Tag: Song of the Day

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Song a Day: “Over the Rainbow”

There are few songs in American popular culture that are as iconic as “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz. It is surprising to think that the song was almost cut from the movie. Written by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg, the lyrics encapsulate the meaning of the film. They express the protagonist’s dissatisfaction, as well as her feelings of powerlessness.

The melody of the song complements the lyrics, and serves as an analog for the journey taken by the protagonist. This is accomplished through contour. We can think of the tonic of the key (scale degree one), as functioning like ‘home.’ Likewise since the first note of the melody is the tonic, this statement is doubly true. The opening melodic interval is a leap up an octave. We can think of this leap as being dissonant, in terms that we are leaving the home of the first note of the song.

This leap is resolved melodically through a structural stepwise descent of the melody. While this may initially be difficult to see, it is very plain if we look at the structure of the melody. We can do this by selecting the most important note of the melody for each measure of music. This begs the question of what makes one note more important than other notes? Emphasis of one note over another happens through duration, volume, and range or tonal concerns. The importance of duration and volume is pretty clear and intuitive. If a note is held longer, or is played more loudly, we will certainly hear it as being more important. Implicit in the question of volume though is the issue of metric placement, meaning that notes that are played on beats one or three (in music that descends from the Western classical tradition) tend to be played more loudly than other notes.

The issue of range and tonal concerns is a bit more difficult to define. That being said, notes that are higher or lower than other notes in a passage tend to stand out. Likewise, notes that have strong tonal implications (dissonance) such as the the leading tone, may stand out more than other, more stable notes.

Let’s explore this reduction by looking at the melody of the verse (figure 1). Measure four and eight are self explanatory, as there’s only one note in each of those measures. In measures one, three, and five we could imagine picking the highest note in each measure. In measures two, six and seven if we pick the note that happens on beat one, it is also the most emphasized note, as in each case that note recurs on beat three, taking up half of the measure in all. If we look at all of these notes selected for the reduction what we get is a descending scale (figure 2).

Figure 1: Verse melody “Over the Rainbow”

Figure 2: Verse reduction “Over the Rainbow”

Once you notice this structural descending scale it is hard to ignore. Again the dramatic leap up an octave in the first two notes can be thought of setting up a dissonance that is resolved through the systematic structural stepwise descent of the melody back to the lower octave tonic (the last note). This leap and descent can be thought of as a musical analog of the rainbow mentioned in the song’s title. The melodic motion also reflects the story of the movie. where the protagonist goes on a dramatic journey away from home, only to take on a methodical quest to find a way to return.

The melody in the bridge of the song ascends, but this ascent is not nearly as methodical as the descent of the verse. In that regard, it is probably best to think of this ascent as functioning as a contrast to the verse, rather than to think of it in terms of a metaphor. That being said, the structural use of contour in the verse of “Over the Rainbow” serves as a prime example of how contour can be used for both musical interest as well as a metaphor that can embody the meaning of lyrics or a narrative.

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Song of the Day: “What’s This?” (Danny Elfman)

The podcast Song Exploder recently devoted an episode to “What’s This?” by Danny Elfman. The song, from the 1993 classic film The Nightmare Before Christmas, expresses the excitement of the protagonist, Jack, as he experiences something he never had before, namely Christmas. We will be looking at this song mainly through the lyrics and how they work along with the rhythm to help build the energy of the song.

In terms of form “What’s This?” is fairly straight forward. It features only verses and middle eights. The two work together seamlessly to portray the character and his reaction to a new, exciting experience, yet structurally the two are very complementary. Stylistically speaking “What’s This?” is a patter song where Jack quickly lists the sensory information he is experiencing. Patter songs are a standard of musical theater that feature complicated lyrics delivered at a rapid pace almost like a manic tongue twister.

The central feature of the verse is the exclamation “What’s this?” suitably expressing the protagonist’s amazement. This title line functions somewhat as a refrain for the verse. That being said, its delivery is somewhat unpredictable. The first verse features this lyric five times, with the first four and the final two words of the verse being repetitions of the phrase. In the second verse “what’s this?” is featured six times, including the first four and final four words of the verse.

After the first appearance of the middle eight, the third verse only features “what’s this?” only appears twice. Rather, those words are replaced by other questions and exclamations, such as  “oh look,” “they kiss?” and “inspired!” Verse four continues this trend with only two appearances of the lyrics, as the first and last lyric of the verse.  Instead, it includes more questions and exclamations, including “in here,” “how queer,” “and why?” In the fifth verse “what’s this?” only appears once at the end of the verse.  Again, we have more questions and exclamations: “oh my,” “what now?” “but look,” and “no ghouls.”

The final verse of the song appears right after the second middle eight. This verse only features the title lyric once, at its conclusion. Instead the exclamations “the sights,” “the sounds,” “around,” and “before” are used.

