Character and Setting in Andre Benjamin

Character and Setting in Andre Benjamins
Concept Album
The Love Below
by
David Reiser
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for
the degree of Master Arts and Science in Music
at The City
College of the City University of New York under
the
guidance of Dr. Shaugn ODonnell and Dr.
Barbara
Hanning, advisors.
May 2008
2
dedicated to Outkast, Andre Benjamin and Antwan
Patton,
with sincere thanks for their contributions to music
and society, all day and day
3
Table of Contents
I. The Love Below in Context 4
II. Individual Tracks on The Love Below 16
1. The Love Below (Intro) 16
2. Love Hater 21
3. God 28
4. Happy Valentines Day 33
5. Spread 41
6. Where Are My Panties 49
7. Prototype 52
8. She Lives In My Lap 58
[Author's Last Name] / [1-2 Words from Title] / 2

9. Hey Ya! 63
10. Roses 70
11. Good Day, Good Sir 74
12. Behold a Lady 77
13. Pink & Blue 82
14. Love in War 90
15. Shes Alive 94
16. Draculas Wedding 98
17. The Letter 106
18. My Favorite Things 107
19. Take Off Your Cool 109
20. Vibrate 116
21. A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre
(Incomplete) 121
III. The Love Below as a Concept Album 124
IV. Bibliography 127
4
I. The Love Below in Context
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is a double CD
release from the hip hop
group, Outkast. Outkast is comprised of Antwan
Patton (b. 1975) and
Andre Benjamin (b. 1975), under the respective
pseudonyms of Big Boi and
Andr 3000. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was
released in 2003 as two
separate discs, with Speakerboxxx by Big Boi and
The Love Below by Andr
3000, displaying their own distinct differences in
musical, thematic, and

lyrical style. In this paper, I will investigate the
second album, The Love
Below, in a twofold manner: I will examine how
Andrs compositional
choices create specific characters and thematic
setting within each track,
and how those individual choices create an
overarching coherence
throughout, creating a concept album.
Though Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was
primarily created with Big
Boi and Andr separated, they had worked
successfully as a team on four
original albums (plus one disc of greatest hits)
preceding this. The two
members of Outkast first met in Atlanta, Georgia,
while in high school and
began their successful musical careers in 1993,
under LaFace Records with
the retrospective, funk single, Players Ball. The
success of Players
Ball lead to the groups first full album release,
Southernplayalisticadillacmusik,1 a synthesis of
90s Gangsta Rap culture and
70s soul/funk musical styles. Their second album,
ATLiens,2 presented
Outkast as futuristic, extraterrestrial rappers, with
definitive space-age
themed music, sound effects, and lyrics. They began
to solidify their own

innovative rap sound and personal lyrics with their
third album, Aquemini,
1 Outkast, Southernplayalisticadillacmusik, LaFace
Records, 73008-26010-2, 1994.
2 Outkast, ATLiens, LaFace Records, 73008-260292, 1996.
5
which examines both private and social issues, from
false personal rumors
to the vain obsessions of modern culture. Separate
focuses began to
appear within the lyrics of Aquemini,3 with Dre
(who changed his
pseudonym after this album from Dre to Andr
3000) frequently
focusing his lyrics on a singular didactic subject for
each song, while Big
Boi continued to rap about Outkasts superior
abilities and about his lavish
Southern lifestyle. Through their first three albums,
this dichotomy was
effective for Outkast as an invigorating source of
self empowerment, as
Nelson George describes the significance of pride
within Gangsta Rap in
his book, Hip Hop America. Fueling mutual pride
through their differences,
Big Boi helped Outkast acquire the essential
swagger that underpins hip
hop, while Andr helped Outkast develop this
swagger into a way to

spin the negative [attitude of pride] on its head.4
However, pride
apparently became no longer mutually beneficial for
Big Boi and Andr, as
signs of differences between the two artists became
prevalent on Outkasts
fourth album, Stankonia.
The introductory song on Stankonia begins with
Andr announcing a
setting, declaring that the album is happening live,
from the center of the
earth. Seven light years below sea levelWelcome
to Stankonia.5 In this
song it seems that Andr has the intention of
establishing a through line or
thematic connection between songs on the album;
when Big Boi appears in
the final ten seconds of this opening track, he does
not even mention this
Stankonia scenario, and the set up remains
undeveloped through the
course of the album.
3 Outkast, Aquemini, LaFace Records, 7300826053-2, 1998.
4 George Nelson, Hip Hop America (Viking
Penguin, 1998), pp. 50-51.
5 Outkast, Intro, Stankonia, Arista Records,
ARCD 6072, 2000.
6
The differences in focus between Big Boi and
Andr that appear on

Stankonia also occur in their personal lives; Andre
Benjamin is a vegetarian
and he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking
marijuana after Outkasts
second album because his brain was that fried egg
I might need.6
Contrastingly, Antwan Patton often speaks of his
love of smoking highgrade
purp marijuana and drinking expensive alcohol.7
Big Boi is
known for his fast, aggressive style of rap and his
colorful word play,
while Andr is a multi-instrumentalist and often
sings on their albums.
These differences manifested themselves on their
fifth album,
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The musical and
lyrical choices that separate
Andr from Big Boi on the album can be compared
to some of the
differences that separated Paul McCartney from
John Lennon in the later
stages of The Beatles, as Andr takes a sharp
McCartney-like turn towards
narrative and pastiche on The Love Below. Separate
albums could have
been the result of The Beatles (The White Album)
had the Beatles divided the
tracks into albums of the works from each
composer. As with The White

Album, the separate artists contribute to the others
songs on
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, but primarily create
a singular voice of their
own, with the success of one seeming to feed the
other.
In creating an essentially solo album with The Love
Below, Andr was
given the freedom to create a completely dramatic
album, and in doing so,
also emulate the limited narrative concept of the
Beatles 1967 album, Sgt.
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, which though
it was arguably [not] the
6 Outkast, A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre,
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Arista, 828765010133-1, 2003.
7 These lifestyle preferences may have also made it
difficult for Big Boi and Andr to go on the
road together, as Outkast stopped touring after the
Stankonia tour in 2001.
7
first concept album, certain elements of its musical
structure and thematic
artifice suggest it qualifies as the first rock concept
album.8
Similarly, in The Love Below, there are certain
musical and thematic
elements which qualify it as concept album; it is not
an entirely linear

story in the style of The Whos Tommy, nor does it
contain a large-scale
strategy and compositional design9 like in
Genesis The Lamb Lies Down on
Broadway; however, like Sgt. Pepper, specific
musical devices relate some
songs to others and musical unity results not from
[a large-scale
harmonic/contrapuntal plan for the album as a
whole], but from motivic
relationships.10
Andrs fabricated stories, developed characters,
and heightened
dramatic scenes like Draculas Wedding and
Good Day, Good Sir are
very similar to the dramatic creations of
McCartneys like Rocky
Raccoon and Honey Pie. The 60s rock homage
and whimsical lyrics of
Hey Ya! are strikingly parallel to the parlor music
homage and nonsense
lyric of Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da. Andrs use of parody
and pastiche in songs
like Love Hater and My Favorite Things is
likewise used by
McCartney in songs like Back in the U.S.S.R.,
and Martha, My Dear.
And the overarching connectedness of The Love
Below is reminiscent of
Pauls hope to make Abbey Road a series of
interconnected songs.11 This

8 David Owen Montgomery, The Rock Concept
Album: Context and Analysis, (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Toronto, 2002).
9 Mark S. Spicer, Large Scale Strategy and
Compositional Design in the Early Music of
Genesis,
in Expression in Pop-Rock Music: A Collection of
Critical and Analytical Essays, ed. Walter Everett
(New York:
Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000), p. 84.
10 Walter Everett, The Beatles as Musicians:
Revolver through the Anthology (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999), p. 122.
11 Everett, The Beatles as Musicians, p. 245.
8
comparison is examined as an important reference
in the history of concept
albums within Pop music, for both play a prominent
part in the popular
music of their era, even though McCartney is
primarily considered a Rock
artist and Andr a Hip Hop artist.
The term concept album has been applied to
many genres of
music, given various definitions within scholarly
literature and journals,
and those albums included in the canon are
disparate in their defining
conceptual features. Genesiss 1974 album The
Lamb Lies Down On

Broadway has been called a concept album for its
motivic and harmonic
coherence,12 while Paul Simons 1986 album
Graceland has been analyzed
as a concept album for its skillful integration of
musical styles.13 And
Sgt. Pepper is still widely considered the first
concept album although
George Martin, producer of the album, has stated
that all the
songsdont really have a great deal of connection
with each other. We
made it appear whole by editing it closely and by
tying it up with idea that
the band, themselves, were another band.14
All of these albums do, however, fit into the broad
range of
definitions for concept album, as given in various
scholarly articles and
books, such as in Roy Shukers Popular Music: The
Key Concepts, where he
defines a concept album as being unified by a
theme, which can be
instrumental, compositional, narrative, or
lyrical.15 David Owen
12 Spicer, Large Scale Strategy and Compositional
Design in the Early Music of Genesis, p. 102.
13 Peter Kaminsky, "The Popular Album as Song
Cycle: Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These
Years," College Music Symposium 32 (1992): p. 38.

