Tribute thread to "It's So Obvious" by Wire because I just got the rest of the joke.
The lyrics in the first verse talk about how great 77 is, "nearly heaven" - then tell you there's to more to come. Jump to verse two, whole different chord structure - "well, it's alright, listen - can't wait for 78." Always thought he's just describing the change in years, maybe anticipating Chairs Missing. But now I get that the chord changes are part of the joke, doing what the lyric describes.
Verse one bounces between E5, A5, and G5, same basic classic 1977 power chords as the verse in Mr. Suit - as close as Wire got to a generic punk song. The verse starts and ends by telling you it's so obvious, meaning the palette of 1977, with its three basic chords/three colors ("black white and pink"). Then verse two:
[A5] Well it's alright, just listen, can't [B5] wait for 78 [C5] God those RPM, can't [D5] wait for them, don't just watch [E5] Hours happen, get in there kid and [F5] snap them
It just runs up the neck in a straight line - A5, B5, C5, D5, E5, and F5. The song isn't waiting for 78, it starts to move, propelling you and itself forward. And that run of chords is also duh obvious in a way that's perfect for Wire's first, looking askew at the chords/building blocks of songs, just like the lyrics to Lowdown, art students analyzing the tools of their trade.
First off I'm so happy that the miniatures on Pink Flag have complexities that keep revealing themselves - I've been listening to this record for 20+ years (not non-stop thanks). Unless this reading's totally off, it's a very arch/art joke. Are there other songs where the lyrics and music make similar comments on each other?
Are there other songs that go up/down the guitar neck making every stop along the way? (Offhand I can only think of Pere Ubu's Non-Alignment Pact and The Monkees' Circle Sky -- more artistes at work.) And is there some musicological term for this kind of so-obvious progression?
Obviously these topics are about as random as you could imagine, so thanks for your indulgence.
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:21 (sixteen years ago) link
What's A5? And B5? Etc?
Are there other songs that go up/down the guitar neck making every stop along the way?
"White Light / White Heat"? End of?
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Also a Syd Barrett or two... maybe "Arnold Layne"?
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:26 (sixteen years ago) link
They're root chords, really basic building block power chords. Standard rock guitar vocabulary.
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:31 (sixteen years ago) link
As opposed to A, B, etc?
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Power chords. A power chord is a diad, or a two-note chord, built from a root (the named note) and a fifth. The lack of a third makes a power chord ambiguous - it's neither major nor minor.
A = A major, which has a root, a major third, and a fifth.
― St3ve Go1db3rg, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:34 (sixteen years ago) link
You don't play the 3rd in A5 - just A & E
xpost
― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:34 (sixteen years ago) link
I suspected that, just never seen them described that way
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
This is kind of a basic of approx. 100,000,000 songs, surely
― nabisco, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:36 (sixteen years ago) link
No
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:37 (sixteen years ago) link
Always thought he's just describing the change in years, maybe anticipating Chairs Missing. But now I get that the chord changes are part of the joke, doing what the lyric describes.
i always thought the chord changes were a sort of joke on "78" as "rpm" (as the lyric goes), as they "speed up" a step, kind of like how if the song were the same chord changes the entire time, and you moved your turntable's speed from 33 to 45 to 78, etc. if that makes sense.
― hstencil, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:40 (sixteen years ago) link
The Kinks' "Last of the Steam Powered Trains" does this too
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:43 (sixteen years ago) link
Tom, the "surely" at the end of that sentence is mostly there for politeness
Let me re-phrase: it's a basic of approx. 100,000,000 songs
― nabisco, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:43 (sixteen years ago) link
But it isn't!
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Last of the Steam Powered Trains -- that's what I mean, and that's like a comment on the lyric too, at least to the extent it's like a train chugging.
Maybe I'm not describing the specific dumb trick I'm talking about too well. Like in the intro to Circle Sky, where Nesmith hits every bar chord from B to A# to A to G# to G to F# to F to E -- that's a very mathematical downward progression, not your standard variety I-IV-V. I feel a bit out of my depths talking anything remotely like music theory ...
