The Most COMPLEX Pop Song of All Time

hey everybody i'm rick beato so i've been on this kick lately about music becoming less and less complex over the last i don't know 30 years 40 years or so and i keep thinking what is the most complicated song that i've ever played that's a pop song and i was reminded of a gig that i played in 1983. my buddy smitty called me up in the beginning of the summer it was my junior year of college and he says hey i got a gig for us for for four weeks and i said what is it we're going around to the rochester parks and we're going to play for kids and it's a pop group we're going to play maybe some standards you're going to be on guitar i'm on base terence bruce is playing sax terence was a great great sax player playing a band called cabo frio funk band and then there's a drummer and a female vocalist it's okay we get to the first rehearsal and this girl says uh one of the songs she wanted to do most of the songs we knew and one of the songs she wanted to do was the number one song of the time it's called never gonna let you go sergio mendez paul and i hadn't heard it we didn't listen to radio or anything so um she had a cassette player there it's like we'll play it for us we figure oh we can learn any song no problem we're jazz guys right so she starts playing the song and it's like i'm like yeah oh that's weird [Music] how was this where was that wait a minute wait wait wait wait back that up a second so she backs it up it's like okay so so we're trying to do the the math in our head here we go it starts out in f sharp minor so it's six two five one these are just inversions to the four to the five and then to major six first modulation that's a borrowed chord but then the verse goes up to g minor seven right so it moves up a half steps there's a modulation so then we're trying to follow the song from the beginning of the verse okay so here's the verse [Music] okay so we're thinking that we can do this without a chart right for a gig later that day that we're gonna play for people so paul and i we haven't even gotten through the whole song but we're thinking should we write a chart for this no we can figure this out so we start out in f sharp minor right [Music] so [Music] that's just the intro then the verse right and then then there's this and then [Music] okay now we're really getting an uncharted territory i've never seen a song that went through so many different chord changes this is just the beginning of this this is the most confusing thing ever right so we go into the second half of the verse [Music] i mean what so it goes pre-chorus actually a very cool change but going from d 11 or c over d to d over c to b flat sus2 or to uh this would be a a minor 7 flat 6 or f add 9 over a right so totally confusing so don't forget we started here in the beginning of the song the intro then the verse goes here first half of the verse second if the verse goes there then the pre-chorus is there so moving from the pre-chorus [Applause] [Music] [Applause] what that is the weirdest key change ever these they're going from i mean i have to read this i still have to read it because i can't remember to this day now normally you would have a half diminished or you'd go but what they've done is they went a minor two five instead of going to d flat major they go to the to the three chord as a substitute that's actually like a tonic substitute but it's very confusing so we have f sharp minor if you think about just the first chord of each section f sharp minor in the intro first chord of the verse is g minor then the second half of the verse is e minor first chord of the pre-chorus b flat sus2 and then the second half of the pre-chorus goes to f sharp and then this and then two five and then go to f minor okay so then the [Music] chorus [Music] okay what's this [Music] okay so the chorus starts out f minor to uh b flat minor e flat e flat over d flat uh c minor seven then d flat major down to g seven to c and then [Music] and then moves up a half step what song modulates what this is a number one song so it modulates the first half of the chorus is f minor to b flat seven b flat minor seven the second half of the chorus is f sharp minor to b minor seven half step up same chord progression up a half step and then this time i'm never gonna let you go then it actually goes into the last three chords of the intro that's the only thing that's repeated so far that's similar to what came before okay so here's the chorus [Music] [Music] easy i got this then it goes in the verse too same chords okay female singer on this so the first verse the first verse the guy sings the chorus they sing together and then the second verse she takes which is a cool formula right uh by the way the song is written by cynthia weil and barry mann who were really famous songwriters at the time sergio mendes whose record it came out on is just the producers and they have all session players it's all session drummers all session guitar players all session keyboard players sergio mendez i think it might be playing keyboards on it i don't know i looked at a live video and he's playing keyboards but i think he's faking along with it i don't know but the production and the arrangement is really amazing right so here's the second verse right [Music] [Music] modulate down [Music] [Applause] this is really confusing here g minor seven c over e and then to c over f to f major and then it goes to to c here's a pre-chorus again listen [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i got this so check this out solo [Music] okay so terence played the solo in this the saxophone player so before i get into the song so the first day so paul and i are thinking that we can memorize this song and play it in a couple hours in front of a group of 100 kids right so we practice it and we hack our way through it and the girl and the the drummer and the girl are singing okay so so we get out in front of these kids we start playing the song and i get lost first okay so i'm playing along but paul knows where we are paul's got an incredibly good memory i mean i've got a great memory for for songs and chord changes incredibly good memory but this is like this is an impossible task just