As a patter song, the verse of “What’s This?” has a very modular feel to it. Each verse has a slightly different rhyme scheme, and even often has a different number of lines to it. Musical phrases in the verses are often extended or shortened by two beats giving the verse a somewhat frantic rhythmic profile.

Contrastingly, the song’s two middle eights of the song are very rhythmically predictable. As the term middle eight suggests, each is eight lines long, with the second and fourth line rhyming, as well as the sixth and eighth lines. In both cases, each slows down dramatically at the end of the section, providing a brief rest before jumping back into the frantic pace of the verses.

Ultimately, “What’s This?” not only of a patter song, but a song that establishes the narrative , as well as establishing character. The frantic nature of the verses not only establish Jack’s excitement, but the rhythmic unpredictability of the song suggests Jack’s non-conformist nature.

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Song a Day: “Part of Your World” (Alan Menken and Howard Ashman)

The songs from the Walt Disney Pictures 1989 release, The Little Mermaid, are as good as any song you’ll hear in any movie. The lyrics are effective, the tunes are very singable and melodic, and the orchestration is appropriately dramatic. Amongst these songs, “Part of Your World” stands out for its impact, meaning, and appropriateness to the story. While there are many factors that contribute to the excellence of this song, we’re going to look at it largely from a single perspective, how Howard Ashman’s lyrics give words a power to reinforce emotion and meaning.

“Part of Your World” is really two songs in one.  The introduction, the part that comes before “I wanna be where the people are,” is extremely long. This section is comprised of two verses followed by a bridge, which leads into the main, or second, song. If this first section were all there is to the song, not only would it be very disappointing, but we probably would not think too much of Ariel as a person. In this section Ariel brags about her possessions, yet declares that it isn’t enough. In this section, she is cast as a teenager who longs to go to the mall to get more stuff.

The materialistic nature of this section is established by words the describe and embody possessions: stuff, collection, everything, trove, treasures, wonders, gadgets, gizmos, whozits, whatzits, and thingamabobs. Notice that as the list goes on, we start to see alliterative pairs: trove & treasures, gadgets & gizmos, and whozits & whatzits. The way in which this first song ends after the bridge works effectively, as a bridge traditionally ends on the dominant, leading back into the verse or chorus, or in this case the main body of the song. The last word of the word is more, which is both held and crescendoed to give it emphasis. Initially, we may be tempted to interpret the word more as meaning more stuff, suggested in part with the rhyming of galore with more. However, the main body of the song that follows clarifies that Ariel wants more than material items.

The main body of the song is filled with words related to mobility: dancin’, jumpin’, strollin’, walk, and run. On a general level, we can interpret this to mean that Ariel wants to be active. That is, she wants to do things. On a metaphoric level, we can frame this mobility in terms of upward mobility.  That is, she wants to go places, and advance herself. Both of these interpretations, especially the latter, are reinforced with the lyric “flippin’ your fins you don’t get too far.” The alliterative Fs combined with the dismissive use of the term “flippin'” indicates that life under the sea is too inactive for Ariel, and offers her little opportunity for advancement or self betterment.

Word choice in the lyrics further contrasts the world on the land with undersea living. The lyrics make use of the words sun, warm, and burn to contrast with the implied coldness of the undersea world. This descriptive warmth also reads as emotional warmth. This implication is further suggested through rhyme.  The lyric “warm on the sand” has several internal rhymes with the line “betcha on land, they understand, that they don’t reprimand their daughters.” While this lyric oozes teenaged drama it also suggests that Ariel interprets her father’s stern nature as a coldness.

What we hear as the first verse is really structurally two verses. We find this out retroactively when we encounter the final verse, either that or the last verse is a half verse. Each individual verse contains no rhyming. Rather the rhymes occur between the two verses. Thus, dancin’ in the first verse is rhymed with dancin’ in the second verse, while feet at the end of the first verse rhymes with street at the end of the second.

In the chorus we get much more rhyming. Run rhymes with sun, while free rhymes with be. The first pair connects mobility with emotional warmth (happiness). The second pair connects freedom with the nature of being.

The bridge of the song is longer than either the verse or the chorus, and thus does a bit more than its share of the storytelling. It commences by bringing up the idea of sacrifice, which will become central to the character’s narrative (“what would I give if I could live out of these waters?”). It is the very end of the bridge which truly establishes Ariel as a character interested in self betterment. “Bright young women, sick of swimmin’, ready to stand,” is certainly a self description from our protagonist. Here stand, which rhymes with the aforementioned, sand, land, understand, and reprimand, serves a dual purpose. Namely, stand is both literal and figurative. If Ariel gets legs, she will literally be able to stand up, but more importantly we understand her as meaning that she will figuratively be able to stand up for herself, take a stand, and stand with pride.

