the bottom line (1985)
big audio dynamite. new wave, UK.
key: D major
mode: D E F# G A B C#
melody: d r m f s l d' r' m'
form: intro-verse-chorus-breakdown
meter: duple
English function names: tonic dominant
Tagg (modified): home counterpoise (away)
Riemann: T D7
Scale degrees: I V7
Chords: D A7 D A7
|:/ / / / |/ / / / :| loopIt's almost a one-chord song, but for that little punctuation mid-phrase. We haven't talked too much about ways to sustain interest when the harmonies are simple, so we are going to do that now. In many cases, the lyrics do much of the heavy lifting in a piece with limited harmonic change, but in a dance song like this, the rhythmic interplay between multiple parts does more of the heavy lifting. Because the long intro lays out very clearly what those parts are, this song is a nice example of polyrhythmic writing.1
The song opens with layer #1, the strummed guitar. I'm only going to present the rhythm and the beat functions, but know that there is a basic melodic component to it, too, from the way the guitar voices the chords, that outlines do–re–mi–re as it goes from tonic–dominant–tonic–dominant, respectively. This means that even though in terms of chord functions and actual harmonies played, it's a two-measure loop; but in terms of phrasing, the melody outlines a 4-measure phrase. Way to make it very clear from the beginning, B.A.D.
I am also only marking the articulated beat functions. In this example, the guitar starts at the beginning and it sustains all the way through to the next event, which is the last microbeat of the second measure, which then repeats for measures 3-4. I am doing it this way, so that as we add layers we can see more clearly, what beat function each instrument articulates. It's a different way of functioning or behaving than a melody. While melodies also line up or connect with the different beat functions,2 melodies have another job that is not about articulating the beat structure, but instead more about creating lines or motion across the beat structure and harmonic structure contexts.
After layer #1 happens twice by itself, layers #2 (guitar riff) and #3 (drums) happen once by themselves:
I will discuss both of these parts in more detail in a moment, but for now I want to bring your attention to a few things. The presence of this single measure of four beats functions a bit like fill, but it also creates a longer phrase, one that is five measures long. I suppose you could also say that it is its own little phrase that is one measure long. I don't quite feel it that way, but maybe you do. That's fine. Either way, it still works against the expectation already set up that we are going to have four measure phrases. The silence on the last two beats of the measure are also important. Just because no sound is made, nothing is articulated, doesn't mean it's boring or nothing is happening. Silence is happening, silence is something, and silence can be quite exciting. This little measure also foreshadows future funkiness that the first eight measures sort of contraindicate. It's just a little taste of what is to come.
Continuing in that vein of just a little taste, the next thing that happens is that layer #1 comes back with a smattering of other percussion:
Now that there's a bit more action in the music, I want to talk about what we're seeing here and how it relates to what we hear. This is a snapshot of a phrase; I know that the cowbell doesn't actually start right away, it actually starts mid-phrase and then continues on. We could say that this shows the phrase ca. 0:26-0:30, but that actually ends with the previous riff and drum combo in the fourth measure, in the usual space one would put a fill; as opposed to earlier, when it was more like a coda, a tail attached at the end, or an interlude between two sets of eight measures. All this is to say that the above graphic is an example, an amalgamation, and not the exact phrase that is in the music. Now that we've made that clear, let's start with the cowbell part.
The cowbell hits right at the beginning. Why aren't the first microbeat and first subdivision colored in? We could do that, but I felt this is a bit clearer in terms of delineating beat functions. In many ways, the macrobeat is the prime thing, the main event. If something happens in that spot, it's perceived as the macrobeat. This is also why I only color in the second and fourth microbeats. What I find particularly interesting is that this two-hit rhythm repeated every microbeat is all it takes to make the subdivisions clear. All we need to indicate the idea that we are dividing the microbeats into four parts is to articulate just the fourth one. That's enough.
But is it ever enough? There are no necessities in music, only desirables. And what we desire in dance music is something that reflects the many parts of our bodies moving in space, conversing with gravity. The busy-ness of the melody of an Irish reel can be enough to get you dancing, sans bodhran and friends. This cowbell here could be enough. But just as we like it when bodhran and friends accompany a reel, we'll like it when other parts join that cowbell, even when that other part is also basically simply illustrating the subdivisions, as the (what I'm guessing is a hi-hat mounted) tambourine does here. All of the hits are here in the tambourine: the macrobeat, the microbeat, and all the subdivisions. One more thing is happening in the tambourine that doesn't really affect the beat functions, yet it does affect the feel: accents. We could visually represent this like so:
It creates the feeling that there are two layers of subdivisions: twos and fours. It's simple and yet by virtue of implying more, it's complex. More is more. Subdivisions do not affect our sense of meter — that job belongs to the microbeat — but they do contribute greatly to the feel of the music.
