The Red Krayola - "Ravi Shankar: Parachutist" (1968)

A lot of small, unusual, interrelated ideas packed into this song's two minutes and nine seconds. It starts with a two-bar riff on the tonic and major third of F, but then tonicizes the third (A) for the first verse. That major third (chromatic mediant) relationship is then heard again in the first chord progression of the verse: A major to C# major. These chords are repeated once and then shift down a whole tone (G major to B minor). The shift is momentary, however, and then it's back to A major and C# major, both functioning as the fluctuating tonic.

The verse is followed by another guitar/bass riff, starting with the same descending third heard in the opening riff but transposed up a major third (C# down to A). The riff then involves a higher F in a descending line moving down to the low F, showing us now that these notes are actually spelling out an augmented chord (F, A, C#, F). The last two bars of this three-bar riff are actually the same two bars that were heard at the beginning of the song, thus setting up the second verse in the same manner as the first.

The second verse has a different ending than the first, involving a little more dramatic diatonicism when the dominant chord in A is reached. Instead of resolving to A, however, the dominant E moves down to C# major, keeping up that same A/C# tonic fluctuation.

C# then serves as the key for the singsong bridge, played at a different tempo. After the bridge, the guitar and bass once again make their way back to that same two-bar riff on the tonic and third of F, making clever use of the major third interval (a big element in this song) along the way. What follows, finally, is an abbreviated third verse with two lines, this time just moving up from A to B, then A to B to C# (all major chords). After the C# chord, the guitar and bass play the same return to the initial riff as heard after the first verse, but this time using the F as a weird dominant prep chord that leads to G#, the dominant of the final tonic resolution in C#.*

* C# is heard in the bass, anyway, though Mayo Thompson does not play a straight C# major triad on the guitar on the last beat.

The Left Banke - "She May Call You Up Tonight" (1967)

There are a number of '60s groups, and even specific songs, that probably tend to be most commonly identified as the precursors to power pop. Listening to songs like "Feel a Whole Lot Better" and "Mary Mary," though, there is a certain musical gap that seems to exist between them and the songs of power pop groups from later decades (those that were not extremely '60s revivalist-oriented anyway).

That's not the case with this Left Banke song. The harmonically exploratory bridge, of course, is a big Nazz precursor. More striking, though, are the verses and the chorus, which really somehow seem to predate that specific '70s musical vocabulary more than any song I'm aware of from the period.

Also unique with this song is its piano-driven sound, which predates Procol Harum a little bit but in a much more pop-rock-oriented context. An incredible piece of work.

Athletico Spizz 80 - "Energy Crisis" (1980)

Vocal melody is only the root note of each chord throughout both the verse and the chorus. The phrase modulation from the dissonant progression rooted in A minor (verse) to the hardcore-like progression rooted in F# major (chorus) is a real example of a writer just reaching for anything at all, regardless of tonal relationships. Works because of the surprise, the aforementioned melodic simplicity, and the energy with which Spizz as vocalist nails it.

The idea of this chorus is so good, in fact, that Spizz just repeats the first two lines over again. And then this four-line structure, the whole of the chorus, is such a good idea in itself that they repeat it after each verse.

Topping things off, this 4:38 track could easily end with the vamp on the verse chord progression after the third chorus, but instead includes a coda of entirely new musical materials in another somewhat random key (B major). Suggesting even more of a sense of urgency, Spizz reduces the melody on this final section to one note only.

The Desperate Bicycles - "Smokescreen" (1977)

Here's a good contrast to the last post. While the verse in "Gotta See Jane" lasts for about thirty-eight seconds, "Smokescreen" starts off with four verses in quick succession lasting a total of only forty-four seconds! The unusual rapid pace of lyrics is something both songs actually have in common. Both are also very tightly constructed. "Gotta See Jane" has a slightly more elaborate harmonic vocabulary, but we can see here that the biggest aesthetic difference between these songs, as compositions, is this structural element.

Those four verses, all with separate text, occurring before you hear the chorus for the first time, make for an amazingly articulate burst of energy. Following that first chorus with four more verses, all once again with new text, just continues to push this song into the stratosphere.

(Also enjoyable about "Smokescreen": the harmonic vocabulary! You hear F minor in the verse as a borrowed iv chord, but then it goes to C minor and Bb major, as though there's a momentary modulation to the flattened subtonic.)

R. Dean Taylor - "Gotta See Jane" (1968)

Rhythmically, there's so much emphasis on beats one and three in this song that it's easily perceived as being in cut time. The drums that enter on the second verse play a backbeat rhythm, though; and analyzing this in terms of a quicker four-four beat is actually helpful in seeing how it's put together.

