Jewel, "Foolish Games"

Song: "Foolish Games"
Artist: Jewel
Album: Pieces Of You
Written by: Jewel Kilcher
Year: 1995
Key: Dm (E♭m in single version)
Classification: SF2
Lyrical content: the drama you've been craving (is losing its luster); inability to use an umbrella = sexy
Where used: verse

Jewel

I remember a time in 1995 when Jewel was scheduled to play a very small club in Houston, and the word on the street was that you didn't want to miss this girl if you could help it. If you pointed out that she was only 21 years old with just a guitar and no history of any kind, you were met with the observation that you'd just described Bob Dylan at the time of his first album. Faced with the threat of missing out on the latest Next Dylan, I took the easy way out: I found a conflict and I avoided that whole mess entirely.

Even so, I was quite happy to admit that I thought that Jewel made the radio a better place in 1995-1996. Not, like, a whole lot better, but I certainly smiled a small but measurable amount and stopped flipping around the dial every time I stumbled across one of her songs. When I finally succumbed to the inevitable and purchased Pieces Of You a few years later, I discovered the frustrating truth, which is that the singles that were getting airplay were getting airplay precisely because they were just about the only listenable songs on the album. Everything else was incredibly precious, quasi-poetic and self-consciously "deep."

It had the unfortunate result of casting a pall retroactively on songs that I had previously liked, one of which was "Foolish Games." Previously, I'd been able to dismiss the overwrought drama as an anomaly that was easily counterbalanced with a heart-tugging vocal and melody. I'd eventually realize that they were all intertwined. (I would also learn that the single version was a completely different recording in a completely different key -- bumped up from Dm to E♭m -- which was enough to change the entire thrust of her vocal.) Considering the lyrics -- blagging on about art, rife with self-loathing in the company of a guy who sounds for all the world like a pretentious, narcissistic d-bag -- she almost had no choice but to use the SFCP. Is "Foolish Games" sensitive? Oh, my, yes; not only does the word pop up in the song itself, this is the singer, after all, who included on her debut a song actually called "I'm Sensitive." Everything that the SFCP is can be found right here, right down to the bleeding heart and borderline-tearful delivery. It's the kind of story, and the kind of guy, that can move a 22-year-old to romantic agony and ten years later make the same person hang her head in abashed disbelief that she was ever naive enough to fall for his line. And although she has a very long way to go, if you listen closely enough to the chorus, you can hear Jewel in the process of starting to grow from the former woman in to the latter.

Full song: Jewel, "Foolish Games"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Kelly Clarkson, "Behind These Hazel Eyes"

Song: "Behind These Hazel Eyes"
Artist: Kelly Clarkson
Album: Breakaway
Written by: Kelly Clarkson/Martin Sandberg/Lukasz Gottwald
Year: 2004
Key: F#m
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: it's none of your business what a wreck I currently am because of you; since u been gone, I've been struggling, actually
Where used: verse, chorus



I like Kelly Clarkson. It took me a good long while to come to grips with this fact. The only time I watched American Idol during the first season was the final performance episode out of sheer curiosity, and just about the only thing I took from it was how much I loathed "A Moment Like This" and "Before Your Love." (Little did I know that those would be the high water marks of Idol coronation songs.) So I more or less missed the entire first wave of Clarksonmania, which meant that by the time I'd finally succumbed to the numbing opiate of Idol and came across her performance of "Since U Been Gone" on the Kelly, Ruben & Fantasia: Home for Christmas special (which was, if not the debut of the song, at least very, very close to it), I wasn't quite prepared for the shock of realizing that I... I liked this song. A song by an American Idol winner. It was so unthinkable that I actually had a conversation months later with a friend where I laid out my internal struggle – my genuine struggle – over the fact that I really wanted to buy Breakaway despite the fact that I could never, ever allow myself to do so. She rightly told me to get over myself, and I broke down and purchased the thing, at which point I cursed the snobbery that had kept me at arm's length from a terrific pop album by someone who has proven herself to be a terrific pop singer.

