The Power of Leitmotif
Leitmotives are used extensively as a compositional device throughout soundtracks for various media, and for good reason.
It can often be the emotional glue that sets the pacing for our connection with characters and story.
But there’s a context where leitmotif gets far less love: songwriting. (Here I’m referencing pop, rock, hiphop, etc.) To be clear, it happens…but just far less frequently. And I would say that, even when it does, it gets used in a more overt referential, tongue in cheek type way.
Over the last few years, my music tastes have skewed heavily towards various flavors of the new prog renaissance that’s been happening this last decade. What’s lovely about the whole scene is that there’s been this diversity of composition that’s happening, where there’s a renewed focus on harmonic texture, rhythm and mood.
One artist in particular that has resonated deeply with me is Cloudkicker. He uses the vocabulary of prog metal in a counter intuitive way: to create these chill, dreamy, introspective, psychedelic moods.
In some ways, his music feels like it has the spirit of a 90’s grunge+shoegaze kid, that grew out of their angst, and knows a little more about the world, and themselves. It doesn’t overtly spoon feed anything remotely like hope, and yet it’s there, pulsating through every song.
My entry into Cloudkicker’s catalog was Let Yourself Be Huge. In particular, one of my favorite tracks off that album is This isn't.
It's a wistful, introspective, mesmerizing piece that hits me in my soul. It is the feeling of not knowing where you’re going in life, but finally accepting it. Or, rather, that’s how it has narrated my own journey. Your mileage may vary.
I spent quite a bit of time with that album, and then started branching into his others.
I jumped around a bit, and then finally started in on Fade a few months ago.
There is a moment that happens on Fade that was something I deeply hope to be able to do for someone else one day with my own songwriting.
The last song on Fade is called Our Crazy Night. I had it playing while I was working. It’s a fairly long song, and I was really enjoying it’s overall mood. I was in a bit of a flow state, doing some web design, and the song got to around 6:00. The chord progression, rhythms and textures had this faintly familiar feel to them, and I was really rocking out to it.
Then…and I cannot emphasize how unprepared for this I was…at 6:42 the leitmotif from This Isn’t hit, and I lost it.
Tears.
If This Isn’t is accepting that you don’t know where you’re going, the ending to Our Crazy Night is discovering that you actually found yourself in the process.
If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, grab some headphones, and listen to the song sequence:
