Portland, City of Roses, City of Dreams

Ok, so I was playing around with the two-chord song idea, struck on something that sounded nice, and this is the end result. Brought to you by the letters G and D7.

The cool thing about using 5ths is that you can change key without changing chords! It feels kind of subversive... Anyhow, here are the words:

As you fall asleep and the thoughts settle down in your head
I wonder if you should be here instead
And I should be there.

For as we fall asleep we wander the winding ways of our dreams
And pass by each other without seeing
And still end up alone.

Then I am in your bed and you are in my bed and still
All of our dreaming desires remain unfulfilled.

When I wake in the morn
With my spirit still slinking and forlorn
Through all of the alleyways of the dead
Returns to my head,

I know I'll spend all the day
Gazing out what must be your way
Passing the hours til I can lay
Back down to dream.

Then you'll be in my head and I'll be in your head and still
All of our dreaming desires remain unfulfilled.

[mouth trumpet solo]

Still someday I'll know
That miraculous feeling down in my toes
When we meet in the City of Rose
And you climb through my win-dow.

Still someday I'll know
That miraculous feeling down in my toes
When we meet in the City of Rose
And you climb through my win-dow.

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by kaibutsu (8 comments total)

Very nice. You have a really nice vibrato in those parts that you kind of belt it out. Like a more manly Tiny Tim and I'm not just saying that because it's ukulele.

The cool thing about using 5ths is that you can change key without changing chords!

I think that I'm stupid because I don't know what you mean. Can you explain that to me?
posted by chococat at 7:31 PM on April 6

Sure! Probably half of the (rock) songs you know are based on the 1-4-5 triple of chords, such as C-F-G, or G-C-D, or D-G-A. So when I play in the key of G, I tend to play with the chords G, C, and D, and when I play in the key of D, it tends to be the chords D, G, and A. But when I just play the chords G and D, there's an ambiguity - it could be either key. So then the melody can mess around in either key, and switch back and forth between the two, and you get a bit more variation in tone than one would expect from a two chord (rock) song as a result. I think adding the 7th to the D changes things a bit, too, but at that point it's over my head, too, and in the realm of 'just sounds right so I accept it.'
posted by kaibutsu at 12:32 AM on April 7

Nice classic melody.
posted by dobie at 8:24 AM on April 7

I loved the melody and the singing.

Hope this isn't a derail of some sort, but yes the D7 chord is unambiguously in the key of G, and contains the note F#, not found in the key of C. When you alternate between the note F# and the note F (which is in the key of C) over a G chord, it functions like a key change, from G to C and back again.

Since the D7 chord contains an F# note (it functions as the major third of this chord), when you alternate between F# and F over the D7 chord, like kaibutsu does in this song (see for instance Then you'll be in my head and I'll be in your head and still), it acts to destroy the key of G, and doesn't move you into another key -- really you're in two keys at once. In some sense this is the basis of chromatic harmony (as opposed diatonic, "key based" harmony), which is why this part of the melody sounds "jazzy" to some degree. Jazz sounds are ripe with chromatic harmony.
posted by abc123xyzinfinity at 9:11 AM on April 7

I LOVE your mouth trumpet solo, AND this is pretty damn romantic!

This brings to mind some of those lake scene paintings with girl beneath parasol and guy singing with ukelele. Very cool!
posted by snsranch at 8:00 PM on April 7

I really dig your singing voice. The mouth trumpet deals the deal.
posted by ORthey at 11:37 PM on April 7

This is very sweet! Bless, two chords rock. Lovely lyrics too.
posted by freya_lamb at 11:13 AM on April 12

i really, really like this. it's haunting in a way i would not expect a song composed of those two chords to be.
posted by millipede at 6:46 PM on April 13