“Look What You’ve Done To Me” was originally written for the 1980 motion picture Urban Cowboy. Penned by Scaggs and legendary producer David Foster, the tune peaked at #14 on the Billboard Top 100, and features background vocals by The Eagles.
The song fluctuates between E minor for the verses and instrumental interludes, and its relative major, G, for the choruses.
“One of the most acclaimed R&B artists since 2016, the year her first EP found a rapt audience, H.E.R. has been celebrated for vulnerable yet assured love ballads and sharp protest songs alike,” (AllMusic). “The singer/songwriter maximizes the power of her honeyed vocals as a simultaneously poetic and straightforward lyricist, shifts to convincing MC mode on a dime, and is also a guitarist and producer. H.E.R. (2017), I Used to Know Her (2019), and Back of My Mind (2021), her three full-length recordings, have each featured platinum singles, including ‘Focus,’ ‘Could’ve Been,’ and ‘Damage.’ She has won four Grammys, most notably Song of the Year for ‘I Can’t Breathe’ (2020).”
H.E.R.’s track “Hold Us Together” is from the 2020 film Safety, which follows “the story of Ray-Ray McElrathbey, a freshman football player for Clemson University, who secretly raised his younger brother on campus after his home life became too unsteady,” (IMDB).
The gospel-infused ballad modulates up a half step at 3:27 via a hinge that features only the lead vocal as the accompaniment temporarily falls away. Many thanks to Ziyad for yet another of his many submissions!
Composer lyricist Scott Alan wrote this song in 2010, and went in-depth with the LGBT outlet Advocate on what it meant to him:
“The past year has had its ups and downs. I had the incredible opportunity to do concerts in exciting places like London and Australia, but I also learned how lonely life on the road can be — and how returning home is even lonelier when there’s nobody to return to.
Two years ago when I turned 30, my heart found itself in a place it wasn’t expecting to go. It was, for the first time, ready to start a family. In the song “Nothing More,” sung on What I Wanna Be When I Grow Up by the wonderful Christopher Sieber, I wrote about my yearning to leave more than a song behind as my legacy. I knew there was something major missing from my life, and I knew exactly what it was: a child.
After giving everything I had to a relationship that fell apart only a year later, the question became, How much more of myself did I really have left to give? When the relationship ended despite my best efforts, I felt numb to everything around me and completely exhausted. But more than that, I found that the one constant in my life, writing, was suddenly not happening. It was like I’d been put on pause. I couldn’t find words; I couldn’t hear melody. I felt trapped. Though I had so much to say, I couldn’t find the right words with which to say it. I’d sit at the piano and nothing matched the emotions I felt in that moment. They were just words and notes. Words and notes without any meaning to them.
Here I was at a crossroads; I wanted a family, yet the family that I’d been building with my partner was now nothing more then crumpled pieces of unusable lyrics filling up my floor. I was no longer in control of anything.
To understand me is to understand one important thing — I write about my life and all that comes with it. To say that my music and lyrics define me is an understatement. I put every element of myself into song. All of my secrets, inner turmoil, and celebrations are musicalized. It’s my therapy.
Day after day, I kept sitting down at the piano, hoping that some sort of genius idea would present itself. Then one day I started slowly writing again — When the life you had planned / Slowly slips through your hands / When it feels like you just slept through all the best years of your life / When the heart’s beyond repair / When you wake and no one’s there / When your home consists of only you / Is there anything worth holding on to?
That’s all I was able to write at the time. I couldn’t find other words to describe how completely trapped I felt or how losing the ability to explain it in song made me feel even lonelier.
I needed to take a break — to just step away from the piano and from everything around me. I took a vacation to Italy. No phone. No computer. Traveled for two weeks. Stayed in the nicest hotels. Got fat. Drank wine. Ate more gelato than I care to admit. And just breathed. In a relationship it’s easy to forget yourself. This was my chance to get to know me again.
