The Secret Life of Avril Lavigne's "Push"

   

 
     Tuesday was a very special day for me. It was the official release of Avril Lavigne's fourth studio album, Goodbye Lullaby.  My idol of 10 years had finally returned to her roots after a long hiatus.
     Now, I must admit, I was highly skeptical about this record. Sure, there was talk on the street that Avril would be going back to her old style with the new album, but the lead single, "What the Hell", was a bomb of a disappointment that left me dreading the rest. It's an obvious sell-out piece, trying to capture the semi 80's pop, square-sounding arrangements and chanted linear melodies a la Katy Perry and Ke$ha. That, and it's not the healing, epiphany-arousing beauty that Avril is capable of (to put it plainly, it's a song about being a slut). The fact that her label made her put this processed, preservative-filled piece of fast food on an otherwise organic and nourishing album is appalling to me. Alas, the pitfalls of the music industry.
     One of my favorite songs off Goodbye Lullaby is "Push" (others are "Wish You Were Here" and "Everybody Hurts"). "Push" is an extremely emotional and well-crafted song about what a waste it is when couples who truly love each other fight.
     When I discuss the secret life of "Push", I obviously can't know it like I know my own songs. For example, I don't know what sparked the idea, what section was written first, etc. But I can analyze it and tell you all why I think it is working and how we might be intuitively processing the very obvious craft here.
     One thing that makes this a grabbing song is how wonderfully quickly the chorus comes in. Many of Avril's old songs had a pre-chorus, which is absent here. This is part of the current aesthetic in pop music. When "Complicated" came out, which had a very long intro, double first verse, and pre-chorus, the aesthetic in pop was that the song would take you on a gradual journey and prepare you for the hook. This recipe has changed. The idea now is that the hook is everything, and the verses are only there because they have to be. And it's all about immediate changes now; nothing wants to happen gradually anymore. What better way to serve this aesthetic than to slam-dunk the listener right into the chorus without warning?
     Along with the absence of a pre-chorus, the verse has the illusion of whizzing by for another reason - there's no space in the melody. It's basically an ongoing list of thoughts; stream of consciousness. The anticipation is heightened even further by the lines in the verse all stopping (very briefly) mid-sentence, like so:

"Been seein' too much of you lately and you're
starting to get on my nerves this is
exactly what happened last time and it's
not what we deserve, it's a
waste of my time lately and I'm
running out of words..."

     If the lyrics had been laid out differently, the verses would not possess the impatience and uncontained energy that is the livelihood of this song.
     It's clear that a quick verse was a wise move when one hears the chorus. It's positively bursting with emotion. The first line, "Maybe you should just shut up" is delightfully bold and unrestrained, and what's more, these somewhat taboo words are chosen incredibly wisely and have never been better used in a song. She's not telling her boyfriend to shut up because he's annoying to listen to; it's much deeper. She's telling him to put a cork in it because he's risking ruining their relationship. And when she comes in with the line, she's drastically higher in her register and has a brattier tone to her voice. Your brain's subconscious translation: "Enter young woman arguing with her boyfriend." Fittingly, there is silence after the peacemaking line, "...cause this is love", a mid-point in the chorus which also marks the first time we hear real space. And then there's the literal sound of the words. Most pop choruses will rhyme more than one sound, but not this one. "Push" rhymes the "uh" sound for its entire duration - "Just shut up, tough, love, comes, shove, us, love." The consistency is refreshing, and the impact of the "uh" with all the rests gives the melody a percussive power.
     I haven't listened to the rest of the album enough yet to determine whether it has the staying power of her first two. I, for one, am still adjusting to this trend of purposeful clutter in pop music. For the most part, I'm not feeling the new lack of space. "Push", however, utilizes this technique so well and with such relevance to the lyrical content that I just may learn to like it.

- Jill <3

  

The Secret Life of "Funhouse Mirror"

Songwriting and Arranging Example: Borrowing from Other Artists

     I have a confession. When I first started writing "Funhouse Mirror", I thought it was destined to be mediocre. A filler song. Boy, was I wrong.

     It turned out to be one of the best songs I ever wrote, and a real transitional piece in my writing. Before I cranked out this riff-driven recollection, I had a hard time writing anything that wasn't some kind of ballad or power ballad.

