One Song - Ariana Grande's "7 Rings"

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

You’ve probably hear “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music more times than you can remember...but have you *really* thought about how often it's been interpolated? And which version is the most iconic? On this episode, Diallo and LUXXURY break down “7 Rings,” Ariana Grande’s smash hit that puts a modern twist on that classic Broadway tune. They discuss how Ariana was inspired to write this song after a post-breakup shopping spree, and how she and her songwriting team worked in cadences and flows inspired by several different rappers. Plus, the guys peel back the layers on how the famous melody went from the stage and screen to a pop banger several decades later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit your local GMC dealer today and make it yours. Welcome to One Song with Diallo and Luxury. Actually, this episode is just about one melody. Grande and Coltrane, Julie Andrews, too. But Rogers and Hammerstein get all the loot. One song, you listen. We talk, you listen. Interpolation. Interpolation.

You like what you hear? Gee, thanks. Please subscribe. One song, you listen. One song, you listen. Hey, welcome to One song. Yeah. Luxury today's song. was a huge, huge hit.

I mean, like, a record-breaking. Planetary smash. Absolutely. It's been eight weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 2019. Also, this song reached number one in 28 countries. I'm talking Canada. Singapore.

Portugal, far beyond that. It also went top 10 in 10 other countries. And it also was the second consecutive number one hit from this artist. And if that wasn't enough, this song is certified nine times platinum. That's right, Diallo. This artist's friendship anthem, inspired by a post-breakup shopping,

Treating herself and her friends to their quote, Favorite Things, puts a modern twist on a classic Broadway tune. And today we're going to peel back the layers on how a famous melody went from the stage and screen to a pop banger several decades later. It's one song, and that song is Seven Rings by Ariana Grinding. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer DJ songwriter. and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers.

And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. All right, let's start. So, Wiggins huge debut in the theaters and all the rave reviews coming in for Cynthia Arrivo, Michelle Yo, Bowen-Yang, and of course, Ariana Grande now seem like the perfect time

to break down one of her songs in the one-song way. For you, the One-Song Nation. And I'm just going to go ahead and say, this will probably be the most interpolation-heavy episode we've ever done. You only get paid if you say it. Usually we talk about one song and how it's connected to many other songs, but today we will literally take you on the course of one song and one melody and how it crossed over many eras and many genres.

That's right, Tiala. And of course, this being one song, the podcast, the show with Diallo and Luxury, we will also be talking about the different ways that that song's melody was treated in terms of how much money the interpreting artists got paid or didn't get paid as the case may be because they were using such an iconic, tune. Spoiler alert, Sting still gets 100%. And it truly is a song that goes across Broadway to jazz,

to trap pop, or whatever we're considering Ariana's version of it. The way the melody is interpolated or just interpreted across genres, across eras, across time. And again, on the flip side, how expensive that melody is, depending on its use, is really interesting to track. So I'm really excited about this episode. Me too. And listen, I know we've already given you a lot of facts in this intro about how well Seven Rings performed on the charts, but to truly, realize how big this song is in the streaming era, I gotta share some more stats. At one point, Ariana's three singles from her album, Thank You Next, held the top three spots on the Billboard chart. It went seven rings, then break up with your girlfriend on board, which was

the third single off of the album. Then, thank you next. The only other artists to do that are the Beatles in 1964. But Ariana is the first and only so far solo artist to ever achieve this record. We will see what, you know, that same thing happens with Kendrick Lamar's GnX. Ariana is the fifth artist to have multiple songs debut at number one. And who are the others you ask? Mariah Carey, Britney Spears,

Justin Bieber, and Drake. See, if we mentioned Gendrick, we also mentioned Drake, too. Everybody's happy or angry. Or suing the entire business.

Or, or, yeah, we're getting sued. Lastly, Seven Rings is one of the best-selling songs in digital history. It set records for most streams in a single day and week for a female artist.

We're talking 15 million streams in the first 24 hours on Spotify and 70 million streams in the first week. Here's a bit of a backstory on her. She grew up in Florida where she was a theater kid. She performed in children's theater productions of Annie, The Wizard of Oz, take note, and Beauty and the Beast. And by the way, Ariana has wanted to be in Wicked since she was that theater kid. It's all about popular. It's not about altitude. It's the way you're viewed.

So it's very true. to be. Exactly. It's so perfect. It's just a dream come true. I've heard her in interviews talk about how like the pop music stardom is almost an accidental like side project. The main thing is sort of always been the acting. She's a theater kid. She's just wanted to be in wicked. It was all just to land her in wicked. Even this song, her use of a melody from a musical, right? I mean, this is her theater kidness. It's baked into seven rings. Ariana had a interest in making music. But first made a name for herself in the entertainment industry through acting. From 2010 to 2014, she starred on the, the Nickelonian sitcom's Victorious and Sam and Cat.

And Ariana started her music career in 2013 while acting on Sam and Cat. Over the next five years, she released four albums, Yours Truly, My Everything, Dangerous Woman, and Sweetener. There's some great songs on some of these albums, by the way. If you haven't really had the chance to explore her catalog, I'll always recommend the song, Love Me Harder. Break Your Heart Right Back with Childish Gambino. Bang Bang, which was a banger. Sweetener was a great album because they had collaborations with Missy Elliott and for Well Williams.

Just, you know, I guess when I went back and was looking at the woman's catalog, there have been great Ariana Grande's songs for quite some time. I mean, like literally for the last 10 years, she's been sneakily entering my pantheon of like favorite female singers. Many of these singles hit the top 10, including The Way, Problem, Bang, Bang, No Tears Let to Cry, and all of this leads up to thank you next, the album featuring the song we're talking about today. So Diallo, before we dive into breaking down Ariana Grande's Seven Rings, I wanted to ask you, when did you first hear the song? And what was your reaction? My relationship with Ariana is that I feel like I followed her throughout my career because I was a DJ. Like, she's always had really popular party songs. And this was one of the ones that, you know, the second I heard it, I was like,

oh, what a mainstream pop hit this is going to be? Because it's like, it's a familiar melody. It's got Ariana on it. She's kind of like trap singing. I've heard people call this a trap pop song, which I think it's like a hilarious being from Atlanta, being from like, you know, you could argue the town that gave the world trap music. It just seemed to check every single 2018, 2019 box. Right. So yeah, I guess my first reaction was like, I'll probably be playing this in the club. Right, right. And it's interesting. Yeah, pop music does have a habit of taking things from other genres and other artists and other successful areas and ingesting them and putting them on the charts. And that's what happened with some of the cadences and flow.

We'll be talking more about that later from that come from trap, that come from hip hop. There was something so familiar, but it still felt very current. It was something old, something new, something borrowed, something borrowed. Something borrowed. I don't know that there's some blue notes. Maybe there's some blue notes. Yeah, not a lot of blue notes in this from my, a couple, a couple of blue notes. Yeah, sort of words on blue at times. Definitely something borrowed, which we're going to get into. A lot of borrowing. A lot of, you know,

if you consider the 50s old, there's something old, and there's Ariana, which makes it a, and trap, which makes it new. There you go. I mean, there's a story behind the song and the melody. Speaking of borrowed in blue, actually, right. Perfect. Perfect connection. But there's also a story about just what inspires this song.

