“Through It All” is the last track on American singer Charlie Puth’s 2018 album Voicenotes. In an interview with Billboard, Puth described the sound of the album as “like walking down a dirt road and listening to New Edition in 1989 — and being heartbroken, of course.” The album was nominated for a Grammy and reached the #4 spot on the Billboard 200.
The track begins in A and has a standard direct modulation up to B at 2:39.
The May 14, 2020 installment of the Chicago Tribune’s “Coronavirus Overdue Film Festival“ featured a review of the now-obscure 1954 film “Athena”:
“The phrase ‘MGM musical’ shimmers with nostalgia, but what does it evoke, exactly? Technicolor dreams of tuneful romance? Backlot depictions of Times Square, Paris or the Scottish Highlands, along with occasional bursts of realism, as when the 1949 “On the Town” managed to sneak in a few days’ location filming in New York City? Yes, all that. Also, orchestral swells and mile-wide Gene Kelly and Judy Garland smiles, and a deathless handful of triple threats who really could sing, act and dance. But the ‘MGM musical’ label misleads. So many MGM musicals, the famous ones, were treated to royal budgets and top talent, while so many others had to settle for smaller budgets, mismatched contract players and lesser material. For every ‘Singin’ in the Rain‘ or ‘The Band Wagon‘ there’s a lesser-known commodity — or outright oddity — revealing a different story, more about the musical genre’s struggles to remain vital than the onscreen romantic complications taxing our patience in between numbers.
One of the strangest is ‘Athena,’ … a contemporary riff on MGM’s big musical draw that year, ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers‘ … Crooner and sometime actor Vic Damone, a diffident MGM staple of the day, paired off in ‘Athena’ with Debbie Reynolds. They’re treated to the duet “Imagine,” a melodically unpredictable standout in the Hugh Martin/Ralph Blane score … There are compensations, as there are in other offbeat, youth-craze MGM titles of the era … Damone may have been a mite bland, but he could sing.”
According to the trailer, the film was categorized as a romantic comedy — but not quite like the rom-coms viewers became accustomed to in the 1990s! Apparently much of the action took place in the family home of Reynolds’ character; the family were health and wellness enthusiasts. The movie took that premise and ran with it, dropping a Mr. Universe bodybuilding contest into the film (see trailer, below) … as one does.
Jamie A., the former host of Cinema Songbook on Martha’s Vineyard’s WVVY FM, submitted the tune. He adds more detail: “This movie actually started out as an idea for a film with Esther Williams, about a goddess come to life on Earth. But studio bosses were trying to force her out because her films were too high budget, and they sabotaged her last film at MGM, ‘Jupiter’s Darling’ (worth a view—a musical about Hannibal’s march on Rome with elephants!). The concept changed drastically when Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds took over.”
Damone’s feature is in A major, transitioning to Reynolds’ section in Gb major at 1:12.
“Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” (1969) was written and recorded by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer, attributed to a then-fictitious band they named “Steam”. It went all the way to #1 in late 1969. It was Billboard‘s final multi-week #1 pop hit of the 1960s, but also peaked at #20 on the soul chart. The track also went into the top 10 in Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK. By the beginning of the 21st century, sales of “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” had exceeded 6.5 million records, reaching multi-platinum record status (Rolling Stone).
“But in 1977, as legend has it, the organist for the Chicago White Sox, Nancy Faust, started playing it when opposing pitchers were yanked from the game. The crowds began to chant along with the music, and a great taunt was born. Now (it’s) the anthem of taunt, sung in many languages and many sports, among them politics,” (Washington Post).
Songfacts provides more detail: “When this song became a hit, an entire album was commissioned and a group created for it, also with the name ‘Steam.’ But DeCarlo wasn’t invited to tour with it, even though he had recorded it. Indeed, he “was asked not to reveal that it was him on the record, since there was a different singer performing it at live appearances.” DeCarlo tried to capitalize on the song’s success as he continued his musical career, but was unsuccessful.
