Examples in Popular Music
Suspended chords are commonly found in folk music and popular music. An example can be found in the piece "One Short Day", part of the Wicked musical by Stephen Schwartz, which starts with a descending arpeggio of a suspended chord. In rock, the verse of The Who song "Pinball Wizard" is a sequence of suspended fourth chords resolving to their major counterparts (Bsus4-B Asus4-A etc.). Another example is John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", where the sequence is of majors progressing to suspended second, then fourth, then back to the original (A-Asus2-Asus4-A)). In pop/synth-pop, Erasure's "A Little Respect" employs major to suspended changes in much of the song's harmonization. Another example with major to suspended progression is Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory". The last chord of the first bridge of The Police's "Every Breath You Take" is an unresolved suspended chord, the introduction and chorus of Shocking Blue's "Venus" each contain an unresolved suspended chord, and the introduction of Chicago's "Make Me Smile" has two different suspended chords without traditional resolution.
Read more about this topic: Suspended Chord
Famous quotes containing the words popular music, examples, popular and/or music:
“The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races.... The economics of this musical esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Resorts advertised for waitresses, specifying that they “must appear in short clothes or no engagement.” Below a Gospel Guide column headed, “Where our Local Divines Will Hang Out Tomorrow,” was an account of spirited gun play at the Bon Ton. In Jeff Winney’s California Concert Hall, patrons “bucked the tiger” under the watchful eye of Kitty Crawhurst, popular “lady” gambler.”
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower yet, oh faintly gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
“Woe weeps out her division when she sings.”
Droop herbs and flowers;
Fall grief in showers;
“Our beauties are not ours”:
Oh, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)