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I literally don't understand how we've gone this long without talking about Radiohead. It had to be done. And it will be done again. What else should we break down??
I recreated it on my Prophet 5 (which they also used) and made it sound indistinguishable! Haven’t found a use for it in my own music yet, but it’s fun as hell to play the song with it.
OMG, yes hahahaha. And nothing against OK Computer, but i also thought he was gonna talk about Paranoid Android, Karma Police or No Surprises, so i was thinking "not these again".
Spectre, the bond theme that never was, is another Radiohead masterpiece like this. Odd time, simple but complex, and that out of nowhere major chord that sends the song to an even darker mood somehow. Please check it out. It's a shame the Bond producers went a different route after Radiohead gave them this song.
@@bobbykbobette7426 It was rejected because they felt it was too dark, and Sam Smith was popping off in the charts, so the Bond people went with him. Radiohead paused production of Moon Shaped Pool to record Spectre, Mendes tried to use it elsewhere in the film, but they couldn't make it work.
Stephen Sondheim said he didn't listen to modern rock, because it wasn't harmonically complex enough to grab his interest, "except for Radiohead. They're great. They're doing so many things."
@@dadamoid As someone trying to write for musical theater, I envy you access to him - it was in "Last Words," a series of interviews from 2017-2020 or so that was supposed to build up to a New Yorker article that never happened. He and Meryl Streep reminisce about charades.
@liamannegarner8083 He was such a nice guy too, as well as being an absolute genius. We just watched the remake of West Side Story and it brought back so many memories. I remember him telling me he actually had quite a lot of input to the music for WSS, as well as the lyrics, but being only 25 and a newbie, he let Lenny take full music credits. One of the biggest mistakes in his life from a royalty perspective. That said, he made a very comfortable living from his immense talent.
The rhythm of that whole piece is also part of the secret sauce. That 4/4 to 6/4, with the straight ticking of the perc, just makes it such a killer piece.
@@kehaar3641Your definitely right, and I’m what I’m about is an attempt to contradict you it’s just an observation I’ve made. I’ve played many pieces in 7/4 or 7/8 and I’ve never seen it notated as 4/4+3/4, but with 10/4 it’s almost always 6/4+4/4. I also find it strange that I never 7/4 split even though the normal stress pattern is 1212123 which is exactly the stress pattern for 4/4+3/4. Idk just something I’ve notice
@@lptotheskullbut the accents are on the 0 and the 4. Even though they’re not played. Btw I think there is one 4/4 - 5/4 in there which is pretty genius.
There are so many great Radiohead songs played on piano that you could analyze: Pyramid Song, Sail to The Moon, Videotape, Codex, and the live versions of Like Spinning Plates and Bloom
Don't forget their recent and acclaimed side project The Smile. Friend of a Friend, Pana-vision, Open the Floodgates are some of the songs that are played on piano.
Johnny Greenwood (?sp.) being a classically trained musician and a symphonic orchestrator as well, with all his soundtrack work, is the "glue" that makes Radiohead what it is. Thom and he worked on this progression for hours (and days and weeks too, most likely). I remember seeing some sort of documentary after the OK computer tour where this all came from.
I wrote my Composition Thesis in college on this song - loved hearing you pull out all the opposing forces/harmonies/key centers in this! A simple masterpiece of a song
Sometimes I feel a bit of regret doing engineering after hearing stuff like this. I would love to propery learn the theory and analyse songs I like for assignments. Then the rational side of me remembers the pay and the fact I could do this in my own time and I feel fine again but I do always wonder.
My composition prof in 2004 wouldn’t let me write on Radiohead. Said they weren’t “academic” enough. Nowadays I’d argue the point. Back then I was disappointed but let it go. That said, back then I’d have written absolutely awful rock analysis, so 🤷🏻♂️
I'll never forget the story about how Beethoven once played a V maj 7 chord and went to bed, but had to get up and play the 1 chord just so he could go back to bed and sleep XD
When you mentioned Radiohead, I was totally hoping you'd be covering "Everything In Its Right Place" - such a great tune. They have so many other hits, but this one just hits so nicely.
Everything In its Right Place has long been my favorite Radio Head song. The vibe and Thom's mental state when writing it come through and just speak to me on a level I cannot easily explain.
The suspense and chaos in “How to Disappear Completely”, also by Radiohead, that only resolves at the very end of the song makes listening to the song an amazing experience. You kind of expect a song that just feels tense and weird from the start till the end, but then they hit you with the resolution that is so clear and melodic. It fits perfectly and horribly at the same time. Would really like a video from you on that song.
