The process of finding a good song for this blog post was quite troublesome for me. After a solid amount of time rifling through my iTunes library, I realized it would probably be easiest if I narrowed my selections down to a specific genre and time period. While not necessarily the style of music i listen to on a daily basis, rock and roll from the 1960s (specifically bands with a soul/swing style like the Temptations and Chubby Checker) seemed to have the simplest metering and phrasing patterns to keep track of, thus leading to my decision of the 1961 song "Let's Twist Again" by Chubby Checker.
This feel-good summertime hit single begins with a simple beat being kept on the kit, as Chubby Checker provides a spoken intro. We can immediately pick up on the 4/4 meter of the song and after about 10 bars the intro ends, Checker says "We're gonna do the twist and it goes like this!" and the chorus begins.
The chorus consists of four phrases, and each phrase consists of 4 bars. In the first phrase of the song, Checker sings "Come on let's twist again, like we did last summer!" The word "summer" signifies an open cadence, as it feels incomplete. I believe it is an IAC, as it doesn't feel quite as incomplete as a half cadence. I tried to figure out the tonic and dominant, and I tried to sing do and sol along with the song, however I was unsuccessful. I guess my ears still are not quite sharp enough to pick it out. The following two phrases have open cadences as well. It is not until the final cadence ("twisting time is here!") that there is a closed cadence, a PAC. This concludes the chorus. The same basic pattern is repeated throughout the rest of the song, even in the different verses.
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