     But then came "Funhouse Mirror" in all its glory.  Like my previous writing, it was introspective and vulnerable - yet I had started growing a backbone, and it showed. This song was confrontational. It was declaratory. It was... HARD ROCK.

Here's the demo that I did myself in Garageband:



"FUNHOUSE MIRROR" COPYRIGHT 2010 JILLIAN KAWECKI


     So just how did this mega-distorted, almost metal song come to be? Last year I had to do a project for a MIDI class (which was HELL for me because I came in knowing about 5% of what everyone else seemed to already know) and I had to use my OWN music. During that time, I was in one of those I'm-so-sick-of-EVERYTHING-I've-already-written things, so I decided to try writing new stuff rather than just arranging and recording previous pieces. It just so happened I had been recalling a melodic/lyrical idea that I came up with in high school. It was one line - "I saw you through a funhouse mirror"- to the same melody that the part is in today.

     So, with this line going through my head over and over, I began to construct the song's Chorus. My intuition told me it had to be the third line, because it's the point of the song and 3 is the magic number where people are wired (yes, really) to put more weight on what they're hearing*. Then I came up with the "You're not what I thought" and eventually constructed the whole basic Chorus melody and most of the lyrics ("I know what I saw" was originally "You're not what I thought", just like the third line, and "wanted you to stay" had a "da da da" placeholder for a while). It is a remarkably rare occasion that I write anything in the order you hear it in.
   
     Having completed the melody, lyrics and chords of the Chorus a couple weeks later (and a sketch of a verse which was quickly disposed of and redone), I decided to start recording my humble singer/songwriter demo. I opened Garageband, set the metronome to 100, plugged in my headphones and sang the Chorus with no accompaniment other than the aural image in my head to guide me. Then I plugged in my electric guitar, looked at the chords on my sloppy lead sheet and the whole freaking riff just came out as it is now - syncopation on every other "and of 4" (to emphasize important verbs in the lyric, "wanted, seemed, saw"), and the seemingly trivial but actually highly critical "3 +a  4 +a" metal/all downpicking gallop accent. ** I think it was a couple of days later when I figured out where I got it from:

Side note: I highly recommend the entire album The Cold White Light by Sentenced (if you like/can stand their guitar tone. It got to me after a while).  It's heartbreaking but beautiful. This is the band that really got me interested in Silence vs. Activity and strategic breaks in the arrangements.

     This accent in its exact spots in the Chorus of "Funhouse Mirror" is so important to making the song sound right. Not only does it kill monotony, but it informs the listener (listeners process this stuff intuitively) that the song is reloading into the next lyrical thought.  It makes the listener hear "Wanted you to..." and "You're not what I..." as the ends, not the beginnings, of each line of the Chorus. I have heard and played the Chorus without a reloading accent during these parts, and it always feels too long. But with the accent, it feels amazing. That said, this particular song is dependent on its arrangement far more than any of my past songs were.

     I realize, now that I'm more musically aware, that I probably should have had the drums enhance what the guitar is doing on this accent just like Sentenced did. There are some things about this song that would undoubtedly benefit from a very skilled arranger, but the overall idea is here and it works. It just needs augmentation of what I was originally trying to convey, and for the parts to be translated into what real-life instruments would do.  I'm also thinking it could benefit from a Pre-Chorus that propels the song forward (the current one holds it back), but I really like the impact of the Chorus riff when it comes in; it hits like a giant wave after the silence. It would be interesting to see if there is a way to have both.

     "Funhouse Mirror" will always have a special place in my heart for being the first song that I sketched out an entire arrangement for, and for being representative of so many of my influences as an artist - the quiet verses and loud choruses of the 90's, the disappointment of the speaker that is so common to Avril and other angst-queens, the little touch of metal when the chorus reloads at the end of each lyrical thought, and the introspection I learned to love from artists like John Lennon and even Katy Rose. It's also the first time I was secure in knowing I was not destined to be an Avril clone. I'll write another post dedicated entirely to the origin of the lyrics as soon as I can.

- Jill <3

*Depending on the song, 4 can sometimes be the magic number. I'll get into this in a future post.
**The all-downpicking gallop accent is kind of blurry in this demo, I know. Blame my guitar playing.