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Nice!
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link
Another one - The Jam, "A-Bomb in Wardour Street", end.
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link
This is not an art-joke, but the chord progression in this one pretty much covers the entire spectrum.
THIS WHOLE WORLD by The Beach Boys ================ written by Brian Wilson from the "Sunflower" album (1970) chords by Piguinho (from Brazil)C Bb/C C I'm thinkin' 'bout this whole world. C F Em7 G Am F Late at night I think about the love of this whole world. A F#7 Bm7 E7 C#m Lots of diff'rent people ev'rywhere. C# C#/C F#/Bb Ab7 Bbm Bbm/Ab F#maj7 And when I go anywhere I see love, I see love, I see love.Bb Ebmaj7 When girls get mad at boys and go many times they're just putting on a show Bb F G but when they leave you wait alone.C F Em7 G Am F You are there like ev'rywhere like ev'ryone you see. A F#7 Bm7 E7 C#m Happy 'cause you're livin' and you're free. C# C#/C F#/Bb Ab7 Bbm Bbm/Ab F#maj7 Now, here comes another day for your love................(No Chord) Late at night I think about the love of this whole world Umm dat didit......
C Bb/C C I'm thinkin' 'bout this whole world. C F Em7 G Am F Late at night I think about the love of this whole world. A F#7 Bm7 E7 C#m Lots of diff'rent people ev'rywhere. C# C#/C F#/Bb Ab7 Bbm Bbm/Ab F#maj7 And when I go anywhere I see love, I see love, I see love.
Bb Ebmaj7 When girls get mad at boys and go many times they're just putting on a show Bb F G but when they leave you wait alone.
C F Em7 G Am F You are there like ev'rywhere like ev'ryone you see. A F#7 Bm7 E7 C#m Happy 'cause you're livin' and you're free. C# C#/C F#/Bb Ab7 Bbm Bbm/Ab F#maj7 Now, here comes another day for your love................
(No Chord) Late at night I think about the love of this whole world Umm dat didit......
― Steve Shasta, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:51 (sixteen years ago) link
I knew there was a Beach Boys one that did this - or at least the bassline does - but this wasn't the one I was thinking of
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:53 (sixteen years ago) link
chords by Piguinho (from Brazil)
Look out, he's using Brazilian chords! Including the dreaded (No Chord)!
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:56 (sixteen years ago) link
Didn't the Pistols do this on "Problems" (I think?)? Or at least the A to B to C to D joke?
― JN$OT, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 16:59 (sixteen years ago) link
<i>Are there other songs that go up/down the guitar neck making every stop along the way? (Offhand I can only think of Pere Ubu's Non-Alignment Pact and The Monkees' Circle Sky -- more artistes at work.) </i>
a couple i can think of:
-- the part right before the solo in 'quiet' by smashing pumpkins -- the ending of 'rocket' by smashing pumpkins
<i>And is there some musicological term for this kind of so-obvious progression? </i>
chromatic movement, i would think
― 6335, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:13 (sixteen years ago) link
whoops. i arrowed when i should have bracketed
― 6335, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link
Tom D is nuts: the thing being discussed gets used in the intro, bridge, or some transition of like every 5th punk song and every 4th song by bands that only know power chords.
I only heard 8 songs during my commute to work (most of a Stereo Total record), and one of them had this in it; I wouldn't be surprised if one of the others did, too, and I just didn't really notice
― nabisco, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:17 (sixteen years ago) link
So how come out of 100,000,000 songs, only 8 or sumthin' have been mentioned here? Are we talking about the same thing?!?!?
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:21 (sixteen years ago) link
*consults wikipedia*
Thanks! OK, so all I'd identified as a musical part of the joke was the specific chords plays (A5 up to F5), but for those of you more knowledgeable in these matters than me: does the change from a diatonic to a chromatic progression itself add something to the joke here?
