The Four-Chord Song

I was in rehearsal for a workshop of a new musical once when the cast was working on a really wonderful, very catchy song with the musical director -- and then one of the actors stopped singing and said, "You know this is that Kelly Clarkson song, right?  I'm pretty sure she already wrote this.... Yeah... 'Here I am, once again, I'm torn into pieces'....  Right?  Isn't this the same thing?"

It was indeed the same thing.  I had already been thinking that -- because I really like that song.  In fact, I not only liked it when Kelly Clarkson wrote it but also when Journey wrote it, when Bon Jovi wrote it, when it was in Frozen, when Pink wrote it, when Lady Gaga and Avril Lavigne and James Blunt wrote it....  I really loved it when Paul McCartney wrote it, and one of my favorite versions is a little-known-but-should-have-been-a-big-hit song when Revolution Saints wrote it.  It seems like people tend to recognize it as Clarkson's "Behind These Hazel Eyes" the most, and whenever I hear it on the radio, no matter whose version I'm listening to, I'll bust out singing "Here I am, once again, I'm torn into pieces, can't deny it, can't pretend, just thought you were the one," but the fact is it's pretty much every pop hit ever.  Yep....  Most pop hits (or at least their hooks) are the same four chord progression.  My most recent song obsession on my most recent album obsession (Bon Jovi's new "Burning Bridges," which everyone should go buy) is the chorus to their too-catchy "We Don't Run," and after I played the song three times in a row and started singing, "There's fire in the sky, there's thunder on the mountain, bless each tear and this dirt I was born in..." in counterpoint to every other song I heard (much to my fiancé's annoyance), I realized, "Oh! Yep.... 'Here I am, once again...'  It's the song."

 

So since this song is so indelibly stuck in my head, and since I've been geeking out the last few days about how humans -- whether little kids watching Frozen and The Lion King or teens listening to Lady Gaga or adults from past decades listening to the Beatles and Journey and Bon Jovi, or film fans who aren't even necessarily conscious of the score they're listening to -- keep responding so strongly to one particular chord progression over and over and over, here are 47 hit versions of the four-chord song in approximately six minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