You don’t understand how being married is like having a personal stalker?..
Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
I’ll be right there
Watching you
Every
Single
Relentless
Fucking
Day
For the rest of your life…
But he’s trying to work up the nerve to ask her to marry him, not go out with him.
And then there’s this lyric
Do I have to tell the story
Of a thousand rainy days since we first met
It’s a big enough umbrella
But it’s always me that ends up getting wet
So my thinking was maybe the guy isn’t pining over the girl that doesn’t know he exists, it’s more like the POV of some guy that’s been friend-zoned. That’s what I meant by “some sort of relationship”.
But, then again, it’s a song and these lyrics work well for many reasons. Maybe I’m overthinking it.
The whole point of the song is the “love song” in the singer’s head dynamic vs the creepiness of the lyrics. It’s music up, lyrics down – it’s a reasonably common music convention. Putting it in a minor key just ruins the whole thing. I mean, I have fun listening to these YouTube videos of minor key songs in major keys and major key songs in minor keys, but this one doesn’t work for me. I do kind of like the major key version of “Losing My Religion.” That one makes me giggle.
In an amusing bit of synchronicity, I googled “Losing my Religion” after I posted the major key version, out of curiosity to see exactly what the song was about, and I found this Wikipedia link that said Michael Stipe compared it to the OP’s topic song “Every Breath You Take”:
This guy, Chase Holfelder has put out a couple of albums of songs changed from major to minor. They make good listening when you are in the right mood. On his YouTube channel he has other oddities - songs with only a toy piano as accompaniment, songs sung higher than the original, Dance Monkey with an arrangement for 18 toys.
Here is All I want For Christmas is You turned all stalkerish. He makes no secret of the fact that he lays it on really thick and is going for big moments in his covers.
I thought it was less “super-creepy stalker” and more “batteries in my boom box are dying after 20 minutes”.
Stupid question from someone who knows nothing very little about such things;when someone sings the harmony part of a song, are they singing in a minor key? If the song is originally in minor, would the harmony part be in major?
I’m no musical theory expert, but I’ll try to field this, until someone comes along who does a better job explaining: Major and minor keys are about the progression of notes, not the notes themselves. Two or more people singing harmony are singing different musical notes, creating a vocal version of a chord, like playing a chord on piano or guitar. I suppose there could be a song instance in which one person is singing in a major key and another is singing a harmony in a minor key progression (or vice versa) but I don’t think so, it would most likely sound dissonant and bad.
Oh, this can get really complicated with the explanation, but to keep it simple, no. The harmonies follow the chords, whether they’re major or minor. The key doesn’t change for the harmonized part. But do note that if you’re in a major or minor key it does not mean all the chords have to be major or minor. Usually, there’s a mix. In major key songs, there are some chord progressions where you don’t mix in minor chords, but in minor keys, there’s usually a good sprinkling of major chords in there, sometimes more than minor chords. For example, a song like “Hit the Road Jack” is in a minor key, but the progression only has one minor chord and three major chords (in the key of Am, it would be Am - G - F - E7).
I can go on about this, but let’s just leave it at that, and if you have follow-up questions or want a finer level of detail, I’ll see what I can write up.