The long verse structure starts with a couple of four-line sets of lyrics, both sets lasting for six bars. The first two lines of each set, one measure each, have one-syllable rhyming words falling on beats two and four. The third line of each set, however, holds off on the rhyming word until the first beat of the fourth measure. The fourth line also holds off on its rhyming word, this time until the second beat of its subsequent measure (the fifth). The section then comes to an end with a rest through the remainder of measures five and six.

The second part of the verse, similarly, has two short sets of lyrics. These sets start off with three lines delivered in the same manner as line three in the preceding sections, lasting for one measure each with the last rhyming word occurring on the downbeat of the subsequent measure. Unusually, these three lines all rhyme with one another and are followed by a non-rhyming line. As with the preceding section, this non-rhyming line is followed by a rest that extends through the fifth and sixth measures. The lack of a rhyme leaves the section open-ended, however, so Taylor completes it with an additional two-measure, two-line rhyme. This makes for an unusual six-plus-two measure phrase length overall.

All of this takes about thirty-eight seconds! The full song structure involves two of these verses, a bridge, and then the verse structure heard again with an instrumental section of strings heard instead of vocals over the first half. Apart from the vamps at the beginning and end, that's only four sections total: AABA.

Percy "Thrills" Thrillington - "Ram On" (1977)

This is Paul McCartney's instrumental version of the Ram album, released under a pseudonym. Really struck by how much the version of "Ram On" here sounds like something from Basil Kirchin's Abstractions of the Industrial North.

Ellie Pop - "Can't Be Love" (1968)

Really remarkable Beatles-influenced song. The intro is in A major, but there's a quick interruption after only three bars. An abrupt shift in tonality occurs here, too, as the verse begins on a B major chord (sounding like the tonic), then moves to F# major (V), but only for an irregular bar of two beats. Next is a bar of G major, which could be a bVI chord in the key of B, but is instead used as a pivot, turning out to be a IV chord in D major. The progression then moves from D major (the new tonic) to E minor (ii).

That E minor ii chord goes nowhere, though, as the third line of the verse then phrase modulates back for a repeat of B major to F# major. The G major chord follows once again, but this time it has no function, as the fourth line then occurs over a repeating progression of the (harmonically unrelated) B minor to E major.

These chords, naturally, sound like a ii-V progression in A major, and the song allows this to play out when, after the completion of the second verse, the bridge begins on a tonic A major chord. (Remember, this is the same key that the song started in!) Immediately, however, they throw a curve ball by switching to the parallel A minor. Next chord is an E major (the dominant), followed by C major (III), but then they reassert the major tonality with an A major tonic chord.

This is a tonic resolution to A that works despite the fact that there is no cadence and that it occurs at a weak rhythmic point, the beginning of the seventh bar of the bridge. It is also a slight variant on the chord progression heard in the intro, creating a wonderful sense of compositional cohesion.

"Can't Be Love" on Amazon.

R.E.M. - "The Great Beyond" (2000)

Two choruses. First time through, you hear the first one. Second time, you hear both, as though it was one long chorus. In placing them together, they create liaison between the two by a vocal harmony part (not heard in the first utterance of chorus number one) that comes in at the end of the first and continues in the second.

After this, the instrumental break. Violin (or maybe fake violin) and what sounds like some reed organ.

Third time through, you get both choruses once again. The second chorus is self-sufficient, though, and it's this one that repeats for the closing.

SIX times.

Shocking Blue - "Blossom Lady" (1971)

This is bubblegum music, really, and yet there's some folk quality to it that is very rooted in tradition. Notice how slowly it is played. The dynamics, with the soft drumming, are a bit more like Fairport Convention than they are the Sweet, yet the composition and arrangement - the economy of the verses, the snare on every beat - are bubblegum rock.

With the horns and the vocal harmonies, the Shocking Blue show themselves to be masters of that genre. The archetypicality of the lyric, though, plays (also masterfully) into the deeper tradition.

Nazz - "Forget All About It" (1969)

This is something. Tubular bells at the beginning as a symbol of the divine (reminiscent of some freakbeat songs from the same period attempting such a thing in the context of real power music). First part of the verse in six-four time (four plus two) with a melodic line that both thrives on the irregularity and yet manages structural power anyway with some beautifully-timed long notes. Chord progression here is a loop of four chords - Bb minor/Eb major/Db major add 9/Eb major - and notice how the bass never grounds the Eb chord. Same pattern continues in the second part of the verse, where the guitar begins on F minor and then moves away and back while the bass keeps an F pedal. Singer is already in the higher part of his register here, but still they manage a higher harmony part. By the time of the last line of the verse, both singers are in falsetto.

The type of exploratory harmonic progressions (with continued vocal harmonies) heard in the bridge and at the very end was seemingly this group's domain only.

Buffalo Springfield - "Flying on the Ground Is Wrong" (1966)

I'd been thinking the harmonies on this sounded very unusual for the time: complex but not Beatle-esque. In figuring out the chords, though, I'm now hearing it as being more Beatle-like. If it is, it's quite an assimilation; if it's not, it's quite a feat in itself.

