Somersault – Zero 7

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I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song.  It was back in the days of Pandora Radio (before it was blocked in Canada), where it was a huge, cool, amazing, revelation to have songs and artists suggested to you of a similar genre to what you’d just listened to.  Mind. Blown. I had been listening to one of my favourite groups: Air, a “band associated with a variety of musical styles: electronica, space pop, dream pop, progressive rock, downtempo, chillout, trip hop, ambient, electronic pop and space rock.”  Pandora crafted an “if you like that, maybe you’ll like this” playlist, and the first song on there was Somersault by Zero 7.  I’d never heard of the band before…but from the very first phrase of chords I was bawling like a baby hooked!  I couldn’t believe the unexpected that was hitting my ears, and in such quick succession, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself.

It was this song that spawned my deep, deep love of chord progressions that follow the road less traveled.

By 6 seconds into this song, I already knew it was going to be something special.  Can you spot what caught my ear?

The very first chord is A minor, which then walks up to a C major chord.  “Cool,” you think to yourself, “I can see where this song is going.  Must be in A minor perhaps.”  But by 6 seconds (if you’re anything like me), you get your first jolt of intrigue.  The happiness center of the brain has been nudged.  An Aeolian cadence so early in a song?  How unexpected! And this phrase ends on an A major chord – a Picardy third so early in a song??  YES PLEASE.

We listen further…now what’s going to happen?  Have they shown all their cards so early in the song, or is there more to come?  Given the opening phrase of this song, we are pretty sure there is more unexpected on the horizon…

 

The first chord of this second phrase is again A minor, but…fool me once and all that…we know something interesting is about to happen. 

 

Wait.  That actually sounded a bit…expected. 

 

This would be a great time to share with you my “white flower” analogy.  Imagine, if you will, a great, grand expansive flower garden, full to the brim with exceptionally bright flowers. 

Beautiful, definitely!  But…almost a little overwhelming.  You see – there are no white flowers in here.  There’s no where to rest the eye, no backdrop for the vibrance of the bright colours.  Now, if we add a few well-placed white flowers here and there, it helps those incredibly bright flowers shine a bit more.  Their beauty has been emphasized.  The white flowers, while definitely stunning themselves, create a bit of negative space. 

This is also how I feel about music.  If everything was weird and wacky and off-the-beaten-path, not only would that be challenging for the senses to, well, make sense of, but those weird and wacky and off-the-beaten-path chords would no longer stand out.  It is also important, in a song like this anyway, to make sure that the tonal center remains recognizable.  If you have no sense of the tonal center, those weird and wacky chords also won’t shine because you will have nothing to relate them to.

 

So that’s the white flower analogy.  You’ll see that it can be applied to many facets of life.  But I digress…let’s get back to Somersault…

 

I have no theory or breakdown for this third phrase other than a gut feeling – this C to D, back down to C, and back up to D feels very expectant and anticipatory to me.

 

This progression in the fourth phrase is very similar to the first two, starting with A minor.  Having the bass notes walk down chromatically, though, creates the opportunity for a new chord progression here, bringing us back to the tonal center of A major.

The above four phrases of chords now repeat with the vocals on top.  I love how the vocal line adds spice to these chords.  Ending the word “ballerina” on the C#, having just sung a C natural on “my” just moments before, cements the back and forth between the A minor and A major.  This just shouldn’t work, but it does.  Beautifully.

Am            C                     F    G   A

You’re the prince to my ballerina

   A       G   G    E        D  C    E D D C#

In this next phrase, the vocal line goes from E to D on the word “parking” within the chord of G major, making that D the fifth of the chord, and then E to D again on the word “meters” within the chord of D major, making it the root and thus grounding it.

Am                   C(2nd)        G          D(1st)

You feed other people’s parking meters

A      G     G    E    G   E       E    D       E    D

Now THIS PHRASE I find extra interesting.  The vocal line sings a couple of G naturals within an E major chord, creating brief instances of an Eadd#9.  Whenever this happens in a song, it always reminds me of Lady Madonna by The Beatles.  (Hey, you sharp-eared readers, notice anything else about the ending of the intro to Lady Madonna that is similar to our song here…?)

Am        E1st     G     D1st       F    G      A         

You would somersault in the sand with me

     A     G       EG EDCD   A  A   EDCD   D  C#

The second verse is pretty much a repeat of the first, although I love how, on the last time the word “home” is sung, the vocal line returns to the C# within the A major chord, fully returning the chord “home.”

