Oasis - Champagne Supernova

Beauty...here the two shores of the river meet; here all contradictions exist side by side. 
                                                                        -Dmitry Karamazov


A song's basic structure is its chord progression. The bass normally clarifies the chord progression. Listen to "Saturn Barz" - the chord progression is the 4 long notes played by the fuzzy bass starting at :24 and ending at :30. The song repeats these again and again.

The rest of the song's sounds are ornamentation on that chord structure. If a chord is a metal pipe, a melody is ivy spiraling around it. Ivy has more variation, is more interesting to look at, feels more detailed, organic and delicate than the metal pipe.  But without that pipe to grow on, ivy would just be a pile of leaves on the ground. For ivy to be beautiful, it needs to follow a basic structure. Songs are the same.

Some songs make the metal pipe invisible - they wrap melodies around a chord progression that isn't played by a bass, but still made clear. Listen to the beginning of "Stairway to Heaven". No bass plays under the acoustic guitar melody, but it's not hard to feel the chord progression. Listening to the first 7 seconds, you can hear 5 descending chords very clearly. You are almost compelled to hum the bass that isn't there.

Whether the chord progression is played by a bass, or implied by the melody, almost every popular song and most of classical music use chord progressions. Almost every piece of music has a single, simple, underlying structure.

Songs like "Yellow Ledbetter" repeat one chord progression through the entire song. You can hear the bass start it at :32 and end at :45, a 4 chord progression that is repeated until the end. This makes "Yellow Ledbetter" both supremely easy to rock your head or tap your foot to, and also lends it an inflexibility that goes well with the disillusionment of the lyrics.

But in other songs, repeating one chord progression becomes tedious. These song use multiple chord progressions to provide variety.

Oasis is king of multiple chord progressions. Take "Don't Look Back in Anger".

One 8 chord progression (A) starts at :12 and ends at :24. It gets repeated, and then another 4 chord progression (B) is introduced at :35 and repeated 3 times until :53. Until :59 is a 2 chord progression (C). A transitional 8 chord progression (D) starts and goes to 1:11. Then the first 8 chord progression (A) sound again.

Then the pattern repeats.

So where "Yellow Ledbetter" is simple, "Don't Look Back In Anger" is complex. It's a progression of chord progressions. Many other songs follow this structure, chaining multiple chord progressions together.

So that's it right? If a chord progression is the basic structure of a song, you can either have songs with a single chord progression, or songs that combine multiple chord progressions.

But what if you could have two chord progressions at the same time?

Impossible! A contradiction. If a chord progression is the basic structure of a song, you can't have two basic structures. You're doing something wrong.

I suppose, you could layer two songs with different chord progressions on top of each other and play them at the same time. Then you would have two simultaneous chord progressions.  But that's not really a song is it? It's a soup of sound.

Of course, I'm sure you have heard mixes of two different songs played at once, and they somehow fit together and sound harmonious. But this is often because they have the same chord progression, or at least share some characteristics in their chord progression.

What I'm looking for is the impossible - one, unified song that has two simultaneous chord progressions. That would be something magical wouldn't it? Quantum mechanical. Mystical.

I give to you: "Champagne Supernova".

This song has magic. Part of it is because it has simultaneous chord progressions.

The skeleton of this song is the acoustic guitar played from :07 to :19. At first listen, it's a simple descending chord progression: Asus2 G F# E. The guitar makes these chord shifts clear by very distinctly strumming the lowest note of each chord at the beginning of each measure.

A lesser song would strum, not just the lowest notes of these chords, but all the other notes, too. However, Oasis wanted to express a calming, meditative vibe. So while Noel hits the lowest note of each chord at the beginning of each measure, the rest of that chord's measure is filled with strumming of Asus2.

What is normally strummed:

I.  Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
II.  G        G         G        G
III. F#      F#        F#       F#
IV. E        E          E        E

is instead strummed (lowercase indicates the low string of the chord instead of the entire chord) :

I.   asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
II.  g       Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
III. f#     Asus2 Asus2 Asus2
IV. e       Asus2 Asus2 Asus2

The guitar plays two four chord progressions simultaneously. One is the Asus2 G F# E suggested by starting each measure by hitting the lowest note of those chords. The second is Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 suggested by strumming Asus2 at all other times.

