Three Minute Pop Songs: Gene Clark Edition

Dillard and Clark: Radio Song

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Gene Clark: Hear the Wind

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Gene Clark: Rain Song

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Steve Earle famously said he’d stand on Bob Dylan’s Kitchen table in his cowboy boots and declare Townes Van Zandt the best songwriter ever. Well, I don’t own a pair of cowboy boots but I’m prepared to stand on Bob’s kitchen table in my dirty socks and say Gene Clark had a lot of what Townes had and a bit more of something else. Trying to prove the case when the theme is three minute pop songs is tough; not because Clark couldn’t write a great pop song – no one needs to prove that – but because he was inclined to time them around 2:48, 3:17 or, just to be perverse, 3:05. We miss out on some obvious classics; ‘In a Misty Morning’, ‘I Remember the Railroad’, ‘Polly’, ‘Dragon’s Eye’, all of ‘No Other’ and ‘So Rebellious a Lover’ and that was just his solo career, after he’d made it big with the Byrds. In this post we get to hear three tracks – a whole nine minutes - that may have slipped below the radar.

It’s too bad Gene Clark gets lumped into country rock because it’s questionable whether he was either. Sterling contributions to that genre aside, he crafted great pop songs. The tracks here, Radio Song, Rain Song and Hear the Wind are but humble examples. Listen closely to Radio Song and you hear his early days in the New Christy Minstrels. Tune an ear to Hear the Wind and you’ll catch the budding strains of early 70s FM. As for Rain Song? Imagine the Bee Gees circa 68-69 getting their hands on it; not hard to do. It was a tragedy of Clark’s that after success with the Byrds he never cracked it with an audience that really deserved him.

Guest post by John

Songwriting: Out On The Side

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Dillard & Clark: Out On The Side

It's amazing what learning an instrument will do for your appreciation of good music. I can't explain the feeling of discovering a brilliant chord progression, but when you love a song, pick up the guitar and figure out what the chords are; you just might figure out why you love it.

Gene Clark is one of my favorite songwriters (and my number one man crush). His songs get me so good because they are based on traditional folk and country progressions, but taken to the next level. The use of relative minor and II and III chords distinguishes his tunes from classic I-IV-V stuff, but they seldom feel complicated. He sticks to his roots with the perfect amount of new flavor.

Out On The Side from Fantastic Expedition just kills me... Starts on the II (F#m) chord and, interestingly, almost every line ends on the I chord (E). When they switch to the descending A - G - E (IV - bIII - I), it sounds definitively 'Gene Clark' to me. Hangs on the E to a tension-building F#m just before the classic A - B - E (IV - V - I) hook on "out on the side," providing satisfying closure to this moving progression.

Out On The Side
by Gene Clark
(Lyrics and chords available at geneclark.com)

F#m  A
F#m       A           G#m           E
And there could be at any moment a change
F#m       A              E
And if perhaps to put us down
F#m     A             G#m            E
I won't act like I've seen something strange
F#m     A                 E
Maybe I just won't make a sound
A            G           E
But when the door closes before my eyes
A   G         E
Oh, oh I will cry
E                    F#m
Just to know you are going to stay
A   B      E
Out on the side