Celtas Cortos’ 20th of April as well, but still, it’s relatively rare. The OP seemed to me to be using “unique” to mean “very rare” rather than “only done once”.
Joaquin Sabina’s songs are often in the first person, telling a story as (if) it happened to him. Most of them are about women, sex, drugs, sex, women, drugs, women, drinking, sex… There’s one, Pacto entre caballeros (A Deal Between Gentlemen, here with lyrics) about being mugged, then the muggers recognizing him, insisting he has to come with them to celebrate with them (and some sex, and some women… hey it’s Sabina, there has to be women and sex), and extracting a promise to write a song for them, which he does after seeing a news clip about one of the muggers. I’ve heard many songs about being recognized but that one is particularly vivid and a general favorite with his fans.
Jane Says by Jane’s Addiction only has two chords in the entirety of the song, G and A. This gives it a Mixolydian (dominant 7th) tonality because the roots of the chords are a whole step apart, making the interval between G and A a dominant seventh (if it were part of a major chord).
The late great Harry Nilsson’s song Lime In The Coconut only has one chord (I think it’s a C7) throughout the entire song.
It’s also known as the Devil’s Interval. In the context of a major scale, it’s a sharp fourth. This is the Lydian mode, and when used sequentially as part of a series of individual notes, the sharp fourth can sound very beautiful and elegant. But when it’s played just as an interval alternating between the root and the sharp fourth, it sounds weird and jarring. Like the intro to Purple Haze. If the two notes are played simultaneously as a chord, it’s very dissonant.
Another good example of a menacing use of the tritone in rock music is Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box, during which it appears in the guitar riff after the second three-chord figure in the intro and then is later recalled in the “I’ve got a new complaint” line.
Ah, yes, the BACH motif. Used originally by Bach, of course, but becoming wildly popular during the Bach revival of the 19th century. I especially enjoy the one-note/four-staff notation of the motif in the illustration on the right of the page.
The video is a bit cheesy but at least it has the lyrics
Another one for you that takes on the greek classics, however this one draws out a new meaning, which is pretty impressive for a story well over 2000 years old, especially a story so well known.
Pretty much. By the time you hit the Romantics, you can find it being used deliberately in melodies, and not just part of chords (where, like you say, they are pretty essential and have always been essential in Western harmony. The tritone F-B in a G7 gives that “pull” that draws to an outward E-C resolution.) See, The Dante Sonata by Liszt, for instance, where it is used to evoke its reputation as “the devil in music.”
It’s what is sometimes called a horizontal hemiola, and for non-musicians, I would notate the rhythm as thus. While keeping a quick, even count, stress the numbers in bold:
ONE-and-uh TWO-and-uh ONE-and TWO-and THREE-and.
Or, with evenly spaced out syllables, say: STRAWberry STRAWberry Apple Apple Apple. (with the capital letters STRAW and A indicating stresses.)
Or just listen to the song. It really is an interesting rhythmic device (and can be found in various musical cultures), alternating between a triple and a duple rhythm. So in the first (6/8) half, you have 2 stresses, and in the second half (3/4), you have 3 stresses.
The current two-chord song that’s been getting a lot of play on the modern rock stations is Cage the Elephant’s cover of “(I’d go the) Whole Wide World.” I don’t know the key offhand, but it’s a I-IV progression the whole way through. “Blurred Lines” was another relatively recent two-chowder, based on I and V.
When The Moody Blues released Days of Future Passed, the inclusion of the London Festival Orchestra was considered very innovative, and is now cited as one of the first examples of progressive rock.
Another sort-of mugging song: Thela Hun Ginjeet, King Crimson.
The song structure is about the songwriter going for a walk with a tape recorder to record some ideas about crime in the city for a song he’s thinking of; on the walk, he’s accosted by some toughs, who think he’s an undercover cop; he talks his way out of it (explaining he’s recording a song); then goes back to the studio and records the song.
Which, as it turns out, is what you are listening to.
10CC’s “Clockwork Creep” about a bomb on a jetliner, told from the point of view of the plane (and the bomb).
Another unusual concept: The Playmates’ “Beep Beep”, which starts at a crawling pace, gradually speeding up the tempo into a headlong rush to match the story line.
