The Beatles - "She Loves You" (1963)

John Lennon sings a A on the line "She loves you and you know you should be glad." For a long time, I've assumed that this line is sung over a borrowed iv chord (C minor). In lieu of video footage possibly showing what the guitarists were playing, let's look at the possibilities for what's happening here:

1) Lennon is actually playing some voicing of an A half-diminished chord on the guitar during this line. If so, where might the idea of a half-diminished chord built on the supertonic, and used as a dominant prep chord, have come from?

2) Lennon is, in fact, playing a C minor chord, in which case the Beatles probably did not realize he was singing a non-chordal tone and this seemingly unique (?) harmonic phenomenon came about as a result.

George Harrison - "If You Believe" (1979)

Wanted to point out a metric irregularity in this song. The chorus is a total of twelve bars long, consisting of one six-bar phrase that repeats. While the song is otherwise in four-four time, the third bar of this phrase is six beats long. The whole chorus looks like this:

Measures 1 and 2 - I chord
Measure 3 - I7 chord (3 beats)/IV chord (3 beats)
Measure 4 - IV chord
Measure 5 - iv chord (minor)
Measure 6 - V chord
Measures 7 and 8 - I chord
Measure 9 - I7 chord (3 beats)/IV chord (3 beats)
Measure 10 - IV chord
Measure 11 - iv chord (minor)
Measure 12 - V chord

The melody and cadence of the words both scan over this chord structure in a very fluid way in spite of both the metric irregularity and the seemingly consequent decision not to attempt to create rhymes with the words.

Edison Lighthouse - "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" (1970)

Just found an unusual note here. The first part of the refrain line where you hear the title words is over a chord progression of I-iii-vi-I. The melody starts on the fifth scale degree for that first I chord, but then climbs up to the sixth degree (on the word "grows") for the iii chord.

That's, of course, a non-chordal tone, but it's not really used as a passing tone. (It's the emphasized note for that chord.) Sure sounds awfully natural and right.

Cass Elliot - "It's Getting Better" (1969)

Love how this is put together. The verse is twenty bars long and goes through seventeen chords, with a total of six lines of poetry. Twenty and six, of course, don't make for "square" structures the way that a number like eight or sixteen does. Here, line one and line two are each four bars, perfectly squared, but then line three is only two bars. Its rhyming line, line four, extends that so the last note falls on the downbeat of a third bar. Then there's a rest through the remainder of the third bar plus an additional fourth. That squares things off somewhat, but you've still got the irregularity of lines three and four adding up to six bars total. Same thing happens with lines five and six.

The extension that happens in line four creates a sort of ellipsis where things still need to move in order to resolve, but the lyrics here (as well as the seeming attempts to make this song fairly normal as a structure) are already dictating that we are nearing the closing. Songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil keep the flow of chords going, but use a classic I-vi-IV-V-I progression in order to quickly bring things to an end. Dropping this standard harmonic sequence all by itself at the end of the verse definitely seems unusual, but the sweetness of these chords really amplifies the sweetness already established earlier in the verse.

The flow of chords in this song continues through the chorus, a second verse and chorus, and then into the bridge, where we get derivations of chord progressions heard already, first sounding like an instrumental passage but then metamorphosing into a vocal bridge. Here, the I-vi-IV-V-I progression is used once again to bring things to a close, and claimed even more so than it was the first time.

To claim such a thing, of course, is bubblegum.

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - "Honey Chile" (1967)

This song may have provided more than a bit of a template for bubblegum soul of the later '60s/early '70s. Around the same tempo as "Want Ads" or "Band of Gold" and maybe no wonder that the Jackson Five covered it on their third album.

Construction of this song is so great. You've got these short, four-bar verses with three rhyming lines and then the title words used as a punctuation. Starts off with two of the verses followed by, strangely enough, a bridge already at 0:30.

When the third verse comes in at 0:40, the melody is already elevated into a higher register. You can't push too much, though, so here's where the song does its most brilliant thing. Instead of having two more of the short verses here, there's only one, and then we finally move to the chorus (which temporarily levels the energy out a little bit).

Of course, 0:50 is not a point where you'd normally be talking about "finally" getting to the chorus, but this song has already had a bridge. And by cutting the verses short here (one instead of two), they put that chorus in just the right place.

Topping this off, though, is the fact that the eight-bar chorus is split up into two four-bar sections, each with three lines and then the title words used as punctuation just like in the verses. Wow.

After this, it repeats the whole thing with new words through the two verses, the bridge, and the abbreviated single verse, then plows through the chorus again, after which Reeves finally gets to take a break at 2:06.

Jefferson Airplane - "Young Girl Sunday Blues" (1967)

Sometimes bands go to lengths that are heroic and sometimes you don't even notice it. This song has that kind of greatness and subtlety.

