The Most COMPLEX Pop Song of All Time

Hi everyone, I'm Rick Beato, so I've been talking lately about how music has become less and less

complex

over the last I don't know 30 years, 40 years or so and I keep thinking what's the

most

complicated

song

I've ever heard? . I've played that pop

song

before and I remembered a concert I played in 1983. My friend Smitty called me at the beginning of the summer, it was my junior year of college, and he said, Hi, I have a concert for us for four weeks and I said what is it, we're going to go to the parks in Rochester and play for kids and it's a pop group we're going to play, maybe some standards, you're going to play guitar.

I'm on base terence bruce is playing sax terence was a great saxophonist playing a band called cabo frio funk band and then there's a drummer and a female vocalist okay we get to the first rehearsal and this girl says uh one of the songs . She wanted to do

most

of the songs that we knew and one of the songs she wanted to do was the number one song of the

time

, it's called I'll never let you go Sergio Mendez Paul and I hadn't heard it, we didn't listen to it on the radio or something like that, she she had a cassette player there, it's like we play it, we're like, oh we can learn any song, no problem, we're jazz guys, so she starts playing the song and it's like I'm like, yeah. oh that's weird, how was this?

Where was that? Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, back up a second, so she backs up, okay, so we're trying to do the math in our head, here we go, it starts in F sharp minor so it's six two five one these are just inversions from four to five and then to six major first modulation which is a borrowed chord but then the verse goes up to G minor seven to the right so it goes up half a step and there's a modulation so we're trying to follow the song from the beginning of the verse, okay, here's the verse, okay, so we're thinking we can do this without a proper chart for a gig later that day that we're playing.

People, so Paul and I haven't even finished the whole song, but we're thinking if we should write a chart for this. No, we can figure it out, so we start in F sharp minor, so that's just the introduction and then the verse. okay and then there's this and then okay, now we're really entering uncharted territory. I've never seen a song go through so many different chord changes. This is just the beginning. This is the most confusing thing ever. go to the second half of the verse, I mean, so it goes before the chorus, it's actually a very good change, but going from d 11 or c over d to d over c to B flat sus2 or to uh, this would be A minor 7 flat 6. or f add 9 on the right, it's totally confusing, so don't forget we start here at the beginning of the song, the intro then the verse goes here, the first half of the verse, the second, if the verse goes there, then the pre-chorus is there so moving on from the pre-chorus what's the strangest key change that you guys are going through I mean I have to read this I have yet to read it because I can't remember it to this day normally you would have half of it diminished or you would go, but what they did is they used a minor two five instead of going to D flat major, they go to the three chord as a substitute, that's actually like a tonic substitute, but it's very confusing, so we have f sharp minor if you think about just the first chord of each F sharp minor section in the introduction, the first chord of the verse is G minor, then the second half of the verse is E minor, the first chord of the pre-chorus B flat sus2 and then the second half of the pre-chorus goes to F sharp and then this and then two fives and then it goes to F minor, okay, so the chorus is okay, what is this?

Okay, so the chorus starts from F minor to uh B flat minor E flat E flat up D flat uh C minor seven then D flat major to G seven to C and then and then goes up a half step what song modulates what's song number one , so it modulates the first half of the chorus is F minor to B flat seven B flat minor seven the second half of the chorus is F sharp minor to B minor seven a half step up the same chord progression up a half step and then this

time

I'll never let you go then it actually goes into the last three chords of the intro, that's the only thing that's been repeated so far and it's similar to what came before.

Well, here's the easy chorus. I understood this and then it goes in the verse too. The same chords. Okay, female singer on this, so the first verse, the first verse, is sung by the guy. the chorus that they sing together and then the second verse that she takes, which is a great formula, by the way, the song is written by cynthia weil and barry mann, who were very famous songwriters at the time, sergio mendes, whose album came out is just the producers and they have all the session musicians, they are all session drummers, all the session guitarists, all the session keyboard players, sergio mendez, I think he might be playing keyboards, I don't know, I watched a live video and he he's playing keyboards but I think he's faking it I don't know but the production and arrangement is really amazing so here's the second verse modulated down this is really confusing here G minor seven C over E and then C over F f major and then it goes to c here's a pre-chorus again listen to this so check this out solo okay so terence played the solo on this one the saxophonist so before we start the song the first day , Paul and I are thinking we can memorize this song and play it in a couple of hours in front of a group of 100 kids, so we practice it and we work our way through it and the girl, the drummer and the girl are singing well , so we went out front.