In the final verse we have Ariel communicates a desire for knowledge through questions and answers. She also again invokes warmth imagery through the words fire and burn. We understand that in a literal sense fire and burning is a foreign concept to someone who lives under water, and that this idea would likely be fascinating to Ariel. However, we realize that fire and burn are being used as a metaphor for passion. Taken in this context, I argue that burn is only second to stand in terms of important words in this song.

Given that there is no rhyming within the verse, how will the final, isolated verse deal with a lack of rhyming? The solution the songwriters developed was to use rhymes to lead into and out of the final verse, linking the verse to the bridge and final chorus. The final word of the bridge, stand, rhymes with the first word of the third verse (and). The final word of the third verse, burn, rhymes with the first half of the first line of the chorus (when’s it my turn?).

The final chorus demonstrate’s Ariel’s intellectual curiosity through the word explore, while sneaking in a rhyme with shore. In rhyming love with above we have a linkage between her passion and her fascination with the world on land. The use of rhyme and alliteration as a tool for highlighting meaningful words in this song is masterful, and is well worth any aspiring songwriter’s attention.

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Song a Day: “Kiss Me” (Matt Slocum)

Welcome to the first installment of Song of the Day.  I present one song per class period in my songwriting course.  This is the song that I cover on the first day of class.

You may know Matt Slocum’s “Kiss Me” as being that hit song by Six Pence None the Richer.  Slocum, the band’s guitarist, released the song on the band’s 1997 self-titled album.  While the arrangement and production of the song are both notable (check out the inclusion of the melodica, and the use of filtered, musical echo on the song’s title lyric), we’ll be examining the song in relationship to the lyrics.

The song has only two verses and a chorus, but the lyrics are chock full of descriptive imagery:  “milky twilight,” “moonlight floor,” and “fireflies dance, silver moon’s sparkling.”  This imagery hits every sensory path:  sight, sound, smell, and touch.  It even hits a kinesthetic note with “swing me on its hanging tire.”

The song generally steers clear of rhyming, avoiding a potential sing-songy nature.  The verses use only remote rhymes.  The first verse uses a consonant rhyme with grass and dress (lines 2 & 4), while the second verse uses a family rhyme with hat and map (lines 3 & 4).  The only rhyme in the chorus is an internal one, “lift your open hand, strike up the band, and make the fireflies dance, silver moon’s sparkling.” Furthermore, dance could be considered an assonance rhyme with hand and band.

The strong imagery of the lyrics not only help establish an emotive quality to the song, but they also hint at details of the narrative.  The dress mentioned in the line, “you wear those shoes and I will wear that dress,” suggests a pulchritudinous garment that twirls in a satisfying manner when the protagonist dances.

Ultimately the song is about dancing as much as it is about kissing.  In chorus the singer commands, “lead me out on the moonlit floor.”  Furthermore, the following line, “lift your open hand,” directs the object of the singer’s affection to invite her to dance.

The second verse continues with somewhat cryptic imagery that is rich for interpretation. The verse starts out with a nostalgic note, “Kiss me, down by the broken tree house,” which simultaneous points to the remoteness of childhood while still evoking it.  This line in tandem with the following, “swing me upon its hanging tire,” suggests a playful aspect to the romance at hand.

The most cryptic line of the song is the last line of the verse, “we’ll take the trail marked on your father’s map.”  This line, like the trail it describes, could lead any number of places.  On face value, the couple could simply be going somewhere remote, like a place you’d need a map to get to, in order to canoodle (as the young folks say).

However, the fact that the song specifies that the map belongs to the father of the singer’s sweetheart has always struck me as interesting.  Here Slocum could have used any two-syllable possessive (brother’s, cousin’s, best friend’s, etc.), but he settled on father’s.  Invoking the father suggests a generational aspect that potentially places the trail into the world of metaphor.

In such an interpretation, the trail represents a life path, and the statement, “we’ll take the trail marked on your father’s map,” becomes, “we’ll do what your parents did . . . get married / have children.”  Set only three lines away from “the broken treehouse,” under such an interpretation, the romance presented in “Kiss Me” is more than a fun, sweet dalliance, it is an important milestone in life, namely falling in love (for a lifetime).

Suggestions of matrimony in pop music were much more common in the fifties, when they reassured listeners of noble intentions of teenage Romeos.  With the notable exception of “All the Single Ladies,” matrimony is a much less common subject of songs in recent years.

Slocum’s “Kiss Me” manages to do the unlikely.  It suggests a long term relationship (marriage) in the midst of a song that evokes imagery related to new romance in a manner that does not scare off, or moralize to the listener.  The song balances the physical delight, pleasure, and sweetness of young romance, while suggesting a love that may last a lifetime.