It’s all about the instruments.
The perfect song. It’s a tough, personal choice as to what that means. For me, it is when instruments can come together to create a beautiful work of art that truly lets an instrument shine. Solos, riffs, and carrying the melody. The best songs allow for an instrument to take front and center so it can show off its full potential and the beauty of its sound. I like to call those perfect moments “singing”, because an instrument left to the chorus sounds like talking.
Song: Sweet Child o’ Mine
Artist: Guns N’ Roses
Released: 1987
Listening to this song, you can hear how each person has mastery over their instrument. You can hear it in the way each plays its own melody but yet, seamlessly melds together with everyone to create a cohesive song. Listen to the guitar. It’s a journey of notes that fully encompasses the range of the electric guitar. Slash really showcases his talent in this song, shredding music and creating an iconic solo that’s just the perfect embodiment of what an electric guitar is capable of.
Song: Somebody That I Used to Know
Artist: Gotye (featuring Kimbra)
Released: 2012
Gotye brings back an instrument that we all used to know: the xylophone. Not just good for ‘words starting with X’, the xylophone is more often associated with school music classes than with pop culture music. Gotye changes all that by giving the melody of his song to the xylophone. The simple melody is so lovely, it’s been remixed hundreds of times, causing this song to live on long past its original air date. Honestly, the rest of the instruments are just filler in this song. It’s all about that xylophone (although Gotye’s great voice doesn’t hurt).
Song: Winter (from The Four Seasons)
Artist: Antonio Vivaldi (performed by I Musici)
Released: 1716 (performed 1988)
The violin. Horse hair bows. Strumming against metal strings. Vivaldi translates these into the sounds of winter in his concerto, Winter. Vivaldi wrote four concerti, one for each season. He paired them with sonnets that heightened the music to a revolutionary new level. Songs now could come with a narrative element. Indeed, they had to invent a new word for music of this kind: program music. Instead of explaining to you how the violin takes center stage throughout the song, there’s no better description than the original accompanying sonnet lyrics, translated into English.
Allegro non molto
To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
To run, stamping one’s feet every moment,
Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold.
Largo
Before the fire to pass peaceful,
Contented days while the rain outside pours down.
Allegro
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously,
for fear of tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and,
rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
We feel the chill north winds course through the home
despite the locked and bolted doors…
This is winter, which nonetheless
brings its own delights.
If you are interested in contributing to Three Perfect Songs, please visit the Write to us page to learn more.
Three Perfect Songs 