rock

Alanis Morissette | Head Over Feet

“During a live performance, Morissette told fans the story behind ‘Head Over Feet’ (1995), which finds the rage-fueled ‘You Oughta Know’ singer in the unfamiliar territory of a healthy relationship, (Songfacts). ‘ … When I wrote (the song) about this particular person, it was the first time that I actually had a glimpse of what it would be like to be in love and have it be something that was inducing heart palpitations, yet at the same time I could spend a couple minutes and actually not think about that person. It was very new to me.’

Creating the album was only part of the battle: Alanis didn’t have a record deal, so they were shopping it while they were recording it. They got lots of rejections before landing it with Maverick Records, Madonna’s label … ‘It’s very conversational and doesn’t adhere to any structure. I had been attempting to write without consideration for rhyming for quite a long time, and a lot of people would just stop writing with me – they would physically leave the room … ‘” Glen Ballard, a writer matched with Morissette via the record company, told Rolling Stone: “I just connected with her as a person, and, almost parenthetically, it was like ‘Wow, you’re 19?’ She was so intelligent and ready to take a chance on doing something that might have no commercial application. Although there was some question about what she wanted to do musically, she knew what she didn’t want to do, which was anything that wasn’t authentic and from her heart.”^[

Forgoing an intro and jumping right into the verse in C major, Jagged Little Pill‘s fifth single shifts up to D major for the chorus at 0:38. Verse 2 returns to the original key; the pattern continues from there. The broader-ranging harmonic structures of the chorus, including an unusual chromatic bass motion, contrasts with the cliché chord progression and more repetitive melodic phrases of the verse.

for Amy

David Bowie | Across the Universe

“Bowie’s cover of John Lennon’s ‘Across the Universe’ was a blatant, and successful, attempt to lure Lennon into the studio,” (Pushing Ahead of the Dame / BowieSongs). “Bowie and Lennon had first met in late 1974 at a small party in Bowie’s New York hotel suite. The two didn’t converse for hours until, cocaine and Cognac fueled, they began sketching caricatures of each other on notepads. Tony Visconti … recalled that the party ended with everyone in the room getting into ‘a dismally dark conversation about what does it all mean, it being life, which left us all staring dejectedly at the floor.’

About a week into New Year ’75, Bowie called up Lennon and said he was in Electric Lady Studios doing a cover of ‘Across the Universe’ (the whole thing seems like a set-up, as there was no need for another track on Young Americans; Visconti, oblivious to these developments, was in London doing string arrangements for a record he thought was completed). So Lennon went down, played acoustic guitar on ‘Universe,’ then stuck around to jam on another attempted take of ‘Foot Stompin” and wound up co-writing a #1 hit, ‘Fame.’ … It was likely a matter of Bowie being star-struck: how could he deny the temptation to include his very own Beatle collaboration? … Bowie’s interpretation seems to be a bungled attempt to mine the song’s thin vein of defiance. Calling the Beatles original ‘watery’ (no foul there), he decided instead to ‘hammer the hell out of it.‘” The reviewer doesn’t hold back: “Bowie finishes the track off with an extended tantrum … One of Bowie’s low points of the decade, just excruciatingly bad.”

After a start in D major, there’s a whole-step shift upward to E major at 1:58. Going beyond a garden-variety unprepared key change, this shift involves a metric hiccup via a stumble across a truncated measure as well.

Lords of the New Church | Live For Today

“Formed in 1981, the Lords of the New Church had a formidable intercontinental punk rock pedigree. Singer Stiv Bators and guitarist Brian James were founding members of Cleveland’s Dead Boys and London’s The Damned, respectively, both successful and influential punk pioneers (Qobuz) … But while the Lords’ music had elements of punk, it was more melodic, better-produced, and played with a higher degree of professionalism. This alienated some of the hardcore punk audience, but brought the Lords a much wider and more diverse fan base.”

LOTNC’s 1983 cover of The Grass Roots’ 1967 hit single “Live for Today” features several key changes absent from the original. Built primarily in B minor, the track shifts briefly downward to A minor for an instrumental verse at 1:47; at 2:12, the tonality climbs up two whole steps to C# minor for the balance of the tune.

Toto | Rosanna

“Each member of Toto played a part in bringing ‘Rosanna’ to fruition. Vocalist Bobby Kimball and guitarist Steve Lukather transposed the musical key so the verse and chorus could be traded between them as a duet,” (LouderSound). “(Keyboardists) Steve Porcaro and David Paich ironed out the keyboard solo at five o’clock in the morning. Late drummer Jeff Porcaro laid down a masterful shuffle inspired by John Bonham.

