Friday, May 25, 2012

Untestable theories and love at first play

I have a suspicion that songs with simple chord progressions began with a riff or progression and that songs that started with the melody end up having a million chords or chord progressions that don't seem to follow simple patterns.

Examples:

Simon and Garfunkel's - America
(I am not convinced that this is quite the progression, but I think it's pretty close)

Queen's - Killer Queen

The Magnetic Field's - I Don't Believe You

Mind you, I have never tried to write a song on the piano.  It's possible that piano composition lends itself to writing songs with more than four chords.

But I do know that Stephin Merritt is dreamy.  With the line "So you quote love unquote me" I was hooked. Add to that fumbling my way through the song - call me a goner.

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