When I returned I put all my energy into finishing the new album. As minutes turned into months we had 11 songs finished. But my coproducer and arranger of the album, Jesse Vargas, insisted that we add one more. I hadn’t sat at the piano since I returned from Italy, too afraid to find that I may still be in the same place I was before I left.
I sat down. Put my hands on the keys. I took a breath. I wrote. When you’re so far from home / When you’ve lost signs of hope / When you’re searching for salvation / But there’s none that you can find / When the words have disappeared / When the melody’s unclear / When there’s nothing left inside of you, is there anything worth holding on to? I sat for a minute … there was still something left to say. Cause I will still be holding on / To everything worth holding on to.
I finished — six months after I’d started it, but it was finally finished.
Jesse decided that if this song was going to be the one to complete the album, it had to be stripped down. On an album filled with lavish orchestrations and arrangements, he believed that it needed nothing more than its lyrics, its melody, the incomparable voice of Crystal Monee Hall, and a piano.
The day I released the album I sat on my couch, studying the cover. I took out my two previous albums, Dreaming Wide Awake and Keys, and put all three of them on my dining room table. Taking a close look I realized that for now these are my children. And I couldn’t be more proud of them. For the first time in over a year, my heart felt full again.
An hour later I started planning the next birth.”
Performed here by Matt Bloyd and Chrissy Metz, the song begins in C, modulates up to Eb for Metz’s entrance on the second verse at 2:04, and lands in F at 4:05.
A submission from Paul “Steck” S., one of our regulars:
“Rumer is the stage name of Sarah Joyce, a Pakistan-born British singer-songwriter who has been very popular in the UK, but less well-known in the US. Her contralto voice is sometimes redolent of Karen Carpenter; indeed, Richard Carpenter wrote her to praise her first album, Seasons of My Soul, released in 2010. She’s released several albums since then, one as recently as 2020.
Rumer has been extensively involved with the music of Burt Bacharach. In 2010, she released a Christmas EP with a Bacharach song; in 2012, she performed at the White House as part of the tribute to Bacharach and Hal David; and in 2016, she released an entire album of Bacharach/David songs.
The tune here, “Aretha,” is taken from the first album; yes, it’s Aretha Franklin that she’s singing about. It’s a tale of a schoolgirl, attending a school where the kids are mean, while coping with a mentally ill mother. Listening to Aretha on her headphones is a refuge. It was written by Rumer and producer Steve Brown.
The song is a soul ballad in the key of B♭, mostly in 4/4 time (with a 12/8 feel), with measures of 2/4 and 3/4 in the verse. The bridge at 1:56 features the singer lightly harmonizing with herself. At 2:30, there’s a modulation to C for the final verse.”
Thanks, Steck, for this submission!
First time contributor Galen Cruess, in his submission of The Beatles’ 1964 hit “And I Love Her” from the album A Hard Day’s Night, writes: “It’s a unique acoustic song sung and written mostly by Paul McCartney that reflects his more ballad-like songs. Elements like George Harrison’s introductory riff, arpeggiated chords during the verses, and Ringo’s use of bongos and clavés give the song a different sound that is only heard in a few other Beatles songs, such as ‘Til There Was You’ and ‘Michelle.'”
“Before the soundtrack to (the movie) A Hard Day’s Night burst on the scene, Paul’s songwriting was mostly encompassed within the framework of writing ‘eyeball to eyeball’ (as Lennon would call it) with John in collaborative efforts,” (BeatlesBooks.com). “When he did faction off to write by himself, the songs would be rockers, such as ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love.’ His reputation as a ‘balladeer’ began with the inclusion of ‘And I Love Her’ on the movie soundtrack album. This soft, acoustic sentimental love song stuck out like a sore thumb and made everyone take notice of what this long-haired British rock group was capable of.”
After a start in F# minor the key raises a half step to B minor at 1:30 with George Harrison’s solo on classical-style nylon string acoustic guitar. The tune ends on a striking major chord (piccardy third).