That’s a solid characterization. And it’s a brilliant way to put it. You could say the same for Van Halen, too. Eddie almost always wrote minor verses and relative major choruses, and would often shift to a completely unrelated key (typically the black keys on the keyboard) for his solo sections. I saw a great breakdown of that song writing analysis.
Even back on OK Computer they were already going wild with this. Within 5 notes the opening riff of Airbag has already thrown any adherence to major or minor out the window.
@@marktoney1127 not so much in this regard, as the Cm bit is a IVth turning minor. That 'mol dur' is kinda cliché. Besides, the Hollies totally had this chord progression at 'The air that I breathe' already. Creep still is a good song though. Not to bust any balls on this comment.. Morning Bell though, I can totally relate to this topic.
This song is so important to me because in my mind it's a jazz standard the way some of my favorites have covered it. Brad Mehldau, Kamaal Williams, and Robert Glasper have all brought their souls to this song. There's a Robert Glasper Experiment performance on here where he seemlessly blends it together with Maiden Voyage, How Much a Dollar Cost, and Smells Like Teen Spirit. Thank you for teaching me more about a song so close to my heart
My absolutely favorite chord progression of all time is "Present Tense" by Radiohead. The live, stripped-down version with Jonny, Thom, and a CR78 (they're sitting next to a campfire) is just heavenly to listen to.
Fun fact! My favorite band of all time, Anberlin, got their name from this song. Somewhat towards the end, there’s a part where it kinda sounds like they’re saying “an berlin, an berlin”. It’s not what’s being said, but it stuck with Anberlin’s lead singer enough to turn it into a band name
I had to look up what the singer said about it on Wikipedia to know which part it was, and yeah, I can imagine hearing "Anberlin" in that. (When Kid A came out I was in high school and had a classmate named Eric Morelli, so that's what I heard lol)
@@konkey-dong That sounds like a made up story. There is even a song on Sex Blood and Magic that has similar chord progression and Thom has long been a Fruciante fan as you can hear alot on his solo albums, like Eraser and as well as on in Rainbows. He most likely just inspired by that song from that Chillipeppers album.. I have heard this story you mentioned but I think that it is bullshit.
@@ChristianRo535 Yes I was thinking about that as well, I just forgot where that came from, Thank you, by the Magazine. Oh they have, I didn't know that. - The riff However tI was referring to is the bridge riff or the pre chorus that is the one that sounds very much like the Fruciante riff. So what you said here about the main riff sounding alot like Magazine also supports my theory that the story is made up that Thom and Jonny were having a competition to use the most chords in a song. Since the chords of the songs are simply inspired by other songs
I suck at music theory, but that was my thought too. I clearly dissolves in the F major chord, but it builds suspense by first avoiding it conpletely for a while, only later to briefly touch upon it before quickly falling back to the 5 chord every time. The flat 6 and flat (dominant) 7 make it Aeolian dominant, known in Indian Raga as Charukesi: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_dominant_scale (had to look that up).
Thanks. It was insanely frustrating spending the whole video looking for this comment. Always known of Radiohead but could have never named a single song title. Now I can go look this up 👍
The whole thing about this song is that we’re almost always waiting for a resolution & ultimately finding it in an unexpected place. that’s what makes it great. With that said…what I appreciate about the majority of your videos is that you find a way to keep your viewers waiting for a resolution both musically & psychologically. Really smart. Everything in its right place.
Everything in its right place is far and away my favorite Radiohead song. It’s so complex but still doesn’t sound awkward the way so many prog songs do when they play with non diatonic chords.
I missed calling the E natural, I apologize. It's not purely diatonic but the feel is modal, not chromatic. A definition different than yours appears to be follows below. I would call it C Phrygian with one alteration. If the one alteration means 'chromatic' in usage then melodic minor (the original meaning, ie., 9 notes in total, as opposed to 'jazz minor') is more chromatic than this.This is not at all agreeable to me. Where is this F major? The harmony containing an F is a Db major 7 (add #4). You may be thrown by ledger lines: Db F G C. There is no A.
