Tag: USA

Dan + Shay | Show You Off

“Just as the line between gospel and classic country was blurry in the Louvin Brothers’ heyday, it remains possible to pull off a certain Saturday night/Sunday morning thing in the modern country and Christian markets simultaneously,” (Stereogum). “There is no shortage of overlap within these worlds, demographically speaking. Sonically, too, both genres have gravitated toward arena rock grandiosity over the years, alienating traditionalists while still appealing to vaguely traditional notions of faith, family, the heartland, etc. Dan + Shay’s music feels targeted to this intersection. They give off big worship leader energy …

It’s working out well for them. The duo is one of country music’s biggest pop crossover success stories in recent memory. Not only did their 2018 self-titled album spin off three country #1 hits in ‘Tequila,’ the storybook-wedding ballad ‘Speechless,’ and ‘All to Myself’ … they also sent two of those songs to the top 10 at adult contemporary radio. They won awards at just about every ceremony within their reach: Grammys, Billboard Awards, Teen Choice Awards, CMAs, ACMs, you name it.”

The duo’s 2014 release “Show You Off,” performed here live with just the two singers and minus a lot of the contemporary Nashville shininess, shifts up a whole step (2:24) after a a brief bridge.

Connie Francis | Pretty Little Baby

“Connie Francis was one of the reigning queens of the Billboard Hot 100 in its early days,” (Billboard). “The late-’50s and early-’60s pop star scored a whopping 15 top 10 hits on the chart, including three #1s: ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,’ ‘My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own’ (both 1960) and ‘Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You’ (1962). And over six decades after her commercial peak, Francis is once again having a big pop culture moment – but it’s not with any of those charting singles. 

‘Pretty Little Baby,’ a non-single (written by Don Stirling and Bill Nauman) from Francis’ 1962 album Connie Francis Sings Second Hand Love, has caught fire on TikTok in the past month. Users have been lip synching along to the ‘You can ask the flowers/ I sit for hours/ Telling all the bluebirds/ The bill and coo birds/ Pretty little baby, I’m so in love with you’ verse of the song, often while wearing cute retro outfits and/or singing to actual babies, with over a million videos being created to the song … the song has already begun to cross over from TikTok to streaming in massive numbers … a (recent) gain of over 7,000% … (and) could soon be threatening a Hot 100 debut, a mere 63 years after its initial release.”

At 1:19, a textbook half-step upward key change appears in the midst of the diminutive tune, which features a run time of only 2:22 in total.

EDIT: Connie Francis passed away at the age of 87 on July 16, 2025, one day after we posted this tune.

Flim + the BBs | At the Hop

Even in the world of instrumental jazz fusion, which represented a tiny slice of recording sales even at its height, the trio known as Flim and the BBs enjoyed only a cult following as a band. Over the years, much of the information from the few short articles about the band has already been excerpted here on MotD. Some additional information about the trio’s musicians:

“Bassist Jimmy ‘Flim’ Johnson has played on countless standout sessions with everyone from Stan Getz to Ray Charles. Since 1991, he has recorded and toured regularly with James Taylor,” (VinylDiscovery). “Drummer Bill Berg, who was never credited for his work on Blood On The Tracks, is a native of Hibbing, Minnesota, birthplace of Bob Dylan. He now lives in western North Carolina where he plays gigs from time to time. Pianist, composer, filmmaker, screenwriter (etc.) Billy Barber wrote the theme song for the long-running ABC soap opera All My Children, along with a whole bunch of other stuff you’ve probably heard of.”

Keeping a focus on a light-hearted yet strongly syncopated melody and plenty of dynamic range, “At the Hop” (1985) starts with an emphasis on Bb major. There’s a shift to Gb major at 3:13, another to Ab major at 3:39, and then a return to the original key drops at 4:05. After a (mostly!) very soft-spoken percussion break, the full band returns to end the track.

The Village People | In Hollywood (Everybody Is a Star)

“… The Village People surprised everybody with this popular four-song (debut) album. Phil Hurtt, a good friend of Thom Bell and the writer of “I’ll Be Around,” arranged and co-authored three songs,” (AllMusic). “Produced by Henri Belolo and Jacques Morali, Village People exploits and promotes gay liberation in a little over 20 minutes of music. The vocals slap you in the face, the beats nonstop … the four energetic tracks — ‘San Francisco (You’ve Got Me),’ ‘In Hollywood (Everybody Is a Star),’ ‘Fire Island,’ and ‘Village People’ — practically clone each other, with the lyrics the only distinguishing difference.”

