This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. As a result, Gaga becomes paralyzed from the waist down, leading newspapers to declare she's "hit rock bottom" and her career is "over." She redeems herself in the end by killing her boyfriend: a drastic act that prompts those same papers to declare, "We love her again!" She did the same thing with the music video for "Paparazzi." It kicks off with her fictional boyfriend, played by actor Alexander Skarsgård, throwing her off a balcony right in front of photographers, who gleefully document the incident. But you couldn't dismiss the image of Gaga bleeding on stage: It shed a light on how terrifying that behavior actually is-and where it can lead. "Well, they asked for it" was a common way to dismiss it. In 2009 few batted an eye at the frenzied and rabid way photographers treated celebrity women. The image of a swarm of male photographers chasing after Lohan in some kind of modern witch hunt is just as disturbing and graphic as Gaga's rehearsed downfall at the VMAs. No, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan weren't killed in the literal sense, but the scrutiny Gaga illuminated here is what they experienced. Gary Ewer has written six songwriting e-books that can get you writing the kinds of songs you’ve always known you could write! Read more about his books here.It's a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for what was happening in Hollywood at that period. And the beauty of music analysis is that it allows us to take a song apart to discover why it works, and (most importantly for songwriters) what can we do to add this kind of songwriting intelligence to our own songs. What’s beautiful is that many songwriters do this instinctively, without really being aware of it. But relating one part of a song to another is what causes good songs to really click. For many listeners the actual architecture of a song may remain elusive. Like many structural elements in good songs, these may not be things we notice right away. These two ideas are brought together in the chorus, this time with descending major scale melodic figures ( “Promise I’ll be kind/ But I won’t stop until that boy is mine.”) This descending figure is coupled with a partial descending minor scale ( “We’d be so fantastical”). The verse uses a motif of a descending 5th as an important melodic element ( We are the crowd, we’re c-comin’ out/ Got my flash on, it’s true.”). The melodies for both verse and chorus are beautiful and simple, an interplay of stepwise motion and melodic leaps. It’s the chorus that puts the song solidly in Ab major. As I say, the verse of this song isn’t in Ab major, but is rather a succession of three chords from Ab major. If you’re trying to construct harmonies that give a sense of cohesiveness to your song, I highly recommend this procedure of choosing all your chords from one key, but focusing on the minor side of the key for your verse, and the major side of the key for your chorus. The balance of fragile and strong progressions are sensibly organized you want more fragile ones for your verse, and stronger ones in your chorus. The chorus harmonies are strong progressions solidly indicating Ab major. The verse harmonies are “fragile”: Depending on what the songwriters choose to follow it with, you could find those chords in Ab major, F minor (with a minor V), Eb major, and so on. VERSE: Cm Ab Fm (from C minor, the chords would be analyzed as: i VI iv from Ab major, they are: iii I vi) In this sense, I think of the verse as being “from” Ab major, rather than “in” any particular key. The added benefit of using chords that can all be tied back to one key offers a harmonic connection that works like a musical glue. The benefit of a verse in minor with a chorus in major is obvious: it prevents the song from getting stale, and brightens the mood. The clever part of this chord progression is that though the verse is in minor, switching to major for the chorus, all the chords actually come from one key: A-flat major. To begin our study, here is a basic formal analysis of the song: We’ll discover a few nuggets that demonstrate solid writing skills, ideas that can be easily incorporated into your own songwriting method. Paparazzi is a recent single from Lady Gaga’s “Fame.” It’s written in a standard verse-chorus format, and it’s worth looking at various compositional elements, particularly chord progression and melodic shape. Written by Gary Ewer, from “ The Essential Secrets of Songwriting“.ĭownload “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and improve your songwriting skills.
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