One of the ideas I had for this space was to start writing some musical analyses of my own songs, and maybe of other people’s songs, in the style of Alan W. Pollack. Pollack is a musicologist who, between 1999 and 2000, wrote analyses of every song in The Beatles’ canon and published them all on the internet. Pollack’s notes on The Beatles taught me a lot about the nuances of songwriting and recording pop music. I return to them frequently and still manage to learn interesting tidbits each time.

The first song I decided to write about is Shutterbug from Labyrinths. I’ll start things off by posting the chords and lyrics:

Intro: [A] [Dm] [A] [Dm] [F] [G] [A]

[A] The more I tell my story
[C#m] the less it feels like mine
[D] just something that happened to [F#m]someone
in a strange and ancient [B7]time [E] [E7]

[A] And how I wish the features
[C#m] of my youth could be preserved[D]
but they say that a man at [F#m]fifty
has the face that he [E]deserves [E7]

So [A] put your camera down
it [A+]cannot save us now
cause a [D]photograph is a [C#7]lie
and we'll [F#m]never be as [E]young as we are [A]tonight [Bdim7] [E7]

[Intro]

[A] They'll write a book about me
[C#m] and it won't be very long
[D] it'll say "He liked women and [F#m] drinking.
He was here and now he's [B7]gone."[E] [E7]

[A] And I don't find it morbid
[C#m] it doesn't make me cry
[D] cause we wouldn't be nearly so [F#m]lovely
if we didn't have to [E]die [E7]

So [A] put your camera down
it [A+]cannot save us now
cause a [D]photograph is a [C#7]lie
and we'll [F#m]never be as [E]young as we are [A]tonight [A7]ooh

And [Dm7]hey there shutterbug[G7]
won't [C]you show me some [A7]love?
cause [Dm7]there's none streaming [G7]down
from above[C] [A7]

And [Dm7]hey there shutterbug[G7]
won't [C]you show me some [A7]love?
cause [Dm7]there's none streaming [G7]down
from above[FM7] [B7] [E] [E7]

Solo: [A] [C#m] [D] [F#m] [B7] [E] [E7]
[A] [C#m] [D] [F#m] [E] [E7]

So [A] put your camera down
it [A+]cannot save us now
cause a [D]photograph is a [C#7]lie
and we'll [F#m]never be as [E]young as we are
we'll [F#m]never stop the [E]march of the stars
we'll [F#m]never be as [E]young as we are
tonight[F] [G] [E7]

Outro: [A] [Dm] [A] [Dm] [A]