In this week’s episode, Joon Park presents an interpretive strategy for melodic closure that occurs at the start of a song, which he terms a "terminal opening."

This episode was produced by Jose Garza along with Team Lead Anna Rose Nelson. Special thanks to peer reviewers Cara Stroud and Shersten Johnson.

SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/

[Intro Theme by Maria Tartaglia.]

Welcome to SMT-Pod, the premier audio publication of the Society for Music Theory! In this week’s episode, Joon Park presents an interpretive strategy for melodic closure that occurs at the start of a song, which he terms a "terminal opening."

Joon

[“The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis]

[“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M.]

A quarter of a century apart, the two songs share little in common: solo singer versus a band, a female versus male vocalist, compound meter versus simple meter, slow versus fast tempo, and personal issues versus societal observation, just to name a few. What similarities do they have? Two similarities stand out. For one, the titles share the same phrase, “End of the World.” The other is how both melodies begin with the scale degrees 3, 2, and 1, or mi-re-do.

[sung with solfege]

Skeeter Davis: Why does the sun/mi mi re do

R.E.M.: It’s the end of the world/ mi re do

Because they sound so drastically different, I couldn’t help but associate the shared features. In other words, the mi-re-do opening sounds to me to signify the “end of the world.” Once the association was made between the closing gesture and the phrase, I started to hear them as forming a meaningful unit that consists of its formal placement, its downward stepwise gesture that ends on the tonic, and its text that expresses an idea of ending, stop, or conclusion.

I have been collecting songs for a while now that do a similar thing—songs whose large formal sections, like a verse, a chorus, or a bridge, begin with a “mi-re-do” like closing gesture. I collected just above 80 songs; among them, 66 songs have English lyrics. These songs span nearly 100 years, with the jazz standard “Bye Bye Blackbird,” composed in 1926 by Ray Henderson, being the earliest example, and “Flowers,” by Miley Cyrus, which came out in 2023 being the most recent one. Looking at these songs, I suspect that there are a lot more songs than what I have collected. The longevity and frequency of this technique warrant a name, which I will call “a terminal opening.” Although there was no name for this technique, to my knowledge, the concept clearly existed for a long time.

Kofi Agawu, in his book “Playing with Signs,” talks about a similar technique used in Beethoven’s piano sonata No. 26, nicknamed “Les Adieux,” a farewell, which begins similarly with mi, re, and do, as a part of the “hunting horn” topic.

[Beethoven’s piano sonata No. 26, nicknamed “Les Adieux”]

This example is particularly relevant because the primary element that signifies the closure is the melody. Even though the chord supporting the note “do” is a minor vi chord, a c minor triad in the key of Eb major, I hear the three-note melody signaling an end in some sort, in this case, as suggested by the nickname, a farewell. Agawu writes that “When a composer begins a piece with a closing gesture, [they] may well be hinting at an aspect of its rhetorical structure that is to be subsequently played with.” In other words, a terminal opening in this sonata presents closure as the rhetorical motive for the movement.

A similar interpretation is possible for popular songs with terminal openings. These are songs whose meanings grow out of a closure of some sort. Rather than focusing on the composer, I’d like to emphasize the listener’s perspective. In other words, I, as an interpreter, can play with the idea of closure when interpreting songs with terminal openings.

In my interpretation, the terminal opening sometimes functions like a period of a sentence, making a statement more declarative. Sometimes, the continuation of the song after a melodic closure signals a persona’s perseverance, marching through the supposed conclusion. Sometimes, it signals the entirety of an event, while the mi-re-do melody signifies the beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes, it represents nostalgia, a longing for the event that took place in the past. And sometimes, the placement of closure at the beginning deflates the excitement latent in the ending. This signals the repetitive, mundane, tired, and weary life of everyday people living day to day.

Altogether, I organized five flavors of terminal opening: Declaration, Persistence, Synecdoche, Nostalgia, and Quotidian. I decided to call them “flavors” instead of a “subtype” or a “category” because the boundaries around each of them are highly subjective. Also, just like a delicious dish, there is usually more than one flavor operating when interpreting songs with a terminal opening. Even though each song evokes a different emotion, and each one has its own story to tell, when interpreting these songs with terminal opening, I noticed that many of my interpretations are built upon my recognition of a melodic closure at the song’s beginning.