We'll call the first chord progression (Asus2 G F# E) "Descent", since it steadily lowers in pitch. We'll call the second chord progression (Asus2 Asus2 Asus2 Asus2) "Buddha", since it focuses on one chord over and over, like a meditation.

First, a little about the character of each chord progression. "Descent" is gentle but inevitable. It's gentle in that each chord drops only a little in pitch. It's inevitable in that the chords always go downward.

"Buddha" is simple and meditative. It focuses on one chord over and over again. Even that one chord, Asus2, has a simple, pared down quality. A normal A chord forces you to hold three frets, Asus2 only requires 2. More strings are open in Asus2 than A; more strings are in their natural state.

Perhaps you have a different idea of what these chord progressions feel like. Great. The point is that they are different, and therefore give off different vibes. They suggest different mind-states. You feel one way listening to one and another way listening to the other.  When they play simultaneously, you have a foot in two worlds.

We have said that most sounds in a song are ornamentations of chord progressions. Let's apply that idea to these two chord progressions. Which musical elements of "Champagne Supernova" wrap around the "Descent" chord progression, and which ones wrap around "Buddha"?

From the beginning of the song is a drone which does not shift chord. "Drone" belongs to "Buddha".

At :13 is a chime, which repeats at :16, :19 and :22. It's a single repeated note. "Chime" also goes to "Buddha".

At :33, Liam Gallagher's vocals kick in. They conform to a descending chord structure. "Vocals" to "Descent".

At :35 is a dial tone that lasts through the first verse. "Tone" goes to "Buddha".

At :35 you can also hear a gentle, echoing chord that does not shift. "Echo" goes to "Buddha".

At :58 the bass finally kicks in, following the descending chord structure. "Bass" goes to "Descent".

Also at :58, Liam's chorus vocals follow the descent. "Chorus" to "Descent".

At 1:24 the harmonica comes in, hovering over one chord. "Harmonica" to "Buddha".

At 1:59 the chorus amplified electric guitar slides down the scale. "Amp" goes to "Descent".

2:26 to 2:52 is a bridge, which introduces another chord progression. We'll skip it.

2:55 introduces a two note electric guitar part we'll call the "Nod", which doesn't change chords. "Nod" goes to "Buddha".

3:06 introduces another electric guitar melody. We'll call it "Sincere" since it sounds that way to me. Technically, it has its own 2 chord progression, but it fits these two chords into one chord of the base chord progression, then repeats itself over the remaining chords. "Sincere" to "Buddha".

4:08 to 4:33 is another bridge.

4:35 starts the first guitar solo. "Solo 1" follows "Descent".

4:48 starts "Solo 2" which also makes a "Descent".

Classification of these musical elements leaves us with:

DESCENT                                     BUDDHA
 Vocals                                                Drone
 Bass                                                   Chime
 Chorus                                               Tone
 Amp                                                   Echo
 Solo 1                                                Harmonica
 Solo 2                                                Nod
                                                           Sincere

6 musical elements follow the "Descent" progression, 7 elements follow the "Buddha" progression. The song's elements are split between almost evenly between the two chord progressions.

"Champagne Supernova" occupies two states in more ways. The nonsensical lyric "caught beneath the landslide / in a Champagne Supernova in the sky" suggests simultaneous existence in two disparate states - deep under ground in the mud, but also high in the sky in blinding cosmic light. The song is also notable for its layering of two different guitar solos at 4:47 - we become immersed in two different guitars at once.

I don't know if these touches were intentional; it's more likely they are an unconscious product of the song's organizing principal, its simultaneous chord progression.

This is what makes music magical, when it pulls off something impossible, using simple structures to  express two mind states at once.

Isn't that more true? Portraying two simultaneous mind-states instead of one? We don't experience emotions as a sequence of single, Platonic forms. In grief there is some humor, in awkwardness certain confidences, in calm an inkling of dread, in sadness happiness. To hear a song that feels two things at once - Красота!



PS

Oasis's "Wonderwall" does a scaled back version of simultaneous chords. On all the chords of the main acoustic guitar, Noel holds the fifth and six strings on the third fret, giving every chord both that chord's nature, and the nature of a G chord.