Seven Rings was inspired by Ariana, ending her engagement with Pete Davidson back in 2018, followed by a trip where she took seven of her closest friends to a jewelry store to buy them rings. Luxury, I know there's got to be more to the story. I've heard bits and pieces. is what can you tell us about the story behind seven rings? Well, first of all, there's more than seven rings. I did the math.

There's at least 10. There might be more. I think she's giving out rings left and right. I haven't gotten one yet either. Maybe after this episode, she'll like us so much that she will give us rings from Tiffany's. But you're right, this song's origin begins with the split from Pete Davidson from S&L.

And then she tweets on December 1st, 2018. So we have this perfect preserved and amber record of this story's origin. She goes, Ariana Grande, at Ariana Grande, tweets tweets. Well, twas a pretty rough day in NYC. My friends took me to Tiffany's. We had too much champagne. I bought us all rings, ring emoji.

It was very insane and funny. And on the way back to the stew, maybe she was saving characters. Was she hungry? Was she going to eat some stew? I got to hurry up and finish this tweet. Neomzo was like, bitch, this got to be a song, LOL. So we wrote it that afternoon.

Neomza, who got name checked in that Ariana tweet, said, we got to call the song Seven Rings. So she and Victoria and Taylor Park start writing the lyrics based on this story, this situation that they're in front of. It's a funny little thing I didn't even notice myself

until I heard this anecdote. She tells this story at one of those Billboard songwriting panels. So they consciously avoided in the songwriting using Seven Rings. You never actually hear, that's not a lyric,

it's not the chorus, it's just the title is one of those kind of songs like Blue Monday or had a few of those. What they did, which was the close second, was in the second verse, She talks about six of my lady friend, shall we say.

So if you do the math, six plus Ariane herself equals the seven. So that's how you get to the seven rings. Funny little sub-story there is that apparently Ariana saw the price tag at Tiffany's and thought the comma was in a different place. So she goes, great, I'll get seven. But it was maybe seven times more than she was expecting to pay. What's funny is that... I got that way ten times more with the cover.

Most of us make that mistake. It usually ends really poorly. And yet in Ariana's case, of course, it ends with more money to buy more rings. Although the amount of money Ariana makes her in the song is surprisingly less than you think. We'll get into that a little later when we talk about the songwriting. And I'll tell you what else we'll get into a little bit later. When we started the research on this episode, I did not know just the role, the immense role that someone like Victoria and Monet, who is a bona fide, you know, award-winning artists in her own right now played not just in this song, but just in sort of building the Ariana Grande that I understood to be.

You know, I don't really know Victoria Mnay. Can you play me something? Introduce me to her. Well, listen, I know some of our listeners are going to be like, oh, man, you don't know Victoria Mene? Listen, this is why we're here. To those listeners who do not know Victoria Mene, she's one of the leading R&B artists of right now, and she had a huge hit with a song, All My Mama.

I think it got nominated for a Grammy. It definitely won a Soul Train Music Award, and it's just a great song. And we'll talk a little bit more about Victoria Mona. role in this song in the show. But this is where the show takes a turn. Is that going to be my new catchphrase? Like, I'll just try to make drama happen. Like, it's a VH one behind the music.

The turn is not that dramatic. But the song, melody, and the song, the main melody, does have a source. It is an interpolation. Yes. And part of why we set up at the top, this is this very, very special episode of one song is because we're going to go back in time

and talk about how this melody has been used in many songs over the year. And what year are we going all the way back too, Doc. Well, let's start with 1959 when the sound of music debuted on Broadway in 1959, but the original Maria was

Mary Martin. So here from the original Broadway recording is the original version of the song My Favorite Things. So it's pretty much the entirety of the melody. that finds its way into seven rings. It should be noted, of course, one major difference is the feel. It's a waltz feel.

It's boom, cat, cat, boom, cat, one, two, three. But what's interesting, and we'll get into it in the song, how they retain some of that waltz while not retaining it. Half of the song, basically, the top half of the song. The lyrics and the music are all still a waltz. But it's the beat and the baseline that are giving us a straight eighth or 16th for feel. But can I say that's one of the coolest things about this? song is like how many waltzes have ever made it into the top the top 10 in the modern day in the modern age

right right so it's interesting how they retain some of the feel of the original and pretty much the entirety of the melody so the story goes now i'm going to i'm going to move to the rogers and hammerstein uh copyright organization so just a really brief overview of who rogers and hammers seen were they are the composers of that song of that entire musical they were a composer and lyricist team rogers was the music maker, aka composer, and the lyricist was Hammerstein. So the storytelling and the actual song lyrics came from him. And between the two of them, they had Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific,

the King of Eye, and, of course, the sound of music, which is where that song comes from. Just a couple of small time, you know, off, off, off Broadway. But these were massively huge in the 40s and 50s. They won 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer's and two Grammys. Do we have, it's not an eGOT, but we've got to make up, it's a, it's a patka. They were massive patka recipients.

So Hammerstein passed away in 1960 and Rogers passed away in 1979, but the copyrights to their musicals are very maintained by Concord Publishing. They're extremely valuable. There's a massive business there. And what happened was, according to the story, Ariana, what happens sometimes with these clearance stories as we hear is the mistake people make, is, the mistake people make is, is putting it out without getting permission first. That's called getting it cleared.

If you do that, you lose all your negotiational leverage. Wow. So if you go to somebody before you make the song or before you put it out, you've got a little bit more of the ability to say, well, we want a lower number. We don't want to pay as much to use your song. What happened according to Theodore Chapin, who manages the Rogers and Hammerstein copyrights is Ariana,

they'd written at least a demo version and brought it to them and said, we'd like to release this. And you can kind of see that Kaching, as I read some of these quotes from them, Chapin said he was, quote, initially taken aback by Ms. Grande's song, which when I read quotes like that, I'm like, these are a bunch of white dudes from the Broadway theater world. And they're used to Broadway interpretations and they're used to a lot of usages that are, I suppose, more directly on brand audience wise and usage musical wise. So I think for them, as much as you and I hear hip hop being kind of appropriated, to them they heard complete foreignness. something that to them in their world was a little bit like, hmm, I'm not sure about this. There's a little bit of a, I don't know this, a little bit of a,

I don't know about this. What do you guys think? Let's ask some younger people going on here. He said, quote, we all listened and our first reaction was, whoa. Then our second reaction was, this is kind of a cool idea. And third, I hope it's successful, because if it's not successful, Chabin worried, what's it going to do for the reputation of Rogers and Hammerstein? Rogers and Hammerstein's

Ravitation will be mud on the streets Bras won't be talking about them at all I love having all these quotes of what happened behind the scenes is so valuable to me because it really speaks to like this the difference of generations of genres of worlds apart It's so generational I always say on this show

Baby boomers and all the generations before them they need to understand music is going away Like if you want to be a part of the future music conversation, let the young come along and have some fun. I mean, like, you're, be happy that you're getting paid. Like, as we've said also on this show, a lot of people, especially in the African American community, did not get paid for their contributions to the current modern musical tapestry. So just be happy somebody's coming to you. I would be less concerned about like, oh, well, are they going to ruin the good name of, you know, HMS Pinnifle? Like, no, just like, let people have fun.

Yeah, and these guys, the Rogers and Hammerstein catalog protectors, have a quote, as the New York Times put it, conservative reputation for protecting copyrights. Again, all of this stuff is kind of code because as Chapin, that same gentleman I mentioned earlier, Theodore Chapin says later in this same New York Times article that I read, quote, over the years there have been requests that have come in and we've said, no, lots of O's in this no, no, we're not going to do that. And in parentheses, the writer puts he did not provide examples, which I read as code for hip hop. I mean, it's pretty much right there. Reading between the lines is barely necessary.