‘Jeff was really into Led Zeppelin,’ Lukather told Classic Rock, ‘and for ‘Rosanna’ he morphed ‘Fool In the Rain’ [from Zep’s 1979 album In Through The Out Door] with a Bernard Purdie drum groove [a renowned session drummer, Purdie invented the Purdie Shuffle]. And we took it from there.’ As former session musicians to a man, it was little surprise that Toto bottled ‘Rosanna’ fast in the studio. ‘In one afternoon we did the basic rhythm track,’ Lukather said. ‘And that first guitar solo was made up on the spot the first time we played it.'”

All the hard work certainly paid off: upon its release in the summer of 1982, the track reached US #2 and UK #12. Starting in G major, the key shifts down to F major for the second half of the verse. But the downward motion in key is muted by a rising melodic range (up a minor seventh) as the lead vocal shifts from Lukather to Kimball at 0:36.

The Beatles | Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds

“Classic rock is known for having subversive songs, dealing with taboo topics. So, it’s not all that surprising to learn that quite a few tunes from the genre were not allowed on radio stations at one time or another,” (Yahoo) ” … Far Out ranked The Beatles’ 1967 song, ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,’ as the best classic rock song ‘banned from radio.’ According to the publication, the John Lennon-penned hit, off the acclaimed record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was deemed not radio-friendly because of its initials. The official Beatles website reported that ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ was prohibited by the BBC due to theories that it was inspired by LSD. Far Out reported that Lennon stated the rumors were untrue.”

“… the Faberge psychedelic egg that was finally laid on the eve of the Summer of Love came so fully-realised that it changed the way we listened to recorded sound forever,” (BBC). “Sgt Pepper’s is at once warm and familiar, yet wild and strange … Yet what was revolutionary was the sonic carpet that enveloped the ears and sent the listener spinning into other realms.”

After the tune starts in A major, there’s a shift to Bb major for the pre-chorus at 0:32. At the 0:50 mark, the G major chorus begins, built around a repeated I-IV-V chord progression. At 1:08, the pattern repeats.

Dana Valery | You Don’t Know Where Your Interest Lies

Dana Valery was ahead of her time. She released her cover of Simon + Garfunkel’s “You Don’t Know Where Your Interest Lies” a half-year before their own version was released as the B-side to “Fakin’ It” in July 1967. There’s even a snippet of Paul Simon speaking on the recording (at 0:39). Her version is a banger!

She was born in Italy, and moved with her family to South Africa at an early age. Her brother was the famous tenor Sergio Franchi. While she recorded mostly in English, her discography includes 1963’s All’Italiana and two EPs of Italian material released in South Africa. Valery was a member of the original South African cast of the musical Wait a Minim; she later reprised her role with the London and Broadway productions of that play.

The sonic palette of this track is so expansive that it’s hard to believe its runtime is only 2:13 long! The groove of Valery’s cover version is stronger, the textures more saturated, and the tempo is faster than the original (which we’re including below). The cover’s key change is at 1:34.

Journey | Girl Can’t Help It

Journey was so ubiquitous in the 1980s that its “best of” album was ranked the #10 best selling album of that decade. Their sound was right down the fairway, defining mainstream 80s rock/pop for all time. But by 1986, the band’s fortunes began to level off. “Following the most commercially successful era for (Journey), lead singer Steve Perry firmly took control over Journey‘s musical direction,” (Classic Rock Review). “The ultimate result of this new direction was this 1986 album Raised On Radio, an album which would (at least initially) become just about as popular as their biggest earlier albums, but ultimately would symbolize the decline and fall of Journey’s successful run in through the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“‘Girl Can’t Help It’ is the best song on the album, with a direct and crisp sound … a simple but memorable piano riff, and some counter-harmonic guitars to accent it all … Following the release of Raised On Radio, Journey embarked on a tour which was initially very successful, but in early 1987 Perry suddenly and unexpectedly pulled the plug and the band was forced to cancel the rest of the tour … They would not again reconvene as a band for nearly a decade, when (they) had a short-lived comeback. But the classic band was never again the same.”