Perhaps the major difference is this song's big reliance on seventh (both major and minor seventh) harmonies. You hear this right away when the lead guitar climbs up from the fifth to the seventh over the tonic chord in the first seconds of the song. It is then driven home when, at the strongest possible moment for a tonic chord to be used, they instead use the tonic seventh chord on the word "sorry" in the chorus ("I'm sorry to let you down").

Very nice liaison between the verse and the chorus, making it all flow as one entity. This begins with an alternation of major and minor tonic chords, followed by a progression that uses the ii chord as a sort of sweet and wistful base to which they keep returning. (Even at the very end of the chorus, the ii chord is used instead of the dominant on the words "my side of town" before the return to the tonic.)

There's also an augmented chord in there and then the bridge uses a minor iv chord (D minor) as a pivot to modulate from A major to C major.

Bread - "Diary" (1972)

The verse here is four lines. When the fifth line of text begins, we seem to have switched to a new section. As it's too early for a bridge, this appears to be an exploratory extension of the verse. Amazingly, though, this cuts off after two lines and instead of getting another two lines with a rhyme for line two at the end of line four, we get the song's chorus instead, itself two lines long (and rhyming, for the first time, line-by-line).

Macro-structure (arrangement, too) is worthy not just of McCartney, but of McCartney at his best. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and then a bridge. Back for one final verse/chorus and then the bridge again, this time with a variant on the text and, with one added line bringing harmonic resolution, used as a closing.

That's a pretty concise structure, but this thing is 3:05 and reached number fifteen on the singles chart.*

* Worth pointing out that three of Bread's big hits actually do have a very short duration: "It Don't Matter to Me" (2:41), "If" (2:33), and "Baby I'm-a Want You" (2:25!).

Genesis - "Carpet Crawlers" (1974)

True prog rock that nevertheless manages an extraordinary compositional concision. Harmonically exploratory intro (with those beautiful keyboard arpeggios) is actually arranged as two consecutive sixteen-bar verses.* The song then modulates, not up but down from E to D, settling into its dark confines: the place from which, over four new verses alternating with four choruses, it seeks its transcendence.

Building on the first verse, the drums enter on the second with a part so simple, so unique, so perfect that no changes or fills are necessary through the rest of the song. In the third verse, the lead vocal is now in the higher register, stronger and stretching for a wider, plaintive melodic line. Fourth and final verse doesn't need another intensification; all it needs is to stay the course until the end.

* Second verse has an abbreviated text.

Love - "Softly to Me" (1966)

This song starts by moving back and forth between D minor and E minor. This is modal, but shifting back and forth between tonal centers: D dorian and E phrygian. At the end of the second line, though, it goes to D major instead of D minor. The D still feels like a tonal center, but with the next chord - a sort of D7 with an added 9th that's also heard in the intro - we soon find out that it's also modal (mixolydian).

The phrase modulation from D to B major that occurs in the bridge is easy enough, the F# in the melody being a common tone, but the move back from B major to the E minor to D minor progression is handled in a more difficult (and very beautiful) way. This occurs on the last note of the line "It's evident for anyone to see." On the two previous notes, we're on B, a common note between B major and E minor. The melody could have stayed on B on that last note of the line, when the chord changes to E minor, but instead it moves up to C, a non-chord tone.

To resolve the harmony, then, there is this really nice liaison between that last line of the bridge and the first line of the new (abbreviated) verse, "And I suppose they probably already do," where the melody doesn't land until the chord changes once again on the last note.

Oh-OK - "Choukoutien" (1983)

Incredible composition. Verses start with what sounds like a chorus refrain (containing the title word), but this line links to a consequent line and then an open-ended third line, forming an odd, and uniquely short, verse structure. Short enough that they put two of these verses at the beginning, followed by what seems at first to be a bridge. So far, the song has been going back and forth between A minor and F, but this new section starts moving between A minor and B minor, suggesting (but not defining) a new tonal center. This is derailed, however, by a Bb minor chord, an extremely clever pivot back to the original progression.*

And in moving back to the original progression to end this section (so crucial to the composition that you can't really call it a bridge), we hear half of what had previously been the first line of the verse, followed by a concluding couplet (with vocal harmonies introduced for the first time) that turns out to be another refrain!

Substance of the song continues to expand with a third verse, but from here on out it's all lost-in-the-mystery repeat, first the second section again and then the first verse, softer and with an added vocal harmony part, and the second section one last time, keeping the upper harmony part going.

All of this framed by the haunting two word refrain only heard at the very beginning and the very end.

* Bb minor would be the borrowed minor iv chord if we look at F major as the home key. (A minor is really the home key, but this at least gives us a common way of defining and understanding the Bb minor chord.)

Oh-OK: The Complete Recordings CD