seasurfacefullofclouds:

seasurfacefullofclouds:

Writing about songs from Midnight Memories during the hiatus is a little like writing about the Roman Empire during the Dark Ages—it feels like the distant past, like an era that’s, maybe, no longer relevant. Pop music is usually ephemeral, like candy– it’s consumed and enjoyed in the moment, and quickly forgotten. When we look back on the candy of the past—Necco ™ wafers, for instance—we wonder how people could have liked it at all. Cultural tastes change and old candy eventually becomes stale or cloying. 90% of pop falls into this category. Some songs from MM fall into this category too.

The reason why I love 1D, and why I think 1D will be considered a relevant band in the history of rock & roll, is that there are a large number of songs which will not simply be forgotten—songs written with care to musical and lyrical structure, which do not merely follow the a commercial trend but aim for originality and beauty, the same intent as any art. Sometimes it is because there’s an interesting external narrative associated with the songs, but long after the narrative has been forgotten (does anyone know why Elvis sang “Love Me Tender”? Why George Gershwin modeled “Summertime” after slave spirituals?), the bones of the song remain, and that’s how songs are evaluated in posterity—by their actual DNA.

“Something Great” is track 12 on the 1D album Midnight Memories, released November 25, 2013. It was written by Harry Styles, Gary Lightbody, and Jacknife Lee, and produced by Lee. Lightbody was the frontman for the alt-rock band Snow Patrol. According to his Wiki bio, Lightbody is largely a self-taught musician, born in Northern Ireland, with a penchant for writing simple, straightforward love songs. He is also a fan of the poet Seamus Heaney and has written a song about him! Lee is an Irish producer who has worked with Snow Patrol, U2, Robbie Williams, The Cars, Weezer, etc.

“Strong” was written by Louis Tomlinson, John Ryan, Jamie Scott and Julian Bunetta (the veteran 1D writing crew), and produced by Bunetta and Ryan. Along with “Diana” and “Midnight Memories,” “Strong” was released on November 18, 2013, one week before the album release. It was track 7.

We have to remember that Styles and Tomlinson were young (18/19 and 20) and relatively inexperienced when they collaborated in their writing efforts, and short of asking the writers, there’s no way of knowing how much they actually contributed. The signatures of the songs (especially “Strong,” with so many writers) are therefore a mishmash of ideas. In general, MM tried to aim for a more mature sound than 1D’s previous albums, and many of the songs were written with the express thought of touring larger venues, aiming for the big, loudly amped and miked, stadium rock experiences of the 1970’s and 80’s. A song like “Best Song Ever” even quotes from the opening of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” (guitarist Pete Townshend acknowledged as much, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pete-townshend-responds-to-furious-one-direction-fans-20130816 ). It has been pointed out that in MM, unlike previous two 1D albums, the songs tend less directly to address a female teenage audience. The boys’ personas shifted from empty, generic teen heartthrobs to more mature singer-songwriters and performers. The lyrics often describe the experience of a touring band (here, from “Midnight Memories”):

Straight off the plane to a new hotel
Just touched down, you could never tell
A big house party with a crowded kitchen
People talk shh but we don’t listen
Tell me that I’m wrong but I do what I please
Way too many people in the Addison Lee
Now I’m at the age when I know what I need, oh, whoa

I’ve heard the tape that Bunetta released re: the MM writing process (http://super-liam.tumblr.com/post/99448256631/julian-bunetta-just-uploaded-this-of-the-boys) and Louis has said that it was the one song that made the boys feel they began to feel like actual contributors to songwriting. But I’m not convinced—I think the lyrics are a façade of how 1D wants to appear—as “rock & rollers.” I’m not really interested in whether this was the boys or management—the lyrics just don’t sound very personal to me. They are how a fan might imagine rock stars live—planes, house parties, chauffeurs etc. it’s fun and it’s a bop, but there’s no personality there. MM could have been written by robots.

“Strong” and “Something Great”, in contrast, are, for me, very interesting songs on the album, a bit odd, out of sync with other songs, not really written to be toured. According to this database ( http://www.setlist.fm/stats/songs/one-direction-3bd294d0.html?song=18), “Strong” was sung on tour 100 times, compared to “One Thing” (294), “Live While We’re Young” (202), and “Best Song Ever” (190). In contrast, “Something Great” was never sung on tour. Not once.

Why? There is actually no other song on MM which was never sung on tour. Surely it wasn’t the worst song on the album? (Please correct me if I’m wrong)

A few things about the structure of “Something Great” leap out. First, the song starts with the bridge, one that has no words. Since the bridge usually appears near the end of a pop song, and is usually an elaboration of the chorus (and lends complexity to the chorus), a wordless bridge seems to cut off any explication, to dissolves the chorus into pure feeling—in this case, an agonized yearning. It is an unusual way for a song to start.

The bridge is an extended riff around the bass IV-7 chord, leading to V. The harmonic structure is very common for pop music, usually resolving, eventually, to the key of the song, the tonic I chord (D major). Even though the bridge sounds like it ought to resolve to D major, it never does. The entire song has only a few resolutions to the tonic, only when Harry sings, in the chorus, “So I don’t have to keep imagining, oh.” The song resolves to a home key only when the singer is imagining being reunited with his love—the arrangement of the lyrics this way shows the harmonic resolution coinciding with a lack of poetic resolution (the lovers never unite), which makes for an interesting, subtle contrast.

Whenever I notice something like this, I always ask, “But is it intentional?” Maybe the Styles kid did something great by accident (see what I did there…). But then the song gives us other clues that yes, the lack of resolution, the yearning without yielding, is in fact intentional.