Verses one and two are a regular sixteen bars with eight lines of poetry, but only lines two and four rhyme. Instead of rhyming with line six, line eight leaves off on a sort of ellipsis that then leads into the refrain ("Young girl Sunday blues/And all her sorrow"). There are only three chords, but the melody is beautifully constructed without any kind of regularity at all, lines ranging anywhere from five to thirteen syllables in length. This is surely impressive in itself, but the Airplane arranged the whole thing for two-part harmony.

The two verses heard at the beginning make for some compositional heft right away, but then there's a beautiful, modulating passage that leads the way back for verse number three, now pitched up a whole tone. With the higher key, the energy of the song is continuing to build, but then they let it come down ("Let yourself wander free and easy") with a reprise of the chord structure from the instrumental passage now used as a bridge, Balin and Kantner STILL singing in harmony and allowing the energy of this great thing to build one last time to the end.

Sherbet - "Summer Love" (1975)

This song is structurally beautiful and has a very unique way of drifting between two key centers, C and Eb. It starts off with a refrain over an alternation of C major, C major with a suspended fourth, and the same C major with the suspended fourth and an added flat seventh (all over a C pedal bass). After a few repetitions of this, the harmony breaks away to an Eb major seventh chord. This is then followed by Bb major, which turns out to be the dominant chord in our secondary key of Eb.

We move back then to Eb major as the tonic chord to start the verse. (This time, it's not a major seventh chord, though, as though its identity as the tonic is being grounded, whereas its tonal orientation was more ambiguous when the chord was heard just before.) Without any sense of where we might be heading, though, the chord that follows is D minor. Quickly, this is used as a ii chord, there's a ii-V-I progression, and the transition back to the home key of C is accomplished right in the middle of the second line of the verse! Very unusual.

The verse continues in C major for a bit, but then shifts to a second section that starts on an F major chord. F, of course, is the IV chord in C major, but there's a sudden shift from diatonic to blues pentatonic melodicism, and the harmonic direction from here is once again uncertain. Amazingly, the F chord turns out to be a secondary dominant (V/V) in the song's other key center of Eb, with the chords then moving from F to Ab (IV) and then Eb (I).

The Eb, however, moves once again to D minor with a repeat of the melody heard at the beginning of the verse. When we first heard that melody, of course, it sounded like an antecedent line within the lyrical structure (naturally, given that it was the first line of the verse). Here, however, it sounds like a consequent line, following after and completing the phrase begun in the two lines just before it. There's even a drum fill, as though we are reaching the end of the section.

Instead, however, that line is used just as it was the first time, as the first line of what is now the second verse, and a very unique liaison linking the two verses together is accomplished.

Amazingly, not only for a big pop smash (a number one hit in the group's home country of Australia) but for a song that genuinely sounds like a big pop smash, this song has no chorus, just repeats of that refrain in C from the beginning. The way these verses are put together, though, it doesn't need one.

Teena Marie - "Ooo La La La" (1988)

The expression, of course, is actually "Ooo la la," but when you add the other "la," then you've got a Teena Marie-ism. Here's how this works: for one thing, "la la la" means music, but notice what she does with it. Not only is her melody for "la la la" a true "la la la"-type melody, it's also a soul melody! What puts it over the top, though, is that it's specifically like a late '60s/early '70s soul melody AND the poetry in that refrain is also like soul lyrics from the time.

This song has to be one of her most astonishingly virtuosic performances, but everything in the composition allows for that to happen and it goes for the full five minutes and seventeen seconds right down to the narration finally kicking in at 4:26 and she's preaching. And then a little surprise at the end...

R.I.P.

Stackridge - "Fundamentally Yours" (1973)

Imagine this song as performed by a freakbeat group ca. '67-'68 and it works perfectly. Two-chord intro could easily be executed with more of a rock arrangement and the first couple of lines of the verse really have the character of, say, the Move.

After those first two lines, the exposition expands into a gorgeous structure where the verse blends into the chorus as one ongoing segment. The whole thing looks like this:

A1 - Thirteen-syllable line
A2 - Thirteen-syllable rhyming line for A1

B1 - Five-syllable line
B2 - Six-syllable rhyming line for B1
B3 - Nine-syllable non-rhyming line

C1 - Seven-syllable line with internal rhyme
C2 - Six-syllable line
C3 - Eight-syllable line
C4 - Five-syllable rhyming line for C2*

The harmonic language in this structure is expansive and creative and yet still fairly simple. The violin, especially, leads one to imagine the last line with a buildup akin to something like "With Love from 1 to 5" by the State of Micky and Tommy.

With its own arrangement style, the song naturally ends up as a very different entity, most comparable perhaps to Klaatu, and in what is surely about the nicest way imaginable.

* Notice how the two sets of lines in this last section are unequal yet both add up to a total of thirteen syllables.

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.