Songs That Use Word Painting
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- čas přidán 8. 06. 2024
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Word painting is when the meaning of the lyrics is illustrated by the music. Whether it’s stopping for the lyric “stop” or describing the chords that you’re playing as you play them, word painting, or prosody, can appear in many different forms.
Here is my first video on Word Painting: • Music That Sounds Like...
An extra special thanks goes to Vidad Flowers, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Bruce Mount, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
Outro music: "Running Man" by David Bennett ( • 'Running Man' 🎹 Jazz-F... )
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: / davidbennettpiano
0:00 Introduction
0:10 "High" on a high note
1:20 Other examples of Word Painting
2:25 Do, Re, Mi
3:21 Matching note names to lyrics
4:53 Rhythmic word painting
5:25 The Beatles
6:33 Queen
7:17 Ticking of a clock
8:30 Conclusion/Sponsor
If you enjoyed this, check out my other video on Word Painting czcams.com/video/NMOMPMzR6oY/video.html Thanks! 🎶🎵🎨
Someone may already have pointed this out, but I just thought I'd say there's a typo in one of these transcriptions. Should be 'I before E except after C', not accept
@@aislingoda6026 yeah... my mistake. Afraid I can't fix it 😅
@@aislingoda6026 btw you surname is cool mcghee sounds like maggi and ghee
How about Wintergatan's Marble Machine song?
Luv u bro lol
Once again, the most sophisticated use of word painting in musical history:
"She hit the floor (she hit the floor), next thing you know/
Shawty got low low low low low low low low"
Alex M. Shawty got low just like the melody
mozart is quaking
@@starsoullove1026 shawty got LOW and mozart is QUAKING
Lyrical genius pure wordsmith shit rite Der. Yall got Shakespeare QUAKING achin and Shakin.. it's the thesaurus was never invented
"Ev'ry valley shall be exalted" from Handel's Messiah is a far superior example from music history
Rush's drummer Neil Peart tapping out the title of the instrumental track, "YYZ" in Morse Code.
That's actually pretty cool. I never noticed
The whole band actually joins in on playing YYZ in various forms throughout the intro
Interesting. Also in the opening music to the detective series Morse apparently the name of the killer is done in musical version of the morse code
"The first note in the scale is DO, the second RE, the third MI, the fourth FA, and SO on..."
Very smooth haha, kudos
😉😉😉😉
But the sheet music calls it "Sol"!
@@KingoftheJuice18 its pronounced 'so' rather than 'sol'
@@R_-qs4fo Do you know why it's written "sol"?
@@KingoftheJuice18 that’s how it is pronounced in other languages.
Bohemian Rhapsody
"Caught in a landsliiiide....no escape from reality"
The note slides down,like, half a scale after the word "landslide" 😂
You've just reminded me - when Stevie Nicks sings "the landslide brought me down" the melody actually goes up
In portuguese, Spanish and other latin languages, the world "Sun" is "Sol"
So, there's a lot (And really a lot) of songs that every time the word sun is being sung, they play the G chord like Segundo sol by Cassia Eller or Sol Major by piedropedra
Sol = sun in danish, swedish, norwegian, icelandic. But the german word is "sonne". Maybe it's just a coincidence?
@@lakrids-pibe it's all about language families
@@lakrids-pibe in russian solntse
In Russian, “sol” means salt. “Fa” and “Sol” together gives you “pea” or “bean”. Dunno if you need to know this
Damn, I never noticed that there's this G in Segundo Sol
Awesome video! My favourtie example is in Michael Jacksons „Man in the Mirror“ where the key changes on the word „(make a) change“
Great example!
I imagined this with the sparkly key change animation
@@davasg96 Yeah! I featured the "man in the mirror" key change in my previous word painting video, along with the infamous "sparkly" animation 😉
Ei ci sono altri italiani
I always found the key change in that song so comical because it just pops up with no warning or hinting
I found another example: in Immortals by Fall Out Boy, they sing "I'm still comparing your past to my future", and the "my future" part has some sort of autotune filter thingy on it, making it sound 'futuristic' :)
Thought of Fall Out Boy when he got to the "knocking" part of the video. In one of the choruses of "West Coast Smoker," the drums stop and only come in for 1, 2, and then 3 times on the words "*Knock* once for the father, *twice for* the son, *three times for* the holy ghost."
