pop

Sting | All This Time

“On the singer/songwriter side (to use the term in a strictly idiomatic sense), The Soul Cages (1991) marks the first time Sting fully divorced himself from his Police-era approach to writing,” (RockAndRollGlobe). “Sure, there were plenty of arty, harmonically sophisticated pieces on his first two solo records, but there were also songs with more groove-based settings that you could imagine as part of the Police continuum. There are none of those holdovers from Sting’s previous life here. Opinions will vary as to whether that’s a good or bad thing, but Sting stands or falls here as a man owing nothing to his past. And even his artiest applications of craft oThe Soul Cages feel more organic than they did his previous couple of times at bat.

Stylistically, Sting’s M.O. seems closer to the contemporaneous output of Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell or even Leonard Cohen than anything else. The free-flowing phrasing and poetic language spilling out over a solid rhythmic base on the album’s biggest single, “All This Time,” sure seems to suggest some quality time spent assimilating Simon’s Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints … A strong case can also be made for The Soul Cages as a sneaky sashay into prog territory. First of all, it’s a freakin’ concept album. Something about Sting’s late father always wanting to be a sailor — don’t worry about it, he probably made more sense of the maritime themes when he wrote his musical, The Last Ship, a couple of decades later. It makes more sense than Jethro Tull did on Thick as a Brick, and that’s a masterpiece, so there you go.”

All this time / The river flowed / Endlessly to the sea … If I had my way /
I’d take a boat from the river …

The cheerful feel and relentlessly major-key tonality of “All This Time” belie the tune’s existential weightiness. At 3:15, there’s an unprepared whole-step upward shift in key.

Aztec Camera | Good Morning Britain

“‘When I was 13 years old, I was a real Mick Jones, Joe Strummer freak. I used to go and see them in the Glasgow Apollo and stand in the front row,’ pipes Aztec Camera singer, songwriter, and all around chief Roddy Frame,” (KillermontStreet). The Scottish songwriter reported “‘Recently I got to meet Mick because we played the same kind of festivals together and we got to hang out. He was just such a positive guy, I called him guru Mick and we talked a lot about the state of the nation,’ he continues. ‘I was quite negative about the things in Britain and he was saying yeah, but there’s more to life than that.

So I went home and wrote this song for him in about 45 minutes. I said, Mick, this sounds so much like the Clash that you’re either gonna sue me or you’re going to wanna sing on it, and he wanted to sing, so it was fantastic.'” Aztec Camera’s 1990 release Stray features the resulting single, “Good Morning Britain.”

The pop/rock track, which certainly sounds like The Clash (or its younger cousin, Big Audio Dynamite) shifts up a full step at 2:25.

Olivia Newton-John | A Little More Love

“In a recording career that spanned over five decades, Olivia Newton-John, the singer, actress, environmentalist, and animal rights activist, won four Grammy Awards, had five #1 hit singles, and several platinum-selling singles and albums.” After her initial singles in the mid-70s, Newton-John’s 1978 star turn in Grease also produced three Top 5 hits: “You’re the One That I Want” (with John Travolta), “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” and “Summer Nights.” Newton-John followed Grease with Xanadu, “whose soundtrack went double platinum. With Totally Hot, released in November 1978, Newton-John had … a top-ten album and a #4 hit, ‘A Little More Love.’

‘A Little More Love’ is a song recorded and released as a single in October 1978 … (it) became a worldwide top-ten hit single in 1979,” (JohnPWalshBlog). “Both the new album and single were another wildly successful collaboration for Olivia Newton-John and John Farrar, her record producer and songwriter in the 1970s and 1980s.” The track ranked #17 in 1979’s year-end singles rankings.

The tune starts in G minor, cycles through some uneven harmonic ground during its pre-chorus (heard for the first time at 0:32), and arrives at its chorus in Ab major. At 1:20, the return of the verse brings a drop back into G minor. The pattern continues from there. Two years before the advent of MTV and a million miles away from any chill New Wave energy, the band mugs shamelessly for the camera. Newton-John seems to happily be in on the joke, too — or perhaps she was simply happy to leave both her early country/pop ballad tracks and her famous 1950s movie persona in the rear view.

The Chuck-a-Lucks | Dingbat Diller

“The Chuck-A-Lucks … first started singing together at Amarillo College immediately after World War II, and then moved to Denton, TX, where the three of them enrolled in North Texas State College,” (AllMusic). “They were known as the Dipsy Doodlers for a time, and turned semi-professional after becoming popular on the North Texas State campus.

