Tag: UK

Sweet Dreams | I’m Never Giving Up

According to SongsforEurope.com, the group Sweet Dreams was convened specifically to perform “I’m Never Giving Up” in A Song for Europe 1983, the United Kingdom’s preliminary round to the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest. The BBC reported that “on the night of Eurovision 1983, held at Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle in Munich, Sweet Dreams performed third in a field of twenty. They finished the contest in sixth place.”

From Eurovision.tv: “The host for the evening was Marlene Charell, who presented the show in three languages: German, French and English. Due to the trilingual presentation, the contest lasted more than three hours for the first time ever.”

One of MotD’s earliest supporters, HC from Copenhagen, submitted this track years ago. But the message unfortunately got stuck in the bottom of the clunky inbox system for Facebook pages and was essentially lost for nearly a decade. HC’s take on the tune: “Here’s one I particularly like, complete with bar stool choreography. Everything about this song is awesome: jogging costumes, catchy chorus, full orchestra in 144 bpm shuffle, inside-a-toaster scenography, the ass-shake ending … Only Great Britain in the 80s!”

The tune starts at the 0:40 mark. After plenty of reiterations of a sprightly hook from the flute and piccolo, an upward whole-step modulation hits (3:04) after colliding with a downward synth glissando, the aforementioned bar stool move, and a two-beat suspension of the frenetic groove. Many thanks to HC for this submission — and for his supreme patience!

TinWhistler | Down By The Sally Gardens

“Down By The Sally Gardens” is a traditional Irish folk song based on a poem by W.B Yeats, performed here by the duo TinWhistler. “We’re PJ and JJ, two brothers from the Mediterranean island of Mallorca,” they say in the description of their group on YouTube. “We mostly play traditional Irish music but also other kinds of “Celtic music”: Scottish, Breton, Galician, Asturian… Mostly on Irish tin whistles/low whistles (PJ) and guitar (JJ).” You can learn more and order their album on their Bandcamp page. Key change at 2:12.

Tears for Fears (feat. Oleta Adams) | Woman in Chains

After their early 80s hits (“Pale Shelter,” “Change,” and the original version of “Mad World,” prominently covered by Gary Jules), UK duo Tears for Fears caught the peak of the New Wave with the international smash album Songs from the Big Chair. Released in 1985, Songs included three singles which went into the Top 20 in the UK, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia — and straight to the top of the US charts: “Shout” (#1), “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (#1), and “Head Over Heels” (#3).

After the huge success of Songs, the band released the platinum-selling album The Seeds of Love in 1989. The title track, a quirky, upbeat stylistic omnibus which seemed to update the psychedelic sound for the 90s, provided no clues about the second single. “Woman in Chains” cracked the top 20 only in Canada and the Netherlands — but the track didn’t seem to have been designed for heavy radio airplay, not least because of its 6.5-minute run time. The band, whose very name was inspired by primal therapy, never shied away from heavier subject matter — and “Women in Chains” was no exception. Songfacts reports lead singer and songwriter Roland Orzabal’s reflection on the song: “I was reading some feminist literature at the time and I discovered that there are societies in the world still in existence today that are non-patriarchal … these societies are a lot less violent, a lot less greedy and there’s generally less animosity … but the song is also about how men traditionally play down the feminine side of their characters and how both men and women suffer for it … ”

The studio track featured Pino Palladino on fretless bass and Phil Collins on drums as well as showcasing the powerful, expressive alto of Oleta Adams, who would go on to score her career-making hit “Get Here” in 1991. Adams “influenced the album before she ever agreed to be on it,” continues Songfacts. “The duo watched Adams perform in Kansas City. ‘We were both knocked out by her emotional power,’ Orzabal recalled. ‘She just cut through the intellect and got straight to the heart. It made us realize that all the machinery and the complicatedness we were using were not allowing the expression to come through. It made me go back to the drawing board; it made me want to use real instruments and real soulful vocals.'”

After adding layer after layer of ostinato onto a few repeating sections, 4:00 brings a bridge and a quieter sound, suggesting a potential ending. But a resounding return drops at 4:42, complete with a massive whole-step modulation.