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:27 (sixteen years ago) link
You seem to be assuming that *Wire had more musical knowledge when they wrote the song than you do now - which I wouldn't be so sure of.
(*OK, Colin Newman)
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Remember two of them had only just started playing
― Tom D., Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:30 (sixteen years ago) link
True, and maybe I'm getting carried away here with the diatonic/chromatic stuff, but songs where the chord changes allude to the lyrics seem to be a pretty rare bird, and since the other aspects (speeding up the tempo and zooming up the neck) fit with the lyrics so directly, in a way that most songs don't, it seems to me there was likely some authorial intent at play.
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Hang on, A5, B5, C5, D5, E5, and F5 is purely diatonic, not chromatic, what? Chromatic would have to throw some accidentals in.
― anatol_merklich, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:52 (sixteen years ago) link
Knew I was out of my depths here ... OK, I'm using the wrong words to describe this little sequence, but isn't there something unusual about a progression that goes A5 B5 C5 D5 E5 F5? It's like something you'd play if you wanted to teach your guitar how to spell.
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 17:55 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah it's called the key of c major.
― Steve Shasta, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 18:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Yes. Ouch.
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 18:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Purely harmonically, I agree ABCDE etc is not a very obvious sequence, since the harmonical "alphabet" moves more in fifths. However, with the thirds omitted I guess this is less relevant (leading tones disappearing etc) and what remains is more of a melodic than a harmonic sequence, in which case it is as basic as it gets. (Maybe A minor rather than C major though?)
― anatol_merklich, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 18:15 (sixteen years ago) link
Umm guys they do the exact same thing in the "go under, go under" section of "Three-Girl Rhumba."
I think it's safe to say this has less to do with clever compositional ploys and more to do with how you can play this by just slowly moving your hand in a rightward direction.
It would take infinite monkeys to accidentally bang out Shakespeare, but I'm pretty sure you could get this out of just a couple hundred bonobos with Telecasters
― nabisco, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 18:20 (sixteen years ago) link
Not that it isn't, like, awesome and everything.
It's just that the main chord-sequence decision going into the string listed above is doing the B5-C5, since B5-Db5 would be too poppy
― nabisco, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 18:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Wow, this was a very neat reading of the song being clobbered to death.
Anyways, a good example of the ascending sequence thingy is near the end of the Dustdevils' (my favorite band, did I mention that) "Feet Head High" where in slow-mo the band basically climbs all the way up the neck. I don't think it comments on the lyrics, though, which I can't really understand anyway.
Did anyone mention Interstellar Overdrive? That does something similar, descending. Um, and The Dickies' "Attack of the Molemen" has this going on a bit. Boris The Spider? (Descending again, mostly.)
― dlp9001, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 18:38 (sixteen years ago) link
Hey wait a minute - I derailed my own thread! Chords are interesting and all, but mostly I was just hoping to find other examples of songs where the music makes some clever reference to the lyrics ... any thoughts?
― dad a, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 19:56 (sixteen years ago) link
YYZ is the IATA airport identification code for Toronto Pearson International Airport, of Rush's native area of Toronto. At the time the song was written, it was common practice (and still is) for air navigation aids to broadcast their 3-letter identifier code in Morse Code using VHF omnidirectional range (VOR). YYZ was the one for Toronto. A plane using VOR equipment would then always know its location relative to a the VOR navaid within range. A plane landing at Toronto would, for example, rely on the radio emanation of the letters YYZ (in Morse Code) as a homing beacon to locate and arrive at the Toronto airport. (Source: Wikipedia's article on VOR.) The song's introduction, played in a time signature of 10/8, repeatedly renders the letters "Y-Y-Z" in Morse Code using various musical arrangements.
"YYZ" rendered in Morse code Y Y Z - . - - - . - - - - . .
