One of my favorite Radiohead songs, There There is a tour de force of what makes Radiohead an amazing quintet. The songs begins with the thumping of large drums played by the two other guitarists, Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood. They alternate between percussive rimshots and deep booming lows while the sound of Yorke’s guitar feeding back in the sinister key of B minor with a C# overtone wails with increasing ferocity. After verse chorus verse of the main section of the song, the guitarists again pick up their guitars and the chords have mutated from a straight Bm/D major scheme to a Dm emphasis while still continuing to insist on Bm. The strong dissonance of the 5th in the Bm (F#) contrasting with the minor 3rd of the Dm (F) creates a descending chromatic progression. As the F# gives way to F, and Am is introduced and it’s 5th (E) forms the next step in the downward spiral. This E then becomes resolute in the next Em chord, which also features strong undercurrents of C#, F#, and D to shift the focus back to the Bm when the riff begins again.
What fascinates me about this song is that even though the F component of the Dm is an outsider to the key of Bm, Radiohead insist on making it work; just as the guitarists are not normally drummers, they make their presence felt in other ways and when they return to their natural forms of expression through guitar, it is very much like the Bm returning after a short chromatic departure through Dm/F. This insistence during the compositional phase results in a more difficult session for the listener’s ear, but ultimately a more rewarding experience over time.
Or at least that’s what I think about when I hear it. Here’s my distillation of the song arranged for one acoustic guitar. Enjoy.
Hello all. Recently I decided that my musicianship had grown stagnant. I was not learning anything new besides the occasional riff I would come across when playing with others. So I recently resolved to try and learn a new song on guitar everyday. Furthermore, I went down to the Rite Aid I live over and purchased a three-ring binder and some plastic sheet protectors and whammo, I have the beginnings of what will become a thick book of indie rock songs complete with chords and lyrics.
I then decided to press on and post my interpretations of songs that I figure out by ear on this blog. If you have any corrections or things to add, be sure to let me know!
So here is out inaugural song, “My Little Japanese Cigarette Case” by Spoon from the stellar album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. This song is played with a ton of palm muting with your pick hand and a lot of power chords, the main ones being B5 and C5. This simply means you play the chords root note (B in the case of B5 and C in the case of C5) and the 5th of that root note (F# in the case of B5 and G in the case of C5). As the B melody swings from Bb in the F#7 all the way up to a dissonant C5 in the main verse, the song lulls you into an off-kilter trance.
Be sure to check out Spoon’s website and see them live if you can. I had the pleasure of checking them out at Popscene, it was hardly even a venue for a band of their rising fame. We waited for 4 hours in the San Francisco cold in a little alley on Ritch St., and it was still more than worth it. Much much more to come. Have fun!
Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame has just issued a video asking his MP in Britain to remind Gordon Brown that he has pledged to significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions. I am very thankful to Mr. Yorke for standing up for such an important issue. A voice like his cuts through almost all the noise of the neo-conservative spin machine. See video here.
I was pluggin away in Photoshop at work today, when I noticed a friend of mine’s away message on AIM/Adium. It read: “Paris Hilton did more time than Scooter Libby.” I laughed at first, because it is actually funny. And then I felt sick. Very sick for this country. For a president who claims to be so tough on crime, (see Bush’s capital punishment record as governor of Tejas) we are finally beginning to see him for what he really is: very, very, very tough on crime when it doesn’t harm the neo-con agenda. And for all the water carriers who are claiming that Clinton did the same thing, (buzzer sound) false. Clinton may have pardoned a criminal like many other presidents in US history, but there is a distinct difference between that and pardoning someone who criminally helped your administration obstruct justice and endanger the lives of public servants like the Wilson/Plame family to suit false claims and intel about Iraq leading up to the war. Ok, whew. I am done.
Keith Olbermann might be the finest speaker in this nation’s media. President Bush is the worst president this country has ever seen. Put the two together, and you have one helluva Special Comment from last night, the eve of our nation’s independence day. Bravo Keith. Bravo.
Here.
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