Hurtt was a professional lyricist who had written the words for the Spinners hit “I’ll Be Around.” To broaden the song’s appeal, Hurtt made the song more universal in scope, drawing on his own experiences in Hollywood,” (Songfacts). “Hurtt never tried to make it as a West Coast actor, but he had been there on business and had a good handle on the game that was played there.

Now it’s time to get a new car / You know the kind that has a phone and a bar …

Slip outside and call and have yourself paged / Get on the phone and scream as though in a rage

Before cell phones, this was a classic ploy in Hollywood: have yourself paged, then pretend to boss around the imaginary person on the other end of the line.”

After a start in A minor, there’s a shift up a half step to Bb minor at 0:45. At 1:29, the chorus shifts to a jaunty Bb major until 1:51, where the key reverts to the original A minor. The pattern continues from there.

Tanya Tucker | What’s Your Mama’s Name

“Tanya Tucker has been one of the queens of country for nearly fifty years, but it was her arrival that made quite an impression,” (TheRecoup.com) “When she appeared, she was just in her early teens, although upon first listening you would not think so, as she was an old soul singing powerful songs with an equally powerful singing voice that sounded three times her age.

Her first two albums, 1972’s Delta Dawn and 1973’s What’s Your Mama’s Name are very much of a piece; considering the wont of the Country music industry at the time, it’s quite likely both albums were recorded at the same group of sessions, much more likely considering the albums appeared within mere months of each other. “Delta Dawn” was her debut single, the dark and foreboding song about heartbreak that certainly did not sound like a 13-year-old child. It’s a fantastic number, and a hell of a way to launch a career.

On 1973’s What’s Your Mama’s Name, “the title track follows in the dark nature of her first hit, and is a tale of a mysterious stranger trying to find his daughter that he has never seen before.  Aside from the Southern Gothic quality of the song, is also an edgy tune for the era, dealing starkly with the issue of illegitimacy. Unsurprisingly, it was controversial coming from a 14-year-old, but the controversy helped to sell the record and cemented Tucker as a musician not afraid to go into the dark places others wouldn’t dare go.”

As the heart-wrenching tale unfolds, both 1:11 and 1:41 bring half-step key changes.

Lucky Daye | Real Games

Painted by Lucky Daye, a 2019 album release, is ” … a modern twist on traditional soul-funk or ‘Neo-soul.’ (TheModernLifeMag.com). “He grew up in a religious household where secular music was largely prohibited,” (AllMusic). “As a result, he developed his musical abilities by learning melodies through church hymns. After leaving his family’s church as a teenager, he immersed himself in R&B, soul, and funk music, drawing inspiration from artists such as Stevie Wonder, Prince and D’Angelo. Following New Orleans’ devastation by Hurricane Katrina, he relocated to Atlanta, Georgia …

Daye was a 2005 American Idol contestant and “a successful songwriter and background vocalist, with credits as ‘D. Brown’ on tracks by some industry A-listers such as Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, Keith Sweat, Boyz II Men, Mary J. Blige, and many more notable artists.”

The hard-charging funk verses of “Real Games” are built in Bb minor. The choruses, first heard from 0:57 – 1:24, shift to several different Bb major-related modes as they immerse us in a noticeably lighter groove and texture. D’Mile, the track’s co-writer along with Daye, also served as producer for the tune. Daye uses one of his apparently favorite techniques — pitch-shifting his vocal down an octave, sometimes doubled with the original vocal — several times throughout the track.

Nat King Cole | L-O-V-E

In the 1950s, “the studios had been trying to get (Cole) from behind the piano and sing more … despite being hailed as one of the key greats,” (PSAudio) ” … As this played out there was an outcry from the diehard jazz community, especially jazz publications like Downbeat and Metronome. (Cole reported): ‘For years we did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people,’ he said.  ‘…we practically starved to death.’

Despite Cole’s disdain for his voice, he was a classic crooner, a beautiful master of a phrase with flawless enunciation and perfect pitch. His recordings during the late 40s and the 50s are some of the most perfect and iconic love songs ever recorded … Nat Cole’s career barely lasted 20 short years, but in that time he collected 28 Gold Record awards and was inducted into every Hall of Fame imaginable, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an Early Influence. Cole was an inspiration as a man and a performer.”

