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Now Clem Burke sets the pace, hauling frantically at the beat, a brisk four-on-the-floor stomp, dragging the band along at 135 — you know he’d go 150 if they’d only get a leg on — just two measures in and he’s given up on the quarter notes and is impatiently drumming his fingers with sarcastic hi-hat triplets as if to say, NO RUSH GUYS JUST WHEN YOU ARE READY.

Come on, man, we haven’t got all day don’t you know there’s a sweaty cataclysm going down?

Their vibe is dreamy double-tracked twang and you know that this is James Calvin Willsey learnt everything he knew, God rest him.

But underneath it all this tension.

For all the sombre sombrero guitar, that marching four-beat has got a place to be and Burke is taking us there —

 

Suddenly we’re exultant: it’s a breezy major, the disco bass leads, and the drummer, Burke, is back in the pocket like he’s saying I told you so. He’s just doing the cha-cha, cheerleading now, for here is the golden goddess.

The Chords:

In the verse we have E minor – not quite, but nearly the saddest of all keys . An E minor to a melancholy C, to a dolourous D, to a morose A, and then a D, augmenting back to the E.

After all this cultivated dissonance this seems trite and, on paper, a bit disappointing, but the way she sings it, and how Destri garlands it with pealing church-bell keyboard lines, hosannas like it’s the Eighteen Twelve, you know she’s right — uh-ha, make it magnificent.

Everything is so major and positive, even the chord progression is rising chromatically up some stairway to heaven, and beautiful hair (again: on paper —) so we know we are building to something bigger, and kaboom! there it is! A throbbing arpeggiator explodes onto the soundscape and, mixed in with the blood and ecstasy are some gorgeous minor third harmonies. We are back in the minor. The ride reaches its apex and we are falling: the roller-coaster thunders down into the depths, for you can’t understand joy if you don’t know sorrow tonight — stop.