Whitney Wisdom IV - Houston, We Have A Problem

I am engaged in a long running battle of wills with my iPod. For several weeks now I've been trying to persuade it to play Sweeney Todd. Easy, of course, when you can use your hands, but the battle always takes place when I'm cycling, and at such times I prefer to keep my hands on the handlebars, so voice control is the order of the day. Maybe it's the London traffic, or maybe it's my peculiarly dulcet vocal style, but voice control when I try it is not like in the movies. Let me furnish you with a sample transcript:


Me: Play Sweeney Todd.
(pause)
iPod: Playing songs by Stelvio Cipriani.
Me: Who?

3.5 minutes later

Me: Play album Sweeney Todd.
(pause)
iPod: Playing songs by Clodagh Rodgers.
Me: Eh?

3.5 minutes later

Me: PLAY SWE-ENEY TOD-D-D.
(pause)
iPod: Shuffle on.
Me: PLAYSWEENEYTODD
(pause)
iPod: Playing play list "Songs to listen to while cutting your toenails."
Me: SWEENEY TODD! SWEENEY SWEENEY SWEENEY SWEENEY SWEEEEEENEEEEEYYYYYY!
iPod: Playing Whitney Houston.

Although I have yet to hear Sweeney Todd, I have listened to a lot of songs I didn't know I had, and, last week, my iPod's triumphant clincher was indeed Whitney, which served as a timely reminder that I have yet to finish the great Whitney Houston essay I started writing way back in December. So here it is, Whitney Wisdom Part IV. (And I promise I didn't start this whole series just as an excuse to use the 'Houston, we have a problem' line. Honest.)

In case you are late to the Whitney Wisdom party, here is the story so far. (Don't feel you have to read them all, it'll take forever.)

Whitney Wisdom Part One - In Which The Author Reveals How He Made A Tit Of Himself, And Introduces The Concept Of His Top Ten Heretical Pop Song List.

Whitney Wisdom Part Two - In Which The Author Talks At Length About His Getting Hit In The Nuts With A Music Stand, And Expresses His Belief That The Assertion Made As To The Nature Of The Greatest Love Of All In The Song "The Greatest Love Of All" Is In Point Of Fact Deeply Heretical.

Whitney Wisdom Part Three - In Which The Author Rants About How Loving Yourself Is Not, In Fact, The Greatest Love Of All, But Is An Impotent Solution To The Problem Of Self Worth And An Open Invitation To Toxic Levels Of Narcissism.

So finally we arrive at Whitney Wisdom Part Four - In Which The Author Reveals What The Bible Says Is The Greatest Love Of All.

Ready? Right. Here it is. The Greatest Love Of All, according to the Bible:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

Or, as the Apostle Paul puts it:

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 8:8)

Okay, it doesn't scan as well as Whitney's version. It's not quite as punchy. And it's got odd words in it, like "propitiation" and "sinners". So permit me now to attempt to explain why the greatest love of all is the greatest love of all.

Quick, get me two more idiots in shiny suits and a giant ball, and
let's play ten pimp bowling.

Back in Part Three I introduced two characters, representing, if you will, the two extremes of the self-worth spectrum. In the blue corner, Melody Hossaini and everyone else who has ever appeared on The Apprentice - the mouthy little idiots whose reality-divorced levels of self-deluded confidence make for such compelling car-crash TV viewing. In the red corner, Frank Spencer and his poor pusillanimous ilk, who struggle through life beneath the crushing weight of their own fractured self-image.
Both these groups of people have a problem. One group needs some serious encouragement. The other group needs a good slap upside the head. What to do?

I ranted at some length in part three about how 'fridge magnet apophthegms like "Learn to love yourself" just pour water on the burning oil of such problems, because if you don't value yourself, you won't value your own love, and if you already value yourself too much, then "love yourself" just means "carry on being an ass". If learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all, then the Beatles were totally wrong when they sang "All you need is love"*.

The Bible's definition of love, on the other hand, provides both the huge encouragement and the stinging slap in the face. In fact, the two are inseparably entwined. If you take away either part, you are left with nothing. Nothing good, anyway. You can't know the love if you don't feel the slap. So let's look at the slap.

The Slap

It's Britney, and she's slapping some guy for being a womanizer.
That'll learn him.

How do we typically demonstrate our affections? A box of chocolates and a bottle of wine are good fall backs. Maybe a nice card. Possibly some random Cath Kidston thing, if it's for a girl. It doesn't matter what, as long as it has that irritatingly ubiquitous Cath Kidston flowery design all over it. Girls love that. So how does God show his love for us? Like this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. A bit unconventional, that. An odd way to say "I love you". In fact, there's only one way it makes sense...

and that is if we actually deserved to die.


Slap.


In Britney, Booze and the Bible III I talked about the human heart, and how there is something deeply wrong with it. Mine, yours, Britney's, Mother Theresa's, they are all skewed, distorted, pointed in the wrong direction. When we're told to do one thing, we automatically want to do the other. It's human nature... but there are consequences to it. Especially if it is God who we are disobeying.

The Bible calls it sin.
And the punishment for sin is death.

Just look at our contribution to the greatest love of all:
"Not that we have loved God" - because we didn't.
"The propitiation for our sins" - because we are not innocent.
"While we were still sinners" - because our hearts are messed up.

God is doing all the loving. We are doing all the hating.


Not exactly a crowd-pleasing revelation, right? I had the choice of writing this post, or publishing my list of The Top Ten Dowdy Nightdresses In A Movie Musical Number, and I was very tempted to go with the nightdresses - partly because I know it will cement my standing as a Guru Of The Internet, and send my blog stats rocketing into the realms of super-stardom, but mostly because I don't really enjoy saying hell-and-brimstone things like "We're all sinners and we all deserve God's wrath."

