tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/tim-minchin-24929/articlesTim Minchin – The Conversation2017-12-21T19:06:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889242017-12-21T19:06:05Z2017-12-21T19:06:05ZHumbug, tinsel and gravy: in search of the perfect Christmas pop song<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200086/original/file-20171220-4948-1faljgb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The search for the 'ideal' Christmas song crosses a very broad range of genres and artists</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CC/The Conversation</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this year, musicologist Joe Bennett <a href="https://joebennett.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/musical-and-lyric-traits-in-the-uk_s-favourite-christmas-songs1.pdf">took a sample</a> of the top 200 Spotify streams from the Christmas week of 2016 and dissected those that were Christmas-related. </p>
<p>The results, analysed according to parameters such as beats per minute, key signature and lyrical content, were passed to professional songwriters with a pedigree of hits for major artists to produce an <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/christmas-music-musicology-holiday-songs-743236">“ultimate” Christmas song</a>. The result is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96jOezZhlRQ">rather effective</a>, even for unbelievers.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘ultimate Christmas song’ – according to a group of musicologists who sampled Christmas-related Spotify streams.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Aptly enough, that project was commissioned by a <a href="https://www.intugroup.co.uk/en/news/news-and-press-releases/is-this-the-happiest-christmas-song-in-the-world/">chain of shopping centres</a>. But while it distinguishes between lyrical themes, it primarily illuminates the aesthetic dead-centre of the Christmas pop song. </p>
<h2>From commerce to campaigns – political Christmas songs</h2>
<p>The concept of the “Christmas song” is rife with political contradictions. It marks a day to put aside division and commerce, and yet is aimed squarely at that most blatantly commercial and competitive institution, the pop charts.</p>
<p>There’s a broad umbrella of musical and lyrical tropes that – pardon the pun – rings bells for listeners in constituting a “Christmas song”. The machine-tooled nature of the archetypal Christmas pop song is such a recognisable format, in fact, that it’s been opened up to a hybrid of data analysis and songwriting, as Bennett’s work illustrates.</p>
<p>Other researchers have sought to bring a broader typology to the service of unpicking the ideological resonance behind Christmas songs. </p>
<p>The musicologist Freya Jarman, for instance, uses a <a href="http://edinburgh.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748628087.001.0001/upso-9780748628087-chapter-8">framework</a> of overlapping concepts linked to Christmas, including the “traditional/religious” (such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjmGbI-Mnys">Mistletoe and Wine</a>), “nostalgia” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9QLn7gM-hY">White Christmas</a>), “romance” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gmARGvPlI">Last Christmas</a>) or “parties/friends” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r89CjMZDQpQ">I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day</a>).</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Wham’s Last Christmas taps into the romantic Christmas spirit.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The last of Jarman’s categories though – “good will to all men” – most starkly highlights the complexities around commercial acumen and the political potential of Christmas music. </p>
<p>In the broader canon of “political” pop songs, many of the most well known are, in fact, Christmas songs rather than more overt “protest” songs – a political message smuggled in among the sleigh-bells. John Lennon’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Vfp48laS8">Merry Christmas, War is Over</a> is one example, another being Jona Lewie’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HkJHApgKqw">Stop the Cavalry</a>, a universal soldier’s lament.</p>
<p>Other Christmas songs, notably <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w7jyVHocTk">Do They Know It’s Christmas</a>, have involved direct political lobbying, such as when Bob Geldof tried to get the government to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/07/13/music-tax-the-prime-minister-how-live-aid-changed-the-uk-and-the-world/#7624372dea7f">waive taxes</a> on the single itself. This arguably became a more powerful intervention than other more obviously “political” songs – forcing the government to take a <a href="https://theconversation.com/jo-cox-charity-single-theres-no-going-back-in-the-merging-of-pop-and-politics-70615">position</a> on the tax arrangements around charity singles.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Some Christmas songs such as Bob Geldoff’s Do They Know It’s Christmas are an act of direct political lobbying.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Such tensions around commerce and authenticity in popular music become especially marked around Christmas, with the charts a key battleground. </p>
