir leader Hezekiah Walker, known as ‘the hip-hop pastor,’ has brought a lot of young people to gospel and choir music, and has shown that he has no problem using modern vernacular and recording techniques to expand his fan and worship base. A New York native, Walker grew up in the Fort Greene housing projects of Brooklyn. He formed his first gospel group, the Love Fellowship Crusade Choir, when he was in his twenties and serving as a Pentecostal minister.”
Walker has produced and led many top ten Billboard gospel recordings, including Grammy-winning live gospel recordings; he was inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016. Rev. Walker now leads the Kingdom Church in New York and Pennsylvania.
Featuring soloist Timiney Figueroa-Caton, the Love Fellowship Crusade Choir’s live 2008 version of “Calling My Name” was originally released in 1994. Written by the prolific Jules Bartholomew, the track begins in Db major but shifts to Bb major at 4:31. Many thanks to our recurrent contributor JB for submitting this tune!
“Inside Your Heaven” was written for the final two contestants, Bo Bice and Carrie Underwood in the 2005 season of American Idol, to be released as the first single for each of them. Underwood went on to win, but each singer released a version of the track in June 2005; both were in the top 2 slots of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The arrangement Underwood recorded for her first album, Some Hearts (2005), eliminated the modulation that was included when she performed the song on the show, which we are featuring here. Key change at 4:00.
(The video below also includes Underwood being announced as the winner the beginning. Song starts at 2:02)
“Monticello” is from the song cycle Edges, written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land) while they were undergraduates at the University of Michigan in 2005. Coming-of-age and self-discovering themes figure prominently in many of the songs. Regularly produced at colleges throughout the United States, the cycle has also been performed in Australia, South Africa, France, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Key change at 3:36.
Named one of the 500 greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone, “I Want to Know What Love Is” is British-American rock band Foreigner‘s most successful hit to date.
“I always worked late at night, when everybody left and the phone stopped ringing,” Mick Jones, who wrote the song, recalls. “’I Want to Know What Love Is’ came up at three in the morning sometime in 1984. I don’t know where it came from. I consider it a gift that was sent through me. I think there was something bigger than me behind it. I’d say it was probably written entirely by a higher force.”
The tune has been covered by many notable artists, including Tina Arena, Wynonna Judd, and Mariah Carey, who is featured here. “I think she’s actually retained the integrity of the song,” Jones said of Carey’s rendition. “You know, the arrangement is very similar to the original. They haven’t tampered with the song too much. She’s captured a certain emotional thing, a feeling.”
The track was featured on Carey’s 2009 album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, and the music video was filmed in Yankee Stadium with a gospel choir. A rare (but common for Carey) downward modulation from Gb to F occurs at 2:58.
Thanks to contributor Clara Jung for this submission!
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