But look what happens if we rewrite it without all the disturbing sin stuff:


"In this is love, that we loved God and that he loved us and sent his Son to do something we had absolutely no need of."
"God shows his love for us in that while we were definitely not sinners, Christ died pointlessly."


This isn't a demonstration of love - this is a demonstration of Lynchian levels of insanity. This would be like me trying to prove my love for Britney by sending a team of petticoat-clad dwarves to assemble cheap flat-pack furniture outside her house. Actually, it's worse (that would be kinda cool, after all). If God sent Jesus to die for no reason, then he's either an idiot or a monster. Not really the behaviour you'd hope to see from the guy who is supposed to be in charge.

As I pointed out in part three, it is nice to feel loved... but only if we value the love of the lover. The love of a loser, an idiot, or a psychopath, is not especially encouraging... and if we adopt the box-of-kittens God-is-love-and-we-are-fine approach, then that's all we are left with - the love of a loser.

That's the slap.

The Love

Nothing says "love" like a smothering avalanche of grotty plastic tat
coated in seizure-inducing pastel floral patterns.

Now, assume that the Bible is right about the human heart: let's say that my heart really is evil. (Probably not hard for one half of the population to believe, after my comments on Cath Kidston). Let's say that, by nature, my heart hates God. That I'm his enemy. And let's assume that this really is a crime that is justly punishable by death. Now read this again:

"In this is love, not that Dave loved God, but that God loved Dave and sent his Son to be the propitiation for his sins."
"God shows his love for Dave in that while he was still a sinner, Christ died for him."

An innocent man dying to save a guilty man who hates him? Impressive.
God dying to save a guilty man who hates him? There's your demonstration of the greatest love of all.

Dwarves, petticoats and flat-pack furniture

Let's finish with a quick look at what this means to our friends on the edges of the self-worth scale - and to everyone else in the world, who, I'm sure, find themselves bouncing around between the two.

The Angel Of Music. (Yes, I went there.)

To the Frank Spenceresque self-loathers:Yes, you suck. But you are loved. And this is not the love of a loser, this is the love of someone who, according to the Bible, can hold the oceans in his hands. Someone who can fling stars into space. Someone who could, quite literally, bring you the moon on a stick. Though let's hope he doesn't, because it would play havoc with the tides. And this is not a passing-infatuation beer-goggle one-night-stand love. This is the love of someone who would actually die for you.


To the Apprenticesque self-lovers:God doesn't love you because of your incredible business acumen. He doesn't love you because you are a field of ponies, or because you give 110%. He doesn't love you because you look good in heels, because you had a scholarship to Sandhurst, or because you work with the understanding that there is a purpose greater than yourself.** Get off your onanistic little podium. If Sir Alan can see right through all that, God certainly can. God sees the rot in our hearts. He loves us anyway.

So.
That, poorly and roughly explained, is the greatest love of all. It is both really good news, and really bad news. It can help the afflicted, it can humble the proud. It lies at the very heart of Christianity.

And you can opt in or out of this love.
If you like the sound of all this, and you haven't done so already, maybe you want to opt in. A few chapters after Paul's definition of love, he goes on to say that "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9). Have a read through one of the Gospels - Mark would be a good place to start - and see if it gives compelling evidence that Jesus is indeed Lord and that God really did raise him.

On the other hand, if it all sounds like total hokum and hogwash to you, then you have opted out. Fair enough. But I'd politely like to caution against opting out through apathy, ignorance, or arrogance. The Bible can't easily be dismissed as myth or mistake. The death of Jesus was a historic event, well testified to by reliable witnesses. The Bible's explanation is that it was God's great act of love, to rescue a guilty people who otherwise face punishment... Don't opt out unless you have a better explanation.

And whether or not you think I'm a crazed Bible-thumping imbecile after all this stuff, please do come back for the next post, which will be the long-awaited top ten dowdy nighties list. It was unbelievably difficult to compile, so don't miss it.


Good night.

Possibly not what Stuart Baggs meant, but I could no more pass up this
opportunity than I could pass up the "Houston we have a problem" line.

* Also, semolina pilchards have never, to my knowledge, climbed up the Eiffel Tower.
** Isn't it amazing how, with just ten minutes of googling, I can give the impression that I've actually watched the Apprentice?

The Whitney Houston Memorial List Of Pop Songs With Ascending String Scales In Them

I'm sure it won't have escaped your notice that Whitney Houston has passed away. She did this without consulting me, while I was on holiday in a part of the world that still hasn't discovered the internet, and rather inconveniently while I was in the middle of a four part series of posts critiquing the heterodoxy of her song lyrics.

Since Whitney has inspired so much of this blog, it seemed only fitting that I should, in some small way, mark the sad occasion of her demise. But how exactly to do so was a question that I wrestled with through many a long and sleepless night - until the answer rose up and hit me in the ear: Compile the Whitney Houston Memorial List of The Best Upward String Scales In A Pop Song.

I know exactly what you are thinking. You are thinking that the best way to mourn the passing of our beloved diva of the power ballad is with a list of downward string scales. Well, you'd be forgiven for thinking so, but I want to remember Whitney with the same joyful rising swoop that  her music first inspired in me, back when I was a spotty teenager listening to my brother's tape on a chunky personal stereo whilst doing my GCSE geography homework on the kitchen table.*

So, because Whitney is the Queen of the rapid rising string scale, here it is: in no particular order, ten of the best upward swooshes in pop history.** I know you are all busy, so the titles are linked to youtube with the scale all cued up for you. Yes, I really am that nice. Or just watch the whole embedded thing. Because a scale without a context is, um, a conscale. Or something.