"YYZ" is structured in the following arrangement: A-B-C-B-A. The song starts with the YYZ Morse Code played by Peart on the crotales (A). The guitar and bass join this pattern, using the dissonant interval of the tritone to distinguish Morse Code dots and dashes. The guitar and bass render the code by playing the root note of C for the "dashes" and the tritone F# for the "dots". The synthesizer melody played over this arrangement is an example of the Locrian mode. In live performances, the synthesizer part is played by bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee -- using a foot-pedal MIDI controller (Korg MPK-130 & Roland PK-5)[1] -- while he plays the bass part. After two cycles of the melody, the synth ceases, and the bass drops one octave, the introduction ending on the guitar, bass, and drummer making hits on only the "dashes". A brief rest follows, before the next section. etc etc etc
― everything, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 20:17 (sixteen years ago) link
Not a chordal thing, but there's the bit in "Prove It" by Television where the lyrics go
First you creep Then you leap Up about a hundred feet
and the drums respond with a little snare roll and cymbal crash, like the accompaniment to a tightrope walker. I'm sure there's a load more of these.
― Matt #2, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 20:31 (sixteen years ago) link
Although I guess that doesn't quite have the depth of the Wire one mentioned above
― Matt #2, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 20:32 (sixteen years ago) link
On my way to work today I heard this on the radio: Variations on Glen Gould It's a bunch of specially commissioned music pieces based around anagrams of "GLEN GOULD".
― everything, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 20:37 (sixteen years ago) link
You're right: there aren't relatively that many. (100,000 surely, but not 100,000,000.) The Styrenes' "Social Whirlpool" begins with a little 7-note figure played way up high on the guitar neck and doubled by a keyboard, which is then immediately repeated a fret lower, then lower again and again and again until the end of the guitar's neck is reached, after which they reverse direction and go back up again all the way, and then the song ends after 1:23. Every fourth (I think) bar they go up/down a full step rather than just half, and at one point the instruments go out of sync in a fugue-like manner that makes further analysis impossible for a relative ignoramus like me.
― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 21:15 (sixteen years ago) link
one of the fellas i was in a band with used to play this little song he called "BE A FAG". chord progression was (you guessed it) B-E-A-F-A-G
― 6335, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 21:27 (sixteen years ago) link
There's James Brown in "Sex Machine" where he yells about "taking it to the bridge", which refers a section of the song. Of course, if you don't happen to know that, he just sounds deranged.
― Rich Smörgasbord, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 00:40 (sixteen years ago) link
I don't think playing a partial (there's no seventh) ascending scale with power chords is very singular or rare. Lots of songs are built from that kind of scalar-root movement.
Purely harmonically, I agree ABCDE etc is not a very obvious sequence, since the harmonical "alphabet" moves more in fifths.
You're right inasmuch as that kind of progression is not very big-C Classical, but there is no "harmonical alphabet" that moves in fifths, and it is a very obvious sequence.
― St3ve Go1db3rg, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 03:26 (sixteen years ago) link
B-A-C-H
― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 04:25 (sixteen years ago) link
There's a band called Owada, easily googled, whose songs are about nothing, except the songs themselves. They have titles like "short G", "up and down", and "1234", and the music does what the title suggests. (It ends up sounding pretty Pink Flag-ish.) Is there a name for this artistic strategy? It keeps reminding me of early Frank Stella paintings.
― Rich Smörgasbord, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 08:57 (sixteen years ago) link
You're right inasmuch as that kind of progression is not very big-C Classical, but there is no "harmonical alphabet" that moves in fifths
"Alphabet" only as in "common sequence", not "source of entire vocabulary" or anything -- just a simple analogy ("easy as ABC"::"easy as ii-V-I").
Apart from that, I'm certainly not going to try to outargue you about harmonic theory. :)
― anatol_merklich, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 09:45 (sixteen years ago) link
I had that Owada CD. I got it for a pound and binned it, it's shit.