<p>When Rage Against the Machine’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ">Killing in the Name Of</a> became Britain’s <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8423340.stm">Christmas Number 1</a> in 2009, it was the result of social media campaigning against the domination of X Factor releases as seasonal chart toppers. The song’s broad political message was deployed in the specific context of a longstanding debate within popular music consumption.</p>
<p>This method leaked from commentary on popular music’s internal politics into broader political discourse. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHQLQ1Rc_Js">Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead</a> was pushed up the charts by social media after <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22145306">Margaret Thatcher died</a> in 2013 and, latterly, the similar success of a protest mash-up accusing UK Prime Minister Theresa May of being a “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxN1STgQXW8">Liar Liar</a>” caused <a href="http://www.electionanalysis.uk/uk-election-analysis-2017/section-8-personality-politics-and-popular-culture/sound-bites-the-music-of-election-2017/">headaches for broadcasters</a> regarding election regulations.</p>
<h2>Striking a balance</h2>
<p>But while the underlying politics of commercialism and community have now extended into the techniques of political messaging the rest of the year round, there are still attempts to strike a balance. </p>
<p>There’s a raft of Christmas songs that circumvent, without fully avoiding, the Yuletide by taking a sideways (or critical) view of it. These allow ambivalent listeners to participate in the festivities while maintaining their sense of critical distance from the more traditional trappings.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Fairytale of New York is a story of love gone wrong with Christmas as the backdrop.</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8">Fairytale of New York</a> is an obvious example here. Where the “traditional” Christmas song is about Christmas, it’s about a love story gone awry, with Christmas as the backdrop. This allows sceptics to buy into the aesthetic, and even the sentiment, while holding firm their anti-Christmas credentials. </p>
<p>Others look at the contradictions head-on. Tim Minchin’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q">White Wine in the Sun</a> uses the Australian December sunshine as a pivot to focus on family, taking a swipe at commerce – “selling Playstations and beer” – while embracing the sentimentality. Addressing the social context of Christmas is another means of tackling the broader, implicit, politics of class. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tim Minchin takes a swipe at the excessive commerce of Christmas in White Wine In The Sun.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>More universal ‘human’ Christmas messages</h2>
<p>Family, fraught relationships and exclusion can make for a more potent, perhaps realistic, Christmas story than snowflakes and Santa. </p>
<p>In The Kinks’ caustic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPPCPqDINEk">Father Christmas</a> the narrator, a department store Santa, is mugged by a group of youths demanding practical help. </p>
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<p>Give us some money … Give my daddy a job ‘cause he needs on".</p>
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<p>Paul Kelly’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh79619xxk8">How to Make Gravy</a>, an isolated and fractious address from a prison cell, packs its emotional punch through mundane details and implied backstory. The story here is both personal and, through that prism, national. </p>
<p>Eschewing the standard Christmas musical and lyrical devices entirely, How to Make Gravy is at the opposite end of the spectrum to the typical tinsel-draped fare, and buries its politics in the personal. Yet it’s still become a Christmas classic. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Kelly’s How To Make Gravy is an emotional Christmas appeal from a prison cell.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The search for authenticity and political punch</h2>
<p>From outright celebration, through charity to explicit political salvos, there are many ways to musically address the pleasures and strains of the season. Aesthetic tropes – the musical bells and baubles – notwithstanding, the form is actually very broad and embraces a range of genres. </p>
<p>The “ideal” Christmas song in the sense of commercial pop is also open to subversion. Beyond this, there’s a strong draw among some sections of the public towards more cynical, or at least ambivalent, takes on the traditional Christmas customs - even if these often end up adhering to what are ultimately similar sentiments. </p>