I thought of Fall Out Boy when he got to the "knocking" part of this video. In "West Coast Smoker," there's one chorus where the music stops except for the drums coming in 1, 2, and then 3 times on these lyrics:
*Knock* once for the father, *twice for* the son, *three times for* the holy ghost.
When I think Fall Out Boy, I almost always think of "[Remember me for] Centuries," which I'm *convinced* Dude Perfect has used as background music before- just sounds like the sort of thing they'd use!
I always wondered why "Ring of Fire" does the exact opposite and goes up on "I went down, down, down" and down on "and the flames went up higher".
As not to be trite or clichéd?
To subvert expectations maybe?
The same thing happens with
Oceans *rise*
Empires *fall*
from "You'll Be Back."
Not sure if this counts, but in “Farmer Refuted” from Hamilton two characters are arguing then one of them sings a high note and bends it up to a higher pitch - the music modulates with him. Later Hamilton says “don’t modulate the key then not debate with me”
Ha, good one - I was listening to this the other day and caught the music reference.
Well if we’re going to talk about the obvious sound effects used for word painting, “time” and “money” by Pink Floyd use percussion of either a cash register or a clock.
A less known example is in “tiny love” by mika. He sings a really high note on the line “you get me high,” but this section of the song is notably quieter as he says the words “tiny love.” Other parts of the song are louder and faster, but he uses those sections to show that it’s the little things in love that are huge. It’s a great song honestly.
Hydrogen thanks for your comment. There is a fine line between sound effects and word painting in my opinion and a lot of crossover. For me, a sound effect needs to be worked rhythmically or tonally into the music to be called word painting. For example, the sound effects at the start of “Money” have a rhythm to them making them musical and thus word painting. But on “Time”, the sound effects are more decorative and not worked into the music, so perhaps not word painting. At the end of the day though, whether they are word painting or not, they act to illustrate the song’s themes and build an atmosphere.
Yess a Mika shoutout in the comments! Tiny Love is a wonderful song. Stay High on the same album also uses the same thing
also in the intro to Pink Floyd's Time, if you listen closely, you can hear both the rhythm of a ticking clock and of a beating heart, the latter also being very related to the song as it's about wasting the limited time you have in your life
What is it called in Hamilton’s “You’ll Be Back” when the melody goes down on the lyric “Oceans rise,” and goes up on “empires fall”? Ironic word painting, maybe?
Literally can’t get George III’s song out of my head :D And also Speechless
This happens in Mary Poppins too! I remember them making a point of it in Saving Mr. Banks, that in the lyric "A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down", the sing a high note on the "down" to be counter-intuitive and grab your attention
Everytime they say rise up in Hamilton.
In farmer refuted hamilton says "don't modulate the key and not debate with me" referring to the key change that Seabury did a few bars earlier. The line there is "for shame (for the revolution) for shaAAME (FOR THE REVOLUTION)" with the key change where I switched to capital letters.
My thoughts exactly!!!!
The most common one I’ve seen is the “stop” thing, where everything stops on the word stop
Yeah, he showed a lot of examples of those in his last video :)
wait a minute
Stop. Hammer time.
Billy Joel - All For Leyna
That happens - or something like it - in Karn Evil 9 First Impression by ELP:
"We've got thrills and SHOCKS!"
"It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift" - Hallelujah.
That was covered in the last word painting video
@@clarinethro1695 I didn't realize
@@justineddy5306 🤷
Perfect example... like JC said, I covered it in my previous video czcams.com/video/NMOMPMzR6oY/video.html 😊😊
Maxwell's silver hammer by The Beatles used repeated strikes of a hammer on an anvil as the lyrics go "bang bang Maxwell's silver hammer". Great video by the way
Good suggestion. The anvil was “played” on that song by The Beatles assistant/body guard Mal Evans
@@DavidBennettPiano Something interesting about Mel Evans, it's said that he helped on many lyrics that the beatles did, and was on they way to get a writers credit for sergeants peppers. He struggled finiacially afterwards leading up to his death in the 70s.
@@bazicuber1037 Mal is also responsible for playing many of the weird effects heard in Yellow Submarine.
In a similar way, I always think of ‘Knock three times’ and the use of knocking on wood and metal
@@DavidBennettPiano That's actually disputed, with some saying that Ringo played it.
What about Yellow Submarine. After the line “And the band begins to play.”
What happens there that has to do with word painting?
