Tag: UK

Cole Fortier | Such Unlikely Lovers (Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach)

Here’s a first: a submission which not only includes an exacting level of theory detail, but is a live performance by the contributor, leading a quartet! Cole Fortier is an undergrad at the SUNY’s Crane School of Music. Thank you for such a detailed description of this genius tune’s structure, Cole!

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From Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello’s masterwork album, Painted from Memory (1998), comes the track “Such Unlikely Lovers.” It’s a truly unique and incredible song for many reasons.

First, it seems to be the one lyric on the album where everything goes right for the main character! While this album is an epic and stunning meditation on heartbreak, the upbeat and colorful narrative of this song brings the variation of levity and charm to the ordeal. Costello said that he heard the music that Bacharach presented to him for this track and immediately envisioned a lyric based around a chance romantic encounter on the street. The sense of spontaneity, optimism, and energy in the lyric is reflected so excitingly in the music. This song grooves so hard — more than almost any other song on the album. The constantly shifting tonality and subtle meter changes (a Bacharach trademark) truly embody the spontaneous spirit that drives the song.

As the song begins, it’s difficult to discern the key; the riff essentially vamps between a Gsus chord and an Fsus chord (Eb/F to be specific). The vocal then enters on a C minor chord, which contextualizes the previous Eb/F chord as being a part of the key signature of C minor. More specifically, this section of the song can be interpreted as C Dorian with the raised sixth scale degree of the A natural. The most intriguing harmonic shift happens very quickly though as an F#min7 chord occurs on the word “gray” (0:24) and subsequently resolves to a Bmin9 chord. This modulation from C minor to B minor is masterfully handled through carrying over the common tone of the A natural from the C Dorian mode to the F#min7 chord. The entire modulatory sequence repeats again at the lyrics “when you look how you feel” (0:30) — but this time, the song continues on in a tonality much more closely associated with B minor than C minor (starting at “Listen now”, 0:40). After the chorus, the opening riff returns at 1:17. Weirdly enough though, the opening riff is played 2.5 steps down and is never played in its original tonality again.

The smooth and nuanced modulation patterns in “Such Unlikely Lovers” through the use of common tones really show the genius of Bacharach’s writing while also supporting the energized and spontaneous lyric that Costello wrote. 

Il Divo | Adagio in G Minor

Featured on the classical/pop crossover group Il Divo’s fifth studio album, The Promise (2008), “Adagio in G Minor” is based on a manuscript written by Venetian baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni in the 18th century, which musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto discovered and expanded upon. The piece has been used in many films and TV shows, most recently in the 2018 installment of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series American Crime Story, focused on the assassination of Gianni Versace.

Il Divo’s arrangement begins in C# minor, modulates up to D minor at 2:36, and lands in F# minor at 3:28.

Jessie J | I Want Love

English singer/songwriter Jessie J released “I Want Love” as a single in June 2021. “I had an argument with a bf once after a major red carpet. I went to a bar where I didn’t know anyone and I danced alone until sunrise,” she said describing the inspiration behind the song and subsequent music video.

“I took a shot with strangers and I talked to myself in the mirror in the bathroom,” she continued. “My tough exterior that I so often use as a defense mechanism went away, my heart softened. My fear left the room and I just let go. That’s what this song this video means and represents to me… I wanted this video to feel like I felt like that night.”

Beginning in Ab minor, the tune abruptly shifts up a half step to A for the final chorus at 2:43.

Jon + Vangelis | Italian Song

“Greek composer Vangelis was one of the most influential figures in the history of electronic music and as a composer of film scores,” (AllMusic). “His popular work utilized synthesizers in an orchestral manner, featuring romantic melodies and lush arrangements. However, his oeuvre encompassed many genres, from progressive rock and jazz improvisation to choral and symphonic music.

He achieved international mainstream success for his triumphant theme music to the 1981 film Chariots of Fire and several collaborations with former Yes vocalist Jon Anderson as Jon & Vangelis.” The composer, who died last week at the age of 79, found his largest success in his score for the massively influential dystopian science fiction film Blade Runner (1982). The Guardian describes the score as “a stunning sonic panorama of the fragmented, alienated world that (director Ridley Scott) depicted on the screen, where advances in technology were matched by the decay of human emotions. His music became almost like an extra character in the development of the story.”