I don't think there's any disputing that point these days. When even a die-hard indie DIYer like Ted Leo unapologetically (and unironically) covers Clarkson in concert, you know that the old knee-jerk rules stating that Idol and all it touches is anathema to art (or at least quality pop) no longer apply. "Behind These Hazel Eyes" covers the same theme as "Since U Been Gone" – she was in love, she was wronged, her independence is her vindication – but there's a rawness just underneath her defiance. Unlike in "Since U Been Gone," she's been shattered by the experience and is trying to put herself back together again, though she'll be damned if she lets him see that.

The difference is evident in the music, too. While "Since U Been Gone" pings, chugs and ultimately explodes in triumph, "Behind These Hazel Eyes" slams and grinds. When Clarkson howls, it's not out of liberation (she may have let the guy go, but she's far from free) but out of frustration: she's insisting on controlling the narrative of the breakup even as her own roiling emotions threaten to undermine what she's desperately trying to present to her ex and the world. (Both lyrically and musically, the song is the clearest anticipation of the emotional exorcism of My December, Clarkson's fatally flawed but still unfairly maligned followup.) Her anguish is supported not only by the SFCP but by the way it's used. The verse is ambiguous, hinting at the SFCP but never quite offering enough information to be sure until the bass comes in and locks it down, and the bulk of the chorus is a cathartic rush of power chords, a tough but measured glare that seems to lay Clarkson's cards on the table. Then comes the hook at end of the chorus, where the SFCP remains but the rhythm fractures, pouring out at an unfettered skip as she reveals the one thing that she's been trying so hard to keep hidden.

Full song: Kelly Clarkson, "Behind These Hazel Eyes"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Beyoncé, "If I Were A Boy"

Song: "If I Were A Boy"
Artist: Beyoncé
Album: I Am... Sasha Fierce
Written by: Toby Gad/B.C. Jean
Year: 2008
Key: Em
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: anything you can do, I could do better; Beyoncé solves the battle of the sexes but sends 50% of the planet's population into fits of frustrated agony
Where used: verse



For as much as she fits an almost Platonic conception of sensual feminine beauty, Beyoncé has never seemed especially touchable. There's something too guarded, too plastic about her, to the extent that there are times when she barely registers as an actual human being. She may have put the half-robotic Sasha Fierce character out there as a conscious statement about strength through artificiality and the roles we play, but it's actually one of the most honest assessments of her public persona that she could have possibly made. It's telling that amidst the rote meticulousness of the "Single Ladies" video, the only note that rings false is when she softens into a smile at the very end. Instead of breaking character, that's the precise moment she slips into one.

That's not to say that the Yonce is incapable of wringing emotion out of her performances in an effective manner. On the contrary, she can be almost maddeningly efficient at it. Her voice doesn't have the forceful purity of tone you find with, say, Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera. In a way, she has more in common vocally with Rosanne Cash, with flaws (including a nasality that's sometimes held just barely in check) that she's smart enough to turn into strengths by using them to convey vulnerability. That's what's happening on "If I Were A Boy," where Beyoncé constructs a fantasy in which she gets to undo all of the bad she sees being done in the battle of the sexes – the fact that she implicitly absolves herself of the equally real mistakes women make is irrelevant, a testament to how much she gets us to invest in her – and reveals a deep well of unabashed disappointment and hurt.

None of that would have remotely the same impact without the SFCP. It's crucial here, acting as a sort of bonding agent for the ideas of the song. The music, the lyric and Beyoncé's vocal are all speaking the exact same language, making sure that the message gets delivered without getting lost somewhere along the way. She eventually breaks the pattern in the bridge, as she becomes less and less measured in her frustration and shifts to the reality of the situation that sent her into her hypothetical daydreaming in the first place, only to slip back into the SFCP when she hits a wall and realizes that all of her protests aren't going to change a thing. Boys will be boys, girls will be girls and the cycle will continue ad infinitum, as the SFCP rolls on.

(As a special grammar-nerd postscript, allow me to tip my hat to writers Gad and Jean for correctly using the subjunctive "were" in their title, rather than "was," and to Beyoncé for leaving it alone.)

Full song: Beyoncé, "If I Were A Boy"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Liz Phair, "Why Can't I?"

