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Saturday Night Classic—Conquistador
As Cambodia began its transition to a market economy in late 1988/early 1989, information businesses emerged first. One FM station aired an international program that primarily played French, English, and Spanish music. The DJ must have liked Procol Harum quite a bit because there was a song from the band every day; most of the time, it was either A Whiter Shade of Pale or A Salty Dog. Conquistador came on once in a while, and when I first heard it, I thought it was the finest rock song ever. Decades later, it remains the finest rock song ever.
Published in General
Great song , indeed .
I read A Whiter Shade Of Pale and Deeper Shade Of Soul popped in My head. I haven’t thought of that song in 40 years.
I almost always prefer live versions of the classics.
I could not make sense of the harmony in the main melodic theme. Did anyone else have this problem?
The chord progression goes Gm C F and then the bass line descends chromatically to Eflat, a suspend or leading note waiting to resolve a half step down to D (the dominant). But I can never hear the resolution! It seems to just go straight to the repeat of the progression, with the resolution having been “forgotten”.
My mind cannot find a way to make sense of it. I can’t think of another song that does this, except maybe Liza–fifth chord in the progression–by George Gershwin (which I have over many years forced myself to hear as normal.)
Check out Stevie Winwood’s live album if you are into him at all. It kind of flew under the radar. As you know, there are a lot of great live albums.
I have always been 20 – 25 years behind the times when it comes to music, and Steve Winwood is another.
I found Him annoying when I was a teenager in the 80s, but now I enjoy His music. Go figure.
His 80’s stuff–Higher Love, etc.–was about his third incarnation. I’m OK with it but prefer 60s-70s, being a fossil.
The song is not without its compensations, but it is a truth universally acknowledged that the finest rock song ever is Gimme Shelter.
Wow! What a performance!
I follow your chord progression of G minor, C major (except I hear it as a C 7 chord) and then F Major, but I am not detecting the E-flat major chord that you are hearing. To me it just goes right to D7, the dominant chord. Maybe I am missing something. I’ll have to listen more closely. I enjoy it too much to analyze precisely!
Also I’ll try to check out the Gershwin song you mentioned. I’m not familiar with it.
It could be I am not hearing it correctly. I will tey again. l
Needs more Trower.
Spent hours listening to the 45 trying to figure out the lyrics.
I do hear an E-flat major in the refrain, but not in the main melody where I think you were talking about.
That’s a tedious task seeing that most lyrics for popular songs can be found quickly online. I’ve discovered words I never knew existed in certain songs! My wife was under the impression for decades that there was a Motown song called “Backseat Emotion.” She thought they were talking about making out in the back seat of a car! (Backfield in Motion) I used to think there was a Beatles song called “Take the back Rider.” It never made sense to me. (Paperback Writer)
When song lyrics first became available on the internet, I looked up every song that flummoxed me. Conquistador was one of the first.
This verse completely flummoxed me:
Conquistador, a vulture sits upon your silver shield
And in your rusty scabbard now the sand has taken seed
I know your jewel-encrusted blade has not been plundered still
Sea has washed across your face
And taken of its fill
My best guess at the time was:
Conquistador, a vulture sits upon your silver shield
And in your rusty scabbard now the scent has to concede
And now your jewelry-crusted plate has not been polished yet
She has washed her crusty face
Taken all has failed
Didn’t make any sense at all but it was the best I could do. Not sure his lyrics make much sense either but they are evocative
I did the same. I misheard a lot of songs, some of which, now that I think about it, were really ridiculous.
The Archive of Misheard Lyrics.
… Scuse me while I kiss this guy …
Or 50 years!
I found a chord chart. It is consistent with the Eflat in the bass,
with the chord being F7/Bflat. (I had not been able to hear the chord,
only the leading bass note, but now I have something to go on.) I will try the
progression on the piano with the cadence F F7 Gm. This is in the verse, not the chorus.
Actually, now that I write it that way,
it reminds me of the resolution to the tonic (but major tonic in this case) via VII seventh (!)
in the big ending of Layla,
by Eric Clapton. Which is an astonishing and gorgeous chord change to my ear (though I am sure that
so-and-so used it in the “famous” Concerto Grossaroni in B in AD 1054.
On re-listening, I definitely hear the Eflat in the
bass (though I couldn’t rule out a VERY quick switch to D before the return to the tonic!)
Thanks for the update! You are well acquainted with musical theory. Did you study music theory or piano seriously?
The E-flat now makes sense to me because it easily fits with an F Dominant seventh chord with the E-flat in the base (I rarely see this inversion of seventh chords). I was assuming you meant an E-flat major chord. I once analyzed the chords from Layla a long time ago but I don’t remember much about it.
When I first heard this song I was convinced is was by the Electric Light Orchestra. I can see why Trower decided to leave the group, although his contributions while there were excellent.
Is this in G minor or F major. The 3 chords in the verse are a classic II (Gmin) V (Cmaj) I (Fmaj) progression. The chorus is definitely in G minor.
I think you can technically label it either way, but to me, the G minor chord dominates right from the beginning so I would personally go with the piece being in G minor. It seems to resolve to the G minor chord rather than the F Major chord.
No, just curious about music.
Yes, I played the progression G – C7 – F – F7. The harmony makes perfect sense now to my ear! I shall have to try listening to the song again, and force my ear to hear the Eflat correctly. (Often once you have learned a phrase and your ear has assigned a musical meaning to the chords and notes (“The Eflat is a passing note resolving to D major chord”), it is almost impossible to correct it.)
I sense that a music person could teach me more about it. Specifically, it makes much more sense to think of it as being in Fmajor, not in G minor. Think of it as starting on II minor instead of I minor. It then resolves to the tonic major. Tension is then created for the repeated progression by going to I7. (Dominant seventh chord on “I”, I mean.) It is done with the “voice leading” of the bass going from the I note to the VII flat note. This is actually pretty common: the chord is F (Bflat), or “F major B flat bass”. That is, the fourth (third??) inversion of F7.
Try playing this on the piano:
C with C in the bass for two beats.
Now run the bass up to the major third:
C, D, E and play that 3-in-the-bass inversion for two beats.
Then the sub-dominant chord for four beats:
F major
Then repeat. Then repeat again once or more (Clapton repeats it quite a bit).
Now that your mind has taken the bait, set the hook: instead of repeating the C major, play a quiet Bflat dom 7th for four beats. And then resolve peacefully to an even quieter C major.
That powerful surge of a feeling of peace is why Layla is one of the classic rock songs.
I missed this Comment. You are the “music person” I was looking for in Comment #26! My suspicion is confirmed: the verse is in F major. Thanks.
I realize now (confirmed by @thelonius, my new go-to guy for understanding music) my ear deciding to hear it being in G minor was my downfall. Don’t go there, my friend, or you may never come back!
I think you’re right about G minor. If it just ended on an F chord it would sound like F major. Turning it into an F7 chord dissolves it sounding like the tonic. It sounds like it could easily be the dominant of Bb major which is the relative major of G minor. Those Procol Harem guys are pretty clever.
I think you know more music theory than most students at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Your ear must be good too, in order to pick up those subtle chord changes.