So what they did was they demanded 90%, which to me is, okay, let's talk about this. What is a melody worth? To me, and I want to hear your opinion, because, and we're going to get into some other examples of borrowing is of the same melody and how much other people were charged. But I think a big part of this is the negotiational leverage, maybe that's lost when a big star comes to you and say, hey, we already made this. We're on a major label. On the other side of that, you're like, ka-ching, ka-ching, kaching, kaching. I'm going to ask for 101% because you have no say in this matter.

You're going to pay me and give me all the money from this law. Let me get Sting on the phone because maybe he wants a piece. So what's going on is... Sting somewhere is like, I should have asked for 101%. Luxury, you're now in charge of my estate. Did not know. That was a possibility. I didn't know he had a non-British accent.

The value of a melody, the bottom line, and I'm going to, spoiler alert, I have the answer. What's the value of a melody? It's how much leverage do you have. So in this case, if you don't have a lot of leverage because you're Ariana Grande, you're coming after the song's been made and you've already told them that your label's about to put it out, then you get 90% of the publishing is essentially taken away from you.

Concord's chief publishing executive, Jake Wisely, said, Ms. Grande's song, quote, wouldn't exist in its current form were it not for my favorite things. True enough. But that still doesn't mean that 90% of it had to be taken away because there's so much transformation. We'll get into it a little later, but the transformation of the beat, the transformation of the chords, the transformation of the story that's being told. This story is the opposite of my favorite things. My favorite things is about whiskers on kittens and all the...

Life simple things. Life simple things. This is a story. But if you're Ariana Grande, spending a lot of money at Tiffany's is a simple thing. And now, just to be clear, I'm not saying that Rogers and Hammerstein's estate conquered are greedy. It might be a little greedy. But definitely the melody from the A section of the original. But don't forget, there's an entire B section.

There's A, A, A, A, B format, and they didn't use the B. I'm going to just get nerdy for one second. but it's relevant here. They don't use the when the best strikes, when the bee stings. Like they don't do that. Well, they don't. Now, part of the problem with interpolation

and samples for that matter, unlike cover versions. Cover versions are clean. You're covering my song, 100% of the publishing. We don't have any mechanism to sort of designate. You've used this much of the song, this many times in yours, with this amount of transformation or not

like you change the lyrics or didn't. There's no mathematical formula to get to a number. So it's all about power and leverage. but I just have to point out in as many ways as possible that this song is transformed and to me the 90% feels a little unfair. Yeah, I think 90% is just, you know, that's throwing your weight around.

50% would have been fine because it is it is what makes the song feel like Seven Rings by Ariana Grande. But, you know, I have a problem anytime these artists take 100%, you know, we go back to the, I'm reminded once again a Lord Tarreek and Peter Guns. Right, with the deal with you. There's such a small part of that song.

It's the musical. bed. So I would say fine, 50%. But the top part's completely new. The lyric and melody. You didn't write these rap lyrics. That's right. That's right. And by contrast, just because we're on the topic, the Farrell and Robin Thick, the famous blurred line case, which we talk about a lot. They quote unquote, only got, but only 50% of the publishing, it was a big fee that they had to pay. It was like $2 million up front or whatever the number ended up being. Is that true? So it's 50% of future royalties. Yeah. So from this point, that's amazing. Okay, I will say this. I still don't agree with that decision. And I think that the notes are different.

The drum beats fall in different places. Yeah. So, but even then, they only got 50%. So it really makes those 100% deals look really egregious. Exactly. And now this takes us to the next turn in the life of the My Favorite Things Journey. John Coltrane's Virgin. Such a classic.

I could almost well up just think about it. Jazz holds such a special place in my heart. I listened to a lot of jazz with my dad because my father was a painter. You know, his paintings are in the Brode Museum, the High Museum in Atlanta. There are many collections, The Hammer here in L.A. He was a painter and a sculptor, and he worked in his downstairs basement. And all I ever heard coming out of there was jazz, whether it was Horace Silver, Charlie Parker, aka Bird. And then John Coltrane's version, and I'm so glad we're taking a little bit of time in this episode to explore the jazz connection to the song,

because there's a whole generation of jazz artists who don't get enough love. And, you know, obviously on this show, we talk a lot about the stems. And I remember that when we first started talking about this episode, you were like, you know, jazz was recorded differently. You know, everybody was in the studio at one time and they played in. The mics were strategically placed. But it was performance based more than it is an overdubbed kind of crafted thing. Exactly. Exactly.

Can we dive a little bit into John Coltrane's my favorite things? Yeah, let's listen to a little bit of my favorite things by John Coltrane. This is from 1960. And to be clear, we're just going to play a snippet. This is a 14-minute Odyssey. It's so amazing. It's so interesting to hear what is kept from the original and what's transformed. Again, in that, that's the language I think is important to use for these kinds of different uses of melodic ideas.

Because they kept the waltz, which is unusual for jazz. One, two, three. It's still in three time, essentially. But there's just one chord that they're staying on. They're not doing the chord changes. And as you pointed out, this is the beginning. this is the first 30 seconds. Yeah, I mean, like, this is one of those.

Into Jazz Odyssey territory. There were, there was a, there have been so many episodes where it's been painful, uh, to stop the music because you know that there's places. Good stuff coming up at you're excited. I mean, like, just even to play that little snippet is just to, uh, sort of understand. You need more. To sort of understate the, the, the majesty and the richness of all the places that

John Coltrane goes on this song. It's almost like stopping a, stopping the stems right. before the course, you're like, oh, I can't stop there. Right. And I think to, and I can't wait to get into how this song came together and what sort of like legal stuff goes into it. But, you know, I just want to say from the outset that it's 14 minutes long. We just played the part that sounds the most like my favorite thing.

That's right. In jazz terms, the head is the beginning and the end, usually. Yeah. It's almost like if you took, if you read somebody's book and you took their opening line and then wrote an entirely different story, you know. That's how it feels from a creative point of view. I want to introduce a concept in a second, which is really core to what we're talking about here. But before I do, just a quick guess, knowing this tune as well as you do, this rendition as well as you do, given the melody is syncopated.

He adds more notes, actually. It's 14 minutes long, and 13 of those minutes are not this melody, right, that we hear in the head. How much do you think 34-year-old John Coltrane made from this song? How much publishing did he have to give up, in other words? Considering that he created 13 minutes of original music and was just a jazz genius and it's 1960 and he's black, I'm going to say he gave up 105%. You're pretty much right. Yeah, that is considered a cover.

It's considered a cover version. Now, of course, when we think of a cover, we might think of a YouTuber going on and faithfully singing an acoustic version of a pop song, but the lyrics and the melody are the same. Sometimes there's some liberty taken with the melody the chord changes are frequently changed. But Rogers and Hammerstein get 100% of the publishing for that, in spite of all of the changes that were made. And this is really important in jazz history

because in the 30s and 40s in the bebop era, something happens where, and I'm extraordinarily like compressing a lot of information until like a couple sentences. But there is a history of, especially in the late 30s, a lot of this music is coming from the Tin Pan Alley tradition of the Great American Songbook. These are songs that are known- Which is on 28th Street in New York. That's right. Tin Pan Allie was an actual street. It was an actual alley. And that's where the songwriters of the day would crank out their tunes and they'd be popular music.

