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RANDY NEWMAN
Randy Newman is definitely one of my favorite guys. His song
“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” is amazing. There’s a line
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in that song that’s so simple it blows my mind: “Tin can at my
feet / Think I’ll kick it down the street / That’s the way to treat
a friend.” It just rolls out so perfectly. He’s kind of my hero
in the “story song” world. He can do more in a minute and a
half than most people can do in a novel. I feel like we share a
general aesthetic.
SEVENTH CHORDS
Randy Newman uses sevenths—it’s very natural for him to fall
back on a major seventh [chord]. That’s really natural to me,
too; I don’t know if that’s because I’ve listened to so much of
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his music or because it’s natural to me. I don’t think it’s rare to
hear [sevenths] in pop music, but maybe it is these days. The
Beatles used a lot of sevenths. It’s a solid thing to fall back on
when you’re trying to make a major chord stand out a little bit.
Sometimes I think about things I play like, “Is this too easy?” I’m
not trying to make anything difficult; I just kind of do things
until they feel right to me. I’ll change a chord. A lot of people
will just play a D but I like to give it a different voice. It kind of
changes the way the melody can sit over it, and the way that
it can lead into the next chord. It makes you think differently
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about what you’re doing.
MUSIC THEORY
I don’t know a ton of music theory. I know enough to be an
asshole. I usually have to play a song for my band to see what
I’m doing. If I’m teaching my keyboard player a part, I’ll have
to show him because I don’t know how to explain it. I think
I’ve gotten good at what I do, but I definitely still feel like
I have to work hard if I want it to be anything more than
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writing songs in my basement. Which is fine, too.
FLOOD
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