The Regular Friday Post (It's A Part 2 Sort Of Day!)
Rando lyrics: "I Wasn't Ready To Go, I'm Never Ready To Go"
Last week’s rando lyrics: (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, Blue Öyster Cult, Side1/Track 3, Agents Of Fortune (studio LP), 1976 - Ed. it’s just so good! 5:08 version, not the radio edit:
Hey - what’s that guy pointing at?
Yesterday’s “Famous Thursday Post” was our 200th post “anniversary” here on Michael Acoustic. So I snagged this picture of a highway signpost off the so-called “internet” (I think somewhere in Montana, but I really don’t know…) for a very special celebratory moment!
Thank you to all of my subscribers, and an extra thank you to those who’ve been here from the beginning!
Back to work now…
Welcome to the Regular Friday Post!
Most of the “meat” of today’s post is a follow on from yesterday’s Famous Thursday Post. Yesterday we looked at the syllable count and rhyme structure of the song “Out Of My Heart (Into Your Head)” by the British band BBMak. That exercise more or less resulted in “seeing”, or maybe “visualizing” is a better word, the “meter” of the song. That visual was of the various patterns of stressed and unstressed sounds that make up the perhaps elusive concept of “meter”. The “more or less” and “elusive” parts derive from the seeming conundrum that although the vocal parts of the “structures”, that is the verses, pre-choruses, choruses, bridge and tag all have seemingly differing individual meter, the overall song is a very cool composite of all of that and doesn’t sound disjointed or incomprehensible at all. Some of that is due to the “held” portions of lines, especially the ending vowel/consonant sounds that seem to “stretch’ a syllable over several beats. Fair enough, we may “read” the syllable count, but we hear a lot more than the syllables - we also perceive the length in time of held notes, we hear the (obviously) added percussion and piano and maybe some other stuff and some of that occurs after one line is sung, but before the next line is. So we hear some melody/harmony in between vocalized syllables and that isn’t part of the syllable count, but still part of the rhythm/beat of the song. Does that change the meter? I dunno. It doesn’t change the syllable count, but a number on a line of lyrics is a pale and sterile representation of the power of the human voice or a human played instrument, and a mere indicator at best. The listener’s reception is ultimately the most important judge. Still, there is something about symmetry that attracts that reception…
Now, before we get too far down that road, let’s remember what this actually is. BBMak was a boy band from around the turn of the 21st century (that was almost 24 years ago!!!!). I count a bassist, guitarist and vocalist among the 3 members and it appears they are/were actual musicians/singers and songwriters, not just dancin’ pretty boys with more or less authentic vocals like many of the “boy bands” of the era. That still means someone else was on the drums, keys/piano and whatever else is on this, and there’s a pretty big wall of sound on the video in places, so it was skillfully mixed/mastered by someone. OK, still a cool song, cool video and and a good source for discussing syllable counts and rhyme structures, and the various sectional structures. We’ll discuss the “Key” ambiguity below in the “A Song To Play” section.
Space Saving Disclaimer!: This Substack, (not just the first one!) is free, always will be, none of the people or companies or products I link to or write about pay me a damn thing. Neither do you unless you buy my song(s) (See what I did there?). Some stuff may be copyrighted by somebody else…whatever. “Fair Use” doctrine for “educational purposes” (Link: Fair Use) applies, suckers! No stinkin’ AI here unless it’s in something I link to. So.
Michael Acoustic
Thanks new Subscribers!!!!!! Mika, the Cat, welcomes you!!
This Week’s Conversation With Mika:
Mika and Me, simultaneously: “Why you always lookin’ at me?!”
Other Voices:
Hat tip to Brad Kyle at Front Row & Backstage!! This post relates to the song we analyzed yesterday, and is “A Song To Play” today. (Ed. our friend Brad is an absolute reference MACHINE - BBMak wasn’t even the focus of this post, but…..)
Other Voices Too:
A Song To Play: (Ed. This carries over from above and yesterday’s Post where we did quite a bit of analysis of this song. Now you can play it!)
