How come every song seems to be written the way it should be?

Brid Hegarty

How come it is that whenever you hear a song for the first time, you never end up saying to yourself "I didn't expect it to go in that direction?". Whether you like the song or not the song nearly always seems to be as it should be. Can you think of a song that you always feel behaves in a way it shouldn't?

When you hear masterpieces such as 'God only Knows' or 'Bohemian Rapshody', I think most people couldn't imagine them being any other way. But what if you were to take an incomplete version of a one such song and give it to the Beatles or Elton John, having them never heard it before, and under the instruction to finish it! What would they do with it!? And if we'd heard only that version, would we be thinking that that is the way it's meant to be and no one should mess with it? Could a good musician take the first few measures of a seemingly boring song and make it into a masterpiece if they wanted to? Or take something like 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight'; it takes an unexpected turn under the lyrics "any more". I think it's that that makes the song so great. But then how is it that you feel it's going to be a great song before you've heard that part of it? I think things like that puzzle me?

I think a lot of the greats make song writing out to be simple. I think I realised something hearing McCartney talking about song writing recently. A lot of the greats (perhaps out of encouragement) seem to make song writing out to be easier than what it is. They basically make the argument that "it's only seven notes and seven their seven corresponding chords... it's literally that simple". They might very briefly mention the permutations of the chords but mainly gloss over how difficult that can be to get used to. They also seem to imply that just because a fantastic song can be remarkably easy to play, means that it must be remarkably easy to write! These are completely different things, and this probably confuses a lot of aspiring song writers. But then again I do have to admit that there are a lot people of could barely play an instrument who managed to write great songs... although never proper masterpieces.

But how are you supposed to be able to complete a song when (a) you can't put your finger on what it is that the song needs, and (b) you wouldn't have the ability to articulate it even if you could hear it in your head?

When I try to think of songs that go in a different direction to what I would've expected, I can't think of too many. 'Don't Fear the Reaper' has a guitar solo that's completely unexpected, and the ending of 'Baba O'Riley' takes an unexpected turn. If I had the ability I think I would've preferred to have done something different with Elton John's 'Bitter Fingers'. What? I don't know. It's a great piece of music but it's sort of like two separate songs stuck together. I similarly about 'We are Young' by Fun. What else could have been done with that song before it goes in that completely different direction?!