Derived from Shakespeare’s Sonnet #130, the title of Sting’s second solo album …Nothing Like the Sun (1987) doesn’t appear as the title of one of the album’s songs, but rather only as a lyric in the tune “Sister Moon,” the tenth of twelve tracks.
In an interview with Spin, Sting noted that the album was the first which he’d recorded in all-digital format — a novelty at the time: “Although recording digitally was difficult and kind of alienating, it allowed me more flexibility in terms of arrangement … and that drove me crazy. I could change the key, add whole sections to the song when it was already finished, change the tempo, everything. But basically I knew there was a core in each song that worked that you couldn’t destroy.” Q Magazine‘s review of the album focused on the artist’s growing maturity after his years of rock/reggae/pop with the Police and a debut solo album from two years earlier: “It’s a measure of what makes solo Sting special that after so many years in the hype machine, living a lifestyle based on god only knows what riches in the bank, he has finally found the will and the voice to sing simply and affectingly … “
This 2021 performance of “Sister Moon” was recorded remotely for the Sanborn Sessions, an echo of host David Sanborn’s groundbreaking 1980s music TV series Night Music. The tune begins in F# melodic minor, with plenty of emphasis on the natural 7th degree of the tonic chord. 2:02 brings a shift to A# minor at the chorus, but at 2:25, we return to F# minor well before the chorus ends.
“Walk on By,” written by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David, ended up as a sizeable early-career hit for vocalist and Bacharach favorite Dionne Warwick (1964). JazzIz.com reports that it was originally a B-Side for “Any Old Time of Day,” but prominent NYC DJ Murray “The K” felt that “Walk on By” was the superior song, and played it instead.
“His insistence paid off. ‘Walk On By’ became a hit and went on to become one of Warwick’s most famous songs. It has also been covered by many artists, including numerous jazz artists, earning it jazz standard status. For example, guitarist Gábor Szabó included his own instrumental cover version of the song on his debut album as leader, Gypsy ’66 (1965). Vocalist George Benson released a jazzier version of the track on his 1968 album Giblet Gravy. More recently, it was featured on pianist and vocalist Diana Krall’s album Quiet Nights (2009). Bacharach thought of his songs as ‘three-and-a-half minute movies, with peak moments and not just one intensity level the whole way through.’”
You could listen to this tune for decades and never realize that you’ve been walked through a modulation multiple times — yet also feel that there’s a certain something which propels the song’s motion forward with unusual force. After starting in A minor, there’s a shift part-way through the verse (0:15) to the closely-related key of D minor. In keeping with Bacharach’s polished style, the shift happens just as the title is mentioned for the first time. At 0:54, we move on to verse 2 and the cycle repeats. There are many brilliant live performances of Dionne Warwick performing this classic, but we chose this one for the sound quality.
“In May 1977, a three-piece rock group from Woking appeared on Top of the Pops. You can see what happened on YouTube: the presenter announcing an ‘effervescent new 45 called In The City, and the 140 seconds of wonderment that followed,” recalls The Jam’s website. “The song fizzed with the energy and sense of purpose that was firing what had been called punk and was now mutating into New Wave, but it had a lot more: a melodic charge – as in the glorious opening riff – that betrayed its makers’ love of classic British pop, and the clear sense that the band’s main creative force was already thinking like an accomplished songwriter. Between 1977 and 1982, the band released an incredible array of music. In the UK, there were five albums and 17 singles, a stack of number 1s, and a journey which encompassed no end of influences, styles, and textures.”
The punk/New Wave/mod revivalist band was best known for hard-edged, uptempo rave-ups like the debut album title track, but also for more reserved, carefully constructed New Wave songsmithing like 1981’s “That’s Entertainment” (listed by BBC 2 radio as the 43rd best song ever released by any artist) and the UK #1 hit “A Town Called Malice.” But its spare acoustic ballad, “English Rose” (1978) shows a different side of the band, with the extra weight of invoking England’s national flower and one of the nation’s most venerated symbols. The tune was written by band member Paul Weller, who later continued his success with the soul-inflected band The Style Council, founded just as The Jam lost steam in 1982.