Two more deft touches on "Champagne Supernova". One: the drum roll leading into the chorus, especially at 3:42. It's one of many indications that the song is going to ramp up. The first is the heavy snares at 3:39. The next is the electric guitar kicking in at 3:40. Another are the vocals "Someday you will find me" - which actually start before the first chorus chord (anacrusis). Finally, the drum roll kicks in at 3:42.  Combined they turn the last chord of the verse into an expectation for the chorus.

Second is the melody of the vocal "caught beneath the landslide". We expect the chorus to descend like the rest of the vocals, but with "caught beneath the landslide"'s raise in pitch the song temporarily defies this expectation. It makes the moment unexpected and imbues it with meaning; with the singer pushing back on the inevitably of "Descent".

Gorillaz - Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach

When you run 7 miles every day, it goes like this. The first two miles are difficult, just knocking the crust out of your joints and gaining momentum. The last two miles are also difficult, because you're tired. But the middle three miles...it's all the rhythm of your feet hitting the ground, regular, unstoppable, adapting to drops and rises in the surface. At the same time a confidence and a freedom glows and hums over that.

It's called flow.

The best music equivalent is at 2:01 in Gorillaz's "Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach". The bass has a quick rhythm that adapts to the level of the song's chords. At the same time there's this non-rational, flowing melody over it, when Damon sings "just like that / ooooooooo".

You're stuck between quickly tapping your foot in time with the bass and stopping time to close your eyes and sigh the "oooooo"s. Engrossed in time and stepping outside of it.

Danny Elfman - Spider-Man: Main Title

…he’s the sweetest guy ever. Have you ever stared into his eyes? It was like the first time I heard The Beatles. 

                                   -Seth, Superbad

Why does everyone like The Beatles? 

My answer is in a high school friend. He always spoke in phrases that encapsulated the extreme emotions and passions of teenage. If a girl blushed, he whispered “she wants.”  When the loudspeaker announced early dismissal he’d jump out of his chair and yell “chyeah BLAT!” He had an impression of Herb the bus driver, who always complained about his old age, that went “Errr…I got some gout in my left tit!” 

He was Italian and that's why I see him in 8 1/2, when the young boys sneak out to the wrong side of the tracks to experience a little sensuality. Imagine the energy of all these boys and of the music here put into one person: https://youtu.be/_n2s5i2i2Jg?t=1m42s. Especially the boy on the right, slapping himself again and again on the face. That was my friend.

If you’ve ever touched a piano, or any instrument, or even, if you've ever used your voice to emote, you know you can hit a chord and have it sound, and do the job, but you can also pound it exuberantly, emphasize the right keys, and the same chord does more than its job. It bursts with emotion.

That’s what my friend, Fellini and The Beatles do. When they want to get something across, they don’t just play the right note, they passionately express it. 

For The Beatles, one of the best examples is “Twist and Shout”. Listen to how Lennon’s voice scratches when he says “shout” at :12, the yelling at 1:32 and the “shake it”s at 2:10. 

Try to sing like that. You have to work yourself up to an uncomfortable level of emotion and volume to achieve that sound. 

The same for Paul’s singing in “Hey Jude” from 4:02 to 4:08. See how he sings “long” at 1:54 in “It Won’t Be Long”.  See the exuberance and emotion in “Please Mister Postman”, in the “wait”s in the beginning and Paul’s vocals over the backing from :11 to :23. In “Money (That's What I Want)”, how John sings “I” at 1:05. In “A Hard Day’s Night” the way he rushes “get home to you” and sexualizes “feel alright” at 1:23. How Paul suddenly ups the emotional intensity when he sings “Got to Get You into my Life” at 1:03. The mischievousness and nervous energy of the “come on”s at 1:58 in “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey”. The intensity of John’s voice at 2:12 in “Yer Blues”. 

The Beatles go all out at the appropriate emotional moments. That’s why everyone likes them. It's hard to find that level of relatable but still extreme exuberance in any other band. 

I do hear flashes of it once in awhile. I hear it in Fall Out Boy’s “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)” at :55, when the band sings “fire”. I hear it in the final yelp of My Morning Jacket’s “What a Wonderful Man”. In Edith Piaf’s “La vie en rose”. 