Song: "Why Can't I?"
Artist: Liz Phair
Album: Liz Phair
Written by: Lauren Christy/Graham Edwards/Liz Phair/Scott Spock
Year: 2003
Key: G#m
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: anticipation as foreplay; foreplay as paralysis
Where used: chorus



There are certain bits of conventional wisdom that, once rock critics and fans grab hold of them, will simply never be shaken no matter how little they reflect actual reality. The Kings Of Leon play Southern Rock. The list of all-time great bands includes Bon Jovi. Liz Phair is a bad album, to the point of being an abomination on her once-promising career.

All of it, bunk. (You heard me: bunk.) So what if Phair embraced then-current pop production and songwriting? Leaning on that unimaginative crutch of a complaint means disregarding "Love/Hate," "My Bionic Eyes," "It's Sweet" and "Friend Of Mine," as well as (apparently) all of followup Somebody's Miracle out of sheer vindictiveness. It also means ignoring "Why Can't I?," one of Phair's two determined efforts to crash through to Top 40 radio. Which is a shame, because underneath the formulaic sheen applied by the Matrix (which was working from the same limited toolbox as always), Phair takes a teen-pop topic so rock-solid that it's persisted since at least the dawn of rock and roll -- the confusing whirligig of hormone-addled emotions roiled up by the possibility of sex implicit in dating -- and filters it subtly through the point of view of someone who has just come out of a marriage and might have forgotten how these things go.

Phair's not the only singer to deal with this. Amy Rigby, for one, kicked off her solo career in part by singing of similar thrills and frustrations (along with others that were arguably tangentially connected). But Rigby didn't take hers to number 32 on the Hot 100. That Phair did is a little bit surprising, considering the f-bomb she drops right before the second chorus. Sure, plenty of hits edit that word out for the radio. The difference here is that Phair uses it as an active verb that means the very thing that caused it to become a dirty word in the first place. Bleep it out of the song, and the resulting redaction still contains the act that was so objectionable that it had to be removed.

Then again, of course, there's the SFCP of the chorus (one of the Matrix's specialties) to ease the transition to the popular consciousness. Prior to its appearance, Phair's describing the situation of meeting someone who rings your bell (while, whoops!, the two of you are still technically spoken for), but that all changes during the chorus. The song dips sharply in an echo of one's heart falling into one's stomach, the SFCP begins and Phair asks the key question, "Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?" Interestingly, the verse is built around the SFCP's popular cousin I-V-vi-IV (as heard in Rob Paravonian's Pachelbel Rant), indicating that Phair and the Matrix structured the song around not one but two well-used chord-progression warhorses.

So yes, Phair sold out to an extent, in the interest of having her music heard by more than just the core audience that was barely enough to keep her career financially sustainable. But consider this: it's likely that "Why Can't I?" is a far more accurate representation Phair's actual experiences (to say nothing of those of her listeners) than, say, "Flower." That doesn't make it a better song, exactly, but it does make it a more honest one, in its way.

Full song: Liz Phair, "Why Can't I?"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Heart, "Alone"

Song: "Alone"
Artist: Heart
Album: Bad Animals
Written by: Billy Steinberg/Tom Kelly
Year: 1987
Key: E♭m
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: unspoken yearning; "Goodnight My Someone" with hairspray
Where used: chorus



Way back when, if you recall, there was an episode of Friends that featured the guys, having just watched Behind The Music for its snark potential, sitting on the Central Perk couch, sober, thoughtful and in full agreement as Joey says, "You forget how many great songs Heart had." It's a moment that's apropos of nothing in particular except, I suspect, the fact that one of the writers had the exact same realization, and with the exact same amount of surprise, not long before. Heart's catalogue might not be especially deep, but the many choice bits have stood up a lot better than most, and their stock has clearly risen over the past few years. Part of that might have something to do with American Idol. As has been noted by several of my associates, Heart is the sleeping giant on the show every year, the regular go-to for female contestants who wish to hang on to their "edge" (so punctuated because the songs most often performed come from the band's mid-1980s reinvention into a clean, heavily-produced, image-conscious pop group) while still showing off their vocal pyrotechnics.

