Thursday, September 11, 2008

Battle of the two-chord songs

I've been thinking about simple rock today. And, you can't get much more simple in rock that the two-chord song. Well, you could do a one-chord song, I suppose. Something like Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown," as seen here:


(Nice faux western background, Bob)

No, I'm not looking for one-chord songs today. What I'm interested in in two-chord rock. It isn't too simple, not too monotonous, but not as "aren't-I-fancy" as three-chord rock ("Ooh, look at me, I know THREE chords!").

And, as two-chord rock goes, I don't know if you could beat the three songs I've included below. First up is Wreckless Eric's "Whole Wide World." Great, simple love song that gets right to the point. The chorus is as catchy as can be:  


Next is the Velvet Underground's "Heroin." Who knows what exactly was going through Lou Reed's head when he was writing this song, but with lyrics like "Heroin, be the death of me. Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life," Lou couldn't have been in the best shape. Thankfully, he's still around to tell his tale. There is an amazing live version of this song that you can see here on YouTube, but it cannot be embedded. As an alternative, here's a boring YouTube video of the song in its original form, plastered over the cover art of VU's first album:


Last up is the Modern Lovers and "Roadrunner." Though technically a three-chord song, the third chord doesn't come into play until the final five strums of guitar at the song's finale. Being from Massachusetts, perhaps I'm partial to the shout outs to 128 and Stop n' Shop, but this is a song I could wake up to every morning. Again, here's a boring YouTube video of the original song. The Lovers had broken up before this album was released in the late 70s, thus making live performances hard to find:


Now, for those out there looking for some fun. Play all three videos at once. Two-chord anarchy!

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