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Bibliography

 Britannica (2022) Melody https://www.britannica.com/art/melody (Accessed 12 January 2022)

Rich, A. (2022) Britannica | Harmony https://www.britannica.com/art/harmony-music (Accessed 14 January 2022)

Jooya Teaching Resources (2020) What is Rhythm in Music? https://juliajooya.com/2020/12/21/what-is-rhythm-in-music/ (Accessed 18 January 2022)

Lumen Learning (2022) Meter in Music https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-musicapp-medieval-modern/chapter/meter-in-music/ (Accessed 20 January 2022)

Beato, R. (2020) What Makes This Song Great?™ Ep. 83 The Cure [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPNHwwXh3Ks (Accessed 19 February 2022)

Professor of Rock (2020) The Cure Created the PERFECT 80s Pop Song | #1 in Our Hearts | Professor of Rock [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r28t5iGmf4g (Accessed 24 February 2022)

Produce Like A Pro (2020) Songs that Changed Music: Just Like Heaven - The Cure [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1KQXWs9wgA&t=431s (Accessed 3 March 2022)

Produce Like A Pro (2020) Songs that Changed Music: The Smiths - How Soon Is Now [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDEypWNDJiA&t=707s  (Accessed 15 March 2022)

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Instrumentation

While you would assume that the guitar used in this song would be one of the Fender Jazzmasters that Johnny Marr is famous for using, he actually claims that this song was recorded on a Gibson Les Paul. Like many songs by The Smiths, the guitar plays most of the parts and the expansive sound is achieved by layering multiple guitar parts on top of one another. Once the main progression of the song was built, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce were brought in to lay down bass and drums. After that, Johnny Marr and John Porter worked one on one to build out the track with different guitar parts. Morrissey was not present in the studio for any of this, however. Once the instrumental track was created, it was given to Morrissey who then came in the next day with his big book of lyrics and nailed his performance in just two takes.

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Harmony

The chord progression of the intro and verses is F# major, A major, B major. The chord progression of the chorus is D major, A major, C# minor, E major, F# major. The slide guitar slides a semi-tone down from a C to a B. At the same time, another guitar holds a G# note. In the last two instrumental breaks and the outro, Johnny Marr plays a harmonic guitar line very similar to the synth line from ‘You’ve Gotta Believe’ by Lovebug Starski. Johnny Marr wanted to specifically reference this song as a response to critics who claimed The Smiths were 1960’s revivalists.  

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Tonality

This song is in the key of F# major. Much of the song is spent on this one chord. This gives a great sense of release when the chorus arrives with a new set of chords. 

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Structure of ‘How Soon Is Now?’ by The Smiths.

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Structure

‘How Soon Is Now?’ is a rather different sound and style than the majority of The Smiths’ catalogue – which is the main reason it was initially released as a B-side. The song is rather atmospheric and at nearly seven minutes long, it was very unusual and unexpected from the band. The song mainly consists of eight-bar sections. The intro features 3 bars of an F# major chord, then going to an A major and a B major in the fourth bar. Over the chords in the fourth bar enters the iconic slide guitar riff that this song is famous for. This pattern loops through the intro and the verses. It is also the main progression during the instrumental break, though the later instrumental breaks also go to the chorus progression. Not including the intro and outro, this song features four separate instrumental breaks featuring many different guitar overdubs layered on top of one another by Johnny Marr. The first instrumental break lasts for eight bars, while the second and third last for sixteen bars and the final instrumental break lasts for forty bars. In between the third and fourth instrumental breaks, Morrissey sings the chorus melody over the chorus chord progression, but with completely different lyrics. I have chosen to refer to this as the bridge as it isn’t quite a verse or a chorus. After the final chorus, the outro then reverts to the progression of the final instrumental break. There is a gradual fade out on the last eight bars. 

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Rhythm

‘How Soon Is Now?’ has a quite moderate tempo of 95 BPM in a 4/4 time signature. The rhythm is built around the tremolo effect on the rhythm guitar riff that opens the song. The strumming pattern of the riff was built from the Bo Diddley beat, a syncopated rhythm widely used in pop and rock music made famous by popular rhythm and blues musician, Bo Diddley. Johnny Marr and producer John Porter then took this strumming pattern and decided to add a tremolo effect. It is unclear exactly how this was achieved, as Johnny Marr and John Porter disagree in their recollection of the events. According to Johnny Marr, “the tremolo effect came from laying down a regular rhythm part with a capo at the second fret of a Les Paul, then sending that out into the live room to four Fender Twins”. He added “John was controlling the tremolo on two of them and I was controlling the other two, and whenever they went out of sync we just had to stop the track and start all over again” (Gibson, 2013). However, John Porter has publicly stated that his recollection of this differs from Johhny Marr’s. John Porter claims “the initial guitar was a jazz chorus, just doing a stereo Roland jazz chorus-thing and a DI” (Guitar World, 2020). He remembers that he then put it through a noise gate on the drum and triggered it with a cowbell drum machine to achieve the tremolo effect. The two sides of the story agree that it then went through Fender Twins, however John Porter claims there were only three Fender Twins, as opposed to the four that Johnny Marr remembers. The drums then enter and fill out the gaps created by the tremolo effect on the guitar. The drum pattern is very simple and remains constant throughout the song. According to John Porter, he told Mike Joyce to “just try and hold the groove down, don’t worry about fills or anything” (Sound On Sound, 2020). 