@@wyattstevens8574well a band begins to play
In the song “this is gospel” by Panic! At The Disco, the main singer sings “this is the best of my heart” twice whilst the bass drum in the drum kit plays a heart beat.
I was thinking that throughout the video! (Also assuming that was a typo and you meant "beat")
My favourite Panic! At The Disco one is "Pas de Cheval," which translates to "steps of the horse." The clopping drum beat sounds like a horse galloping, and the muted guitar that ends the song sounds like a horse blowing/brrrring its lips.
One of my favorite examples is sort of a reverse one: in “You’ll Be Back”, one of King George’s songs in the musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, on the line “oceans rise, empires fall” the word rise is on the lowest note and the word fall is on the highest note!
I like this example as well, I loved when I realised that for the first time.
Hamilton has quite a bit of word painting!
Like spoonful of sugar in mary poppins haha
1:56 yeah but the letter "I" isn't sung on the note "I"...
He he
Hehe
Hehe
XistoKente grr
@@lextatertotsfromhell7673 grr
Both the usage of a clock and a heartbeat made me think of Time by Pink Floyd, and actually the entire Dark Side of the Moon album, where especially the heartbeat is used a lot throughout the music.
I was thinking about the same song. I even thought about the "four sections' it has. The intro, where everything is calm and no one's worrying about time passing away. The first verse section until the solo starts has the same aura of lazyness, until the realization takes place and gilmour sings "no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun" just before that desperate and desolate solo is played. Later, that desperation ends in the last drastic change where gilmour plays some "breathe" type chords and you accept the sun is gone, time is over, and you wish there was something more to say
Here's a nice example 💜💜
In the song "Funny Honey" from the musical Chicago, the first line goes:
"Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong"
And "right" is sung on the note D, which is part of the scale of G major, which the song is in. Instead, "wrong" is sung on D#, which is in fact off-key (wrong).
The second verse repeates the same melody, on the words "Sometimes I'm down, sometimes I'm up", and D is in fact lower (down) compared to D# (up) 😊😊
In bohemian rhapsody,
"Little high" note going down
"Little low" note going up
Not only that, they are the same note :-)
It’s in the video
Yeah that's some genius word painting right there...
The "painting" is in the word "Little". It's a 3 note motif with the higher or lower note being in the first part. So when he sings "Little high" he starts on a higher note going down, and in "Little low" a lower note going up.
@@santibescho3122 they wanted the latter words rhymes with
"easy come, easy go"
If they use
"Little low, little high"
...afterwards, then can be considered as word painting, sacrificing the rhyme at the end.
ABBA’s Dancing Queen could count with “Night is young and the music’s high”
Although it's a low note, probably not coincidental.
Actually they ment high as in loud
it's the opposite, and i was thinking about it the whole time! you actually notice it more because it's low on the note high :)
I fought the law - The Clash
The lyrics say: "Robbing people with a six-gun"
then the drums hit 6 times the snare.
Bobby Fuller 4 was 4x...6 got 3 and gun got 1
That was a cover.
One of my favourites that I thought might have been mentioned already is in Dire Straits 'Sultans of Swing'. Where Knopfler sings 'he hears the time bell ring' the drummer switches over to the bell of his ride cymbal to mimic a bell ringing. Very clever, in fact there are also some other examples of word painting within the same song.
Mark: "he's strictly rhythm, he doesn't wanna make it cry or sing"
Also Mark: *proceeds to make his guitar do exactly that*
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
"Say something once, why say it again?" right before repeating the chorus
*if only the "fa fa fa far better" part was in F tho...*
I love the use of a typewriter in dolly Parton 9 to 5, it fits perfectly with the pace and subject matter
Here's a fun fact about that... that's not a typewriter. That's Dolly "playing" her acrylic nails to mimic the sound of a typewriter 😁
Olivia Rodrigo does word-painting on the song "Deja vu". She sings "Being annoying, singing in harmony" and the word "harmony" is sung in harmony with herself. Also, on the verse "Now I bet you even tell her
How you love her In between the chorus and the verse" you can hear a very subtle "I love you"
The Beatles use the word "painting", here:
"I'm painting my room in the colourful way"
Such an underrated comment
Word "painting" sounds like a weird innuendo with those quotes.
For the percussion examples, I always really like Ed Sheeran's song Don't, where, after the second chorus, we hear three knocks and he continues to sing "on my hotel door".