I will have to say there is possibly one chromatic interval but as 1: it sounds modal hence 2: as E is not adjacent to Eb _in usage_ it may not be. "1. A "diatonic" scale is a scale formed from two intervals of different sizes, such that groups of several adjacent instances of the larger interval are separated by single instances of the smaller interval. "3. Chromatic" refers to the interval formed between adjacent pitch-classes of any equal-tempered scale. _Gould, M. (2000) "Balzano and Zweifel: Another Look at Generalized Diatonic Scales"_ IE: as there are never two semitones in a row the definition AFAIC is up for grabs. T'was always thus. I wouldn't agree this is chromatic music.
Charles, this was brilliant. I’m a classical pianist, and the use of the sharp 5 reminded me of Maurice Ravel’s Ondine from Gaspard de la Nuit. Scintillating, mysterious, unresolved, magical all apply. Radiohead was genius. I’m going to put my noise cancelling headphones on and immerse myself in their music. Love your channel. Keep up the great work!
"Idioteque" my favourite Radiohead song, I have a fascination with songs that have instrumentation (especially the percussion) that evokes the feeling of constantly moving forward, almost like a train but more plodding or robotic. It's hypnotic.
This is very clearly one of two things: the c is the dominant V in f minor and the f maj is a pickerty third, or its in f major and uses the bVi and bVII which isnt all that uncommon
Would you think of F as being the tonal centre if you heard the first half of this song and didn’t know an F chord was coming later in the song? If not, it’s a bit perverse to retrospectively say it was in either F or F minor all along. I suspect a lot of brains certainly tonicise C initially, which as Charles points out puts us in some combination of C Phrygian dominant and C Phrygian, and later the tonal centre arguably moves to F. C Phrygian and C Phrygian dominant are the fifth modes, respectively, of F aeolian and F harmonic minor, so when the F major chord finally arrives, we effectively move from relative modes of F minor to F major. You could, therefore, argue that a Picardy third is happening.
This is unexpected, though I’m not sure why, Radiohead is incredible! Please do do more of their music! My recommendations off the top of my head would be 15 Step or Weird Fishes / Arpegi, but really anything would be great
I was literally randomly listening to this song and I didn’t understand why I loved it so much so I came to RU-vid looking for a theoretical explanation hoping to find a video “like Charles Cornell’s explanations” and you literally did it 2 weeks ago. Amazing!! Radiohead is my fav band so I love almost all their work but I would love for you to look at: -knives out -a punch up at a wedding -bloom -paranoid android -nude -sail to the moon -life in a glasshouse -pyramid song -permanent daylight That’s all for now ❤
this piece cuts open your soul, if you have one even more so than any other Radiohead masterpieces.. there's a mystic component, but what is overwhelming is the PURENESS of emotion, concentrated in those few notes, and than sent right to the vastity of cosmos by His voice. Sublime.
Recommendations: - Bloom, live in Paris - Ingenue, Thom solo and live - Pyramid Song - Like Spinning Plates, from the I Might Be Wrong EP - Daydreaming - Codex - A Punch Up at a Wedding
Please take a look at King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizzard sometime. They’ve got a huge range of music, but Catching Smoke is a favourite and rocks a 33/8 time signature most of the way through. It’s exactly the kind of thing this channel loves.
am by no means a radiohead "fan" but this album is incredible and this song gives me chills. I first heard it many years ago after a friend lent me a burned cd labeled "kid a"..driving to work through a foresty area covered in about 16" of snow. Roads barely driveable, everything eerily quiet and this song is straight giving me acid flashbacks. Simple yet mindblowingly good. The song takes you into a trance that is hard to escape. I was late to work but gained one of my favorite songs ever that day
Wait'll you hear "Pyramid song," Charles. It's on the follow-up album, _AmnesiaC_ (recorded concurrently with _Kid A)._ It's...the same chords. In the same ascending order. And a completely different song.😉 Another piece I think you'd really love is "Red guitar," by David Sylvian, featuring a really glorious piano by Riyuichi Sakamoto (R.I.P.).
the daily mail (a b-side from the king of limbs era and also my favourite song) is also beautifully simple and one of the most musically interesting pieces i've ever listened to
Anything off in rainbows should be interesting to look at through a theory lens, which is really the case for most Radiohead songs. I’m pretty sure none of the band are particularly well versed in theory, they just come up with stuff they think sounds good which leads to really interesting harmonies and melodies. You’ll have a lot of fun breaking down their music Edit: someone said Johnny greenwood is classically trained so I guess there’s at least one person with theory knowledge. Shows how much I know :)
Love seeing awesome videos like this one... This Radiohead song is pure genius. Just four chords, all major... but there's still so much to talk about, especially the rhythm. Yorke totally messes with us with those tricky beats. So simple, yet untouchable. The guy’s a genius.
