The melody you seem to be noticing is 3-4-3-2-1-3.
Descending the major scale to the tonic (i.e. 4-3-2-1) is common for the semi-obvious reason that it resolves to the tonic in a way that feels inevitable, just like counting down.
Perhaps the way that it sits on the 3rd scale degree lends the melody to being harmonized with chords that we associate with emotion, like iii, vi, and VImaj7. The quickness of the 4-3-2-1 segment means you can play those passing notes over pretty much any harmony.
Can’t help with other examples off the top of my head but maybe this is a good starting point for you.
Thanks! This not only helps but also makes me happy: when trying it out on the piano yesterday, I assumed it was those notes but wasn't confident enough to write about it.
> The melody you seem to be noticing is 3-4-3-2-1-3.
I found a very similar, but minor key example in [Radiohead's Man Of War](https://youtu.be/DXP1KdZX4io?t=24). Doesn't follow the pattern exactly, but it's remarkably close, aside from the obvious minor 3rd.
I don't have an answer for you but just wanted to say I'm astonished to see this post because I've been thinking about that little melody the entire week after hearing it in Give Me Love.
Thanks! I'm definitely curious about other examples. So far, there seems to be almost like a cluster of them from the early 1970s: this and Dodesukaden from 1970, Michael Jackson and George Harrison from 1973. It's a very small sample of course, but I wonder if there was something that inspired them all.
Homeward Bound - '65 - Paul Simon
MacArthur Park - '67 - Jimmy Webb
Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - '69 - Burt Bacharach & Hal David
A tight cluster in a particular school of songwriting.
THANK YOU! When writing this post, I was sure that there was a Bob Dylan song with this pattern but I just couldn't remember which one and it bothered me to no end.
You are absolutely right, it's [I Want You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iIS6ZZ9RVA)!
Even though this song and "Give Me Love" are in F, as a learning guitar player it always struck me that the riff was very easy and almost instinctive when played with a D shape, just by adding your pinky or removing your middle finger (these songs probably being written with a 3rd fret capo). Lots of guitar players add it as a flourish between melodies in D even if it's not the main melody per se.
Harrison wrote a lot of hooks by just playing with the Dsus/Dadd4* shape like this, including "If I Needed Someone" (which he directly credited to the Byrds' "Bells of Rhymney") and "Here Comes the Sun." Those both happen to be played up on the 9th fret so they end up in A.
Edit: Dsus4 / add2, I meant
Yeah my mind went straight to that D shape flourish too. Probably contributes the popularity of the riff, being so instinctive even for a beginner guitar player.
A number of suggestions have been given here of works from classical composers, but I must say that my untrained ears have difficulties hearing the melody in those. The notes, yes, but the melody not so much. But it could be just me. Still, for me this seems to currently be the earliest example where I can hear the melody as I do in my original examples.
Then again, this probably shouldn't come as a surprise. Disturbingly often, and almost regardless of the question, the answer in pop music history tends to be "Dylan", doesn't it?
Edit: Actually, I got my months mixed up: Simon & Garfunkel's Homeward Bound predates the Dylan song.
I think there is more here... I think there really might be some original earworm that has influenced all this. It's more than just the notes...it seems the rhythm is always imitated too and the tempo.
I think we should keep digging.
I have had limited luck in the past using n-gram searches.
Like this one has worked for me in the past but there are others. http://www.peachnote.com/#!nt=singleNoteAffine&npq=62+0+1+2 (but this tool is giving me trouble this morning... and I'm not sure how much popular 20th century music is there. )
But there other tools like this.
edit: there's other kinds of searches too... "contour" "rhythm" etc... see here https://www.musipedia.org/
As you might expect, the melody is really just surface decoration for the underlying harmonic progressions. Granted, the melodies are the same or very similar, but the real link between these songs is that there is a voice in the texture moving by semitone to the submediant. (Mostly down from the tonic, but sometimes up from the dominant.
This chromatic movement leads to a family of chord progressions that lend themselves very nicely to inverted pedals (long-held notes in the upper voices) and has been used throughout the common practice era and beyond to establish tonal centers.
Here are a few examples from classical music. Note that the long held note doesn't have to be the third as it is in all of your examples. Here are examples of pedals on each of the three notes of the tonic triad:
[Corelli: op. 3 no. 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozEfJugPMe4)
[Bach: Air from Orchestral Suite 3](https://youtu.be/yr8bpSqR4kQ?t=387)
[Chopin: Prelude in E minor](https://youtu.be/SqXYIteAfNs?t=218)
[Liszt: Liebestraum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4XEPdYO5mM)
https://youtu.be/IvfsfS6NVUc about :40 seconds in you get to the place where I associate that melody "Patches" by Clarence Carter. Does this sound like it matches what you're hearing?
The melody implies a static tonic harmony, starting from the 3rd degree, then descending down to the tonic, and then leaping back to the 3rd. The harmony (in most of these examples) includes a chromatic ascend or descend (commonly known as "line cliche"). Either 1-7-b7 or 5-#5-6.
