Why I like this song, No. 2

Today on "Why I like this song" I thought I'd write about a song that to my knowledge wasn't released as a single (and therefore probably never made it to radio anywhere). This kind of song is fascinating because most of the time record executives have a big say on what becomes a single from an album. The fact that this song was not a single meant that either the composer or the executives or both decided that it would not be fit for radio. Let's do Jason Mraz, "Beautiful Mess".

At least on Guam, the only singles I heard from We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things were an updated "I'm Yours" (which I already discussed earlier, though not on Why I like this song) and "Lucky" with Colbie Caillat. So when I heard "Beautiful Mess" I was pleasantly surprised.

Jason Mraz has a (late 90's style) rap- or hip-hop-like cadence to his written lyrics; this is characterized by the meter or rhythm of his words varying almost every line. This song is no different, demonstrating a meter that fits the words, instead of words fitting a meter:

Although you're biased, I love your advice
Your comebacks are quick and probably have to do with your insecurities
There's no shame in being crazy depending on how you take these
Words they're paraphrasing, this relationship we're staging

If you tried fitting these words in the second verse to the actual cadence he sings, it would probably look something like this:

          Al - though        you're    biased,       I  love      your   advice
          Your comebacks are quick and probably have to do with your   insecurities
There's no     shame     in  be -  ing crazy          depending on how you take these
               Words they're       paraphrasing, this relationship we're   staging

It's a proper--if highly irregular--meter, because the stresses are in the right places.

But what really makes this song for me is the first part of the chorus:

Well, it
kind of hurts when the
kind of words you write
kind of turn them-
selves into knives

He repeats the word "kind" three times as the beginning of the middle three lines, all with a stabbing quality to them, singing them in high G-sharps and an F-sharp for the last one, harmonizing with the E, G#m, and F#m in the guitar. It's like he is reacting to being stabbed repeatedly with a sharp knife slowly going into him. Whenever I hear this part of the song it makes my eyes well up, because the words, melody, and chords work together towards an effect that translates to the listener as "puti korason," Chamorro for heartache. And who said sound-pictures are dead? ^_^

The whole song itself is actually very easy to play; four-chorders out there would be delighted in its basic progression: E G#m F#m A -> B, and repeat. The "beautiful mess" chords are just "A / B /" then repeat. Incidentally, it felt as if a quarter to a third of the songs in the rest of the album used the same chord progression (albeit in different keys). The creativity is injected in how the song shapes itself around the words he wants to say.

Is it imo? Every time I hear it I become more convinced that it is. The "relationship" being staged is far from perfect, but for the speaker, the fact that he is still hurt by her verbal blades proves to him that there is still something beautiful and worth continuing:

And through
timeless words and
priceless pictures we'll
fly like birds
not of this Earth.
And
tides they turn and
hearts disfigure but
that's no concern when we're
wounded together.

Thanks for reading.

Why I like this song, No. 1

I don't know whether this is going to be a regular feature of my blog (let alone whether it will ever be repeated ^_^) but tonight after hearing the recording of Cueshe, "Back to Me", I suddenly stumbled upon the reason I liked this song. (Incidentally, I did post a comment on the video that is an outline of what I am going to say here, but I found that "the margin could not contain the proof", as it were.)

There is a certain feeling I get whenever I listen to it or play it. I cannot think of a single word to describe it, but it's somewhere between loneliness and an almost insane hopefulness and yearning.

Most of the drama between these two emotions is illustrated in the contrast between the song's lyrics and the type of music accompanying it. It begins with a four-note motif that alternates between Esus2 and E, which appears to be setting up the song to be a love song--in effect, a love that is ongoing. This creates tension with the words first sung over it:

        C#m A                 E
Sometimes I feel like I'm all alone
Wondering of what have I done wrong.
      C#m A            F#m     B
Maybe I'm just missing you all along
          F#m           B
When will you be coming home
    N.C.    E
    back to me?

(Chords are solely my interpretation.) Oh, so the love was lost. Well, this is weird, because we have already been cued in to thinking about ongoing, current love by the opening motif.

Also, the verse chords resolve to E major (as can be seen in the fragment above) but are mainly the minor chords (C#m and F#m being the main chords in this section). But when we get to the chorus, this happens:

        E        C#m            F#m   B
Can you feel me, see me falling away?
Did you hear me? I'm calling out your name.
           F#m            B
'Cause I'm barely hanging on
      F#m              B
Baby, you need to come home
    N.C.    [Intro]
    back to me.

We get an explosive E major, coupled with the almost screamed words "Can you FEEL me? See me falling away!" The effect is jarring because we finally realize what kind of a song this is--she isn't coming back, but she still "need[s] to come home / Back to me." Then the intro comes back in, washing it all away with that hopeful strain of E's and Esus2's.

So the story that unfolds for me is this: The speaker here is at the brink of despair of ever seeing his loved one again, having just realized that he does love her after all. But kind of figuring they'll never be together again, his yearning to see her again inexplicably increases. Maybe, as in fiction, the improbable should happen and they will end up together again. But as time passes, that hope not only becomes more distant, but also more fantastic, insisting that the speaker keep dreaming against reality.

I began to really like this song when I realized that the feeling portrayed to me in it is very similar to what it felt like a few weeks after my first breakup.

Is it imo? Yes, because the despair is real but the unreal (and even unrealistic) hope is even stronger.

Thanks for reading. Maybe for these posts I can hold off on "Song in my head". What do you think? ^_^