best one chord song?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (251 of them)

Actually I think the proposition "a song can be numbingly simple, in terms of musicianship, and still be good" is a fairly anti-rockist position.

Doesn't rockism generally hail chops, up to a certain point?

― The Mad Puffin, Wednesday, 22 June 2005 13:07 (twenty years ago)

I would hope that the comment "idiotic post" isn't directed at mine, above. If it isn't, fine; if it is, I might ask why my perfectly reasonable words about the difference between re-harmonizing a tune, where you do indeed change chords, and just playing a note that is "outside the chords" (which is in itself hardly straightforward, as I tried to express by using examples from jazz) evokes such a response, since I'm, I believe, being perfectly polite. And again, "if a singer hits a note that's not a part of the chord"--this does not mean the chord itself is changed, since *melodies* use passing tones and other notes that aren't necessarily within the chord itself. If I play a G minor 7 and I sing an F-sharp as part of the melody and the next chord is D natural, that doesn't make the G minor 7 something else, it just means that the melody is working off the ambiguity implied by the chord progression. These kind of things are built into songs that someone has sat down and through through, a good example is a tune I've been playing around with lately, Big Star's "Back of a Car," where you have a D major chord with a G-sharp melody line--it's expressed as an E over a D, and plus you're getting into a whole-tone scale there too, and it doesn't mean you've somehow changed the D chord to something else; they are two things working together to create an effect, which is very different from "changing the chord." And again, if the comment wasn't directed toward me, my apologies.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

Exactly. If, for instance, I sing a C over an A5, it wouldn't make the chord an A minor; I can bend that note up to C# and the chord won't automatically become A major; etc (in this case, it will just give the tune a vaguely Eastern feel but you'll hear the same A5 chugging under it)

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

janet jackson - alright.

― g e o f f (gcannon), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

I think the "idiotic post idiotic post" was directed at the "rockist thread rockist thread" preceeding it.

Just trying to maintain ILM's much-vaunted civility.

― John Justen (johnjusten), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 17:29 (twenty years ago)

I always think a cool example of this is Howlin' Wolf's "No Place To Go," where the vocal line goes through blues changes but the accompaniment just vamps on one (the I) chord.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 June 2005 17:51 (twenty years ago)

and both "Yeah" and "Losing My Edge" by LCD Soundsystem (Yeah has 3 chords during a single repetition of the bassline).

Uh, wrong.

― Keith C (kcraw916), Thursday, 23 June 2005 02:58 (twenty years ago)

If you're talking about a song, not just one instrument, chords are formed by all the notes you hear. If the singer hits a note that's NOT part of that chord, it changes the chord of the song to something else.

None of George Harrison's Beatles songs are one-chord.

http://www.simpsonspark.com/images/whitepages/hutz_lionel.jpg
That was a right-pretty speech, sir.

Although the Harrison songs don't match the proper definition of a true one-chord song, they do all contain instruments which plays 5 chords throughout the songs' entireties. So there is at least one instrument which plays only one chord for the whole song, and the bass notes remain stagnant as well. It may not fit the definition you're anticipating, but it does answer what the question was asking.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Thursday, 23 June 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

"karen" the b-side to the first Go-Betweens single

― OCP (OCP), Thursday, 23 June 2005 04:58 (twenty years ago)

galaxie 500 do not have any one chord songs

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Thursday, 23 June 2005 05:57 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, Edd, I was responding to "rockist thread rockist thread."

I don't have perfect pitch, so I can't really know what you're talking about without taking it to a piano, and I don't remember the Big Star song. But to me, even admitting the vast gray area, the point stands: The test isn't in how you'd write out the chords or explain them to other musicians, but in how you'd hear them. To my ears, when you play a C major chord, and then play the same chord while at the same time adding a C sharp, you just changed the chord. Maybe I'm wrong, or my terminology is fucked, but it sure sounds like the chord has changed to me...

― Pete Scholtes, Thursday, 23 June 2005 17:10 (twenty years ago)

the most obvious (and one of the best) answers:

straitjacket fits - life in one chord

also happens to be the fits best song

― chris andrews (fraew), Thursday, 23 June 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

i'm still right

― Fetchboy, Friday, 16 March 2007 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

"Jungle Blues," by Jelly Roll Morton

― Jazzbo, Friday, 16 March 2007 15:33 (nineteen years ago)

"karen" the b-side to the first Go-Betweens single

There are two chords in that one.

― Jazzbo, Friday, 16 March 2007 15:34 (nineteen years ago)

We're gonna rock down to, electric avenue

Isn't that just an A?

― filthy dylan, Friday, 16 March 2007 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

PISSED JEANS - Boring Girls

― Colonel Poo, Friday, 16 March 2007 16:55 (nineteen years ago)

We're gonna rock down to, electric avenue

Isn't that just an A?

Someone mentioned it above.

― o. nate, Friday, 16 March 2007 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

galaxie 500 do not have any one chord songs

cover of "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste" is one chord.

Anyway the correct answers to these thread have already been cited: Faust, Neu!, Hawkwind, Spacemen 3, Sunnnn O)))), etc.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 16 March 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

Haha wow this thread is like a monument to WTF wrongness, from the question on down.