14 Martina Elicker, Concept Albums: Song Cycles
in Popular Music, in Word and Music Studies:
Essays on the Song Cycle and on Defining the
Field, eds. Walter Bernhart and Werner Wolf
(Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 2001), p. 231.
15 Roy Shuker, Popular Music: The Key Concepts
(London: Routledge, 2002), p. 5.
9
Montgomery demands more thorough requirements
from an album of any
genre in order to be considered a concept album in
his 2002 doctoral
dissertation, The Rock Concept Album: Concept
and Analysis,
concluding that the term concept album describes a
style of presentation
or format applied in creation, marketing and
distribution Defining
considerations, therefore, are both musical and nonmusical, as well as
material and aesthetic.16 In her essay, Concept
Albums: Song Cycles in
Popular Music, Martina Elicker attempts to define
the concept album as a
descendent in the tradition of nineteenth-century art
song cycles, seeking
to find the musical particularities of a concept
album by examining key
relationships, motivic returns, long-range structural
patterns, some sort of

coherent compositional plan and correlation
between the narrative and the
music.17
Attempts to define the concept album within
popular journals and
on the internet, continue to leave an extremely
open-ended definition. The
Los Angeles Times popular music critics Mike
Boehm and Don Heckman
broadly refer to concept albums as effort[s] to turn
the simple rock n roll
album into something much bigger: a story, a play,
an opus, and projects
centered on a specific point of view or a related
collection of materials.18
These assertions in popular culture are unhelpful in
establishing a clear
definition or canon for concept albums; however,
they do summarize the
breadth of albums which may be considered as such
by the consumer and
general public.
16 Montgomery, The Rock Concept Album:
Context and Analysis, p. 33.
17 Elicker, Concept Albums: Song Cycles in
Popular Music, p. 230.
18 Elicker, p. 228.
10
More helpful to an examination of The Love Below
is the current

popular assertion that concept albums are in vogue
in the digital age
with recent album releases that are seen as
conceptual, such as Green
Days American Idiot (2004), The Decemberistss
The Crane Wife (2006), and
Jay-Zs American Gangster (2007) gaining
popularity as full length albums.19
These are a few of the albums noted in the online
music journal,
PopMatters, to demonstrate that even at a time
when were led to believe
iTunes and file swapping will eventually bring
about the death of the
album, more and more artists seem to be bucking
that system by releasing
lengthy works that demand prolonged attention.20
It seems that these
contemporary concept albums are not attempted
foray[s] into the realm
of serious or art music,21 but rather practical
career choices as a chance
for these bands to reinvent themselves.22 While
this assertion is helpful in
considering that the success of The Love Below may
have influenced these
concept albums, it still leaves a wide spectrum of
album types that may be
considered concept albums.
Andr attempts to place The Love Below in the
indeterminate canon

of concept albums by creating characters in specific
scenarios about love.
On the first half of the album, he connects each
track through the journey
of one character, the Love Hater, a man using the
repetition of
bachelorhood as a way of hiding and masking
undesired or unpleasant
19 Ben Wener, Concept Albums Are Once Again in
Vogue in the Digital Age, Pop Matters
(December 2006)
<http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/86
36/concept-albums-are-onceagainin-vogue-in-the-digital-age/>.
20 Wener, Concept Albums Are Once Again in
Vogue.
21 Montgomery, The Rock Concept Album, p. 2.
22 Wener, Concept Albums Are Once Again in
Vogue.
11
facts or conditions; a kind of coverage23 against
the stated belief of the
narrator (Andr) that everybody needs somebody
to love.24 The
narrative of the Love Hater is omitted from the
second half of the album,
which, instead, relates stories of various new
characters dealing with the
troubles and joys that comes with love, sex, and
relationships.

Andr conveys these stories using musical,
thematic, and lyrical
devices on each song that give the listener a clear
vision of each setting and
character. His use of connected narrative,
illustrative musical choices,
sketches, sound effects, and other dramatic effects
throughout The Love
Below link it with albums like Johnny Cashs Ride
This Train,25 an album
that uses the sound effect and theme of trains to
connect the songs of
railroad travel across America, and Prince Pauls A
Prince Among Thieves,26
which uses extended sketches and songs to convey a
story of drug dealers
and murder. Andr connects himself to the first
concept album by
explicitly referencing Sgt. Pepper in both the
introductory and concluding
tracks of The Love Below, with the return of a
significant harmonic theme.
The albums split between narrative and
unconnected stories is
similar to Rushs 1976 album, 2112, which could be
defined as a halfconcept
album, with the first half of 2112 consisting of one
continuous
story-song, in the form of a seven part suite, and the
second half consisting

of separate songs unrelated to the plot; this is
similar to the format of their
1978 album, Hemispheres.
23 Tricia Rose, Orality and Technology: Rap
Music and Afro-American Cultural Resistance,
Popular Music and Society 13/4 (Spring 1989): p.
42.
24 Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
25 Johnny Cash, Ride This Train, Columbia
Records, CL 1464, 1960.
26 Prince Paul, A Prince Among Thieves, Tommy
Boy, TBCD 1210, 1999.
12
Many listeners may especially recognize the
influence of Princes
1988 album, Lovesexy.27 The Love Below contains
many of the same thematic
and musical styles as Lovesexy, and Andrs vocal
stylings will be
compared to those of Prince in this paper as well.
Lovesexy is one
continuous track with the connected songs
confronting the struggle
between good and evil, much in the way that the
characters in The Love
Below struggle with love and sex. The Love Below
contains many similar
musical choices, using gospel, free verse, falsetto,
which are all found on
Lovesexy. The albums also share the connection of
being primarily solo

ventures, with Prince and Andr writing,
performing, and producing the
majority of their album. The provocative nature of
Princes lyrics, themes,
and album cover are also imitated by Andr,
including the cover revealing
the artists partially naked body. Many reviewers,
like those at Rolling
Stone28 and Pitchfork Media, have also commented
on the Prince-like
nature of album. 29
Like the concept albums noted above, there is little
evidence of
intended motivic musical continuity throughout The
Love Below, in the
sense of a tonal harmonic outline or an overarching
key center, though, as
scholars have done with Sgt. Pepper, a large-scale
harmonic analysis could
certainly be forced upon it. I will not attempt to
impose such a harmonic
outline on The Love Below, as musical choices used
within the songs
provide ample evidence for the intent of a broad
based concept album.
27 Prince, Lovesexy, Paisley Park, 925 720-2, 1988.
28 Jon Caramanica, Album Review. Rolling
Stone (September 2003)
<http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/outkast/album
s/album/290754/review/6068251/speakerboxxxthe
_love_below>.

29 Brent DiCrescenzo, Pitchfork Record
Reviews. Pitchfork Media (September 2003)
<http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_rev
iew/20669-speakerboxxxthe-love-below>.
13
Also similar to Sgt. Pepper, the musical style of
The Love Below can
vary greatly from track to track. For instance, the
modulating tonal
structure of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is
followed by Getting
Better, which is the first track on Sgt. Pepper with
no harmonic
innovations,30 similar to how the progressive
tonality of She Lives In My
Lap is followed by the mixed modality of Hey
Ya!, which is followed
by the diatonic stepwise motion of Roses. And
similar to the way that
the first two songs on Sgt. Pepper establish it as a
concept album, while
only employing a key change that is not a
harmonic relationship but is
replicated within the closing song, the first two
songs on The Love Below
create the framework for a concept album while
only using a pivot chord
to directly link the key centers, which is also
recalled in the closing song.31
The song and story connections on The Love Below
are outlined in the

following chart and are examined at length in the
main body of this paper.
As noted below, the first half of the album sets up
the concept album
framework and follows the Love Hater narrative,
while the second half of
the album creates short stories of characters dealing
with love, sex, and
relationships.
# Title Min Story Notes
1 The Love Below
(Intro)
1:28 Introduction of the musical
style and theme of the album
Establishing this as a
concept album
2 Love Hater 2:50 Presentation of the Love
Hater
3 God 2:20 Love Hater speaks with the
character of God
4 Happy 5:23 God sends Cupid Valentino
Connected Love
Hater narrative
31 Everett, p. 122.
14
Valentines Day to infect the Love Hater with
love
5 Spread 3:51 The Love Hater meets the
Birthday Woman and takes
her home to have sex