Yes! I was thinking of this!
in the same album of arctic monkeys, alex sings "key changes" at the start of a key change, and sounds super silly and fun, match the aesthetic of the song so well
In Hamilton the song “Ten Dual Commandments” has a part where there is counting 1-9 and the upper voices ascend up while the lower voices descend. They do so in a split manner as well. Every two numbers the melody splits notes. It’s really quite genius. I’m pretty sure there is more word painting in many many musicals but that’s the only one I can think of currently
I loved vocal band Home Free’s cover of “All About That Bass”. The bass singer Tim sang “about me” instead of the word bass. While everyone sang all about that bass, Tim sang, No treble, going up an octave 3 times! His five octave range is amazing!
You are unbelievable man, your work is so high quality and I’ve learned things from your channel I would have never known. You’re much appreciated
Thank you! That's very kind!
The weird thing is that I’ve always noticed this in music but almost unconsciously until you start pointing them out
One example that comes to my mind is "Too Much Time on my Hands" - Styx; not just with a clock metronome but also talking about the "12 o' clock news blues" with the vocals hitting some blues notes.
Nice! I'll check it out
Hey you took my suggestion...😏
@@DavidBennettPiano Also Lake's "Time Bomb"!
If we want to keep on clocks, The Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace used a clock ticking to show the tense hours passing while the characters in the song wait for word that their loved one didn’t get killed in the shootout.
The song "a small victory" by Faith No More ends with "if I speak at one constant volume, in one constant pitch, right into your ear"... Which is sang... At one constant volume, in one constant pitch... Well you get the idea! Thanks for another great video!
I was really hoping he would mention Faith No More. Mike Patton is a genius!
In "Stay Alive (Reprise)" from Hamilton, not only does the percussion mimic Philip's heartbeat throughout the song, but Alexander's comforting "I know, I know"'s also do that, although at a faster tempo, like he's trying in vain to will Philip to survive.
Another thing talked about in the last video for word painting, on Somewhere Over The Rainbow, it does symbolize the story of going up and down and all that stuff, but the notes themselves are shown to make their own little "rainbows"
how about when the melody does the opposite of the lyrics? i can think of a lyric from "you'll be back" by lin miranda where the melody in "oceans rise, empires fall" falls on "rise" and rises on "fall"
it doesnt though.. when an ocean rises it gets deeper like the note does, and when an empire falls it gets smaller again like the associated note
A Disney example: "Your lifestyle's high but your funds are low" from "Friends on the Other Side".
FIRST one I thought of.
With a little help from my friends-the beatles. The lyric "sang out of tune" is sung out of tune. likewise with "i'll try not sing out of key". George and Paul join Ringo on the lyric "by with a little help from my friends" as he literally gets help from his 'friends'.
That's kind of genius honestly. "Oh, he can't sing on key? Never mind, we'll just make that part of the song."
Lol, I just thought It'd be funny if someone started singing out of key after they sang something about losing/not finding their key(s).
Didn't think any successful artist would dare do that though. 😂
Mmmmm. I don't think so.
I'm pretty sure he sings in tune the entire time; not sure what you're talking about here
"Woke up, fell out out of bed, Dragged a comb acrosss my head"
Apparently that's Vladimir Putin's favourite line from any song, ever...
@@cakemartyr5794 How on Earth do you know this?
@@marivg8948 Have you seen his hair?
There's a constructed language called Solresol that only uses the seven syllables of solfege, so naturally, any statement can be spoken by making the tones. Among many other systems for representing it... for example, the seven colours of the rainbow can also be used.
interesting
Linkin park crawling when Chester sings “against my will I stand beside my own reflection” the lyric “my own reflection” repeats to make it seem as though his reflection is repeating his own words in a delayed manner
Rip Chester xx
Nice catch!
My favorite example from Linkin Park is Mike rapping "coke heads couldn't do my lines" while rapping really fast and difficult lines in Reading My Eyes.
Also in The Catalyst Chester does this incredible crescendo on:
"like memories in cold decay /transmissions echoing away / far from the world of you and I / where oceans blead into the SKY"
Where each line is higher than the previous one and it all builds up to the word sky which is even a big step higher than the rest of the line.
Even a female pro singer struggled to hit that high note in the Linkin Park and friends celebrate Chester Bennington live stream!
