twilight in boston (1992)

jonathan richman. rock/folk/?, Boston MA USA

key: C ionian
mode: C D E F G A B
melody: S L d r m s
form: open/free
meter: duple

English function names: tonic   supertonic
Tagg (modified):        home    counterpoise (away)
Riemann:                T       Sp
Scale degrees:          I       ii
Chords:                 CMA7(9) Dm7

  CMA7     Dm7
|:/ / / / |/ / / / :| loop

While Jonathan Richman is definitely working in the rock 'n' roll tradition, this particular song is a bit less on the rock side, but what side it's exactly on is a bit harder to pin down. This is not a talking blues, not being blues-based, and it's definitely not hip-hop or rap. We might be able to link it to a Woody Guthrian kind of delivery. Or maybe we're at a poetry slam. Who knows, maybe Richman was listening to some Robert Ashley — there's something of Ashley's aesthetic around the idea of people's peculiar ways of speaking have a music all their own.¹ But honestly, I think we don't have to work so hard to place this song in a historical context.

I love that his little verbal slip up is left in there at the beginning. I also love that this is a love song, but to a place. We've always had songs about interpersonal relationships, as well we should. I think the stereotypical hyper-drama of modern pop songs is especially appealing to a lot of people who feel similar drama in their lives — adolescents, for example. I've personally always found it a bit tiresome, being the very nerdy gal that I am. I prefer to avoid such drama.² Richman is definitely my kind of song writer.

Digging into the harmonic aspect of the song, we have our first example of a less typical chord progression. The bass tends to play…

  C        D     F
|:/ / / / |/ / / / :|

…which begs the question, is this a two-chord song or a three chord song? It's further complicated by both chords having additional color tones (pitches that add flavor, but do not affect function). A CMA7(9) has C E G B D; the Dm7 has D F A C. Hidden in that second chord is a lovely F major triad: F A C, which is then punctuated by the bass. Since the D is still present, you could call it an F6 chord.

Riemann has something to say here, even though his theory was not developed for such modern modal musings. As mentioned before, for Riemann, chords that share two or more pitches can substitute for one another. He often justifies this through the concept of relative modes, what in German is called parallel — Subdominantparallele, which is then abbreviated to Sp. Here the S is capitalized, not because all nouns in German are capitalized, but because the subdominant chord is a major chord. The p is lowercase because it's the relative (Parallele) minor. In a minor key, you'd abbreviate it sP. Because D minor is the relative of F major, they can be used interchangeably, as happens here. In classical music, this chord is also often voiced with the third in the bass. In all of those senses, we have a song with two functions. For me, that's enough to really think of this as a two-chord song. You could put a Db in the bass instead of an F and it wouldn't change the function; it would just be regarded as a passing tone and not as something structurally significant.

Form is a bit difficult to pin down in this song. Yes, there are ostensible verses and an ostensible chorus, but the feeling is more of a jam session with improvised lyrics and guitar interludes. There are many ways to make a song and this is a refreshingly different model, lyrically, formally, and harmonically.

1. For example:

2. This is also probably why I am not much of an opera aficionado and will recommend to any opera newbies 'The Marriage of Figaro' and 'The Barber of Seville,' because they are fun, not soapy.