6 Where Are My
Panties
1:54 The morning after sex, the
Love Hater and the Birthday
Woman contemplate their
actions
7 Prototype 5:26 The Love Hater realizes that
the Birthday Woman may
actually be the one
8 She Lives in My
Lap
4:27 Bachelor (possibly the Love
Hater?) stays with his fianc
without marrying her
Love Hater story line
possible.
Featuring Rosario
Dawson.
9 Hey Ya! 3:55 Relationships in general 1st single
released
10 Roses 6:10 The narrators opinions on
the habits of a promiscuous
woman
Only track featuring
Big Boi
3rd single released
11 Good Day,
Good Sir
1:25 Two gentlemen discuss a
proper lady
12 Behold a Lady 4:37 Narrator discusses the

virtues of a woman
Connected sketch
and song
13 Pink & Blue 5:05 A younger man seduces an
older woman
Written with R. Kelly
14 Love in War 3:26 A couple tries to work out
their relationship
15 Shes Alive 4:07 Story about a single mother
16 Draculas
Wedding
2:32 Dracula fears commitment to
Mrs. Dracula
Featuring Kelis
17 The Letter 0:21 Andr receives a letter from
a former lover
18 My Favorite
Things
5:12 Instrumental of Rodgers and
Hammerstein standard
Connected sketch
and song
19 Take Off Your
Cool
6:38 A plea to ones lover to
remove their self-imposed
faade
Featuring Norah
Jones
20 Vibrate 6:39 Andrs plea to the listener
15

to rise above the impulses of
the Love Below
21 A Life in the
Day of Benjamin
Andr
(Incomplete)
4:50 The story of Andrs career
The Love Below was released with one extra digital
track on the
iTunes release. There were also changes with
certain songs on different
releases of the album, which I will discuss in this
paper. I analyze the
explicit, unedited iTunes version, which that
includes the most
comprehensive track listing and creates a more
coherent concept album.
Released as one double album, Speakerboxxx/The
Love Below received
mixed reviews from critics, with Rolling Stone
Magazine proclaiming that
each of these albums is as noteworthy for what's
missing as for what's
there,32 while Pitchfork Media declared that the
two-disc album beg[s] to
be ripped, sieved and re-sequenced.33 However,
Speakerboxxx/The Love
Below won the 2003 Grammy Award for Album of
the Year34 and was also
voted album of the year in the 2003 Village Voice
Pazz and Jop critics

poll.35 The album was also a great commercial
success, certified as
Diamond in the U.S. for shipping over 10 million
units36 and ended 2004 as
32 Jon Caramanica, Album Review.
33 Brent DiCrescenzo, Pitchfork Record
Reviews.
34 The Recording Academy,
<http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/Win
ners/Results.aspx>.
35 Village Voice, LLC,
<http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/pazznjop/03
/albums_winners1.php>.
36 Recording Industry Association of America,
<http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?
table=tblDiamond>.
16
the number two album on Billboard 200 chart.37
While there were multiple
producers for Speakerboxxx, Andr was the primary
producer, writer, and
performer on every track of The Love Below, and
thus he will be generally
referenced in this paper as having made the
compositional and recording
choices on each track; tracks that were collaborative
are discussed as
such.38
As previously stated, in this paper I intend to
examine The Love

Below by analyzing the musical and thematic
characterizations in each
song, and examining how these choices form a
dramatic story concept
album.
II. Individual Tracks on The Love Below
The Love Below (Intro)
The album The Love Below begins by Andr posing
an emblematic
question that sets the framework for the scope of the
entire album. At the
final moment in the lyrics of the opening track,
The Love Below (Intro),
Andr rhetorically asks the listener who knows
where this flower
37 Nielsen Business Media, Inc,
<http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/yearend_c
hart_display.jsp?
f=The+Billboard+200&g=Yearend+
Albums&year=2004>.
38 For the full listing of credits for each track on
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, see: Kevin
Lewandowski,
<http://www.discogs.com/release/428016>.
17
grows?,39 implying that any story of love may
unabashedly bloom on this
album. At the final musical moment of this opening
track, Andr
rhetorically asks the listener the very same question,
in the form of a

sustained, sforzando, augmented chord, implying
that any musical choice
may also blossom unashamed on this album. These
illustrative moments
are the most pronounced of The Love Below
(Intro) in establishing this
framework of possibilities for the entire album,
however, they are also
supported by other musical and lyrical choices that
work toward the same
purpose.
The song begins with sweeping strings, dramatic
timpani, and jazz
piano arpeggiations. By purchasing the album from
the online iTunes
store, the listener believes he or she is going to hear
a hip hop record, as
the genre is listed as Hip-Hop/Rap and comes
with an explicit lyrics
warning, but the first thing that the listener hears is
something akin to the
theme music for Fox Twentieth Century
Corporation or the beginning of a
epic 1920s film scored by Erich Korngold. The
opening measures of the
album are fortissimo, legato, and Romantic,
immediately signaling to the
listener a work of dramatic proportions.
Drama, even the emotional indulgence of
melodrama, is

immediately evoked through the instrumentation of
strings and timpani,
recalling more symphonic works than hip-hop
albums. The low strings
begin the illustrative musical setting with a
descending bass line, moving
from the mediant on the first measure, to the
supertonic, to the flatted
tonic, to the dominant in the final bar of the A
section. The descending
39 All subsequent lyric quotations from the analysis
of tracks on The Love Below will not be
amended as [sic] for incorrect grammar, as the
words and phrases are colloquial to Andr, and
unless
noted otherwise, they are quoted from: Outkast,
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
18
bass is a musical demonstration of the title and main
theme, the Love
Below.
In the story of the Love Hater, the term the love
below specifically
refers to the sex organ and, moreover, the sexual
urges that drive a person
like the Love Hater to be an organ donor, the way
I give up my heart.
The listener also learns on this album that the force
of love and sex, which
are all part of the Love Below, can be empowering,
but it takes great

strength to Vibrate above ones animalistic sexual
urges. This theme of
love coming from a deep and visceral place, below
the surface, is musically
demonstrated in the bass line of The Love Below
(Intro) and is also
prevalent in previous Outkast material. As
mentioned in the introduction
of this paper, the undeveloped theme from the
album Stankonia describes
the land of Stankonia as being 7 light years
below sea level. Andr
says that this is the place from which all funky
things come. Would you
like to come? This is followed by a series of sexual
noises, giving sound
effect to the emphasized word, come, insinuating
orgasm. The title and
final song of Stankonia is titled Stankonia
(Stanklove), and ponders why
must we fly so low; are we afraid of heights? This
helps establish the
connection between the depths of Stankonia and
the irrepressible urges
of sex, and between love and an elevated place of
being. By using this
descending bass line to represent the Love Below in
the instrumental A
section, Andr sets the standard for illustrative
musical accompaniment to
embody the lyrical statement of each song.

Andr continues to use musical choices that portray
the lyric, as the
descending bass line theme also appears throughout
the sung B section in
two bar phrases illustrating the accompanied lyrics.
Andr avoids using
descending root position chords by employing
chromatic motion in the
19
bass within each two bar phrase, but changing the
timbre and inversion of
each chord; thus, giving each city, Atlanta, New
York, and Paris, a varied
musical description. This creates aural distinctions
between the different
cities; this type of aural distinction will also be used
throughout the album
to musically differentiate the various characters that
Andr presents.
In the vocal section of The Love Below (Intro),
when the lyric
reaches the modifying conjunction of but, Andr
employs modal
mixture to respell the diatonic first chord of the B
section, the minor
submediant, into major, thus constructing the
musical phrase to
demonstrate the turn in the lyric, as shown in the B
section below:
Then, the overarching question posed by this song,
who knows where

this flower grows, is an extension of the dominant
chord. Andr exploits
the descending bass line pattern again in the seventh
and eighth measure
to delay the stepwise motion to the dominant,
before leading to the full
cadence on the final lyric.
20
The melody cadences, as well, supporting Andrs
inquiry with a
leap up from the dominant to the tonic by emulating
the raised inflection
of a question. The final cadence helps to establish
the rhetorical nature of
the posed question by providing resolution in the
music, thus informing
the listener that the question is already resolved by
the rest of the album.
Although The Love Below (Intro) brings to mind
musical styles of
the Romantic era, it also mirrors the style of the
dramatic overture in
Classical opera, as an original orchestral piece in an
A-B-A structure. This
is in contrast to the medley-style overtures that
precede many Romantic
comic operas and operettas. By leading directly into
the rest of next song
on the album, The Love Below (Intro) may bring
to mind the

introductory function of the single movement,
reprise overtures of late
eighteenth century opera, like Mozarts Die
Entfhrung aus dem Serail, in
which the separate, composed overture lacks a full
final cadence and,
instead, leads directly into the first aria of the opera,
just as The Love
Below (Intro) leads into The Love Belows first full
strophic song, Love
Hater.40 The beginning songs of The Love Below
also function in the style
of musical theatre shows like Leonard Bernsteins
West Side Story, in the
use of the prologue, where the setting for the story
is initially established
by the music, by posing the essential question for
this piece and by
exemplifying the illustrative musical choices that
will be used
throughout.41
40 For more information on the history of the
overture in opera and on Die Entfhrung aus dem
Serail, see: Donald J. Grout, A Short History of
Opera (New York: Columbia University Press,
1988).
41 For more information on the use of prologue in
musical theatre and on West Side Story, see:
Stanley Green, The Encyclopedia of Musical
Theatre (New York: Da Capo, 1991).
21

