When it comes to songwriting, we're frequently told that chord progressions, rhythms, melodies or arrangements should conform to the general rules and strictures of music theory. Listeners won't like it, the experts say, if you go too far off-road, intermix keys, introduce chords from rogue scales or abruptly change pace half-way through.
But even a scant glance at some of music's most influential and beloved artists reveals that often bravery - and following where your song feels like it wants to go - can result in the most memorable songs of not just your career, but of all time.
Aside from feeling the pull of a unique idea, there’s a range of other reasons why artists might want to subvert the rules - there's those that want to deliberately shock or provoke the listener's attention. There are also those that technically conform to the boundaries of key and chord structures, but take remarkable routes to their destinations.
What we can learn from all of these tracks is that we shouldn’t be trepidatious about being more adventurous when songwriting. Yes, those standard ‘advised’ chord sequences are the canonical routes you should take, but - as our choice selection of weird and wonderfully constructed songs demonstrate - ignoring the rulebook can yield the most extraordinary results.
God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
We’ll start with the daddy of them all. God Only Knows isn't just one of the finest love songs of all time, but is also among the most theoretically elusive and bewitching.
When you lift up the rock and gaze at the chordal structure of Brian Wilson’s 1966 epic (and its arrangement as a whole) a labyrinthine maze of key-evading choices, diminished and inverted chords, and non-tonic bass parts are revealed.
Argument rages over whether the Pet Sounds' masterpiece is in the key of A or the key of E, as the song tugs away from a singular center.
Though its intro’s confluence of instruments point towards an A major key, a plaintive French horn introduces a D# - hinting towards E major. The verse begins on a D chord with a passing bass tone in B, before changing to a B minor6 chord, which erodes the impression of E being the tonic, but then further chords lead us back to E.
This rising progression (F#M/F#M7/B7/A) solidifies us on E, before the song’s (beautiful) refrain - ‘God only knows what I’d be without you’ - seems to revert back to A major, and a sense of resolution after a hue of cloudy emotions (and chords!).
Your straightforward chord sequence this is not.
While this tugging interplay between two different keys goes against the grain, for the feelings that Wilson was attempting to evoke, it works perfectly.
The uncertain 'home' matches the verse’s vulnerable and exposed lyric, before eventually settling into a more resolute tonal structure to marry with the song’s central refrain. Its chords are part and parcel of why the song communicates its wealth of emotional colour so well.
This tussle between keys is stretched to breaking point during the song’s bridge section, which goes for a psychedelic stroll using chords from both keys, and eventually modulates back to the refrain (albeit transposed up).
The track’s constantly moving bass - avoiding the root notes altogether and instead picking out 3rd and 5th notes is another aspect that makes it, well, just magic.
God Only Knows is a deeply rich work of genius. Wilson is mindful of the jarring distinction between keys, and capitalises on that conflict (and the expectation it creates in the listener’s ear) to aid in the delivery of the song.
Life on Mars? - David Bowie
Life on Mars? - David Bowie
Bowie’s 1971 songwriting feat was ahead of its time for many reasons, but the dramatic lurch into Life on Mars' cinematic chorus is something that, even the great prog overlord Rick Wakeman, was blown away by.
“He would lead you down the garden path with quite a bog standard chord structure and then suddenly go AWOL,” said Wakeman in the BBC’s Five Years documentary.
Rick was enlisted to play the piano on Bowie’s soaring, My Way-evoking epic back in 1971, and was taken aback by many of the musical choices within David’s majestic idea.
![David Bowie - Life On Mars? (Original Ending Version) [4K Upgrade] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ft3b1-Cm-0M/maxresdefault.jpg)
While the verse follows a fairly conventional F Major chord progression (deliberately aping the chord sequence of Frank Sinatra’s signature number), the swing into the pre-chorus section marks a surprising transition away, pivoting towards an entirely new key - Bb major. It becomes the dominant key of the chorus.
“The thing that makes it really clever is that he puts an Eb in the bass which gives it a bass part that you can start to move on - real clever” Wakeman said.
The chromatic bass part which moves up the scale from Eb to E to F and Gb, is a classic example of a ‘line cliche', which adds a sense of movement to a chord progression, giving the listener a feeling of travelling towards an inevitable destination - in this case that huge, monumental chorus.
Mention must also be made of Mick Ronson's stunning string arrangement which does much to lift the song even further into the stratosphere. Astoundingly, it was the first string arrangement the Hull-originating guitarist ever wrote.
It all adds up to one of Bowie’s finest ever songs, and an early example of his surprising - but never boring - musical choices. (see also: Space Oddity).
Josie - Steely Dan
Josie - Steely Dan
Despite being hailed at the time as one of Steely Dan’s most accessible singles, 1977’s Josie is nothing short of a showcase for Walter Becker, Donald Fagen and co’s immense musical dexterity, and their penchant for picking up flavours from the outer reaches of the theory ocean to add prisms of flashing colour to their songs.