And the jazz renditions would, as in this situation, all of the publishing royalties would go to the original songwriter. So the jazz musicians would get paid per gig. That was how they made their money. They might have a record deal where they might get some upfront advances, but mostly you're getting paid per performance. And that's part of the rich tradition of jazz includes this unfortunate monetary aspect. Listen, this song has been covered many, many times over the years. Some of the more famous ones include there's a Sarah Vaughan from 1961, Al Jaro, pre-fame Al Joreau, 1965, Dave Brubach that same year.

By the way, John's second wife, Alice did a cover, which is so incredible. Alice Coltrane, amazing artists. If you don't know Alice Coltrane, Definitely check her out. Talking about like a freeform jazz odyssey, she freeformed it times two in her version. SunRaw, by the way. So like it's a favorite for jazz audits.

Another one of my dad's jazz heroes. It's definitely SunRow. And then Outcast did this kind of drum and based jazz cover in 2003. I've been listening to a lot of Apex twin recently. So like this is kind of getting my Apex twin brain happy again. There you go. And by the way, just by contrast, because we sort of did the spectrum of like interpolation into cover.

So when you get to cover, it's 100%. But what happens when it sounds like this? Do you have a guess how much the panic at the disco, build God, then will talk usage from 2007? Well, I would hope it'd be 100%. Yeah. According to the public records of publishing, 0% was taken for that usage.

How is that possible? Now, it's possible that there was some deal, like an amount was paid, some flat amount, but no publishing was taken. That's insane. That's a little bit insane. That's insane. John Coltrane played a little snippet and lost 100, well, they might have some other privilege going on there.

Yeah, I think that might be possible. I'm going to move on. After the break, we'll learn how Seven Rings was made. We'll experience that wonderful low in pleasure of the song's rumbling bass. And we'll find out how many rappers you can reference in one pop song. Stay tuned. Welcome back to One Song, Luxury. Walk us through how Seven Rings got made.

And with the journey this song and melody have gone through before Ariana and her collaborators make it their own, can you tell us something about the songwriting splits? Sure. So we already know where 90% of it goes to dead dudes. That's right. I should say their estates. And for decades to come, that's where the money will continue to go. Did they think Ariana was black?

Is that why they got 90%? I mean, it's unclear. Because we all thought she was black for a little bit. She was dating Big Sean. I've seen some of this lady's album work. And let me just tell you, like sometimes she looks like being. say sometimes she looks like, no, but seriously, like, yeah. It's possible. Look at the album art on positions and tell me that is not an HBCU grad.

That's a certain way, right. She looks like she looks like she's filming. Anyway, I'm sorry. No, my interpretation of some of those quotes I gave you earlier from their estate was a little bit, that was a little bit my interpretation. Right. So 90% of the publishing proceeds from seven rings goes to the Rogers and Hammerstein estate. Eight other people share 10% of the remaining royalties. Six of them are the top liners. And here's the stat that's kind of the most shocking. Ariana Grande gets 1.2% of the publishing on Seven Rings,

her biggest song, which is crazy. 1.2%. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge.

BetmGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. It's crazy. She got good lawyers though. Because they were like, this point two. That's going to make the difference. You can buy another dog. I think she has a lot of dogs. Honestly, on a song like this, you could probably buy seven more rings. Because this song is gigantic. So it's roughly broken down like this. About 6% shared among the topliners, and they include Victoria Monet, Taylor Parks,

Neumza Vitea, and Cadence, aka Kimberly M. Chrysioch. So together, those topliners who wrote the lyrics and melody, or I should say interpolated the melody and made some transformations and told the story of the song are sharing about 6% and then the producers share the other 4%.

And those include Charles Michael Anderson, Michael Foster, Those guys are known as Social House, and they actually go by Mikey and Scootie. And then the third producer is Tommy Brown, who goes by TB hits. And he's been Ariana's producer since her first album and actually discovered Social House, Mikey and Scootie, and brought them in. There's a Pittsburgh connection that I think they share, and he brought them in to write for Ariana. And this is the first thing they came up with. This is the first song that they helped, because there are other writers on the song.

Right. To me, can I just say right off the bat? And this is no shade being thrown at any of these other writers. You say they're 10 writers. To me, like, I hear Victoria Monet. Like, if you know her own solo work, like, this feels like a Victoria Monet. Especially when you start breaking down the lyrics. I'll break it down even more.

It's funny. It's interesting, you mention that. And again, to be clear, and I'll explain the language a little bit. Topliners in songwriting parlance means the people who wrote the lyrics and melody. Whereas, in this case, the producers made the track, made the beat. Now, those lines are often blurry. some people do, when they're all together, some ideas get thrown out and, you know, who did what starts to blur. But for the sake of clarity, and to your point, what's interesting is among those five topliners who share the 6%, Ariana Grande gets 1.2%.

Victoria Monet actually gets 3.6%. Good for her, man. Yeah, it's interesting that you noted some of what you hear to be her distinctiveness in there. Yes. When I found out that Victoria was one of Ariana's writers, it really did make me go back and look at some of Ariana's songs. and be like, oh, yeah. Is there anything in particular about Victoria Monet, knowing, like being a fan of her work? Do you hear anything specific in this song, like her cadence?

All of it. It's not even just, the cadence is definitely there, but even just the way that the phrases come together and the topics in some of the slang. That's so interesting. Because, again, like, you know, I say this as an Ariana fan. There's always been something black in her music.

And it's an ineffable thing that's so nuanced, trying to put your finger on exactly why it's authentic versus not authentic is really hard to do. It's tough. And I mean, like, let's just rip the Band-Aid off. I didn't know until we were doing this episode that she was just a town. And I figured that, okay, so she's not black, but she's like Latina. And then you come to find out that her name is actually Ariana Grande.

You're just like, wait a second. But I do feel like, look, her talent is, you know, kind of unimpeachable. Yes. And the fact that she is cool enough to know that, oh, Victoria Monet, like, that's somebody, along with these others, who's going to help craft what I'm. I'm doing. I think she's just, I think she's probably a cool person.

It's like when I found out that Sia wrote diamonds for Rihanna, all of a sudden you're like, oh yeah, that could have easily, you can hear that. You can hear it. You can hear it. And as a person who writes for others.

Yeah. I'm always happy to see a writer, you know, write for other people and then get the chance to do their own thing. A lot of your stuff gets changed, even just the way that it's said or, but every now and then they'll say it exactly the way that you pitched it. And you're like,

wow, something in my head, you know, came out of that person. I'm remembering, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about, well, we already talked about how she's an actress. She's a theater kid. And what she's famous for and an expert at is impressions and impressions and what she's, and sort of inserting herself into a character into another role. I mean, look, some of her most famous comedy work, right, when she's on SNL is doing impressions of other actresses. Like this famous moment from Fallon when she does Wheel of Musical Impressions. Oh, I do like this. So good.

That's Ariana Grande doing Britney Spears performing Marriette, Little Lamb. And it's really funny. She's genuinely good. And she's inhabiting the role. So there's something interesting kind of plugging all these things together where she's got her team of writers, some of whom are black. And together in the room, they craft something for her. That's based on her story.