The introductory piece on The Love Below is
specifically called an
Intro, which can be seen as a modern variation of
these techniques for
recorded albums, taking on a similar function as an
overture or prologue.
This original, introductory song helps to establish
the musical style and
dramatic setting for the entire piece, while
propelling the action forward
straight into the next song, so that as The Love
Below (Intro) ends and
the first strophic song begins, the cohesive structure
for the overall piece
has already been foreshadowed and developed.
Using these techniques, Andr references Sgt.
Pepper and the
conceptual theme of connectivity, which is used
primarily at the beginning
of both Sgt. Pepper and The Love Below, yet helps
to convey a sense of
connected music throughout. An extended repeat of
the A section
concludes with the augmented chord that poses the
musical emblematic
question for the album, which leads directly into
Love Hater where the
listener is first presented with the main character.
Love Hater
The introduction of Love Hater fades up directly
out of the final

augmented chord of The Love Below (Intro),
which is used as a pivot
chord to transition into the heavily distorted
opening with electric guitar
and whammy board effects, heard without a specific
meter or tempo for
the first nine seconds of the song.
The pivot chord is used to establish the bass note of
A flat in the first
counted measures, beginning with the piano
arpeggiation of a dissonant
trichord (016) in quarter note triplets, giving a 6/8
feel to the common
22
time. The trichord is transposed down a whole step
in the second
measure, to a G flat in the bass, using the same
arpeggiation, and is then
transposed back to the original pitches in the third
measure. The horns
swell in a repeating crescendo-decrescendo, with
the peak of the
crescendos occurring on opposing beats for two sets
of horns, one on the
first beat of the measure and the other on the third
beat. The 6/8 feel,
combined with repetitive stepwise motion and
opposing dynamic swells,
provides a disorienting, cyclical feeling of gain and
loss. Shown in the

example below, this can be seen as a musical
embodiment of the stormy
dating patterns of the Love Hater.
23
It is important to note that this transcription is from
the
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below published sheet
music, piano/vocal/guitar
selections from Hal Leonard,42 which has only
seven songs from The Love
Below included, Love Hater, Prototype, She
Lives in My Lap, Hey
Ya!, Roses, Shes Alive, and My Favorite
Things. The Hal Leonard
sheet music has been helpful in my analysis of this
album, however, those
transcriptions are intended as accompaniment for
piano, guitar, and vocals
only, so are not always detailed or precise (and were
not necessarily
intended to be so). Therefore, I have relied on my
own transcriptions for
every song (and, gratefully, with the help of my
advisor), and all further
transcriptions shown throughout these analyses are
my own; however, for
the analysis of this song, I have excerpted musical
examples from that
publication to demonstrate the published musical
material available for

The Love Below and to provide an example of those
transcriptions.
While the arpeggiated trichords are notated
correctly in the above
musical example, the attentive listener will hear
more than just two pitches
in the horn parts, as referenced in the bass clef of
the Hal Leonard
transcriptions, which form a chromatic chord
cluster. Preceding the first
verse, in A minor, is a final dissonant chord (0:17
0:19), shown in mm. 78, which is also a chord cluster with the supertonic
as the root and the
tonic note as the upper voice, creating a cadentiallike dissonance leading
into the first lyrics.
There are two verses sung by the lead vocalist in
this song and one
extended instrumental verse preceding the coda.
The overall form of this
42 Chrysalis Music Group, Selections from
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (Milwaukee, WI:
Hal
Leonard Corporation, 2004).
24
piece is more complicated than most of the songs
heard on the album.
Whereas most songs on The Love Below are in
simple verse-chorus form,

this song has a form more closely related to that of a
rondo, using varied
harmonic and melodic sections separated by repeats
of the regular A
section, as shown below.
0:00 0:08 Introduction, not measured Distorted
guitar only
0:08 0:19 (B) B section, 8mm. Based on the
quarter-note
triplet, feels like compound
duple meter
0:20 0:27 a, 6mm
0:27 0:35 a, 6mm
0:35 0:46
(A) Verse, 20 mm.
Refrain, 8mm
Two six bar phrases,
Everybody needs a glass of
water today plus eight
bar hook
0:46 0:57 (B) B section, 8 mm. Based on the
quarter-note
triplet, feels like compound
duple meter
0:57 1:05 a, 6mm
1:05 1:12 a, 6mm
1:13 1:23
(A) Verse, 20 mm.
Refrain, 8mm
Two six bar phrases,
Everybody needs a glass of

water today plus eight
bar hook
1:23 1:33 (C) Horn Break, 8 mm.
1:33 1:53 (D) Love Hater Chorus, 16 mm
Love Hater
1:53 2:00 a, 6mm
2:01 2:08 a, 6mm
2:09 2:24
(A) Extended
Verse,
Refrain
(3xs) 12mm
Two six bar phrases, plus
ext. of the hook
2:24 2:49 Coda, 9 mm Rubato for last five
measures
This creates a modified rondo form, with the overall
structure of
BABACDA, preceded by an introduction and
followed by a coda.
The verses are separated into three irregular stanzas
in the form of
two six-measure phrases followed by an eight
measure refrain. The first
25
two phrases begin on the tonic and conclude on the
dominant, before a
deceptive cadence leads into the refrain. The refrain
is distinguished by
the climax in the melody at the lyrical hook,
everybody needs somebody

to love before its too late, as shown below:
26
The corresponding statement and restatement
preceding the divergent
refrain, may be interpreted as the narrators
viewpoint that the
monotonous repetition of bachelorhood, as
exemplified by the main
character of the Love Hater, can be released by
finding somebody to
love.
A parallel may be seen between the irregular
phrasing of the verse
in Love Hater and the phrasing used later on the
album in Hey Ya!, as
Love Hater is the first song in the lengthy
narrative of the Love Hater
and Hey Ya! can be seen as the first song in a new
set of stories about
love on the second half of the album.
The dissonant B section returns after the first verse
with a repeat of
the cyclical horn and piano parts. Within this B
section, Andr declares
that nobody wanna grow old alone, supporting his
stormy musical
setting with his spoken opinion of the preferred way
to spend ones life.
Andrs lyrics during the A and B sections are those
of a narrator

commenting on the action. He tells the listener his
feelings on the subject
of relationships, saying that everybody needs
someone to rub their
shoulders, scratch their dandruff and that men like
the Love Hater, who
reject the very idea of love, need to quit acting
hard and shit before you
get your ass whooped.
The Love Hater himself is not introduced until the
horn break and
Love Hater chorus, where, as the main character
of the story, he is given
a dramatic and flashy introduction. The horns are
featured in a
presentational, big band style. The horns play in
unison here, arpeggiating
diatonic chords and swung blues rhythms. The horn
break is played in
two bar phrases, with the first measure descending
over a subtonic
trichord and the ascending through the tonic chord.
The majority of the
27
motion is done in whole steps or leaps of a third;
there is very little
chromatic movement, and no tritone intervals
within the phrase. This is in
direct contrast to the piano arpeggiations during the
introduction, where

chromaticism, the tritone, and large leaps were
employed to musically
embody the narrators view of the unsteady lifestyle
of the Love Hater.
Contrastingly, this horn break is the Love Haters
introduction for
himself. This is the music that shows his personality
with familiar chord
outlines, jazzy rhythms, and unison playing.
Whereas the introduction
was the narrators point of view of the Love Hater,
this horn break is the
Love Haters vision of himself, immediately
revealing for the listener his
strong personality, self-confidence, and swagger.
This continues with the Love Hater chorus, as
rhythmic jazz piano
is accompanied by a walking bass line covering
nearly two octaves, and a
double tracked vocal exclamation of the main
characters name. This calls
to mind the choral introduction of Billy Shears on
Sgt. Pepper. On The
Love Below, the first character is introduced with
repeated phrases of his
name, as if the Love Hater is a star of the stage
being ceremoniously
brought out for an encore performance. This further
reveals the marked
difference between the Love Haters self-perception
and that of the

narrator.
With these techniques, Andr further exemplifies
the musical
choices that will be used for the entire album, as he
did on The Love
Below (Intro), acquainting the listener with the
musical and dramatic
style of The Love Below album. These techniques
are used in this song to
introduce the narrative of the Love Hater,
continuing through the entire
first half of the album, and to establish the
narrators feelings regarding the
28
Love Hater. Thus, these first two songs concisely
launch a strong setting,
narrative, and point of view.
Andr continues the sequence of events by making
a smooth
musical transition from the embellished, A minor
add 9, final tonic chord
of Love Hater into the first chord of the next song
by using the relative
major, C major 7 chord, to begin God. Thus,
putting into motion The
Love Below and leading the listener directly into the
next part of the Love
Haters saga.
God
This song introduces us to the mysterious character
of God; a silent,

but influential character in the storyline connecting
the first eight songs on
the album. This character is mysterious as she is
only established through
musical depiction and through description by
another character, the Love
Hater.
Gods silent involvement in the storyline of the
Love Hater is similar
to the way that the biblical God takes part in the
New Testament, where
Gods attributes and wishes for sinners repentance
are primarily revealed
through Jesus describing the powers of his father.43
In Andrs song
God, the Love Hater describes the power of God
by asking her (God) to
find the Love Hater an excellent lover, or as he
describes it a sweet
43 In the Book of John, Chapter Five, Jesus
describes the powers of his father at length, for
example,
saying the father raises the dead and gives life.
For further examples, see: Herbert May and Bruce
Metzger, editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible
with the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University
Press,
1977).
29
bitchsomebody not too fast, but not too slow.
The character of God is

revealed to be in the female form, as the Love Hater
initially discovers her,
saying, Damn! Youre a girl! and later uses a pun
to make light of this,
closing his song and prayer by saying, Amen! Oh,
Im sorry, Im sorry.
Ah, lady!
Andr has chosen very colloquial language in this
song for the Love
Hater to use when addressing God, making it seem
that God is very
accessible and understanding. However, this is
juxtaposed with Andrs
musical choices portraying God as a mysterious and
unfamiliar being,
completely portraying the character of God as, at
once, both accessible and
mysterious.
The song, God, moves through a highly
chromatic chord
progression, with a tonal center of A major. While a
diatonic tonal
harmonic progression is never completely
established, a final cadence in A
major occurs at mm. 15-16, using a tritone
substitution to create a flatted
supertonic chord, a Neapolitan, in the place of the
dominant. The major
seventh is added to the Neapolitan triad, creating a
tonic pedal throughout

