Holly Humberstone's Friendly Fire Took Me by Surprise

Friedemann: Today we're talking about one of my favorite tracks off of Holler Humberstone's first record, Friendly Fire. This is a beautiful song. we'll just get right into it and I'll tell you what I think about it as we go. And we're off to a great start. I mean, I love that intro. It's very personal, very intimate. And I think that's achieved by recording two acoustic guitars close up. And we have a f a campo on I don't know what fret it would be, but higher up the the fretboard, meaning the whole instrument, we don't hear any low notes, which makes it sound like a smaller instrument than it is. It almost sounds like not quite a banjo, but you know what I mean? Like a ukulele maybe, but like it sounds like a smaller instrument than it actually is. And that gives it that cutesy, sweet vibe to my ears. Harmony-wise, we're hearing a one, five, two, two, and we're in B flat major, so it's B flat, F C minor, C minor. And what makes it interesting, what turns this from a chord progression into a riff, is that we have a lead, we have a top line here, the note B flat, which stays the same across all of the chords. And so we hear B flat with the root on top, we hear an F sus four with the four on top, so there's no A in this chord, And then we hear C minor seven with the seventh on top. It's a neat little trick for making any chord progression sound a little bit more interesting, is letting some notes linger between chords. And it gives some chords just a more interesting vibe than it otherwise would. you have to be careful with that a little bit because I think it can get annoying if you reuse the same couple of notes for an entire song. I often get annoyed at artists who use like songs where the highest trains on the guitar where they'll leave those open throughout the entire song. And I'm just hearing like E and B blaring throughout the entire song. And it does get on my nerves a little bit. So don't overdo it. You want to, you know, find a good balance and find good contrast within your song. And this song does that actually, as we'll soon see. But for a short intro, this works beautifully well. And also I should say that one of the two guitars is playing a little bit around with the melody. And I think it does go from B flat to A. In certain spots, so that definitely helps make it not feel boring. One of the real standouts for me about this track is the lyrics. I mean, I love the music, don't get me wrong, I love the melodies, love the chords, but the lyrics are just really strong. We had a mutual friend who played Cupid. You jumped in my bed and been there ever since. First of all, I love the word Cupid. It's something I haven't really heard that much in songs before. I like that quite a bit. And it feels like she's talking from experience. a mutual friend who played Cupid. That's that's such a such a good line. You jumped in my bed and been there ever since. That's our early bird line. That's the first visual line that we get that kind of anchors in the rest of the song. And I do kind of see her in like a crumpled up bed for this song, kind of, you know, introverted, not quite sure what to do with herself. So that's a line that definitely carries throughout the entire song. Teenage affection is often confusing. I'm starting to feel like it's wearing thin. So some great stuff there. None of it feels contrite or cliched. Really good stuff. Let's keep going. So continuing with the lyrics here, let's talk about the pre-chorus. Darling, I don't remember how I'm supposed to feel at your place when we're watching TV. And if you start to wonder why I just stare into space when you're talking to me, hmm. And then we move into the chorus. So what I like about this immediately is it's strong images. We have, you know, watching TV and staring into space. So it is very visual. it also is a nice transition to the chorus, as you'll soon see. And I do like that it's a six-liner or, you know, two, three-liners essentially. So it's Off balance, which means the chorus is going to bring that balance in, which is super cool. At least that's what I'm expecting it to do. but two three-liners, let's keep going. That's just so good. I mean, what a beautiful line. And and and one that really hurts. If I hurt you, it's just friendly fire. I think that's so strong. it is a three-liner and feels perfect for this actually. It feels off balance and it creates a sort of tension that works really well with the lyrics here, I think. You were there, where was I? No, that's somewhere down the line. If I hurt you, it's just friendly fire. My first instinct when I heard that, I still remember it very vividly. First time I heard that I was like, what a shame that she didn't sing if I burn you, it's just friendly friendly fire. But then she does the second time around. Well it happens all the time. Guess I'm broken by design. If I burn you it's all friendly fire. why did she use hurt you the first time if burn you is clearly better. Because hurt you does sound better, doesn't it? So she just got the best of both worlds. She got both of those in. And hurt and burn are sound alike, so it kind of works as a rhyme. She could have just repeated the word