"Wonderwall": I Don't Get It

fp'd

When I was young i learned survival
Taught myself not to care

"lazy" as a description of a chord sequence because it uses the same notes in multiple chords, michty me

https://www.premierguitar.com/ext/resources/images/content/2014_06/Blogs/Aug14_PG_CLM_Bass-Bench_photo1_WEB.jpg

"lazy" as a description of a chord sequence because it uses the same notes in multiple chords, michty me

― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 4:30 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is nuts, pedal points are great. almost all of Bob Mould's songs for Hüsker Dü feature drone notes that run thru the song.

https://i.imgur.com/pbuIBZi.jpg

Jim In Vancouver and flappy bird missing the point spectacularly. It's not the notes that are played, it's how much effort it takes to play them. I'm pretty sure that Noel didn't sit there thinking "wow yeah pedal tone" as much as I'm pretty sure flappy bird hasn't read the thread properly.

(As it happens, the chord progression of 'Wonderwall' is nothing spectacular - the most interesting part of the chord progression being the chorus, which is the weakest part of the song.)

Pedal point. I'm pretty sure what you know about guitar playing could be written on the back of a postage stamp and there'd still be room left to reproduce all of your most interesting and insightful posts to ILM.

interesting

Jim In Vancouver and flappy bird missing the point spectacularly. It's not the notes that are played, it's how much effort it takes to play them. I'm pretty sure that Noel didn't sit there thinking "wow yeah pedal tone" as much as I'm pretty sure flappy bird hasn't read the thread properly.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 2:44 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nobody rates pop songs on how difficult they are to play on guitar

i demand we resolve this via a video of turrican ironically playing wonderwall on guitar

I've never witnessed a larger chasm between level of insight and thought and propensity for peremptory statements on this website since maybe geir hongro

Don't have a video, have a still from it though...

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/00/c4/96/00c49628c2d8aae6bc8a718da9746557.jpg

The most interesting thing is the late fade-in of the drums.

I've never witnessed a larger chasm between level of insight and thought and propensity for peremptory statements on this website since maybe geir hongro

Hey, listen, Geir knew about music, even if he was wrong about it - and he often wasn't.

nobody rates pop songs on how difficult they are to play on guitar

― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 4:52 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I rate pop songs on how hard they are to play on vacuum cleaner

I don’t like this song or this band much but It’s a weird point to try to bring this song down by how simple it is when there’s so much more to hate about it.

The simplicity (or laziness if you want) is actually a point in favor of the song and the band I think. So many artists breaking their heads to get a hit and this song becomes massive all over the globe with nonsense lyrics and lazy guitar play. It’s almost genius but this band does not deserve that descriptor.

But yeah any band getting a worldwide hit working under less is more philosophy (less effort, less chords, less production, less everything) even if accidental, actually makes me like the idea of the song instead of making me repulse it.

Jim, instead of throwing your toys out the pram, perhaps you'd like to actually read the conversation that happened beforehand prior to me joining the discussion where the supposed sophistication of the chords were being discussed.

At the risk of repeating myself: yes, the chords are not straight open chords, yes, they've been chosen because the songwriter liked the sound of them but also because Gallagher is a limited guitarist. I mean - none of this is difficult to comprehend. Seemingly unless you're one of the immediate posters above that aren't me.

The quality of a song is apart from how easy or difficult a song is to play - that much should be apparent and I shouldn't actually need to spell that out. At no point did I also ever say "this song sucks because it's simple", because I would never say that since I'm not an idiot. However, at this stage I guess I'm giving everyone too much credit so I.w.i.l.l.s.p.e.l.l.i.t.a.l.l.o.u.t.n.e.x.t.t.i.m.e.

Radio X listeners vote 'Live Forever' as best British song. Now there's something...

Am I allowed to criticize the couplet By now you should've somehow / Realized what you're not to do on the grounds that "what you're not to do" is totally forced and phony diction?

― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Monday, 2 April 2018 19:03 (two days ago)

I have no desire to be Capn Saveanoel but "realised what you're not to do" feels Mancunian to me rather than forced, fwiw.

But you're absolutely allowed to criticise it as forced, of course.

yes, they've been chosen because the songwriter liked the sound of them but also because Gallagher is a limited guitarist. I mean - none of this is difficult to comprehend.

Are you still alive? Noel Gallagher is not a 'limited guitarist', you clown - unless you're comparing him to Allan Holdsworth or something. Stop digging, man - you don't know anything about music, you're ignorant, talk about something else.

Finding the discussion of the internal logic / semantic coherence of the song pretty funny - the point of Oasis lyrics is how you feel in the instant you're singing that line for that moment, and entirely forgotten by the time you get to the next line.