the upper register and providing descending
chromatic motion leading to
the tonic in the bass. This use of the Neapolitan
chord is preceded by a
half-diminished seventh chord on the supertonic,
creating an altered
version of a cadential ii-V-I progression, and
establishing the key center of
the song as A major. The diatonic cadential
progression and the jazzinflected
alteration in God are compared below:
30
The song is dominated by chromatic movement in
the bass, most
noticeably in the repetitive bars between mm. 9-15,
when the altered
cadence into A major is heavily foreshadowed by
repeating the
penultimate and ultimate chords three times before
resolving to the tonic
at m. 16.
The song begins with a fade-up, outlining a majorseventh chord
rooted on a blue note, the flatted mediant, before
full volume is reached on
the second chord, a diminished triad, one half-step
below. This may
confuse the listener from the very beginning of the
song, as hearing a C
major-seventh chord descending chromatically to a
B diminished triad,

may make the listener assume this is will be a
cadence back to C major,
becoming a I-vii-I progression. However, this is not
the case and instead
the progression leaps to a major triad on D, the
subdominant of the
eventual tonic, A. This confuses any initial thought
of a quick cadence
back to C, and upon hearing the F# conflicting with
the earlier F natural,
the listener begins to recognize the non-tonal nature
of the harmony in this
song.
The progression descends chromatically from the
subdominant, D
major triad, down to the eventual tonic, an A major
triad, without the use
of a diatonic chord in between, giving the chord
progression a lack of
31
functional harmonic forward motion, but a clear
sense of resolution when
the A major triad is reached. The only pitch skipped
as a chord root in this
descending chromatic progression from the
subdominant to the tonic is the
flatted mediant, which was previously used as the
root of the major
seventh in the mysterious opening chord.
The entire harmonic progression of God is
condensed below:

The form of this song can be seen as binary, A-A,
with the first
ending at measure 18 acting as a bridge into the
final A section, which
commences with one held measure, an arpeggiated
strum, added to the
final tonic chord.
32
A repeating sixteenth-note picking pattern is used
throughout the
song, varying only slightly with embellishments,
most prominently used
over the tonic. The steady rhythmic picking pattern
can be interpreted as
finding security in the knowledge of a supreme
being and the use of an
acoustic guitar accompaniment can be heard as a
representation of the
goddess, with the nylon strings recalling to mind the
gentleness of a
bedtime prayer of a motherly figure. In this manner,
Andr further
musically embodies this character through his
choice of instrumentation
and the way in which instruments are used.
The juxtaposition of familiar dialogue with
unfamiliar musical
choices can convey God as a contradictory figure:
both accessible and
mysterious, and as easy to understand as she is
difficult to comprehend.

The only certain characteristic in this song may be
that, to the Love Hater,
God is a female.
The through line of the Love Hater is palpable here,
as in the
previous introduction song of Love Hater, the
audience has been left
with the mantra that everybody needs somebody to
love. In God, the
listener hears the voice of a Love Hater asking
God for help, as he
admits that life aint easy and he could use
somebody by [his] side to
help smooth that thing out. This one-sided
discussion concludes with the
narrator revealing that God has found somebody
for the Love Hater,
and so he excitedly asks, When do I get to meet
her? Gods response of
very soon is also implied as the Love Hater
replies by saying Thanks
God! Youre the greatest! And so, understandably,
in the very next song
God sends out her modern messenger of love,
Cupid Valentino.
33
Happy Valentines Day
Happy Valentines Day is the first track on The
Love Below where
multiple character voices are heard within a single
song. In Happy

Valentines Day, the listener is introduced to the
new character of Cupid,
while continuing to hear the character of the Love
Hater; both characters
sing from the first-person point of view. In the
earlier song, Love Hater,
Andr establishes the title character through a thirdperson narrator.
Then, in God, Andr continues the Love Haters
story by directly
showing the Love Haters relationship with the
implicit character of God.
In Happy Valentines Day, the lead character of
Cupid can be
interpreted as a logical dramatic response to the
preceding songs, with
Cupid being sent by God to make the Love Hater
fall in love. During
God, we hear that God has found a sweet bitch
for the Love Hater,
and Cupid may be Gods means to pierce with love
the impenetrable heart
of the Love Hater.
Andr immediately makes clear the intentions of
Cupid, through the
free verse-like44 spoken mezzo-piano, monotone
lyrics at the beginning
of the song, My name is Cupid Valentino, the
modern day Cupid, and I
just want to say one thing: Happy Valentines Day,
every day the

fourteenth! Andr demonstrates the personality of
Cupid through
musical description. Cupid is portrayed as an
exalted character, a figure
beyond the human realm with supernatural powers,
through the following
musical choices: the use of multiple musical modes,
the use of measured,
44 Free Verse in musical theatre or poetry gives
the artist the freedom to recite freely, out of
meter. For more on the use of Free Verse, see:
Green, The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre.
34
spoken lyrics in the A sections contrasted by the use
of a choir of Cupids
minions singing with him in the B sections.
The A and B sections are the core of this song, and
they have
separate modes, as well as melodic choices.
Following a four-bar
introduction, the A and B sections alternate three
times, before a new C
section completes the song. This overall layout of
the song can be seen as
the following:
0:00 0:09 Introduction, 4 mm. Spoken lyrics and
beat only
0:09 0:47 A section 1, 16 mm. A section in E
Dorian mode
Four 4-bar phrases of guitar,
Happy Valentines Day

0:48 1:07
Big A
B section 1, 8 mm. B section in an indefinite mode
Chorus of Cupids minions,
You wont believe in me
1:07 1:45 A 2, 16 mm A,
1:45 2:04
Big A
B 2, 8 mm. B
2:04 2:42 A 3, 16 mm. A
2:43 3:06
Big A
B 3, 10 mm B: B section, plus 2 measure
interruption of the A section
3:07 3:26 C section instrumental, 8 mm C
section: in E minor
3:26 4:06 C section with rap, 17mm C with Love
Hater rap
(with extra bar added to change
the phrasing for the Coda),
Got a sweet little darlin up in
my corner
4:07 5:23
Big C
Coda of C section, 32mm C: C section, beginning
on the
original second measure
Women chorus sing Happy
Valentine, happy valen-talentine
Fadeout
35

The introduction begins with a swung backbeat,
utilizing
synthesized hand-claps in place of a snare drum on
beats two and four.
This use of group hand-claps foreshadows the group
of Cupids minions
used in the B sections, calling to mind a gospel
choir. This synth beat stays
constant throughout the entire song with
intermittent tacet passages.
The A section begins on top of this beat with a two
bar guitar riff,
which continues repeatedly to create the four 4-bar
phrases. The minimal
use of melody in the A section, the spoken word by
Cupid, and the twonote
melody of Cupids minion, make the key signature
of this section
problematic to discern. While the guitar riff makes
clear that the tonic in
this section is E, it is the use of the raised sixth
within the guitars minor
chord progression that leads the listener to think this
section may be in E
Dorian mode. Further complicating the progression
is the use of the
mediant chord in place of the expected dominant for
the cadential chord
returning to the beginning of the progression, while
the use of the raised

sixth creates a diminished second chord (C#
diminished) and a major third
chord (A major). The perpetual use of E within this
progression creates an
implied E pedal, creating the possibility of hearing
the entire progression
as a prolongation of the tonic chord, with the raised
submediant as a
neighbor tone to the dominant, and the subtonic as a
neighbor tone to the
tonic, as shown below:
36
Making the chord progression slightly varied from
the standard iVI-iv-v progression, by using the raised sixth,
evokes the idea of Cupid
being a step above the norm, with similar feelings to
those of a human, but
slightly elevated. This use of the Dorian mode for
the character of Cupid
brings to mind traditional funk styles, recalling the
powerful and
mysterious auras of powerful funk icons such as
Prince, George Clinton,
and Isaac Hayes.
The musical association of Cupid with funk icons to
create a sense of
commanding character is assisted by Cupids calm,
measured, metered,
spoken-verse, establishing him as a confident
character, who hardly needs

to change his tone, vary his pitch, raise his voice or
speak many words in
order to convey his message. This is so much the
case, that at the end of
each four bar phrase, rather than conclude his own
thought, a chorus of
men sing the final cadence for Cupid. This is
reminiscent of a preacher in
church being supported by the choir or members of
the church, creating a
force of sound much greater than the preacher could
achieve alone. These
singers are the first instance of Andr evoking a
minion accompanying
Cupid on his missions, and this begins to solidify
Cupid as a character of
greater power than the mortal Love Hater.
The confident character style is further established
with the repeated
use of a simple instrumental accompaniment
whenever Cupid speaks:
only drum sample and electric rhythm guitar is used
while Cupid is
speaking, allowing for the text to be prominent and
showing how Cupid
does not need multiple instruments to connect with
his listener. Also,
Cupid refers to himself in both the first and third
person throughout the
song, saying such contradictory self-references as
when Cupid knocks at

your door, you cant ignore me and he wont miss
you, but thats alright
37
yall wont believe in me anyway. These self
references in both the first
and third person point of view can be seen as further
reference to Cupids
elevated status as an otherworldly figure and
messenger of the character of
God.
The B section primarily features a fortissimo
womens choir and, like
the A section, is difficult to determine the mode.
The tonic is clearly A;
however, the repeated use of a flatted supertonic in
the choir melody,
recalling phrygian mode, goes against the natural
supertonic used in the
subtonic chord (G major), while the raised sixth in
the harmony recalls the
dorain mode of the A section. These factors create
an indefinite mode, as
shown in the diagram of the B section below:
This reinforces the idea of Cupid being an
indefinable, supernatural being
who is beyond the realm of clearly defined musical
modes.
While this section retains the established backbeat,
the energetic
instrumentation of the B section forms a striking
change from the A

sections relaxed electric guitar groove; the
instrumentation for the B
38
section is dramatic with a driving eighth note pulse
from the bass guitar
and organ, and cymbal crashes on the downbeat of
each measure. This
increase in volume, instrumentation, and rhythmic
intensity can be seen as
the musical embodiment of Cupid instilling awe in
the non-believer and
the musically demonstrative B section shows
Cupids phenomenal power,
appropriately contrasting the modest A section.
The melodic choices for the B section are also in
stark contrast to the
spoken-word of the A section. The B section is
where Cupid melodically
displays his might through the use of a minion of
singers who do his
bidding. The chorus sings the lyrics in first person,
collectively speaking
Cupids point of view saying, You wont believe in
me, but you would
fancy leprechauns or groundhogs The use of the
first person point of
view here intimates that this choir is under Cupids
control and he will not
hesitate to employ all his followers to instill love
into the Love Hater, as

