Sunday, August 19, 2018

"Cindy, Oh Cindy"

This afternoon, I figured out the chords for "Cindy, Oh Cindy" (a bonus track on the Surfin' Safari/Surfin' U.S.A. reissue) and noticed a couple things about it.

First, here are the chords (with the disclaimer that I might have something wrong):

Introduction
|: C# major | A# minor :|

Verses
|: C# major | A# minor | F# major | C# major :|
C# major | A# minor | F# major | A# minor

Choruses
C# major | G# major | C# major

Coda
C# major

I noticed three small features in the song:

The line "Cindy, don't let me down" in the chorus is sung to a descending phrase (G# G# E# F# E# D#), so while it's negated, there's a musical representation of "let[ting] me down."

At the end of the chorus, the chord progression goes to the tonic (C# major), and there's a tonic note (C#) at the end of the vocal melody for that section (the second syllable of the melisma'd "bound").  The tonic is the musical "home," so there's a musical representation of "And I'll be homeward bound."

The same feature is in the third verse.  The chord progression moves to the tonic, and there's a tonic note (the second syllable of the melisma'd "home"), both of which musically represent the home in the line "Soon I'll be headin' home."