hurt, she could have repeated burn, but this way she's got a rhyme, she's got both of those words and it works out really nicely. What is this song about? Well, it is about somebody who's kind of stuck in a relationship, they don't know what to do with themselves, they're deeply unhappy with themselves, and it is affecting the people around them and the other person in the relationship. And What better way to express that than with the word friendly fire? What a beautiful way to say that. it's a word that comes to us from the word family of war, right? Of battles, of fighting, right? blood, sweat, and tears. And that creates a really nice juxtaposition with the very cutesy sweet music we hear. And for me, that's what gives it so much impact is that it's so incredibly bittersweet. Let's keep moving. So now we've reached the second verse, and a groove comes in unexpectedly, and it's a four on the floor groove. Very strange. First time I heard this, I was kind of thrown by that. What I would have expected maybe would have been like a you know, snare on two and four. Kind of would have felt a little bit more relaxed, I think. this feels like it's speeding up the song quite dramatically, right? Because we're landing on all four fours instead of just the two and four. So it feels like the the the tempo of the song almost doubles in that instance. And it's certainly a weird choice, but I like it. It kind of gives the song a really bold personality that it otherwise maybe wouldn't have. But while we're here in the second verse, let's talk about the structuring of the song. First of all, we start with the intro, two acoustic guitars, go into the verse where the vocals are added. Then we have a pre-chorus where the vocals are doubled. That's the thing that lifts it up. Then we move to the chorus where the vocal doubles get louder. So they're basically we have a doubles on left and right. And they're quiet in the pre-course and then get louder for the course. So everything is more intense and the vocals sound as if they came closer. Because remember, when somebody moves closer to your face, you're hearing them more in stereo, basically, right? If somebody's super far away, you hear them completely mono, right? You don't get so much stereo signal. You get reverb maybe from the sides, but none of that the the signal that comes to your right ear is the same as the one coming to your left ear. So if somebody moves closer, the stereo signal gets more strong. And so that's kind of what they're doing here. They're making the song more personal by by bringing up the sides. Okay. Then we move into a post-chorus, which is a very short section that we didn't hear, where a synth melody is playing. And now we're in the second verse, which we just listened to, is the same as pre-chorus one in terms of everything going on with the energy and stuff. But now we have this four on the floor and a bass has come in. what we're about to hear is another pre-chorus where an 80s synth sort of playing pads comes in. I love the sound of that one. the vocal doubles again get louder, and we have some vocal harmonies for the first time. we'll hear the second and final chorus where we get some more synth atmos going on in the background. Beautiful work there, definitely worth listening to this track just for that, and how they kind of created an atmosphere with synths apart from just the the core group, right? Just from guitar and vocals. And we have some more vocal harmonies. And then we end with a post chorus, with where that e-guitar, electric guitar lead comes in, and we still have those atmos from the synths. So it's another two-chorse song. I say another because two weeks ago we covered McGee's Alice's, which also was a two-chorus song. And a lot of folk songs do this where we don't really get a bridge. And I think it's because just the history of of folk songs is a little bit different than it is for. For pop music. I would still consider Holly Harmerstone very much a pop artist. Like she uses the aesthetic of folk music, but applies a pop mentality to it. I think the productions are very polished. There's a lot of thought to detail. This is not like Jose Gonzalez, who is where it's literally just a recording of him with his guitar, right? Here there's a lot of vocal production, a lot of stuff to make the sound as fat and big as possible. Historically, folk music and all lyrics driven, story-driven music has always kind of been AAA. So verse, verse, verse, verse, and then the song is over. And there hasn't really been this idea of choruses very much, or certainly not of a primary bridge. Choruses then became a thing in folk music, of course, when things got more and more hook-driven and radio became a bigger and bigger issue for performing artists. So obviously choruses, you know, now have a have a firm place in folk music as well. but that's I think why this still works. It feels like a cute little folk song, and there doesn't need to be a bridge in this. Not like in a pop song where we do kind of expect it here, this works perfectly well without. And we do have a post chorus at the end of the song that fulfills the function of a bridge a little bit. So we get a sense of it without actually having