The sense that a pop or rock song is in some sense "classical" doesn't necessarily elevate it in my book (this was not always the case, if I'm honest). But there's no denying that it's a flavor I'm drawn to, whether it's the string quartet lieder of the underrated The Juliet Letters, the chamber-music noodling of early Dirty Projectors, or the orchestral sweep of some of the arrangements by Radiohead or Andrew Bird (I do plan to write about this watershed piece at some point).
One song that has an unmistakable sense of classical architecture is Beach House's mesmerizing "Zebra." I first heard them play it live on Sound Opinions and was hooked immediately by Alex Scally's graceful triple-meter guitar figure, tracing the song's harmony in alternating sixths much as a cello might. (It came as little surprise to learn that Scally had started on piano and bass.) Playing what will form the harmony of the verse, obviously on a guitar tuned down a half step (it's in A-flat but there's no way the guitar part isn't ringing on a lot of open strings), Scally snakes through the following progression (the tab here seems to be right if that's the way you roll):
The big moment to listen for is at measure 15, when the B-flat minor brightens to a B-flat major before slipping back to the song's drone-like A-flat major ostinato. And watch how the melody Victoria Legrand will later sing over it hits the minor (the D-flat note) but avoids emphasizing the major (a C appoggiatura instead of a D natural):
This is hardly the song's biggest harmonic gambit. That comes right at the top of the song's cloudburst chorus. It is hard to overstate the power of the opening chromatic melody and the chords that lurch up under it, as if they are being tugged along on the back of the titular black-and-white horse...or is it more that these chords' tectonic shift is somehow nudging the melody up from below? Hard to say, but if this moment doesn't grab you even a bit, check your vital signs.
The chorus is studded with a few more goodies—the E-flat major sixth chord formed on the crucial word "horse," the sudden and bracing appearance of a flat-seventh chord (G-flat major) under "arching," giving that word its sonic equivalent.
The layers of synth and vocal descants that accumulate around the song's harmonic argument only heighten its chamber-music feeling. My mileage varies with the rest of Beach House's aptly named "dream pop," honestly. But the rolling, somehow horizontal expanse of "Zebra" is a dreamscape I'm always happy to visit.
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