hey, welcome to 12tone! as I'm sure you're aware, legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin
passed away last month.
much has been written in the past few weeks about who she was and what her work meant
to so many people, and I wanted to pay my own small tribute to the Queen of Soul by
talking about one of her most enduring songs, Respect.
interestingly, despite being clearly associated with Aretha Franklin, Respect is actually
a cover: it was originally written and performed by another great soul singer, Otis Redding.
however, Franklin took many steps to make the song her own, starting with the lyrics
themselves.
Redding's version tells the story of a desperate man pleading with his woman to show him some
respect when he's around, while Franklin's version changes it into an anthem of female
empowerment.
Redding is begging for respect, but Franklin is demanding it.
moving on to the music itself, though, the song really only has two sets of chords: the
intro (bang) and the verse.
(bang) there's also the chorus, but it uses the intro progression.
the only time it does anything really different is the saxophone solo, which we'll get to
in a bit, but first I want to look a bit more closely at these two sections.
I think we're pretty clearly in the key of C, which means the intro goes back and forth
between the I chord and the IV chord, while the verse alternates between V and IV. this
sort of structure, where a short, simple loop is repeated over and over, is sometime called
a vamp, and it's a great technique for making space so that your lead parts can shine.
in terms of the harmony, though, this progression is pretty clearly an homage to traditional
blues forms.
specifically, it's a compressed version of the 12-bar blues pattern, one of the most
famous chord progressions of all time.
I won't go over it in detail here, since it's not what they're actually playing, but basically
the first 8 bars alternate between the I and the IV chord, kind of like our intro, and
then it end by going V, IV, I, and if we drop the last chord we get the vamp from our verse.
we can also see blues influence in the chord qualities: they're all dominant 7ths. traditionally
you'd expect only the V chord to be dominant, with the I and IV chords being major 7ths
instead, but one common feature of the blues is that all the chords are dominant, which
adds a bit more of an edge so no matter where you go, it never feels completely settled.
still, though, it's hard to deny that the chords here are fairly straightforward.
fortunately, despite my personal fascination with all things harmony, there's actually
a lot of other ways to make music interesting, and this song is a great example of plenty
of them.
at its heart, musical interest is all about change: if things get too repetitive, the
music gets boring.
so if the chords aren't changing, other things have to, and the song keeps making small adjustments
to the arrangement so that it never gets stale.
let's start with the intro.
it comes crashing out of the gate with these blaring horns and a big, attention-grabbing
guitar lick. this is a very high-energy section, and it sets the stage for the rest of the
song.
I also want to highlight the bass part: (bang) they could've just played quarter notes, but
we're trying to create motion here, so instead we get this cool 16th-note figure in the first
bar, and then in the second bar there's a walk-up, which is syncopated, meaning all
the accents fall on the upbeats. this creates a bunch of extra rhythmic interest, and this
same basic figure persists throughout most of the song.
the walk-up also features both Bb and B natural: the Bb is an added "blue" note that isn't
in the key of C but is in the C7 we've been using as our I chord, while the B is in the
key, but it's also a tritone above F, the root of the chord we're playing, so both these
notes are dissonant and exciting in their own ways.
from there, we move into the verse, where the horns drop out and the guitar switches
to just rhythmic mutes, where they deaden the strings with their hand and then strike
it to create a percussive sound with no real pitch.
these are placed on beats 2 and 4, kind of like bonus snare drums.
the bass keeps chugging along, and we also hear what sounds like an organ in the background,
quietly laying down the actual chords so the harmony doesn't get completely lost.
but this section is dominated by the vocals: everyone is staying out of Aretha's way.
the melody here features more of those blue notes, starting most phrases on the flat 3rd
of the key, borrowed from the F7 chord.
there's also some background vocals, singing short little "ooh" sounds to punctuate the
chord changes.
then we get to the chorus and those background vocals take over, singing the main melody
while Franklin ad libs on top of them.
this is also where the piano starts to creep in, also played by Franklin, but its big entrance
is in the second verse, where large piano chords replace the background singers on the
down-beats (bang) and then, after a few more bars, the singers come back and join in too.
from here things settle down slightly: during the second chorus and third verse, the main
thing that changes is Franklin's piano, which loosens up a bit with some added notes and
a more improvisational feel.
we're just slowly ramping the energy back up to where it was in the intro.
in the third chorus, though, something interesting happens: the background vocals change.
for the first two choruses, we had this cool, rhythmic "just a little bit" phrase, but in
the third one they start by repeating "just a" over and over, kinda like a drone. before
that gets too boring, though, they flip back to the original version to keep the energy
up.
which brings us to the solo, where the whole thing is broken up by some wildly different
chords.
(bang) this looks like we've changed keys to F#, which is a huge shift.
it's literally as far as possible from our previous root, C. that's good, though: standing
out like that helps this section grab your attention right when you were starting to
get bored of the repetition.
we also see a return of the horn section that's been missing since the intro, making this
transition stand out even more.
as for the chords, we've got I minor going to IV major.
this is one of my favorite progressions in the whole world, and it means we're using
one of my favorite scales, Dorian. it's basically the minor scale but with a raised 6th note
(bang) and it gives you this cool minor sound that's not too sad.
King Curtis, the sax player, leans into that Dorian feel, laying down a short, sweet solo
before the band lands on G7, which sets up a return to the verse.
here the horns drop out again but the rest of the band continues to ramp up the energy,
and when we get to the chorus we again see the background singers singing something different,
but let's skip ahead to the real show-stopping moment: the R-E-S-P-E-C-T section.
this uses a technique call a rhythm stop, which is where the rhythm, well, stops.
or at least the band does: they punctuate the section with a few big chord hits, but
most of it is just Franklin belting all on her own.
well, actually, she's got a little accompaniment from a tambourine.
but mostly alone.
after that they just let loose, with everyone ad libbing over the chorus progression.
the horns come in, the background singers switch back and forth between various lines,
and Franklin is just singing her heart out.
they're pulling out every trick they've got to make this ending big, which brings me to
the final technique they used to stop this song from getting boring: they made it short.
it's only 2 and a half minutes long, as opposed to this video about it which is… yikes.
could they have used some more of those tricks to keep it going?
probably.
I'm sure they could've got another minute out of it, but they didn't.
they let the song last as long as it wanted to, and then they stopped before it got old.
and it's not like it feels short: there's so much energy in it, and the fade-out at
the end makes it seem like it could go on forever.
but in reality, it goes on exactly long enough.
of course, there's one final ingredient here: the voice.
I don't tend to talk about vocal performance in these analyses, not because they're not
important, but because I think their importance is fairly obvious.
it's requires no great insight to tell you that part of what makes this song great is
that Aretha Franklin was a phenomenal singer.
but still, she was. she had incredible power, control, and she poured her heart into every
performance.
she was the Queen of Soul, and she will be missed.
anyway, thanks for watching, and thanks to Patreon patron Susan Jones for suggesting
this song! if you'd like to see your favorite song analyzed, just head on over to Patreon
and pledge at any level.
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