Tyrannosaurus Rex - "Fist Heart, Mighty Dawn Dart" (1970)

Boy, this is an awfully good song. Two electric guitar parts and a really chunky tone on the one in the left channel for that opening G# minor chord. Interesting key center ambiguity in the verse with this chord progression:

G# minor/B major/E major seventh/A major

The tonic very much feels like G# or B here, but the A major doesn't feel like a borrowed chord. It feels diatonic, so there's really a modal situation going on (i.e., G# phrygian/B mixolydian). The sweetness of that E major seventh chord is so rich, I think, partly because of the fact that, in a way, it's actually the home chord here.

The descending guitar line played after the last words of the verse's second line is very strange and beautiful, a descending G#-F#-E-D# occurring over that A major chord.

The chorus adds rumbling electric bass with flat-wound strings and hand drums, then the arrangement switches back for the second verse. After the second chorus, though, the hand drums keep going even as the verse chords come back. Now, the other electric guitar part (just heard briefly at the beginning) takes the solo. With the high-pitched, wordless background vocals, the energy here is very concentrated, and with that descending line occurring again in the other guitar, it is just an incredible display.

The Alan Parsons Project - "Old and Wise" (1982)

What a coup to have Colin Blunstone around to sing this one, his voice, sounding much as it did fifteen years earlier, so familiar a presence not just in this song's style, but in its sense of exploration as well.

After the instrumental intro, the verse starts off with a two-line rhyme. Instead of developing a longer verse out of these materials, however, they are abandoned and we are instead in a new key where we hear a four-line rhyme (rhyming lines two and four) that sounds like the chorus is starting already. Next comes the refrain line, though, and it seems only now that the chorus is truly beginning and that the previous lines were part of a broken verse structure.

In the first eight bars of what is perhaps, then, the chorus proper, there are three lines of text, the aforementioned refrain line (four bars) followed by a rhyming pair (two bars each).*

And oh, when I'm old and wise
Bitter words mean little to me
Autumn winds will blow right through me

The four-bar section then repeats, but it's followed by two lines where this time line three rhymes with line one instead of line two.

And someday in the mist of time
When they ask me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine

This would have been a very clever way of creating closure for the chorus, but more clever still is the fact that the harmonies do not resolve on the last line and in fact shift into a modulating section where the words continue on without a break. It is at first as though we are in a bridge, but musical development is almost immediately truncated and the title words then appear again in a rhyme that lands the song back in its home key.

And the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh, when I'm old and wise

This whole magnificent structure repeats once with slightly altered words and the song then comes to an end with an instrumental coda.

* Using the same word in both lines, but the intent to rhyme here does seem apparent.

The Korgis - "Art School Annexe" (1979)

Lots of Korgis stuff up on iTunes. I'd never heard anything predating "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" (their top 20 U.S. hit from 1980) before and this track, as it turns out, is a treat. Was the b-side of their second single.

Starts off in new wave retro mode with muted (surf) rhythm guitar. Keyboardist is vamping in a retro style, but his tone is not very retro and the drums don't sound retro either. They don't have to sound retro, of course, and it sounds fine, but things end up working out in a different way when the retro style suddenly vanishes in the chorus.

For the first two lines, the chorus sounds like a power pop song, but the words are unusual and it could definitely be compared to Jonathan Richman. On the third line of the chorus, though, the song suddenly opens up into this post-progressive, hard rock/pop mode with overdubbed keyboards, power chords, and drum fills.

That's a long way to go in a minute and four seconds! Song is pleasantly constructed from there as well with a second verse, repeat of the chorus, and then a retro style guitar solo over the verse chords. With no third verse, it just goes to the chorus again afterward and, in fact, repeats the second part of the chorus as though the song was almost over already. To flesh it out, they play on the "art school" subject matter in a weird coda that extends the progressive rock aspect of the song with keyboard chords over a floating beat, a bass solo, and, finally, a fake ending.

Michael Angelo - "Oceans of Fantasy" (1977)

Key center is so seamlessly fluid in this song. Let's just look at the chords and see what's happening.

The opening riff is in G, but the verse begins with this four-bar progression (each chord lasting two beats in four-four time):

A minor/Bb major/F major/C major/Bb major/F major/Bb major/G major

Here, we're obviously starting off with iii/IV/I in the key of F major, but it's a weak cadence and the chords keep moving. The C major chord sounds more like a point of rest than you'd think it might, and there's something to be said for thinking of this progression in terms of C mixolydian.

The G major chord at the end does signal a key center shift, but it happens as the chords keep coming at two beats each:

D major/E minor/F major/C major

After the preceding four-bar phrase, D major on the downbeat of bar five here definitely sounds like the tonic. The tonal center quickly moves away, however, with the F major chord in the next bar. As it turns out, the F and C chords here function as bVII and IV in G, as the verse then ends with the title words sung over these three chords:

A minor/F major/G major

G is definitely felt as the tonic here, with the F major chord meaning that we are now more certainly dealing with the mixolydian mode.

The bridge that follows moves back and forth between two chords only, E minor and F major. This curiously echoes the A minor to Bb major progression played at the beginning of the verse. Like that progression, it sounds like iii and IV chords (in what would here be the key of C major). The final F chord of the bridge works as a simple pivot, though, resuming its function as a bVII chord when the song slides back up to G major. The song is now in its home key once again and the opening riff is repeated.

In addition to the harmonic fluidity, there's is something to be said for the seamlessness of the metric irregularities in this song, too, and how both of these pleasingly relate to the song's subject matter.

The Buggles - "Kid Dynamo" (1980)

This song starts out with an instrumental section in Ab minor, but phrase modulates to the key of F minor for the first verse. It moves back again to Ab minor for the chorus, but this time it's really a question as to whether we can look at it as a phrase modulation or not. There is seventh harmony used for the iv and v chords in F minor (Bb minor seventh and C minor seventh) and it's a progression of these two chords that leads to the tonic chord of the new key, Ab minor, on the downbeat of the first bar of the chorus. We might not think of the Bb minor and C minor chords as having been related in any way to the key of Ab minor, but a Bb minor seventh chord is actually a Db major triad with Bb in the bass. Likewise, a C minor seventh chord is an Eb major triad with C in the bass. These chords, then, can really be seen as variants of the IV and V chords in the key of Ab.

Towards the end of the chorus, they modulate back to F minor in a completely unrelated, and also very clever, way. In a two-bar phrase, the chords first move from V to IV to III, then land back on V for the first beat of the second measure. On beat three of that measure, they move to the tonic harmony of Ab, but it's played as a major (rather than minor) chord. On beat four, the harmony moves up to a Bb major chord. In the next bar, the chorus begins on the tonic harmony of our new key, F minor. Looking back, we now can see the Ab major and Bb major chords as having been III and IV chords in the new key.

This is particularly clever because, in a sense, they did resolve that Eb dominant chord to Ab, but it happened in the middle of a measure, for one beat only, and as a pivot to the new key.

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.