Madness – Night Boat To Cairo

Just relentless upbeat 2 tone ska.
Probably even more relentless than One Step Beyond.
This song is Madness, in pretty much every way.

Lyrics

The lyrics paint a picture of a journey by ‘punt’ down the Nile river to Cairo at night. The lyrics are intentionally bizarre, matching the musical tone of the song. Watch for the dog running on set in the original promo video 🙂

Music

The song has deep undertones of C Phrygian Dominant (The Egyptian Scale). The opening riff is essentially in C Phrygian Dominant.
Though C Phrygian Dominant is a mode of the F Harmonic Minor scale.
I think what I’m saying is I don’t know what key this is in.

The chords of C Phrygian Dominant are : C add(m2) – Db add(m3) – Em add(m2) – Fm add(2) – Gm add(m2) – Ab add(2) – Bbm add(2) –
A more usable set of chords might be
C7 – DbMaj7 – Edim – Fmmaj7 – Gm7b5 – AbMaj7#5 – Bbm7

So if we are in the ‘key’ of C Phrygian Dominant the chord progression of the verses goes : I (add m2) – vii (add 2) Then : iv (add 2) – II (add m3) – iv (add 2) – iii (add m2)

I can’t find any actual key into which this fits cleanly. Though it could be F Major with a lot of borrowed chords, or more likely some derivative of Bb (think saxophones).

Either way it goes C, Bbm : Fm, Ebm etc.
I’ve noticed that it sounds best if you follow the C with a Bbm that’s higher in register than the C, though if you listen to the originals, there are two versions, one which does that, and one that doesn’t!?