None of this is meant to denigrate the songs themselves or the folks behind them. Most bands never manage to succeed at even one career; Heart managed to pull off two entirely separate careers a decade apart, which deserves a salute. "Alone" was the apex of second-wave Heart and, arguably, all 1980s power ballads. It was big, it was bombastic and it was yearning and melodramatic, making it perfectly suited to both Top 40 radio and prom. In keeping with Heart's roots as Zeppelin-loving rock chicks, "Alone" is essentially their "All My Love." As for the video, well, if you're looking for the ideal visual metaphor for a power ballad, then you won't find one better than an exploding piano.

SFCP-wise, this is kind of a weird one, in that the key of the song seems to shift dramatically between the verse (which is in B♭m but ultimately resolves on a D♭ major chord) and the chorus (E♭m). But in a way, that only helps to set up the SFCP for maximum impact: after a wandering, shifting verse that leaves listeners pleasantly discombobulated and trying to gather their bearings, the simplicity and straightforwardness of the chorus provided an easy-to-follow map out of the wilderness. As for the lyrics, it's interesting to note that Ann Wilson is singing to someone who can't hear her: her calls go unanswered, her secret remains unshared. And the agony of this is tearing her apart. It seems that Heart and the guys who responsible for "Like A Virgin" helped invent emo.

Full song: Heart, "Alone"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Nina Gordon, "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life"

Song: "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life"
Artist: Nina Gordon
Album: Tonight And The Rest Of My Life
Written by: Nina Gordon
Year: 2000
Key: Dm
Classification: SF1 and SF2
Lyrical content: schmoop: 10; gravity: 3
Where used: verse (SF2), chorus (SF1)

So, this song. As previously discussed, I'd certainly recognized the SFCP before, but Nina Gordon is the one responsible for it becoming A Thing. Seriously, what's going on here? Gordon used to lead Veruca Salt, who weren't exactly known for getting gooshy over gentleman callers. And while they weren't always roaring quite as ferociously as "All Hail Me" or, especially, "Volcano Girls," slower numbers like "Earthcrosser" and "New York Mining Disaster 1996" weren't exactly romantic ballads. Even "Loneliness Is Worse" had a bite to it (whether by itself or in the context of Eight Arms To Hold You) that staved off sappiness.

But even if you deem "Loneliness Is Worse" a straight-up love song (as opposed to, say, a spider luring its prey to be devoured), it still can't account for the cognitive dissonance generated by "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life." There's nothing about it that's recognizable as Gordon as she'd existed prior to the song's release: not the Sarah McLachlanish vocals, not the sweeping pop production, not the pantingly purple lyrics. (Whatever your impression of Gordon's songwriting skills prior to this, she never sang of the sky catching fire, shoreless seas and the universe resting in her arms and actually meant it... in a non-metal way, at least.) The video, above, clinches it, with Gordon glammed up to the hilt and frolicking in slow motion along a generic body of water that's clearly just a tank and some sand in a studio somewhere. The first time I encountered the video (which happened to be the first time I encountered the song), it's safe to say that I stood slack-jawed in disbelief for the next five minutes.

All of which makes "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" something akin to the apotheosis of SFCP songs. It's about as blatant an exploitation of the chord progression as you'll find, grabbing onto the hits of McLachlan, Joan Osborne, Jewel, et al. with both hands in an effort to shed off her previous career and remold herself in their image. For her troubles, Gordon got an Adult Top 40 hit (#7!) and a high-profile placement in The Notebook, and the SFCP officially got its name.