“L-O-V-E,” the title track from a 1965 album of the same name, was released by Cole shortly before his death and became his final release. The tune begins in G major, shifts up to Ab major for an instrumental verse at 0:57, then changes keys again to A major at 1:21, remaining there for the balance of the track. Many thanks to Scott, a new visitor to MotD, for this submission!

Ohio Players | Fire

“The first few #1 hits of 1975 were so overwhelmingly bland and narcotized and nostalgia-driven that it’s amazing, in retrospect, that something as loud and rude and noisy as the Ohio Players’ ‘Fire’ was able to break through,” (Stereogum). “‘Fire’ is literally noisy; it opens with the roar-whine of a fire engine’s siren, something that has probably caused at least a few thousand radio-listening commuters to instinctively jerk their cars over to the sides of the road over the decades. There’s nothing remotely mellow about ‘Fire.’ There’s barely any melody, even. Instead, it’s a horny and unrelenting vamp, a funk attack of towering proportions.

… ‘Fire’ hit #1 at the dawn of the disco age, and yet it’s not a disco song at all. You could definitely dance to it, and it probably got club play, but it’s a whole different sort of groove. It’s a grimy, sweaty beast of a song. And in the context of the otherwise-antiseptic early-1975 pop charts, I can only just imagine how exciting it must’ve sounded.”

At the 1:50 mark, the iconic half-step key change hits — not least because because of the tune’s one-chord harmonic vocabulary within each of the two keys!

Whitney Houston | How Will I Know

“’Falling in love is so bittersweet,’ Whitney Houston wails. ‘This love is strong. Why do I feel weak?’ But falling in love doesn’t sound bittersweet, and Whitney Houston doesn’t sound the slightest bit weak,” (Stereogum). “Instead, she sounds like an volcano of joy, an unstoppable natural force of pure exhilaration. At least on paper, ‘How Will I Know’ (1985), Houston’s second chart-topper, is a song about uncertainty — about feeling your way around in the dark, trying to understand if someone else feels the same way you do. But that’s not how Houston sings it. Instead, Houston sings ‘How Will I Know’ as if she can barely contain the excitement that comes along with that uncertainty. She sings it like she already knows.

… Houston just goes off on this thing. It’s amazing to behold. Houston sells the emotion of the song, sounding like she’s utterly caught up in this dazzling, exciting, world-ending crush. She also nails every little melodic turn … But even in the context of a song as fast and bubbly as this one, you can still hear the power and control in her voice. There’s a lot of gospel in her delivery, in the unearthly joyous yelps and whoops and out-of-nowhere high notes. (There’s a whole lot of gospel in those backing vocals, too.) And while Houston never fully cuts loose on ‘How Will I Know,’ she also keeps her abilities in full view. You can hear that voice bursting its way out of the song, ready to dive and curl and soar. The biggest note — the ‘how will I knoooooow‘ just as the sax solo kicks in — is enough to give a motherfucker goosebumps.”

After a start in Gb major, the bridge consistently builds via a repetitive short melody fragment (“If he loves me / If he loves me not”) layered over harmonies that shift with each iteration of the lyric (3:07 – 3:31). As the sax solo kicks in, there’s a massive downward jump to Eb major — but there’s no accompanying deflation in energy, as Whitney’s vocal moves decisively up at that point, not down. In the closing bars, however, the return of the chorus clearly demonstrates the lower key.

Tommy TuTone | 867-5309

“Who here remembers Tommy Tutone’s ‘867-5309’? The 1982 radio staple once gripped the nation, and gave away the digits of the fetching Jenny, last name unknown … Spencer Potter, the New Jersey owner of (201) 867-5309, auctioned off the telephone number, along with his DJ company, netting $186,853.09 on eBay. ‘This is really, in my opinion, one of the last cultural remnants of 80s pop,’ Potter told CNN, ‘other than the mullet.’ Potter said he received over 100,000 phone calls a year from overzealous fans.

… Why is the song so valuable? ‘The sound of the number has a certain hypnotic quality, and I’m not sure what it is. It must be something in the number itself,” Tutone told the Wall Street Journal.” (American Songwriter).

Built in a noticeably de-tuned G minor overall, the tune’s short bridge (1:59 – 2:13) shifts to the closely related key of D minor.