I love the whole song but sometimes I play it on a loop because of that überpowerful intro. But I can't just loop the intro, I have to play the whole thing!
I don't know why you talking about Radiohead and this song has me so emotional, but this album and Amnesiac have the strongest nostalgic hold on me, this song in particular too! I've studied it and learned to play it and its just SO GOOD. MORE RADIOHEAD!!! Great video!!
That's actually remarkable. Could play a country song with C and F and it be the happiest song ever... However that C, in this context as you say... Feels mysterious.. Almost minor. F feels like the resolve. Madness gone mad
It’s not the C or the F that’s doing it. It’s the other two chords. The Db chord brings with it a Ab, the minor third relative to a tonic of F, while the Eb chord brings with it an Eb, the minor third relative to a tonic of C. So regardless of whether we are perceiving a key built on F, or a key built on C (and we’re probably shifting between the two throughout the song) there’s a lot of minor going on, even though there isn’t strictly a minor chord anywhere in the song (unless you count the entire C minor triad hiding in an Eb6 chord, or the entire F minor triad hiding in a Dbmaj7 chord)
Radiohead is genius in its deceptive simplicity. And Charles is getting better and better at describing how the harmonies are implied vs what is actually played. Really awesome to see laid out like this!
Honestly, I'd just analyse this song as "fucking around with the mario cadence", because Db, Eb and F is a bVI - bVII - I, obviously playing with it and changing the order changes the feel, but wanting desperately to resolve to that F is I think directly caused by this.
I got concerned for a moment and thought Charles was going to cover Creep. What a great sharp turn to Everything in its right place. Props Charles. Great stuff!
Please make a vid about ballade 4 from chopin (zimmermans performance). It’s such a rich piece of music. Honestly this man deserves a vid, he’s one of the most important musicians of all time and undoubtedly the most important pianist of all time, taking piano technique and music to the next level. And his ballade 4 is the perfect piece for a video. ❤
This song is special to me. Every time it comes on a playlist when I'm wearing headphones I just have to stop whatever I'm doing, close my eyes and take a breath. The first few seconds feels like someone's touching my neck and it sends shivers down my spine. Can't explain it. No other song does this. It's weird, but I like it!
This band is a formerly unknown gem for me. I never heard of them but I listen to a RU-vid channel that has an owner who is hooked on them. He uses their music, David Bennett Piano, for examples and I am impressed. I don't know where they studied but they learn their craft right. Great song you chose Charles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_dominant_scale It's actually an ascending progression called Mario cadence, I've learned in the other reactions. Andalusian is a descending progression using the same chords.
I feel like there's a lot to be said about the choice of instrument on the recording too. The organ has a really "close" feel, in that the notes almost feel more blended than they do on piano. Stunning progression, stunning song.
@@juluann I thought he would talk about Creep because a lot of people knows only Creep. And in the beginning of the video, he put a lot of clips from Creep's clip.
Thank you for pulling this one out for me again! Years ago, during the "lockdown" era, Rick Beato did a commentary on one of his videos. I love the way this sounds on piano!
Or is this really in F minor? Then the progression can be interpreted as V (with the E natural from harmonic minor) - VI - VII (this time E flat from natural minor) - I (with raised third for extra brightness) This would also explain the "cliffhanger" character of Eb, which should naturally resolve to the tonic F but goes to VI = C as in a deceptive cadence.
tonic is clearly C. There is no Eb chord. Eb is spelled *Eb G Bb.* There is no replacing the 5th with a 6th; Eb G C is called C minor. In classical harmony it is called a "six chord" but that describes Eb to C, the bass to the root of the chord. IE: 1st inversion.