1: Terrorvision: Some People Say

I love this song, because it proves that there is a place for the humble violin in the pantheon of rock. If I'd known about this song back in the dark days when I was practising chromatic scales for my grade V exam, maybe I would have worked a little harder at them.

Scale type: Chromatic.

Scale range: One octave, E to E.

Scale genre: Angry rock.

Swoosh rating: 7/10.

2: Carrie Underwood: I Know You Won't

This is exactly what scales are for. You think you've passed the emotional zenith of the song, you are just starting to relax, and then the strings run up behind you and shove you hard in the back.
Scale type: Eb Major.

Scale range: Major sixth, Bb to G.

Scale genre: New-style hot-chick country.

Swoosh rating: 9/10. It's only a sixth, but it's fast, and perfectly positioned.

3: Glen Campbell: If You Go Away





Yup, this made it into my top ten list of key changes too. BECAUSE IT IS BRILLIANT. It is a key change and a big damn scale and it comes just when you think the song has finished and it's also Glen Campbell, who is a whole world of excellence all by himself.
Scale type: C# Melodic Minor.
Scale range: Thirteenth, G# to E.
Scale genre: Old-style hunky-guy country.
Swoosh rating: 9.9/10. No room for fudging in this one; you can hear every note. Even the viola players will have had to get it right.


4: Kylie: Your Disco Needs You





No idea who this girl is, but she totally deserves to be famous, because this song is ace. It's quite hard to hear under all the other histrionics at the end, but there is a whole lot of scale going on - by my calculations somewhere in the region of an octave-and-a-half down and then two octaves back up again.
Scale type: E Melodic Minor?
Scale range (the ascending bit): Sixteenth, D# to E.
Scale genre: Post-ironic retro disco quasi-Russo-kitsch.
Swoosh rating: D.I.S/D.I.S.C.O


5: Britney: Shadow





Look! It's Britney! No, wait, it's that annoying moody teenager from the annoying moody vampire movies! No, wait, it's Britney again! Amazing! This is actually a rather clever video, and if you've never seen the annoying moody vampire movie in question, it will pretty much tell you all you need to know, but in a tiny fraction of the time... and with added Britney goodness. There is definitely a scale in there, but all my musical training couldn't help me figure out what it is. Anyone care to help?
Scale type: Britney Melodic Minor.
Scale range: Dawn to Dusk.
Scale genre: Britney Awesome.
Swoosh rating: 9.11/10 for the scale, but minus several million points for persistent incorrect use of the reflexive pronoun "yourself". In the damn chorus. SERIOUSLY.


6: Olivia Newton-John: Hopelessly Devoted To You





Not strictly a pop song, I know. But it's so nice. And look, I found you a clip where Olivia Newton-John is mysteriously Spanish when she converses, but English when she sings. Again, if someone had explained to me the link between practising scales and girls singing in their nighties, maybe I'd be a better violinist now. On the other hand, it's about as dowdy a nightdress as you're likely to see in a movie. And now I have a sudden urge to compile a list of the top ten dowdy nightdresses in a movie musical number. Must make a note of that.
Scale type: Eb Melodic Minor.
Scale range: One octave for the swoosh, but slowly climbs another fifth straight afterwards. Genius.
Scale genre: Vintage Nightwear Chic.
Swoosh rating: 8/10, plus 6 bonus points for the extra fifth. (Why not 5 bonus points? I have my reasons.***)


7: The Little Mermaid: Part Of Your World (Reprise)





I don't care if you mock me for this one, there was no way it wasn't going in the list. This is exactly what scales are for. If the slow, inexorable climb right up to the incredible breaking-wave climax doesn't make your heart want to burst then YOU ARE NOT HUMAN.
Sometimes (okay, every time) when I find myself in the sea, I like to sing this, and try to time the waves to hit at the right point. They never do. (If you think that sounds like a rather girly activity for a guy to indulge in, bear in mind that I can't actually swim. That makes it pretty much an extreme sport, in my view.)
Scale type: F Major.

Scale range: Twelfth, F to C.

Scale genre: Disney.

Splash rating: 10/10.

8: Dexy's Midnight Runners: Come On Eileen





This gets a mention because this song took the humble scale, and elevated it (bonus pun) from the role of mere exercise, or swoosh, and into actual melody. Yup, the tune for the bit where they sing "Toora loora toora loo rye aye" is, plain and simple, a straight one octave C major scale. And there's a violin accompanying, a third above, thus officially making this a pop song with an ascending string scale.

Scale type: C Major.

Scale range: One octave, F to F.

Scale genre: Dungaree Folk Rock. (DungaFrock?)

Swoosh rating: 5/10. It doesn't really swoosh. But it has its own special charm.

9: Kate Bush: Experiment IV

If you are a regular to these pages, you may have noticed by now that I have a deep and somewhat shameful love of Whitney, Britney, and country princess Kellie Pickler. But what you may not know is that these are but fleeting infatuations compared to my eternal, consuming passion for Kate Bush. When real life finally turns into a Tolkein novel, Kate Bush will be some sort of all-powerful Elven Queen, and Whitters, Britters and Pickles will be naught but her simpering lackeys. Kate Bush, if you are reading this, please remember me when you come into power. I have loved you unfailingly for fifteen years. Anyway, here she is, being weird, and killing House.
Scale type: Glissando.

Scale range: Two octaves, Bb to Bb (I think).

Scale genre: No one puts Kate Bush in a box, fool.

Swoosh rating: The meters are over in the red.

10: Whitney Houston: All At Once

Obviously, I had to end with Whitney. Here she is demonstrating to the world how it is done. I didn't cue the link up for this one because I couldn't choose which of the FOUR (at least) scales to pick. You'll just have to listen to the whole thing. The fourth scale is a pretty standard, if magnificently long, swoosh, but the third scale happens, like the Glen Campbell, at a key change - and the first two scales change key half way through. This song is in a class all of its own.