That's based on her moment. And in this song, she inhabits a different cadence, a different flow, a different rhythmic way of delivering her lines, which really comes from trap music, which really comes from hip-hop. So let's start where the song starts. We start with some synthesizers. And we've got the stamps. So let's start with the sense. Okay. Well, Scoody of Social House tells the story that they're in the studio. This whole thing with the rings and the champagne goes down. And this is their first time in the studio with Ariana. So they're like a little bit starstruck. And Ariana says,

hey guys can you make something that will sound cool quote kind of like sound of music um make it sound like the sound of music but not is the full quote so as scudy explains we don't play piano we piece stuff together again that's scudy half of the social house production team um two of the three producers that worked on the song that did all the music so they just quote started pressing keys and apparently the first thing they did was this so those are just octaves on a keyboard mapping up the four chords that we hear in the rest of the song. And then they double it with another synth that does the same thing, but it has more high end to it.

And that sounds like this. And then together, it's this. And apparently... It sounds like the inside of like a cool clock. Yeah. There is a clock likeness to it. And you see, like you can see... It's almost like you can see gears inside of a clock turning,

each tooth perfectly matching up with the... other tooth. Like, why does it feel so... It's very mechanical. It's very mechanical. It's very mechanical going on there. And even the speed of it is sort of like seconds because it's slow. Yes.

This is a 70 BPM song. It's very, very slow. Boom. Or it's 140 BPM fast. Right, exactly. But at 70, it's almost a second per beat, which is what a clock is doing. So you're probably hearing that. And 70 is more of the trap official BPM more than the 140.

Yeah. Yeah, I got to say like when we were preparing this episode, I was driving down the freeway. The sonic separation of these individual parts is so clear on a good sound system. It really does make you appreciate how it's how it's mixed. Yeah. The mix is. It's really simple but big. Simple and big.

Simple but big. Yeah. Yeah. There's not a lot happening here, but there's enough because once they played that according to the story, again from Scootie from Social House, we just started pressing keys. They played what you heard.

And Ari was like, yeah, that. Literally the first thing they played was the thing. That's why you got to be in the studio sometimes, though. People love to send you an MP3 nowadays. But if you're in the studio, the magic of all being in the same room. You might catch something that they will think like, oh, we're just fooling around here. And she was like, no, that's it.

That's it. You got it. So those chords, that's just really simple, very standard. The four chords that we've been talking about for a few episodes now, it's one to six to four to five. It's a differently arranged version of what we heard on the killers. And it's a differently arranged version of the same. chords you hear with or without you. These are pop music chords. You'll hear those same four

chords looping in a lot of pop music. So it's important to point out, though. I'm making that point a little bit to point out how the second half of the chords are simpler than in the original, then in the sound of music version, my favorite things. I'll play that for you briefly so you'll hear the difference because that's part of the transformation. I'm really making the case here that we're hearing a way different song, not by 10% different from the original, but I think a lot more. Quite a bit. So that's the same one, six. But now listen now.

Cord, cord, cord, cord, cord, cord, cord, cord, cord, cord, which is so show tunes. It goes through eight chords in that period of time. And they way simplified it to just two chords in Ariana's version, which again, transformation is the name of the game. It's not the same anymore. It's transformed. New lyrics, new context, new everything.

Okay, so there's a few more cool moments in the synthesizers. And by the way, there's not a lot of them. I think there's a total of maybe five or six synths. And we've heard, we've heard two or three of them because I think there's some layers in there. There's a counter melody that gets introduced after that section that I just played for you. And it sounds like this. Which, by the way, can we just give credit where dude? That's a hook in its own right, right?

You know, when you're talking about the value of all the melodies being used. I will not lie to you now. You know, like you can totally take that. You could do that. You could do that. and that would be a totally different song. That would be a completely different song. I agree.

I think there's a whole different song to sing there. So it does beg the question, whose decision was it to use my favorite things? Do we not know? It might be unknowable, but given the story, the anecdote I just told the fact that it was Ari who said, can you make it like sound of music but not?

To me, I'm like, you know, she probably has a show kid, right? As a theater kid. Yeah. It's likely that she knew the song. It might have come from Ariana. It probably, it probably came from Ariana. She's a theater kid.

She loves these plays. and musicals, I mean, she grew up on this song. There's a toy piano melody in here, am I wrong? So some of these stems have labels that God knows where they come from. My guess, actually, a lot of times, is it's probably the name of the preset. So here's the probably preset called Toy Piano, and this comes in in the bridge. So eerie. Oh, that's horror music, death music.

Don't go in the closet. Where is that in the song? I have never heard that in my life. That's in the bridge, and I'll give you a little context vocally. Go from the start to the booth Make it up back in one loop Give me the loo Wow

That is some cute trap That is some cute trap That is some cute trap Some of the cutest trap Over here If there's cuter trap out there I almost don't want to hear it Oh there is okay

All right let's get to Well this is one of those moments Because it's modern pop It's not the first time We've said that the bass is the 808 That happened on Juice World That happened on Doja Cat Yeah

But all the base content Is coming from an 808 kick drum And here it is That is so low. Those lowest notes are almost impenetrily. It's so damn low. I live in L.A., so I experience a lot of this stuff while driving around. Like, there are some lows in this that, you know, quite honestly, you have to have a certain level of speakers available to you in some form to even appreciate some of the rumbling.

Be destroyed. Like, it's really, it needs power. Damn, there was summer renaissance on Beyonce's album. It has like a rumbling. low that's like so damn low. I'm just like, what is that? How is that achieved? You don't want to do that on any cheap system

because it's going to destroy it. Well, you won't actually really even hear it. But I got to say, like, when I'm DJing and I like hear that stuff, like, I have an appreciation for it. It's just like, how low can you go this low? That's meant to be heard in a big open space. Yeah. Or like in the comfort of your car.

Right, right. There's something so warm and pleasing about it. right word. So that's the only bass content. So I'll play that for you with some context. That's happening when we're in the pre-chorus. In fact, it doesn't happen until the pre-chorus. What's happening on top of that is the key tar, which again, I think is a preset name. That's this synth. Let's hear that. And what's already interesting about just those two elements, and I haven't even brought the percussion, the beats yet, is you're getting two different rhythmic feels happening at the same time. Because on the top of the song, meaning not the drums or the bass, everything on top is

still kind of faithful to that original waltz. And before I play the actual beats of the song, let me just give you an example of what that could sound like. So let me play what Seven Rings would sound like if it were a waltz. But here are the sense that you've already heard, a little bit of the vocals, and everything's a little bit waltzy. But what's the Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles,

girls with tattoos who are like getting in trouble. What's crazy about Waltz music, by the way, the history of dance music, a European dance music, I should say, is the waltz. Like the waltz was like the hottest dance of like the 1700s, whatever. That was the sexiest possible beat imaginable. That is not the beat in the song. I will now play for you the actual beat. And you will hear how interestingly they blend a very different feel on top of that waltzy

three-four time feeling thing. There's that trap hi-hat with the snare. and get those 30 second notes on the high hat a few times. And the way that locks in... Man, those high hats are doing so much work. They're doing a lot of work. Them high hats, man. From the time that Lex Lugar started producing for Rick Ross,

I was like, high hats means so much... Very distinctive part of trap. Yes, it's such an important part of trap. I wasn't even trying to make the connection to traps specifically, but now I just happen to bring up Lex Lugar and Rick Ross. And that is sort of like a classic moment in the... the development of trapeas. It's not only without the beats, but it's without the high hat. You wouldn't have that feel. It's the high hat's the 32nd note, a little flutter.