The tune starts with a distinctive vibes feature on the intro, followed by the iconic chant chorus, right out of the gate (C minor). The first verse (C major) runs from 0:17 – 0:48; the chorus then returns in the original key and the pattern holds throughout.
Asked in an interview with Goldmine about the origins of his music career, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Marc Cohn answered: “I didn’t have any other choice. I just didn’t have a choice. This is what connected with me from the time I was 7 or 8 years old, when I first heard The Beatles and The Stones, and Van Morrison and The Band. It wasn’t just that I liked it. I was obsessed with it. And I had an older brother who played piano and had a band that practiced in our basement, so I got to hear what Motown sounded like, and what Burt Bacharach sounded like, three feet away. My brother had a great ear, and he got most of the chords right, and it was just an obsession from the very beginning. And it was also an escape. And I had some ability. I could always sing, and I found I could write some words, too. It was just to be, I guess. I wouldn’t know what the hell else I’d do. It’s the thing that I was obsessed with for as long as I can remember — making records and writing songs.”
Best known for his top-40 hit “Walking in Memphis” (1991) from his platinum-selling eponymous debut album, Cohn won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1992. Utica, NY’s Observer-Dispatch describes Cohn’s material: “emotionally stirring compositions, deeply personal yet universal, and his easy, husky voice [have] earned him a devoted following and a reputation as a musician’s musician.”
Built in C major overall, “Walk Through This World” (1993) features an instrumental break (2:35 -2:56) which modulates to Bb major before reverting to the original key.
“I See The Light,” written by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater for the 2010 animated Disney film Tangled, was nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globe and Academy Awards, and won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
The film is based on the Brothers Grimm Rapunzel fairy tale, which served as inspiration for Menken to venture into a folk rock idiom for the score. “I wanted folk rock on this,” he said in an interview with Collider. “I thought about her long hair and the freedom she wanted. I immediately thought about Joni Mitchell’s ‘Chelsea Morning’ and all that folk music that I love. Cat Stevens and that energy. I just felt like that would be, on a gut level, a fresh palette to bring to this. So, that was really our way into the score.”
The track, performed by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, begins in C and modulates up to Eb for Levi’s verse at 1:39.
Composer/songwriter/pianist/vocalist Gabriel Kahane occupies a very specific part of the musical firmament. His work has ranged from pop-inflected solo voice and piano to orchestral and chamber works. “I’m sort of trying to reconcile the very direct songwriter in me with the guy who’s interested in architecture and formal rigor and harmonic and rhythmic expansiveness or complexity,” (WBUR).
Kahane’s label, Nonesuch, describes his upcoming 2022 release Magnificent Bird: “The album … chronicles the final month of a year spent off the internet … (It) revels in the tension between quiet, domestic concerns, and the roiling chaos of a nation and planet in crisis. ‘Sit Shiva,’ the album’s first single … finds Kahane skirting the rules of his digital hiatus in order to mourn, online, the death of his maternal grandmother; in typical fashion, he mines not just pathos, but humor and grace amidst his family’s grief.
In October 2020, the final month of his tech sabbatical, Kahane set out to write a song every day. ‘I wanted to create an aural brain scan at the end of this experiment,’ he explains, ‘and to give myself permission to write about small things, rather than trying to distill the enormity of the moment into grand statements. … My internet hiatus grew out of a belief that at root, our digital devices reinforce the fiction that convenience and efficiency have intrinsic value. That has implications with respect to climate crisis, to inequality, to our (in)ability to see ourselves in each other, to build the kinds of coalitions necessary to make a more just world. I wanted to leave it all behind not as a further expression of techno-pessimism, but rather in search of a positive alternative.'”
“Sit Shiva” is named after the Jewish tradition of the early part of mourning after a death of a loved one. In the case of the passing of Kahane’s grandmother, the video suggests an acutely modern version of the ritual. The tune, in C# major overall, is punctuated by a bridge in E major (2:25 – 2:43).
