Until I tried singing the song The Way It Is by Bruce Hornsby, I never paid close attention to the lyrics and only recalled the "get a job" part. I always thought that was a funny line and often thought about it as I myself hunted for jobs. It turns out to be a song about racial prejudice and it's not bad in that regard. I ran across it again during my years playing at the Golden Buddha Restaurant and tackled it. It's got a nice interesting little lick in it that moves from a I9 to a bVII9 to IV9-- it's trademark. Other than than the chords move from ii to vi to V - IV to I. Deceptively simple, the ii-vi is less common and provides an astonishing ability to riff in ways that I deem a "discovery" in piano-harmonic changes-- something you see very little of in today's current tunes which often display music illiteracy (such as that last tune I did, November Rain-- see latest posts). In the following playlist, first up is me followed by Hornsby's original and a series of other Youtubers trying their hand at it. I worked off a free chord/lyric sheet as I normally do to try to avoid paying the $3-5 at musicnotes.com for the actual score if I can. I'm playing on a Casio Previa that's about 10 years old now. It's keys are slightly narrower than standard size which is tricky but doable. I didn't bother setting up a mic because it was late in the day.
Discussion THE WAY IT IS (Get a job) (Bruce Hornesby)-- piano-vocal-lesson by Rick Potvin
Discussion THE WAY IT IS (Get a job) (Bruce Hornesby)-- piano-vocal-lesson by Rick Potvin