Scale type: Bb Major modulating to Db Major (x2), D Major (x2)

Scale range: Major sixth + major seventh (C to A, then Gb to F) for the first two scales, then a seventeenth (two octaves and a third!!), D to F#, for the second pair.

Scale genre: Extreme Power Ballad.

Swoosh rating: Like, infinity.

So there you have it. My small tribute to one of the all-time finest purveyors of 80s power ballads, a woman whose music made a staple pop technique out of the rapidly ascending string scale. We'll never see her like again.

Good night.

* Not on the table itself. I used an exercise book. The 80s were crazy, but we still used paper.

** Ten of the best. Not necessarily the best ten. I wanted to pick the best ten, but after several painstaking weeks spent trying to listen to every pop song ever recorded, I gave up, and plumped for the first ten I could actually think of. I feel like I've let you, and Whitney, down, so if you can think of any better examples, please leave them in a comment.
*** The A natural, naturally. Why did you even need to ask?

Whitney Wisdom III - The Greatest Hyperbole Of All

It's been a bad week for Whitney - firstly, she only made the second spot on my Top Ten List Of Popular Songs Which Contain Changes Of Key. And now, while she is no doubt still reeling from this humiliation, it's time for Part Three in our increasingly periphrastic* exposition of the manifold doctrinal errors contained in the lyrics of her 1986 chart-topper, "The Greatest Love Of All".

In an effort to make this blog stand out from the millions of other blogs that are similarly presenting long-winded expositions of the doctrinal errors of 80s power-ballads, I'm going to attempt to weave in Adolf Hitler, Frank Spencer, The Apprentice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, shoes, bludgeoning, Photoshop, Cosmo and Kate Bush. And if that isn't enough to make reading this a unique experience, I'll add in dwarves, petticoats and flat-pack furniture. It's going to be intense. Can you handle it? Course you can. Here we go.

Whitney's assertion is this: learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

My assertion is this: it's really not.

Controversial, huh? For the prosecution's first witness, I'd like to call The Apprentice.

If you've not seen The Apprentice, permit me to explain: it's a show about a useless collection of selfish, self-obsessed, self-indulgent superiority-complex-wielding idiots, who run pointlessly from one embarrassing debacle to another, all the while bandying around phrases like "110% percent" and "Failure is not an option" and otherwise acting like miserably-deluded trumped-up self-important little snot-rags, while we watch them in the forlorn hope that at some point Sir Alan will snap, drag one of them into his boardroom, and bludgeon them to death with a vintage Amstrad PCW8512.**

The Apprentice, in short, is a demonstration of how badly wrong things can go when people really, deeply, love themselves. 

See, learning to love yourself is rarely going to be a recipe for honest self-assessment. It's the personality equivalent of "We'll fix it in the mix." It's the Photoshop of the soul. Bad source material? Add a bit of reverb. Model's got a zit? Airbrush it out. It's all about changing the image, not the reality. After all, changing the reality is hard. Changing how we see the reality is pretty easy.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I'm habitually late for rehearsals (I am), that I'm profligate and stupid with money (I am), and that I need a hair-cut (allegedly also true). Now, in my honest moments, I can admit that being late isn't actually cute. And that filling my bedroom with expensive and un-played musical instruments is a waste of money. And that "Homeless Chic" isn't really a look that is going to have the girls lining up at my door. But here's the brilliant thing: years of musical training has revealed to me that I can simply wrap all these little character flaws up into an exciting, colourful package called "Artistic Temperament", and define that to be an integral and indispensable part of my character. It's Just Who I Am. Loving me now involves loving my flaws, and if I love my flaws, then any attempt to correct them becomes, by definition, an unloving act. So if we're dating, I'm going to turn up late and scruffy and you are just going to have to love it, otherwise you don't really love me.

The "greatest love of all" just became a licence to turn into an ass.

Fortunately, not everyone is an Apprentice-league candidate for the Amstrad PCW8512 bludgeoning party. On the other end of the spectrum are the poor souls who wrestle with low self-esteem. The people who, rightly or wrongly, feel like a loser. The second witness for the prosecution:  Frank Spencer.

To Frank and his ilk, the song would say "Just learn to love yourself, okay?" But how, exactly, do you learn to love yourself? What if you can't? It's the greatest love of all and it's easy to achieve, apparently, but there are millions of people out there who are trapped in a cycle of self-harm, who hate themselves, who can't look in the mirror and say "Today I will not walk in anyone's shadows" - who maybe can't look in a mirror at all. What could be more encouraging than to hear Whitney telling you to love yourselves? It's such a beautiful sentiment. Such a nice encouraging corrective against the demons of self-doubt and self-loathing. Have faith in yourself. Love yourself. It's the greatest love of all. Inspiring, yes?

Well, no. It's a horrible thing to say to someone. Let me try to explain why.

In my head, dear readers, you are all phenomenally beautiful people, so this is going to be a stretch of the imagination for you, but here goes: Imagine you are a lonely, single woman (or guy), working in an office full of incredibly gorgeous single men (or women). Inexplicably, not one of them casts you a second glance. After a few years of this you are probably going to be feeling pretty miserable. Now, one day you discover that there is a guy at work who thinks you are sensationally attractive - Dwight, the janitor's leprous, hunchbacked half-blind half-son who recently escaped from Fogg's Asylum for the Criminally Deranged and has been hiding out in the basement with his prized collection of toenail clippings, composing bad songs about the beauty of your shoes. Congratulations, you are loved! Feel better? Self-esteem boosted?