“When Joel made 1983’s An Innocent Man, he was rich, famous, and single for the first time ever,” (Stereogum). He was dating supermodels like future second wife Christie Brinkley. He’d been asked to write a song for Easy Money, a Rodney Dangerfield movie, and he’d come up with a peppy, stagey facsimile of early-’60s soul. Joel was into it, so he just went ahead and made a whole album like that. With that album’s first single, Joel made it to #1 for the second time.
When he wrote ‘Tell Her About It,’ Joel was trying to pay tribute to the feeling of early Motown — an even more difficult sound to recapture than the doo-wop of ‘The Longest Time.’ As a songwriting exercise, ‘Tell Her About It’ hits its marks. Joel and his band effectively tap into the classic Holland-Dozier-Holland four-four big-beat stomp. Joel comes up with a memorable hook, and he keeps the structure sharp and uncluttered. There’s nothing revolutionary about it, but that fits the conceit. It’s pastiche. There’s not supposed to be anything revolutionary about it … In a period of great pop-music futurism, Billy Joel looked backwards. If The Nylon Curtain was Joel’s attempt to evoke the frustrations of working-class Reagan-era America, then ‘Tell Her About It,’ and An Innocent Man in general, are Joel capitalizing on the rose-tinted simpler-times nostalgia that helped Reagan get elected in the first place.”
After the tune starts in Bb major, the chorus shifts to F major at 1:11, then back to Bb for the intro to the next verse (1:32). From 2:25 to 2:46, the bridge drops to Ab major. The video, complete with its oddly Nixonian take on Ed Sullivan, only adds to the retro feel!
“That’s The Way It Is” is one of Dion’s biggest hits, and was heralded by Billboard as one of the greatest songs of 1999. “‘That’s The Way It Is’ doesn’t sound like it’s trying to be Britney Spears,” said the website Can’t Stop The Pop. “It sounds like the authentic evolution of a superstar – this is a Celine Dion song through and through – and it’s hard to imagine it being performed by anyone else.”
Dion has performed the song on the Rosie O’Donnell show, twice on the Today Show, as well as on multiple tours. Beginning in E major, the track dramatically modulates up a third to Ab coming out of the bridge at 2:50.
Thanks to MotD contributor Gus Connelly for this submission!
“The way the story is sometimes erroneously told, The Beach Boys were nothing more than a convenient vehicle for Brian Wilson’s incendiary songwriting and brilliant producing,” (American Songwriter). “Of course, that misconception overlooks the crucial contributions of the talented men at Brian’s side bringing his artistic vision to thrilling life with their vocals. It also neglects to take into account the years when the troubled genius contributed only sporadically to the band’s output. Consider 1971’s album Surf’s Up, where the rest of the band picked up the songwriting slack for their leader and Bruce Johnson’s wistful waltz ‘Disney Girls (1957)’ stood out as one of the disc’s finest moments.
If you’re not listening closely enough, you might read the title, hear some of the references in Johnston’s opus, and think that it’s easy nostalgia, something in which The Beach Boys have been known to trade. But what you come to realize, either by perusing the lyrics or listening to the subtle ache in those ‘oohs and aahs,’ is that the ‘fantasy world’ on which the narrator fixates is just that, an idealized vision of happiness that he hasn’t yet attained. ‘Oh, reality, it’s not for me / And it makes me laugh.’ … The unspoken context is that this song comes from a touring musician leading what was likely a hectic life with one of the most famous bands on the planet …”
After starting in F# major, we reach a dreamy bridge at 2:07. At 2:28, the groove falls away as the layered vocals briefly take on the oblique, rubato harmonies of a Barbershop quartet, proclaiming that “… she likes church bingo chances and old-time dances.” At 2:37, a strong IV/V in the new key (G major) leads us to another verse (2:45) as the 3/4 time resumes. The track could be a more grown-up echo of the band’s 1966 hit “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
“And I Will Follow” is a stand-alone song by musical theater composer Jason Robert Brown. It is the lead track on singer Lauren Kennedy’s 2003 album The Songs of Jason Robert Brown (JRB subtly lends his voice as back-up as well.) The song, which fuses musical theatre, folk and country characteristics, begins in D and modulates up a whole step to E coming out of the bridge at 3:30.
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