It's doing so much for your ears. It's doing so much for your ears and your body. Like the second you started playing that, I'm at me like. Right, which you need because it's so slow at 70 BPM and we're half time that the kick and snare on its own aren't really giving you enough. I mean, it's not terrible. It's pretty awesome because we all love an 808. That's an distinctive 808 kick and snare. But you need a little more. And that comes from... Like, I literally got like the stank, like, you know, that beat so tight face just now. Like you were angry before me.

Like I was like, oh, this is cool. That's all right. You put in the symbol. I'm like, yeah, that's everything. That is absolutely everything. It's almost painful. It's almost everything. You got to be real cute to keep a cute face when that symbol comes in.

Well, I'm going to add some things back now. So now that we have that full beat. Yeah. Let's bring it in with the 808, the 808 base. And that gives us this. And that's... And that syncopation happening where the bass is landing is syncopated. And it's sort of interacting with her vocal, which we'll hear later.

It's where she isn't singing or vice versa. Because she probably heard the beat completed before they placed the notes perfectly. But what's fascinating to me when I was breaking this down is just you have two different songs happening almost. Because the top of the song, like what I was doing the waltz before, you know, that has a different feel. It has a different flavor. But then you give it this underpinning of. 808s and you give it the underpinning of trap and it's that's the combination that in when the song came out in 2019 was like oh here's some magic happen i mean it still kind of works now can you

give us that a little bit more of that because it's so much fun just our drums that low end base give us all the low stuff and i'll start the low and then i'll start building back the sins you know the lesson that's repeatedly shown to me as we do these shows and i'm looking at this song and from beginning to end it's four chords the whole time beginning to end there's about three different ideas that come and go on four different synthesizers, right? Good for them because I think the biggest mistake people make all the time. That's what I'm saying. And modern music is you overthinking.

That's what I'm saying. And from top to bottom, like listening to the beat, we had that high hat percussion loop, the kick in the snare. There are so few things happening, but you don't need anymore. And like the opposite of maybe, I don't know, the Steely Dan episode or the future rush episode we'll be doing. Like the complexity, sometimes when you have the capabilities, the skills, the musicianship, and the craft and the jazz and Berkeley background, you really want to put it in things. And that's fine too, but it's not necessary all the time.

It's just not necessary. And it won't get you a number one in 28 countries, that's for sure. I'm telling you, there's something infectious and simple, especially I think in hip hop and R&B and nowadays pop, where it's just, it becomes very easy to overproduce and overthink. When I think about some of my favorite songs that are currently out there, they only have to be the radio single. I'm just like, you know what, this is really just an 808,

some symbol, some drum, but like one element. Just one element. Also, bonus, sonically, when you mix that together, when there are fewer things, they all sound bigger. Yes. That's just like 101 mixing. But it's also something that I, in my own life, forget about constantly.

Because I'm like, well, maybe one should thing. And you find yourself adding way too much. And it makes everything you've added smaller, diminished by contrast. I always say when I'm reading someone else's script or even writing my own scripts, those things that I cut out that I might like something about them. But when I cut them out, it makes everything that I love that much stronger for leaving in. Man, you know what? It's funny talking about this because I literally just talked to my publisher. I turned in 18 months of work right before the break.

And yesterday was the big meeting where they said, they told me, we love it, but 50% has to go. That was my big conversation yesterday. And it's like, okay, okay. I might have to get some help, like, which babies to kill. But that is, it's going to be a better book. It's going to be a better movie. It's going to be a better song when you reduce, reduce, reduce. Absolutely.

There would be no hit song called Seven Rings without the vocals of one Miss Ariana Grande. So what can we say about the vocals? And more importantly, what can we hear? Well, let's start with verse one. Breakfast at Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles. Girls with tattoos like getting in trouble. Lashes and diamonds. ATM machines.

I love that. I love the phrasing there. I find myself all of my favorite things. Same melody, but opposite meaning of the Julian Andrews, you know, the sound of music version. my favorite things. Oh, absolutely. Getting a little bit into the Ariana weeds, if you will.

The ATM machines. That's just funny phrasing to me. Also, you can hear a slight break in the vocal that she didn't sing it all in one breath. Sure, it's probably calmed for multiple takes. I'm not sure that I'm hearing a doubling on that, although it might just be buried. It sounds very singular.

Lashes and Diamies ATM machines. But there are doublings in the backing vocals on some certain lines. And so I'll play that for you from that section just on its own. ATEM machines. Oh, I see. I see. So together, that sounds like.

Diamond ATM machines. By myself all of my favorite things. It's very subtle, but it adds a little depth and a little bit of nuance. I love it. Let's hear a little bit of this next part because this, to me, feels very Victorian money. Would I thought it turned me to a savage rather be tied up with calls and my strings by my own It's like, all right, what to sing, yeah. So, the yeah is so, I love the yeah.

First off, there's so much going. There's so much going on. There's so much going on here. I have some thoughts. The rhymer in me loves it when people do things like, sad bitch, savage, you know, like it's, you know, my favorite of all time like that is on a Lost Boy song where he says, me and my crew will remain raw,

chopping through your crew like a chainsaw. I'm like, wonder which word they came up with first. Because remain raw. Oral, it's not like, so you typically hear. That doesn't get said ever. But I think it's fine. I mean, obviously, this totally work. This part, even more than the first half of the verse, feels like this feels like R&B, even more than pop.

You're absolutely right. There's a modification to the melody that she starts to make here. The beginning of the song, it's completely faithful to the original Saturday music version. And then she's starting to mess around with it. And progressively as the song goes forward, And by the way, appropriately, we haven't heard that beat yet. We haven't heard any of these other distinctive signs of another rhythm that it's about to kick in. So she's starting to kind of like gradually ramp up.

We're about to get on the highway. We're about to hit the pre-chorus, which again, for like the fourth or fifth episode recently, the pre-cource is a pretty major part of the song. Let's listen to that pre-course. My neck is flossy. Make big deposits. My gloss is popping. You like my hair?

Gee thanks. Just bought it. I see it. I like it. I want it, I got it. To me, you asked me earlier in the show, like what I thought the first time I heard this song. That line in particular jumps out to you on the very first. You like my hair?

Gee, thanks. Just bought it. So much to say here. I thought that was a great line because you could argue for decades. There has been sort of this negative connotation that only black women wore extensions, weaves, wigs, and all this stuff. And here, Ariana's, like, making a very clear note, pretty much all women, you know,

who are going for a certain look are doing this. You know, like, and nowadays, it's not even, like, controversial to say, like, you know, white women, we wear extensions and wigs too. So I thought that that was pretty cool. But not everybody thought it was cool. Yeah. Princess Nokia. Yeah, so Princess Nokia was not a fan of that line.

She has a song from 2017 called Mine, where she says regarding her hair, it's mine, I bought it. And it sounds like this. Now, to be clear. Let's play it. Should we play Ariana again? Oh, if you even need to, but go ahead.

It's popping. You like my hair? Gee thanks. Just bought it. Now these are different, but. Oh, they sound very similar. They sound completely similar. Very similar.

I think some of them. of our listeners are going to be aware of this. And many are probably not. But two chains, the rapper, 2011 comes out with a song, obviously 2011, long before Princess Nokia, long before Ariana's Seven Rings, comes up with a song called Spin It,

and this is what it sounds like. In my, I spin. In my, I spin. In my, I spin. I spin. I'm riding around. No, it's my. I spin. It's my. Now, if you are me, Yeah. And I was DJing a lot in 2011.