Similarly, if Kate Bush or Buffy the Vampire Slayer told me they loved me and thought I had great potential, I'd feel pretty good. You would not be able to get me to shut up about it. If Fred West or Adolf Hitler said the same thing... not quite so encouraging.

What I'm trying to say is that it's nice to feel loved... but only if we value the love of the lover. The love of a creep, a psycho or a loser is not going to do much for your self-esteem. Which is a problem if you feel like a creep, a psycho or a loser yourself. In that case, loving yourself is less a remedy and more, well, a confirmation of your darkest fears. And this song is saying that's the greatest love there is - in other words, that's the best you can hope for. Please enjoy your frictionless downward spiral into utter despair; try to keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

So, in summary: learning to love yourself may be a nice sentiment on the surface, but it's a bankrupt, hopeless notion if you don't value your own love, and it's an invitation to narcissism if you do. To self-loathers and self-lovers alike it offers no hope of change. I seriously doubt any of my erudite and staggeringly attractive readers are likely to make this mistake, but trying to live your life according to the advice of this song would be like taking Cosmo seriously.*** You will end up in trouble.

You may think I'm being rather harsh and hyperbolical. I am, of course. Most people are neither a Melody Hossaini nor a Frank Spencer. But if you are going to go around making hyperbolical claims like "this is the greatest love of all", you should probably be prepared to get some hyperbolical criticism. Otherwise what are we saying? That the greatest love of all is when people who are already reasonably well adjusted learn to love themselves an appropriate amount? Ooh, life-changing stuff!

I started this series of posts, waaaay back in 2011, because I wanted to explain why this song is number one in my pop-song heresy list. The reason is this: because the Bible's definition of the greatest love of all couldn't get much further from Whitney's, and because it is a claim that lies at the very heart of Christianity.

If you have read this far, thank you, you are beautiful, and I really hope you will come back and read the next post, when I'll hopefully, finally, miraculously... maybe... get to the damn point, and tell you what the Bible and I think the greatest love of all really is. I appreciate that you might not be especially interested in what the Bible has to say, but you've already waded through about seven thousand words to get here so it would be a shame to bail out now just when we're heading into the home straight. Besides, I have yet to get dwarves, petticoats, and flat-pack furniture into the argument. You wouldn't want to miss that, surely? Right?

(If you haven't read this far, then I can say anything I like about you, because you are not reading. Losers. Your eyebrows are too thick-set and you smell faintly of cardboard.****)  

Peace out.

PS: I really do love this song, by the way.

* Word of the day. Apparently not just invented by Blackadder.

** An old computer from the days before they invented small things. I never had one, but I've seen pictures on Wikipedia, and I reckon it would seriously hurt if you were hit by one.

*** I had a housemate who would occasionally leave Cosmo in the bathroom. In one issue, there was a terrifying story about a girl who had been drugged and raped whilst on holiday. In the same issue was an article describing how holidays should be a time for throwing caution to the wind and living it up. And the rest of the issue was devoted to helpful hints on how to get the perfect holiday beach body, and how to dress and do your make-up in such a way as to get the attention of any passing man. The thought that some people out there might actually take Cosmo seriously enough to follow its "advice" fills me with sadness and horror.

**** I have no sense of smell, so my "you smell of" insults are sometimes a bit hit-and-miss.

The Top Ten List Of Popular Songs Which Contain Changes Of Key

As I may have mentioned here, I have been compiling a list of my top ten favourite ever pop-song key changes.  For many moons I've been meaning to share this list, since, after all, what good is knowledge if it's not passed on, but I've been held back by three simple things:

1) I'm lazy.
2) There were eleven songs in my top ten and I couldn't work out which one to ditch.
3) I have absolutely no idea whether "pop song" and "key change" should be hyphenated.

Number 1 is currently working in my favour, since it requires less effort to sit here and write this than it would to get up, get dressed and do something useful.
Number 2 I have decided to ignore.  Maybe no one will notice.
But number 3 is still giving me considerable anxiety, even after half an hour of googling.  It turns out that the laws governing correct hyphen use (correct hyphen-use?) are orders of magnitude more mysterious than, say, the proof of Fermat's last theorem, the great chicken-or-egg debate, or quantum entanglement. My last attempt at googling "should popsong be hyphenated" somehow led me to the IMDB's page of memorable quotes for the movie "Big", which I then felt compelled to read.  Classic movie, but not terribly relevant.  I am now suffering from a state of advanced hyphen paranoia, in which every pair of words I look at seems to be mocking me and daring me to put a hyphen between them.  So I've elected to circumnavigate the issue entirely by avoiding any further use of the phrases "key change" or "pop song" in everything I write for the rest of my life.

So, having settled that thorny issue, for your delight and delectation, your edification and amusement, for the furthering of musical education everywhere, and because - hyphen terror aside - it's still less effort than getting on with the day, I hereby present my Top Ten List Of Popular Songs Which Contain Changes Of Key.

10: Abba - Money Money Money
Your standard bread-and-butter modulation, beautifully and cheekily handled by the Swedish masters.  A clear precursor to the well-known Whitney approach.  (Incidentally, in my hyphen investigations, the one thing I did learn with certainty is that "well-known" is correct.  The rules about that are well known.)

9: Britney - Sometimes
Yes, I love Britney.  Especially vintage Britney.  I know, I know, I should be ashamed.  Whatevs.  The brilliance of this particular example of that thing which we are discussing is this:  its crassitude.  Seriously.  Listen to it.  If you can find a more crass example than this then I will burn my Britney posters.  (I don't really have any Britney posters.)

8: Taylor Swift - Love Story
Just the one, and it's fairly standard, but it's nicely executed and, crucially, it happens just as a guy is proposing.  If you need to propose, gentlemen, do it whilst simultaneously elevating the tonal centre of your song.  No girl can possibly say no to that.