@@Civilizashum You are wrong. The progression clearly wants to resolve in F, which makes it a Mario cadence, I have learned from other reactions. The scale is Aeolian dominant, common in Indian classical music: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_dominant_scale
@@Civilizashum I’m really puzzled by what you mean here. “There is no Eb chord” - What? The chord in question doesn’t “replace” the fifth with the sixth, it includes both. The notes are Eb, G, Bb and C. In other words, it includes the entirety of an Eb major triad AND the entirety of a C minor triad within its four notes. But why on earth would you interpret that as a Cm7 chord in first inversion, when it’s perfectly straightforward and more intuitive to understand it as an Eb6 chord in root position? Also, the tonic really isn’t “clearly” C. It is, at the very least, ambiguous, because to the extent that we can be said to be in C, we are in C Phrygian and C Phrygian dominant - the fifth modes, respectively, of F Aeolian and F Harmonic Minor - neither of which is particularly stable compared to their respective relative modes in F. In the early part of the song, I tend to perceive C as the tonic, but this is soon problematized by the relatively unfamiliar nature of the modal context. And once that F major chord arrives (which I would describe as including a Picardy third in the first appearance of an A natural in a context in which we have only had Ab), F is pretty firmly established as the tonic, the C chord is recontextualised as a V chord, and the Dbmaj7 and Eb6 chords function straightforwardly as borrowed chords from the relative minor key (F minor)
@@jasnostj It’s not Aeolian dominant. They aren’t the right set of notes. And you think the progression “clearly wants to resolve in F” because you know, intellectually, that it does. Up until that point, if our tonal centre can be said to be F at all (and that’s debatable), it’s in the context of F minor, not the F major that we eventually get.
Radiohead is music theory personified. Between this song and Sail To The Moon (my two favorite Radiohead songs to play), one could easily fill an entire graduate school semester on music theory.
Nice video Charles! Literally had this song playing in my head yesterday and was even humming it as I got my coffee, and now here we go! Great song. For some reason it didn't take long to start hearing this as a Mario cadence or bVI-bVII-I in F in the parts that featured this chord.
Makes me so happy to see you finally covering Radiohead! They're genuinely some of the most talented songwriters out there Loads of great suggestions in the comments already, though personally I reckon Dawn Chorus from Thom Yorke's solo stuff would be an amazing one to cover - deceptively simple but such a beautiful song - would love to see you break down what it is about the chords that makes it sound so good
everything is such a powerful opener, it's huge and epic and kind of alien sounding with an incredibly clean, full and legato synth tone. the first few seconds gives me chills
At long last, Radiohead mentioned on the Charles Cornell RU-vid channel. I can die knowing my life has been fulfilled. Okay, yeah, in all seriousness, I'm so happy you're talking about Radiohead. And Everything in its Right Place, no less! What a song choice, easily in my top 10. Btw if you do more Radiohead analyses, Pyramid Song. I am BEGGING YOU, do Pyramid Song.
Awesome video and amazing song! This is the first time I've heard someone do an analysis on this song other than the time signature, which is yet another component of this masterpiece (which I'm sure you're already aware of)!!
Love your breakdowns man. You dived into songs that have made an impact on music like this. I’m so glad you reminded me of this riff. Radiohead are legends and geniuses.
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief" is such a beautiful song i'd love to hear you talking about, but so are all the songs in "A moon shaped pool" album. Daydreaming is so simple yet so beautiful and powerfull as well
I´ll never forget, how my first reaction on this song and the album was so different from what I felt some weeks later. It went from "what a nonsense" to "this will change music"! They got me with "KidA" and "Amnesiac" and maybe the highest point "hail to the thief". They never lost me since then, and never will!
I love the part about not getting hung up on the theory. “Chase what you hear in your own mind without worrying about what it is from a theory perspective. But that the theory is sometimes helpful.” As a good guitarist and bad piano player with a background in the study of theory, that’s my approach too. Obviously, I watch Charles and enjoy exploring the theory behind stuff. It’s interesting and fun practice. But when creating music, I worry about theory afterwards, or at most when adding parts.
Great video Charles. Thank you. Your enthusiasm is contagious. And your analysis all the more interesting and informative to me as I have gone back to guitar lessons at age 65 and my brilliant instructor is not only a master of musical theory and performance but also one of musical history. Our conversations on that subject alone are worth every penny of my fees. I can't believe I've overlooked Radiohead despite a lifetime of listening and participation in music. Isn't it amazing? You could live to a thousand years old and still not have explored and relished all that music has to offer. BTW - I pressed the subscribe button.
You know; Since last year, my mother took me to a performance at BAM theater and one of the songs used in the performance was a stringed cover of this song, and I was looking for it ever since. And now I've found it; Thanks lol
Transpose from F to A and compare to the Andalusian cadence. It is the haunted sound of Hotel California and brightens up when the tonic is reached (Picardy third). Beatles have used this devices this a lot of times.
"I'll Be Back" is a good example. It uses the Andalusian cadence too but lands on an A Major chord, instead of an A minor, which was very unusual for the time.
