Song Breakdown: Helpless by John Mayer

-
Song: Helpless
Artist: John Mayer 
Released: 2017
Genre: Blues
Tempo: 104 Bpm

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOdN6utMgQQ

Image result for john mayer helpless

Form: Intro - Verse - Chorus - 2nd Verse - 2nd Chorus - Solo - Bridge - 3rd Chorus - Outro

Instruments: Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, Drums, Keyboard, Vocals

Role of instruments:

  • Lead: Guitar, Vocals
  • Foundation: Bass Guitar, Drums
  • Fills: Guitar, Keyboard
  • Rhythm: Guitar
Chords:
  • Intro, Verse, Solo & Outro: F - C - F/A - C/G - F/A - Am7
  • Chorus & Bridge: F/A - Am
  •  Build Up: E
Intro:
The intro of the song comprises of 4 bars. The first 2 bars of the song contains an isolated guitar riff without the other instruments. The drums and the bass guitar comes in on the third bar.

1st and 2nd Verse:
Same chords as the intro, 4 bars

1st and 2nd Chorus:
4 bars, The Hook- 'If I'm helpless tell me now, tell me now'

Solo:
Same chords as verse. There is a build up towards the bridge where the drums begin to intensify and the bass guitar plays a note in a continuous manner.

Bridge:
Relatively calm and quiet after the build up.

3rd Chorus:
Same as the 1st and 2nd Chorus

Outro:
Same Chords as Verse. The Outro starts at 'If I'm helpless' and the solo comes in shortly after that. The solo continues until the song finally starts to fades out.

Comments

  1. Unknown26 August 2018 at 20:45

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown26 August 2018 at 20:45

    forgot to click notify

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown26 August 2018 at 20:46

    Good. This is pretty straight ahead as far as songwriting is concerned, but it's a strange mix. There are so many guitar parts going on, at least five, I'm having a hard time sorting them out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cyrus Kwok26 August 2018 at 22:52

      Thank you so much for your feedback Mr. George! I too am having a tough time sorting up the guitar parts.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Beginning My Production Process

-
Image
After completing the basic songwriting process, it's time to pass my song over to a producer and also produce a song pitched by another songwriter.  I've decided to produce a song by one of my course mates, Grace. While admittedly her song is pretty short and maybe even incomplete, it definitely has lots of potential. This essentially means that I have lots of space to edit and make some changes to the song. Topliner: Grace  Grace has shown me the basic melody of her song. Although I will make certain changes to the song such as extending the intro and verse, it still gives me a rough idea of what the song is about. And good news for me, Grace is also willing to write the lyrics. So in summary: Topliner: Melody: Grace Lyrics: Grace  Producer: Myself Now since Grace's song has lots of room for modifications, it gives me more freedom to edit the song while maintaining the simplicity and the light and happy vibe of the song.  Producin...
Read more

The Detailed Construction of My Song So Far

-
Image
So in the last posts, I briefly explained about the construction of my song in the form of words and pictures. Hence in this post I'm gonna attempt to elaborate on things further with not just words and pictures, but also with short clips! By the way, the key of this song is C. *Before I start, I've posted my song and explained the form of it 2 blogs before this one, so please do check it out:  http://cyruskmk.blogspot.com/2018/09/my-song-structure-so-far.html The Funky Bass Line: The bass line is played by a simple fingerstyle bass because for this song I think it will be more suitable than a synth bass. Before I started recording, I made sure to check that the tempo was suitable and I did some adjustments and finally settled on 95 bpm. I then activated the metronome or click by pressing 'K' on the keyboard and played the bass line. I recorded the bass line for 4 bars, cycled it to make sure it sounded decent, then copied and pasted it instead of playing t...
Read more