Vangelis’ joint release with British singer Jon Anderson, 1983’s “Italian Song,” modulates several times and features a sonic palette which overlaps with the Blade Runner score in timbre but not in mood; the impression that the track leaves in its wake is one of a celestial lullabye. The first shift in tonality (0:37) is from F major to A major.

Simply Red | Enough

Sweetwater.com defines sophisti-pop as “the 80s’ most elegant genre … combining pop sensibilities with refined arrangements that were inspired by jazz, avant-garde classical music, and soul … looking simultaneously to the past and the future.”

Mick Hucknall, frontman for UK band Simply Red, fits the genre well: ” … in love with ‘60s soul, which he gives a high-tech overhaul and an ‘80s pop gloss,” (LA Times, reviewing the 1989 album A New Flame). “Refracted through the Hucknall filter, some of the hard-core earthiness of the style doesn’t survive. Hucknall has created a hybrid that’s laid-back and maybe just a little too slick — but still teeming with understated passion … Most of the album’s music is dreamily romantic and fairly mellow. One of the best songs is “Enough,” which reflects the fragile, wispy style of Marvin Gaye’s great What’s Going On album.”

As an album closer and a non-single, “Enough” was granted plenty of freedom. The percolating bassline and syncopated keyboard kicks of the verse, starting in C minor, open into a more uncomplicated chorus in Ab major (0:54); the cycle repeats at 1:12. At 2:25, a bridge appears (or second chorus, as we hear it more than once?), with its lead vocal featuring only a few emphatically repeated words (the title among them). At 2:43, an instrumental verse and chorus are home to piano and guitar features, followed by an outro featuring a lithe soprano sax at 4:21; all set a tone which wouldn’t be out of place at a jazz club, yet also for a time had a place on the pop charts.

Louise Cordet | Laisse Le Soleil Sécher Tes Larmes

English singer Louise Cordet had one big UK-charting hit, “I’m Just a Baby,” in 1962. Her parents were both French-born, and she attended a French lycée in London. So she was not only a singer, but also a *chanteuse* — she had Decca releases in both the UK and France.

The song “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” was written for Cordet by Gerry Marsden, and her version was the first released, in February 1964. Nonetheless, the Pacemakers’ version, released in April, became an international hit.

Using the same backing track, she also recorded the version here, with French lyrics. Translated literally, the title means “Let the sun dry your tears”.

The song starts in B, and modulates to C at 1:20.

English Beat | She’s Going

“The English Beat is a band with an energetic mix of musical styles and a sound like no other,” (NPR Music). “The band’s unique sound has allowed it to endure for decades and appeal to fans, young and old, all over the world. When The English Beat (known simply as The Beat in their native England) rushed on to the music scene in 1979, it was a time of massive social and political unrest and economic and musical upheaval. This set the stage for a period of unbridled musical creativity, and thanks in large part to the Punk movement and its DIY approach to making music, artists like The Beat were able to speak out and speak their mind on the news of the day, as in ‘Stand Down Margaret’, things that mattered to them and the youth culture, as in ‘Get A Job’, and universal matters of the heart and soul, as in their classic hits ‘I Confess’ and ‘Save It For Later’.”

Massachusetts-based ArtsFuse reviewed a 2019 performance in Lowell, MA: “(The band has) always embraced both love and social justice in its music, from joy to anger. Now in its 40th year, the Birmingham, England-bred band was born in the punk movement but based its messages and beats in ska … to form what was called the two-tone movement in England. The result was highly danceable and lyrically edgy.”

1982’s “She’s Going” packs all of that edginess into a track which clocks in at just barely over two minutes, yet seems anything but incomplete. After a start in B major, 1:00 brings an instrumental break which goes airborne at 1:17, quickly shifting through several keys and landing us in E major for a frenetic closing verse and chorus.

Average White Band | You’re My Number One

Released in 1982, “You’re My Number One” was a track from the Average White Band’s album Cupid’s In Fashion. ” … the group decided to keep things a bit funkier on this release … ” (Soulfinger). ” … they brought in some cool cats like Dan Hartman to write ‘You’re My Number One’. Say what you will about Hartman, but that man can make a fun song … AWB could do LA pop without losing their soul … “

Hartman is perhaps best known for his own release “I Can Dream About You” (which reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984 and #12 on the UK Singles chart in 1985). He wrote and/or produced many other successful tunes for other artists, including “Living in America” for James Brown (1986), as well as tracks for a wide-ranging list of artists including The Plasmatics, Steve Winwood, Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Dusty Springfield, and Bonnie Tyler. Hartman passed away from HIV in 1994 at the age of only 43.

