A few years ago, I suffered an immense trauma. I will not go into details. I’ll keep it vague. There were hospitals involved. Psychiatric wards. Private mental health clinics. Let your imagination do the rest. When the storm began to settle and everybody was safe and sound, I had the vivid thought: “I really want to listen to Bach.”
I wasn’t a complete classic music newb. I’d studied it in school. I’d heard enough of JS Bach to know I wanted him in my life at that terrible moment in time. But it was during this period of grief that I fell hard for classical music, like never before. I didn’t want to listen to podcasts, or advertisements. I didn’t want to be bombarded with propaganda on how to life my life. I wanted something more abstract.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the healing power of music and art in general is often overstated. Classical music did not take away the awfulness of the situation. I believe if art is your only crutch in life, then you are in trouble. Art can serve as consolation, not compensation.
Still, what a lovely consolation. I spent many hours with Classic FM streaming from my television (which I can’t do anymore because of fucking Brexit). That station’s Hall of Fame countdown gave me a solid intro to the big-hitters of the genre. At peak, I was listening up to eight hours a day. I was soon able to distinguish between the baroque, classical and romantic. Not that hard. If there is a harpsichord, it’s probably baroque. If it sounds lyrical and imprecise, romantic. If it sounds like clockwork, classical.
One day, I heard an odd piece, odd in how familiar it sounded. There was a harpsichord, so I was sure it was baroque. It featured a chord progression that seemed to descend, descend, descend into eternity. A little too simple to be Bach. Vivaldi? What other Baroque guys are there? Albinoni? Handel? Then, I got it. It wasn’t a baroque composition at all, but a modern song done in the baroque style. I announced confidently: “STREETS OF LONDON!”
Come Fourth
It was not “Streets of London.” It was “Canon in D” by Johan Pachelbel. The mistake was understandable. Here they are back to back:
Though the pieces are in different keys, they both use a progression of descending fourths known as a “Romanesca”. Pachelbel’s masterwork begins with the tonic D, then steps four tones down to A major. B Minor, four tones down to F sharp minor. G, four tones back to D. “Streets of London” makes all the same moves, but in a capoed C key.
I was wrong but I was kind of right.
Echoes
It turns out that Pachelbel’s progression is all over the last hundred years of pop music. Producer Pete Waterman went so far as to declare it “the godfather of popular music”. Sometimes the influence is conscious and the artist has cited their source. Coolio sampled the piece for his 1997 track “C U When U Get There”:
In 2019, Maroon Five lifted heavily from Pachelbel for their hit “Memories”, though since the work is so old and probably exempt from copyright and they did not a sample a specific performance, they didn’t have to pay anybody. Clever boys:
The verdict is out for Vampire Weekend’s “Step”. The use of harpsichord would suggest the band knew right well that they were lifting from Canon in D. However, in this case, Vampire Weekend are sampling from the work of another artist, hip-hop group Souls of Mischief. In interview, Ezra Koenig claims that he was drawn to a saxophone melody from the group’s “Step to my girl” as well as the titular lyric. He expanded that sax line into his chorus hook. It seems the chord progression was not the main appeal for him. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt:
This progression is not the exact same as the others. It falls in a straighter line. Yet there is a similar circular quality. The music wants to keep moving down forever, and only moves up again when it runs out of space on the instrument.
Religious Undertones
In the time of Pachelbel, music was mostly ruled by the church. Artists have stolen from Pachelbel to create modern hymns. A famous example being The Beatles’ “Let it Be”. Paul McCartney wrote the song after dreaming about his deceased mother. The phrase “Mother Mary” is a double entendre, referring both to his mother, named Mary, and the Virgin Mary:
The use of organ further emphasizes the religious nature of the song.
Much has been made of the similarities between “Imagine” and Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger”. But Noel Gallagher’s classic has much more in common with Pachelbel. In the wake of the Manchester terrorist attack in 2018, the song became an anthem of grief. There is nothing in the lyrics that would comfort a bereaved parent. Yet the simple pattern of falling fourths seems to touch us on a spiritual level. It would be amazing if there is something inherently mystical about the progression itself, something that activates the collective unconscious. Alas, the effect probably comes from association.
Dive Deeper
I have compiled a playlist of music that uses Pachelbel’s progression or something close to it. I may add to it over time. Warning: once you become aware of this progression, you will hear it everywhere. You may go insane.
https://tidal.com/playlist/d5100810-3af6-4e56-ac7a-7f356386e53c