<p>As in Dickens’ immortal story of Scrooge in <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm">A Christmas Carol</a>, there’s room, it seems, for the humbug to carry the day without ruining it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>From outright celebration, through charity to explicit political salvos – is there such a thing as the ‘ultimate’ Christmas pop song?Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/552222016-02-23T19:03:12Z2016-02-23T19:03:12ZMissy Higgins, Tim Minchin and the new political pop song<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112473/original/image-20160223-16422-1n04dlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Missy Higgins is aiming for the heart with her protest song Oh Canada.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past week, Missy Higgins’ Oh Canada and Tim Minchin’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/tim-minchins-come-home-cardinal-pell-is-a-pitch-perfect-protest-song-54945">Come Home, Cardinal Pell</a> have focused attention on a genre that is sometimes considered to have disappeared from the Australian musical landscape. </p>
<p>To many Australians, protest songs have been best delivered via the tinnitus-inducing power chords of 80s-era mainstream rock. </p>
<p>Minchin’s recent effort, however, uses a generic pop musical language to create a sense of parody. Higgins uses a different musical language again, a texture that aims for the heart. </p>
<p>Her song is a moving tribute to Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian refugee who tragically drowned in Turkey en route to Canada. Featuring choral-synth sounds and a purified electric piano, Oh Canada starts very simply and intimately – with no drums or rhythm to disturb the plaintive focus on loss.</p>
<p>Gradually, as the story unfolds, the music expands, adding rhythm. It gets bigger, swelling with emotion as Higgins sings higher and louder at the prolonged and confronting climax. In the song’s accompanying music video, the sinking boat is followed by a brisk montage of terrible images drawn by children who’ve likely been witnesses to violence.</p>
<p>All that musical texture drops to nothing at the end, right when the drawing of the boy’s lifeless body on the beach is revealed. The return to musical simplicity to underscore the fragility of the little boy is devastating.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Missy Higgins’ Oh Canada.</span></figcaption>
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<p>For more than a decade, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2013/07/17/3805076.htm">articles</a> bemoaning the lack of political music in our modern popular culture have appeared sporadically.</p>
<p>But the notion that Australian music lost its protest edge somewhere between Beds are Burning and Peter Garrett’s maiden speech to Parliament is only half-true. </p>
<p>Australia’s rock-era protest songs were certainly the most successful in terms of mainstream hits, but underground and independent labels have always maintained the rage, albeit with less visibility. And powerful social messages were also conveyed by song well before the angry 80s. </p>
<p>A short tour of Australia’s protest song history shows that protest music didn’t so much disappear as morph from mainstream to many streams, tracking alongside popular music in general as it became fragmented and stylistically diffuse.</p>
<h2>I am Protest, hear me roar</h2>
<p>Eric Bogle kicked off Australia’s anti-war ouvre with The Band Played Waltzing Matilda in 1971. A powerful but unassuming song, it combines the sound of anti-war folk music with more than a hint of the original Waltzing Matilda’s poignancy. Redgum’s I Was Only 19 (1983) was an important follow-up in this genre. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Redgum’s I Was Only 19.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Another early modern-era song of protest was Helen Reddy’s I am Woman Hear Me Roar. As a song about empowerment, its aim was to inspire.</p>
<p>The song uses a technique called modulation to underscore the lyrics, sometimes changing key in a novel or surprising way to make the music and listener feel like they’ve been literally lifted up.</p>
<p>A Hammond organ provides a subtle southern gospel church feel to heighten the positive vibes.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">I am Woman by Helen Reddy.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The time had come</h2>
<p>Some time in the 60s, rock began clawing the mantle of authenticity (in the sense of musically expressing the true emotional state of a community or group) away from folk music. </p>
<p>Rock’s essential promise was “no fakes allowed” – only genuine-article premium raw emotion, perfect for protest.</p>
<p>Even as pop’s synth-based sheen was increasingly applied to mainstream music, Australian pub rock thrived through the 70s and 80s. And, of course, just either side of the 80s is generally considered to be the golden era of Australian protest songs.</p>
<p>You can hear the relationship between folk and rock when comparing two classic songs: Paul Kelly’s From Little Things Big Things Grow (1991) and Midnight Oil’s Beds are Burning (1987).</p>
<p>The Dylanesque From Little Things Big Things Grow draws on an ossified style, Aussiefied and refreshed here with a dose of country. </p>
