Tag: 2000s

The Song That Goes Like This (from “Spamalot”)

“Would anyone have thought years ago that one of Broadway’s hits would be based on a wild and wacky Monty Python movie? Don’t be silly,” (TalkinBroadway). “On second thought, do. That’s what it’s all about … Certainly both fans and foes of big (meaning very big) Broadway musicals will relate to references to their excesses. ‘The Song That Goes Like This’ … mercilessly mock(s) de rigueur big, dare-I-say-pretentious, bombastic love ballads designed in their pre-fab way to press the emotional buttons and win applause … skewer(ing) the genre while illustrating and recreating every by-the-numbers recyclable cliche (‘I’ll sing it in your face/ While we both embrace/ And then we change the key’ … ).

Broadway can stand a self-inflicted piercing as sharp as one from the sword of a Round Table Arthurian … But just in case you’re distracted by just the jests and jousts, even in the CD’s lyric booklet it is pointed out that in the overblown key-changing ‘The Song That Goes Like This,’ there’s a character dramatically coming downstage on a boat and a chandelier descends! But it’s all for an evening’s amusement …” With music by John Du Prez and original Monty Python’s Flying Circus cast member Eric Idle, combined with lyrics by Idle, the musical debuted on Broadway in 2005 and saw a Broadway revival in 2023, with many national tours in the interim.

As the intro leads into the verse at 0:09, the first key change drops down two whole steps. At 1:20, we hear another modulation (this time up a whole step), duly announced beforehand in the lyrics. 2:02 and 2:24 continue the trend with more upward whole step shifts.

kd lang | Love is Everything (Jane Siberry cover)

“The title of Canadian singer-songwriter Jane Siberry’s 1984 breakthrough sophomore LP also still serves as her mission statement: No Borders Here,” (Tone Glow). “As one of Toronto’s most prolific tone poets and troubadours, her work has long ridden the divide between pop form and sonic abstraction, carefully dodging any traps of easy definition through detail and duration.

Erstwhile music critics often compared the ethereal leanings of her stretch of records for Reprise as Canada’s answer to the likes of Kate Bush or Laurie Anderson, but even these ties are somewhat of a slight. Her genre-agnostic innovation is fully drawn from intuition—a record like her retrospectively celebrated 1988’s The Walking merged koan-like lyrical hooks with thick vocal arrangements and impressionistic textures. Over the years, she’s collaborated with Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, k.d. lang, Michael Brook and Mary Margaret O’Hara.”

Under the affectionate care of Siberry’s intermittent collaborator, fellow Canadian kd lang, “Love is Everything” (originally released by Siberry in 1993) is a showcase for lang’s stunning palette of vocal colors. Fully immersed in the lyrical sweep of Siberry’s lyrics, lang’s voice ranges from a soft breeziness to the power of her trademark belt — which for all of its impact, always seems to leave a bit more in reserve. The tune’s intro and verses are in D major; the chorus, first heard at 1:21, is in A major. But the shift to A major, in addition to being closely related to D major, is perhaps further obscured by voicing all of the A chords with D major’s leading tone, C#, in the bass. The next verse returns to D major at 2:11.

Many thanks to Mandy D. for calling our attention to this 2005 performance of the tune — her second contribution to MotD!

Rufus Wainwright | Zing Went the Strings of My Heart

In 2006, “Rufus Wainwright did something extraordinary – even bizarre: he performed a cover version of an entire concert,” (The Guardian). “Judy Garland’s 1961 performance at Carnegie Hall is a legendary night in showbiz, marking a comeback after a period of ill-health and addiction in order to claim her crown as the world’s greatest entertainer.

Wainwright, who had his own crystal-meth-afflicted dark night of the soul in the late 90s, decided to sing the whole thing from beginning to end, including the parts where Garland forgets the words (in You Go to My Head), on the very boards the resurgent diva trod. Part homage, part exorcism, part formidable technical exercise, it was also an experiment: what would happen when the voice of the present sings the songs and evokes the spirits of the past?”

One of the most energetic tunes of the show, “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart,” shows off the big band accompaniment beautifully. Wainwright turns in a rock solid vocal performance; freed from his usual self-accompaniment duties on piano or guitar, his energy is channeled into belting his vocals in a manner worthy of Garland’s memory. To say he’s not much of a hoofer would be a huge understatement, but Wainwright is in on the joke as he tosses off a goofy dance break during the tune’s midsection. The tune shifts up a half step at 2:26.

