Journey's "Too Late"

For a couple of decades, it was in vogue to trash the band Journey.  With their at-times schmaltzy lyrics, histrionic videos and sappy ballads, the band were easy targets and critics were quick to dismiss them, but I’ve always felt that Journey were a cut above their arena rock peers; their musicianship alone took them beyond bands like Head East, Def Leppard, Loverboy, Foreigner and April Wine.   And during the transitional period from their fusion prog-rock roots to radio-friendly AOR during 1978-1980, they achieved – in my mind – rock gold with the studio albums Infinity, Evolution and Departure.  Subsequent years would bring the band greater success, but I love the period when Steve Perry shared vocal duties with keyboardist Gregg Rolie, culminating in 1981’s live Captured, which I received as a present for my thirteenth birthday that year.

It’s this live album that came to mind recently as I drove from Chicago to Cincinnati, where during the commute I spied the exit sign for “Dixie Highway,” which also happens to be the title of a song off of Captured.  For the next hour of my drive, my mental jukebox went through the entire album track by track, and then replayed a song that I’ve always loved but is largely absent from radio these days, not to mention Journey’s setlists.  Journey may have experienced a resurgence over the past decade in a half, perhaps even garnering some respect that had been denied the band early on, but along the way some of their old radio standards have gone by the wayside.  One such song is “Too Late,” one of my favorites off of Evolution, and while I replayed the song in my mind several times during my trip, I noticed a nifty melodic trick that the band employs.

The song’s verse has a simple chord pattern – D A  Bmin  F#min G  (I V vi iii IV) – and the chorus continues in D, employing the non-diatonic flat-7 chord, C major.  It all works well, with Perry’s singable melody working nicely on top.

What elevates the song is twofold:  first, the solo section has some fun with the chords, first transposing to the key of E and then leading us to the key of A, eventually building on a sustained E chord, begging to resolve back to an A. 

But then the second interesting thing happens.  Instead of the next verse starting on A and continuing the verse in that key, we hear the same chords as in the first verse: D A  Bmin F#min and G.  But they now sound like the song is in the key of A, so instead of hearing it as I V vi iii, we hear it as IV I ii vi.   When the band hits the A chord, it sounds like the tonic, and by the time they get to G, we’re back in the key of D, and the song resolves to the chorus as heard twice before.

How?  How the heck does this work?  I’ve tried figuring it out and it isn’t a no-brainer.  It all seems to stem from the altered melody.  If Steve Perry had sung the same melody as in the first verse, our ears would quickly adjust and accept that the band is now back in the key of D.  Instead, Perry does a wonderful melodic variation:

• The original verse has the melodic motif: F# A B A F# D F# E.  D pentatonic.  Cool. 

• But AFTER the solo Perry sings A A B B B C# B A. 

And THAT is all it takes to make the verse sound like it’s in a different key.  Why does this work?  After all, all of the notes are diatonic to both the key of D and the key of A.  What the heck is happening here?

Truthfully, I don’t know.  I’ve sung the second melody over some different chords in the key of D, and it isn’t required that our ears hear it in the key of A, but they do.  Part of it is the fact that the solo ends on an E chord, which at that point sounds like the V chord.  But dang, I find it all a bit baffling.

It just goes to show how melodic alterations can totally flip a chord progression around, and I have to give guitarist Neil Schon and vocalist Steve Perry credit for employing this technique, whether it was by design or by pure chance, and whether or not they could articulate why it works.  It does work, and that’s what matters.  I wish I could understand it enough to employ the technique to my own songwriting, but I’m not sure I’d know where to begin.

And this is one little example of why Journey was not your average arena rock band.  And why seeing a sign that reads “Dixie Highway” can take you down a long ‘journey’ of musical discovery.  Rock on.

Musical Cliches - guilty as charged

Two summers ago, I posted twoblogs on musical cliches and highlighted one in particular: the descending major scale in the bass line, used by virtually every rock band since the early 60s, me included.  It's an oldie but goodie, but there are plenty of other cliches out there, and when someone as unmuiscal as my wife notices one, it might be time for an artist to change his tune.

Last week, after a year of work, I finally completed my new album Warts and All, and while we were in the car listening to the beginning of track four, "There is no Reason"my wife turned to me and said, "Wow, you sure like that theme."

