Weekly Billboard Theory — Never Be The Same
Aloha! It’s that time of the week again where it’s Wednesday night and I procrastinated writing so I’m up late when I should be falling asleep to old episodes of the Office again. Whoops! Fortunately, I get to write about a pretty great song, Camila Cabello’s “Never Be The Same”.
Never Be The Same
Key: C Major
Tempo: 130 BPM
The song begins with what sounds like an organ that’s been recorded on a VHS tape. “What does that even mean?” It means what it means. Watch this to see what I mean. ANYWAYS! This is a cool way to start! It gives us a bunch of information. Four main notes sound throughout the intro and they will probably go on to be our chord progression (they do). From these four notes, we can likely figure out the key. Also, we are able to assume that the instrumentation throughout the song will have a ~vintage feel~ to it due to that tape-like sound.
The hang-up that I have with this introduction (and really the only one I can think of in the song) is the percussion that creeps in. What does it serve? Sure it sounds cool but why present this idea to us in the introduction if it never takes the spotlight later? I’m listening to this song with cheap-o headphones so maybe I’m missing it in the mix due to my current set-up but I feel that it would have been an obvious idea to bring back. Maybe in the bridge? Maybe in a verse? IDK, but if you got it, why not use it? (EDIT: Okay so it sneaks back a LITTLE bit in the pre-chorus but still not enough IMHO. It’s a cool part! Use it!)
Okay okay, back to good stuff. Camila gives us a masterclass in melodic range. Remember math class? The range is the difference between the highest and lowest and that applies to melodic ideas as well. Let’s check out that verse. Pretty low! Keep in mind, this is the FIRST verse. I capitalize FIRST because it’s songwriting 101 to keep the first verse subdued. This way, you have somewhere to go as the song progresses. I once saw a guy sing “Ordinary People” at an open mic one time and he riffed all over the first verse. Where did the song progress? I’m not sure because I was so bored by his performance that I fell asleep before the end. Whoops. Okay, back to Camilla! First verse, the bottom of her range. This is sung in her chest voice. It’s been years since I’ve taken vocal pedagogy courses so forgive me skimming over this, but chest voice is what you’re most familiar with hearing. There are people that can give you a much better understanding of the idea but it’s basically how we talk and how we sing the majority of the time.
As we progress to the pre-chorus, something great happens. Camilla jumps up the top of her vocal range in her head voice. Good thing I already linked to that YouTube video! If you didn’t watch it, know that I’m doing a poor job of explaining this, but the head voice is a much lighter sound that resonates in your head when singing. If you think of Robin Williams’ “Mrs. Doubtfire” voice. That would be head voice. Camila could have belted these notes out but she made a deliberate choice to keep them light. Why? Because this is the pre-chorus, not the chorus. We still have somewhere to go. Also, I looove the slant rhyme of “nicotine” and “heroin”. I know, I know. You’re not here for lyrics.
We get to the chorus and Camila is back in a full, chest voice but she’s no longer in the basement of her range. However! She does sneak back into that head voice towards the end of the first time through the chorus pattern. This demonstrates that Camila is putting effort into this chorus, but not TOO much effort. It comes easy for her. Back to the verse, right? Nope! This first chorus is a double chorus, huge power move. And you know what? I’ll allow it. As the chorus repeats, we get a lot of vocal harmonies to keep us interested and fill out the sound. And then! We get a chorus outro. Okay, shoot, as I’m listening to this song deeper the production quality is so dang good and I’m already at 758 words before getting to a point I wanted to talk about but yes, this song is great.
OKAY! BACK TO THEORY STUFF! The chord progression of this song is simple but sweet. I-V-ii-IV. Yep, that’s a ii, not a vi. What does that mean? Well I always talk about I-IV in these write-ups. And John Mayer agrees with me (I’m not linking to the exact time he mentions it, but he does mention the relationship of I-IV in top 40 music). I really like this chord progression but I gotta break down why. Cadences are like periods to a musical sentence. I know I’ve talked about this before, it’s been a while. A cadence of IV moving to I is called a plagal cadence. So, the progression of I-V-ii-IV would then repeat to be I-V-ii-IV-I-V-ii-IV and I bolded the cadence so it’s obvious for you. NOW! The most common progression in all of classical and jazz music (not pop) is a ii-V-I progression. The ii chord sets up the cadence basically. SO! In the case of “Never Be The Same”, the ii sets up IV-I! I know this is a dumb thing to be excited about but it’s a nice change from the obvious I-V-vi-IV in a way that makes a lot of sense! Also, this progression should sound familiar to you.
Been super busy ~in the studio~ but I actually have a listening recommendation! Shocking! Listen to the Night Game. Do it now before everyone else does.
It shouldn’t be shocking that I’ll be writing about Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” next week. Pretty wild that a song this politically charged is number one! Hopefully, that means progress! But is the song any good? We’ll look into that next week. See ya then!
