30 March 2020

30 March 2020 - Boston - More Than a Feeling

We all wish we had Brad Delp's voice here.

I do, anyway.

He didn't write the song, though.  Tom Scholz - the true brains behind Boston who went so far as to invent equipment to create their unique sound without synthesizers - wrote it - about the feelings an old song can bring back.  It is no coincidence that the guitar riff at the chorus is oddly reminiscent of "Louie, Louie". 

You never heard that before, but you do now, don't you?

It isn't the old song referenced, though.  That would be "Walk Away Renee" by the Left Banke, a song that lyrically inspired this one.

The song itself is very complex and took Scholz several years to complete.  It features a dramatic key change between verse (D Major) and chorus (G Major), with a significant falsetto - which brings us back to Brad Delp's vocal range, which was incredible....



....and a power he still had almost thirty years later.  I marvel to this day at the emotion he brought to his performance.  Sadly, Delp died of an apparent suicide in 2007.  Here's one of the last performances I could find of him performing the song that made him a legend.

 

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