The basic structure of the funktastic, vampy verse orients around a relentless E minor7 chord over several bars, before quickly transitioning to some lush bar-resetting-chords. The A/D, G/C, D/G, C/F sequence punctuates the end of the first verse, and are played as sparkling sus2 major 7ths.
The second time around, A/D is omitted, and the remaining chords are played quicker, on the beat. During the ‘When Josie comes home’ part comes in, the chords push upwards (D/G, E/A). It's the sound of a musically fluent band, clearly having a lot of fun keeping things different each time around.
Though the basic vibe of the song keeps its gravitational pull towards that Em key, the open chords and inconsistent deployment of chords pivot the feel of this song into an entirely alien domain, and many of the ornamentation borrows from the Phrygian mode.
The result is a song that sounds wholly unique and ever-shifting - yet is simultaneously a relentless earworm.
It's an example of a perfect balance between consistency (that springy Eminor7) and the unexpected, unexplored reaches of chordal colouration.
Also, that bass-line slaps. Hard. Hats off to Chuck Rainey.
The song is presaged by a peculiar guitar riff that sets the scene for some of its theoretical weirdness, leaping from an E to D note up to an F# power chord which doesn’t relate to the original key in any way. Rick Beato has described it as the weirdest intro of all time. Beato said, “It doesn’t really relate, but it sounds cool.”
Sail to the Moon - Radiohead
Sail to the Moon - Radiohead
While there’s a great number of Radiohead songs that could be on this list (the aggressive descent into fuzz-soaked riffery during Paranoid Android, the odd meter of Present Tense, or the just downright weirdness of much of King of Limbs) Sail to the Moon from 2003’s Hail to the Thief might just be the most flagrant disregard of music theory on Radiohead's rap sheet - and yet, is an absolute jewel. It's an underrated highpoint on their most politically-charged record to date.
The song is built around a relatively simple, haunting Amaj7, Cmaj7, Fmaj7 chord pattern. It's a motif that blends two different keys (A major and A minor), but the most transgressive violation of the music theory rulebook lay in how the song’s time signature re-calibrates itself near-constantly during its run-time.
The very first time we hear the chord sequence, the Amaj7 and Fmaj 7 are in 7/4, while the Cmaj7 is in 2/4. The next time we hear it, the surrounding chords are in 6/4, the next it’s in 5/4, then 4/4 for the verse part. Then the key begins to conform to Am. All is calm - but it doesn't last.
Time signature weirdness rears its head throughout the track, and chords that interplay with both A major and minor keys interweave in an uncertain dance.
This bizarre decision to write a song this way sounds complex (and by all accounts, it was a nightmare to record) yet the result it a stunning piece that beautifully evokes the tumultuous uncertainty of being adrift on an ever-changing, choppy sea.
Jonny Greenwood recalled in a Spin magazine interview in 2003, that, “[Initially] Sail to the Moon wasn't very well-written, and it had different chords and only half an idea. It only came together after the whole band worked on it and figured out how the structures should be, and Phil had some insight on how the song could be arranged. And then it became just about the best song on the record.”
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
It had to be here didn’t it - Queen's signature monolith is a glorious Frankenstein’s monster of musical and theoretical approaches, galavanting across at least four distinct keys.
The piano-oriented verse part is in the key of Bb major while Brian May’s soaring guitar solo ascends into Eb major. The unusual ‘operatic’ part of the song (signifying the protagonist's descent into hell) is rooted in A major, and the grand finale modulates between Eb major, C minor, Eb major and, finally, F major.
It's a thrill-ride ride of a piece of music, gliding from calm, piano-centered tranquility to fiery expulsions of hard rock savagery. But you don't need us to tell you that - you've likely heard it a great deal.
But can you imagine listening to it for the very first time?
While dramatic shifts and transitions are often warned against when songwriting, Bohemian Rhapsody is the grandaddy of exceptions to the rule.
Unlike a lot of then contemporary prog rock, which also played fast and loose with keys, modes and time signatures, Queen’s mock-opera did astonishingly well in the charts. Rather than trying to subtly lead the listener into new keys or forms, the deliberately baroque, 1975 epic underlines its hard shifts via dramatic, eccentric performances and very clearly distinct sections. It helps that each section is self-contained and works well (theoretically speaking) within in its own confines.
Brian May puts down Bo Rap's runaway success and enduring legacy as being based on the purity and authenticity of its origins; “I think it has a deep authenticity on so many levels. It’s not something trying to be clever; it’s not something which was assembled from non-intersecting places; it was one concept, even though it’s very complex, it was very much in Freddie’s head at the time, telling a story, and it had the benefit of us as a production or collaboration at our peak,” May told the Library of Congress.
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