From these kids we start playing the song and I get lost first, okay, so I play along, but Paul knows where we are. Paul has an incredibly good memory. I mean, I have a great memory for songs and chord changes. An incredibly good memory. but this is like it's an impossible task to just listen to it for 20 minutes and rehearse it or 30 minutes whatever, so I'm looking at Paul, I look over his stand, he's playing a fretless bass, he's got no markers and everything, so you really have to use your ear, okay, where is this going?

Because I can't predict where it goes because I don't have the pattern memorized, so Paul likes to yell at me, yeah, he says, uh, you know, he says E minor. e minor to minor and then I catch up, we keep the sun and the singers are like because it's me playing the guitar and since the bass notes are not bad, everything is fine and terence, the sex player, laughs and paul and I'm laughing, but not that hysterically yet and then we work our way through the song and the singers look at us like, come on guys, what a disaster, so we get there the next day and we thought we had to do it.

We rehearsed that song, we can't play it again, that was a disaster, so we rehearsed until we completed it and uh, I say, okay, we have this. I'm looking at Paul, we have this, yeah, so he shows up on set and I. I'm thinking, oh, how is this going to go? So we start playing, we get to, I don't know, halfway through the first verse or so and then Paul gets lost, but instead of me being the nice guy like Paul, he helped me the day before I decided. to mess with him and I turned my back on my guitar so you couldn't see my hands and Paul starts laughing really hard and keeps playing one wrong bass note after another and it doesn't matter because even if I'm playing the wrong chords with the notes wrong, it sounds like I'm wrong too and the singers are singing and they can't even sing because they're all the wrong chords and they're trying to get this love duet right and we're fucking around.

We lifted him up so majestically and doubled over laughing. I walk back, I have tears streaming down my face. Paul does it too and then the audience is all kids, you know, 10 years old, 8 years old, 12 years old and them. You're watching us laugh on stage and just slaughter this song, but we stick with it and we go back up for a while and then we go back down and it was the most fun, it's literally the funnest gig I've ever played in my life because it was a botch, okay, but as you watch this, you see this solo section, so Terence is playing the keyboard solo on the sax, but this right here is a chord per beat and then a tritone. the first kind of normal progression that goes where you expect it, but then it's okay and then it goes to the third chorus, so after the solo it goes instead of two five one, it goes like this, now my 40 year later Rick brain is like oh, it's just a tricky cadence because now that I'm thinking about it, okay, it's minor two five one, but it goes to C major, so D minus ten flat five G seven sharp five to C major seven, but instead we're substituting the e Minor seven is the sub for C major seven, so it's actually a tricky two five cadence.

It's actually very brilliant to go there. Only a jazz player would think of this. The fact is, it was a huge hit pop song and you didn't even realize it. it changes key like a hundred times, so after you go from the solo you're not even free at home because it's still confusing at the end, let me play from the solo and then okay, we have this, so this chorus starts in E minor. 7 a minor 7 a d the second chorus is from f minor to b flat minor to e flat, so this chorus is actually a half step down.

Now when I hear it, I know where it's going, but I do try to play it. from memory and then you just have to rely on what the chord pattern is because the chord pattern isn't uh uh it's a bit nonsensical, there's really nothing to hold on to so you really need to have a chart in front of you from the beginning . The third chorus goes, I'm thinking okay, so everything is down and half a step, then we have the three main chords in a row, okay, those three main chords in a row in the intro are, but here they are half a step down, okay ? and then we get to the outro chorus because there's a guitar solo that happens here we think we're home free what and then okay he does the same thing twice but I let you go so the ending F sharp major G sharp major B flat major o g flat to flat b flat right in the intro it's d e f sharp and the next time it happens it's t flat e flat f and at the end it's g flat to flat b flat which is the most complicated hit song of all time.

Complex chord progression but when you hear it you think, yeah, okay, yeah, it just happens, you don't even realize it's changing pitch like any other beat when I say pop music has gotten simpler over time Well, if that's not the case. a great example of that, can you imagine a song like that on the radio today? Well, I mean, it's stylistically, it's too strange, but this is what used to go on pop radio, that's all for now, remember to subscribe to the channel, hit the bell icon. I have my new Beato Quick Less Pro guitar course that just came out and you can find it if you go to Quick Less Dot Pro, not Dot Com, Quick Less Dot Pro, or you can find it through my website at rickbiota.com.

Forget it, you can find the biato book there where you can find out how all these chord progressions go together and my biato ear training course if you go to beato eartrain.com which will teach you how to discover these types of songs by interval ear, it's say everything for now thank you very much for seeing you