Play That Song

The one you learned as a

Six-year-old

The one that everyone

Can play

Making it a pop song

Is hard, I’m sure…

Okay, not my best effort.  But if you’ve been listening to pop radio at all lately, you’ve probably heard Train’s latest (and ever so creatively named) song, “Play that Song”.  And if you didn’t immediately recognize it, you probably thought it was really familiar.

That would be because it’s none other than “Heart and Soul”, which of course originally was a pop song, before it became a piano duet that pretty much everyone knows and is able to play at least one part of, thanks to some Tam Honks movie. 

In other words, this wasn’t exactly a stretch for them artistically, y’know?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Heart and Soul.  So do most people.  And there are reasons why it’s so popular.  Wikipedia actually has a whole section on the theory of the bass part, which is fairly interesting, if you’re into that sort of thing.  The I-vi-VI-V progression that it follows is actually known as the “50s progression” or the “doo-wop progression”, due to how common it was in that sort of music, which both gives us a fuzzy sense of familiarity, and also plays on our sense of how chords should progress:

I – The tonic.  Everyone loves the tonic!  It’s like home.  Let's stay here forever!  Oh wait, that's just the blues.  Okay, if we have to move, let's go to the...

vi – Relative minor! Going here from the tonic is like pretending we’re still there, but more interesting.  It's kind of like the opposite of a staycation?  But all good things must end, so...

VI – What’s a good chord to have before we get into the V-I finish?  This one sounds nice.  Plus, if I've voiced things right, I still haven't had to move my thumb off the root.  In fact, I've only had to move one finger at a time!  That's pretty clever of me.  That's about to change, but it's okay, because...

V – This is the awesomest chord to have before going back to the tonic.  Hands down, no question.  I don't even care I had to move all my fingers this time.  It's totally worth it.

I – Aaaaaaaaaaand we’re back!  Wooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

There’s less theory on the melody, but I suspect it’s so catchy because, at least in the basic, non elaborated melody, it’s really just going up and down a scale.  There are literally no jumps in the melody line, except for the G-C-A jump in the third phrase.  And that one gets a pass because i) it uses the root, and ii) if you didn’t jump, you’d go from G-A, which keeps the scale intact.  That makes it nice and sing/hum/play-able.

Well, there’s one other set of jumps, in the turnaround at the end.  And in a spectacularly belated realization (or one that I had before, forgot, and then realized again), I have only just noticed that the C-A-D-G melody exactly fits the I-vi-ii-V turnaround I learned in high-school jazz band for 12-bar blues.  How about that?

Music theory aside, though, the point remains that this is a wildly uncreative song.  Why can’t people use Chopsticks for once?  Or the black key duet?  Now that would be awesome.

The lyrics are also dumb.  Who would be stupid/desperate enough to buy all the drinks for the woman he’s interested in and her friends?  That stuff gets expensive fast.  Why would you expect some random busker with a guitar to be able to play some song you’re not even going to tell him the name of?  Seriously?  And while I’m a big believer in the power of lov… er, music, there’s something really off with either them or the song if it has the sort of effects used in the chorus to delineate which song is under discussion.  And if it’s really “Heart and Soul”, I think the problem is with them.

But darn it, it’s still catchy.