“Kind of an achievement”: Sting picks out the saddest song not to feature minor chords
Whilst it’s wrong to glamourise sadness as a necessary fuel for art, the feeling is a fruitful one. Since the dawn of creativity, people have been using music, art, literature, film and beyond to make sense of their sombre side. The downtrodden path is one walked time and time again, so when someone manages to approach it from a different perspective or angle, it’s something special. For Sting, one song does that by using the sound of happiness for a song of sadness.
Typically, music theory dictates that major chords are cheerful and minor chords are gloomy. Minor chords include some flattened notes and lowered tones, quite literally writing moments of feeling down into the makeup of the sound. While major chords are all about lifting and creating powerful, rich sounds, minor ones make up the musical language of gloom, upset or tension.
With that knowledge under their belts, musicians must pick a lane. When it comes to writing a song, an early step is deciding whether the track is happy or sad and then picking chords to match. Sure, there are exceptions where the feeling evoked in the lyrics can’t be easily categorised, so a mix of the two sounds is needed to create the perfect shade for the track. But traditionally, the two kinds of chords are split along the line of the song’s general mood.
But that doesn’t account for the life a song takes on when it’s out of the artist’s hands and in the world. In the months, years and even decades or centuries that pass after a piece of music is out in the world, the context of the track, as well as each listener’s individual relationship to it, also adds to its mood. It’s never as simple as chords, but chords can play a part.
For Sting, chords definitely play a part when it comes to one sad song that has blown him away since he was a teenager. It’s one that people might not typically associate with gloom, but underneath its catchy build, major chords and easy-listening air, the lyrics are more sombre than previously registered.
“I think I was just 16, and Otis Redding had just died in a terrible plane crash. I went to my record store and bought ‘Dock Of The Bay’ on the Stax label,” Sting remembered as an early musical memory. ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay’ wouldn’t be a track to quickly come to mind when thinking of sad songs. Redding’s soulful voice seems to lift the track, while its instrumental build is a toe-tapper that seems to warm the soul more than it depresses it. But for the Police frontman, that’s what makes it so special.
“What a wonderful song. I mean, sad, sad song but without any minor chords,” he said, explaining, “It’s all major chords.” If you were to play the track on guitar, it’s true that you wouldn’t play any minor chords. Instead, the instrumental is stereotypically joyous by music theory standards.
It’s the story that’s sad. “I left my home in Georgia / Headed for the ‘Frisco bay / I’ve had nothing to live for / Look like nothin’s gonna come my way,” Redding sings, with the image of him sitting watching the water being one of loneliness and homesickness. It’s a song about helplessness and worry as the singer leaves his life behind and attempts to fruitlessly make a new one. So, while the music makes it sound like his day spent by the bay is a nice little outing to soothe the mind, it’s actually a much sadder scene than the instrumentation lets on.
To Sting, being able to merge sadness and serenity into one track is something to marvel at. He called it “kind of an achievement in many ways,” as Redding defied music theory.