For Forever (from “Dear Evan Hansen”)

Pasek & Paul’s 6-time Tony Award-winning, blockbuster 2016 musical Dear Evan Hansen opened in London in November 2019 before closing the following March due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it is scheduled to re-open this October. English actor Sam Tutty plays the title character in the production, and is featured here singing “For Forever” with three other Evans: Andrew Barth Feldman from Broadway, Robert Markus from Toronto, and Stephen Christopher Anthony from the national tour. The show’s music supervisor Alex Lacamoire produced and arranged the vocals, Dillon Kondor wrote the guitar arrangement, and Tim Basom and Ethan Pakchar accompanied for this performance.

A film adaptation of the musical, starring Ben Platt who originated the role of Evan, will be released this September. Key changes at 2:47 and 3:49.

The Struts | Where Did She Go

“Where Did She Go” is the final track on the 2014 album Everybody Wants, the debut release by the English rock band The Struts. The group, comprised of vocalist Luke Spiller, guitarist Adam Slack, bassist Jed Elliot, and drummer Gethin Davies, count Queen, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson among their influences; they released their third album, Strange Days, last fall. Key change at 3:11.

The Specials | Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)

“The Specials were the fulcrum of the ska revival of the late ’70s, kick-starting the 2-Tone movement that spurred a ska-punk revolution lasting for decades,” AllMusic reports. “As influential as they were within the realm of ska, the group and its impact can’t be reduced to that genre alone. The Specials were one of the defining British bands of new wave, expanding the musical and political parameters of rock & roll … (the) 2-Tone label (was) named for its multiracial agenda and after the two-tone tonic suits favored by the like-minded mods of the ’60s.” Originally performed by Guy Lombardo, the big band leader made famous by his multi-year televised New Year’s Eve gig, the tune was later covered by Jamaican singer Prince Buster before it reached The Specials’ repertoire in 1980.

This party tune isn’t entirely representative of the band’s full repertoire, which also includes a marked focus on social justice. The Guardian describes the 21st century version of The Specials at a reunion tour show in 2019: “Their ranks diminished by death and fallings out, the trio are part nostalgia act, part wrathful fighters for fairness, who walk on to a stage decorated with signs reading ‘Vote’, ‘Resist’, ‘Think’ and, incongruously, ‘Listen to Sly and the Family Stone’ … this highly influential group have found their feet again in an era that encourages activism and increasingly reviles apathy … The Specials’ 40-year campaign against injustice resounds down the generations.”

A whole-step modulation appears at 2:22. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob Penttinen for this tune!

Graham Rorie | Babiche

“Orcadian fiddle and mandolin player Graham Rorie is an award-winning folk musician based in Glasgow,” his site reports. “A finalist in the 2021 BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year and graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Traditional Music Degree, Graham has been making a name for himself as a performer, composer, session musician and producer.”

The bio continues: “While still in the early stages of his career, Graham has gained a wealth of performance experience appearing at festivals including Glasgow’s Celtic Connections, Celtic Colours (Canada), Festival Interceltique de Lorient (France) and Celtica Valle D’Aosta (Italy).” The piece “Babiche” is part of “a new suite of music composed by Rorie to tell the story of Orcadians who traveled to Northern Canada between 1600 and 1900 to work for The Hudson’s Bay Company. Orcadians, according to the history website Orkneyjar, are “the indigenous inhabitants of the Orkney islands of Scotland. Historically, they are descended from the Picts, Norse, and Scots.”

Starting in E major, a middle section in an inversion-heavy C# major (2:14) returns triumphantly to the main melody and original key at 2:54. Many thanks to our champion contributor JB for submitting this tune!

George Michael | Cowboys and Angels

After his breakthrough as 1980s pop/dance royalty with his duo Wham!, UK artist George Michael later released the smash hit 1987 solo release Faith. The album became Billboard‘s #1 Album of 1988 and won multiple top industry awards in the UK, the US, Japan, and more, selling more than 20 million copies worldwide. The album also spawned the iconic black-and-white video for the single “Father Figure,” which went on to win many more awards of its own.

