The Bird and The Bee - "Again and Again"

The Bird and the Bee are Greg Kurstin and Inara George. Both are song writers, though Kurstin the most prolific. He co-write and produced the Lilly Allen album "It's Not Me, It's You".

Lyrics and theme
"Again and Again" is has a dreamy yet claustrophobic feel and an unstoppable cyclic drive to it. It contains opposite emotions experienced in a romance. "you'r so stupid and perfect", "I hate you ... Do it again", "It's easy and creepy". The theme being of falling in and out of love, of being trapped in a cycle of desire and repletion. Sometimes love seems like an illness, out of control and subject to innate ups and downs, but it is too nice and dreamy to do anything about it.

Form
As you would expect for a piece called "Again and Again" the form is simple and repetitive. There is a false opening on a piano. The real start begins with the chorus, at first just on the electric piano, then including breathy close up vocals. We will call this the intro since it is not a complete rendition of the chorus. The start of the verse signals the entry of the drums and rhythm acoustic guitar. The chorus and verse are repeated, followed by the middle-eight with eight bars of new material leading directly into an extended outro. The middle-eight is something of an interruption and breaks down to a halt. The outro recapitulates the intro and begins by building up the chorus starting with the electric piano just as before. In summary, the form is Intro Verse Chorus Verse Middle-eight Outro.

Subtleties
There are ambiguities, some of which, satisfyingly, are only resolved at the end. In the intro the electric piano is highly distorted and has a glossy twinkling short-wave-radio or ice-cream-van sound. There might be some cymbal rustling with it but it is hard to tell. When this is repeated in the outro there are definitely cymbals, or hissy percussion, so we probably did hear something in the intro. A tiny detail which rewards the curiosity of the listener.

In the outro the electric piano is very heavily treated with reverb and echo, could even be a xylophone and sounds extra-terrestrial. How far can this sound be pushed? It is then joined by swirling blurred out recorders only to lead into a distorted electric guitar strum and buzz which appears at the last. The buzz has an important role in connecting phrases in the verse together because it is tied over from one to the other. It could be a square wave synth down there in the mix, but only at the end is everything stripped off to reveal an electric guitar and fuzz box.

In the chorus the melody is like a march, C G F D, expressing tedium "again and again". The phrase ends with a giggly turn or appogitura. It is a 4 note turn which is much more fun than a simpler 3 note E-flat E E-flat and means that the lyric fits as a saucy "Do-o it again". On the keyboard the turn is E-flat E E E-flat (A-flat). This is confirmed in the promotional video featuring Kurstin and George. However the vocal is E-flat E-flat E E-flat (A-flat). Both are pretty hard to sing but the latter easier. This is very unusual, it would be so much simpler for the keyboard and vocal to be the same however this clash adds to the dreamy gloss and defocus.

Some Final Thoughts
On first listen, and because of the dreaminess of the song, the subtleties are not apparent, so are they important? I think, at least to the composer, they are. Squeezing every last bit from a song is part of the artistic flourish which makes creating music fun. Sometimes an eccentric choice is the right one and an impulsive madness is needed. In music, just as in love.