And there is an instrumental equivalent in composer Danny Elfman’s music. 

Listen to “Farewell”, which closes the first Spider-Man. At 3:50 the music ramps up to facilitate a visual shift from Peter and Mary Jane at the graveyard to Spider-Man in flight. The change in tempo, the introduction of new percussion, and the rise in the chords would have sufficed in bringing the music's energy back. But Elfman turbocharges the effect by adding fast-moving, rising background strings. 

At 3:59, Elfman doesn't just hit a drum; he somehow produces the sound of a sledge hammer slamming a spike. 

At 3:59 are the strings meant to evoke the webs shooting out of Spider-Man’s wrists when he webswings. Rarely do you hear violins played with such violence. 

At 4:11 the chorus goes to an extraordinarily high pitch. 

Even Elfman's cymbals, which are normally crashed to indicate climax, here crash, sustain and then crash again from 4:12 to 4:18. Not just a climax, but a sustained climax. 

At 4:25 the webswinging violins make their last stand, break tremulously and exhilaratingly high. 

These musical choices, and the passion with which they are played, attain an enthusiasm rarely heard. 

***

You could disagree and I'd understand. You could say, "you're just highlighting random points in the music and dolling them up with superlatives. You could do that with any beat of any song. Anyway, I don't trust your perception, you just praised Fall Out Boy".

I'd respond: "If only there was a piece of music that was recorded twice, once in Danny Elfman's hands, and once in someone else's. If you listened to them side-by-side, I could prove my point: Danny Elfman's would sound like Technicolor, the other version - black and white." 

Ahh, but that’s exactly what happened! Danny Elfman had "creative differences" and left Spider-Man 3's score to Christopher Young. 

Young recorded a second take of Elfman's "Main Title" using the same score and instruments.  You can hear its lack of exuberance in a side-by-side comparison with Elfman's.

At :17 (on Elfman's) there is a very subtle difference in the fast strings. Young's are slightly more regular in rhythm,  as if played by a machine.  In Elfman's there is also more of an emphasis on the first note of each section. Furthermore, there is a greater difference in playing intensity between the downbeat notes and the rest, giving them texture where Young's are flat.

At :22, Elfman's percussion has much more character than Young's, is more wet. Elfman's rhythm also has a larger range between primary beats and secondary beats, resulting in a halting, destabilized feel.

This destabilization is more engaging of itself, but how it feeds into the next measures brings about another engaging effect.

Part of what makes the introduction of the Spider-Man theme at :38 so effective is how it brings together disparate strains of music. Because Elfman's rhythm is more destabilized, Elfman's Spider-Man theme has to overcome more destabilization than Young's. This makes Elfman's theme sound stronger than Young's.

From :27 to :38, Elfman's percussion blasts at the beginning of each measure are more forceful. The bass that accentuates these blasts is more prominent in the mix.

From here forward (with the exception of the newly introduced Sandman and Venom themes) Young's rendition continues in its inferiority. Elfman uses sharp brass from :57 to accentuate his rhythms; these are barely heard in Young's version. At the same time Elfman plays distorted, amplified brass that is absent in Young's. Elfman's visceral webswinging strings at 1:05 lose their edge in Young's.

Overall, there is less differentiation in volumes and intensities. Young's lows are less low, his highs less high. It's like listening to Elfman's on Xanax.

***

"Well," you might say, "Elfman beats his drum, pulls his strings and crashes his cymbals a little harder, so what?"

Listen, just listen to the Elfman version, and then the Young version. The same damn music! Which one gets you more excited? Musical theory says there are two dimensions to music: rhythm and pitch. Elfman shows us a third: exuberance.

Have you ever noticed how "A" can say the same words as "B", but "A" will leave you cold, where "B" will make you laugh, or cry, or elated? Next time you play guitar, clasp the fret at an angry chord, wring everything out of that bend, caress the strings in a love song; when you talk wreck the name of your enemy,  whisper to mimic a shy person, laugh with your eyes bright.


PS - Another highlight of the Spider-Man score is "Revenge". At 2:27 Peter stares out from the top of a building. He's never webswung before, but he must now to catch his uncle's murderer.

The music builds tension with an aggressive rhythm that's a combination of Peter's pounding heart and the clock impatiently ticking for him to make the decision to jump.