The track modulates up a half-step at 1:39, propelled by many unexpected inversions along the way. Many thanks to MotD regular Rob Penttinen for identifying this mod in the wild!
” … it seems improbable that a group which came together as the rhythm section for one of the hottest players in Bebop’s genesis era, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, could morph into a standalone group that was the epitome of grace, elegance and cool dignity,” AllAboutJazz.com concludes. “But that’s exactly what happened when Gillespie recruited pianist John Lewis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Kenny Clarke, giving the quartet an opportunity to shine as a discrete unit when it came time, during his sextet’s exhausting sets, to give the horns a break, calling, ‘OK, band off!’
The pairing of Lewis and Jackson proved an ideal tension, demonstrating how different musical interests can, indeed, come together to create something altogether new, the pianist’s interest in classical music dovetailing perfectly with the more overtly jazz-centric and grounded vibraphonist … A duo version of ‘Over the Rainbow’ (1956) focuses on Lewis and Jackson’s adept skill at reshaping music from external sources with Modern Jazz Quartet‘s classically informed modus operandi.”
After a piano-led intro in C major, Jackson’s vibes are the focus at 0:15 as the tune shifts to Eb major. At 1:03, we seem to retroactively discover that we’ve stumbled into Db major, but at 1:32, we’ve returned to Eb major for the balance of the tune. There’s plenty of evidence here of the ensemble’s understated yet pioneering sound: “For those operating under the misconception that the African-American jazz tradition was monolithically linked to the blues …” AllAboutJazz continues, “As far back as the 1930s, clarinetist Sidney Bechet was liberally quoting from Italian operas in his solos, but it was perhaps less obvious, less visible, than when John Lewis began looking at ways to bring the intimacy of classical chamber music to a jazz context. In direct contrast to bebop’s fire and unbridled energy, MJQ was one of the earliest examples of cool jazz.”
for Travis
“With You I’m Born Again” (1979) was “the last Top 10 charting hit of Billy Preston‘s prolific career,” Songfacts reports. “He was active in music from the 1950s into the 2000s, and was then stopped only when he lost his battle with kidney disease. This song was done in duet with Syreeta Wright, a soul and R&B singer best known for working with and being married to Stevie Wonder.”
In addition to his own hits such as “Nothing from Nothing” and “Will It Go Round in Circles,” Billy Preston was also known for playing keyboards as part of the Rolling Stones’ touring band. He was honored with the title “fifth Beatle” for his intermittent work with the Fab Four.
Songfacts continues: “‘With You I’m Born Again’ was written specifically for the film Fast Break, a very routine sports-comedy film at the tail end of the ’70s from producer Stephen J. Friedman, who made a name for himself in comedy flicks, especially sports-related ones. Today, the song is the most notable thing people remember about the film, which tells you something. Songwriting credits here go to singer Carol Connors and songwriter/composer David Shire; Shire also had a hand in the scores to the films Saturday Night Fever and Return to Oz. As for Connors, she … co-wrote the theme to the 1976 film Rocky and several songs from Disney’s the Rescuers film series.”
The 2016 book Dynamic Duets: The Best Pop Collaborations from 1955 to 1999 (Bob Leszczak) recounts a story from songwriter Connors: “The late great Marvin Hamlisch told me that he was in the barber chair when he first heard the song on the radio and stood straight up in amazement, narrowly missing getting his throat cut by the scissors.”
Starting in D minor, the tune begins with a lazy, string-sweetened rubato with a lyrical flute countermelody (0:53 – 1:13). At 1:38, a groove is finally added to the mix for the second verse as the orchestration continues to build. At 2:51, a late modulation to Eb minor crashes down on us; at 3:19, returning to a gentle rubato, we close in Eb major.
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