7: Glen Campbell - If You Go Away
This is the undisputed Rolls Royce of the just-when-you-think-it's-all-over-the-strings-will-suddenly-come-in-and-swoosh-you-up-into-a-new-key-with-such-force-that-it-will-be-another-verse-before-your-stomach-catches-up category.  (That should keep the hyphen gods happy...)

6: Bon Jovi - Livin' On A Prayer
Every Christmas my brother and I used to play this in the car on our way to pick up our Granddad, in an attempt to get all the youthful enthusiasm and aggression out of our systems, ready for the awkward silence that would fill the car on the return journey after we'd exhausted our meagre repertoire of Grandfather-suitable conversations.  It's the unexpected rhythm that makes this one a winner - that and the fact that it takes the vocal line so high into the stratosphere that the only way to sing along is to scream.  Cathartic.

5: Michael Jackson - Heal The World
Risibly cheesy, but there are two - yes, two - perfectly executed feel-good semitone uppers in this hymn to philanthropy - and with less than 30 seconds between them.  Pure unabashed gold.

4: Delta Goodrem - Mistaken Identity
Of the many Neighbours-stars-turned-pop-artistes out there, the aptly-named Delta has probably changed key more times than all the rest put together - maybe in this one song alone.  I lost count.  It goes up, it goes back down, it goes sideways...  It's a tour-de-force of tonal indecision.  In a good way.  Also worthy of mention is her song "Not Me, Not I", which also turns some truly fruity tonal corners.

3.5: Diana Ross - When You Tell Me That You Love Me
Like a diamanté-clad mountain goat, the lissom Miss Ross goes up and up and up in sophisticated leaps and bounds, and I defy you not to be moved by it.

3: Whitney Houston - I Have Nothing
Yes, I Love Whitney Houston, and who wouldn't after hearing this?  If anyone has seen the moment in Mission Impossible 4 when Tom Cruise launches himself implausibly through an open window hundreds of feet up in the air, well, the change of key going into the last chorus is exactly like that.  Exactly.

2: Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
It had to be in here.  Come on, this moment pretty much defines Whitney and her music.  The aching, pregnant pause, the single reverb-drenched drum hit, the blazing, primal triumph of the new key... What purity!  What simplicity!  What class!  What cheese!

1: Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror
Much as I love Whitney, the all-time award has to go to this song, for pulling off the brilliant coup d'état of changing the key on the word "change". GE-NI-US.


So there you have it.  Happy listening, and I'll leave you with two important things I have discovered during the course of my research for this post:

1) "Crassitude" really is a word.
2) Westlife suck.

Whitney Wisdom Part Two - I Believe That Children Are The Future

It's Christmas afternoon, and that, of course, means the usual wall-to-wall litany of soul-crushingly over-repeated Christmas specials.  Morecambe and Wise, Dad's Army, Porridge... comedy classics all, no doubt, but the cumulative effect, hour after hour, year after year, and at the ear-drum-splitting levels of volume required by my dad's poor hearing, is enough to drive a man to drink.  So in a vague effort to stave off the inevitable trip to the gin cupboard, I shall attempt to distract myself by thrashing out the hotly anticipated second part of our ever-lengthening analysis of the theological soundness, or otherwise, of Whitney's gloriously inspirational anthem, "The Greatest Love Of All".  After all, what could be more Christmassy than that?

If you missed part one of this weighty and vital discussion, fret not, for it was largely dispensable preamble to the devastating pronouncement that this song is currently occupying the top spot in my list of all-time-favourite heretical pop songs.

You might wonder why I have a list of favourite heretical pop songs.  Some people just like to make lists, okay?  I have a list of favourite pop song key-changes too.  And a list of the least appropriate Bible readings to have at a marriage service.  I hope, one day, to draw on all three lists simultaneously and create the wedding day that no one will forget.

Anyway, back to the Pop Song Heresy Hall Of Fame, and the reason why this song is at number one: While other songs on the list are pretty narrow and unadventurous with their heresies - Berlinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is A Place On Earth", for example, can be refuted with a simple "Er, no it's not." - this one contains a splendid assortment of doctrinal fallacies, culminating in one that strikes at the very heart of Christianity.

You may not care much about doctrine, heresy, Christianity and the like.  You may be thinking "It's just a song man, get over it".  (In fact, I hope you are.)  But it's this or the gin, so I'm going to ignore the fact that testing an 80s power-ballad for theological soundness is an exercise in captiousness, and press gamely on.  And who knows, maybe it'll be fun.

So let us begin.

I believe that children are the future.

Okay, good opening.  I'm not sure what it means, exactly, but I guess I can share the sentiment.  I mean, my children, if I'm ever going to have any, are definitely in the future.  Then again, my own childhood lies largely in the past.  So I guess the jury is out on this one.

Teach them well and let them lead the way.

Less controversial - I'm all in favour of someone teaching them well.  As long as it doesn't have to be me.  Though I think it's probably a bad idea to let them lead the way.  When I was a child I wanted to change my name to Frodo.  Or Hazel.  I'm quite glad now that I didn't get my own way on that one.

Show them all the beauty they possess inside.

First off, euck, on the inside they are all blood and intestines, same as us adults. And if you start showing children their own intestines then you deserve everything that will happen to you. It's really not okay.

Secondly, here we are treading dangerously close to Implied Heresy Number One: The Innocence of Children.

Controversial news-flash: children are really not innocent.

I'm picturing howls of protest from the three of you who are kindly still reading.  "Children are surely innocent... at least until the point when they become teenagers.  And besides, Dave, you have none, so what gives you the right to claim such a thing?", I hear you say.

