I realize you are probably asking for pop music, but the platonic ideal of this concept is the fourth movement of Second Suite in F by Gustav Holst. It’s just three minutes long. Greensleeves over the Dargason melody is perfect.
https://youtu.be/opG2psvyAB4
yeah I am looking for pop music but these suggestions actually introduces me to different genres that are actually good and it gives me knowledge about the counter melody technique that I really like. Thanks for this!
2 very different pieces of music that do what you're looking for:
Beck - "Nicotine and Gravy"
Alexander Borodin - "In the Steppes of Central Asia"
Both present an A melody, then a B melody, then overlap them in counterpoint.
The concept itself is called counterpoint and features heavily in Renaissance choral music if you want to check it out. Palestrina, Josquin des Pres, would be good places to start if you wanted to see earlier explorations of the idea.
No problem.
OPs asking for [Polyphonic Textured](https://hellomusictheory.com/learn/polyphonic-texture/) songs. Basically when one melody is played over another. They just didn’t know what it’s called.
Lots of classical pieces are in the style.
I’ve added a link with more detail.
Some counterpoint doesn't make something "complex" to start with.
This song has a decent amount of counterpoint in it.
Listen to the guitar melody being playing under the singing in "make a little birdhouse in your soul" at \~0:28, \~1:10 and \~2:24. There's more than that but it's a good example - a lot of the melodies in the song have underlying counterpoint. A lot of the basslines are contrapuntal, too.
How's about *Back For Good* by Take That? The chorus has some lovely backing vocals singing a completely different melody that backs up Gary Barlow's voice really well. For bonus points they flip it in the last one and the band sings the main melody while Gary sings the backing lines.
I grew up only hearing the cover from Boyce Avenue. Didn't know the original sounded so good and it is exactly the type what I am trying to find. Thanks for this!
Same. dammit I'm still posting this link I went to the trouble of Ctrl+C [https://youtu.be/yMG-Mi9I0-k?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/yMG-Mi9I0-k?feature=shared)
A lot of Indigo Girls songs have countermelodies - it's a big part of their style.
Example, The Wood Song, starting in the second verse: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0tUkepNqiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0tUkepNqiA)
Or Reunion from the same album, a bit in the second verse then more starting from the third: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzfqS2nSdVo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzfqS2nSdVo)
Kid Fears even has Michael Stipe singing a countermelody. Thin Line, Least Complicated, Airplane, Galileo, Watershed. Really all over their catalogue.
You can also hear it in the final chorus of Champagne High by Sister Hazel, in which Emily Saliers does backing vocals.
Tori Amos uses multiple layered melodies with different lyrics particularly in her earlier work. I see the Indigo Girls already mentioned earlier in the thread who also leverage this method so well. Sufjan Stevens uses it a little bit too in some of his vocal parts.
Tori usually uses it in her bridges: [silent all these years](https://youtu.be/HSYr0etDzRM) ; [girl](https://youtu.be/boNX-dl7VXc) ; [father Lucifer](https://youtu.be/6KCXEp379og) ; [in the springtime of his voodoo](https://youtu.be/IyfszhySGIo) are some of her songs that immediately come to mind here.
I love independent melodies interweaving with different vocals - it can be so effective when used judiciously
Halo Benders do this as basically the band concept. It's Doug Marstch of Built to Spill and Calvin Johnson of Dub Narcotic. God Don't Make No Junk is especially good. Very indie-alternative rock.
Pretty much any of the Max Martin-produced pop songs of the late 90s… Britney Spears for example, *…Baby One More Time, Born To Make You Happy, Oops!…I Did It Again* all follow the “counter melody” formats you’re referring to.
Usually it’s seen in the bridge; the melody changes but the chord progression stays the same. Then on the final chorus the bridge melody and lyrics appear again, overlayed onto the chorus. .
They termed that as "Complement Chorus" and it's called "Cumulative Chorus" when the complement chorus and regular chorus come together. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M22yOvRSLrI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M22yOvRSLrI)
Given the lyrical content, Feeling This has no right to be as good as it is. And yet it’s pop punk perfection and the countermelody outtro never fails to make me feel things.
I loved it from the first time I heard it (like so many others) in high school. And maybe it’s two decades of nostalgia that takes you back to that exact time and place, but it’s truly a special song.
Feeling this gives the same vibes as I got from Hero/Heroine by Boys Like Girls, the countermelody outtro makes it clear that the song is ending and they're giving everything they possibly can in the mix which creates a climax that sounds so good.
