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two-bar phrase of "There's one thing I want you to do" where each beat has a different chord. It's rare for pop songs
to harmonize on separate beats. The melody going into the last chorus is pitched higher than you expect it over a
D#7, which again creates the expectation of a key change. Chorus 3 has a different ending than the others do, and the
coda features vocal counterpoint over a new sequence of Em C A G. And all of this in only three minutes! Too much
variety to be commercial? 'Dedicated To The One I Love' was the 12th best-selling single of 1967 in the UK and a
No.2 hit in the US.
7—
Jimi Hendrix:
'House Burning Down' (1968)
Hendrix tends to be thought of first as a guitarist and only second as a songwriter. 'House Burning Down' is, as
usual, full of fittingly incendiary guitar work, and the phased tone of the middle lead break obviously inspired Ernie
Isley to emulate it on 'That Lady'. The coda is stunning, as Hendrix's guitar goes whooshing off into the distance
before apparently turning around and coming back. But 'House Burning Down' is a remarkable rock song not only
for its lyric – a blend of UFO visitation and the smoking American cities of 1968 – but also for the fact that Hendrix
had the audacity to link a galloping soul rhythm (in F minor) with a fox trot (in Ebm).
8—
The Four Tops:
'I'm in a Different World' (1968)
Few songwriting teams can match the record of Holland-Dozier-Holland. 'I'm In A Different World' was one of the
last hits they had with Motown and their last with The Four Tops. It has typical Motown features in terms of the
arrangement and a characteristically impassioned, straining vocal from Levi Stubbs, though for once he has a happy
love theme, a taste of the final redemption of the seraphic 'Still Water (Love)'. Most of all, it is an object lesson in
how to use modulation to express the meaning of a lyric.
It starts without an intro of any kind, Levi's vocal coming in a fraction of a second after the instruments. The verse
moves I-IV-II in Bb but changes to Gb when the title comes in for the first time over a II-V-I in that key. Stubbs
sings that he is in a different world – and so is the music, because it has modulated. This leads to a bridge section
("Each time you call my name,,,") with a clever singlenote guitar line (partly doubled by Jamerson's bass) that is
reminiscent of the guitar line central to 'My Girl'. To get back to the verse and the key of Bb, the four-chord link
goes Cbsus4 Cbsus2 Ab Db, momentarily making Db the key before dropping down to Bb.
'I'm In A Different World' is a song whose musical twists and unexpected turns mirror the shocked delight of the
speaker, for whom life itself has turned so unexpectedly from dark to light.
9—
Simon & Garfunkel:
'America' (1970)
'America' is a greater song than the more celebrated 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. The latter plays to the gallery too
much. Essentially a song of selfless love, there's something queasy about the self-glorification of the speaker in so
religiose a manner. By contrast, the lyric of 'America' works from the concrete to the general. It is full of evocative
images: the coach, the place names, the cigarette, the raincoat, the magazine, the moon, the bow tie. The apparent
whimsy of the middle eight, where Simon gently evokes the paranoia of 1960s America, masks a deeper pathos.
Maybe the man in the gabardine mac is a spy after all. And the hook – "All gone to look for America" – gives this
song a breadth few popular songs attain. This is not just about lost love or lost lovers but a lost political ideal.