Full song: Nina Gordon, "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Natasha Bedingfield, "Angel"

Song: "Angel"
Artist: Natasha Bedingfield
Album: Pocketful Of Sunshine
Written by: Rodney Jerkins/Rico Love/Lashawn Daniels/Crystal "Crystyle" Johnson
Year: 2008
Key: Bm
Classification: SF1 variant
Lyrical content: a good man is good to find; pretty much just a sideways "Umbrella," really
Where used: verse, chorus

Natasha Bedingfield is a puzzle to me. She has, to my ears, a genuinely interesting voice, with slight cracks running all the way through it that afford her a tremendous vulnerability and openness, and everything about Pocketful Of Sunshine seems designed to obscure exactly that fact. About halfway through listening to the album the first time, I found myself thinking, "I am only halfway through." The songs are mostly factory readymades, and she's ProToolsed to within an inch of her life. It's as though someone said "So, Natasha, you know your whole selling point, the thing that makes you special in a pop arena populated by the Mariahs and Beyoncés and Christinas and Leonas of the world? Yeah, let's fix that." Making her sound robotic sort of misses her appeal entirely.

Then again, what do I know? "Pocketful Of Sunshine" was a huge hit despite suffering the same affliction as Oasis's "Champagne Supernova" and Fastball's "Out Of My Head," where the songwriters essentially said, "One verse! Done!" (Though it should be noted that "Pocketful Of Sunshine" goes one step further, in that it doesn't really have a verse, either.) "Angel" was less ubiquitous, possibly due to being less catchy than a song that's pretty much all chorus. It's not actually a true SFCP, going the same route as Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" in that it switches between a modal approach (ending on A major) and a tonal approach (ending on F#7) on alternate passes. It's a little unsettling, since both chords lead back to the Bm but in very different ways, so there's a constant shift required to make sense of it. But heck, anything that injects some character back into the otherwise gleaming production surrounding Bedingfield is fine by me.

Full song: Natasha Bedingfield, "Angel"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Madonna, "The Power Of Good-Bye"

Song: "The Power Of Good-Bye"
Artist: Madonna
Album: Ray Of Light
Written by: Madonna/Rick Nowles
Year: 1998
Key: Fm
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: open your heart, already; dumping as nuclear option
Where used: Verse, chorus

Madonna |MTV Music

In retrospect, it doesn't look as though Madonna needed a hit quite so badly. Erotica had stiffed a bit (pun unintended but recognized and unedited), but Bedtime Stories kept the train rolling with "Take A Bow" and "Secret," and Evita gave her the cachet of being Oscar-adjacent, even if nobody saw the movie. At the time, though, the general feeling was that Madonna's momentum was dissipating, and fast. Ray Of Light put a decisive end to such talk, once again repositioning Ms. Ciccone at the dead center of mainstream pop and setting her up to stay relevant for the next decade.

While hardly the highlight of Ray Of Light -- that comes down to a battle between "Drowned World (Substitute For Love)" and the title track, gilded cage versus delirious freedom -- "The Power Of Good-Bye" was a fine single from a fine comeback album. A lot of the credit goes to William Orbit, whose command of electronica prevented the song from being little more than an Ace Of Base knockoff. (There are, it should be pointed out, worse things to be.) More than a lot of SFCP songs, "The Power Of Good-Bye" simply sounds interesting, with a constantly shifting landscape that's constantly in motion and squiggly bits that flit past Madonna, who's standing resolutely still. Considering that the song is a last-ditch for attention from someone incapable of slowing down to give her what she needs, her placidity becomes the song's crucial virtue.

Interestingly, there's a demo version of the song out there that's not nearly as SFCP-tastic as the one that eventually made the album. For one thing, it only shows up in the chorus. The verses are completely different, with a chord progression that rises and falls in a minor key but doesn't have the same sort of circular resolution found with the SFCP. Since Ray Of Light was released in March of 1998, a full eight months after Sarah McLachlan's Surfacing (which featured "Building A Mystery" as its leadoff single), I suddenly find myself with the question of why "The Power Of Good-Bye" morphed into the now-familiar version. I'm not sure I'm ready to say that it was a conscious effort on Madonna's part to duplicate McLachlan's (and Joan Osborne's) success. But it does make a guy wonder.

