Page 66
Next To You? How about Little Richard's immortal rock 'n' roll war-cry 'Awopbopaloobopalopbamboom!' at the
start of 'Tutti Frutti', or the Beatlesque dominant 7 crescendo that kicks off 'Let's Dance? Intros require drama,
involvement, expectation. A crescendo or an ascending or descending figure gets our attention immediately because
we know it's moving towards something, and we are curious to hear what it will be. Anticipation can be aroused by
suggesting that you are about to land on chord I but delaying it to the verse (or later). 'Can't Ignore The Train' does
this.
Sampling voices from films can produce excellent results - witness Kate Bush's use of a fevered male voice
exclaiming, "It's in the trees! It's coming!" ('Hounds Of Love'), or The Banshees' "Did you know that more murders
are committed at 92 degrees Fahrenheit than any other temperature? I read an article once... at lower temperatures
people are easy going, over 92 it's too hot to move, but just 92 people get irritable!" ('92 Degrees'). 'One Of Us' has a
field recording of on-the-porch singing before the song proper starts.
You might use a sound effect of some sort. This could illustrate the theme of the song, as with 'Apeman' (car horns)
and 'Exhuming McCarthy' (typewriter). It could be trains ('5.15', 'Down In The Tube Station At Midnight'), rain and
storm ('Riders On The Storm', and all over The Who's Quadrophenia), the waterfront ('Champagne Supernova') or
seagulls ('I Wish It Would Rain'). How about a sax imitating a ship's foghorn ('Night Boat To Cairo')? Pink Floyd
started 'Money', appropriately, with cash-tills. Kate Bush used whale song to start 'Moving'. You could also use pure
sound effects generated on a synth, as the acoustic guitar fed through synth that spits out the intro to 'Relay'.
Samplers have been used to put the sound of crackling vinyl at the start of songs, for that extra touch of analogue
warmth.
The "False Intro"
We assume that an intro leads to what follows. But an interesting effect is an intro that does not dovetail with the rest
of the song – this is a "false intro". False intros work by arousing a sense of involvement and then giving us a mild
shock. They manipulate involve either tempo or harmony, or both. You could start in one style and then proceed in
another, although that's fairly way-out trick. R.E.M. put a few seconds of goofing around pretending to be James
Brown before the country rock of '(Don't Go Back To) Rockville'.
Tempo variations often work well. 'Man Out Of Time' starts in double-time with a manic punk thrash that suddenly
subsides into a stately piano-driven song, Intros can be in free time, such as in 'Here There and Everywhere' and
'American Pie', where the time is controlled by the singer's phrasing. 'My Love' has a clever false intro in which a
horn plays the note A. It would be logical to assume A is therefore the key note – but the first chord that fades in is a
Bb (Bb D F), so the A note makes a Bbmaj7 chord (Bb D F A).
Some intros are long enough almost to be termed "pre-verses". This is where you realize that the boundaries between
sections of a song are not always rigid and easily identified. Take The Beatles' 'If I Fell': it opens with a descending
chord sequence in C#major, which then changes key to D major for the first chorus. An intro could be in a different
tempo and a different key from the song proper. Led Zeppelin's 'Tea For One' starts medium-tempo in F before
subsiding into a 12/8 slow blues in C minor. R.E.M.'s 'I Believe' commences with a banjo in G, but the band enter in
F at a faster tempo, almost as if they have cut across the banjo.
Intros offer an opportunity to play around with the listener's sense of key. Smokey Robinson did this on 'More Love'
and the Isley Brothers' 'Put Yourself In My Place' starts with a bewildering progression of E A C Bb G/B before
settling in C major at the commencement of the verse.