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Song 2 - ‘How Soon Is Now?’ by The Smiths

‘How Soon Is Now?’ was originally released as a B-side to The Smiths’ 1984 single ‘William, It Was Really Nothing’. The song was then subsequently featured on the compilation album ‘Hatful Of Hollow’ and then finally re-released as a single in 1985 and again in 1992. Due to these complications in the release by the label, the song never really achieved the success it probably should have at the time of its release. Despite this, however, the song has become a favourite amongst fans of The Smiths and in 2007, Johnny Marr said it was possibly The Smiths’ “most enduring record” and that he thought it was “most people’s favourite”. 

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Instrumentation

It is unclear what specific instruments were used in the creation of this track. The track consists of bass, drums, keyboard, two electric guitars (sound like a hollow bodies or semi-hollow bodies), a 12-string acoustic guitar and a six-string acoustic guitar (possibly two six-string acoustic guitars with a chorus effect). The bass and drums lay down the foundation of the entire song, with the drums playing the exact same rhythm throughout the duration of the track. The bass, while following the chord changes in the song, keeps a very steady rhythm throughout the song. The first electric guitar then enters, playing thirds of the chords that the acoustics then play when they enter next. The keys then enter with an airy and spacious synth sound, giving the track an almost ‘floating’ feel. At this point, the instrumental basis of the song is complete and the lead electric guitar enters with the descending melodic lead line. The final instrument then enters- the voice of Robert Smith. 

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Melody

The first prominent melodic hook of the song is performed by the lead electric guitar. This lead line descends down the A major scale from C# to A an octave below twice, ascends back up the A major scale past the C# to E. The line ends by then descending back down the A major scale landing again on the A an octave below. Robert Smith sings in a tenor vocal range in this song. Throughout the song, his vocal range used is from F#3 – A4. The final prominent melodic hook is the keyboard solo. Similarly to the main guitar lead line, the keyboard solo is built from the A major scale. The solo ends by mirroring the melodic hook sung during the line “I’ll run away with you” in the first verse. This then leads to a repeat of the main guitar lead line leading into the final verse. 

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Harmony

The main chord progression of the song is A major, E major, B minor and D major. This is a I-V-II-IV progression in the key of A major. This chord progression changes in the refrain to F# minor and G major. These chords are the minor sixth and the major flat seventh of the key. The main rhythm guitar in the song is played by Robert Smith. He plays the root and the third of the A major (A and C#), B minor (B and D) and D major (D and F#) over each respective chord. Interestingly, however, the plays the third and the fifth over E major (G# and B) with third as the bass. This creates a first inversion of an E major chord. The G# in the bass gives the whole chord progression a very melancholy feeling. When the other guitars then kick in, he adds a major seventh (C#) to the D and B over the D major chord. This gives a darker sound that is very indicative of The Cure’s style. The most prominent vocal harmonies that Robert Smith sings are towards the end of each verse. On the lines like “I’ll run away with you” and “that I’m in love with you”, Robert Smith sings these harmonies in thirds.  

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Tonality

‘Just Like Heaven’ is in the key of A Major. The main melodic lead guitar line of the song descends down the A major scale, starting from C# and descending down to an A an octave below. The melodic keyboard parts also use the A major scale throughout the song. This gives the song a happy ‘pop’ sound. 

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Structure of ‘Just Like Heaven’.

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Structure

While the song has a very ‘pop’ sound, the structure of the song is actually quite different to that of a conventional pop song of the time. Perhaps the most notable difference is that ‘Just Like Heaven’ doesn’t have a chorus. The song also has a very long intro section when compared to the popular songs in the charts at the time of its release. By introducing each instrument one at a time, the song has an intro section that is roughly fifty seconds long. This is very unusual for a pop song, but the continuous build with every new layer of music added keeps the listener engaged for the duration of the thirty-two bars that the intro section lasts. The vocals are introduced to begin the first verse with the line “show me, show me, show me how you do that trick”. The first two “show me” lines are sung on the last two beats of the intro section. The verse then goes on for 16 bars before then leading to an instrumental break in which the descending melodic riff from the intro is played again. This break also lasts sixteen bars as does the next verse that follows. We then reach the refrain, where the structure begins to change. Interestingly, this refrain lasts for ten bars. Until now, the bars have been grouped in fours with the intro lasting thirty-two bars and the subsequent sections lasting sixteen bars. Naturally, then, you would expect this refrain to last eight, twelve or sixteen bars. However, this section adds two additional bars after the eight bars (which the later refrain lasts) to add a small feel change heading into the solo section. Similar to the verses, this section lasts sixteen bars and features a keyboard solo followed by the main descending melodic guitar lead line. This is followed by a third sixteen-bar verse and finally the end refrain which lasts eight bars. 

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Rhythm

‘Just Like Heaven’ has a relatively fast tempo of 151 BPM in a 4/4 time signature. This time signature remains consistent throughout the entire duration of the track. The original version of the song that Robert Smith presented to the band was a bit slower, but during the recording of the album, Boris Wiliiams increased the tempo and added a new drum fill at the beginning to give a little bit of a push, which Simon Gallup then emulated on the bass guitar. This then inspired Robert Smith to introduce each instrument one at a time during the opening fifty seconds of the song. The song starts with the drums and bass, then a rhythm guitar comes in playing a low riff in thirds, then the acoustic guitars enter, then the keys and finally the iconic descending melodic lead line. There is notably very little dynamic contrast in the song – the drums play the exact same rhythm throughout the entire song. Instead, the song brings instruments in and out of the mix to bring the dynamics of the song up and down.