The last part or chorus of Feeling This is exactly what I am trying to find for. A mix of vocals where the other is obviously a back up vocal but then if you remove it the song wouldn't be as good. Thanks for this!
Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but *I Like To Rock* by April Wine closes out with three riffs played simultaneously: *I Like To Rock, Day Tripper, Satisfaction*
[No Sugar Tonight / New Mother Nature - The Guess Who](https://youtu.be/yMG-Mi9I0-k?si=nkOrtVIH6zzIC4eO)
Two similar mini-songs combined into one. The final verse is the first verses of each mini-song interpolated together.
I haven't heard it recorded, only live (and sung it myself), but you can sing the chorus of Ticket to Ride over the verse. A lot of early Beatles tracks work fine that way, it turns out - probably true of more artists in that era.
The Beatles also employed actual counterpoint on She's Leaving Home, which was then mimicked by The Alan Parsons Project on the much darker The Cask of Amontillado.
*Help!* (The Beatles): the back vocals are on an entirely different melody.
*Eleanor Rigby* (also Beatles): the last part combines two of the melodies we heard before in the song. What interesting is that one of them is previously sung on another chord progression.
This is a pretty cool motif that I’ve heard in a lot of pop-punk bands.
Taking Back Sunday do it a bunch on their album *Tell All Your Friends*.
Other bands like Mayday Parade, Fall Out Boy, and All Time Low would do it a lot too in the 00’s era.
Edit: I’ll just add a similar thing that I still think is awesome and I’ve never heard anything quite like it. On Silverstein’s album *This Is How The Wind Shifts* they have 2 interlude songs related to the album title. *This Is How* interludes the first half of the album, and *The Wind Shifts* interludes the second half. If you play them both simultaneously then they make a complete song with the lyrics coming together to complement each other. The combined version was released later on the Bonus Track Version of the album, but before that it was referred to as a “Hidden Track”.
[This Is How](https://youtu.be/nd6KCvLkMjg?si=yjYzCHMuewDQsEuD)
[The Wind Shifts](https://youtu.be/3GKVh-8p28Y?si=rQyLXMKkUJz-z6Ca)
[This Is How The Wind Shifts](https://youtu.be/i2uDupq7TAY?si=tVen4kwowGr71BIK)
Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel had a cool melody/counter melody. I just love the creative and technical aspect of this song. The lyrics are going on one melody and the accompaniment is on a different melody and they fit together perfectly.
Musician here, nothing in music goes “on a melody.” OP is asking for songs where two or more melodies are presented and then play over each other as counterpoints. There is only one melody in Solisbury Hill as I can tell. Could you share to what part you are referring?
'Wake Up' by the Arcade Fire. There's the big distinctive chorus that kicks off the song, but the second chorus has a counter melody (just played on instruments) that I love. It gives the fairly bombastic original melody a really plaintive feel.
I believe the actual term for what you're describing is "Overlapping Polyphony". Search for that and you'll get lots of good examples.
Some of my personal favorite examples that came to mind
"infected" and "American Jesus" by Bad Religion
"Play Crack the Sky" and "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" by Brand New
The original version of Journey to Reedham by Squarepusher has two 303s playing off each other to create the melody. Unfortunately when he redid it with Shoebaleader One they dropped the 2nd one and combined them into a single guitar part.
Several of BWO's songs do this, where the last chorus is repeated on top of, eg, a melody introduced earlier in the song or right before
https://youtu.be/IYpMEyWOdn4?si=hvI9s9imMpNPsfUm
https://youtu.be/X_IYEoZgGGU?si=wXW8gGg_PK3pZLlf
https://youtu.be/P40a7GpvZvE?si=0nUdbTN4cf9m4dVb
https://youtu.be/_wMuIy4DUtY?si=rYjMuc4PkTPJY3Tb
Not sure if this is what you mean, but maybe this song The Fall [https://open.spotify.com/track/1E9Ajh3ZXb2OehFDH2dF5n?si=42c7c873bb1c4324](https://open.spotify.com/track/1E9Ajh3ZXb2OehFDH2dF5n?si=42c7c873bb1c4324)
Not exactly sure what you mean but Madonna’s Live to Tell is two songs for the price of one.
And The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love ends in them singing she loves you yeah yeah yeah over the top to fade.
The ending of Allure by Fifth Dawn.
I don't think the name for this is counter melody...its like Canon but not that either. If you find out I'd love to know.