What she was referring to, and what I'd hoped noone had actually noticed, was a recurring theme I've used in multiple songs, whereby I play an octave in my right hand along with a minor or major third below the upper note, and then generally ascend up the scale for a bit and back down again.  For whatever reason, this phrase appeals to me, and I've used it in no fewer than four songs to date.  Give a listen...

Those were snippets from four songs: "Car Alarms" from 1996, "File It Away" from 2000, "What You've Done" from 2003 and "There Is No Reason" from 2012.  An oldie but goodie, indeed.  I also have an unfinished tune that I'm intending my daughter to sing that employs the same tecnnique.  But how that my wife has discovered my secret: that I have very few tricks up my sleeve and that I need to "lean on old familiar ways" (if you guess where that lyric comes from, you win a free copy of my new album), then maybe it's time to put that particular theme away for a while.

But the biggest cliche ever?  Check out the Axis of Awesome performing forty songs with the exact same chord progression:

That chord progression has GOT to be on my next album.

Musical Clichés: Descending Major Scales

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about music clichés and how – if not overused – they help to anchor the listener in the familiar when digesting a new piece of music. 

One of the tried and true clichés in rock and pop music – and one of my favorites – is a descending major scale in the bass.  There are hundreds of examples, and I’d like to highlight a few.  If you’re not sure what a descending major scale is, consider the familiar Do-Re-Mi scale from “The Sound of Music,” but sing it backward (Do-Ti-La-So-Fa…).  If that doesn’t help you, try singing the first eight notes of the Christmas song, “Joy To The World.”

The Beatles song “For No One” is a good place to start, as the bass follows the B scale backward for five notes (B, A#, G#, F# and E):

John Lennon followed this pattern in his masterpiece, “A Day In The Life,” though he takes the scale down two additional notes (down to “Re”), and did the same as a solo artist with “Mind Games”:

And his son, Julian, showed he wasn’t above using the descending scale in his 1984 song, “Say You’re Wrong.”  Remember this one?

But the descending scale isn’t limited to The Beatles and their offspring.  A classic example is 1967’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harem.  In this song, clearly influenced by Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major (Air on the G String), the bass descends the entire major scale, and as if that wasn’t enough, it goes back up to the fifth and descends again to the tonic:

Other examples include “Mr. Bojangles,” made famous by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” and “She’s Got A Way,” “Come Sail Away” by Styx, "Changes" by David Bowie, "All The Young Dudes" by Mott the Hoople (but also written by David Bowie) and “Accidents Will Happen” by Elvis Costello:

And lest you think I’m mocking those who use clichés in music, I’ve used it myself.  Here’s a sample of “No Point In Seeing Me Through” from my album, “Pause.”

The descending scale: an oldie but goodie.  If you’ve got some other examples you’d like to share, please comment below.  Don't forget to subscribe to the RSS Feed above for regular updates.

Musical Cliches, part 1

All musical genres, be it classical, jazz, folk, rock or pop, use musical clichés.  Clichés aren’t evil; they’re necessary.  Yes, they can be overused (and by definition they HAVE been overused), but the commonalities we perceive in music help anchor us in the familiar and allow us to digest a forty minute symphony or a new rock record without feeling completely overwhelmed.  

When an artist goes out if his way to avoid the familiar, (Rufus Wainwright’s latest album, “All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu” comes to mind) it can be difficult for the listener to truly absorb the songs upon first rotation (or even second or third).   Ultimately, these songs might end up having lasting power, the ones that provide a deeper and more interesting musical experience, but there’s still something to be said about instant appeal, when a song achieves that spine-tingling perfection. 

Paul McCartney’s song “Wanderlust” from 1982 comes to mind.  It employs all of four chords, and I’m still amazed that the guy could continue to discover excitement and beauty in the same chords he’d been playing for over twenty years.  Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” from 1997 is another example.  It’s a simple 12-bar blues, but it’s oh, so good, and I never tire of hearing it.

In the weeks ahead, I’d like to highlight some of my favorite clichés in pop music and how artists have used them in ways that still capture our attention.  If you’ve got any you’d like to mention, please chime in.  First up for me will be the descending major scale bass line.  It’s an oldie but goodie, and I’ll address it in two weeks.

Next week: a review of Rufus Wainwright’s Friday night show at the Chicago Theatre.