Garland’s original 1961 Carnegie Hall performance:

Michael McDonald | You Are Everything

“You Are Everything” was originally recorded and released in 1971 by the Philadelphia soul group The Stylistics, and written by Thomas Bell and Linda Creed, who both helped pioneer the Philadelphia soul sound. The track, which was also covered by Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, is included on American singer Michael McDonald’s 2003 album Motown, comprised entirely of covers.

It winds through many different keys, starting in Db for the intro and shifting to Bb when the vocal enters at 0:26. There is a modulation to Eb for the first chorus at 0:57, and then a downward mod to C for the second verse at 1:20. The last chorus, starting at 1:52, is in F.

Moving Too Fast (from “The Last Five Years”)

Jason Robert Brown’s 2001 two-character musical The Last Five Years traces the disintegration of a five year relationship between Jamie, a novelist and Cathy, an aspiring actress. The story, inspired by Brown’s own failed marriage, is told from the perspectives of both characters even though they only interact once in the middle of the show, at their wedding. “Moving Too Fast” is sung by Jamie when everything in his professional life is going better than he ever dreamed it could, and Cathy feels left behind.

The song, performed here by Jeremy Jordan in the film adaptation, begins in A and modulates to F at 1:28 for the bridge, which quotes “Still Hurting,” the first song in the show. It then returns to A at 2:26 and dances around Bb, B and C before a final modulation to Bb at 3:38

Brooke Parrott | Persuade Me

“Growing up, (Portland’s Brooke Parrott) played music and wrote stories incessantly, eventually pursuing a degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston,” (BrookeParrott.com). “The years after found Brooke in London, living in a disused pub rumored to be an old haunt of Charles Dickens and Karl Marx, where she wrote songs on a disintegrating grand piano in the parlor. She began working for a small live music startup company that grew up to be a big one, and learned a lot in the process.

When the siren call of the Pacific Northwest became too loud to ignore, Brooke returned and found her place touring and recording music with Portland darlings Loch Lomond. She released a second studio effort, an EP called Buried, that was written between contrasting worlds—part hectic city and suffocating winter in London, part hinterland yurt in the Oregon woods.”

Starting in D minor, Parrott’s 2008 release “Persuade Me” shifts at 0:52 into a chorus in C minor. From 2:24-2:56, an angular bridge built around chromatic bass motion holds sway before a return to the chorus. The final chorus ends by hanging in the air, unresolved.

Glenn Lewis | Fall Again

“Fall Again” was written and originally recorded by Michael Jackson in 1999, and subsequently covered by Canadian R&B singer Glenn Lewis for the 2002 film Maid in Manhattan. Lewis makes a brief appearance performing the song in the film, which starred Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes.

The track begins in E minor and modulates up a half step to F minor at 3:06.

Steely Dan | Two Against Nature

“When Steely Dan released Two Against Nature on a leap year’s February 29 (2000) … (then their first album in two decades), critics instantly adored it,” (Esquire). “‘What makes [the album] work isn’t its cerebral ellipticity but its stunning musical clarity,’ Rolling Stone wrote in their review at the time. ‘It is a showcase for what Steely Dan’s core twosome can do—reluctant guitar god Becker remains a fluid, precise player, while Fagen covers the keyboard waterfront with a variety of jazz and R&B styles.’ ‘We might just want to jump into the disc and let the duo take us away from all this teen choreography,” Entertainment Weekly mused in their own take. ‘Even if their particular Shangri-la is peopled by perverts, creeps, miscreants, and clavinets.’

The album, dark, strange, and a near 180 musical degrees from plastic pop that was dominating the charts at the time — think Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Destiny’s Child — cracked the Top 10 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and the Top 20 on the UK counterpart.”

The angular title track is built in either a very big, very subdivided 3/4 or a swiftly-flowing 6/8, relentlessly accented and driven by two handclap-like hits in the last third of each measure of the intro and verse. The percussion smooths out during the chorus, which shifts from Ab up a tritone to E (first heard at 1:24 – 1:40). Both sections keep the color of the keys somewhat fluid, with both major and minor third degrees mixed in. The pattern continues from there, with the exception of a meandering interlude/instrumental bridge from 2:36 – 3:28. Some neat harmonic tricks for sure, but considering the source, they’re more like routine.

Westlife | You Raise Me Up

“You Raise Me Up,” written by Rolf Løvland and Brendan Graham, was initially recorded by the Irish-Norwegian band Secret Garden with vocalist Brian Kennedy. Josh Groban’s 2004 cover brought much wider recognition to the song, and the following year the Irish pop group Westlife released it as the lead single for their album Face to Face; it has since become the eighth most-streamed song of all time in Ireland.

Beginning in Eb, there is a modulation up to F at 1:19 and another to Gb at 2:30.