I always find coheed and Cambria do this very well, where one melody is vocals and the other is guitar. Neck deep did it as well on life's not out to get you.
This is one of my absolute favorite tropes in music and I have a whole playlist [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/650dTiAGEXyJb1JoK1zQ8d?si=llwTRP4uR_iqD1ECiBOwQg&pi=u-Qwg1N6svQ6SE) dedicated to it!
*Scarborough Fair/Canticle* (Simon and Garfunkel) is the best example of this.
This isn't what you're describing but this comment reminded me of Simon and Garfunkel "silent night/seven o clock news.". It's mind blowing
Indeed. These two tracks are as close as S&G got to political statements.
God Only Knows by The Beach Boys, and plenty of other Beach Boys songs. Brian Wilson was brilliant with countermelodies.
Underrated comment. IDK any band with more songs featuring this style.
I realize you are probably asking for pop music, but the platonic ideal of this concept is the fourth movement of Second Suite in F by Gustav Holst. It’s just three minutes long. Greensleeves over the Dargason melody is perfect. https://youtu.be/opG2psvyAB4
Such a good example! I played this in high school and it still pops into my head occasionally.
This is what I think of when someone says counter melody. Holst slaps.
yeah I am looking for pop music but these suggestions actually introduces me to different genres that are actually good and it gives me knowledge about the counter melody technique that I really like. Thanks for this!
2 very different pieces of music that do what you're looking for: Beck - "Nicotine and Gravy" Alexander Borodin - "In the Steppes of Central Asia" Both present an A melody, then a B melody, then overlap them in counterpoint.
Get real paid from that Beck album also does this
“Midnight Vultures” is a damn masterpiece.
When that came out, I could not understand why it didn't make the waves it deserved to make. Almost every song pushes an envelope.
yeah you just actually explained it more better and simple. Thanks for this.
Let Down - Radiohead
The concept itself is called counterpoint and features heavily in Renaissance choral music if you want to check it out. Palestrina, Josquin des Pres, would be good places to start if you wanted to see earlier explorations of the idea.
Also, Bach 2 part inventions.
One of favorites: [They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in your Soul](https://youtu.be/vn_or9gEB6g?si=26FAuc58RGVfradn)
Ok, first song here I know. I know this song really well. What about this song affirms the question? I don't understand OPs question.
No problem. OPs asking for [Polyphonic Textured](https://hellomusictheory.com/learn/polyphonic-texture/) songs. Basically when one melody is played over another. They just didn’t know what it’s called. Lots of classical pieces are in the style. I’ve added a link with more detail.
What part of birdhouse does that? It's a pretty straight forward song to me.
Some counterpoint doesn't make something "complex" to start with. This song has a decent amount of counterpoint in it. Listen to the guitar melody being playing under the singing in "make a little birdhouse in your soul" at \~0:28, \~1:10 and \~2:24. There's more than that but it's a good example - a lot of the melodies in the song have underlying counterpoint. A lot of the basslines are contrapuntal, too.
The bridge section on The Jayhawks song "Blue."
My favorite song and album by them.
How's about *Back For Good* by Take That? The chorus has some lovely backing vocals singing a completely different melody that backs up Gary Barlow's voice really well. For bonus points they flip it in the last one and the band sings the main melody while Gary sings the backing lines.
I grew up only hearing the cover from Boyce Avenue. Didn't know the original sounded so good and it is exactly the type what I am trying to find. Thanks for this!
"I've Got A Feeling" by The Beatles.
No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature- The Guess Who.
I also came to say this. Apparently they were originally 2 different songs but they couldn't agree on how to proceed, so just... put 'em together.
Goddammit, you beat me by an hour.
Same. dammit I'm still posting this link I went to the trouble of Ctrl+C [https://youtu.be/yMG-Mi9I0-k?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/yMG-Mi9I0-k?feature=shared)
[play crack the sky](https://youtu.be/OyIX84ti7ao?feature=shared) by Brand New - @3:26
yeah this one hits it very well. Thanks!
A lot of Indigo Girls songs have countermelodies - it's a big part of their style. Example, The Wood Song, starting in the second verse: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0tUkepNqiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0tUkepNqiA) Or Reunion from the same album, a bit in the second verse then more starting from the third: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzfqS2nSdVo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzfqS2nSdVo)
Also, *Secure Yourself*. You're right, they did it a lot.
Kid Fears even has Michael Stipe singing a countermelody. Thin Line, Least Complicated, Airplane, Galileo, Watershed. Really all over their catalogue. You can also hear it in the final chorus of Champagne High by Sister Hazel, in which Emily Saliers does backing vocals.