There’s a lot to talk about in this chorus.

 

Just playing the background instrumentation, without the vocal line, I find it beautifully interesting how that A in the violin effortlessly travels through those moving chords.  It’s the root in the A major chord, a delicious 9th in the G major chord, and the 3rd in the F major chord.  A brief and interesting run of G-A-C in the violin takes us back to the droning A, and this is where it gets interesting to me and takes my breath away.  Who on earth came up with the idea of moving from F major to D major. Wow.  A bold move, but one that totally pays off, as that A in the violin continues to drift on the flowing breeze of gorgeous chords moving beneath it.  It’s the perfect 5th in that D major chord, dropping down briefly to a G to greet the C major chord below before heading back home to become the root once again in the A major chord at the end of this phrase.

Now go back and listen to the chorus again, and let’s add in the vocal line.  There are two things I’d like to highlight here. The A being sung on the word “feet” mirrors the note being played by the violin and beautifully emphasizes the (add9) feel to this chord.  The notes sung on “on the,” those two Ds within that F chord, create a momentary minor feel, keeping an ebb and flow of minor and major that was introduced in the very beginning of the song, but the vocal line quickly resolves up to F.

A                     G                  F                         

You put my feet back on the ground

           F#    F#  F#   A        E     D    D        F                 

Now let’s look at just the instrumentation of the second phrase of the chorus.

 

The chords are roughly the same, although this time instead of a straight-up A major chord, we are treated to an Amaj7 which, in this instance, adds a bittersweet feeling to me.  How interesting (well, to me anyway) that when analyzing these chords, just on the instrumentation, I felt that ‘bittersweet’ and then realized that the word ‘sweet’ is actually contained within the lyrics.  Lovely word painting, that!  Soaring high in the stratosphere this time, however, the violin is on a higher descant line, adding even more emotion to this progression.

The D being sung on the word “save” creates a delicious, momentary add9 feel to that C major chord before bringing it back to the fifth in the G major chord on “me.”

 D               C          G   

Can you save me

C      C      E D    D

Contrast that to the second time we hear this line. They’ve kept the melody line a bit simpler, keeping the E fully on the word “saved” and only moving to the D on the word “me,” in other words, moving the vocal line with the movement of the chord.  Even though this is a simpler vocal line, it still makes it interesting because it was different from the one in the previous chorus.

D       C       G

You saved me

C       E       D

Sia Furler ad-libs a countermelody over the established melody line in the last chorus  – something she is known for, sometimes coming back to the regular melody, sometimes mimicking the instrumentation line, and sometimes just creating something new and emotional.

In true Zero 7 fashion, the outro is lengthy.  Clocking in at almost 3 minutes, it creates a swirling kaleidoscope of chord colours for your ears.  The chords are often ambiguous – omitting some thirds making it impossible to tell if they are major or minor, and allowing for that Rhodes piano to improv in a bluesy way.  There is such unique instrumentation in this section, and there are layers upon layers of new sounds to discover with each listen. 

Listen even closer though – do you hear what I hear?  Occasionally switching instruments (most often played by an acoustic guitar) but almost ever-constant is a pulsating E throughout this entire section.  The root notes for this section are A-G-D-C-G-A, repeating over and over, which makes that E a very interesting addition over, for example, the G (creating an add6 feel) and the D (creating an add9 feel).  I find it such beautiful word-painting by Sia as she often repeats the phrase “around and around and around,” emphasizing the kaleidoscopic feel of this outro.  Having the instruments drop out one by one creates, in me, a satisfied feeling of peace.

What did you think of the added elements of notation combined with audio?  Was it helpful in understanding my analysis?  Do you have any suggestions for the next blog? Let me know in the comments below!

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2 thoughts on “Somersault – Zero 7”

  1. Tine

    Another very nice blog, Angie!

    I loved the white flower analogy.
    What an interesting number you’ve chosen for this one. I do like the new added elements with the notation combined with audio, personally 🙂

    Well done!

    Reply
  2. Jordi Shuler

    The flower analogy was a perfect way to show what you meant, I had never thought about it that way and been able to tie it into a visual reference that was relatable. I’ve also never heard the phrase word painting before. Music always evokes an emotional response but not a visual one and I’ve never thought of stories in books as painting an image like art.

    Reply

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