Originally Posted By: Will B - PG Music
Woah shocked this is exhaustive! Such good listening practice to dissect songs like this, I can easily see how it would directly feed back into more confident songwriting smile


It's really not that exhaustive, in that it doesn't identify key, chord progression, etc. However, THAT stuff is easily found. What's exhaustive is that this takes as many listens through as identifying unique tracks, and usually a couple more than that. I take a break at about an hour, as I find that I get to the "Can't see the forest for all of the trees" kind of state of mind.

This song took me two different sessions.

But if you take a listen, you'll hear that there is probably not more than 10-12 tracks, if you consider the harmony vox as a few individual comp'ed tracks.

10-12 tracks for a major hit.

Only two lead instruments besides Tom's voice. I would count the very simple electric guitar parts in two different sections as two different leads, because they have completely different sounds.

So often, it is tempting - oh so tempting - to continue to pile on the lead instruments because individually they might sound cool. But unless they REALLY serve the song well, they are add-on junk that takes away from the meat of the song. They are incongruent, uncomplimentary, distracting, and one might say amateur.

Even in this song, that one section with the double-tracked lead electric, it's just a copy of the bass riff that is going on throughout 90% of the song, not some meandering thing that sounds foreign to the song.

I'm really glad JoeV picked this song. It's evidence of how simple a great and memorable song can be in a rock band setting.

Now, a different question still related to this song: Who sings this song to themselves every time they see Ventura Boulevard signs? I do every time I visit LA. That's once every few years for me, and I can't help but hear this song in my head and even sing it out loud in the car.

-Scott

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