Something's Gonna Change

The story

Our story so far... Luke's character Napkin Ring has been established as the young enthusiastic pup of the Hoity Toitys. Kiesten's character Messy is the new recruit in Fingers' gang. They know each other by reputation, but have never met. The scene started with Messy joining up at Papa Chocolate's roller derby rink ("chocolate" and "roller derby" being two of the audience offers for the show). After a few minutes talking to Papa Chocolate, Napkin Ring arrives at the rink. Have a listen to the scene featuring Something's Gonna Change, and then we'll discuss it.

The scene

Rather than give you just the song, you can hear the scene preceding the song where Napkin Ring (who introduces himself as "Nappy") and Messy (calling herself "Melissa") meet each other. We really tried to take inspiration from West Side Story; when the couple met and instantly changed, irrevocably falling in love at first sight. Nappy and Messy experience much the same thing.

It wasn't hard to pick the point to start vamping in to a song. Once Kiesten's character said "I don't feel like I'm ever going to be the same again - from this day on", a song was inevitable :)

The song

Kiesten starts the vocal, following the very simple piano line. For the first verse, you can hear her very specifically lagging the bar to hear where the music is going to go, so she can follow along with the melody line. Once the form was established, she took over and started leading the bar. The biggest gamble was going for "In a way", hitting that note strongly and hoping the music would meet her there.

The chorus was really simple again. Just a single simple phrase, which Kiesten took from Luke's earlier song:

I know today
Something's gonna change
In the most extraordinary way.

Sounds a little awkward if you just say it; Kiesten set it really nicely in to that chorus.

Luke's reply verse didn't exactly match the form of the first verse, which is just fine in my book. What is important is the recall of the chorus, once it came around again.

Musically, everything was pretty simple, other than a few embellishments in the vocal gaps. I think the crux for me was that first chord in the chorus, a B on Eb. That first-inversion on B sort of gave a sense of building momentum, promise and potential - a good match for the theme of the song.

I recall freaking out at the beginning of Luke's verse. Right around 2:20, I realised I was about to rip off Bryan Adams' Everything I Do. Best not to go there.

I can also remember being really keen for the last strike of the song to feel a bit unfinished, I guess again reflecting that this was just the start of something big. The closure on the music did come eventually, as the scene played itself out.