Saturday 24 December 2022

Every Stalk You Make

A few weeks back I discussed my lunchtime office playing with a work mate, and mentioned that I had a stalker - someone who I'd seen a few times, sitting in a booth at the very back mostly hidden, never saying anything.  He asked if I played any stacker songs.  I immediately thought "Every Breath You Take", but as the internet shows there have been quite a few stalker songs written.  And then The Algorithm got me - when I next looked at my Youtube feed up came Gabriella's recent version of "Any Breath You Take".  She played it in a style similar to how I would play it, so I picked up the guitar and had a crack.

I started on a G chord which was what I heard in my head. The chord progression turned out to be the basic doo-wap (Stand By Me chord progression) so G - Em - C - D. But wait! There are super tasty 2nd intervals in there, which come through loud and clear in the studio recording guitar riff.  My understanding is we refer to them a Major Ninths - I guess if you played a G with the A two semitones up it would sound bad, but if you play the G and the A an octave + two semitones up it sounds delicious. What made me even happier with that is the Em becomes Em add 9 which is The Pink Floyd Chord, the first chord on the Dark Side of the Moon Album. Happy days!

When I looked back at Gabriella's version, I noticed she started on A.  Ah, interesting. I then looked it up and the actual song starts on Ab.  Too late, I had my heart set on G so I could play The Pink Floyd Chord :-) I didn't look at Gabriella's version again, but thanks for inspiring me Gabby!

It took under a week to arrange it "JAW style" learn it and memorise it, it is now in my Friday rotation, ready for any stalkers I might have. "Oh that beautiful wedding song!" "You mean that creepy stalker song?"

I really need to record some songs for you all don't I.  Tell you what, for now, grab your guitar and play the intro as a primer:

JAW

Thanks to https://www.htmlwasher.com/ for having a html cleaner that thinks the same as I do. I probably should stop writing in html but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

Thanks also to https://www.hooktheory.com/ for some interesting and well laid out insights into this song!

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