“Girl Can’t Help It” doesn’t even begin to approach the band’s top five singles list (by contrast, “Don’t Stop Believin'” has reached 2.9 billion streams on Spotify and has 13.1 million downloads and ringtone purchases). But although the former top sellers were starting to see their longtime popularity slip, their stage presence and musicality were undimmed for this 1986 performance. The band’s exquisitely blended stacked vocals (perhaps best heard at 2:40 and again at 4:04 for the a cappella outro) somehow all sounded like frontman Steve Perry. Built in A minor overall, the track shifts to C minor at 1:07 for the pre-chorus, transitioning to C major for the chorus (1:19 – 1:34) before flipping over to the relative A minor and onward from there.

Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for submitting this track!

J.D. Souther | Banging My Head Against the Moon

“It’s been said that JD Souther could have been a major artist if he had kept more of those beautiful, introspective songs he wrote for himself,” (Country Music Hall of Fame). “He had the aching tenor voice, the good looks that got him TV acting jobs … He wasn’t a star of country-rock, but he was crucial to its enduring power.

—Kyle Young, CEO, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum”

Souther wrote ‘Faithless Love’ for his then-girlfriend Linda Ronstadt and later co-wrote ‘The Best of My Love’ with Glenn Frey and Don Henley of the Eagles. He went on to write other signature Eagles hits: ‘Heartache Tonight,’ ‘New Kid in Town,’ and ‘Victim of Love.’ “Souther even had an opportunity to join the band early in their run—an experience he called being ‘an Eagle for a day.'” He summed it up by saying “‘I think they were so relieved when I said no. I’m not a very good team player.’” He had his own chart success with 1979’s “You’re Only Lonely” and then a duet with James Taylor, ‘Her Town Too.’ Looking back, he summed up his career: “’Good music really lasts a long time.’”

“Banging My Head Against the Moon,” from Souther’s 1976 release Black Rose, is built in F major overall. At 1:39, a bridge slips quickly into Db major for what starts as an instrumental bridge, later joined by vocals. At 2:00, we slip right back into F major before a return to the next verse at 2:09.

Frank Zappa | What’s New in Baltimore?

” … This looming existential dread and the small, conservative California towns in which he was raised were a powerful force against which Zappa reacted, with his music that constantly defied convention and conformity,” (Baltimore Sun). “As his former percussionist Ruth Underwood says in an interview, ‘he was a walking mass of contradictions but he was consistent in those contradictions.’ He was a wild man with a psychedelic imagination who eschewed drug use, and an anti-establishment artist with a keen sense of business acumen.

… a complicated man, an exacting artist and a wholly singular visionary. His bandmates assert that he was a demanding songwriter and bandleader, constantly striving for perfection, rare to dole out compliments. If the outsize legacy of his work bears any consistency, it’s in the purest expression of his vision, whatever that might have been. Zappa repeatedly states that he made the music that he wanted, needed, to hear … “

Zappa’s album Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention, was released in 1985. Its title was a reaction to efforts by groups such as the Parents Music Resource Center urging the US Congress to advance legislation labeling pop and rock albums featuring controversial lyrics. The initial E minor section of “What’s New in Baltimore” alternates with an E major section, first heard from 0:16 – 0:26. At 0:52, a chaotic extended multi-key midsection launches. The 2:00 mark brings us to a relatively straightforward guitar solo section in E major, written over only two chords; for a change, all mallet instruments are banned during this passage, which turns out to also be an extended outro.

David Bowie | Life on Mars

“In music, there are some songs that speak to some people, and some speak to every one of us,” (Anurag Arya). “This is a song that makes us think of escapism and disillusionment with the world: ‘Life on Mars’ by David Bowie. The song is a career-defining one for Bowie, and one of his most-covered songs. Originally appearing on his Hunky Dory album (1971), it isn’t your standard rock ballad by any means. Bowie could have easily made a four-chord hit out of this one, but instead, this song contains about twenty chords, with unusual scale and tempo changes.

… In a song with a duration of about four minutes, David Bowie made us think of life, a sense of purpose versus a tendency to escape the real world, and commercialism with vivid imagery and a beautiful melody. No wonder his genius lives on even after his death: Among the generic and commercial tropes within pop music, David Bowie managed to cut through the clutter and redefine songwriting musically and lyrically.”

After beginning in E major, 0:42 brings us to a transitional pre-chorus with plenty of pivots in tonality. But at 0:58, we land squarely in A major for the chorus. After another unsettled section — this time an instrumental interlude (1:38 – 1:53), another E major verse returns. The pattern continues from there, with the tune ending with a return to A major.

Many thanks to Mark B. for submitting this tune — his fifth contribution to MotD!