When he finally jumps, all rhythm falls out, and the music flies through the air, untethered, at 2:48, just like Peter.

It's that extremely rhythm based build up that makes the subsequent rhythmless rendition of the Spider-Man theme at 2:48 so exhilarating, that allows the music to make us feel like Peter does as he flies through the air for the first time, heart in his mouth.

The emotion it gets across is something I've felt when I decide to go talk to a girl. There's that devastating build-up, "will I or won't I?", the merciless pounding heart, then, when you finally make the decision, the floor falls out,  you have to improvise, there's an adrenaline rush. Then things stabilize and your confidence grows. Hopefully you keep the exhilarating dance going on for a couple of minutes, before you start talking about the Spider-Man score and she leaves.

Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks, Dirty Paws

I lived in a DC basement that spit out to an alley. Each day I crossed paths with the students, unpaid interns and poverty-line entry level professionals who lived in the other basements that spit out to the alley. But I only remember one name.

"al-EES," she said.

Her lips made the blushing smile peculiar to young German women speaking English, which seems to grace all words passing through with a singsong.

What a sound she gave it. How was it spelt? Did it have an umlaut? Did it end in "ß"? Where have I heard an "EES" like that before, what's that word? "Elysium".

That night Hunt for the Red October was on. Alec Baldwin was tracking down a Russian (a great shot). It reminded me of a Russian I once talked to, who kept telling me his name was "Alec".

"Alec," I said. "Strange name for a Russian."

"No, not 'Alec'," he said. "'Alec'".

"Alec," I said.

"No, no," he said. He wrote it down.

"Oleg," it said.

In Russian the name "Oleg" has a stress on the second syllable. The deemphasized "O" sounds more like an "A". The "g"s at the end of Russian words lose their gutturalness and become "c"s. So "Oleg" sounds a lot like "Alec".

"al-EES". That's when I realized her name was "Alice". A frumpy name in English. But in her German accent, with the stress shifted from the first syllable to the second, "Alice" had magic.

After she said her name I wanted to meet her again. I'd see her when I took the early bus. For the next week I took it.

No sign of her. On the weekend someone else moved in to her basement.

But I never forgot her name. It was the unfamiliar stress, and that all the letters sounded familiar and foreign at the same time. It was beautifully uncanny.

This is why so many foreign actors successfully play Americans. Even in excellent American accents, we sense something a little off, something that comes from a world with which we are not familiar. As a result the accent holds our rapt attention.

See Alicia Vikander in Bourne. Kelly Reilly in True Detective. Michelle Dockery in Non Stop. Damian Lewis in Band of Brothers. Michael Fassbender in X-Men. Gary Oldman in The Dark Knight. These voices sound American but here and there something is too old-fashioned, too nasal, too flat or too varied in tone. Little pieces of their native accents float up, like black specks from a Brita filter.

The same happens with vocalists. I could overanlayze any song from any band that has a singer with an accent. What I'm most interested in are singers whose first languages are not English, but who create songs in English for English speaking audiences.

These singers try, whether consciously or subconsciously, as best they can to sound like native speakers, in order to connect with English speaking mass markets. For any listener who argues this is not a concern - turn on the radio in Russia or Japan. To most native English speakers, especially Americans, misused idioms, awkward phrasing and awful pronunciation provoke disgust. Americans won't listen very long and if they do, it'll be with bemused condescension.

But some singers hit that sweet spot. Their tone, accent and phrasing sound more or less native, but a pleasant otherworldliness is present in slight, unexpected variations. I doubt the singers are even conscious of them. But we hear them and it grabs our attention.

Take the Icelandic group "Of Monsters and Men". Their two hits' "Little Talks" and "Dirty Paws" mixture of earnestness and artsiness could be misconstrued as American, maybe from some green hills between the Mormons and NorCal. The band's name seems to be a play on the title of a book by the great American writer Steinbeck. But their occasional strange phrasing, muddied vowels and unorthodox stresses are unfamiliar to the American ear.

See "Dirty Paws" at :51:

The dragonfly it ran away

But it came back with a story to say

"A story to say?" Who says that? As simple as those words are, and as easily understood their meaning is, I have never heard it put that way. The more familiar phrasing is: "But it came back with a story to tell". 

