Journal from October first

The assignment was, "Write 300 words on whatever you want".

Musical Hooks

A musical hook is an identifiable thing in a song that makes you want to hear it again, or that gets stuck in your head. There are many kinds; melodic hooks, guitar riff hooks, simply awe-inspiring technical proficiency hooks, and ‘Wow, I love the tone of X’s guitar’ hooks - these are all available. I will list a handful of ‘hooky’ songs, or songs that I at least find hooky, and explain just what makes them so appealing.

Cadilac [sic] - T. Rex

Simplicity is key in rock music and indeed, hook-crafting, so we’ll begin with one of its kings -- Mr. Marc Bolan. This song features a simple yet effective guitar riff (one chord, an open D) and the most primary¹ message in all of music: “I love ya, babeh!” Anyone who’s known me for more than a week is likely to have heard me burst out with Marc’s declaration of “Babeh, I wanna buy you a Cadillac!” (I usually revise it to ‘Buy you a bayou’.) It’s in the melody and words -- ‘listen to this song again!!’

Psycho killer - Talking heads

I was in a record store one afternoon, the album ‘Talking heads: 77’ playing loudly from every corner of the room, and when ‘Psycho killer’ came on, everyone started dancing and singing along. It’s impossibly catchy. The pulse of the opening bass line, the nervously intoned vocals of David Byrne and the staccato guitar are inescapable. The strange addition of French in the chorus and the entirely French bridge also contribute to the hook factor. “Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est ?”

So, we’ve already looked into lyrical, melodic and guitar hooks. What about those “technical proficiency hooks” I referred to earlier?

Roundabout - Yes

It opens with the harmonic-laden guitar of Steve Howe, perhaps a hook in its own right. After this mediaeval-themed intro, roughly a minute long, we experience a falling feeling and are then caught and held aloft by the real hook: Chris Squire’s wondrous bass line. The bass guitar was my first instrument, so I have always felt that I have a deep connection with the bassist I’m listening to, especially because of how ignored the instrument is by the general pop-music listening public. I would say the reason for its being so underappreciated is that most rock bassists, in the lightest terms, suck terribly-- but that’s another story, as Mr. Squire is first-class. I listen to the bass line, and my head just snaps back-- it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that I Am In Love with it. Proving his talent even further (as though he needs to), Squire sings as well, inflecting a melody that is, once again, a hook. Yet many people could hear ‘Roundabout’ and be quite unaffected, nay, turned off by what they would perceive as bombast. “Puke” is a word they would use. But they know not what they do.

Now, let’s stop floundering about and get to the Granddaddy (what a terrible expression!) of all hooky songs.

Smells like teen spirit - Nirvana

Too obvious? Well, the song is all hook - un-emit-able (not inimitable). We are confronted right off by the hook of the guitar riff-- wicked dead-stringing in tow².

The loud drums and heavy bass enter, moshing ensues. When we reach the verse, another couple of hooks are immediately apparent.

First of all, the dynamic changes from loud to soft-- now a far-too-common hook, but effective, nonetheless. The two ringing notes of the guitar are serene, and the vocal melody is admittedly beautiful. The lyrics are quite open to interpretation, I think, but maybe I only say that because I have no idea what they’re about. But whatever it is, it’s intense, and it’s hooky. The chorus, coming back to loud, features the guitar riff and the sarcasm of the lyric “Here we are now, entertain us.” Between the chorus and the second verse is an extremely strange four-bar interlude. There are a couple of dissonant power chords, followed by Kurt Cobain slurring “Yay!”, sounding almost like a horn (the same sort of ‘What the #*!@ did I just hear?’ hook can be found in Radiohead’s ‘Creep’). When the guitar solo comes around, between the second strange post-chorus and the third verse, Cobain simply cops the vocal melody, note for note, allowing us to really notice how hooky the melody is.

A lesser-known song now, though it can easily stand up to any other song, hook-wise.

Denise - Fountains of Wayne

This single opens with yet another guitar hook, again complete with wicked dead-stringing. Singer Chris Collingwood brings us back to The Primary Colours of Rock with the incredibly embarrassing opening line “I know this girl named Denise / She makes me weak at the knees.” The second part of the verse features the sure-fire hook of Sha-na-na-na, na-na, na backing vocals, and the equally embarrassing line “I can’t help myself.” We then reach the chorus and the post-chorus interlude, with their hooky vocal and keyboard melodies, respectively. The whole process repeats, and a rock’n guitar solo is included before the pop powerhouse is wrapped up.

Everybody thinks I’m a raincloud when I’m not looking - Guided by Voices

Robert Pollard is the singer of Guided by Voices, a gifted poet with a mind-blowing sense of melody. The chorus of this song combines these two superpowers perfectly. A notable hook besides this is the drum part building slowly during the opening, and dropping out in parts of the chorus as Pollard sings “Everyday, it’s another world”.

Saint Elmo’s fire - Robert Fripp and Brian Eno

I gotta admit, Brian Eno’s voice doesn’t do much for me, so there would have to be something in this song that really gets me for me to mention it. It’s Fripp’s guitar solo. Part of it is just the sound of his guitar alone-- it’s the most beautiful of sounds. Fripp has a way of choosing notes that contain so much emotion, love, resigned happiness….It’s something to behold. Other than the solo, I also enjoy the simple beauty of the lyric “In the blue august moon”.


Now, we’ve covered hooks. I said a hook is an identifiable thing that makes you want to hear a song again. Suppose you want to hear something again, but there isn’t a particular element that appeals to you. I guess it could be the tone of it, or maybe there’s something in it that bugs you, that somehow, you find alluring. I think the greatest hook is when a song makes you feel an emotion you wouldn’t otherwise be feeling. That is for another journal.

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1: See attached page on The Primary Colours of Rock. The primary that Marc is concerned with, in virtually all cases, is horny.

2: Dead-stringing is when a guitarist mutes the strings with her left hand while striking them, so that no discernable pitch is actually sounded, just a percussive chk. The technique is often found in funk, and is not to be confused with ‘palm-muting’, which is when the guitarist mutes the strings with his right hand, resulting in a more staccato note than usual. Inclusion of dead-stringing in a guitar riff always gets me, and I always use the word ‘wicked’ when referring to it.

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The Primary Colours of Rock

On April second, 2006, I formed a musical duo called Occupant with Stella Abdul. Here was our method: we would sit down and say, “We’ve got two hours to write, rehearse and record four songs. Go.” To assist us in this endeavor, I drew up a fascinating little device called The Primary Colours of Rock. Basically, I said the three emotions continually expressed in rock music are Aggressive, Self-pity and Horny, either on their own or in different combinations. We could then simply select one of the colours, or a combination of them, and our rock song would practically write itself. Occupant produced over sixty songs throughout April alone.