The Sussex Carol, a popular British tune, is performed here in a jazzy cover by accordionists Karen Sweet & Karen Tweed. It begins with a slow, rubato intro that stretches and embellishes the melody, eventually leading into the tune at 1:16. There is an unexpected downward modulation from G to Eb at 2:04.
Thanks to JB for this contribution!
Surprisingly, this is our first time featuring the classic “Jingle Bell Rock,” originally recorded in 1957 by Bobby Helms. There is some controversy over who wrote the tune; Helms claims that he, not Joseph Carleton Beal and James Ross Boothe, who are recognized as the composers, deserves credit. Alas, all three are dead now, so we will never know. This cover was performed on the television show Glee, and modulates from D to Eb at 0:57.
Thanks to MotD regular Ziyad for this submission!
“Miraculum,” an arrangement of We Three Kings, is featured on Christian pastor and musician Lincoln Brewster’s 2012 Christmas album Joy To The World. It is the only instrumental track on the record, which reached #6 on the Christian Albums Billboard chart.
The tune begins in Eb minor and glides into Ab minor during the more subdued middle section at 3:15. A sudden return to Eb minor occurs at 4:52
Thanks to MotD contributor Peter McCutcheon for this submission.
Tommy James, along with his band, The Shondells, scored a Billboard #4 in 1967 with the just-over-2-minutes bubblegum rocker “I Think We’re Alone Now”. The song, written by Ritchie Cordell (who also co-wrote another Shondells hit, “Mony Mony”), stuck to one key throughout.
Over 50 years later, in 2019, James reprised the song on his album Alive, featuring only acoustic guitar and background vocals, and a much slower tempo. Missing in this version are the percussive “heartbeats” from the original, perhaps because at this tempo, they would be suggestive of brachycardia. James’ voice, perhaps sweetened by a touch of autotune, is really the highlight here.
The song starts in A; in addition to some subtle re-harmonization here and there, it features an elegant modulation to C at 2:18.
“While working on their new album of classic country covers — Country Evolution (2015),” the a cappella ensemble Home Free decided to cover The Oak Ridge Boys’ “defining 1981 hit ‘Elvira,'” (Rolling Stone). The kicker: Home Free collaborated with the song’s originators on the track. “’Once we got together as a group, there was a magic happening among the nine of us that just exploded…’
The result is an ‘Elvira’ that … maintains the cadence of the Oaks’ recording, but adds modern-day flourishes, thanks to Home Free’s beat-box singer Adam Rupp.” Home Free has been awarded “the Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.”
After the initial surprise of “a capella + country” starts to wear off, there’s a half-step key change at 1:03; at 2:02, another modulation hits (this time a whole step). At 2:29, there’s a shift to the parallel minor for a brief bridge before a jubilant return to major at 2:40. Many thanks to first-time contributor Joya M. for submitting this track!
“Coming Back As a Man” is featured on Dutch singer Caro Emerald’s 2013 album The Shocking Miss Emerald. “Caro is certainly the sort of performer who you could imagine giving a knowing wink in between a cheeky lyric or two and the voice has a twirl that makes you smile,” said critic Stephen Unwin in his review of the album for The Daily Express. The record debuted at #1 in the Dutch and United Kingdom album charts, selling over 600,000 copies.
The track begins in G# minor and modulates up a half step to A minor at 2:43.
“Don’t You Remember” is the fourth track on Adele’s 2011 album 21, which traces her grief after a break-up. This track marks a shift from anger and defensiveness to reflection and heartbreak. “”You know when you forget why you loved someone?” Adele said in an interview with The Sun discussing the song’s meaning. “I was just thinking about how my entire body would just shiver if my ex touched me to say hello. It’s sad when you can’t remember why you loved someone.” The album was the best-selling record of the 2010s decade.
The track begins in Eb and briefly shifts up to F near the end at 3:16.
The Last Ship opened on Broadway in October 2014 and played for 3 months. The score, written by Sting, was nominated for a Tony Award. Sting also briefly stepped into the lead role in New York for the final few weeks of the run.
The story, while original, is inspired by memories from Sting’s childhood in Wallsend, England. “I did everything in my power to escape Wallsend… I became successful, but I owe a debt to that community,” Sting said in an interview on public radio. “This play is me trying to honour that community, trying to pay back what they gave me — a sense of self but also the engine that allowed me to escape. That’s the strange paradox. I love where I come from, I’m glad I escaped, at the same time I need to tell that story as a sort of ‘soul debt’.”
Writing the show also helped Sting emerge from a long period of writer’s block. ““I was writing songs for other characters than me, other sensibilities than mine, a different viewpoint,” he told the New York Times. “And so all of that pent-up stuff, all of those crafts I’d developed as a songwriter, I was suddenly free to explore without much thinking, actually. It just kind of came out as a kind of Tourette’s, a kind of projectile vomiting. It just came out, very quickly.”
“What Say You Meg?” is performed here by Sting. Modulation from E up to F# at 2:49.
“Undo,” written by Fredrik Kempe, David Kreuger, and Hamed “K-One” Pirouzpanah, was recorded by Swedish singer Sanna Nielsen and selected as Sweden’s entry in the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest. Nielsen later included the track on an EP, also released in 2014.
The song begins in Eb minor and shifts up a half step at 2:21.
Ariana Grande recorded the demo for “Pink Champagne” at 17. The track didn’t make the cut for inclusion on Yours Truly (2013), but Grande promised her diehard fans that “when she hit 10 million followers on Twitter she would release the studio version. Upon reaching the magic number on October 1, 2013, Ariana popped the champagne and dropped the song,” (Songfacts).
“Grande wrote the song with Pebe Sebert: ‘I knew Ariana well enough because I feel like it’s all about trying to know the person to know what’s going to be a real look for them,’ she said … ‘She was 17 and portraying this kind of goody-two-shoes on the Nickelodeon series. We didn’t want to go too far from that image at that age … You almost have to have a little movie that you’re writing in your head.'”
After a 30-second spoken intro from Grande, the effervescent, bouncy track unfolds amid Grande’s trademark upper-range ad libs and embellishments. Very close to the tune’s end (3:24), a half-step modulation hits between two choruses. Many thanks to regular contributor Ziyad for this submission!
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