1980s LA pop could hardly have a better standard-bearer than this track. Its funk foundation, nimble horn section, glossy production, and an entire instrumental verse devoted to a sax solo all belie the fact that Average White Band is from … Scotland! The modulation kicks in at 1:46.

Bros | When Will I Be Famous?

Rolling Stone Australia gathered a list of “75 Greatest Boy Band Songs of All Time” in 2020: “Irresistibly catchy, unapologetically inauthentic, sexy and they know it — the boy band is the most fabulously pre-fab of all musical outfits. From the scripted TV shenanigans of the Monkees to the charming folkiness of One Direction, as long as there are junior high school notebooks to deface, there will be outfits providing pop spectacle in its purest, least filtered form.”

Coming in at #72 on the list is the 1987 track from UK-based trio Bros, “When Will I Be Famous?” The group “epitomized the late Eighties Young Conservative air of steely determination: money, power, and success at any cost. Twins Matt and Luke Goss, along with schoolmate Craig Logan, prioritized fame and fashion over brotherly bonhomie (the increasingly sidelined Logan quit, then sued the brothers). The mean streak in their lyrics, their distinctive crewcuts and bomber jackets, and their penchant for wearing Grolsch bottlecaps on their shoes made them ripe for parody and vitriol in the press … Britain had seen nothing like it since the Bay City Rollers … the Casio cowbell serves as the instant timewarp back to 1987.”

At 2:47, the relentless electronic groove downshifts a bit in terms of intensity and loudness, but goes on to add even more ruthless layers of synth shimmer instead. By its end, the bridge has tapered down to a percussion and vocals-only break. Next, the band heaves itself through a stuttering, meter-shifted portal at 3:34 before regaining its balance (just in case you didn’t notice the half-step key change).

Many thanks to regular contributor Ziyad for this submission!

VOCES8 | This is My Song (Finlandia, Jean Sibelius)

We usually feature an up-tempo track on Fridays. But in light of this week’s invasion of Ukraine, focusing on music’s ability to bolster our common humanity seemed like the best choice for today.

“Finlandia is probably the most widely known of all the compositions of Jean Sibelius,” (This is Finland). “Most people with even a superficial knowledge of classical music recognise the melody immediately. The penultimate hymn-like section is particularly familiar; soon after it was published, the ‘Finlandia Hymn’ was performed with various words as far afield as the USA.”

In 1899, Sibelius composed the music “for a series of tableaux illustrating episodes in Finland´s past … a contribution towards the resistance (against) Russian influence … While Finland was still a Grand Duchy under Russia, performances within the empire had to take place under the covert title of “Impromptu” … In Finland, the ‘Finlandia Hymn’ was not sung until Finnish words for it were written by the opera singer Wäinö Sola in 1937. After the Russian aggression against Finland in 1939 (the Winter War), the Finnish poet V.A. Koskenniemi supplied a new text, the one that has been used ever since. Sibelius arranged the Hymn for mixed choir as late as 1948.”

Keith Bosley’s English translation of Koskenniemi´s text:

Finland, behold, thy daylight now is dawning,
the threat of night has now been driven away.
The skylark calls across the light of morning,
the blue of heaven lets it have its way,
and now the day the powers of night is scorning:
thy daylight dawns, O Finland of ours!

Finland, arise, and raise towards the highest
thy head now crowned with mighty memory.
Finland, arise, for to the world thou criest
that thou hast thrown off thy slavery,
beneath oppression´s yoke thou never liest.
Thy morning´s come, O Finland of ours!

The lyrics most frequently used in modern-day protest and worship settings were updated yet again by Lloyd Stone. The third verse is attributed to Georgia Harkness:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song*

This contemporary arrangement of the piece (2021), performed by British vocal octet ensemble VOCES8, is by the group’s tenor, Blake Morgan. VOCES8 “is proud to inspire people through music and share the joy of singing. Touring globally, the group performs an extensive repertoire both in its a cappella concerts and in collaborations with leading orchestras, conductors and soloists. Versatility and a celebration of diverse musical expression are central to the ensemble’s performance and education ethos.” The Guardian describes the ensemble’s sound as “the beauty of perfectly blended unblemished voices.”

After beginning in G# major, there is a modulation up to B major at 2:36. Many thanks to Jackie D. for bringing this arrangement to our attention!