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

The Urinals - "Black Hole" (1979)

How far-reaching is this? Expanded diatonicism by the use of all major chords, just like a garage band circa 1967. Clever (and very beautiful) use of vocal harmonies at the ends of lines in both the verses AND the chorus. All of this presented within a compositional and arrangement context that had its closest parallel with the New York no wave bands.

"Black Hole" on Lala.

Wire - "Outdoor Miner" (1978)

Really nice how this plays around with the descending vi-V-IV chord progression.

Verses each have a pair of rhyming phrases. The first phrase has less of a functional feel, starting on the IV chord and then going up to vi, from which it descends along the vi-V-IV. The precedent of going from IV to vi at the beginning of that phrase, though, sets up the next line. By ending the first line on the IV, they can move to the vi again and start the second phrase on that chord. That second phrase, then, is just vi-V-IV, a more recognizable, functional harmonic formula and the phrase that finally leads to the tonic chord that begins the chorus. (Note also that the more recognizable harmonic line is where they bring in the vocal harmonies.)

Last part of the song, the single verse with the different melodic lines and the abbreviated conclusion, is all quite pleasant.

"Outdoor Miner" on Lala.

R.E.M. - "Moral Kiosk" (1983)

Never realized before how big of a difference there is between the production on Chronic Town and Murmur. Maybe a big part of the appeal of Murmur is just how wet it is and yet how clear it is at the same time. On this track, the guitars are wet enough that they become a little obscured when the background vocals come in, but they're so crisp and clear on the verses and the two-line refrain.

Great example also of how R.E.M. were successfully blending things that were a little more harmonically abstract (the verses) with real power pop-oriented harmonic richness (the refrain).

"Moral Kiosk" on Lala.

The Beatles - "All My Loving" (1963)

Rhythm guitar part is marvelous and the choice of chord voicings helps provide a sense of consistency through the whole progression. The highest note of each chord, on the high E string, only moves about slightly, starting at F# for the F# minor and B major chords, moving up to G# for E major and C# minor, up to A for A major, and then back to F# for F# minor, D major, and B major. Contrast in the ending when we hear the high note all way up on the ninth fret for C# minor and the twelfth fret for the next-to-last E major chord.

Afterglow - "Chasing Rainbows" (1968)

A lovely harmonic structure throughout and some nice structural aspects. The first line of the chorus is an irregular three-bar phrase with words that rhyme with the last line of the preceding verse. This line is a part of the chorus and yet functions as a lead-in to what might be considered to be the chorus proper. The cymbal-less drum pattern heard in the instrumental intro returns in the bridge, which the composition is already plunging into at 0:43. Chorus returns afterward, but this time the lead-in involves two lines and goes for five bars instead of three. At this point, the composition is only at 1:19 and yet, already, it moves to its final segment: one more repetition of the very nice chorus.

Afterglow album on Amazon.

The Impressions - "Man Oh Man" (1965)

Holds together an arrangement at only about 74 beats per minute with fluidity, precision, and changes in dynamics. Really charming compositional elements in the way the bridge comes to a quick end (no rhyme at the end of the last line) and how the third verse repeats just because it's good enough to play it again.

"Man Oh Man" on Lala.