Why This Is a Perfect Melody

so i did an episode a couple months ago about songs by artists people hate no that particular episode i had cold play and it was the song amsterdam now this is another band that i don't understand why people hate them but this song people will agree is a phenomenal song and it's from a phenomenal record even people that don't like this band love this record love the first three records because this is this band's third record which is called war and it's you two and the song is called drowning man now drowning man came out in 1983 it's written by the band and was produced by steve lillywhite now the thing about this song is that it's one of the most confusing songs to count but it has a phenomenal melody on it and it's basically two chords but you can count it a few different ways and we're going to talk about it so we're going to listen to the beginning it actually has an electric violin in it too which is unusual for you too it has a fade in too so as it fades in you're gonna kind of hear the drums they sound like they're in four but when the bass line comes in the baseline's in six but the vogel changes its time signatures right [Music] okay let's just talk about the baseline here so the baseline is now if we count that i'll count it [Music] listen three four five six one two three four five six one two three four five six one two three okay the vocal comes in on three there if you were counting with me so you could say okay well the vocals comes in on three that's kind of weird but let's pretend that the vocal starts on one and it's a six four bar listen to the melody shape that bono has oh and by the way if you're trying to tune your guitar for these two chords basically e minor and c uh the thing is not quite a half step down it's in between i had to tune by ear okay so we're gonna pretend that the vocal melody which i think is one of my favorite melodies of all time and it's a great lyric i think it comes in on one we're gonna pretend that it comes in at one okay listen [Music] [Applause] for your love [Music] oh forget it that's a phenomenal melody it goes right down this e flat minor triad okay that fifth uh jump there love that then [Music] the shape of that melody is unbelievable you'd have to be like a jazz guitar player to come up with a melody like that or have just an incredibly good ear for melody is a perfect melody if you think about the scale let's just pretend it's all just an e minor e flat okay so you got okay that would just be an e minor straight e minor scale e aeolian right [Music] so what bono's implying there is this b lydian sound okay so you get the aeolian you get the sixth chord or the one chord so that note would be the sharp four [Music] so that's a like a lydian it's an aeolian lydian melody there now let's talk about how to count this okay so i'm going to count the melody for you because i think if i imagine the melody starting even though it actually in relation to the baseline starts on three and that's all billy was saying he would count it which is correct too because that's really where it comes in in relation to the baseline but it's easier to read if you think of the melody coming in on one so check it out [Music] here we go six one two three four five six one two three four one two three four one [Music] okay so that is how i hear the melody really what you have here is a six against four it's not really six against four though four five six dude i just hear those as strong beats the melody is so so definite in those spots right but the drums sound like they're just moving along in four so this is such an interesting song i never have heard of youtube playing it live edge is playing those beautiful harmonics [Music] there that uh create this moody atmosphere and then [Music] love the shape of it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] beautiful [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] beautiful violin [Applause] never hear real violence in any other youtube song check out the second verse [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh man [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that is just such a great melody and the singing with the falsetto is phenomenal in that second verse it just blows me away the first time i ever heard that i thought wow can that guy sing and i also thought man is that a good melody that is a that is it sounds like a it's just a perfect melody it's kind of like a john coltrane melody it's so intervallic it's beautiful let's hear that verse again listen here we go [Music] here we go gray vibrato there then falsetto [Applause] falsetto [Music] no auto tune no nothing bono doesn't need auto tune ever i know a lot of people are like bono i hate bono i hate bono bono is one of the greatest live singers of all time i've seen youtube play many times starting back 30 years ago and some of the best live vocal performances i've ever heard and consistent vocal performances i've ever heard were bono before in-ear monitors when there were floor wedges you know with the floor monitors coming up and the side fills killing it every night every note in tune incredible passion in his singing this is something that that you cannot take away you might hate youtube for whatever reasons because they put some songs on your iphone that you didn't have to listen to but you can't deny that singing power there you just can't you can say oh i don't get it or whatever but that is amazing singing right and these are great lyrics [Music] too oh man [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] right here you got a little droney line beautiful coming in another thing you will never hear bono do is double his vocal bono does not double vocals do you know why well he always says because he can never sing the same thing twice it's because he doesn't need to because his voice is huge i mean it's massive it has so much tone and once again this is a lesson in the fact that you don't need to double a vocal to be powerful you just need to be powerful when you hide behind artificial tuning when you tune the voice if the voice has any distortion in it all that distortion those little side harmonics that you're hearing in in a in a distorted vocal those become out of tune they become out of tune artifacts that's the stuff that people don't realize when you're actually taking away the human the humanity to these vocals by tuning them and i want to get in on a thing actually i just did go into my rant on that but this is pre auto-tune pre-digital tape pre-everything pre-computers this is 1983 this is on analog tape that is a pass right there every performance he did on every song on most of the things you know going back that far they sound like album takes they always did killing it the song is really it's like a hymn foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the timpani [Music] i think that's edge doing that [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow [Music] [Applause] the song is just two chords you know i always go on about chords about how complex song songs have gotten simpler it's just a song can have one chord and be an amazing song if it has an amazing melody and lyric it doesn't matter chords don't matter they don't it's all about the melody it's all about the melody and the rhythm this has both this has really just great rhythmic energy to it it's got that larry mullen driving metronomic feel to it in his drumming the bass line is just an ostinato and the edge is kind of just floating above that with just sound painting with the harmonics and everything else and then you have that beautiful violin lines going on but bono is just it's like he's just free forming the melody wherever he wants to come in but it makes perfect sense where he's coming in he knows where he is even if we don't i had billy write the melody down we looked at it was like okay it does come in on three like this you can see it here in three but then i said well i hear the melody coming in on one so it looks like this now this looks correct to me when i hear that first verse i just hear it as a downbeat and i think it makes it easier to read so one of the lessons to learn from this other than the fact that war u2's third album is one of the finest rock records ever is that you can have these multiple feels going on these polyrhythmic things going on at the same time you can have the drums in four you can't have the bass playing in six you can have the guitars coming in wherever they come in and you can have the melody feel like it's in six then in four for four bars then six for another bar you can do all that as long as everything lines up but this is a song that you can't hate i'm sorry you can say that you hate youtube but this is an amazing song that's my speech for today thanks for watching that's all for now don't forget to subscribe ring the bell and leave a comment check out my new quick lessons pro guitar course that just came out also the biato book if you want to learn about music theory that's how you do it and check out my biato ear training course at beautiertraining.com and don't forget if you want to support the channel even more think about becoming a member of the biato club thanks so much for watching [Music] you

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 634,792

Keywords: rick beato, everything music, rick, beato, music, music theory, music production, education, music analysis, rock music, rick beato what makes this song great, u2 war, U2, Bono, The Edge, larry mullen jr, adam clayton bass, Steve Lillywhite, under a blood red sky u2, joshua tree u2, Drowning Man U2, top 10, electric guitar

Id: XUx7JPlixzc

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021