to go there. couple of nifty little things about the song. a lot of the sections have extra bars, namely the pre-chorus and chorus. We'll talk about that in just a second. The first post-chorus is half-length, it's very short. We move into the second verse pretty much immediately. and then the second post chorus, so this is the ending of the song, also builds down at the end. It's not quite a fade out, but like elements of of the song are removed as we as we end. Let's continue listening. By the way, I love that line, woe is me, I know. the calling out her own self-pity, I think, is such a cool move. I love it when artists delve into and wallow in a strong emotion, but then also call themselves out on it. First of all, it it shows that you have self-reflective skills, right? And and that I always think that's really amazing to see if when that people that other people sometimes have that as well. So I connect to that very much and I I applaud people for for doing that and calling it out in songs. it also kind of quiets critical voices who might be like, you know, this is all emo, whatever. And it certainly is, but also she's aware of that and she's and but it's a song. That kind of stands above that and says, like, well, I'm I'm aware that this is happening, I'm aware of these feelings, and I'm aware that I'm feeling this way and that it's not a good thing, but I still feel this way, right? And that makes it now I'm in on board with you. I feel like, you have this is a smart person and she can't figure it out. I'm so much more on board with you than if it's just, I'm s I everything sucks, you know, the whole world is against me, blah, blah, blah. And you know, this sort of victim mindset. Now I feel like, you are trying to change something about it, or you understand that this is not good, but you're still stuck. And that is that hits home much harder for me than if she hadn't said that line. chords-wise, you heard that beautiful synth come in that with that 80s vibe. the chords here do change from the verse. remember the verse it was one, five, two, two. Now we continue with two, two. which is quite interesting already that we have a transition here where the chord stays the same. Usually not something I would recommend. I do love it here though, for some reason. I can't tell you why, but I really like that the chord doesn't change. It's it's one of those rare occurrences where I'm like, I don't know, but I I do kind of like it. it definitely signals that a new section has started because we don't go back to the one at the beginning of the chord progression. We go to a new chord, the two chord. But it is it just happens to be the same chord as the one we heard before. the chord progression is for the pre-chorse two, two, five, seven, five, seven, one to one over its major seven to six to six. every chord now takes up the place of two bars. Whereas before in the verse, it was One bar, one bar, two bars, right? Three chords that kind of take the place of four bars. Now we have four chords taking the space of eight bars. So every so everything is elongated a little bit. We we slow down essentially, everything feels a little bit bigger, a little bit grander. And then we have that nice descending bass line from the one to the one over its major seven to the six. The chords, again, remember in B flat major are C minor, C minor, F seven, F seven. B flat to B flat over A to G minor to G minor. And that whole thing is played twice. And then we end on four extra bars that are exclusive to the pre-chorus and chorus. In the pre-chorse, that is two, two, five, seven, five, seven. So basically the beginning of the pre-chorus again. I love that there's a couple more extra bars here. It builds a little bit more tension before the course and kind of pushes our expectations a little bit. And then the course feels like a real release. If we look at the voicings for this prequels, here's what that looks like. we do again have a very strong lead line here, and that seems to be the ongoing motif in the guitar with one small change. So, again, the lead melody here is on B flat. So, what we're hearing here is the C minor seven with the seven on top. Then we go to an F major sound. Except this one, it's an F7 sound. So we do have an E flat in there. And the lead now goes to an A, giving us a really strong tr tritone and really giving us a strong F7 sound. So not like before in the verse where we heard an F sus four chord. Now we'd have a very strong third and we have a minor seven, which gives us that tritone between those two notes, right? That that to me is the most functional chord in the entire song. it it's like she's going out of her way to work out the character of that chord. And what it does as well is that we're moving away from that B flat at the top And it creates a little bit of contrast, something we haven't heard before. If it was just B flat at the top all the time, I think that would get boring, as I've said. So it's nice that we're going to a different lead line for at least a moment. Then we go to B flat with the B flat on top. B flat drops down to A. We have that descending bass line. And then we go down to the sixth chord, G minor, again with B flat on top. So