Gold – Spandau Ballet

There will be arguments, violent disagreement and possibly even fisticuffs. But this is THE ‘New Romantic’ song of the 80’s. Don’t argue, I was there, it happened. I speak only the truth.

I’ve written so much about this song on other websites that when I come to write about it now I’m bereft of motivation. I’ve said everything that needs saying about this song in the past. Let’s just say that it’s a great song. Unlike everything Oasis ever did (yeah, I said it.), this song will actually be rediscovered by successive generations well into posterity.

Lyrics

The door opens and in steps the writer of the song, followed by an attractive young lady (we presume). She stands tentatively in the doorway as the writer feigns a quick search of his house.
Oh I’m sorry you came all this way and I can’t find them, I left them here I could have sworn it!.
But since you’re here have a seat. Sorry the chairs are all worn (warm?) (you know because so many other young ladies have sat in them).
Do you fancy a drink?

I think the song really describes how the writer feels about himself.
The young lady is ‘just another play for today’, but he, he is Don Juan. He is gold. This latest of adventures is another feather in his cap. She’s a lucky girl!

Puzzlingly the song goes on to suggest that the lady is not just a notch in the bed post, but rather the focus of a 2 year long pursuit culminating in the author falling in love with the girl in question (now he’s in love with you, he’s in love with you).

Anyway.. the words are interesting enough to withstand some cursory thought, which is more than can be said for the majority of pop songs.

Standout lyric : These are my salad days slowly being eaten away.
Salad days is a Shakespearean term for ‘innocence’. Salad is edible and she’s clearly eating it somehow, I wonder how?

Music

This song is a work of borderline genius.
It contains a sax solo so what key is it in? That’s right, Bb minor!

So Gbm is : i:Bbm, iidim:Cdim, III:Db, iv:Ebm, v:Fm, VI:Gb, VII:Ab

Whoever wrote this has a jazz background, there are almost no ‘straight’ chords in the song, most of them are 7ths or have some added note or other.
The verses hover mainly around the root chord Bbm7 sort of going : i7, v7, iv7
This gives the first part of the verses a sort of grounded feeling.
Then the song lifts mid verse hover around Gbmaj7 alternating with Db, leaving you sort of floating and waiting to bump back to Bb which is done with a little clever descending turnaround (think Kiss Me by Sixpence non-the-richer) – Db, Dbmaj7, Db7, Gb (Ab>>Bbm)

That turnaround is known in jazz rather disparagingly a ‘line cliche’.
To create a descending feeling we move one single note (on the G string) chromatically downwards from Db to B, the final chord (a 7 chord) then has a strong pull to Gb.

The chorus’s echo this line cliche but in reverse, stopping half way through so it doesn’t become ‘cheesy’ and instead inserting a little piano melody to finish the ascending run. But again they seem to hover mainly around Bbm. The sax solo is done over the single Bbm chord.

There’s a LOT of production in the studio version of this song. Piano runs, exotic percussion lines, chimes, reverb effects. It’s very ‘full’. You would imagine this would make it a very difficult song to do live with 4 people, but the song is so well written that once the audience has tuned into what you’re doing, it absolutely doesn’t matter if you don’t have a bongo player.