Cupid emphatically declares through the powerful
choir, Love will rule
supreme!
At the end of the third B section, Cupid makes clear
that he is going
to inject the Love Hater with love tonight! As he
says the word
tonight on the downbeat of the new C section, the
texture and
instrumentation change, signaling a change in
setting. The harmony
changes into a functional E minor progression and
there is a fast
arpeggiation of sixteenth-notes, from a synthesized
arpeggiator. This
rapid arpeggiation can be heard as Cupids wing
motion, as he moves
from the otherworld into the natural realm,
symbolized by the change
from A Phrygian into E minor.
At the end of the instrumental section, the rap of the
Love Hater
begins, also in E minor. The use of E minor and the
rhythmic rap indicate
39
the contrast of the Love Haters natural realm from
Cupids. As Cupid has
now entered the Love Haters world, there is a solo,
descending slide in
the bass, essentially creating an extra measure at the
end of the C section

rap by taking the first bar of the final C section from
the last bar of the
second C section, as displayed below:
This deep slide in the extra bar can be heard as
Cupids bullet of
love entering the Love Haters body. Then, the final
C section starts on the
second measure of the original four chord phrase
and Cupids minions
celebrate by singing the final C section with
variations of Happy
Valentines Day in unison.
The changes in mode, style, and instrumentation
show the contrast
between the powerful, otherworldly Cupid and the
flawed, mortal Love
Hater. Happy Valentines Day is the first song in
The Love Below where
40
the listener can compare the main characters and see
them in direct
contrast with each other, not only by hearing two
different voices, but also
by hearing two different musical and lyrical
approaches.
It is important to note here that the front cover for
the CD of
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below has a picture of
Andr wearing a sash and
holding a smoking pink gun. The sash evokes the
classic image of Cupid

and the pink smoking gun evokes the modern image
of Cupid, as Andr
specifically references in the song, saying My
name is Cupid Valentino,
the modern day Cupidwhen arrows dont
penetrate, Cupid brings the
pistol. This use of visual representation of
characters involved in the
story brings to mind the album covers of rock
concept albums that picture
possible character references, like in the Beatles
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts
Club Band and Genesis The Lamb Lies Down on
Broadway.
Cupid as the sole focus of the album cover for The
Love Below
emphasizes his importance as the catalyst for this
album. Andr seems to
point out that Cupid, and therefore Love itself, is
the catalyst for all the
explorations on this album. The Love Hater himself
is literally propelled
forward by Cupid shooting him with his proverbial
arrow, a bullet of love,
and in the very next song, Spread, the listener
hears the result of Cupids
shot.
Interestingly, the way in which two characters are
presented in
Happy Valentines Day, with the secondary
character of the Love Hater

only being featured in one contrasting section,
recalls the formal structure
that appears in Spread, with the introduction of a
female character, the
Birthday Woman, featured in a contrasting musical
section.
41
Spread
Just as Happy Valentines Day was the sequential
response to the
dramatic scenario established in God, Spread is
the sequential dramatic
response to Happy Valentines Day. During
Happy Valentines Day,
we hear Cupid declaring that, despite the Love
Haters best attempts to
run from Love, Cupid will not be defeated and the
Love Hater is gonna
find out tonight! The catalyst character of the
Birthday Woman45 is
introduced in Spread and can thus be seen as the
object of the Love
Haters love interest upon his being struck by
Cupids bullet of love. This
is the first woman character heard on the album46;
her actual voice is only
briefly heard, not being prominently presented until
the next track,
Where Are My Panties, but her presence is
established in this song in
relation to the Love Hater.

Spread is dominated by an atypical snare-drum
loop of off-beat
sixteenth notes and an organ ostinato, which
constitute an eight-bar
rhythmic and harmonic pattern that repeats
throughout the entire song.
The common time, 2-bar pattern is defined by an
abundance of snare hits
that create noticeable variations in the accent of the
beat between the first
and second measure. In the first measure, the snare
drum accents beat
two, whereas, in the second measure, the snare
drum accents the upbeat of
beat one, creating a continual feeling of rhythmic
deviation. The entire
two-bar pattern repeats consistently throughout the
song, with frequent
tacet breaks and is transcribed below:
45 The woman introduced in this song will be
referenced in this paper as the Birthday Woman,
since the listener learns in the next track that the
song Spread takes place on the eve of her
birthday.
46 In God, God is presented as woman, albeit an
unvoiced and omnipotent woman.
42
The song is in simple verse-chorus form, as defined
by the rhythmic
repetitiveness and harmonic continuity. New
melodic and instrumental

material is the primary separation between the verse
and the chorus (and
instrumental verse). Andr helps to define these
sections by using
distinctive vocal choices in each: the chorus is
marked by Andrs use of an
airy falsetto melody; the verse is marked by Andrs
use of a nasal,
electronically-affected voice with delay; and the
rapped verse is marked by
a straight forward, spoken rap. These melodic
elements and vocal choices
create a clear simple verse-chorus formal structure
that can be outlined in
the following manner:
0:00 0:13 Introduction, 8 mm. Introduction of
initial 8-bar
progression with half time feel
0:13 0:41 Chorus 1, 16 mm. Twice through 8-bar
progression,
falsetto voice, I dont want to
move
0:41 1:08 Verse 1, 16 mm. Nasal, electronically
affected rap,
II cant read minds
1:09 1:36 Rapped Verse, 16 mm. Straight
forward vocal rap I got
an eye out
1:36 2:03 Chorus 2, 16 mm. Harmony as before,
Dont want
to make you feel strange

2:03 2:30 Sound Effects
Instrumental Verse, 16 mm
Exaggerated sound effects,
embodying the lyric I cant wait
to get you home: Love Hater car
speeding, breaks squealing,
unzipping pants with Birthday
43
Woman, etc.
2:30 3:26 Chorus 3 (2x), 32 mm. 1st x: as first
chorus, with
virtuoso piano arpeggiations; 2nd
x: as second chorus, tacet organ
ostinato
3:26 3:51 Ending, 14 mm. Fade out with
scratching and
Birthday Womans ahhs
The organ progression is an eight-bar harmonic
pattern continually
repeating, in the fashion of an ostinato, and is first
established in the
introduction. The mezzo-piano, elongated notes,
and stepwise changes in
the organ, plus the addition of a rubato saxophone
arpeggiating a
chromatic melodic riff over the second half of the
ostinato gives the
listener the impression that this song will have a
soft, slow, jazzy groove.
This idea is negated by an accented fortissimo chord
from the brass on the

downbeat of the opening chorus and then an
immediate explosion of
sixteenth notes from the electronic snare drum. This
dramatic change from
the slow introduction to the up-tempo chorus is
reinforced in the very first
lyrics, I dont want to move too fast, but cant
resist, as Andr directly
mirrors the lyrics with the musical action.
The eight-bar harmonic pattern incorporates modal
mixture and
chromatic chord motion, based in the key of B flat
major,47 although it
47 This song is approximately a quarter-tone off
from B-flat and from the twelve-tone equal
temperament relative to the standard pitch of 440
Hertz. This pitch variation is most likely due to
tempo
adjustment after the initial recording. However,
considering the title and objective of the main
character, for
the woman to spread for him, it is interesting to
note this conspicuous variation in tuning. Insinuated
in
the meaning of the term spread is the eventual
insertion of the male organ between the spread
female, and
while it may seem unlikely that Andr would have
purposefully created such a subtle reference as
inserting

the tuning of the song between the standard pitches,
it seems even less likely that this tuning discrepancy
44
employs non-diatonic harmony by the third bar. The
first bar begins with
the diatonic mediant triad, then moves to the
supertonic in the second bar,
incorporates modal mixture with the major triad on
the mediant in the
third bar, and the major subdominant in the fourth
bar. These chords are
common within the major key, and if one considers
the mediant in the first
bar as a substitute for the tonic, it becomes a
modified ascending chord
progression. Thus, after the steps leading up to the
subdominant chord in
the fourth bar, the listener might expect to hear a
functional dominant
chord creating a cadence back to the tonic; the
progression moves to a
secondary dominant, the major supertonic seventh
chord (V/V, C7),
setting up even greater expectations for the
tonicization of the dominant.
The altered supertonic chord is prominently heard
here, as the listener has
just heard the minor supertonic three bars before,
however, the music is
still using functional diatonic motion. But in the
sixth bar, instead of the