… By 1953, the trio were forced to give up the name Dipsy Doodlers, owing to the large number of other acts using it by then. They chose the Chuck-A-Lucks, and they began working around Texas and building a following for their mix of vocalizing and comedy, which made them very popular. The trio was working the area around Ft. Worth when they were discovered by Joe Leonard and signed to his Lin Records label out of Gainesville, TX. The Chuck-A-Lucks eventually evolved into a duo … and kept working a very lucrative string of gigs in clubs throughout the United States right up through 1972. Their act was much more oriented toward comedy than music, especially as time went by, being a kind of a country/right-wing version of the Smothers Brothers as satirists — their 1967 live album, cut for Shannon Records, the label owned by Mary Reeves, the widow of Jim Reeves, is notable today for its jokes at the expense of hippies, homosexuals, and others considered ‘alien’ to the southern/western audience they appealed to. The group reunited in 1996 for a 50th anniversary show in Texas.”

Their 1963 track, “Dingbat Diller,” was released on Motown Records. The tune shifts up a half step at 1:19 and 1:33, but the fast swing feel and the tight vocal harmonies are the main features.

Roachford | Cuddly Toy

The band Roachford was centered around vocalist Andrew Roachford … ‘I got lucky enough to start gigging when I was about 14,” (Forgotten-Songs.com). “I was in the middle of that whole jazz scene, which was an interesting education. It taught me musically, how to listen and how to entertain. My uncle always told me that you had to give people a show.’

… Roachford was discovered by fellow performer Terence Trent D’Arby, for whom (Roachford’s) group opened at one point in 1988. This led to a contract with Columbia/CBS (depending on where in the world one was) … British singer Beverley Knight, when remaking the album’s biggest hit, said: ‘Roachford showed a cynical British media that British soul could also be fused with a rockier sound and not only work, but be a global hit. This, as well as many of his songs, influenced my own writing style.’

… ‘Cuddly Toy’ was re-released in early 1989 and became a top five hit” in the UK. “It was just after this success that Columbia released the single in the US, adding a subtitle and calling it ‘Cuddly Toy (Feel For Me).’ The track entered Billboard’s Hot 100 at a very modest #97 for the week ending April 15, 1989,” eventually peaked at #25, and stayed on the chart for 14 weeks.

Built in an uptuned F minor overall, the track shifts upwards to Bb minor during its short instrumental bridge (1:59 – 2:10).

Thomas Dolby | To the Lifeboats

“As recently conjectured by Mark Fisher’s audio-essay On Vanishing Land, the Suffolk (UK) coastline is a haunted landscape, littered with the relics of past conflicts, awash with ghosts and subject to the ever-intensifying erosion of the tides,” (The Quietus). “Electronic music pioneer Thomas Dolby is intimately acquainted with the strange magic of the place, having spent a sizeable portion of his childhood under its spell.”

Thomas Dolby’s extensive 2013 UK tour featured “a live soundtrack to his new film, The Invisible Lighthouse. This highly personal work was inspired by the closing of Orford Ness lighthouse, whose beam has illuminated the shingles since 1792. ‘It’s a love letter to this part of England,’ explains Dolby, who moved from California back to Suffolk in the latter part of the last decade. “It’s not the picture postcard England that we usually export to the rest of the world. It’s a fairly bleak place, and it has this eerie atmosphere. East Anglia is always the frontline when there’s an invasion threatening, so there are lumps of concrete dissolving into sand, bits of barbed wire and tank tracks that act as a constant reminder.’

On his return to East Anglia, Dolby set up studio in a solar and wind-powered 1930s lifeboat christened The Nutmeg Of Consolation. Here, docked on the very edge of England, he recorded his first album of original material for almost 20 years, A Map of the Floating City (2011). ‘The album really absorbed the atmosphere,’ he says. ‘I was immersed in it, surrounded by it, 360 degrees.’

The album’s East Anglian influence is felt most strongly on ‘To the Lifeboats’ … an elegy … for a future England finally engulfed by the waves.” Beginning in a quiet-textured A minor, the tune shifts to the parallel A major at 1:33, announcing a much denser chorus. 2:18 brings an instrumental verse, this time in F# minor, leading back to a vocal verse in the original A minor that seems nonetheless new.

Tim Minchin | I Wouldn’t Like You

“I Wouldn’t Like You,” from Australian comedian/musician Tim Minchin’s 2025 release Time Machine, “begins as a tender piano ballad, gently unfolding with Minchin’s signature lyrical wit and emotional nuance, before gradually building into a more guitar-driven, alt-rock finish,” (Amnplify). “At its heart, the track is a wry and quietly romantic ode to loving someone exactly as they are, quirks, contradictions and all. With lines like ‘I wouldn’t like you if you weren’t like you,‘ Minchin delivers a love song that’s both offbeat and sincere, playfully rejecting perfection in favour of authenticity. It’s equal parts dry humour and heartfelt truth, wrapped in a deceptively simple melody that swells with feeling as the track evolves.