<p>Narratively down-home lyrics are set to four simple chords, repeated hypnotically throughout the entire song.</p>
<p>The balance of circling around two brighter/ sweeter chords and two darker/ sadder chords creates an appropriate mix of hope and melancholy. That repetition and predictability gives the ear a sense of reassurance and creates space for the listener to focus on the lyrics. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">From Little Things Big Things Grow by Paul Kelly.</span></figcaption>
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<p>From Little Things Big Things Grow tells the story of how the Gurindji people’s claim can be seen as igniting the Indigenous land rights movement. </p>
<p>Aboriginal themes and issues are easily the most significant causes Australian music took up in the protest heyday, and Beds are Burning is probably the most famous example.</p>
<p>Midnight Oil ups the anger quotient with spat consonants and grotesque vowels in the verses, contrasting with a soaring and imploring chorus. </p>
<p>While harmonically straightforward in general, the famous opening and closing guitar riff frames the song with a harder substance and defines the defiant political stance.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The urgency of Beds are Burning reflects the incredible story of the people it advocates for. The Pintupi were among the last groups of people to move from “desert to settlement”, some voluntarily in the 1930s; others forcibly in the following decades. In 1981 they returned to country and Beds is an expression of support for the return of title to the Pintupi.</p>
<p>If Beds are Burning wasn’t already seared into public consciousness, it should have been by the events of 2000. Midnight Oil performed the song at the Sydney Olympics’ closing ceremony with “Sorry” plastered all over their black clothing. </p>
<p>A pointed dig at Prime Minister John Howard’s recent rejection of symbolic apology and reconciliation, the political irony is legendary: Howard had claimed Beds are Burning was his favourite Midnight Oil song. </p>
<p>This either proves that music can be appreciated separate from message (hands up anyone who can understand every word in a Thom Yorke song?), or that Beds are Burning was the only Midnight Oil song Howard was familiar with when put on the spot.</p>
<p>Another classic is of course Yothu Yindi’s Treaty (1991), a stunning song that seamlessly fuses a distinctly rock aesthetic with Indigenous singing, ironwood clapsticks and didgeridoo. </p>
<p>It was also the first song in an Aboriginal Australian language (Yolngu-Matha) to gain extensive international recognition.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Treaty by Yothu Yindi.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The success of songs such as Treaty might in part be due to the empathic response music creates in people. Such a response allows the listener to metaphorically step into another person’s shoes and see the world from their perspective. </p>
<p>The irresistible quality of that singing and sound in Treaty is such that people are inexorably drawn into an emotional connection with the music, making space for an empathetic relationship to the lyrics and message.</p>
<p>The impact of Treaty was profound: by successfully embedding Indigenous music in a rock context, it became an empathetically accessible sound for people of all dispositions. An increase in support for Indigenous issues flowed from the widespread cultural reach this song enjoyed.</p>
<h2>The herd versus the pack</h2>
<p>Previously the most popular vehicle for venting anger over social issues, rock’s demotion from pedestal to “just another genre” was clear by the early 2000s, as musical styles fragmented.</p>
<p>Australian hip-hop was one genre that picked up the slack of social conscience. </p>
<p>77%, The Herd’s post-MV Tampa hip-hop takedown of the Howard government, (named for the percentage of population who supported its actions at the time), was uploaded to YouTube in 2006 but “only” has 232,000 views to date. Beds are Burning is nudging 60 million views since 2009.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Herd – 77%.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Originally released in 2003, The Herd’s song set itself apart from the pack along with a <a href="http://www.blatantpropaganda.org/shop/songs-of-protest-australian-underground-political-music.html">host</a> of Indie-Rock, Punk, Hip-Hop, Industrial, Electronica, Acoustic-Folk, SynthPop, Power-Pop, and PowerNoise bands.</p>
<p>No doubt in reaction to the commercially-driven, blandness of popular music, it had become necessary for these musicians to remain alternative or risk collusion with the big end of town. At that time protest music was also increasingly preoccupied with the pitfalls of global capitalism.</p>
<h2>Oh protest music</h2>
<p>The musical expression of protest continues to evolve. Higgins’ and Minchin’s contrasting song styles – tackling two very different issues – are musically well-crafted, with Higgins’ excellent video packing an extra punch.</p>
