Lyrics Annotated
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CrackingTheSimonCode Lyrics Annotated |
Wartime Prayers |
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| Four-bar intro. Constant tone with gradual crescendo in the electronics. Steel-string acoustic guitar riffs. | |
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Prayers offered in times of peace Are silent conversations. Appeals for love, or love's release. In private invocations. | Bm is first definite guitar chord. At the very end of the song, we'll see that the key was D, though you wouldn't know it from the opening: Bm, C, Bm, A, G, C, G/B, D, F#7, Bsus4, ... This is as harmonically complex as "Sure" was simple. |
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But all that is changed now. Gone like a memory from the day before the fires. People hungry for the voice of God Hear lunatics and liars. | Drums start on "People." |
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Wartime prayers. Wartime prayers in every language spoken. For every family scattered and broken. |
Drums, bass, female backup vocals added here. |
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Because you cannot walk with the holy If you're just a halfway decent man. I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind With a genius marketing plan. I'm trying to tap into some wisdom. Even a little drop will do. I want to rid my heart of envy, And cleanse my soul of rage Before I'm through.
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Big sound: choir, Herbie Hancock piano, plus guitars and electronics.
Key changes to B. B chord alternates with E (B's subdominant, echoes the "A-men" change at the end of Christian hymns.) New harmonies, spare arrangement, mostly single vocal, starting with "I want to rid ...". |
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Times are hard. It's a hard time, But everybody knows. All about hard times, The thing is, what are you gonna do? Well, you cry and try to muscle through. Try to rearrange your stuff. But when the woulds are deep enough, And it's all that we can bear, We wrap ourselves. In prayer.
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Hancock's piano work featured in this slow section.
Spare accompaniment, mostly piano and acoustic guitar. Choir returns with "We wrap ..." and big sound returns with "In prayer." |
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Because you cannot walk with the holy If you're just a halfway decent man. I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind With a genius marketing plan. I'm trying to tap into some wisdom. Even a little drop will do. I want to rid my heart of envy, And cleanse my soul of rage Before I'm through. | |
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A mother murmurs in twilight sleep And draws her babies closer. With hush-a-byes for sleepy eyes, And kisses on the shoulder. To drive away despair She says a wartime prayer.
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Spare feel of the "Times are hard." section.
C, G, D progression repeats four times at the end, landing firmly on D at the close. (Melody finishes G to A.) |
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