Like I was probably DJing like two, maybe even three times a week. This song was huge. It was super Atlanta and it was super trap. I don't think that the Princess Nokia line comes out the way. I think where Princess Nokia might have, you know, something to stand on is the idea of like the hair I bought it. Right. But as far as like the cadence, I didn't want any of our listeners to hear her cadence and think, oh, Ariana lifted the whole thing. No, they're both referring back to this two chain song, which is also interesting because

I think at some point he had to talk to Ariana. And I think that's the reason why he's on the remix to Seven Rings is because in a way it's like, you know, when you sample another artist or you pay homage, you interpolate them. But that's the best way to handle these things. Yes, exactly. Put them on the damn remix. Right, right, right. Get them involved. Shabuzi. Shibuzzi, we need J-Quan tipsy on the remix. There's a whole story there. That's the nature of this episode. It's the interpolation episode.

It's the interpolation episode. And it's a really muddy line. Where is it 100% is clear for a cover. And then over here, almost everything else is unclear and open to negotiation. I don't think, however, that rhythmic cadence flow type situations where if it's an homage or a reference, then that perfect solution as you're saying, put them on the remix, et cetera. I don't know that dollars need to change hands. And maybe as a token, there is a flat fee, but certainly not IP. I don't think publishing should change hands for the use of a rhythm. Give them a percentage.

Don't give them the whole kit and caboodle. Right. And to that point, I'm going to say, because we're about to move into the next. section, there is a circumstance in that song where what I just described did take place. And it took place over this part of the song. Want it? I got it. I want it. I got it. I want it. I got it. I want it. So that's technically the chorus is that is that hook. Two things I want to say about it. First thing is that maybe most importantly is there's wonderfully a word for this. Full credit, by the way, to one of my favorite YouTubers for music fans, Adam Neely.

is the one who educated me about that being called the Scotch Snap. So the Scotch Snap is when you have that da-da-da-da. It's almost the opposite of the swing done-dun-da-da. It's short-long, short-long. And it's metrically accented 16th note followed by a dotted eighth note for music. Which is what I'm sure Two-Chains was thinking when you record it, spend it. Here's a bunch of examples. He was like, I need that Scottish net.

And you've heard that in Beyonce. You've heard that in Lizzo. You've heard that in Two Chains. So that's a thing. Maybe. Everybody. Looking at you. I can.

Give you forward winning. I got it. So that's Post Malone. It's Beyonce. It's just a thing one does. It's a rhythmic choice. Yes, a choice made. Why do the Scots get the cruds for that?

They don't get the crud for that. Isn't it crazy that that that comes from music history. And particularly the naming of it as the Scotch snap comes from it being a part of traditional Scottish music, for example. is right. All right. Also shows up one more thing. It goes even further back to early English Baroque music like this.

By the way, if I go over Cheyens' this house or Migos' his house and I hear that recording, then I'll give you this. Otherwise, no, this is ridiculous. The Scots don't get to claim. Well, they don't get royalties on it. I'm not even giving them non-rothies credit on it.

Guess what? You have a choice because it's also called the Lombard or the Strabsby. So you don't have a choice. have to call it the Scott Schaft. They better call that shit the fucking south side of Auburn Avenue. Again, full credit to Adam Neely. The heart of a town. Because shots fired. Sorry, I love the Scotts. Shout out to everything Scotland. Nobody gets to claim. Dallel is not going to call that.

I am not. Again, full credit. Go to the mattresses on this. Full credit to Adam Neely, long video on YouTube that he does about that. And, you know, someone who didn't see that video and thought he could sue, was this gentleman called Josh Stone, who goes by Dot, because he did this song. Let's get it. Die!

You need it, I got it. You want it. I got it. You need it. I got it. And what year is this? Now, what year is Josh Stone?

That's from 2017. Yes, it's still after Two Chains. Two Chains is 2011. But he claimed that he played that song to Tommy Brown, one of the three producers. And there was a settlement in March 2020. Yeah, I think people said, listen. So he got paid.

I think people settle all the time because life is too short. It does happen. But 2017, Josh Stod, hey, I'm still freaking out in these clubs. I still DJ. I've never heard that shit in my life. Exactly. Spend it is a hip-hop classic. I would make the case.

It was unavoidable for a while when Two Chans was really like kill. I always said, like, I think my New Year's Eve message in 2013, no joke, was I hope, I wish everybody at 2013 like two changes, 2012. Because that man had a fantastic 2020. in which I probably played Spinded it a million times. So I think some people are just hustlers. Maybe he did play that. But it's one of those things.

If I do a song that sounds just like, if I do a song that sounds just like, hey, Jude. And then I play it for a producer who ends up saying, hey, hey, Jude's got a really fun part. I want to interpolate. I don't get to go back and say, hey, you sampled my hey Jude sound alike. That's ridiculous.

The reason is that part of how this stuff works in a court of law is that it is relevant that they have. But they're quite a law on me. I hear it. I'm the last person on Earth to be supporting these, to me, specious claims to use your word from this episode. But in my mind, that's the, well, we can't call it the Scotch Knapp anymore, but it's the Strapsby. That's the secondary term for it. And you want it, you got it, I would argue, was a commonplace expression.

You can't own commonplace expressions. They're not protectable. You can't own the rhythm. And therefore, in my mind, look, I think you're right. Let's talk to Easton, let us snap. Let's skip to this part of the bridge where she does a little bit of a me. go see thing. Oh,

be no brag, but I'll be like put it in the bag, yeah. When you see the marks, they stack to like my... Biggie reference. Go from the stuff to the booth. Make it out bag in one loop.

This is almost like a history of rap kids in this section here, right? The triplet flow and the biggie interpolation. By the way, can I bring up one lyric? Yeah. Black card is my business card.

I feel like sometimes people will write stuff for people and sneak in like, is it shade at the artist themselves? I don't know. Just to write the line, black card is my business card. I feel like whoever wrote that line was kind of like, let's see it, she'll sing this. Maybe that was Victoria Monet.

Black card is my business card. In other words, my business is in black music. Anyway, Ariana is known for her vocal stacks. We have to get into that. You got some to play. There's some great backing vocals in here. Let's hear some of them. I'll build them up because that's always fun.

Start with the lowest note. And then I'll add that's the G sharp. here's the E. And I'll add the high C sharp. And then there's another triad. I see. That sounds like Christmas for some reason to me. The whole thing sounds like I'm in the Macy's perfume department.

It really has that. When you walk in the store and they're all wearing black and they're spraying you, I am getting that feeling. It smells a little bit too sweet in this section, but you're putting up with it because you got presents to buy. Like, did I hear seven rings in my ears? There's a lot of sweetness. Then we've got some mums. And that's happening in verse two.

Nice, right? And then there's some fun little sounds. We got some who's in the background. I'll play them isolated and I'll show you where they are. I got it. I want it. I want it. I got it. I got it. Like whoops. I like it. I want it. I got it. Those hoots. Those whoots.

I didn't notice. I like those. Those hoot. I think that's all Ariana. You think you did that first hoop? I don't know. The first one, no. Here's the first one isolated.

I don't think that's Ariana. She's good at mimicking. But by the way, that's a bridge too far. I remember when Shaudi Lo came out with the Southern Hip Hop Classic, they know. It literally, it goes from horns to a prominent who. And you cannot miss when you combine those two.