on listening to it for 20 minutes and rehearsing it or 30 minutes whatever so i'm watching paul i look over his base he's playing a fretless bass it's got no markers on it and everything so you got to really use your ear it's like okay where is this going because i can't predict where it's going because i don't have the pattern memorized on it so paul's like yelling over to me yeah it goes uh you know it goes e minor e minor a minor and then so then i catch up we keep the sun going and the singers are kind of because it's me playing guitar the since the bass notes aren't wrong it's going along okay and terence the sex player is laughing and paul and i are laughing but not that hysterically yet and then we kind of hack our way through the song and the singers are looking back at us like come on you guys what a disaster so we get there the next day and we're like we got to rehearse that song we can't play that again that was a disaster so we rehearsed our way through it and uh i say um okay we got this i'm looking at paul we got this yeah so it comes up into the set and i'm thinking like oh how's this gonna go so we start playing we get about i don't know halfway through the first verse or so and then paul gets lost but instead of me being the nice guy like paul's helping me out the day before i decided to mess with him and i turned my guitar away from him so you can't see my hands and paul starts laughing so hard and he keeps playing a wrong bass note after wrong bass note and and it doesn't matter because even if i'm playing the wrong chords with the bass notes being wrong it sounds like me being wrong too and the singers are singing they can't even sing because it's just all wrong chords and they're trying to do this love duet right and we are screwing it up so royally and we're doubled over with laughter i walk back i've got tears streaming down from my face paul does too then the audience it's all kids that are you know 10 years old 8 years old 12 years old and they're seeing us crack up on stage and just butchering this song but we kept going with it and we kind of get back on for a while and then we get off again and and it was the funniest thing it's literally the funniest gig that i've ever played in my life because it was so botched okay but as you're seeing this like you see this solo section right so terence is playing the keyboard solo on the sax but this thing here it's it's one chord per beat then up a tritone that's the first kind of normal progression that goes where you expect it but then that's okay and then it goes to the third chorus so after the solo it goes instead of two five one going like that it goes [Music] now my rick brain of 40 years later is like oh it's just a deceptive cadence because now that i'm thinking about it okay that's a minor two five one but it goes to c major so d minus ten flat five g seven sharp five to c major seven but instead we're subbing the e minor seven is the sub for c major seven right so it's really two five deceptive cadence it's actually very brilliant to go there only a jazzer would think of this the fact is that this was a huge hit pop song and you don't even notice that it changes keys like a hundred times in it so after it goes from the solo you're not even home free because it still is confusing on the ending let me play from the solo [Music] [Music] [Applause] and then okay we got this okay so this chorus starts e minor 7 a minor 7 to d the second chorus is f minor to b flat minor to e flat so this chorus is actually down a half step now when i'm listening to it i know where it's going but if i'm trying to play it from memory and then you just have to rely on what the chord pattern is because the chord pattern is not uh uh is kind of nonsensical there there's really nothing to grab onto so you really need to have a chart in front of you right so from the third chorus it goes [Music] i'm thinking like okay [Music] so everything's down and a half step [Music] then we have the three major chords in a row okay so those three major chords in a row in the intro they are but here they are [Music] down a half step okay and then we get to the out chorus because there's a guitar solo that happens here we think we're home free [Applause] [Music] what and then okay it does the same thing twice but let you go so the ending f sharp major g sharp major b flat major or g flat a flat b flat right in the intro it's d e f sharp and the uh next time it happens it's t flat e flat f and at the very end it's g flat a flat b flat that is the most complicated hit song of all time the most complex chord progression yet when you listen to it you're just like yeah okay yeah it just goes by you don't even realize that it's changing keys like every other beat when i say that pop music has gotten simpler over time well if that's not a great example of that can you imagine a song like that being on the radio today well i mean it's stylistically it's too weird but this is what used to pass for pop radio that's all for now please remember to subscribe to the channel hit the bell icon i have my new beato quick lessons pro guitar course that just came out and you can find it if you just go to quick lessons dot pro not dot com quick lesson dot pro or you can find it through my website at rickbiota.com don't forget you can find the biato book there where you can find how all these chord progressions go together and my biato ear training course if you go to beato eartrain.com that will teach you how to figure out these kind of songs by ear by interval that's all for now thank you so much for watching [Music] you

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 2,692,048

Rating: 4.957171 out of 5

Keywords: rick beato, everything music, rick, beato, music, music theory, music production, education, pop music, Soul music, r&b songs, sergio mendes, sergio mendes never gonna let you go, popular music, music composition, Harmony, Chord Progression, complex music theory, what makes this song great, ear training, earth wind and fire, music theory guitar, how to play guitar, 80s music hits, 80s music greatest hits, 80s music

Id: ZnRxTW8GxT8

Length: 20min 28sec (1228 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 23 2021