<p>These ruminations haven’t even managed to get to the phalanx of other Australian musicians that have done and are doing important work in political music – Christine Anu, Blue King Brown, the John Butler Trio, Kev Carmody, Neil Murray, Powderfinger, Archie Roach, Xavier Rudd, Tiddas and Warumpi Band, among others.</p>
<p>In that context, whether the two prominent songs of the last week might have cracked a new level of mainstream popularity remains to be seen. </p>
<p>At the very least there’s new and beautiful proof that Australian protest music is brave, alive and well. It’s just speaking new languages.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Viney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A short tour of Australia’s protest song history shows that protest music didn’t so much disappear as morph from the mainstream. In other words, it’s still very much with us.Liam Viney, Piano Performance Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549452016-02-18T00:09:05Z2016-02-18T00:09:05ZTim Minchin’s Come Home Cardinal Pell is a pitch-perfect protest song<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111869/original/image-20160217-1240-h9afbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tim Minchin’s song-craft is direct yet sophisticated, and artfully constructed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tim Minchin’s latest musical offering, Come Home (Cardinal Pell), released online on February 16, is provoking <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/17/when-i-first-heard-tim-minchins-song-about-cardinal-pell-i-laughed-then-i-started-crying">strong reactions</a> around Australia (as well as the Vatican) because of its blunt and direct message to Cardinal George Pell.</p>
<p>The song addresses calls for <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/02/18/pell-responds-calls-come-home">Cardinal Pell to return to Australia</a> to give evidence at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/royal-commission-into-child-sex-abuse">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a>. The inquiry has accepted a report from Pell’s doctors that says <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-05/cardinal-george-pell-too-ill-to-child-sex-abuse-inquiry-lawyers/7140584">the cardinal is too ill to fly to Australia</a> to give personal testimony. </p>
<p>Cardinal Pell’s office released a statement earlier today stating that Minchin has given “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-18/cardinal-geroge-pell-royal-commission-abuse-tim-minchin-song/7179112">incorrect information</a>” about his participation in the royal commission, saying,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Cardinal is anxious to present the facts without further delays.</p>
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<p>Essentially, Come Home Cardinal Pell is a protest song, a genre with a long and proud history of motivating social change. Where delivery by prose would merely constitute fighting words, the garb of song gives the message malleability. In this case, the blunt-force attack becomes humorous, playful and spiteful all at once.</p>
<p>To give just a sense of the lyrics, Minchin sings:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I know what it’s like when you feel a little shitty <br>
You just want to curl up and have an itty bitty doona day <br>
But a lot of people here really miss you Georgie<br>
They really think you oughta just get on a plane<br>
(Just get on a plane)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether or not you agree with the sentiments expressed throughout the song, it’s worth looking at it from a purely mechanical point of view. There are reasons it “works” that have nothing to do with the scathing critique of Cardinal Pell – a political issue that this article is not trying to address.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tim Minchin performing Come Home (Cardinal Pell).</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The mechanics of musical sarcasm</h2>
<p>Analysing music is another way of knowing music and, therefore, another potential way of loving it. While engaging in analysis is in no sense a pre-condition for enjoying music, it can be a fascinating process to think about why and how a particular song works.</p>
<p>Minchin’s overall approach is compelling. He underscores sarcastic and bitter lyrics with a sweet, almost romantic musical language. There’s an ironic relationship between text and sound; the acerbic nature of the lyrics is offset by a beautiful, even poignant use of musical elements.</p>
<p>How does he pull off this sarcastic-yet-beautiful trick? Mainly through the sophisticated use of harmony and melody to throw the meaning of the lyrics into emotional relief.</p>
<p>The familiar and standard chord progressions relate in the first instance to piano-based pop (but also to classical music). In an era dominated by increasingly electronic forms of sound production, the simplicity and emotional directness of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxEPV4kolz0">Piano Man</a> model is refreshing.</p>
<p>Minchin foreshadows the crux of the musical argument by encapsulating its most important element at the very beginning: the chord progression in the opening piano solo. That solo piano progression comes back in a magnified form during the emotionally charged choruses.</p>