Full song and SFCP clip disabled

Vanessa Carlton, "Hands On Me"

Song: "Hands On Me"
Artist: Vanessa Carlton
Album: Heroes & Thieves
Written by: Vanessa Carlton/Stephan Jenkins
Year: 2007
Key: E♭m
Classification: SF2 (with a brief lapse into SF1)
Lyrical content: true love is eternal; the Dalai Lama would want us to have sex
Where used: Verse, chorus



I honestly would have thought that we, as a nation and a culture, would be over "A Thousand Miles" by now. But by gum, there it is, in approximately a third of all the commercials and previews for romantic comedies (the other two-thirds being taken up by "Unwritten" and "Suddenly I See") still, to this day. Haven't those tinkly piano cascades been played out and squeezed dry? It would seem the world believes that they haven't. Heroes & Thieves doesn't offer anything quite so egregious, though Carlton does manage to find room for the line "I'm a sycophantic courtier with an elegant repost." (That's the way "riposte" is spelled in the liner notes, so: [sic].)

To the extent that there ever was anything Sensitive and Female about the SFCP, it was probably inevitable that Carlton would eventually grab hold of it. She leans pretty heavily on it throughout but gets points for making the verse and chorus entirely different from one another despite having the exact same progression underneath both. It's still afflicted by Carlton's tendency to write lyrics like a pretentiously artsy high schooler, but it's bright and catchy. That's practically a triumph right there.

Full song: Vanessa Carlton, "Hands On Me"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Sarah McLachlan, "Building A Mystery"

Song: "Building A Mystery"
Artist: Sarah McLachlan
Album: Surfacing
Written by: Sarah McLachlan/Pierre Marchand
Year: 1997
Key: Bm
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: Goth come-on; hipster-idol glorification
Where used: Verse, chorus



At first blush, McLachlan's song seems like a "One Of Us" clone. There's the Lilith Fair-branded singer (in fact, the first tour took place during the summer that Surfacing was released) and the use of the SFCP in both the verse and chorus. And then there's the production, about which songwriter Eric Bazilian told me, "They obviously really studied the sonics of the 'One Of Us' drums. They nailed it on that."

But the structure of the song itself isn't so simple, with McLachlan making a few subtle choices to generate a slight sense of disorientation. For starters, she teases the chorus at the end of the first verse but holds off on actually delivering it until she's finished with not just the second verse but also a prechorus that offers one of the only three moments that shake up the otherwise uninterrupted SFCP. We're pretty much ready for some sort of break -- a solo, a bridge, something -- by the end of that chorus, but the song's gathered too much momentum by then, so that when McLachlan hits the third verse with the line "You woke up screaming aloud," it's both jarring and inevitable at the same time. That's a testament to the hypnotic heft provided by the constant cycling of the chords and echoed in the lyrics.

Full song: Sarah McLachlan, "Building A Mystery"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Joan Osborne, "One Of Us"

Song: "One Of Us"
Artist: Joan Osborne
Album: Relish
Written by: Eric Bazilian
Year: 1995
Key: F#m
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: Hypothetical religiosity in the form of rhetorical questioning; Kevin Smith's Dogma five years early
Where used: Verse, chorus



I'm starting with this one because its relationship to the SFCP is a little complex. It certainly wasn't the first song to use the SFCP, not by a long shot. It's not even the song that made me realize that this chord progression was a common one; that honor goes to Sarah McLachlan's "Building A Mystery." (And even that's trumped by the dim realization when I was a teenager that Roxette, Starship and Heart -- twice! -- were all singing the same song.) But it's always seemed to me to be the nexus around which all SFCPs rotate, in kind of the same way that Greil Marcus viewed the Sex Pistols as the intersection of 20th Century postmodernism and dada/Situationalist philosophy. Everything that came before seems to have been leading up to it, and everything that came after has to contend with it.

What helps bolster the centrality of "One Of Us" is that the entire song is based around the SFCP. There's a prechorus (which is revisited at the start of the solo) that splits off from it, but otherwise, the song is the SFCP and nothing but. The vocal melody in the verse shows off part of the strength of the SCFP: Osborne only needs three notes -- a central tone, a whole step up and a half step down -- to cover the four chords as they shift underneath her. It's dead simple, and that up-and-down melody provides a bit of a glimpse as to the way the chords move smoothly from one to the other. Other songs might use it in more elaborate ways, but it's hard to spot a better example of why the SFCP is so versatile than this song right here.

Full song: Joan Osborne, "One Of Us"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song