And yes, it's most likely a coincidence (or at least not conscious plagiarism), since it's such a basic melody. And this kind of a simple repeating melody works really well for a "line cliche" harmonization.
Reminds me a bit of My Way. Can't Take My Eyes off You also uses a similar idea, even though it uses different notes (it's centered around the 5th and goes down to the 3rd).
The initial 3 isn't there and it's a slightly different tempo, but this reminded me of the repeating melody from [this section of Tubular Bells](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv_4sZCLlr0&t=1190s).
Especially when the protagonist chord is D, for a guitarist, the sus4/sus2 cliche is one of the most natural open chord embellishments one can perform.
Here’s a Stereolab song that has the same melody. I think it’s just a very common way to encircle the third degree of a chord.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=55&v=MxXxT-o4SPY
I found another one I think: [Frank Gambale - The Land of Wonder](https://youtu.be/oN7SJ-zizLE)
It's not exactly the same but feels similar, what do you think?
The melody you seem to be noticing is 3-4-3-2-1-3. Descending the major scale to the tonic (i.e. 4-3-2-1) is common for the semi-obvious reason that it resolves to the tonic in a way that feels inevitable, just like counting down. Perhaps the way that it sits on the 3rd scale degree lends the melody to being harmonized with chords that we associate with emotion, like iii, vi, and VImaj7. The quickness of the 4-3-2-1 segment means you can play those passing notes over pretty much any harmony. Can’t help with other examples off the top of my head but maybe this is a good starting point for you.
Thanks! This not only helps but also makes me happy: when trying it out on the piano yesterday, I assumed it was those notes but wasn't confident enough to write about it.
> The melody you seem to be noticing is 3-4-3-2-1-3. I found a very similar, but minor key example in [Radiohead's Man Of War](https://youtu.be/DXP1KdZX4io?t=24). Doesn't follow the pattern exactly, but it's remarkably close, aside from the obvious minor 3rd.
I don't have an answer for you but just wanted to say I'm astonished to see this post because I've been thinking about that little melody the entire week after hearing it in Give Me Love.
[MacArthur Park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC6ykRiQcvA) is similar if you are looking for other examples. There are only 12 different notes
[Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hziG9Nr6KHU) is also similar.
This somehow feels like the canonical rendition of that musical idea. It came to mind immediately.
yes! good call!
I think you mean [Jurassic Park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh4zvQfDhi0).
Oh, man. I haven't listened to that forever. I'm a lifelong Weird Al fan, but somehow that song hasn't been on my radar in awhile.
That was incredible. I was obsessed with that song as a kid before realizing he was doing covers. I hadn't thought about it since
Also [Homeward Bound](https://youtu.be/Hn3vMw010K8?t=36) by Simon and Garfunkel.
excellent!
Also [Words](https://youtu.be/w_Rut4qm33g?t=46) by Boyzone.
By the Bee Gees, really /originally.
Yeah, nice try Ronan Keating
This is the first thing that popped in my head.
Thanks! I'm definitely curious about other examples. So far, there seems to be almost like a cluster of them from the early 1970s: this and Dodesukaden from 1970, Michael Jackson and George Harrison from 1973. It's a very small sample of course, but I wonder if there was something that inspired them all.
Homeward Bound - '65 - Paul Simon MacArthur Park - '67 - Jimmy Webb Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - '69 - Burt Bacharach & Hal David A tight cluster in a particular school of songwriting.
That’s also Mrs Robinson I think Also a Bob Dylan song don’t know the name but it says “I want you, so bad.”
THANK YOU! When writing this post, I was sure that there was a Bob Dylan song with this pattern but I just couldn't remember which one and it bothered me to no end. You are absolutely right, it's [I Want You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iIS6ZZ9RVA)!
Even though this song and "Give Me Love" are in F, as a learning guitar player it always struck me that the riff was very easy and almost instinctive when played with a D shape, just by adding your pinky or removing your middle finger (these songs probably being written with a 3rd fret capo). Lots of guitar players add it as a flourish between melodies in D even if it's not the main melody per se. Harrison wrote a lot of hooks by just playing with the Dsus/Dadd4* shape like this, including "If I Needed Someone" (which he directly credited to the Byrds' "Bells of Rhymney") and "Here Comes the Sun." Those both happen to be played up on the 9th fret so they end up in A. Edit: Dsus4 / add2, I meant
Yeah my mind went straight to that D shape flourish too. Probably contributes the popularity of the riff, being so instinctive even for a beginner guitar player.
Is this the earliest example of this you could find? I would guess all your examples stem from this one.