In this podcast, I want to establish the terminal opening as a frequently recognizable sign in popular songs. We will listen to representative examples for each flavor of terminal opening first, and I will discuss how each flavor is constructed with three main ingredients: melodic salience, energy level, and lyrics. I will finish the podcast by interpreting songs that employ terminal opening in both verse and chorus and show how the flavor changes depending on the change of ingredients.

For each example, I will sing back the melody on movable-do solfege and provide a brief interpretation if needed.

The first flavor of terminal opening we’ll listen to is the declaration flavor. The declaration flavor strengthens the meaning of the text by highlighting the finality of the terminal opening, much like the period punctuation mark in a written sentence. The arrival at “do” accompanies the completion of an idea in the text. Among the three ingredients, the melodic salience and lyrics play crucial roles in constructing this flavor because the listener should be able to recognize the melodic closure while the text expresses a clear statement. For the sake of brevity, I will only use the title and the singer or other identifying information for these examples. In the supplemental material, I provided the composers and the dates.

The first song with the declaration flavor is That’s Amore, which was sung by Dean Martin. The title sentence and the clear mi-re-do-based melody express without a doubt that the emotion the persona is feeling is love.

["That’s Amore" sung by Dean Martin, then sung with solfege]

The second song is Island in the Stream, which is sung by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. This song similarly repeats the mi-re-do melody and also has a clear statement in the lyrics. “that is what we are.” The meaning of the text is again strengthened with the declarative flavor of the terminal opening.

["Island in the Stream" by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, then sung with solfege]

The next song is It’s a Heartache by Bonny Tyler. The end of the sentence coincides with the arrival of melodic closure, strengthening the statement. The persona realizes and accepts the fact that it is a heartache. A listener who is going through a difficult time in their relationship will hear the opening of this song as a clear message for them.

[It’s a Heartache by Bonny Tyler, then sung with solfege]

The last song with the declarative flavor is You’ll Be Back from the musical Hamilton. The beginning melody clearly states the mi-re-do closure with the short and decisive sentence spoken by the King George III character. One interesting feature of this phrase is that the beginning and end of the phrase are nearly identical, as if to remind the listener of the beginning and also remind the American revolutionaries of his [quote un-quote] “love.” For now, let's just listen to the opening phrase.

["You’ll be Back" from the musical Hamilton, then sung with solfege]

These four examples prominently feature a copula sentence, which is a type of sentence that is structured with a be-verb: “That is Amore,” “That is what we are,” “It is a heartache,” “You will be back,” and so on. In addition to a copula sentence, I found an imperative sentence to be another commonly used sentence structure that accompanies the declarative flavor of terminal opening. I will not play the excerpts here, but I will just sing these melodies. The examples are: The Beatles’ “Let It Be," Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me," Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love,” and Roxette’s “Listen to Your Heart.”

[The Beatles’ “Let It Be” sung with solfege]

[Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” sung with solfege]

Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” sung with solfege]

[Roxette’s “Listen to Your Heart” sung with solfege]

The next flavor example we’ll listen to is the persistence flavor. The persistence flavor acknowledges the melodic closure as a possible stopping point, yet the persona overcomes it by continuing through the supposed ending. Terminal openings with this flavor often accompany text that denies the termination. In other words, this flavor is motivated by the lyrics. We will hear four examples: Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen, Nothing’s gonna stop us now by Starship, Don’t Stop Dancing ‘Till the curtains fall from the Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman, and Fame by Irene Cara. It is clear from the title of the first three songs that persistence is the major theme in these songs. The last example needs more explanation because I am considering the instrumental introduction as the point of terminal opening. Let’s listen to these examples first.

The first song is Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. I think the terminal opening of this song is very clear, and the persistence flavor is self-explanatory.

["Don’t Stop Me Now" by Queen, then sung with solfege]

The next example is from Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” In this song, both verse and chorus have terminal opening. I will play two excerpts from this song.

["Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship, then sung with solfege]

Let’s listen to the next example, “Don’t Stop Dancing ‘till the curtains fall” from the Netflix

series Bojack Horseman.

["Don’t Stop Dancing ‘till the curtains fall" from the Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman, then sung with solfege]

Later in the season, this mi-re-do comes back with more energy. I will not sing this passage, but you will be able to hear the similarities.