Well, this gives me the right to claim such a thing: the potential death-blow inflected upon my genitalia by a vicious little cherub with a folded up music stand one Saturday afternoon as I was idly enjoying some grown-up banter at a wedding, with my eyes at adult head-height, little suspecting that a two-foot terrorist wielding a heavy piece of metalwork was about to run under my radar, strike my wobbly bits with sufficient force to leave me curled up on the floor gasping for breath, and then run off laughing demonically.  Yes, my friends, that gives me the right to claim such a thing.

Mark my words, this was not the accidental attack of an innocent. This was a calculated experiment to discover the force required to render a grown man helpless.  And you should all be worried - because once news gets out that a folded music stand and a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy is sufficient to tip the balance of power between toddlerhood and adulthood, we are all in peril. I'm told that my attacker is actually a very charming child who is friendly and popular with his classmates.  Of course he is.  He's a strategic genius.  He's out there raising an army.

See, those who go about blindly believing in the innocence of youth are just asking to be dealt a painful surprise to the nadgers. Children are no more beautiful on the inside than adults. In fact, let's look at the scores: Number of times an adult has endangered my chances of procreating by brutally connecting the more dangly parts of my anatomy with a large quantity of rapidly moving metal: 0. Number of times a child has done the same: 1.

I think the figures speak for themselves, but more importantly, I have the Bible on my side - at least, I can't bring to mind any passages in the Bible which suggest that children are innocent.  Paul's terrifying indictment in Romans 3:10-18 - "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God... no one does good, not even one..." - contains no meliorating footnote with the words "Oh, except for the children, of course".  In fact, the Bible repeatedly refers to us all as "children" (and "sheep", which are like children but fluffier and stupider) - and, since the message of the Bible is unequivocally that we are not innocent, it would be an odd choice of description if children were understood to be guiltless.  I think the Bible's view on children can (with some gross over-simplification) be summarised as: Vulnerable, yes.  Precious, yes.  Innocent, no.

You may think I'm laying this on a bit thick.  Let me just say, in my defence, that the impulse to cross your legs every time you see a music stand is not a terribly convenient burden for a musician to bear.

Moving on.

Give them a sense of pride to make it easier.

Well, we've veered straight from the Children-Are-Innocent heresy and into the Pride-Is-Good heresy.

Pride isn't good.  I know we talk about things like taking pride in your work, or making your parents proud, but really, when was the last time pride made you do something good?  Generally speaking, the only things pride makes easier are the things that, if we were in our right minds, we wouldn't actually want to do. Cycling twenty miles home instead of catching the train, for example.

I'm not saying we should crush the little children until they have no sense of worth. (Unless they are threatening your manhood with a collapsed implement for bearing sheet music, of course.)  But pride is bad. That famous quote about pride and falling comes from the Bible: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" - Proverbs 16:18.  Indeed, the Bible has much to say on the subject, which can be summarised as: Pride Bad.  Humility Good.  (I recently read a book on humility, by the way.  It was pretty good.  But I could have written better.)

Next.

Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.

I'm sure you can imagine what the mocking laughter of children reminds me of.  'Nuff said.

(Incidentally, for an update on the gin situation, it's now the day after Boxing Day, bloody Dad's Army is on the TV again, and we're well in to the second bottle of gin.  Cheers.)

Picking up the pace now:

Everybody's searching for a hero - okay...
People need someone to look up to - can't disagree...
I never found anyone to fulfil my needs - shame, shame...
A lonely place to be. - well, indeed.  Sad times.
So I learned to depend on... - here it comes...

ME.

I don't know what you thought of the Queen's speech this year.  The feeling amongst my evangelical friends was one of delight that Jesus actually got a name-check this Christmas.  The talk in the Bignell household mainly concerned the terrifying width of the royal bosom.  (I didn't start the conversation but I was forced to concede that it was, indeed, terrifyingly wide.)


Anyway, one of the things Her Maj mentioned this year was the fact that sometimes we can't actually sort things out for ourselves. We can't depend on ourselves. Admitting this lies at the very heart of Christianity.  What Whitney is advocating, therefore, is what I'm going to call the We Can Depend On Ourselves Heresy. I'm not going to explore this now, other than to say that if my closest friend had let me down as often as I've let myself down, I wouldn't trust him with anything.  If you've learnt to depend on yourself, then you are a better man than me, but I'm afraid you've been listening to the wrong teacher.


It's been a long post, you've been very patient, let's push on through now to the climax.

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows.We used to play a game like this in the school playground. It was really hard work and involved a lot of crazed jumping and running. It's no way to go through life, I promise you.

If I fail, if I succeed, at least I live as I believe.Yes, being led around by murderous children whilst trying to avoid their shadows.

No matter what they take from me they can't take away my dignity.You think?
Toddler.
Music stand.
Genitals.
I'll say no more.

Because the greatest love of all is happening to me.
Really? That's nice. What is it?

I found the greatest love of all inside of me.
Yeah, it's always the last place you look. But what IS it??

The greatest love of all is easy to achieve.
Awesome news! BUT WHAT IS IT???

Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

<Insert sound of needle skipping off record followed by long empty pause>


Oh.


And there you have it. Ye Olde Loving Yourself Is The Greatest Love Of All Heresy. Possibly the Number One Top Heresy In Any Song Lyric Ever.


I'm sure by now none of you are dying to hear me explain why, so I hereby draw this missive to a close. But please do tune in again next time to read more tediously detailed arguments about Why Whitney Is Wrong.  Good night.

Whitney Wisdom Part One

I love Whitney Houston.

This is probably something that two music degrees should have drummed out of me, but, despite years of semi-rigorous musical training, my shameful affection for her refuses to die.

