Last Night...This Night...and Tomorrow Night...
By Austin Murphy
**If you are not familiar with musical terminology, refer to the three diagrams at the bottom.**
I spent four years studying Music Theory at UCSB, but it wasn’t until last night that I finally put my skills to use by analyzing my first piece since 2014 -- “This Night” by Billy Joel.
Best prepare yourself for a lot of musical jargon.
Originally released on his 1983 album An Innocent Man, the song borrows a chord progression from the second movement of Beethoven’s “Pathetique.” We analyzed this specific progression during my freshman year, but only now do I see Joel’s brilliance on display in bringing the Romantic era into the 20th century.
The lyrics are quite obviously about the singer’s trepidation and hesitation to trust a specific person and fall in love again, constantly reminding himself that he “fell” into a similar trap before. In the chorus the two characters eventually conquer their fear and spend “this night” together, and they end the song unconcerned about what tomorrow will bring because it is so far away.
While the lyrics are sweet and romantic, they are only half of the whole story -- fitting, because lovers are so often halves of a whole. The rest of the story is told within the music, but you have to parse it out to truly understand.
Let’s picture the two characters as being key signatures: the man (singer) is A major, and the lady is F major. A major is written as having three sharps and, when pictured on a staff, slightly resembles the shape of a heart. F major, contrastingly, only uses one accidental -- a single flat, subliminally implying that the two characters are not on the same page (rather, that they are on opposite ends of the earth, city, or perhaps even the same room).
Further, it is my interpretation that despite being “friends” both parties view each other with their contradicting key signatures as being uninterested in each other. They like one another, but each views the other as being standoffish simply because they are too lost in their own worlds or “songs,” -- but this is about to change.
As the verse (the man’s solo) progresses, he talks about “breaking his promises” -- promises he made to himself not to fall again, that he and the lady would remain friends. But after he starts dancing with her, ironic because the “dance” begins with a “D” major chord -- not to mention that D major is the only chord the two opposing keys share despite collectively occupying all 12 notes on the staff.
In other words, the man and lady found a common ground, a shared passion.
And so they danced, “though it was only a slow dance.” But the man is quickly forgetting his past and doesn’t remember the “rules” anymore -- not to fall for friends.
The dance is the chorus, when the man “falls” into her key of F major -- literally falling downwards from the note “A” to “F.” Though they dance, he is still adamant about being the “man” and claiming the night as his territory -- despite the fact that dancing is a two-person act. And thus, he scares away the lady when he is too “aggressive” the first time they meet.
And so we return to the verse in A major. The man is lonely and misses the feeling of being half of a whole -- even though he still remembers the last time he was hurt. And eventually it all becomes too much, and he “falls” into the chorus, again.
This time, he is wiser. He dances much longer with the lady -- remaining in F major (ironically as friends with a capital ‘F’) for the second chorus -- and he allows himself to stay close to her when the saxophone “solo” ends -- in a nearby key.
But being in the key of F-major during the chorus is even more significant because at that point the characters almost share all three notes of the chord. “A” is part of both chords, and the characters are only a half-tone apart with “C” and “C-sharp.” Now we just need to know what happens to the discordant, “warring” notes of “E” and “F,” which are also only a half-tone apart and look very similar as letters.
This is where Joel’s brilliance is on display, because you can literally picture the modulations and keys as characters on paper moving closer to each other. While they were in F-major, the letter “F” was missing the bottom “rung” which would turn it into the letter “E,” and the “C-sharp” has an extra ‘#’ sign that the “C” note doesn’t need -- but maybe if the man gave the girl that last sharp (letter) he was holding onto, she could fill in that missing piece.
In the nearby key, B-flat major, the man is showing the lady that he cares about her by shedding his “standoffish” sharps and “attracting” her with two flats of his own. The lady sees something in him she can relate to (the flat), and she comes closer -- but there is still one thing remaining:
The resolution.
In music, a perfect resolution occurs when a dominant chord “resolves” into the tonic (e.g. a G chord followed by a more “sonically-stable” C chord). But as we know, there is no such thing as a “perfect” story, and so the characters both need to make a sacrifice to prove themselves to each other.
The man and lady resolve their differences when they finally express their true feelings with a verbal resolution in the form of a new key: E-flat major, a key that is written as having three flats. The pair dances together in the last chorus in what we assume to be the “nearby” key of B-flat major, but what they are actually doing is lingering on the doorstep with a dominant chord (B-flat).
The man and lady are already together -- and they both know it and confirm it when the song ends on an E-flat major chord, the new tonic. They let go of their own selfishness and allow themselves to fall in love again despite previous heartbreaks.
And the most touching part of what actually turns out to be a “perfect resolution” -- in disguise because the penultimate chord was drawn out and “hidden” as an entire key -- is the final key. With three flats, E-flat is written on the staff in almost mirror image of A-major: in the shape of a heart.
The man isn’t asking the girl to change entirely for him. He just needs her to shift down to the letter “E,” -- “fall” from being friends -- and he gives her a flat (his mended heart) so she can be her own person but also be closer to him.
So we finally know what happened at the very beginning to cause a rift between the two parties. The man came on too strong and scared his lady away by saying three specific words too early in their relationship. She wasn’t ready because she only had “one-third” of her heart ready to commit.
But at the very end, the man and lady come together again to tell each other the three words they’ve been meaning to say during the entire song...
...
And I’m not even going to type them, because you already know what those three words are.
© Austin T. Murphy 2016
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