If that's right (I don't really get the point of Oasis in general so I'm happy to take your word for it) it's a pretty spectacular lyrical trick to pull off again and again, I think.

(Because people really do seem to *feel* the lyrics, I mean.)

COuld be that he's a lazy and limited lyric writer. Just sayin' like.

These serious (and agressive) exchanges about an Oasis song's lyrics and chords are puzzling...
Especially about this awful song !
I like a lot of some early Oasis (basically the first album + some songs on the second and some b-sides) but have always hated "Wonderwall", even when it was just released and not yet that huge anthem.
I think even Liam dislikes that song !

Noel is a lazy and limited lyricist who sometimes stumbles upon something good, which also sums up his ability as a guitarist, tbh.

Or Tom D's posting style.

lol @ all the "lazy" talk. makes me think back to the toxic cesspit Steam message boards w the angry gamers ranting about "lazy devs". about the same level of thought given as well.

(xp) You're also hopeless at zings, I wouldn't bother trying tbh.

It’s someone who doesn’t understand how they feel trying to express how they feel despite not having the tools to do so.

this is a v sympathetic description.

a collection of cliches that add up to nothing

This is what everything is, though.
― valorous wokelord (silby), Monday, 2 April 2018 21:52 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^gets it

Yesterday, I got to hear "Don't look back in anger" which is a mighty case in point.

See, the whole chorus manages to stay on topic! And if only the rest of the song managed to do that, it'd be a massively (oh what's the word - Successful? well, it's been massively successful so no. anyway..) song.

the point of Oasis lyrics is how you feel in the instant you're singing that line for that moment, and entirely forgotten by the time you get to the next line.

Anyway, I thought the "So, Sally can wait..." was the key line on that one, but that was suggested by Liam!

Noel Gallagher is not a 'limited guitarist', you clown - unless you're comparing him to Allan Holdsworth or something.

I'd be fine with using that as a comparison, or even with calling him a limited guitarist, but, running over this quickly this morning, I will say that using a pedal point on E - the natural minor seventh scale degree of F#m - makes the progression a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise. (Obv, he wasn't so limited that he couldn't play a standard chord progression without this sort of pedal point, as he did on "Don't Look Back in Anger".) There's an interesting and imo effective disconnect between the chords and the melody line in the first part of the verse, where the prominent notes in the melody are often not even part of the underlying harmony until the "I don't believe that anybody..." refrain. This is the first time that E, the pedal, comes up as a significant note in the verse melody and it works to highlight this. The resolution to F# on the last note of that refrain ("now") arrives on the F#m7 chord, which is the first time a line resolves to a chord root, let alone the tonic that is implied by the chord progression.

Exactly as I said... errrr. Sorry for being a bit irritable on this thread, but claiming that the pedal point is being used in this, and other, songs because the songwriter is too lazy to move his fingers a couple of centimetres, or too limited to play the first chords any guitarist learns when they learn to play a guitar, is too egregious a display of ignorance of how guitar playing and songwriting work that I couldn't let it pass especially when it's doubled down repeatedly.

This is such a weird discussion. I don't even hear a guitar in the song.

It's made a vital contribution to an ongoing 51ing scenario.

I'd be fine with using that as a comparison, or even with calling him a limited guitarist, but, running over this quickly this morning, I will say that using a pedal point on E - the natural minor seventh scale degree of F#m - makes the progression a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise.

I couldn't agree more!

(Obv, he wasn't so limited that he couldn't play a standard chord progression without this sort of pedal point, as he did on "Don't Look Back in Anger".)

Well, I never once said that he couldn't play a standard chord progression - I merely pointed out that he uses these type of chords a lot, which he does! Gallagher, by his own admission, is a limited guitarist and I agree with him. In the big scheme of things he undoubtedly is, and his musical vocabulary is painfully small, although he throws in the occasional surprise from time to time (such as the second chord in the chorus to 'Let There Be Love')

Tom's just frustrated with himself at this stage and lashing out, bless him.

Using pedal tone is fine as long as you're not a fake funk band.

xxpost:

Or the diminished chord in 'Don't Look Back In Anger'

Too Lazy to Funk. Good song title!

(xp) Awwww, he knows the name of a chord, ain't it cute?

"Too Lazy to F**k" by Prince

One of the best things about Turrican is the inevitable point where 90% of what he has said has been stricken down and made fun of and it inevitably turns out the last 10% is just something he has read somewhere that he repeats without really understanding it.

x-post lol

Not half as cute as being asked if I'm still alive by someone acting like they're having a coronary, but don't hesitate to grow up, Tom. It's okay to be wrong.

Good to also see Frederik's usual textbook late entry into the thread where he fires off nonsense and does his Scrappy Doo routine.

I love that you use 'textbook' as an insult. As if you deserve anything better but the basics.