There are subtle differences between "to tell" and "to say". "To say" is often used to report speech: "He said the dragonfly ran away". "To tell" is more often used when the importance is not in the speech, but that it was reported to someone: "He told me the dragonfly ran away". The subtle difference between the meanings seems to have caused the words to conflate in the songwriter's mind. He seemed to think they were synonymous, and could be interchanged in any context. But they can't without it sounding strange.  

You could say it's poetic license, that the songwriter was conscious of the distinction but chose "say" anyway because he needed a word that rhymes with "away". That's possible. But the evidence mounts. 

"Dirty Paws" as a whole has a charming, childlike fairy tale quality. Two factors contribute. First, it is full of fantastic animals with human emotions: dragonflies, bees, beasts, birds, furry friends. Second, it free associates. Look at the below italicized words:

...

My head, is an animal

And once there was an animal

It had a son that mowed the lawn

The son was an OK guy

They had a pet dragonfly

The dragonfly it ran away

...

She ran down the forest slope

The forest of talking trees

They used to sing about the birds and the bees

The bees had declared war

...

Most of the lines are free association with the end of the last line. It's like listening to a child make up a fairy tale on the spot, not knowing where it is going, but using the last word of each sentence to begin the next sentence: "My head is an animal, oh yes, there was an animal, he had a son, the son had a dragonfly, the dragonfly ran away...she ran down the forest, the forest had trees, the trees had bees, the bees declared war..."

Alternatively, it's like listening to a children's book, whose primary focus is to teach the child forest vocab. It may be coincidence, but once again, there is a hint of language learning here. How much more likely is someone who remembers learning a second language to write a song like this?

But to go back to strange phrasing. Another strange phrase seen above is "the birds and the bees". Any native English speaker instantly associates the phrase "the birds and the bees" with sex ed. That phrase is reserved for sex ed. Why is it here, in a storybook song, that seems to have no concern for the sexual? Perhaps they put it in to be clever, but maybe they had just heard the phrase and liked the ring of it, and put it in the song, not knowing the context it was normally used in. 

"Little Talks" at :46 has more awkward phrasing: 

Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies back to shore

"Bodies"? "Bodies" most often has an inanimate quality. It is often used synonymously with "corpse". Once again, I don't think this is the meaning intended. The song deals with death, so there's room for a corpse-like word like "bodies". But if you listen to the lyrics, the chorus seems to be a refuge from death within the song. So why sully it with the word "bodies"? It seems to be a misuse.

Still these misuses giving the song a certain poetry - a freshness in the use of words that a native speaker is incapable of. 

The same effect is audible in unexpected stresses. At :29 in "Dirty Paws" is sung "aniMAL" - the stress is shifted from the first syllable to the third. Once again this could be poetic license. The meter calls for this stress. But if the songwriter was a native English speaker, would he even think to use the word "animal" here? Seeing words without their stress is so much easier when those words are in a second language. The same goes for "For a while..." at 2:26. The tendency for native speakers is to put the stress on "while", but here the stress is put on "for". 

In addition, vowels are often muddied. Of Monsters and Men loves the "a" sound, and tries to pronounce it even when vowels other than "a" are present. At :40 in "Dirty Paws", "pet" is said like "pat". At 2:45, "friends" like "frands". At 1:26 in "Little Talks" "buried" like "barried". 

The sum effect is something that sounds familiar, but with deviances here and there that spice up what would otherwise be ordinary.

It reminds me of my dad, the son of working class Irish immigrants, who all through our childhood forced us to respond to "What's the motto to Boston College?" with "Effort to Excel".

When my sister visited Boston she searched campus for the motto. She found gold letters on a red post. They read: "Ever to Excel". My dad was wrong.

But what does "Ever to Excel" mean anyway? It sounds like the self-assuring chant of a noble bloodline gone to seed. Or a luxury car tagline.  "Effort to Excel" makes much more sense.

There is magic in some mistakes. A tired language needs newcomers to fuck it up and inject fresh, vital meaning.

EXTRA - Jacqueline Taieb's "7AM" and Cibo Matto's "Birthday Cake" have less subtle, but still great sounding foreign touches.