<p>Something very small but very important happens here. The very first piano figuration stretches upwards, almost sweetly, only to fall some distance to a pair of pitches that turn out not to “belong” to the darkly tinged second harmony, but then resolve upwards into that darker harmony.</p>
<p>In other words, the very first two chords establish a sense of light and dark.</p>
<p>This tonal ambiguity is what makes <a href="https://theconversation.com/questions-to-ask-your-teenager-about-music-and-mental-health-54824">love songs so attractive to insecure teenagers</a> – the music reflects hope and fear at the same time.</p>
<p>Indeed, Minchin makes the opening sound like a pensive love song. Here begins the sarcasm:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a lovely day in Ballarat <br>
I’m kicking back, thinking of you</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And how else should Minchin begin his attack? Words cut more when delivered through a smile, or in this case when embroidered into a relatively saccharine harmonic language.</p>
<h2>Overtones and undercurrents</h2>
<p>Throughout the first verse you’ll notice the chords don’t change all that much. Harmonically, he treads water, getting through text, keeping harmonic interest on the back-burner.</p>
<p>The verse ends with the almost endearingly gentle suggestion that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a lot of people here really miss ya, Georgie – They really think you oughta just get on a plane … just get on a plane!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is all in aid of preparing for a gut-punching chorus. After the suspended feel of the verse, we finally get the chord progression from the beginning again, referring strongly to the “home” key (called the tonic) while literally suggesting the cardinal come home:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Come home Cardinal Pell, I know you’re not feeling well <br>
And being crook ain’t much fun <br>
Even so, we think you should <br>
Come home, Cardinal Pell <br>
Come down from your citadel, it’s just the right thing to do <br>
They have a right to know what you knew.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EtHOmforqxk?wmode=transparent&start=54" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Click here to listen to the chorus, beginning at 0:54.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the bass guitar and piano had been providing longer and more sustained support through the verse, they adopt a crisper sound in the chorus for contrast. The piano vamp especially gives it energy.</p>
<p>Melodically, Minchin combines his main point (“Come home, Cardinal Pell”), with the most interesting part of the song vocally. There are two features – he substantially widens the range of notes being used, and uses strategically placed “wrong” notes.</p>
<p>By widening the range, there are more melodic leaps for him to manage. Leaping to or from a note creates more expression (think <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fahr069-fzE">Somewhere, Over the Rainbow)</a>. I’m not sure there’s a simple reason for that, but you can hear it working here.</p>
<p>There’s a big downward leap after “Come home”; isolating those two words gives them a slightly emphatic (nagging?) quality. Then the line ascends again on its way to “Pell”. And it’s this note in the chorus that probably defines the whole song.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cardinal George Pell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Munoz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The harmonic and melodic change on “Pell” shifts the musical colour from light to dark. Minchin doubles the emotional impact of that darker turn by having the vocal melody land on a note that doesn’t match the underlying harmony, just like the opening piano solo (here, on “Pell”). This, of course, is called dissonance in musical terms.</p>
<p>Dissonances usually get resolved in harmonically traditional music, often involving naught but a small adjustment by one melodic step. It’s always great if dissonances don’t resolve of course, because then the listener’s attention is stretched further in time.</p>
<p>So instead of resolving “Pell” by step, Minchin elides it with “I know you’re not feeling well” via another large downward leap, essentially repeating the first shape of the chorus a bit lower.</p>
<p>The tension created by the large leaps and dissonant notes in the first part of the chorus is balanced and ironed out by a more conventional melodic shape and harmonic sequence for the second. This progression is so good that we get to hear it twice each chorus.</p>
<h2>Musical text</h2>
<p>Minchin also uses lyrics creatively. Rather than rhyming “bell” with the obvious “Pell”, “Minchin instead works in "Pellian knell”.</p>
<p>In many of his songs, Minchin keeps listeners on their toes by avoiding a square relationship between lyric and music, often by overlapping the text across two major sections of music.</p>
