Tenacious D Week: A Closer Look At "Roadie", And Kelly Clarkson

I think we can all agree it's in E, and it pulls that old bit where it flirts and flips between E major, E minor and, of course, the old open E. Examples of this flirting and flipping can be found in "Behind Blue Eyes", "Seasons", "Summer Breeze" (Hippies!), and much of the music of Paul Hindemith. (Hugo gave me a copy of the full orchestration of Mathis Der Maler in Paul's own hand. Turns out the Nazis weren't fond of his unpatriotic music and his hatred of Nazis' hatred of Jews, so he had to write it out himself without the benefit of a publisher.)

So, long story short, no measure notation: E D/F# E D/F# and on; but then a really nice progression that's nothing more than C to A to E, then C to A back to C back to A to E. But the cool thing is, the C is a Cmajor7, and the A is an open A9, which means the B natural in the Cmajor7 becomes the 9 in the open A.

Lyrics: amplifiers, sweat, something about a blowjob, and, of course, a young man's love of music. And blowjobs. We'll talk more about this tomorrow.

As for Kelly, it really is all about singing the right note, and singing it right in the middle of the note. And pipes. Hope this doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, but Kelly was and has always been the real deal. I'm still convinced that Justin was a cardboard cutout prop the whole first season. That is until From Justin To Kelly, one of the most misunderstood works of genius in the history of the art of the taking of pot. Watching that sober must be akin to that waterboarding next-level shit Tricky Dick Torture Ticker Cheney was so fond of watching whilst bathing in the afterbirths of aborted anti-freedom haters. (Just spitballing here.)