key: E aeolian
mode: E F# G A B C D
melody: M S l d r m s
form: intro-verse—chorus-interlude
meter: duple
English function names: tonic subdominant
Tagg (modified): home counterpoise (away)
Riemann: t s
Scale degrees: i iv
Chords: Em Am
intro:
Em
|/ /|/ /|/ /|/ /|/ /|/ /|/ /|
verse:
Em
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Em
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Am
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Em
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
chorus
Am
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Em
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Am
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Em
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
interlude = verse
The guiro part on this song is magic! Usually guiro parts are faster and more in the background and this one is super-simple and really forward in the mix. You can really savor how the timbre changes as the instrument is scraped. It’s as though you can hear the sound of someone’s neck as they slowly shake their head in admonition: You made a big mistake.
As far as I can tell, the Bassies only recorded a handful of singles that were released or included on compilations with other artists and that was it. Ah, how the industry has changed. They’d probably fare better now on Bandcamp, except that has all changed, too. We do what we can.
Aeolian vs. minor: How do you know? Minor — say it with me — in a strict classical music sense needs a "true" dominant, that is a chord built on the fifth scale degree and a "raised" seventh scale degree so that we have a leading tone back to the tonic. We hear this in Let's Get Together in the interlude. In this song, we only have tonic and subdominant, therefore, it's not minor and is aeolian. "Minoresque," if you will.1
The form of the large sections is a bit like a rondo2, in that verse 1 keeps coming back in a symmetrical way: intro – verse1 – chorus – verse 2 – verse 1 – interlude – verse 1 – chorus – verse 2 – verse 1. Speaking of form, we haven't looked much at form on the smaller levels of melodic ideas, but this song is interesting in that respect. The gamut of the melody is a la-based minor pentatonic3 and the melody is made up of two basic shapes, the first of which (A = the first "oh oh oh") is run backwards (A’ = the second "oh oh oh"), then transposed (A’’ = the third "oh oh oh") and then that’s run backwards (A’’’ = you guessed it — the fourth "oh oh oh"). Then the first half of the chorus has a new idea (B, B' "you had me", "and you left me" respectively) coupled with a slight variation on A’’ (A’’’’ "and you deceived me" — this is perhaps a bit picayune; we could probably get away with calling it A’’). In the same way we have only two chords, we have two melodic shapes. It doesn’t take much to make a catchy song. And yet, finding the simple things that are effective is an art.
We can also think of minor and major tonalities as a spectrum or a set of variations. In fact the latter is probably a better metaphor, because it's not as if dorian is somehow closer to major than phrygian — both are still perceived as being in the minor realm. That said, many people do think of the different modes as being lighter (dorian) or darker (phrygian), which may be where the idea of a spectrum comes from. Your mileage with cross-sensory analogies may vary.
The basic rondo form, using letters for sections, is ABACA, and there are many variations on it. As long as A keeps coming back…
This means it's the same pitch set as the classic do-based major pentatonic — d r m s l — but with la as the tonic: l d r m s.