― nabisco, Friday, 16 March 2007 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

Talking Heads- practically any song on Remain in Light: "Born Under Punches", "Cross-Eyed and Painless", "Houses in Motion", "Great Curve" and so on.

― Joe, Friday, 16 March 2007 18:44 (nineteen years ago)

Neil Young "Piece of Crap".

You guys are a piece of crap for not mentioning this song yet on this thread.

― nickalicious, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

yeah I'm amazed this thread quickly devolved into what constitutes "one chord" - way to go Geir.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

Well when the first example offered has about three dozen really complicated jazz chords in it, it's not exactly surprising that a What Are Chords refresher might crop up.

― nabisco, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:28 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know the Neu song in question off the top of my head... Hawkwind def. have a lot of one chord songs tho, bless 'em!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

(I'm sure Neu does actually have a bunch of one-chord songs too, I just can't keep any of their songtitles straight in my head)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

drone
doom
ambient

― Cameron Octigan, Friday, 16 March 2007 21:37 (nineteen years ago)

Well when the first example offered has about three dozen really complicated jazz chords in it, it's not exactly surprising that a What Are Chords refresher might crop up.

Erm, the 'not the one note samba' proviso was a joke.

― erganom, Friday, 16 March 2007 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, sorry -- I guess the joke was kinda undercut by so many suggestions that seem equally off. (I mean, "Waiting for the Man?")

― nabisco, Friday, 16 March 2007 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

Green Day, people, Green Day.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 16 March 2007 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

Talking about Harrison's Indian compositions (and a song like Tomorrow Never Knows, to some extent) in terms of how many chords they have is not going to be useful - you can't apply traditional western harmonic analysis to things outside of that domain.

There seemed to be some confusion earlier about non-harmonic tones; this is a good introduction.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Friday, 16 March 2007 23:33 (nineteen years ago)

Also, the irony of Geir is not that he's wrong on a philosophical level, but that he gets technical stuff wrong too. I think every comment I've seen him make about theory or composition or whatnot has some kind of error in it.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Friday, 16 March 2007 23:35 (nineteen years ago)

i'm gonna say Tenacious D - One Note Song

― pinder, Friday, 16 March 2007 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

you gotta do the little bendy thing!

― unfished business, Friday, 16 March 2007 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

I've skipped half the thread but would "Waterfront" by Simple Minds count? It runs through with a single bass note and only Jim Kerr's melody moves around over that, there's no chord progression per se. Also, it is shit.

― Trayce, Friday, 16 March 2007 23:55 (nineteen years ago)

There's definitely a chord change in Tomorrow Never Knows - it's on the "DIE" in the first "It is not DIE-ying."

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 17 March 2007 00:00 (nineteen years ago)

There's definitely a chord change in Tomorrow Never Knows - it's on the "DIE" in the first "It is not DIE-ying."

Yeah, it goes to B-flat, but I'm saying the song isn't about functional harmony, it's pretty much just a drone/sound effects, so talking about its "chord progression" or whatever is kind of futile. That song is sort of a tweener, though - the preceding is more true for Harrison's Indian compositions.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Saturday, 17 March 2007 00:03 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, but you could probably argue the same for some Velvet Underground songs.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 17 March 2007 00:06 (nineteen years ago)

(my pick is actually just one chord, as opposed to pretty much every other fucking song mentioned on this thread - it's probably A but it could also be G# depending on whether my guitar is in tune or not)

― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 17 March 2007 01:01 (nineteen years ago)

I stand by my original comment

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 17 March 2007 01:06 (nineteen years ago)

Which is?

― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 17 March 2007 01:11 (nineteen years ago)

the answer is CLEARLY Spacemen 3's 'An Evening Of Contemporary Sitar Music'.

all 44 minutes of it.

― unfished business, Saturday, 17 March 2007 01:13 (nineteen years ago)

Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Saturday, 17 March 2007 01:43 (nineteen years ago)

constantines "draw us lines"

― stephen, Saturday, 17 March 2007 06:13 (nineteen years ago)

I'm actually having trouble thinking of one-chord songs.

Palace - I Was Drunk at the Pulpit

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 17 March 2007 06:20 (nineteen years ago)

If the "song" by Band of Susans mentioned above is Guitar Trio by Rhys Chatham, I think it does indeed qualify as having only one chord. The ensemble strums a chord while a soloist highlights different overtones of the fundamental through picking techniques that bring out various harmonics.

I don't recall which album it was originally released on, I only have Wired for Sound now & it's the last track on the songs without words disc.

― Herb Levy, Sunday, 18 March 2007 12:47 (nineteen years ago)

my pick is actually just one chord, as opposed to pretty much every other fucking song mentioned on this thread

"Electric Avenue" is one chord.

― Curt1s Stephens, Sunday, 18 March 2007 20:38 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

Alan Vega "Jukebox Babe"

― bigdawg (crüt), Wednesday, 19 January 2011 05:25 (fifteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6CFyn_WzVY

― Meme From Turner (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 19 January 2011 05:52 (fifteen years ago)

lots that have already been listed, but also:

'7:20 am Jullander Shere' by Cornershop

― Blazes Boyband (Pillbox), Wednesday, 19 January 2011 06:10 (fifteen years ago)

Skipping 151 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.