Thursday, May 23, 2019

"Heads You Win - Tails I Lose"

This morning I was thinking about "Heads You Win - Tails I Lose" and realized something about the chorus.  For the repeated "Heads you win / Tails I lose" (or the later "Heads I win / Tails you lose"), there are only two chords, and each line is sung with only a single pitch (in the lead vocal, anyway).  "Heads you win" is sung entirely to F# notes above an F# minor, and "Tails I lose" is sung entirely to E notes above an E major.  That there are only two notes and two chords for these two lines musically illustrates the two possible outcomes of the coin flip (although, as the lyrics explain, the outcome of the coin flip really has no bearing on what actually happens).