Nine million bicycles
While the
music industry is having their holy war against downloaders to disguise the bringing of yet another
clone (this time Norah Jones II: Katie Melua); it is time for someone to show the music industries
hypocrisy, with their blatant copying of classical music.
Just kidding of course ;), I actually like the Melua cd's. Especially Mike Bright Eyes Batt's songwriting is very smooth. Time to find out where Mike got his ideas and start with some analysis for my (not yet in shape) coverlist, this time with the megahit Nine million bicycles.
The chord sequence is something like:
Verse: | I iii | ii IV | ii I | Refrain: | iv I | iv vi | iv I | ii V |
The verse is a disguised form of the I-IV-I, the tonic-subdominant progression. The mediant (iii) is there to provide some color, the ii is very much linked with the IV (the relative minor of IV). A similar progression can be found in preludes by Bach (for example the prelude from cello suite 6 in D).
In the refrain the subdominant is taken and the key is referred to minor. This is an early romantic period trick (A. Pollack calls this barbershop harmony) for example used in Schubert's songs. I will look for a specific example, but I don't have a CD with this music. Actually I am not so sure where the vi comes from??
So in my (probably wrong) view Nine million bicycles is a mix of a Bach prelude and a Schubert-style song.
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