In the wake of the mammoth success of Faith, Michael released the unexpectedly understated Listen Without Prejudice, Volume 1 in 1990. Michael didn’t officially come out as a gay man until 1998, but his sexual orientation was nonetheless an open secret. Pitchfork reported: “Something was happening that autumn to gay artists closeted from their fans … In its original form, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 was the follow-up that Faith demanded; in this new incarnation, it’s a miscellany unruffled by notions of coherence, an attempt to make art out of George Michael’s quarrels with himself. Never again would these quarrels work to such bounteous ends.” Michael went on to release several more albums through 2004, but was felled by heart failure on Christmas Day 2016 at the age of only 53.

The fast jazz waltz feel of “Cowboys and Angels” beautifully supports Michael’s broad harmonic sense, lyrical melody, and adroit arranging. Meanwhile, the lyrics traverse one of his favorite themes: the possibility of finding true romance and companionship despite great odds. The barely submerged subtext: spiking HIV fatalities, which wouldn’t see a peak for a few more years, muddied the waters yet further. The track was the first of Michael’s singles to miss the UK top 40 charts, peaking at #45.

Starting in Bb minor, the tune shifts to C minor at 2:37, reverts to Bb minor at 3:01, and drops into a clear emphasis on the relative major (Db) for a bridge at 4:57. More repetition of sections follows, ending in C minor.

Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach | In the Darkest Place

“‘Alfie,’ ‘What the World Needs Now,’ ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ — the list goes on,” reports NPR. “He’s written 73 Top 40 hits, along with musical comedies and other collaborations. He’s won Oscars and the Gershwin Prize. His songs are often poised on the edge between poignancy and joy, or sometimes the reverse.”

Trunkworthy describes 1998’s Painted from Memory, a collaboration between Bacharach and Elvis Costello, as bringing out the best in both songwriters: ” … it makes perfect sense that collaborating with one of (Costello’s) biggest influences would result in one of the most meticulously arranged albums in his entire career … Painted From Memory feels like Elvis deliberately writing from the viewpoint of someone who isn’t him but whom he hopes may be you … the songwriting on this record feels very much in the spirit of professionalism: exercises in manipulation, in putting feelings and words together such that they channel a universality which transcends the limitations of any one person’s experience … The sum of this artistic one + one is more than strictly musical. By coming together when they did, each man underwent a kind of recalibration whereby the sheen of kitsch acquired by Bacharach’s body of work since his ’60s heyday was stripped away, and Costello, then in his mid-40s, shed the last lingering remnants of his image as an angry young man.” The composition process between the songwriters ties the album indelibly to the 1990s: the tunes were written through multiple drafts sent back and forth via transatlantic FAX.

Bacharach’s harmonic sense is enough of a feast for any listener, but he brings more to the table. Early in his career, Bacharach studied composition and orchestration with Darius Milhaud, a French composer known for a melange of jazz and Brazilian sounds combined with more traditional classical structures. Milhaud, a member of the informal yet influential guild of composers (Les Six) bound together by a reverence for Eric Satie, likely had a sizeable influence on Bacharach. Bacharach’s comfort with an orchestral palette is at the forefront with “In the Darkest Place,” including a doleful initial hook featuring bass flute, followed by strings, muted trumpet, oboe, etc.

Largely in A minor, there’s a harmonic fake-out (1:49 – 1:54) which turns out to be only a false hint of a modulation. However, the outro shifts to A major at 3:22.

David Bowie | Word On a Wing

According to Songfacts, “Bowie explained on the VH1 Storytellers series that he penned this song as a prayer to see him through the period when a debilitating coke addiction had him flirting with fascism and black magic. Bowie told the NME that the crunch point came when he was filming the Nicholas Roeg film, The Man Who Fell to Earth. ‘There were days of such psychological terror when making the Roeg film that I nearly started to approach my reborn, born again thing. It was the first time I’d really seriously thought about Christ and God in any depth, and ‘Word on a Wing’ was a protection. It did come as a complete revolt against elements that I found in the film.'” Bowie was reportedly unable to remember having made the 1976 album Station To Station, which featured the track.

“Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman,” opines AllMusic, “yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles … what ties it together is Bowie’s cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album … “

“Word on a Wing” is a surprisingly staid mid-tempo track among Bowie’s rangy 400-song catalog. Although the primary chord progression throughout the verses is a straightforward I-IV-V, several shifts in tonality enter the mix (starting at 1:55).