that's the minor third on top. Let's listen to the chorus. Did you notice the harmonies and the vocal production and the synth atmosphere? So much good stuff happening here. But let's continue to the end of that section and hear how it ends, because the chords there are really quite interesting. Listen to the chords. Did you hear that? it's a cool twist of what we heard in the pre chorus. So the chorus uses the same chords as the pre chorus. It's a two, two, five, seven, five, seven, one to one over its major seven to six, six. And we hear that twice. Same as the pre chorus so far. But then it ends on a slightly different chord progression. It ends on a two major, what I've noted here as a five of the five, right? As a secondary dominant to the five chord. And then the last two chords are a little hard to f to to really name, I think. It's the what I just wrote down a five here essentially. It's it's kind of like a walking bass line thing, pretty much, with with those two notes on top, you know, that we've heard throughout the entire song. So I'm not really gonna define it any more closely than that. If I were to if I had to write a chord symbol, I would just write the five. And the the chord progression also makes sense this way, right? It's the five of the five moving to the five. but yeah, it's a cool twist, right? We heard the two minor in the pre-chorus, and now we hear the two major in its place. Just a really cool thing to add some musical surprise and to to rip us out of the the expectations that we had. So that's friendly fire. What's the stealable technique for me in this song? I was thinking, so it's it's a two-way tie for me, I think, in this one. I do really like the the lead melody on the chords, although that's something that I've done quite a bit in my own song. So maybe that's not the one. I think the one I'm gonna go for is that groove coming in in the second verse. And that being so completely surprising to me. I mean it's a very simple groove, don't get me wrong, right? But it it does feel like it's twice the speed that than what it should be. But that's also what makes it so interesting. So I think the the lesson I'm drawing from this, it's not really a stealable technique, but it's more of a a general lesson, is to be a little bit more experimental with the drum grooves I choose for my songs. I usually try to just find what's in the pocket of what's already there. But maybe sometimes it's nice to see, okay, how can we push this? How can we do something that's maybe a little bit unexpected? I would consider that an advanced technique. ca and usually I would recommend you go with what's already there and try to find a groove that fits and that sits in the mix nicely. but here, I mean, it's such a simple groove, it's just four on the floor, right? Like that's gonna sit in any mix. It's just it's just unexpected. And I do really like it. it's a it's a quirky little thing. if you're interested in Groove, a couple of years back in 2020 and 2021, I said I'm going to solve the issue. Of groove. what makes something groove? And I couldn't accept the fact that people said, it's just magic, it's something you're born with, blah, blah, blah. Because it's not true. I was definitely not born with groove. I now have very good groove, as many people have told me. But if you listen to my first recordings, I had no timing, no idea what groove means, just awful, awful, awful at those things. So I had to learn it the hard way. and also there are definitely techniques for arranging your tracks better. For writing your parts in such a way that everything clicks together so that your mixes basically, your songs basically mix themselves. Everything is just arranged in such a way that you can hear everything perfectly, even if the song is not mixed, right? And so for that I dove into the subject matter for about one and a half years, and I got a little crazy during that time. It was a sort of John Nash situation, you know, writing on everything, hearing groove everywhere in every song, and got a little obsessive. But what ended up happening, what ended up coming out of it, is a 30-hour program, the Puppet Master Bundle, which is, I think, the conclusive answer to what makes something groove. and it answers that on all levels, not just, you know, how do drums work, but how do all of the tracks in a song work together to create something that makes somebody want to move? I'm incredibly proud of it. there's a lot of stuff in here that I haven't seen anywhere else that I go to ChatGPT for every once in a while to check. Does ChatGPT know about this yet? And it doesn't. So I'm still confident and positive in saying that this is the only place where you can find all of this information. I've taught it around universities and obviously online multiple times and people's Brains just explode when I tell them what they've been missing when it comes to arrangement and groove. So this is good, good stuff. If you're interested at all in that, if you are a producer or a drummer or an instrumentalist, I think this is stuff that everybody should know about. And I'm super excited that it is there. do check out the link in the description. That's it for me. Take care and stay gefährlich.