"All Summer Long" by Johnny Rivers features the lyric, "and the jukebox playing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" followed by a brief guitar riff quoted from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
That was "Summer Rain."
Since you’re big on Radiohead (I am too), on there, there the lyrics “there’s always a siren, singing you to shipwreck” are followed by those beautiful backing vocals
Good suggestion! Perhaps my next word painting video needs a Radiohead section!
@@DavidBennettPiano Would the music on The Staircase be a word painting example too?
@@anirudh_iyer yes
In Coldplay's "Adventure of a Lifetime", Chris Martin sings "I feel my heart beating" while the bass is playing alone, sounding like a heartbeat.
Pink Floyd has plenty pf exanples!! Especially in Dark Side of the Moon
In the chorus of "Helplessly hoping" by Crosby, Stills & Nash, they sing the numbers one, two, three and four. When "one" is sung, there is only 1 singer, when "two" is sung, there are 2 singers etc.
Wow thank you. I love that song and that example. And then the pun of “they are for each other”, not with four voices necessarily (unless Neil young was playing with them).
Yes! I have always loved that. Wish I could have been a fly on the wall the night Graham Nash joined Stills and Cros for the first time.
Stills played at the wedding of a mutual friend. My jaw dropped when he launched into Love the One You're With. Can't imagine what the bride thought. I wonder how long the marriage lasted!
"Knock Three Times" by Tony Orlando and Dawn, where the words are sung staccato to sound like knocking.
Now there's a song I haven't heard in a while. And now that I think about it, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense 🤔
@@SarahElisabethJoyal If you were living in a New York City tenement where the steam heat pipes ran up the walls inside the units, it would make more sense.
@@Ea-Nasir_Copper_Co I forgot about those, but I don't think I'd like to be touching a pipe full of steam anyway 😂
"twice on the pipes" *clink-clink* "if the answer is no"
Wordpainting is one of my favorite songwriting tricks.
The best one for me will always be Hot for Teacher by Van Halen. The drums so perfectly mimicking a car pulling up to the school and then the clash of the school as he walks in to see his teacher followed by the hectic pace and jumping heartbeat rhythm is so satisfyingly well done.
Actually, in Bohemian Rhapsody, the line "little high, little low" goes the other way around :D
thanks for this, i thought i was going crazy
I should have made that clearer, yes! The melodic phrase does go up "a little" and then down "a little"... i.e. "little high, little low"
@@DavidBennettPiano but the melody goes down first then up, "little low little high"? 🤷♀️
@@samanthabudrik7462 Actually he's speaking relative to the Bohemian motif. Both the words high and low are natural but the words little are sharp and flat respectively.
@@DavidBennettPiano I see what you mean! Still, the visuals with the arrows really had an effect on the way I perceived what was high and and low - it's crazy!
Hey David! How about a video on Vivaldi's Four Seasons? It obviously didn't include any words, but the music made you imagine all of the natura changes a season of the year brings. Truly a work of art!
That was very intentional, actually! Since there are no words to make it word painting, Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a very good example of what's called 'program music.' Program music is music that represents a thought, idea, memory, or anything like that. The name comes from the fact that most often a listener needs to refer to the title of the piece or the description in the program to fully understand what it represents. Another good example of this is The Great Gates of Kiev by Mussorgsky. Hope you found that interesting! :)
“And sol on...”
Smooth 👌🏼😉
I’m glad that somebody spotted that 😄
@@DavidBennettPiano We all sol what you did there.
In Nightwish's The Poet And The Pendulum near the end there's a lyrical part where it is said "I have only 3 minutes and counting" and then, 3 minutes later, we hear the sound of a guillotine and a heart beating slower until it stops. I dunno if this counts as word painting but it's quite an easter egg
Nice!
In Space Oddity, the guitar mimicks a cardiac arrest on a heart monitor at the end as the Major Tom overdoses on heroin
I need to listen to that song again, I never noticed that
He overdosed on heroin?
Major Tom does what now?
Surprised the "gunshots" in Another One Bites the Dust weren't mentioned in the Queen part.
Or the breakdown in One by Metallica, which starts by repeating short bursts of 16ths on the kick drum, mimicking the rapid burst fire from a machine gun.
But in both songs the shots aren't mentioned in the lyrics when they appear, so does that count as word painting?
I would describe those sort of things as thematic effects rather than relating to the music the notes the chords etc
Excellent video again, David. Hadn't given too much thought to this topic previously, but when you start to get into it there are loads of examples. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Hugh!