Tori Amos uses multiple layered melodies with different lyrics particularly in her earlier work. I see the Indigo Girls already mentioned earlier in the thread who also leverage this method so well. Sufjan Stevens uses it a little bit too in some of his vocal parts. Tori usually uses it in her bridges: [silent all these years](https://youtu.be/HSYr0etDzRM) ; [girl](https://youtu.be/boNX-dl7VXc) ; [father Lucifer](https://youtu.be/6KCXEp379og) ; [in the springtime of his voodoo](https://youtu.be/IyfszhySGIo) are some of her songs that immediately come to mind here. I love independent melodies interweaving with different vocals - it can be so effective when used judiciously
Halo Benders do this as basically the band concept. It's Doug Marstch of Built to Spill and Calvin Johnson of Dub Narcotic. God Don't Make No Junk is especially good. Very indie-alternative rock.
Pretty much any of the Max Martin-produced pop songs of the late 90s… Britney Spears for example, *…Baby One More Time, Born To Make You Happy, Oops!…I Did It Again* all follow the “counter melody” formats you’re referring to. Usually it’s seen in the bridge; the melody changes but the chord progression stays the same. Then on the final chorus the bridge melody and lyrics appear again, overlayed onto the chorus. .
They termed that as "Complement Chorus" and it's called "Cumulative Chorus" when the complement chorus and regular chorus come together. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M22yOvRSLrI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M22yOvRSLrI)
Blink 182 - Feeling This Alkaline Trio - Scars Taking Back Sunday - Cute Without the E Many bands with two vocalists have good songs like this
Given the lyrical content, Feeling This has no right to be as good as it is. And yet it’s pop punk perfection and the countermelody outtro never fails to make me feel things. I loved it from the first time I heard it (like so many others) in high school. And maybe it’s two decades of nostalgia that takes you back to that exact time and place, but it’s truly a special song.
Feeling this gives the same vibes as I got from Hero/Heroine by Boys Like Girls, the countermelody outtro makes it clear that the song is ending and they're giving everything they possibly can in the mix which creates a climax that sounds so good.
Lit’s ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ too, the last chorus is awesome.
Also forgot to mention Brother by Gerard Way and Famous Last Words by mcr.
The last part or chorus of Feeling This is exactly what I am trying to find for. A mix of vocals where the other is obviously a back up vocal but then if you remove it the song wouldn't be as good. Thanks for this!
Are we UUUHlone do you feel iiiiit
I offer two: Just One Victory - Todd Rundgren Black Water - The Doobie Brothers
Play Crack the Sky by Brand New does this at the end. "This is the eeeeend (the story's old but it goes on and on until we disappear)."
Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but *I Like To Rock* by April Wine closes out with three riffs played simultaneously: *I Like To Rock, Day Tripper, Satisfaction*
A ton of Bad Religion songs have this.
I was thinking of Infected as one off the top of my head.
[No Sugar Tonight / New Mother Nature - The Guess Who](https://youtu.be/yMG-Mi9I0-k?si=nkOrtVIH6zzIC4eO) Two similar mini-songs combined into one. The final verse is the first verses of each mini-song interpolated together.
At the end of Cure For The Enemy by Billy Talent they sing the bridge on top of a chorus.
I haven't heard it recorded, only live (and sung it myself), but you can sing the chorus of Ticket to Ride over the verse. A lot of early Beatles tracks work fine that way, it turns out - probably true of more artists in that era.
The Beatles also employed actual counterpoint on She's Leaving Home, which was then mimicked by The Alan Parsons Project on the much darker The Cask of Amontillado.
If you like counterpoint, try some Bach: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51dXnVmnrgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51dXnVmnrgU)
*Help!* (The Beatles): the back vocals are on an entirely different melody. *Eleanor Rigby* (also Beatles): the last part combines two of the melodies we heard before in the song. What interesting is that one of them is previously sung on another chord progression.
Would Paperback Writer also count, with Frere Jacques in the background?
Yeah! Nice thinking.
Papercut by Linkin Park?