["Don’t Stop Dancing ‘till the curtains fall" from the Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman, then sung with solfege]

Now, let’s listen to Fame by Irene Cara. The clear sol-fa-me-re-do opening in the introduction and the following vocal melody that rises up remind me of a phoenix soaring from the ashes. The text that appears later in the song, “light up the sky like a flame,” supports this phoenix imagery. This makes the song’s overall theme perseverance, where the persona overcomes the limit posed by the melodic closure.

["Fame" by Irene Cara, then sung with solfege]

I named the next flavor synecdoche. It is a figure of speech that describes the relationship between part and whole. It usually uses a part to represent the whole. For example, when we’re saying “helping hands,” we use the part “hands” to represent the whole, which is the individual helping others. Likewise, in the synecdoche flavor, the part is the mi-re-do terminal opening gesture, and the whole is a complete song with the beginning, middle, and end.

It will be easier to understand if we think of the mi-re-do opening as a miniature song in itself while also being the beginning of the enclosing song. The synecdoche flavor of the terminal opening signifies a complete song or the meaning of a complete iteration can be extended to include a more abstract idea of a complete process or a fullness. Our first example, “Tribute” by Tenacious D, will help us understand the synecdoche flavor further.

This song tells the story of two musicians meeting the devil at a crossroads, a common theme in rock lore. In the song, after a long narration, the first melody is sung by the devil character. “Play the best song in the world.” (2:55–3:02). For this challenge, the musicians [quote] “played the first thing that came to [their] heads, which just so happened to be the best song in the world.” [end quote] They continue that the song they’re singing is not that song, but it is a tribute to the song they played for the devil. This is the idea of synecdoche, where the me-re-do melody represents a separate idea of a complete song that is contained within the song that is being played. I will play snippets from the song. First, the terminal opening melody is sung by the devil character, and then the part where the personae explains that this is not the song that we’re hearing. I will sing the devil's melody in solfege first, and then I play the excerpts back to back.

[Sung with solfege first, then “Tribute” by Tenacious D]

The next song with the synecdoche flavor is a jazz standard, But Not for Me, originally composed for the musical Girl Crazy. The lyrics that accompany the terminal opening are as follows: “They’re writing songs of love, but not for me.” The mi-re-do gesture coincides with the phrase “songs of love,” which leads me to interpret the mi-re-do gesture as a song that was not written for the persona.

["But Not for Me" sung by Judy Garland, then sung with solfege.]

The next song is I’ll Never Fall in Love Again by Dionne Warwick. This is a rare instance where the terminal opening occurs in the bridge. Because the text “Don’t tell me what it’s all about” perfectly coincides with the sol-fa-mi-re-do gesture, an expanded version of the mi-re-do gesture, the melody signals the whole process of falling in and out of love with the terminal opening.

[“I'll Never Fall in Love Again" by Dionne Warwick, then sung with solfege.]

The last example of the synecdoche flavor is Fidelity by Regina Spektor. The opening melody, “I never loved nobody fully,” represents fully falling in love, the entirety of a relationship. By saying that she has never done that, it detaches the opening melody from the actual song while the mi-re-do gesture representing fully falling in love.

[“Fidelity” by Regina Spektor, then sung with solfege.]

The next flavor is nostalgia. The nostalgia flavor signals the longing for the past. Here, the terminal opening separates the past from the present. The melodic closure here functions like the line that divides past and present. The persona’s reception about the past varies. They can look at the past with positive fondness, gratitude, or regret.

The first song in this example is “Those Were the Days,” made popular in the anglophone world by Mary Hopkin. The lyrics are about the “good old days” that we can never go back to. There is a sense of longing, melancholy, and loss in this chorus. The ritardando at the beginning of the chorus over the titular phrase attempts to slow down time to experience the mercilessly fleeting time just a bit longer. The accompanying me-re-do melodic closure highlights that the door to the past is shut.

["Those Were the Days" made popular by Mary Hopkin, then sung with solfege.]

The next song is Thank U by Alanis Morissette. Here, the singer-songwriter expresses gratitude for the past events in her life (both positive and negative) that contributed to her personal growth. In addition to nostalgia, there is also a sense of counting one’s blessings with the repetitive melodic closure.

["Thank U" by Alanis Morissette, then sung with solfege.]