That's a hit out of the gate. That's a hit out of the game. There's one more crazy moment that I wanted to play. So in the pre-chorus, the second pre-chorus, it lands on this insane. I wasn't able to break apart what chord this is. There's like 9th and 13th, and I don't even know. But I'll play it for you and listen to where this section ends. My smile is beaming.

My skin is gleaming. The way. Now that's either, by the way, I might be being generous. I'm pretty sure that's an intentional chord with like, I don't know, flat ninth or something. Or it could just be... No, that was intentional. I think that's intentional, too. Oh, hell yeah.

This is a musical theater lady. This might be the... What a racial episode. That is the blackest sounding part of the whole song. The word crazy. Listen to that. It's shine. I know.

That's intentional, bro. There's intentional dissonance in there. Hell yeah. Play gleaming again. My smile is beaming. My skin is gleaming. The way is shine. If that person picks up, would you call, like, you know, customer service, you know some things.

That's crazy to me. And I love that they left that in or chose to do it. I really don't know because that dissonance is dissonanting, but in a way that's interesting. And in the context, I'll play it in the context of the song, you just, it just sounds cool and interesting. You seen it. You seen it. All those little throwaway. You'll see it. I love it. And by the way, just one more shout out to Victoria Monet, one of my favorite artists right now. She's got a song called All Right. And we played a little bit of All My Mama, which was a big hit for her.

But let's play a little bit of All right because I think that you'll hear like some of the Victoria vibes on that song that you've heard on Seven Rings. D'O, as we wrap up this episode, what do you think the legacy of Seven Rings is? And for that matter, the legacy of this melody is going away. Do you think we'll hear it again? Probably hear it again. You know, it's already been a big hit in the world of Broadway. It's been a masterful song in the world of jazz. And it was a huge, huge song in the world of trap pop,

a.k.a. R&B, hip hop, and the cultural force that is Ariana Grande. Global chart-toppingness of this song, yeah. Listen, we'll probably hear it again. But I think that in a weird way, the real legacy of this song, you know, extending beyond its beginning and its end, is just to say that a couple of things are true. I feel like in the pop road, it's always good to bring in something that is at least familiar or sounds familiar. Right.

And that was the element that they got from sound of music. It brought in something that was completely of the moment in the year of 2019, which was that sort of trap, high hat symbol. Yeah. And those wonderful lows, like that contrast of high and low is never anything that you, that leads to failure, in my opinion. And then you just have like the perfect star for the movie that you wrote. You know, Ariana was the perfect star for this song.

you know, if it was the movie, if it was the TV show. This song was the perfect vehicle for her at that time. You know, Post-Wicked Ariana may not sing this song quite the same way. Yeah. You know, she's developed as an artist and some of the people who she worked with, some of her collaborators have gone on to do their own thing. But I do hope that we continue to see Ariana because I think that her voice is absolutely undeniable, her talent.

She has that sort of it factor that, you know, makes you want to listen to her music. But she's an exciting artist to watch. Yeah. And I'm curious to know what she's going to do next. And I'm excited to see even who she's going to collaborate with. This time she was collaborating with Victoria Monet. In the success of Wicked, she's collaborating with Cynthia Arriva. I think that, you know, the lady got good taste and she continues to entertain us.

I think one thing that I'm realizing as we talk about this. And now just to be sort of nerdy for a second about copyright law, the goal of it is to equally protect the first creator with the rest of the public. musical ideas should be protected, but then they should be in the creative comments for other people to reuse. And the thing that gets left out a little bit to me is we've really traced this melody

from when it was new and no one had heard it. And then through exposure on the stage and then in film... By the way, on the stage, only New Yorkers are hearing it, right? And then the recording comes out and people by the record. Over time, more and more people hear it and more value gets added to it,

which unfortunately, and this is just capitalism, and I'm sorry if I'm Bernie Sanders of musicology over here. But the fact of like the value only gets added over time, which gives them more leverage to say this is more of a valuable melody, but Ariana made it an even more value melody in 28 countries, which may or may not have, I think by the time in 2019 the song came out, plenty of them had heard my favorite things from the sound of music.

There's no doubt that a new generation heard it in a different way. There's a lot of transformation. And to me, I think that is unfortunately not built into the negotiation for a melody. I think Ariana Grande should get a cut of the publishing of the original version of the song because she added value to it. I like that. That's something interesting that could happen with copyright law. That would be kind of cool.

Joseph Fishman at Vanderbilt, I know you're listening with your wife. Thank you guys for saying you like the show. Make that change. Tell your students to do that. One thing I want to add to that is we've talked a lot on the show about people who come in and want 90%, 100%, 100%, 500%, apparently. But there are people who, back when I worked with the record label, they would actually put out CDs and be like, hey, Sam.

sample my music. Right. And these were not nobodies. Like sometimes these are like people who had big bit hits, but they, they understood that getting sample or interpolated would actually bring more value to their catalog. So we do spend a lot of time talking about people who could be considered greedy, but we also want to recognize that, you know, if you do the research, you have friends in the music industry who know this kind of stuff, like they can tell you, oh, you know, Richard Ashcroft

really wants people to sample his songs right now. Like there are people out there who are like this. That's just a random example. But there are people out there who want to remain relevant. We'll talk about the verve rolling stones on another episode for sure. Clearly, that was my backdoor way of sneaking in a verve reference. But no, there are people out there who want to be sampled, want to be interpolated. And I think that's totally legit too.

The other thing I wanted to say is that this one song more than others really does sort of track the timeline of one song. We always say that most of our songs are post-1960 and up to the current day. Well, this is literally we started in 1959. And this is a song that has changed. over decade to decade to decade. We're really tracing the melody. It's like one melody is really what this episode is being called. This is the one song episode about one melody and we've had a great time doing it.

Okay, luxury. It's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gym with you, the one song nation, and with each other. You go first. Well, since we've been in sort of a jazz mood, these last couple episodes, we did Boston over with the Far Side last time and, you know, obviously today. Some John Coltrane today.

I was thinking that one of my favorite jazz songs, another interpretation, of a classic from the Tin Pan Allie era. The song is Dream A Little Dream of Me. One of my favorite versions, though, is on this Ella Fitzgerald with Count Basie record. And there's one moment in particular that I adore. It's the organ solo. It just gives me chills. It's like one of my favorite last songs of the evening songs to DJ sometimes when it's late night.

Oh, I love that. So I'm going to... It's a good time in the night. It's a good time in the night and this organ solo. And then she comes back with a modulation. It gives me chills every time. That's Count Basie playing that really chill organ. It feels really old and dusty.

And then they make the key change and she comes back. And one of my favorite voices ever on planet Earth is Ella Fitzgerald. Okay, Diel, what is your one more song this week? My one more song is by TK. Maitza. And I hope I'm pronouncing that right. But this is a song that I really like a whole lot. And this is 24K. an artist that I always want to hear more from.

You know, this is off of her album from 2023 called Last Year was Weird, Volume 2. That's a great title, Volume 2, no less. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at D-I-A-L-O and on TikTok. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-U-R-Y. and on TikTok, it's luxury spelled the same way, but two extra X's at the end. That's right, luxury XX. You can also watch full episodes of one song on YouTube right now.

Just search for one song podcast. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. And if you've made it this far, I think that means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review, and share it with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the show going. Luxury help us in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter and musicologist luxury.

And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diala. And this is one song. We'll see you next time.