One Chord

Sometimes that's all it takes for a song to electrify your mind. One chord, summoned ever so delicately by a combination of instruments, and preserved in a recording which now lives on forever in our hard drives so that we can come back to it, again and again, whenever we need to feel that lift.

Scrolling through my iTunes today, I thought about this. If I had to pick out only one moment in all of recorded music - one chord - to call my favorite, which moment would it be?

Well, that's just an impossible question, isn't it? I know I can't answer it. But I did give a lot of thought to the answer, so here are a few of my very favorite chords in all of rock:

Bruce Springsteen - "Darkness on the Edge of Town" - 0:52

I only became a real Bruce fan after hearing this song. His radio hits are great, and those were the only tunes I knew of his for a long time. But when my girlfriend, a longtime Bruce fanatic, played me this song, my appreciation of Bruce shot through the roof. "Darkness" feels like a walk in the night, and the D minor 7th chord that hits on the word "edge" is like a rare Italian sports car that speeds by with a gust of wind. It's unexpected; it leaves you thinking "What was that?" The intrigue in this moment is overwhelming. The chord is really beyond words, but I'll call it magical.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town - Bruce Springsteen


Bob Dylan - "Like A Rolling Stone" - 0:01

The drum is struck once, and then that opening chord: thick, reeling, and all nostalgia. The chord is a cue for us as listeners and as Americans, a switch that goes off in our heads and flips a sepia-toned lens down over our eyes. Immediately engaging yet mysterious in its ability to compel you, this is perhaps the only rock song to deserve the books that have been written about it (see Greil Marcus' work). You know this song already, but it's always a fresh sound when you hear it.

Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan


Elton John - "My Father's Gun" - 2:12

There is a rather subtle and muffled electric guitar that trickles in and out of this gem from 1970's Tumbleweed Connection. Then there is the presence of the brass section, giving the sound breadth and muscle. The song rises and falls like most songs do, but the difference here is in the interaction of the horns and the guitar. That interaction drives the second half of the song, when the chorus repeats continuously and builds in our minds a la "Hey Jude." But the horns and guitar come together most beautifully at 2:12, when the chorus overflows and Elton hits the word "bend." This song kept me up late at night when I first bought the Super Audio (hi-def) CD and played it in surround sound. Elton at his most powerful and visceral.

My Fathers Gun - Elton John