Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Stop the Clocks

You're breathing. In and out, in and out. In and out, in and out.

Now try in. In, in. In, in. In, in. It doesn't feel good.

Because I breathe in, I will breathe out. Because I breathe out, I will breath in. This is the mode of thinking, the cause and effect that is reinforced in every living human with each breath. 12 times a minute; 17,000 times a day.

Music takes advantage of this expectation. It can set up an "inhale" and an "exhale", then take the "exhale" away, to uncomfortable effect. In other words, some songs develop a shortness of breath.

An example is Sufjan Stevens' "The Palm Sunday Tornado Hits Crystal Lake".

The song's fundamental structure is an inhale and an exhale. The first part - the "in" - is the rising piano from :00 to :07. The second part - the "out" - is the descending piano from :08 to :12.

There are 4 repetitions of "in" and "out" up to :46. Enough repetitions to establish an expectation. When we hear the "in" we want to hear the "out" again.

From :46 to :52, we hear the "in" again. At :52 we should hear the "out". But instead, the "in" sounds again. And again, and again. The "in" repeats 6 times, without its "out".

It's an unsettling effect. The song no longer breathes correctly.

It's a great way to score the approach of a tornado. A person looks into the distance at the tornado, is apprehensive, but knows the world will go on after it passes. Then he sees the tornado approach, sees it tear through a house that's been there his whole life, sees the beams floating off into the air - suddenly the permanence he is accustomed to falls apart, and he starts to hyperventilate.

This song's feeling is augmented by introducing bass, ramping up the ambient noise and adding flourishes to the piano, but all of this is ornamentation of the song's basic structure: establishing and "in" and "out", and then taking the "out" away.

"Stop the Clocks" uses a complex version of this idea to create an effective guitar solo.

The song's lyrics seem to come from a deathbed. Have you seen a person on her deathbed? She loses functions one after another. She can't walk. Then she can't move. Then she can't talk. Then she can't open her eyes. She is a mass that is there, still apparently breathing.

But what is going on in her head? Does she think? Does she hear? Does she feel pain? Does she fear Can she perceive at all, and if so, what? This is what "Stop the Clocks" is about.

The singer is about to die. He's starting to lose his perceptions. He can't see or hear the people around him:

Lost inside my head behind a wall

Do they hear me when I call? 

He mistrusts the perceptions he has left:

What if I'm already dead

How would I know? 

He doesn't know what will happen next. Sometimes he asks, "where will I rise?"; sometimes "where will I fall?". Perhaps, he will go up to some heaven; perhaps he will go down to some hell.

Other times, he seems to think after he dies there will be nothing:

And when the night is over

There'll be no sound 

If, on your deathbed, you dwell on the uncertainty of life after death long enough, you'll develop a shortness of breath. That's what happens in "Stop the Clocks".

First, the song establishes a normal breathing rhythm. From 2:37 to 2:42 there is a four chord progression: AEGD. These chords have a highly stable relationship. The interval between A and E is the same as interval between G and D (a descent of 5 half steps). These matched intervals separate the AEGD into two sets of one high chord and one low chord separated by the same intervals: AE and GD.

Listen to your breath. The "in" is a high note, the "out" is a low one. And if you are in a stable, relaxed condition, the difference between these pitches are proportionate.

This AEGD pattern is just like two breaths, one after another. It's high A ("inhale") to low E ("exhale"), high G ("inhale") to low D ("exhale").

What comes next from 2:42 to 2:46 is a mixed chord F7M/A, which rises to G. So while the first 4 chords establish a pattern of dropping from higher notes to lower notes, the next two chords rise.

This unexpected rise after these two stable pairs gives the feeling that something is not right. It's like you skipped a breath, had two inhales without an exhale. We'll call it the FG hyperventilation.

This pattern is repeated from 2:47 to 2:55. Then from 2:57 to 3:07, the FG section is repeated two additional times, prolonging the breathless state. So it goes:

AE GD FG
AE GD FG FG FG

The FG hyperventilation has been prolonged. The effect is an uncomfortable, unresolved expectation.

The song lays down this chord structure here so that it can manipulate it in the concluding solo.

The music stops at 4:00,  along with the singer's life we assume. His last words suggest he has concluded that "There'll be no sound". That there is nothing after death.

And for a couple of seconds there is no sound. Just his echoing voice.

But then the music comes back at 4:06. All of a sudden, the echo of "sound", doesn't feel like last words dying off into the vacuum, but a still present perception noticing: there is still "sound"!

Is this just the final paroxysm of a dying brain, or a bridge to an afterlife? Who knows. What we do know is that it's a very anxious experience.

From 4:06 to 4:10 the acoustic guitar plays the AEGD chords, then the FG hyperventilation from 4:10 to 4:13. The AEGD chords come back from 4:13 to 4:18; then there's another expected FG hyperventilation from 4:18 to 4:21. But then it's constant FG hyperventilation from 4:21 to 4:36 - 4 repeated FG hyperventilations. So whereas before in the AEGDFG progression we had two regular breaths and a FG hyperventilation, now we have a repeated FG hyperventilation at the end: AEGDFGFGFGFGFG.

There are no in and out breathes anymore, just hyperventilations. It makes this FG section from 4:21 to 4:36 especially anxiety-filled. It's a paralysis. When will the relief come? Pouring on the anxiety is the hysterical rise in pitch in the guitar from 4:29 to 4:35.

Finally at 4:37, the chords go back to AEGD - to breathing in and out. The AEGD chords are repeated 4 times: the FG hyperventilation chords are now completely gone.

The results is a newfound stability. The sound is still anxious, but whereas before the music was paralyzed, now it is heading somewhere. The person is still hysterical, judging by the high pitch and distortion of the solo guitar, and the instability of its melody, but something allows him to move now.

To me the anxious solo guitar is the conscious part of the person, growing in anxiety, and the chords are the body functions of the person, the subconscious things that allow it to function. From 4:21 to 4:36 the conscious solo guitar grows more and more anxious over the paralyzed, subconscious, FG repeating chords. It's like watching someone have a panic attack: the mind races, but the body is rooted to the spot.

After 4:36, the subconscious chords, now back in AEGD progression, no longer paralyze the conscious guitar, so it can finally move.

But where is it heading? The rise of the angelic choir at the end suggests it's headed upwards. But the song ends in silence. Has he gone up above, or did his malfunctioning brain just imagine it? I don't know.