When the full drum set pattern and the bass come in just afterward, we add in three more ways (kick, snare, bass) of articulating the beat functions:
Each part of the drum set has its own way and its own primary job in articulating the beat functions. You can see that the kick drum, the cowbell the tambourine, and the bass all articulate the macro- and microbeats, but they each have a different combination of points in the subdivision cycle that they articulate. Although the snare part seems rather boring by comparison, we all know that articulating that second microbeat is the essence of rock 'n' roll.3 Here, less is more. Its simplicity hammers the point home.
In the same way that the cowbell part is enough to signal what is going on in terms of beat functions, the kick, the tambourine, and the bass would each, by themselves, be enough to signal the beat functions, too. Yet, when you put them all together, it reflects our own multiplicities. There are many paths; why not take all of them? It's exciting.
At this point — gosh the vocals haven't even started yet! — we jam on this for a while. Then there's a little interruption where the sense of beat is completely dropped — "The horses are on the track" — to create a little diversion, a little sense of novelty. The basic jam comes back in and we have a sort of noise melody, very avant-garde. Finally, the guitar riff comes back in for real this time, not just as a fill, but a full measure that gets repeated with some rhythmic and melodic variations throughout the phrase. The basic idea in terms of beat functions is this:
Similar to what we see in the kick, cowbell, tambourine, and bass, we have yet another set of points in the subdivision cycle that are articulated. But this one is special. The melody helps clarify its rhythmic specialness, because, at first, each articulation point oscillates between two pitches. If we put it all in the subdivision part and indicate pitches with solfege, it becomes a bit clearer:
We have LA-do-rest four times in a row and then a LA-do-LA-SOL.4 This reiteration of LA-do-rest sets up a new rhythmic scenario:
Suddenly, what used to be a subdivision pulse is now a microbeat in a different meter — two different meters. First we have two instances of paired triple meter and one instance of paired duple meter, both of which are at faster tempi. We could also think of this as one gesture of mixed meter, that happens to take the same amount of time as two gestures of the paired duple that is happening underneath. This is polymeter.
We can also certainly say that I am getting way too excited and throwing too much theory all over the place and making a big mess. It's syncopation, lady! No big whoop. It's that too, indeed. But this particular syncopation of threes against twos or fours sets up a very different metrical feel than the syncopation that happens in the bass and drums. It is a very common rhythm across Afro-diaspora musics. It's a need-to-know pattern. When this rhythm finally asserts itself for an extended amount of time, it's exciting. More multiplicities! More moving parts! Everybody move to prove the groove.
Finally, about 90 seconds in, the vocals start. It's a song, after all, not just a dance party. For those ninety seconds, however, it is a dance party, very clearly established. What makes it work for that long — I mean, for pop songs 90 seconds is forever! This ain't prog rock, people — is the careful exposition of each of the moving parts, presenting them in different combinations, before giving us the whole thing. That, and few moments of thwarting our expectations with an extra measure, a cessation of the beat, a novelty sample.
Lyrically, we have dance music as protest music, though perhaps not as explicit as the Clash's work (Mick Jones' former band), yet there's still a tiny bit in there. To be sure, any song that discusses rising up from the depths is explicitly political. There's enough mention of economic and social depression to make it that much more explicit. And of course, all songs are political, even dance tunes sans lyrics, simply by virtue of creating a group of people who identify and connect in some way with that dance tune. It's just that most hit songs now seem strictly limited to interpersonal relationships instead of larger social power relationships. Those interpersonal relationship songs have also always existed, have always been popular, and have always been important. But can we bring back the danceable protest song this year, please? We need it, badly.
Lots of songs do this, of course. It's part of the inheritance of African musical aesthetics that came to the Americas via the highly unfortunate slave trade. While laying out the parts one-by-one can be very effective, there is a drawback when all of your songs start this way. This is a common pitfall for solo looping musicians, because they are often stuck with this format. I went to a concert of a rather successful looping musician, and while it was clear that this person was very, very good at what they do and was certainly a capable composer, the combination of introspective pop songs in a concert venue where everyone was sitting politely and having every single song build up in the same exact way got very boring by mid-show.
This is a fancy way of saying that melodies have rhythm by virtue of being made of sounds of varying durations.
…and pretty much all Afro-diaspora musics.
Caps indicate that this note is lower in pitch than lowercase ones, if you are new to this notation. More here.