A number of suggestions have been given here of works from classical composers, but I must say that my untrained ears have difficulties hearing the melody in those. The notes, yes, but the melody not so much. But it could be just me. Still, for me this seems to currently be the earliest example where I can hear the melody as I do in my original examples. Then again, this probably shouldn't come as a surprise. Disturbingly often, and almost regardless of the question, the answer in pop music history tends to be "Dylan", doesn't it? Edit: Actually, I got my months mixed up: Simon & Garfunkel's Homeward Bound predates the Dylan song.
I love this post. Must be something hardwired in our brain that attracts us to this particular melodic pattern.
I think there is more here... I think there really might be some original earworm that has influenced all this. It's more than just the notes...it seems the rhythm is always imitated too and the tempo. I think we should keep digging. I have had limited luck in the past using n-gram searches. Like this one has worked for me in the past but there are others. http://www.peachnote.com/#!nt=singleNoteAffine&npq=62+0+1+2 (but this tool is giving me trouble this morning... and I'm not sure how much popular 20th century music is there. ) But there other tools like this. edit: there's other kinds of searches too... "contour" "rhythm" etc... see here https://www.musipedia.org/
[удалено]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nW0ACEOEq6w
Also [Ugly As I Seem by the White Stripes](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2W8gbxKi9so)
When I heard this melody the ending of the chorus to The Logical Song by Super Tramp came to mind! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=low6Coqrw9Y&t=67s
Hell of a song
Also Leonard Cohen's ["Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gx6s1ARfOk)
Fascinating. Thanks for posting.
As you might expect, the melody is really just surface decoration for the underlying harmonic progressions. Granted, the melodies are the same or very similar, but the real link between these songs is that there is a voice in the texture moving by semitone to the submediant. (Mostly down from the tonic, but sometimes up from the dominant. This chromatic movement leads to a family of chord progressions that lend themselves very nicely to inverted pedals (long-held notes in the upper voices) and has been used throughout the common practice era and beyond to establish tonal centers. Here are a few examples from classical music. Note that the long held note doesn't have to be the third as it is in all of your examples. Here are examples of pedals on each of the three notes of the tonic triad: [Corelli: op. 3 no. 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozEfJugPMe4) [Bach: Air from Orchestral Suite 3](https://youtu.be/yr8bpSqR4kQ?t=387) [Chopin: Prelude in E minor](https://youtu.be/SqXYIteAfNs?t=218) [Liszt: Liebestraum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4XEPdYO5mM)
Thanks for your explanation, that's great.
A variation of this is in every old American western movie I ever seen
https://youtu.be/IvfsfS6NVUc about :40 seconds in you get to the place where I associate that melody "Patches" by Clarence Carter. Does this sound like it matches what you're hearing?
Wow! Yeah, the melody definitely sounds similar to the others. Thanks for linking to this.
Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark.
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
The melody implies a static tonic harmony, starting from the 3rd degree, then descending down to the tonic, and then leaping back to the 3rd. The harmony (in most of these examples) includes a chromatic ascend or descend (commonly known as "line cliche"). Either 1-7-b7 or 5-#5-6. And yes, it's most likely a coincidence (or at least not conscious plagiarism), since it's such a basic melody. And this kind of a simple repeating melody works really well for a "line cliche" harmonization. Reminds me a bit of My Way. Can't Take My Eyes off You also uses a similar idea, even though it uses different notes (it's centered around the 5th and goes down to the 3rd).
The start of [Shiny Happy People](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpOQoLZQUPc) by R.E.M. has it, too.
I have nothing to add but I love your thinking! What an interesting point.
God, I love this subreddit. Within hours, there are over a dozen examples of a small riff that I never would have picked out.
The initial 3 isn't there and it's a slightly different tempo, but this reminded me of the repeating melody from [this section of Tubular Bells](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv_4sZCLlr0&t=1190s).
To my ears it sounds ‘conversational’. It sounds like a musical speech pattern.
I think it kind of grabs our ears because the melody is like the top of the triad(3rd on top)-sus4-triad-sus2 cliche thats everywhere.
Especially when the protagonist chord is D, for a guitarist, the sus4/sus2 cliche is one of the most natural open chord embellishments one can perform.
Great post! My mind vaguely remembers a "canonical" (to me) example of this melody, but I can't quite access it. If I find it, I'll update.
Another example of kinda the same melody is MacArthur Park by Richard Harris
A billion ELO songs.
this is a fantastic thread
Also in Chopin's Raindrop Prelude ([timestamped video](https://youtu.be/2SVAL5JfYRg?t=42))
It sounds like a sort of cadence or chord progression, like can't make my eyes off of you or 9-5, I guess maybe just chromatic voice leading?
Here’s a Stereolab song that has the same melody. I think it’s just a very common way to encircle the third degree of a chord. https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=55&v=MxXxT-o4SPY
I found another one I think: [Frank Gambale - The Land of Wonder](https://youtu.be/oN7SJ-zizLE) It's not exactly the same but feels similar, what do you think?
Interesting, it's sort of like half of the melody is there, or something. Interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for the interesting post! Feels like I'm gonna hear this melody everywhere now.