“What Do They Have In Common?”, ep. 1

From: Ian

To: Dan

What do these songs have in common? If you go and listen you’ll figure it out right away.

Do you know any other songs that do this?

From: Dan

To: Ian

3-chord phrases? I got thrown for a second there because Limelight and OHWiR basically do it on the same chords, which themselves aren't that interesting, and I didn't get why you would get so excited about the standard [i VI VII] or what Black Hole Sun had to do with it.

This approach (3-chord phrasing) is also like our old favorite "Hate Myself for Loving You" but at 4x speed, right? Eds. note: this was true in "I Hate Myself For Loving You", and it was still true when Faith Hill covered this song as the Sunday Night Football theme, but later when Carrie Underwood replaced her, they changed it to a 4-bar phrase... WTF?!?!

Nothing else comes to mind, but I'll keep my eye out. The Beatles must do this in a few places...

From: Ian

To: Dan

I think I do consider the IHMFLU verse the same phenomenon. When I hear these 3-bar phrases, my brain interprets it as 4-bar phrases where the last bar of one doubles as the first of the next. Maybe not for Limelight, but definitely for OHWiR and Black Hole Sun.

One thought on ““What Do They Have In Common?”, ep. 1

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