life during wartime (1979)

Talking Heads. new wave, NYC USA.

key: A minor
mode: A B C D E F F# G #
melody: S l d r m si
form: verse-chorus
meter: duple

English function names:     tonic     dominant
Tagg (modified):            home      counterpoise (away)
Riemann:                    t         D7
Scale degrees:              i         V7
Chords:                     Am        E7

verse:
  Am    
|:/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / :| 4x

chorus:
  E7
|:/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / :| 2x (last time 4x)

In this song, we have much longer stretches of any one chord than we have previously seen. The chorus really sounds some other place to be — the counterpoise is truly a different place "away" from where we started — and sounds less like a traditional dominant. The length of each chord diminishes the sense of tonality a little and creates more of a feeling of two tonic poles, two places that are visited.

Because the melody is delivered in a way that is very close to simply talking, the pitch set is fairly small. One could argue that the chorus is really just a variation on the verse — the melody is basically the same shape: mostly si-mi to the verse’s do-la incantations.

I have wanted to talk more about how the harmonies affect the dramatic shape of the piece and it's not always easy. If one aspect of a piece of music is more simple, sometimes the other aspects take precedence and drive the piece. We've looked mostly at songs and, of course, lyrics almost always drive a song — and yet, the point of singing instead of talking is that the speech is heightened, the feelings are stronger. The music creates its own world for the words to live in. Many of the songs we have looked at so far (and there will be more) are short loops, which, as we've discussed, set up a sense of the eternal present. In this song, the relatively long duration of each harmony creates a different sort of drama and energy than we've heard in this blog.

The combination of the one harmonic change and the change in register of the vocals truly make the sense of shock and anxiety in the lyrics come to life. The harmony change feels like a sudden change after grooving on one chord for so long, and it reflects the change from the narrator's old life of discos and parties to the new reality of fighting a war. While I am a big fan of a lot of complex, intricate music, I am also always fascinated by how so much can be accomplished by so little.

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other recordings:

Staples Singers, The Staple Singers, Epic. C minor.

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