Tim Minchin said: ‘Of all the tunes on this record that have been reinvented, this one has had the most successful vibe update. I always thought this was a keeper, but now with Evan’s loping groove, and the pure undeniable jank of Jak’s guitar in the chorus… I love it.’ The track adds a new layer to the growing portrait painted by Time Machine, a curated anthology of previously unreleased material. This collection of 11 songs offers a glimpse into the mind of the songwriter Tim was before global acclaim, showcasing a raw, witty, and deeply human side of his artistry.”

The intro verses are built in Bb major; the pre-chorus (0:49) and brief chorus (1:14) shift to the closely-related key of Eb major. At 1:26, the cycle repeats.

Tears for Fears | Sowing the Seeds of Love

UK-based Tears for Fears’ third studio album was The Seeds of Love (1989). “Kicked off with the release of the titular single, Tears For Fears presented a new sound that drew strongly from the influence of The Beatles with a track that was at once deliberately nostalgic and fully present,” (Albumism). “An epic ode to the musical influence and production brilliance of the fab four (five if you include George Martin, and you should) “Sowing the Seeds of Love” plays to the strengths of Tears For Fears’ songwriting, weaving a tapestry of captivating melodies and sing-along lyrics that carry a serious undertone.

With a jubilant energy, it flourishes with kaleidoscopic production that transcends being a grab-all of Beatles production and becomes a joyful exuberance that is all its own. But anyone expecting a TFF meets Sgt. Pepper’s album was pleasantly surprised as The Seeds of Love unfurls. Pushing beyond the Beatles-esque psychedelia, the album embraces tones of soul, jazz, pop, world music and orchestral flourishes.”

Starting in G minor for the verse, the tune transitions to C major for chorus (heard for the first time at 0:40). At 0:57, verse 2 returns to G minor. At 1:48, a sprawling multi-section bridge unfolds: an instrumental interlude shifts into F major, shifting into a bridge with vocals at 2:22. At 3:12, a primarily instrumental chorus turns on the hot-and-cold running “Penny Lane”-era Beatles taps in full, complete with a sprightly trumpet feature in C major. 3:29 brings yet another bridge section to the table, this time in A minor. 3:59 provides a new section, returning to G minor; the harmonic material suggests another verse, but the melody and lyric structure are different from the initial verses, providing what might as well be a central tenet of the band’s trademark focus on self awareness: time to eat all your words / swallow your pride / open your eyes. At 4:49, the C major chorus makes its triumphant return. This track is arguably the most vivid section of The Seeds of Love, perhaps Tears for Fears’ most multi-layered canvas.

Matt Boyd | Where Are You Christmas? (feat. Katherine McPhee & Pia Toscano)

The Nashville-based singer Matt Boyd covered “Where Are You Christmas?” for his holiday EP Feels Like Christmas, released earlier this year. The track features former American Idol contestants Katherine McPhee and Pia Toscano. The song starts in Bb, shifts to C at 2:33, and moves to D at 2:50.

Tavito | Tua Ramalhete

“One of the members of Som Imaginário, a band organized to back Milton Nascimento in the ’70s and which also accompanied Gal Costa and other artists, Tavito had his song ‘Hey Man’ (with Zé Rodrix) successfully recorded by the group on its first LP. In 1973 he became a music producer,” (AllMusic). “In 1979 he recorded his first solo album, Tavito, followed by two others recorded before 1982. His biggest hit was ‘Casa no Campo’ (with Zé Rodrix), recorded by Elis Regina in 1971, and ‘Rua Ramalhete’ (with Ney Azambuja)” in 1979.

In the central Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte is a street called Rua Ramalhete (Bouquet Street). The area is well known for its romantic setting, where couples often stroll in the evenings. Tavito lived nearby; a plaque recognizing his work has been placed on a wall overlooking the street.

Online information about Tavito is sparse, but the same can’t be said for his arrangements! After “Tua Ramalhete” starts in E minor, 0:37 brings a pre-chorus leading to a chorus at 0:56 in C# major and a harmonically meandering interlude. At 1:36, E minor returns for another verse. The pattern continues from there. Many thanks to our frequent contributor, Julianna A. from Brazil, for submitting this beautiful tune!