The last song with a nostalgia flavor is “Reelin’ in the Years” by Steely Dan. The opening text, “Your everlasting summer and you can see it fading fast,” signals that time is running out. The triple subdivision of the compound meter heightens the sense of spinning, similar to how the waltz topic is often associated with a spinning dance (McKee 2014, 174–178). Just like the dance, the clock’s hands are spinning fast, symbolizing the flying time. The speedily spoken syllables in the verse also heighten the sense of urgency. With this, the fa-mi-re-do melody can be interpreted as the closing off of the “everlasting summer.

["Reelin' in the Years" by Steely Dan, then sung with solfege.]

The last flavor is the quotidian flavor. The word quotidian refers to the mundane and boring familiarity of day-to-day existence. The quotidian flavor deflates the excitement that is often built into a formal closure. It treats closure without any rhetorical emphasis. Even though the ending took place, the song continues. It mimics the quotidian fatigue of a neoliberal subject where every day is the same as the day before. Everyday excitement has turned into resignation and defeat. Terminal opening with the quotidian flavor, therefore, captures the despair associated with burnout syndrome. However, positive thinking can grow from everyday fatigue, where despair becomes soil, and a new look at life can sprout from it.

The first terminal opening we’ll listen to is Look for the Silver Lining, sung by Judy Garland. Although the original musical, Sally, was not commercially successful, this song lived on as a message for people in a hopeless situation. I interpret the terminal opening figure in this song (mi-fa-re-mi-do) as representing the quotidian fatigue. The tuneful melody of the terminal opening has concluded, yet the song continues, depriving the moment of rest. In Till the Clouds Roll By, the 1946 movie about the life of the composer Jerome Kern, Judy Garland sings this song surrounded by piled-up dishes, pots, and pans, washing them one by one performing a seemingly endless task.

[“Look for the Silver Lining” sung by Judy Garland, then sung with solfege.]

The next example is “Somebody to Love” by Queen. The opening text, “Each morning I get up, I die a little,” represents the beginning of a new day devoid of any excitement and energy. The melodic closure sol-mi-re-do symbolizes the burnt-out worker living day to day, paycheck to paycheck.

[“Somebody to Love” by Queen, then sung with solfege.]

The second verse paints a more vivid picture of the persona’s precarious working conditions, “I work hard Every day of my life. I work ’till I ache my bones.” The melody is altered to the mi-re-do gesture sung back to back, again, symbolizing the monotonous day in despair. This song is a last cry for help, calling for a divine intervention to help the persona out of their situation.

[“Somebody to Love” by Queen, then sung with solfege.]

The final example is a Korean popular song called “Amor Fati,” sung by Yonja Kim. This song is in a genre called Korean trot. If I had to find an analog for English speakers, it would be like American country music. It is generally loved by an older generation, often in a melancholic tone, and there are groups of singers who specialize in singing in this genre, Yonja Kim being one of them. Having said all these, the Nietzschean title “Amor Fati” would be surprising to see in this genre. Latin for "a love of fate," the song’s title is a motto of sorts for 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. His idea was to actively, willingly, and authentically love everything that your life gives you, even the tragic events.

The text of the song carries the same message. Even if you don’t understand Korean, you can still hear the terminal opening with the opening sol-fa-me-re-do melody. The accompanying text translates to “That’s just how life is.” In this short sentence, I sense a feeling of defeat and acceptance. What follows is a further explanation of what life is, which, to me, sounds like a rationalization of an unfulfilling life. “Everybody comes to this world empty-handed and spreads a story just like a novel.”

["Amor Fati" by Yonja Kim, then sung with solfege.]

So far, we have listened to excerpts while focusing on one primary flavor. However, there are many songs that change flavor over the course of the song’s progression. When terminal opening is used both in verse and chorus, I am more inclined to interpret it as a transformation of one flavor to another. We will listen to three songs with terminal openings that change flavor between the verse and the chorus.

REO Speedwagon’s 1984 rock ballad, “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” contains a terminal opening in both verse and chorus. In the verse, the melody meanders, and the vocal timbre is thin. The instrumentation is relatively bare compared to the introduction. The less salient melody and low energy level in the verse opening suggest a tiredness of fighting the feeling, denying what the persona really feels. Among the five flavors, I can taste the quotidian fatigue most prominently here. The persona is tired of suppressing the emotion day after day.