<p>These four lines, for example, straddle the two very distinct halves of the chorus, with “home” finishing the text of the previous section, but providing the important first beat of the new section:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps you just need some sun <br>
It’s lovely here, you should come <br>
Home, you pompous buffoon<br>
(Pompous buffoon)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The faux-yearning imitative counterpoint provided by the bassist and drummer, especially on “you pompous buffoon”, highlights the logic of transforming bald insults into art – because it’s beautiful, they can somehow get away with it.</p>
<p>This technique allows Minchin to build a crescendo of verbal robustness. Sneaking “scum” in right at the end of the second verse is brilliant – the immediate switch into chorus mode brings the focus back to the music.</p>
<p>And while “scum” might seem to be pushing things on the personal front, it’s also nothing we haven’t heard from Australia’s eminent political leaders before (it also rhymes with “come”, which may have been the real consideration here).</p>
<p>But “scum” has another function. Boosting the rude factor in the second verse paves the way for the ensuing taunt climax: the simultaneously blasphemous and emasculating “goddamn coward” line that comes at the very end of the bridge.</p>
<p>The entire bridge is familiar Minchin. You could read the whole thing as prose and not sense song-worthiness anywhere (apart from one rhyme):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to be transparent here, George, I’m not the greatest fan of your religion, and I personally believe that those who cover up abuse should go to prison. But your ethical hypocrisy, your intellectual vacuity, and your arrogance don’t bother me as much as the fact that you have turned out to be such a goddamn coward.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EtHOmforqxk?wmode=transparent&start=131" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Starting at the 2:11 mark, the bridge delivers an emphatic emotional punch.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This fluidity is again underpinned by harmonically wandering music; not letting itself find the stability of the “home” chord, so that the lyrics can be focused on more clearly.</p>
<p>There’s a slightly soaring quality to the second half of the bridge. After building up the tension before “goddamn coward”, the drums, bass and piano drop out for a moment to allow the weight of the sentiment to cut through.</p>
<p>Drums re-enter to reinforce the word “coward”, Minchin drops a glissando on the piano, and the expected harmony (the one from the chorus) is actually denied.</p>
<p>Instead, we get a long stepwise-bass progression, gospel-style Hammond organ appearing from somewhere in the background, and another build-up. Resolution denied, anticipation growing. We are really ready for that chorus again!</p>
<p>Lyrically, he’s suggesting the cardinal should return to “face the music, the music” as the tension rebuilds. Musical expectations are thwarted yet again as Handel’s 235-year-old <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU">Hallelujah Chorus</a> from the Messiah gets a cameo, as if “face the music, the music” had given him the idea of quoting some recognisably famous “music”.</p>
<p>The texture thins out to just one line for “If the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”, highlighting the joke, but also because that’s what the original Handel chorus does at that line. From an atheist’s perspective, it also highlights the “if” of the proposition, a pretty obvious challenge to the perceived integrity of the song’s target. To top it off, Minchin raises his eyes heavenward.</p>
<p>After this, we’ve earned the chorus again, which we are treated to by a bearded god-possibly-santa-Minchin singing in his best imitation of basso profundo. Minchin here is barely able to take himself seriously. The ridiculousness helps soften the blow he’s just delivered.</p>
<p>The Hammond organ returns for the gospel-choir feel of the lyrics that talk of time running out for atonement and the Lord’s forgiveness.</p>
<p>Finally, the song returns to piano solo and voice only as Minchin concludes by speculating as to the legal implications of his song, almost hopefully suggesting that perhaps the cardinal will at least come home to sue him.</p>
<p>By emblazoning his lyrics onto a musical fabric, Minchin gives his rhetorical argument the advantage of making people want to sing and dance along.</p>
<p>Come Home (Cardinal Pell) is a prime example of the power music has to project a political message into the public sphere. Tim Minchin’s songcraft is direct yet sophisticated, artfully constructed and undeniably catchy.</p>
<p>There are probably thousands of earworm-afflicted people all over the country today, each infected by the latest Minchin chorus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Viney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tim Minchin’s latest musical offering, Come Home Cardinal Pell, is provoking strong reactions because of its blunt and direct message to Cardinal George Pell. But in terms of song-craft, it’s a winner.Liam Viney, Piano Performance Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.