― Raw Patrick, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 10:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Is the song structure of ABACAB ABACAB? Oh, wait, Wikipedia explains...it was ABACAB at one time.
― dlp9001, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 14:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Cool story about YYZ. What an awesome song.
― Bill Magill, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 15:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah, I see what you mean. And like I alluded to, root movement by fourths and fifths (as opposed to movement by thirds in Renaissance music) was an important characteristic of Classical harmony.
― St3ve Go1db3rg, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 15:32 (sixteen years ago) link
"second verse, same as the first"
― 6335, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 16:00 (sixteen years ago) link
isn't there a prince line about "sexy like a D minor 7th" or something like that?
― m0stlyClean, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 18:30 (sixteen years ago) link
"Threw some chords together -- a combination D-E-F".
Sadly, the bit two lines later, "I tried to focus my attention -- but I feel so A-D-D" doesn't follow up properly.
― anatol_merklich, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 22:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Bb Bbsus4 Gm11 D-5 Am Am/e Jazz police I hear you calling Bb Bb-5 C11 E Emaj7 Jazz police I feel so blue
― thomp, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 23:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" has lyrical references to the chords being played.
― sleeve, Thursday, 27 September 2007 03:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Am/e I RITE?
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, 27 September 2007 04:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Sloan's "G Turns To D" is about teaching a girl how to play her guitar, and the lines "then I could show my mother that you can go from one chord to another, G...will turn to D... You'll turn to me..."
mirror the chord changes.
― Viz, Thursday, 27 September 2007 04:26 (sixteen years ago) link
That's right, "It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift..."
― St3ve Go1db3rg, Thursday, 27 September 2007 05:20 (sixteen years ago) link
(While he playes I IV V vi IV)
― St3ve Go1db3rg, Thursday, 27 September 2007 06:46 (sixteen years ago) link
Back to Wire. The song "Former Airline" is so called because the chords are B-E-A (British European Airways, which joined with BOAC to form British Airways in the mid-70s)
― Tom D., Thursday, 27 September 2007 08:46 (sixteen years ago) link
"106 beats that" was called that because they attempted to keep the song within 106 beats.
― Mark G, Thursday, 27 September 2007 08:56 (sixteen years ago) link
Also there's some story Colin Newman tells about the chord structure on "106 Beats That" having something to do with the train stations on the journey between Watford and, errrrr, somewhere else.
― Tom D., Thursday, 27 September 2007 09:08 (sixteen years ago) link
This, obv.
Nevertheless, the craftiness of Ma fin is quite unusual and would perhaps be lost on the lay listener were it not for the clue provided by the composer, who was also an esteemed poet, in the opening lines. The text of the refrain states that "My end is my beginning, and my beginning my end." In the lowest voice, or tenor, this text refers to the palindromic nature of the musical line, which, whether read forward from the beginning or backwards from the ending, articulates the exact same sequence of notes and durations. In fact, Machaut originally provided the singer with the first half of the line only, and instructed him simply to sing it forward then backward.
― anatol_merklich, Thursday, 27 September 2007 09:10 (sixteen years ago) link
http://telescoper.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/from-major-to-minor/
― goodoldneon, Saturday, 26 July 2014 20:13 (nine years ago) link
Jump to verse two, whole different chord structure - "well, it's alright, listen - can't wait for 78." Always thought he's just describing the change in years, maybe anticipating Chairs Missing. But now I get that the chord changes are part of the joke, doing what the lyric describes.
surely a reference to the wasps song, or at least voicing a phrase in common use at the time?
― j., Saturday, 26 July 2014 20:35 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESfotzVZev8
― Benny B, Monday, 28 July 2014 10:06 (nine years ago) link
This one's pretty obvious, but the part in "Rock Lobster" when Fred yells "Down! Down!" and the guitar and keys both descend and slow down.
― Both jaunty and authentic (Dan Peterson), Monday, 28 July 2014 15:06 (nine years ago) link