Excellent. You caught "I bought a flat guitar tutor". I didn't realize until I started playing along. A real mind blower.
I noticed a few examples of this in metal, most recently in "Isolation" by Sepultura, where the song starts with drum hits that sound particularly like banging on a cell door, which connects to the lyrics about imprisonment.
And the bass drum at the beginning of Black Sabbath's Iron Man sound like the footsteps of a man made of iron.
I think the most common example of word painting in metal would be what Metallica does with the bursts of 16ths on the kick in One:
mimicking a machine gun with the kick drum.
"The Song That Goes Like This" from Spamalot has a few, they sing about changing the key... Which fails because the male singer can't sing in E, "that's awfully high for me" so the female sings "we should have stayed in D" in D.
This is such a great channel, just amazing work all around.
Thank you!
Homemade Dynamite for the ticking word painting:
“Blowing sh*t up like homemade d-d-d-dynamite” where the stuttering d’s sounds like a ticking time bomb!
"Don't talk (put your head on my shoulder)" by the Beach Boys mentions a heartbeat which is mimicked by bass first and timpani later
Good pick up. Heard that album a ton and never noticed
Two more candidates: Elton John Circle of Life in which “circle of life” in the chorus forms a melodic circle, and Chicago Stronger Every Day in which the words “stronger”, “every”, and “day” are really hammered ... strongly.
One of the smoothest examples of rhythmic word painting I've seen is Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Knock Three Times." Not only do they sing "knock three times" with the snare hits when the chorus starts up, but the second part of the chorus cuts the lyrics entirely, leaving only the drum, after which Tony Orlando sings "...means you'll meet me in the hallway." More obviously, they add a percussive ding after "twice on the pipe" the second time around, in order to make both options have the sound effect.
In the song 'All Star' by Smashmouth, there is a brilliant example of text painting on the word 'change' in the lyric, "I could use a little fuel myself, And we could all use a little change". Check it out.
One of my favorite examples of this is in Pink Floyd’s _The Wall._ Particularly, a few lines in “Comfortably Numb” use it beautifully.
When waters sings “Just a little pinprick,” it is followed by a high chord to represent the shine of a sharp syringe in the light. This is immediately followed by “There’ll be no more AHHH!” in which a long, drawn out high note is overlaid with one of the band members screaming. And of course, one of the most recognizable lyrical elements of the song are the echo effects that start off each verse to give the listener an experience akin to listening to the song while under the influence of mind-altering drugs, much like the character which the song is focused around.
3:13
Good, now do it one syllable off.
Have you ever watched/listened to Jay Foreman? Singing lyrics one syllable off their normal placement is one of his many party tricks!
@@DavidBennettPiano that's exactly what I was referencing :D. Great to know that you also aware of him.
@@oliversutton7592 Jay Foreman actually watches these videos on occasion! I love his work!
@@DavidBennettPiano oh wow! I didn't know that, maybe you should collaborate with him.
-HELP-
I'm late but a good example I have noticed is in We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel, when he mentions Psycho, the music mimics the Psycho theme song. Also when he says "British Beatlemania" the drums mimic Ringo's drumming style. When he says "Brooklyn's got a winning team" the sound of cheering can be heard in the background. When he says "JFK blown away" something happens in the background and I can't quite tell if it is supposed to sound like a gunshot or what, but something happens. When he says "Terror on the airline" a jet engine can be heard. Thats all I could find in the song but there may be more.
Amazing Video!
Another great example I remembered during the "Snares mimic knocks on the door" was Louis Jordans "Keep a Knockin", where the drums mimic a knock on the door right before the chorus ("Keep a Knockin") starts.
Another brilliant lesson. Thank you David!
Thanks Mike!
I hope David Dieffenderfer never quits his sponsorship. I love hearing David B pronounce David D's last name. It's nothing like how we say it in PA German-land! 💖
Such great content. Thanks for this. Been binge watching your videos
I could watch this for hours. Great stuff.
i commented about the beatles’ she’s leaving home on the last video i find it so interesting!!
A great bit of arrangement!
I've become so used to hearing David Dieffenderfer among your Patreon supporters, I feel like I'm getting to know him.
wow, I never knew music could be so complex. I wondered what set great songs apart from the rest. I've noticed some of the things you mentioned, but never gave it a second thought. 👍
"Backbeat the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out."