expected dominant seventh chord, Andr uses
descending chromatic
motion and moves to the flatted supertonic, C-flat
major seventh chord,
and then again uses descending chromatic motion to
resolve to the tonic in
the seventh bar. Out of the context of the harmonic
progression, this chord
could be analyzed as a Neapolitan chord, however,
it does not function as
a traditional Neapolitan in this case, but rather is a
tritone substitution,
taking the place of the dominant with the same
tritone leading straight to
the tonic in the next bar. The overall progression is
displayed below:
would go unnoticed during the recording process,
during which such careful attention is paid to
precise
tuning.
45
This use of chromatic harmony in Spread creates
exciting tension
through each phrase. The use of this harmonic
device can be seen as the
musical embodiment of the sexual tension between
the two characters.
Based on the lyrics, the scenario in this song is a
male character singing to
a female, who he has only recently met, with whom
he hopes to have sex,

established as the Love Hater sings to the Birthday
Woman, I dont want
to move to fast, but cant resist your sexy ass
Dont want to come on too
strong, but Ill play in you all day long; he
explicitly hopes that she will
spread for him. This sense of the sexual tension
and excitement between
two possible partners can be heard in the choice of
chromatic harmony.
This sexual tension is also accentuated by the
melody in the chorus.
The melody ascends stepwise towards the held
climax note, the supertonic
46
(C), which occurs on the same beat as the title lyric
of the song, Spread.
It is held over the entire bar and descends to the
dominant note from the
supertonic, outlining the secondary dominant chord,
before resolving to
the tonic. This melodic phrase stands out from the
short rhythms of the
earlier melody, creating a distinct rhythmic melodic
climax here. The first
two melodic phrases leading up to the highest note
are syncopated with
dotted eighth notes; the notes in the third phrase
occur on each beat,
building up to the resolution of the tonic on the held
line of Spread in

the fourth phrase, as shown in the diagram below.
This repetitive building of tension preceding the
tonic can be seen as
the musical embodiment of the entire songs
objective, as sung by the Love
Hater: I cant wait to get you home.
The chorus is stylistically distinguished by Andrs
use of an airy
falsetto voice, the addition of accented staccato
horns playing on the
47
downbeat of the first three measures, and
prominently featured
synthesized bass arpeggiations. The lyrics used with
this falsetto voice
convey the idea that a man is speaking directly to a
woman character,
whose actual voice is confirmed later in the song.
The Love Hater
specifically addresses the Birthday Woman, as the
music in the chorus
portrays this sexually-charged encounter, eventually
causing the
characters to rush home to have sex.
This specific situation is overtly displayed in the
Sound Effect
Instrumental Verse of the song, where the listener
hears the two characters
speeding off in a car from their current location to
the mans house, where

they quickly run inside, throw down their keys,
unzip their pants, and
immediately begin to have sex. Their rush home to
have sex is playfully
conveyed through exaggerated sound effects
including the gears of a car
shifting as it speeds off with the tires squealing; the
sexual act is even
comically hinted at with exaggerated sound effects
of oohs and ahhs.
Once the sex begins, the musical accompaniment
can be heard as an
embodiment of the playful enjoyment of the sexual
act, as the piano solo
traverses the length of the keyboard during the final
chorus, explicitly
intimating the lovers traversing the length of each
others bodies.
Before the Sound Effect Instrumental Verse, the
first and second
verses set up the point of view of Cupid and of the
Love Hater. The first
verse is marked by the use of a nasal, electronically
affected voice with
delay. Andr uses his voice in a distinctly different
tone, rhythm, and
register, along with only the drum and organ
ostinato as accompaniment,
to create a conspicuous aural difference from the
chorus when the verse

begins. Cupids presence in the Love Haters life is
foretold in the
previous song, Happy Valentines Day, when
Cupid, says Well, keep on
48
running, playercause you gonna find out tonight.
Here in the first
verse, based on the electronically affected voice and
the romantic lyrics,
Andr is evoking the point of view of the character
of Cupid. The singer of
the first verse seemingly addresses both the man
and the woman
characters that are presented in the choruses. The
electronically affected
voice of Cupid, initially speaks to the man saying,
I think she said that
she wants to pouryourself all over me. I could be
wrong, but Cupids
dont lie. At this point the woman responds to
Cupid, making it seem as
though Cupid was speaking through the male
character. Cupid replies to
her directly, saying The way you stare, yeah Im
there.
These pronoun changes do not create one concrete
point of view,
though it is clear that Cupid is the character
speaking. Andr creates a
clear story line without explicitly giving each lyric
definitive meaning.

Andr comfortably uses ambiguous poetic license
within a song that still
has specific meaning. Much like John Lennons
recommendation to Paul
McCartney that keeping unclear lyrics, like the
motion you need is on
your shoulder in Hey Jude, would not remove
the meaning behind the
overall song,48 Spread is a good example of
Andrs ability to strongly
convey a specific situation within a song through
the musical choices, thus
having free reign to include certain unspecific
lyrics.
The character voice becomes obvious during the
rapped, second
verse, when the straight forward rap can be
interpreted from the point of
view of the Love Hater preceding his injection of
love by Cupid. The lyrics
during the Rapped Verse are those of someone more
obsessed with sex
than love, saying Im too young to be settlin
down, quick to change my
49
mind tomorrow, so for now can borrow your timid
torso, more so than
your soul. This use of Cupid in one verse and then
the Love Hater in the

next is also mirrored in Happy Valentines Day
when Cupids sings the
A and B sections and is then followed by the Love
Hater in the rapped
verse.
After the previously discussed demonstrative Sound
Effect
Instrumental Verse, Spread ends with Andr
singing the words, the
morning after in the background, making clear that
this story is
continuing on and the listener is about to hear what
happens the morning
after the late-night events of Spread.
Where Are My Panties
Where Are My Panties is a full dialogue scene,
one of four
sketches on the iTunes release of The Love
Below. This scene comments
on the songs surrounding it, and helps to connect
the songs, sometimes
through a specific narrative story line and
sometimes through related
thematic commentary. Like his use of music to paint
a clear mental picture
of a scene and of specific characters, Andr does the
same with dialogue.
Using dialogue to create short sketches is familiar to
Outkast fans
from previous albums, most notably in Stankonia,
which included five

"Interludes" that are specifically titled as such. The
interludes in Stankonia
are not directly related to the connected songs, but,
like the sketches on the
second half of The Love Below, they are tangential,
mostly comical,
commentary having to do with the topics of the
songs they are positioned
by. For instance, on Stankonia, the song Ill Call
Before I Come,
50
deceptively about pleasuring your sexual partner
and announcing your
oncoming orgasm, is preceded by a sketch, entitled
Kim and Cookie
(Interlude), with a woman relating the story of her
previous nights
sexual encounter, in which her male partner was
incapable of bringing her
any sexual pleasure so she comically recounts
stealing his
everythingIm talking about walletcredit
cardsmoney. And you
know what, I was gonna hit him up for his goddam
pistol, but I didnt
know how many motherfucking bodies he had on
that motherfucker!49
Another example from Stankonia, the song, We
Luv Deez Hoez, blatant
in its mock appreciation of the finer aspects of
certain women, from the

weaves, to the fake eyes, to the fake nails, down to
the toes: Ha-ha-ha-ha,
we love these hoez!50 This song is preceded by a
sketch, entitled Good
Hair (Interlude), about a woman trying to pass off
her weave as her
authentic Spanish hair. Each of the seven interludes
on Stankonia is
accompanied by satirical music, often parodying a
style close to the subject
being discussed, and the sketches on The Love
Below function in a similar
manner.
In "Where Are My Panties, Andr has removed all
musical
accompaniment and allows the sketch to stand on its
own. The only
additions are the sound effects of chirping birds and
affected voices.
However, Andr has added a previously unused
effect in Outkast
sketches, by showing the characters thoughts
through inner monologue,
in the fashion of a soliloquy.
The sketch starts in silence, with Andrs voice
explaining the
situation in a classic narrators tone, conveying the
set-up and the implied
49 Outkast, Kim and Cookie (Interlude),
Stankonia.
50 Outkast, We Luv Deez Hoez, Stankonia.

51
title of the piece, the morning after. Then, the
sound of birds chirping is
heard, and the first character voice is heard
whispering: Where-Where are
my-Where are-Where are my panties? Oh my god,
where are my
panties?! We learn that the Birthday Woman is still
in bed with The Love
Hater and not wanting to cause a commotion
looking for her panties, so
the frantic nature behind her calm demeanor is
established by this
skipping, fluctuating announcement of her search.
The scene is given
balance and aural bookends with the use of this
skipping technique at the
very end of the Love Haters soliloquy, revealing to
the listener his
concealed excitement in wondering, What if shes
the-What if she-What if
shes- What if shes the one?
We learn that this is interior monologue through
Andrs clever
concealment of the storys exposition. Andr reveals
the details of the
situation, beyond those already established by the
previous song and the
implied title the morning after, through the
characters revelations as

they speak: He reveals that the two characters have
had sex on their first
night by using the sound of a roosters crow before
the scene, and he
reveals that both characters feel mutually justified
in their promiscuous
actions with her admission of: He gonna think Im
a hoe!...Fuck that; I
liked it. I was drunk and it was my birthday,
anyway. And he similarly
admits that, (giving it up on the first night) just let
me know that she
know what she want out of life. The expository
dialogue and aural clues
demonstrate Andrs ability to establish a clear
mental picture of a scene
for the listener, without the use of pictures or set
pieces, that is equally as
descriptive as the musical characterizations he
creates throughout the
album.
52
A less explicit moment in the scene occurs when the
listener hears
the phrase Ice Cold being yelled in the
background of the scene, as the
Love Hater is trying to convince himself not to fall
for her. This moment
can be interpreted as the Love Haters conscience
and old habits screaming