[REO Speedwagon’s 1984 rock ballad, “Can’t Fight This Feeling”]

In the chorus, the flavor dramatically changes while the text more-or-less remains the same. I can hear a determination in the voice of the singer, with clear enunciation of the consonants /t/ and /f/. "Can't fight this feeling." There is more growl in the voice, too. The added drums and electric guitar also energize the chorus. The meandering melody of the verse has changed to a more decisive fa-mi-re-do melody without turns, where the repeated fa emphasizes the downward motion to mi with tonal gravity and chordal magnetism, to borrow Steve Larson’s musical forces idea. Altogether, the tiredness of the verse is no longer present. It sounds to me that the persona is declaring to himself that it is time to accept his feelings. The flavor is more like a declaration.

[REO Speedwagon’s 1984 rock ballad, “Can’t Fight This Feeling”]

Miley Cyrus’s 2023 song “Flowers” follows a typical formal construction of the recent top-40 pop music with a verse, chorus, and post-chorus. Among the sections, both verse and chorus feature terminal openings. In the verse, the persona looks back at the relationship with regret. “We were good, we were gold.” The incessantly repeating me-re-do gesture gives a sense of rumination, obsessing over the failed relationship. The voice’s low register, a minor mode, and the downward contour of the terminal opening, combined with the lack of drumbeats and sparse instrumentation, bring out the sense of loneliness. The active bassline sounds to me like it’s over-compensating the sinking feeling.

["Flowers" by Miley Cyrus]

The chorus is in the relative major and begins with a brief mi-re-do melody. The text changes from “we were” to “I can,” showing that the persona is no longer obsessing with the past and looking for new possibilities. The added drumbeats also heighten the energy level. Altogether, I interpret that, between the verse and the chorus, the flavor changes from nostalgia to declaration and persistence, where the persona no longer seeks love from the other person and finds value in self-love.

["Flowers" by Miley Cyrus]

Simon and Garfunkel’s 1970 song “Bridge Over Troubled Water” begins with the text “When you’re weary, feeling small.” The vocal timbre is thin and delicate in a low register, contributing to the low energy level. The persona matches the energy level of the struggling friend and empathizes with the mood of quotidian fatigue.

[Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel]

Later in the chorus, the persona offers support “like a bridge over troubled water.” The melody is an octave higher than the verse, symbolizing the bridge above. When the chorus comes back, the voice gains more energy, with a vibrato, sustained pitch, and more breath support. The last verse-chorus pair no longer projects weakness. With vocal harmony and added drumbeats, and with the imperative text “Sail on Silver Girl,” the last verse portrays a powerful camaraderie.

The song ends with the message of companionship, now filled with a full orchestra, powerful vocal timbre, and heavy rhythmic accents. The beginning quotidian flavor is now changed to a declaration of support. The continually growing energy throughout the song signals the persona meeting the struggling friend where they are and taking them through the hardship. In this way, the later iteration of melodic closure has a hint of the persistence flavor, too. Let’s listen to the first chorus, the second chorus, the last verse, and the song’s ending.

[Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel]

In this podcast, we listened to selected songs with terminal openings. There are a lot more terminal opening songs that I have collected, which you can find in the supplemental materials. But I am sure there are still a lot more songs out there. I presented the five flavors: declaration, persistence, synecdoche, nostalgia, and quotidian, and explored how the three ingredients, melodic salience, energy level, and lyrics, contribute to my association of the song’s terminal opening with a certain flavor.

I have no doubt that there are more flavors that the listeners can construct, and there might be more ingredients at play. Also, some listeners might have different interpretations of the song that we listened to in this podcast. My hope in introducing a new name, terminal opening, is to facilitate the listener’s interpretation with a more precise rhetorical description. I want to end this podcast with questions for the listener. We will listen to Corinne Bailey Rae’s 2006 song “Like a Star. Do you recognize the terminal opening? What flavor do you hear in this example? Are there any other feelings evoked by the terminal opening

["Like a Star" by Corinne Bailey Rae.]

I’d like to sincerely thank the SMT-Pod’s production team lead, Anna Rose Nelson, and the producer, Jose Garza. I also want to thank my reviewers, Cara Stroud and Shersten Johnson, for their insightful comments and recommendations. Thank you to UIC’s Make Good Lab for providing the recording space. Special thanks go out to my partner in crime, Wing Lau, for taking my photo to be used on the website.

[Outro Theme by Yike Zhang.]

Visit our website, smt-pod.org, for supplemental materials related to this episode and to learn how to submit an episode proposal. And join in the conversation by tweeting us your questions and comments @SMT_Pod. SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang.