Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone – Geoff Castellucci

I just wanted to do a quickie little write-up of this song – there were so many little details in both the arrangement and the performance of this song that absolutely captivated me, and I wanted to jot them down, almost in piecemeal point form, to share with you all.

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The opening sound effect is reminiscent of wind whistling through a ghost town…a perfect way to start the song off with a feeling of desolation. [des-o-la-tion, noun: anguished misery or loneliness.] It made my little music nerdy heart happiest, though, to hear that the pitch of the wind whistling was the same pitch as the key of the song.

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In the hums at the very beginning, and each time this phrase is repeated, I absolutely love that slide up from the Eb to E in both octaves being sung, giving the sound of bending a string on a blues guitar.

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The backing instrumentation at 0:23 behind the opening chorus is mighty impactful. It’s just that single note played on a piano, but it has the tone quality of tubular bells, ringing out a harmonic of the octave above the note being played, furthering that feeling of despair and desolation, like the feel of the tolling of an imposing bell tower. At 0:38, the melody is the seventh (D) against the note being played by the piano (E), but in the next phrase, Geoff sings a DELICIOUSLY PERFECTLY hit fifth (A) against the piano note (D) before the piano descends to an A1. Usually we’d hear Geoff himself hit this A1, so it’s interesting to hear it in the piano instead.

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1:17 The reverberant ticking clock starting at this section of the song captures the mood perfectly. You know that feel you get…you’re overtired, something heavy is weighing on your mind, you can’t sleep, you roll over to check the clock and it’s 3 AM and you’re distraught almost deliriously hallucinating with tired and worry? Clocks always seem to tick louder. This, combined with the heavily distorted instrumentation, embodies this discombobulated feeling brilliantly.

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The super distorted Muse-esque guitar/keyboard at 1:35 adds an uncomfortable feeling – conveying the distorted feeling of the singer, perhaps?

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Also at 1:35, there is an extra pulse in the backing vocals on the word “gone,” sounding like he is literally crying out.

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There is more white space in between the backing vocals at 1:49, giving a more disjointed feel…signifying that he is further falling apart? This, combined with the opening shot of this section being blurry and then slowly coming into focus gives an impression to me that he is descending further into disorientation. Geoff’s pose during this shot blurry/focused shot is very open and vulnerable, and the scene following has us witnessing Geoff deliriously roam around the kitchen as one shot dissolves into another…we’ve all been there. I felt this scene in my very soul.

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2:14 – A brilliant example of how using different inversions of the same chord can create interest. All of these chords are A minor, but changing up the inversions, along with the incredibly cool pulling and stretching of the interesting, almost ad lib rhythm of this phrase, keeps it fresh and unique.

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2:18 – The introduction of strings pulls on the heartstrings even further, adding a whole new level of sadness. I love how there are bowed violins as well as a few pizzicato notes (plucking the violin strings). The more sounds that enter this song, the more it conveys to me the feeling of a myriad of thoughts and feelings and emotions swimming around in your head. It’s a kaleidoscope of misery.

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2:27: There is a cool high instrumentation sound, followed by what sure sounds like vocals hitting a D5 to C5 crying out in anguish. The layers of emotion in this arrangement and performance are astounding.

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2:30: The word “gone” in the backing vocals goes up to a B as a nice bit of ear candy, different from previous times this line is sung.

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2:35 – The first and only major chord in the song. There have been open fifth D chords, but this is the first full-on major chord. What does it signify? Did he think he glimpsed her out the window? Has she come back? Did he have a moment of clarity, of resolve? A momentary major chord in the sea of minor chords, a little glimmer of hope…but it is fleeting, as we then go back to the minor in the next phrase.

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2:42 – There is an interesting effect put on Geoff’s voice here. It almost sounds like a memory of his own voice, reminding him that this has happened before.

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2:47: All the elements of the song come back in – the ticking clock, the distorted guitar, the strong and low humming, along with a new sound effect, a wah-wah pulsing sound, a sound I can picture as disorienting after an entire night of no sleep. It pulsates in almost a syncopated rhythm, adding even more discomfort. All of these sounds jumble and swirl around in your head, creating a sense of disorientation. Very evocative of the feeling the singer has as he roams the halls of the empty house in despair.

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I love how the song doesn’t end all together. Each sound/instrument ends slightly off from each other. Just like the singer of the song seems to be slowly coming undone, so is the ending of the song.

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