Weekly Basslines #243: Christmas Time (Bryan Adams)

This year I'm playing a few Christmas gigs and therefor I'm learning a bunch of christmas songs. While transcribing I noticed that a lot of christmas songs have similar harmonic features and so I decided to analyse a few of them. In the remaining weeks until Christmas I'll be posting 4 Christmas songs with analysis starting this week with Bryan Adams "Christmas Time":

Like many christmas songs “Christmas Time” by Bryan Adams is in the key of C major. This is in fact one of the most common keys for christmas songs. I’m not quite sure why, but maybe because it’s the “white” key , as it only contains the white keys of the piano.

Regardless of the “whiteness” of the key, in most christmas songs you’ll find a few non-daitonic chords. Let’s take a look at the verses:

The E major chord in bar 5 is the secondary dominant of the VI chord (Am) bringing in the G# as a non-diatonic tone. The lament bass in the first two bars however is a all-diatonically descending bassline typically going down from the tonic chord (I) to the dominant chord (V). This is a musical technique which goes back as far as to Renaissance composers like Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643).

In bar 6 of the chorus we have a minor subdominant chord (Fm), which is a borrowed chord from the parallel C minor scale and thus adds an “Ab” to the list of non-diatonical notes, which is enharmonic to “G#”.

The bridge contains another secondary dominant chord in bar 6. The D major chord (V-of-V) resolves to the actual dominant G major (V) and adds the F# to the list of non-diatonic notes. At the end of the bridge we accounter a descending bassline which unlike the lament bass is only accompanied by the dominant chord G major.

After the bridge the song modulates up a whole tone to D major:

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Weekly Basslines #242: Is She Really Going Out With Him ? (Joe Jackson)

"Is She Really Going Out with Him?" was one of the first songs Joe Jackson recorded with the Joe Jackson band, which included bassist Graham Maby, guitarist Gary Sanford, and drummer Dave Houghton. 

It was released in October 1978 as his debut single and was later included on Jackson's debut album, Look Sharp! 

"Is She Really Going Out with Him?" has been a mainstay of Jackson's live setlist since its release. Like many of Jackson's songs, "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" has been rearranged in live concerts to align with Jackson's shifting musical interests. These reworkings include an acoustic rendition and an a cappella “doo-wop” version, performances of which have both been released on Live 1980/86. An a cappella version of "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" was released as a single in 1988 in some European countries. 

"Is She Really Going Out With Him" was Joe Jackson's amusing commentary on hot girls hooking up with butt-ugly dudes. Jackson makes this clear in the marvelous opening line, "Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street." 

In a Songfacts interview with Joe Jackson, he explained that the song was written with a humor that was lost on some listeners. 

Songfacts: …. one of your bigger hits, "Is She Really Going out With Him?" Was there a specific couple? I always wondered. 

Joe: Now, that is just one of those songs that started with the title. I heard that phrase somewhere and I thought that could be a kind of funny song about gorgeous girls going out with monsters. It just started from there. It was just a funny song, or supposed to be funny. It was a great surprise to me when some people interpreted it as being angry.

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Weekly Basslines #241: I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass (Nick Lowe)

 “I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass” was Lowe's highest charting hit in the UK, where it peaked at #7. The single was lifted from Lowe's debut solo album, “Jesus of Cool” from 1978.

Steve Goulding, Andy Bodnar and Bob Andrews – Lowe's session musicians – helped to compose this song. Lowe said: "That was a song which was sort of made up in the studio. I had the vague idea of the tune, and that's why in the writing credits, I cut the bass player and the drummer in on the song, because they made it, really. The drums and bass are really great on that song. Steve Goulding and Andy Bodnar used to play with Graham Parker And The Rumour, whose records I produced, and they played bass and drums on '(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass.' Their contribution was so great, I gave them a third each. In fact, I should have actually given Bob Andrews, who played piano on it, a taste of the record. The piano is so great."

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Weekly Basslines #240: One More Cup Of Coffee (Bob Dylan)

This track from the 1975 album “Desire” tells the tale of a gypsy girl, and of the man who must leave her to enter the "valley below." Some critics see the song as a metaphor for Dylan's crumbling relationship with his then wife, Sara Lowndes, but it was a specific experience that inspired it.

When Dylan was 34 years old, he visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France. While there he attended a gypsy celebration. The experience left a strong impression on him. "I'll never forget this one man played Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber!" Dylan wrote of the experience. "Anyway, things went on and it was time for me to go. They said, 'What do you want Bob, as you're leaving us?' I just asked for a cup of coffee for the road. They put it in a bag and they gave it to me. And I was standing there looking out to the ocean, and it was like looking at the valley below where I was standing."

Rob Stoner's bass contribution at the beginning of the song was because violinist Scarlet Rivera wasn't ready. Stoner recalled to Mojo magazine October 2012: "The beginning of 'One More Cup of Coffee' - that wasn't arranged for me to do a bass solo. Scarlet wasn't ready. Bob starts strumming his guitar - nothing's happening. Somebody better play something, so I start playin' a bass solo. Basically the run-throughs became the first takes."

The song develops its “gypsy” feel through using the “Andalusian cadence”. This is a harmonic minor chord progression adopted from flamenco music comprising four chords descending stepwise  i–VII–VI–V.  Dylan uses the progression in A harmonic minor: Am-G-F-E.

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