Absolutely classic example.
'Pick up the bass' from 'Go Let it Out', to new bass player Andy Bell.
My favourite example of word painting in Queen songs is A Kind of Magic with its lyrics about 'perfect harmony' followed by Brian playing a harmonised lick
"Do, Re, Mi, Fa, and SO on..."
I see what you did there ;)
😉😉😉😉
Both of your examples of Word Painting are great, thanks! One additional one that my 5th graders could easily identify in Pentatonix's "Sing," the "down, down, down, down," etc.
The song one true colour by Enter Shikari finishes the song by not saying the word dead but the last 4 notes/chords are D-E-A-D so clever!
Heroin - The Velvet Underground
The whole song describes a heroin trip both lyrically and musically
Love the VU. If you like VU, check out a song called called "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" by Faust.
So does happiness is a warm gun, lyrically and musically
@@jan_Travis i heard that song. I like Faust but need to relisten again. Love their first album tho
@@gabrielhernandez-bt7kh they're awesome! Faust, Faust So Far, the Faust Tapes and Faust IV are all amazing albums. Glad to see someone who enjoys Faust.
"I Think We're Alone Now" by Tommy James and the Shondells...also covered by Tiffany...(e.g., 'The beating of our hearts is the only sound'...followed by drums beating like a heart)
"friends on the other side" from the princess and the frog uses the "high/low" trick really well back to back
Just found your channel and watched a few videos, you have a new subscriber! I would say my music language knowledge is more towards basic than advanced, yet you make it so easy to understand and follow the explanations. Kudos to that, it's not an easy thing to achieve!
For these world painting videos and a change of the usual suggestions may I suggest you the song "Cacho a cacho" by Spanish band "Estopa". During the first hits they describe how they get out of jail, engage first gear on the car, Deep Purple playing on the radio and then "the four wheels screech" as the guitar riffs and the "music" starts (as the car presumably picks up speed). Then the chorus starts with "acelera" (speed up) and pretty sure the tempo(?) does indeed speed up. So cool to notice these things actively now while they were just something subconscious before
Editing real quick to add: beware of the late 90s-early 2000s cheapass videoclip (this was around the time they were starting off and didn't have that much money). You may wanna skip the first couple minutes of it to get to the actual song 😂
One of the most influential is Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner. He wasn’t the first but he helped bring musical modernity into the 20th century in that performance.
Prince's *"Electric Chair"*
"It took my mind out like a
G flat major with an E in the bass" then plays the stated chord
This is so interesting. This concept was famous during the 15th and 16th Centuries by composers such as Josquin Des Prez, Palestrina, Victoria and Monteverdi, particularly in liturgical music. It was also used by composers such as J.S. Bach and Handel during the Baroque era. So glad I recently found your videos. I'm thoroughly enjoying them. Thank you!!
In Queen's "Heaven for Everyone" there is the word "reflection" which gets repeated/reflected by a flangy chorus - I've always loved that part! :)
czcams.com/video/yI8lrvKLzg0/video.html ... :)
Great vid..Can you do a video on songs without a chorus.. I think "Isn't She Lovely" by S. Wonder is one?
Good suggestion - maybe I will!
thesun collective147 or the whole song is the chorus! Haha
@@DavidBennettPiano "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison is a good candidate for that video
harmonious descent by joey hardin (which i add is also a good example of word painting, at the end of the last verse, the melody changes slightly to fit the word 'descent')
@@eplecor Yeah that's true..it could be...certainly got me thinking
Ed Sheeran's Don't: *knock knock knock (on the wood of the guitar)* on my hotel door
Damn it I just gave that example -_-
Just learned a new perspective. Thank You
Excellent video David!
2:49 "Do...Re...Mi...Fa...and So on"....Well played Mr Bennett!
Glad you spotted it 😁😁
Paul Simon - “Train in the distance”. Vocals are made to sound like a train whistle while the percussion is made to sound like the pistons of a steam train.
in the song "komm süsser tod" from the end of evangelion, the lyrics "it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down" are sung as the notes descend. when they are sung a second time later in the song, it changes from "it all comes" to "it just keeps."
One of my favourites - In “Guts” by All Time Low, in the second verse the lyrics go “tapping my fingers to the rhythm of a metronome, counting opportunities” and there is a sound of a metronome counting off in the background