“BBMak are a British band consisting of Mark Barry, Christian Burns and Stephen McNally. Formed in Liverpool in 1996, they sold over three million albums worldwide between 1999 and 2003 (Ed. which doesn’t make them sound obscure, but… - and I love this next bit:)
We wrote 'Out Of My Heart' in Liverpool with lads, the Griffiths brothers who were in a band called The Real People. It was dead easy writing this song, we did it in an hour. It was one of them things. We sat round with guitars going over melody and lyric ideas and an hour later it was done. It's about the beginning of a relationship when you're falling in love and the feeling you get when it's great".[4]”
Credit: Wikipedia Link: Out Of My Heart (Into Your Head)
Hat tip to Brad Kyle at Front Row & Backstage (Ed. our friend Brad is an absolute reference MACHINE - BBMak wasn’t even the focus of this post, but…..)
Yesterday we left off with questions. Is the Key BbMajor? The FMajor, EbMajor, BbMajor resolution (also known as a cadence) would be V-IV-I, a pretty standard resolution in modern Western music of the blues based pop, rock, country, indie, etc type. The V of BbMajor is FMajor, IV is EbMajor, the root (I) is BbMajor. That Gminor chord you would hear in the Major key as a vi- chord. But is it the vi- (pronounced: 6 minor)? Or is it the root of the relative minor key Gm, in which case the resolution is actually a VII-VI-III with no “resolution” to the Gm “root”? That was the question we were left with in yesterday’s post. If you missed it, here’s the link: Yesterday's Post
The fact is, I don’t know. In yesterday’s post, I included the Chordify chart in the original key with the chords as listed above. Since there are only 4 chords and those four chords are Diatonic to either the BbMajor Key or the relative minor, Gminor Key, one actual answer is, “It doesn’t matter.” We kind of use the first chord in a song as a guide to the key, but that’s not a rule or anything, just more of a “clue”. We also use the V-IV-I resolution as a clue, but as we’ve seen, that sequence of chords could occur in either the Major or relative minor key in this song, they’d just be numbered differently. Without more than 4 chords to go by, the answer is it could be either Key, and it won’t matter to our playing. Minor keys are often said to sound more sad or mournful, but this song is pretty upbeat, the lyrics seem hopeful. So, “I dunno” and I “dunno” enough that I don’t really care. Below is the chord chart with a capo on 3, which I believe is where the capo is on the acoustic guitar played at the beginning of the video. Capo on 3 and you’re playing in the original key, whichever one it is. Or you can just leave the capo off and play the chords as below, and then you’re playing in GMajor, or the relative Eminor key (again, it doesn’t matter at this point). That may be handy if you would rather sing in GMajor rather than BbMajor. Have fun!
Out Of My Heart Lyrics
[Verse 1]
I feel fine
Now the rain has gone and the sun has come to shine
Nothing can get me down today
Head over heels
Got my mind made up as I'm driving through the fields
Nothing can get me down again
[Pre-Chorus]
Catch me if you can
I've gotta make a getaway
[Chorus]
As the sun goes down, waking up my dreams
And in my mind you're with me once again
Out of my heart, into your head
And inside my heart, there's a place for you
And in my mind, I'm with you once again
Out of my heart, into your head
[Verse 2]
Chasing the sun
Trying to get away
From the rain that's gonna come
Hope I make it all the way
I'm lost in a crowd
Trying to find my way
But the rain keeps falling down
Doesn't matter anyway
[Pre-Chorus]
Catch me if you can
I've gotta make a getaway
[Chorus]
As the sun goes down, waking up my dreams
And in my mind you're with me once again
Out of my heart, into your head
And inside my heart, there's a place for you
And in my mind, I'm with you once again
Out of my heart, into your head
[Bridge]
Take a look at the sky
Feel the sunshine
In your heart, in your head
In your own time
[Chorus]
As the sun goes down, waking up my dreams
And in my mind you're with me once again
Out of my heart, into your head
And inside my heart, there's a place for you
And in my mind, I'm with you once again
Out of my heart, into your head
[Outro]
Out of my heart, into your head
Out of my heart, into your head
Shameless self promotion section (Not giving this up though!)
My song is out! “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)
What I’m Listening2:
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
Love the Mika pic, Michael! That split face never fails to slay me (and, of course, her constant cat-look of blasé bemusement)! And, the Hunter Thompson quote (a new one for me) is hilarious! His "punch line" is the best, but after that set-up, one could also say about the record biz, "you make that sound like a bad thing!"🤣