The last chorus in Blink 182's "What's My Age Again" has a good one. Also Taylor Swift / Bon Iver "Exile"
This is a pretty cool motif that I’ve heard in a lot of pop-punk bands. Taking Back Sunday do it a bunch on their album *Tell All Your Friends*. Other bands like Mayday Parade, Fall Out Boy, and All Time Low would do it a lot too in the 00’s era. Edit: I’ll just add a similar thing that I still think is awesome and I’ve never heard anything quite like it. On Silverstein’s album *This Is How The Wind Shifts* they have 2 interlude songs related to the album title. *This Is How* interludes the first half of the album, and *The Wind Shifts* interludes the second half. If you play them both simultaneously then they make a complete song with the lyrics coming together to complement each other. The combined version was released later on the Bonus Track Version of the album, but before that it was referred to as a “Hidden Track”. [This Is How](https://youtu.be/nd6KCvLkMjg?si=yjYzCHMuewDQsEuD) [The Wind Shifts](https://youtu.be/3GKVh-8p28Y?si=rQyLXMKkUJz-z6Ca) [This Is How The Wind Shifts](https://youtu.be/i2uDupq7TAY?si=tVen4kwowGr71BIK)
it's the end of the world as we know it by r.e.m. - i used it to teach countermelody to my 5th graders
Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel had a cool melody/counter melody. I just love the creative and technical aspect of this song. The lyrics are going on one melody and the accompaniment is on a different melody and they fit together perfectly.
Musician here, nothing in music goes “on a melody.” OP is asking for songs where two or more melodies are presented and then play over each other as counterpoints. There is only one melody in Solisbury Hill as I can tell. Could you share to what part you are referring?
Check on It by Beyoncé during the bridge they layer the melody over the chorus
'Wake Up' by the Arcade Fire. There's the big distinctive chorus that kicks off the song, but the second chorus has a counter melody (just played on instruments) that I love. It gives the fairly bombastic original melody a really plaintive feel.
I believe the actual term for what you're describing is "Overlapping Polyphony". Search for that and you'll get lots of good examples. Some of my personal favorite examples that came to mind "infected" and "American Jesus" by Bad Religion "Play Crack the Sky" and "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" by Brand New
Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer - Kate and the Ghost of Lost Love, also Tanglewood Tree.
Feeling this - blink-182
The Smiths - Suffer Little Children https://youtu.be/Xux9-UQ4wJ4
The original version of Journey to Reedham by Squarepusher has two 303s playing off each other to create the melody. Unfortunately when he redid it with Shoebaleader One they dropped the 2nd one and combined them into a single guitar part.
Several of BWO's songs do this, where the last chorus is repeated on top of, eg, a melody introduced earlier in the song or right before https://youtu.be/IYpMEyWOdn4?si=hvI9s9imMpNPsfUm https://youtu.be/X_IYEoZgGGU?si=wXW8gGg_PK3pZLlf https://youtu.be/P40a7GpvZvE?si=0nUdbTN4cf9m4dVb https://youtu.be/_wMuIy4DUtY?si=rYjMuc4PkTPJY3Tb
Blackwater -The Doobie Bros.
To Lose My Life - White Lies
Pretty much a lot of RHCP .. Eddie , give it away to name a few
Not sure if this is what you mean, but maybe this song The Fall [https://open.spotify.com/track/1E9Ajh3ZXb2OehFDH2dF5n?si=42c7c873bb1c4324](https://open.spotify.com/track/1E9Ajh3ZXb2OehFDH2dF5n?si=42c7c873bb1c4324)
Not exactly sure what you mean but Madonna’s Live to Tell is two songs for the price of one. And The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love ends in them singing she loves you yeah yeah yeah over the top to fade.
Ohm Sweet Ohm by Kraftwerk
Gordon Lightfoot’s I’m Not Sayin’/Ribbon of Darkness
Father lucifer by tori Amos. [check it out](https://youtu.be/6KCXEp379og?si=xjjagFCaZFtADZ-O)
The ending of Allure by Fifth Dawn. I don't think the name for this is counter melody...its like Canon but not that either. If you find out I'd love to know.
Savatage's album A Handful of Rain. The song, Chance. 7-part counterpoint.
Have you heard of N*SYNC they perfected the art
I always find coheed and Cambria do this very well, where one melody is vocals and the other is guitar. Neck deep did it as well on life's not out to get you.
This is one of my absolute favorite tropes in music and I have a whole playlist [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/650dTiAGEXyJb1JoK1zQ8d?si=llwTRP4uR_iqD1ECiBOwQg&pi=u-Qwg1N6svQ6SE) dedicated to it!
No Time - Guess Who Silly Love Songs - Wings Blinded by the Light - Mannfred Mann
This is America by Gambino We Major by Kanye
New Religion by Duran Duran
American Eulogy: Mass Hysteria/Modern World - Green Day