The Royal College of Music taught me plenty about scales, insecurity and alcohol, but everything I know about the craft of popular song-styling I learnt from the Whitney tape my brother smuggled into our house.  I learnt that no song is complete without a key change, and that all the painstaking preparation required for a classic Mozartian modulation could, in fact, be circumvented with just a quick hard whack on a floor tom.  I learnt that a string section adds instant class to a pop song, and that a pop singer adds some much-needed street-cred to a string section, and that the song should only end when neither of them can get any higher.  I learnt that even an oboe can sound beautiful in short bursts.  I also learnt that I wanted to dance with somebody (who loves me).  Raised, as I was, on Beethoven string quartets, Whitney's seminal eponymous album "Whitney" was an epic induction into a hitherto forbidden musical world, and I loved it.  It had to be worth at least two music degrees by itself.

So it was to Whitney that I turned some months ago when, by dint of the usual stubborn fool-hardiness, I found myself cycling home from Surbiton at half past midnight on a small pink fold-up bike.  I'd been visiting a friend for the evening, and some temporary attack of geographical agnosticism had led me to believe that a bike was the perfect mode of transport for the 40 mile round-trip.  Ten metres into the return leg it occurred to me that I may have been wrong, and that I was going to need some pretty major encouragement if I was to survive the next nineteen-and-a-bit miles.  And thus was born my Extra Special Whitney Power-Ballad Playlist.  It really works.  Every key-change is like an instant bottle of Lucozade.  The higher the strings get, the faster the pedals go.  Even the little oboe solo in "You're still my man" can charm tired muscles like a snake-charmer's honky thing charms a snake.  But the real incentive, the real beauty, the joy, the absolute peachy pleasure of cycling from Surbiton to Finsbury Park at half past twelve on a school night with Whitney beasting in your headphones is... you are alone.  It is just you and her.  You Have Total Freedom To Sing Along.


It is not often in London that you can pelt out "Eyyyyeeeeeyyyeeeeeee will always love youuuuuuuuuueueueueueueueu" at the top of your lungs in the sure and certain knowledge that no one can hear you.  Your average London house is just not that well sound-proofed.  In fact, in seven years of London living, I do not believe I have ever had such a fine opportunity for a recrimination-free airing of my prodigious Whitney karaoke chops.  Such moments are not to be squandered...  And squander this one I most certainly did not.

"You're still my maaaaaaan, nothing can change it..." I proclaimed lustily to a deaf sky as I coasted along a cheerily empty road.

"Didn't we almost have it all?" I passionately enquired of a pack of mute rabbits as they darted away from my wheels.

"Where do broken hearts goooooooo?" I demanded of the trees, as I mounted a wide, empty expanse of pavement, enjoying the double thrill of singing That Which Ought Not To Be Sung whilst cycling upon That Which Ought Not To Be Cycled Upon.

And then, onto my iPod, came it... the One Whitney Power Ballad To Rule Them All...

Have you ever seen a screaming baby change gear?  When normal screaming isn't having the desired effect, they can somehow transform their whole body into a perfect, dedicated amplification system.  Their face goes red as all their blood gets diverted to their vocal chords, and before you have time to fetch your industrial earmuffs, they begin producing a sound so focused, so piercing and so damn loud that it can drill through steel walls.  Well, I did that.  Alone in my beautiful Whitney-centred world, I channelled my whole being into becoming the perfect, dedicated cycling-and-Whitney-belting machine... and I let rip.

So the pavement slabs were streaming in a glorious blur beneath my wheels as I proudly bellowed to the void around me that I had indeed decided, long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadow, and, furthermore, that should I fail or should I succeed, I knew I'd lived as I believed, and that yes, dammit, no matter what they take from me they can not take away my dignity...

Because The Greatest Love Of All was on my iPod and nothing but nothing beats the extraordinary joy of singing about it as loudly as you possibly can, safe in the knowledge that no one can hear you.



No one, that is, except the bus-stop-full of teenage girls, unexpectedly camped by the side of the pavement.

It gives me a cold sweat to recall it, but at the precise moment when my path took me past the proscenium arch of their shelter, I believe I was adding dramatic emphasis to the words by standing on my pedals and punching the air with my fist.


I don't know whether Whitney is still considered cool among the teenage girl demographic, but even if she is, I'm pretty certain she's not cool enough to redeem the sight of an almost-middle-aged white man on a comically small pink bike fist-pumping enthusiastically to her music.  Nevertheless, my surprise audience were exceedingly generous with their applause as I sallied past them. Some of them even whooped.  I think I was still blushing when I finally arrived home, fifteen miles later.

If you are still reading, by the way, hello, and welcome to my inaugural blog post. I hope you are enjoying it. If any of my old English teachers are reading this (hello Mrs Harris) you may not be entirely surprised to learn that what was intended to be just a few amusing paragraphs with a semi-serious point at the end has somehow ballooned over the several months that I've been writing it into a (still unfinished) five thousand word essay on the human condition, of which this post is now forming but the first part. Funny how that happens.

So all that you have read thus far is, I'm sorry to say, merely the preamble to the real reason I wanted to write about this song. For you see, this song is significant for more than just its elevated position in the list of all-time-humiliating-songs-to-accidentally-sing-to-a-dozen-teenage-girls-late-at-night. No, this song also happens to be number one in my very own special Pop Song Heresy Hall Of Fame.

What's the Pop Song Heresy Hall Of Fame? And why is this song currently at number one? These are the questions I faintly optimistically hope you are asking, because these are, of course, the questions which will be answered in the next post. Or possibly in the next five posts. Depending on how out of control things get. So please come back and read more.


At the current rate of progress it will probably be at least another post, maybe two, before I get to the serious point I wanted to make, so there's no need yet to worry about being made to think, or anything tiresome like that.