Roy's Reviews

          The one song that most defines Jack Johnson’s style is “Better Together,â€? off of his CD “In Between Dreams.â€? The song is a simple, catchy love song that showcases Jack’s mellow, smooth voice, his acoustic guitar, and his minimalistic use of the band behind him. The song is in a major key, with a very relaxed, laid back groove, and has sentimental, romantic lyrics. Overall, it is a wonderfully crafted piece of music, and demonstrates several of Jack Johnson’s unique, defining characteristics.
          The instruments used in the song reflect on both Johnson’s traditional folk background and his Hawaiian upbringing. His music is based around his smooth, soft, breathy vocals and his finger-strummed acoustic guitar, with very light drums and bass added underneath. The bass guitar is more prominent here than in much rock music; bassist Merlo walks his way down the major scale in the verses and plunks away in the background in the chorus. The drums are kept on a very short leash; drummer Adam Topol uses sidesticks instead of full snare drum hits throughout the song, and uses brushes on the chorus. He very lightly hits cymbals on accents, sticking to a tightly clamped hihat on verses and a soft ride cymbal over the chorus. The drums and bass appear to be more of a structural, background element beneath the vocals, guitar, and occasional keyboards. Courtesy of keyboard player Zach Gill, Johnson also mixes keyboard instruments into the song, such as a piano very briefly in the post-chorus and a more exotic mallet instrument, the vibraphone, in the chorus. The vibraphone’s dreamy, vibrato-laced, bell-like chime helps lend a relaxed, slightly Hawaiian feel to the song, as if the listener is lounging around on a beach in the sun somewhere, calling to mind Johnson’s Hawaiian heritage and surf rock influences. Overall, the aesthetically pleasing blend of instruments produces a very soft, relaxing song that still manages to engage listeners.
          The structure of the song is simple; it uses a very basic structure like that found in much popular music. The structure is intro-verse-chorus-postchorus-verse-chorus-postchorus-bridge-outro. There are truly only three parts to the song, each one restated in a different manner in different sections of the song. The song begins with a soft intro featuring nothing but light fingerpicking on the guitar, which after four measures jumps directly into the verse with vocals and acoustic guitar. The bass guitar enters halfway through the verse, and from the end of the verse, the song goes into the chorus where the drums and vibraphone enter. After the chorus, there is a brief interlude where the verse parts are played, but with a piano arpeggiating over the top of it and no vocals. Then, he goes through the second verse, another chorus and post-chorus, then into a bridge. The bridge is similar to the chorus, except with different vocals and a slightly changed guitar part. The song then ends from this bridge by restating the intro, only this time with the guitar part slightly altered, and with drums and bass as well. The song can be divided into the aforementioned three parts as the intro/outro, the verse and post-chorus, and the chorus and bridge. Johnson augments these parts to serve different purposes in the song, changing small details to give the parts new meaning. The repeating patterns in the parts give the song a sense of continuity. The verse and intro are eight-measure-long repeating patterns; the chorus is a two-measure long repeating pattern. The simplicity of the song’s structure allows the listener to feel the message that Johnson sends both through the chords and melody that he uses and the lyrics that he sings over the top.
          The rhythm and melody of the song are deceptively simple. The song’s rhythm is defined by Johnson’s guitar strums, but truly held together by the rhythm section. “Better Togetherâ€? bounces along in a swung 4/4 meter at 110 beats per minute, which remains steady throughout the song. The swung 4/4 signifies that measures are divided into four beats, and each beat is divided into triplets. The main rhythm is a quarter note followed by a triplet with the first and third notes played. this rhythm repeats throughout almost the entire song with some main variations. There is little by the way of polyrhythms in the instruments, but the vocals fit in over the top in their own rhythms, varied throughout to fit the phrasing of the lyrics.
          The melodies throughout the piece are very basic. The piece is in F Major, does not change key, and only utilizes chromatic notes from outside the scale in the choruses as passing tones. Throughout the song, the basic themes and melodies are largely defined by the parts. The melodies are repeated, with the exception being the vocals in the verse and bridge. In the chorus, they stay in a repeated pattern with very slight variation, but in the verse and bridge, Johnson freely changes notes and rhythms to fit the lyrics. He stays largely around the pentatonic scale and keeps the melodies similar enough that they still have a sense of continuity. It is definitely composed, but for added effect he may slightly augment them when playing the song live. Throughout, the song is largely a homophony, with Johnson’s vocals or the piano as the lead melody, the guitar providing chords as harmony, and the bass playing melody that follows the bass note of the chords.
          The song begins with the acoustic guitar playing a fourths-based, slide-heavy intro riff to set up a slightly exotic, Hawaiian, almost Eastern feel for the song. After that, the verse is based around a descending F Major scale. The eight-measure-long chord progression that the guitar follows is I-V-vi7-V-IV-I-ii-V, with the chords inverted appropriately so that the bass note of each chord follows the descending F Major scale. This gives the progression a wonderful flow and sense of motion, and also exudes a very major, happy tone overall. Johnson’s vocals stick mainly to the pentatonic scale in the verse, with a few slight exceptions. The chorus changes it up a little bit. the basic progression is just IV-V over and over, but Johnson does an interesting thing with it. On the first note of the first measure of the chorus, he slides the major chord shape from the pitches one chromatic step up from the IV chord down into the IV chord, with the first chord serving as chromatic passing notes. This use of notes from outside the key signature gives the song a further surf rock feel, as it emulates a similar concept used by surf rock’s electric guitarists, who used a whammy bar to bend chords to different tones much along the same lines. Otherwise, the chorus has a feeling of lack of resolution, which is then resolved by the IV-V-I imperfect authentic cadence created by returning to the first chord of the post-chorus. The post-chorus is much the same as the verse, only without vocals and with piano. The bridge retains the chorus’s IV-V progression, only without the interesting chromaticism and with different melodies in the vocals. To end the song, the intro is restated, only with the riff slightly changed and extended this time. The song ends with a I chord, F Major, giving it a strong sense of resolution.
          “Better Togetherâ€? is an exceptionally well-written piece, which is deceiving in its simplicity. Johnson takes very basic ideas such as using a descending F Major scale as a bass line, and develops them into cohesive, unique parts which blend together exceptionally well. Together, Johnson’s instrumentals perfectly compliment his soothing voice and sentimental lyrics to create a wonderful, moving song that is adored by many fans.