Rhythmically, the verse shows a Lightbody signature, i. e. the words sung on the syncopated, or off, beat. All of the words in the iambic hexameter couplets happen on the off beat:

One day you’ll come into my world and say it all
You say we’ll be together even when you’re lost
One day you’ll say these words
I thought you’ll never say
You say we’re better off together in our bed

The end words are half rhymes or slant rhymes: they sound similar but are not exact rhymes.

Returning to the bridge for a bit, I’ll just point out that the bridge starts on the beat, but is syncopated internally. The syncopation in both the verse and the bridge has the effect of dragging the words (the notes drag into the next beat, into the next bar, an effect called “elision”)—of speech that is reluctant, hesitant, improvised, conversational. It enhances the feelings of spontaneity and honesty. The syncopation exists to make the singing sound more realistic, more like regular conversational speech, more confessional, if you will.

Contrasted to the verse, the words in the chorus all occur on the beat.

I want you here with me
Like how I pictured it
So I don’t have to keep imagining
Come on, jump out at me
Come on, bring everything
Is it too much to ask for something great?

There are internal rhymes here: “imagining” slant rhymes with “everything,” a creative image of the world that exists only in the lover’s mind, a complete, imaginary universe. It’s also interesting that these rhymed words are feminine rhymes—the rhymes happen on the unaccented syllables, a softer and more resigned statement than the previous lines: I want you here with me/ come on, jump out at me.

Theres also something oddly specific about the lyrics of Something Great:

The script was written and I could not change a thing
I want to rip it all to shreds and start again

It’s unusual because—who refers to a love affair as a script? Why rip up the script? Who writes the script? Who is controlling the script besides the two lovers? It is a very unusual trope for a love song. It’s almost as if the singer is protesting against a narrative forced on him by a third party.

During the writing of MM, Harry had gone through the whole Haylor affair from October 2012 to January 2013. It was an incredibly painful time for him and Louis (start at 3:00 on this video, from the SiriusXM concert 12/7/2012, in the middle of the Haylor hellstorm, and if you can watch this with a dry eye, you’re not human: http://youtu.be/9ondUTfaHV8). The Larry fandom belief is that “Something Great” was a declaration of love written from Harry to Louis. Nothing can ever be confirmed, but the structure of the song is terribly revealing. As noted in the fan Wiki page for “Something Great,” Louis does not sing at all until the very last chorus, and in solo (contrasted to the preceding chorus where Zayn soars in harmony). Because Louis has such a distinctive voice, the effect is unmistakably intentional—even the casual fan can pick out him out from the others. And what does he sing?

You’re all I want
So much it’s hurting
You’re all I want
So much it’s hurting

And it ends—on a V chord (the V chord is called the “dominant” chord in music theory, in this case, A major), unresolved. The love is never resolved, the pain never goes away. The song never circles back to the tonic key of D major. It fades away and the feelings are hanging on a ledge.

Okay, I’m back. Had to take a break from the jagged, ugly crying. Styles is an asshole, TBH. He has attacked me so very personally.

Just a final addendum to notes on Something Great.

Louis’s final verse, in fact, has the same harmonic progression as the opening verse.

I. IV. VI. V
One day you’ll come into my world and say it all
I. IV. VI. V
You say we’ll be together even when you’re lost

I. IV
You’re all I want
VI. V
So much it’s hurting

And again, this is a common chord progression in pop music. It’s just very unusual to end on any key other than the tonic key.

However, I find it interesting that the same songwriter, Harry Styles, perseverates on this progression, when he chose to write another love song on a later album, Made in the A.M.

I. IV. VI. V
If I could fly, I’d be coming right back home to you
I. IV. VI. V
I think I might give up everything, just ask me to

IV. VI. V
Hope that you don’t run from me

In my stupid, romance-addled mind, I think, maybe… maybe Harry is continuing the song where Louis’s verse ended. Maybe there is a resolution. Maybe there is Something Great at the end of the MITAM rainbow. Could it be? Nah, couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that obvious. Just a coincidence. Right?

So, these are the harmonic progressions for the choruses:

IV
Come on, jump out at me
VI
Come on, bring everything
V. I
Is it too much to ask for something great?

IV. VI. V. I
I’m missing half of me when we’re apart
IV. VI IV. I
Now you know me, for your eyes only

Except that, in “If I Could Fly,” the tonic does come back at the end, the harmonic progression does resolve. The song ends at the home, or tonic, key, of G major: For your eyes only.

“Something Great” always left me feeling very sad, bereft, but it is, maybe, a partial story. Sometimes love stories take 2 or 3 years, several albums, to tell. Sometimes the stories are complicated, and Harry asks you to listen with all your senses, all your musical intellect.

Real eyes, realize, real lies. ( https://mobile.twitter.com/harry_styles/status/322769577304027137)

Louis’s recent Rose-Dagger Instagram selfie with the “thought bubble” caption. ( https://www.instagram.com/p/BL4TjE2Dv0j/?hl=en)

Harry and Louis do tell us a lot about themselves in social media, even when they are cleverly disguising these clues. But they tell us a lot in their music as well—the songs are a diary of their musical and emotional growth.

“Something Great” doesn’t have the harmonic complexity or maturity of “If I Could Fly,” and the production is less beautiful, less slick as well. But hearing it, for me, is like seeing a photo of 19-year-old Harry, so beautifully perfect in his exterior, with a more beautiful and emotionally pure interior, who will never be quite like that again.

[Discussion of “Strong” will be in another post, part 2]

Thank you for reading.

I’m sorry I’m so bad at technology that the abbreviations for the chords don’t sync up with the lyrics. I’ve written it all on mobile, and I’m just not good formatting on mobile. 😣