Ahhh cool... I get to be the 1,000th view smile Such a nice, round number.

Hi floyd,

Before I say anything else, I want to congratulate you and Tom on your birthdays. Sorry I'm so late to the party.

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Congratulations everyone on a really outstanding song. Everything, EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING about it shouts out professional: floyd's writing, arranging, mixing, singing; Janice's singing (always a highlight); Tom's incredible lead playing. This is, seriously, seriously good music!


I hope you don't mind, but as I sit here typing, my mind seems to be zigzagging through a number of thoughts. Since I need some sustained touch-typing practice, I thought I'd share those thoughts smile


  • Music related thoughts...

I love this piano intro. Those suspensions and dissonances in the chords are sensational and the EZ Keys TruePiano is brilliant. If you hadn't said anything, I would never have known that this was midi.

In addition, the ad lib and solo instrument nature of the intro set a perfect musical tone (hmmm... that could have been a pun, it was unintentional though) for what is to follow. For me, the intro set the scene for a song that is going to be reflective. As a listener, it felt very satisfying when the hint of rhythm kicked in at 0:41 Soundcloud-time. Then when the drums entered and rhythm fully stabilised at 0:51, the feeling of satisfaction was immense. At this point in time, I couldn't have turned away from the song even if I wanted. I was in the bus and it was driving! This is very, very skilled arranging in my book.


  • Lyric related thoughts...

Because I can't decide what to talk about from a lyric perspective, I've entered a vertical list of possible topics in Excel. In the column next to that list, I have enlisted (ooooh, another potential-but-missed pun) Excel's help to create some random numbers...

=RANDBETWEEN(1,1000) <ENTER>

… hmmmm... it seems that the winning topic is “How, as the song progresses, verses and bridge add emotional intensity to the chorus by targeting different aspects of the chorus”. Thank you Excel. Great choice!

One of the things I once picked up from the seminars Steve Seskin conducted when he came to Melbourne was the concept of targeting different aspects of the chorus. For myself, I've found Seskin's theory to be most productive when I couple it with Pat Pattison's theory of “Three Boxes”.

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Three Boxes Theory
Pattison's theory asserts that most songs can be considered as a progression of three boxes of ideas. For these ideas to work most effectively as a lyric that carries the listener through a song, it's necessary for each subsequent box to gain in emotional intensity. English teachers would call this 'lyric development'.
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In a verse/bridge/chorus song such as "Too Dangerous"...

Box 1 = verse 1 + chorus

Box 2 = verse 2 + chorus

Box 3 = bridge + chorus

Since the chorus remains constant each time, the only way to increase emotional intensity through the boxes is by having verse 1, verse 2 and bridge gain emotional weight and thus spotlight the chorus in different and increasingly more important ways.


Applying the above to “Too Dangerous”....

First off, the chorus is a list chorus. That is, it contains a list of images and/or ideas. For a list to work effectively, it's necessary that each subsequent element in the list increases its importance from a developmental perspective. English teachers call this 'climactic order'. It's easy to tell whether or not list items are in climactic order by simply changing the order of the items and reading through the new order. I find that non-climactic order feels 'not quite right' when read aloud.

Reading through the chorus of “Too Dangerous”, the list order is definitely climatic for me. When I switch the order of items around, the effectiveness of the chorus diminishes. There is no doubting that the chorus is most effective when it culminates in the ultimate assessment of “She's too dangerous for me”. Powerful!

Using Pattison's concept of three boxes, and condensing the 'verse/bridge + chorus' into each over-arching concept, I see that the song sections work in the following way.

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BOX 1
Verse 1 concept = She's different. There were early warning signs that I didn't pay attention to.

These concepts target the chorus lines...

  • I don't mind a little ragged
    or the roller coaster ride

It is worth noting that these are the top two items of the list chorus. As such, they are they least weightiest.

BOX 2
Verse 2 concept = this woman is wild, scary even.

This concept targets the chorus lines...

  • She's a wilder side
    A whole new box of crazy
    Likes of which I've never seen

This verse 2 concept targets more important items in the list that comprises the chorus.

BOX 3
Bridge concept = I'm in over my head with this woman and don't know what to do.

And the bridge's concept targets the ultimate lyric thought of “She's too dangerous for me”.

In fact, the entire lyric journey of "Too Dangerous" seems to be about making that very last line of the third and final chorus blaze under an inferno of spotlights.


Overall, the way in which “Too Dangerous” lyrically develops and targets increasingly more important chorus ideas is a perfect example of lyric writing at its most effective.

List choruses are definitely one of my lyric-writing weak points. Thanks for a great lesson, floyd! Talking my way through this has been very valuable. Now all I need to do is to reverse-engineer your approach.

All the best,
Noel

P.S. I know I've covered some of the above thoughts on theory in earlier posts. Since this is a different song, though, I found it useful for my thinking to refresh those thoughts here.

P.P.S. I think my touch-typing has improved a bit.

MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2024