at him to remain with his old, uncaring, ice-cold
ways. Ice Cold is one of
Andr 3000s nicknames and he references it again
in Hey Ya!,
establishing it as a hyperbole of the personality of
the Love Hater:
someone who acts cooler than cool becomes ice
cold. In Where Are My
Panties, the Love Hater makes an attempt to break
out of those habits, as
the listener hears his conscience drawing him back
in. This lack of mental
resolution within the Love Hater is further explored
in the next song,
Prototype.
Prototype
This song continues the story of the Love Hater, and
can be heard as
the final part of the narrative that connects the first
eight songs. At this
point in the album, the Love Hater hopes for the
possibility of completing
his search for love with the Birthday Woman.
However, he feels a
contradiction between his hope of finding
resolution, and the opposite
possibility, a lack of resolution in love, which he
has previously
experienced and suspects could happen again.
The main focus of the song is, both thematically and
harmonically,

the possibility of resolve versus a lack of definitive
resolution. This theme
is succinctly expressed in the first lyrics, I hope
that youre the one. If not,
you are the prototype. Andr also expresses this
theme through the
53
music, primarily through a lack of resolution in the
melody and through
the use of modal mixture.
The songs tonal center is A, however, it does not
function
diatonically in either A major or A minor, but rather
straddles the two
using modal mixture. The harmony repeats a fourmeasure, four-chord
progression, starting with a major seventh chord
rooted on the
subdominant, then a major seventh chord rooted on
the tonic, leading the
listener to perceive the song in A major. However,
Andr then employs
modal mixture, using the parallel minor in the third
and fourth measures,
using the same chord roots, but changing the
tonality by chromatically
lowering the mediant, submediant, and subtonic to
create minor seventh
chords on the subdominant and tonic. The
progression is shown below:

This progression repeats throughout the song. The
song is in simple
verse-chorus form, alternating eight-measure verses
and choruses, as
shown in the diagram below.
0:01 0:25 Introduction Electric Guitar melody
0:25 0:49 Verse, 8mm I hope that youre the
one
0:50 1:15 Chorus, 8mm Bass enters
I think Im in love, again.
1:16 1:40 Verse, 8mm Today must be my lucky
day
1:41 2:05 Chorus, 8mm
54
2:06 2:31 Verse 3, 8mm If we happen to part
2:32 2:56 Chorus, 8mm
2:57 3:22 Matinee Dialogue Verse, 8mm Sound
effect film
Andaction!
3:22 5:26 Coda Adlib Choruses, 48mm Fadeout
The melody in Prototype also employs modal
mixture, using both
the natural and flatted mediant, as well as both the
leading tone and the
subtonic to embody the uncertainty in the lyrics.
The Love Hater
continually attempts to resolve the melody to the
tonic, but never resolves
fully, instead ending phrases on the dominant and
the leading tone. The

listener can interpret this as the Love Haters
uncertainty as to whether or
not the woman he describes, the Birthday Woman,
is the one, or only the
prototype.
The first measure employs a descending scalar
melody in A major,
over the subdominant major seventh chord,
beginning on the tonic and
ending on the supertonic. Putting the first two
measures in the major
mode supports the Love Haters hope that [shes]
the one. The listener
would not usually expect the first phrase of a song
to resolve
harmonically, the progression changes to the major
seventh tonic chord by
the second measure, using plagal ornamentation to
quickly reach the tonic
in the accompaniment. This is paired, however, with
the descending
melody only reaching the supertonic, thus musically
embodying the Love
Haters immediate attempt to find resolution in the
story. However, he
has not yet found resolution, as the melody has not
resolved and the
harmony is colored with the addition of the leading
tone.
Then, in the third measure, moving from the major
to the minor,

Andr employs modal mixture to change the mood
and show the Love
55
Haters uncertainty, returning to the subdominant
chord, but using the
parallel minor. The melody also creates the largest
change in the song,
making an ascending leap from the tonic to the
dominant, E natural. This
combination of changing from major to minor mode
and the large leap in
melody following a predominantly scalar line
creates an unexpected
moment that musically emphasizes the Love Haters
sudden uncertainty,
qualifying his previous hopes by wondering, If
not? This lyric, if not,
occurs on the strong downbeat and echoes over two
more beats, conveying
a strong sense of the Love Haters doubt, and
leaving the listener waiting
to find out what his response will be, as shown
below:
Once again, the Love Haters answer attempts to
resolve his
uncertainty, by reinforcing himself with positive
thought, saying if
not?...You are the prototype, and then proceeding
forward in the song
with optimistic visions of what their life could be
together. But like the

second measure, the fourth measure does not have a
perfectly authentic
resolution, leaving the tonic chord with an added
minor seventh and the
melody on the dominant. This pattern, as shown
above, repeats
throughout the song, and this unresolved major to
minor construction
56
continually reinforces the Love Haters hopes for,
and lack of, resolution in
love.
In the chorus, Andr further musically embodies the
lyrics with the
unexpected melodic twist on the word, again. The
singer begins the
chorus melody by outlining the minor tonic chord,
stating that I think Im
in love, holding the dominant note for three and a
half beats, on the word
love, over the subdominant chord. The
subdominant harmony
supporting the dominant note in the melody sets up
a possible plagal
cadence; however, instead of this phrase resolving
to the tonic, the melody
moves to the supertonic and the singer finishes his
sentence with the word
again, musically and lyrically implying that this
near resolution has
happened before and may happen again.

The use of modal mixture also embodies the
singers dreams to do
something out of the ordinary with his lover, such
as the audible, soundeffect
enhanced trip to the matine movie in the Matine
Dialogue Verse.
This spoken section over the verse is very similar to
the previous two
songs, and the previous four tracks, in featuring
dialogue to tell a story.
The exact situation in this dialogue is less clear than
the previous tracks
and it uncertain whether the singer imagines
viewing a film with the
Birthday Woman, if he shoots a film with her in it,
if he actually attends a
matinee film with her, or some combination.
Regardless of the exact
scenario, the use of dialogue and sound effects
continues to play a
prominent part in the first half of this album, with
Andr using the sound
of a rolling film projector here, as well as the
directors call for action!
The listener also hears the sound of the Birthday
Womans voice only
through dialogue, which constitutes the third track
in a row where a
womans voice has been featured with dialogue, but
without singing.
57

There is not a featured womans solo until the
sixteenth track of the album,
during Draculas Wedding.
The texture of this song is different than most songs
on the album;
the primary instrument is a rhythm guitar
strumming through the
majority of the song. An electric guitar is the lone
accompanying
instrument during the introduction of the song and
the first verse when
the lead vocal enters. At the beginning of the first
chorus, a prominent
bass line begins, which is featured through the rest
of the song, along with
a synthesized bass drum and snare drum. The bass
drum gives the feeling
of a slap bass, employing a sound fluctuation on
each beat of the song,
helping to create a distinct, slow groove.
The song ends with an elongated repetition of the
chorus, where
Andr ad-libs over the previously recorded material,
as we hear him say to
the sound engineer, Are we recording our ad-libs?
Well, were we
recording just then? Let me hear thatfirst one.
Background singing has
then been added, echoing Andrs ad-libs. These adlibs give the listener

insight into a part of the recording process for the
album, showing Andr
creating intriguing musical and lyrical material
through ad-lib, and then
developing it for the final product.
This song can be interpreted as concluding the
specific narrative of
the Love Hater through the first eight songs. It is the
final moment in a
timeline that stretches over the span of just one day,
from the evening
when the Love Hater speaks to God, to the
morning after intercourse
when the Love Hater dreams of the Birthday
Woman being the one.
And while the next song, She Lives in My Lap,
does not appear to fit
within this twenty-four hour timeline, if one
considers a leap forward in
time, it too can be seen as the final piece of the
Love Haters narrative.
58
And while a narrative for one specific character is
no longer present from
this point forward in the album, Andr does
unceasingly continue with the
themes of love, sex, and relationships, and
musically embodies these
themes throughout the rest of the songs on The
Love Below.
She Lives In My Lap

She Lives In My Lap uses a direct quote from the
song Pistolgrip
Pump, by Volume 10.51 In Pistolgrip Pump, the
narrator of that song
keeps a Pistolgrip Pump on my lap at all times. In
She Lives In My
Lap, Andr uses that idea as a metaphor for a man
that keeps his love in
his lap, in the same fashion as a pistolgrip pump
shotgun. The She in
this song is merely an object, like a pistolgrip pump
shotgun, that he can
use at any time. He always keeps it close at his side,
but it never becomes
anything more to him than an object. Andr
musically embodies this by
creating a feeling of uncertainty through his choice
of unstable harmony
and conflicting instrumentation.
The basis for the song is a four-bar harmonic phrase
that repeats
throughout the song. This phrase begins simply in
the introduction, with a
single, slow melodic line played on what sounds
like a Rhodes piano. This
melody is in E natural minor, ringing on the
diatonic dominant,
submediant, and subtonic notes, and is accompanied
by a sound effect that
sounds like the blowing wind, along with a series of
very fast, scalar runs

in E minor that sound like the motion of underwater
air bubbles. These
51 Volume 10, Hip Hopera, RCA, 07863 66276-2,
1994.
59
dark instrumental elements create a sense of
loneliness; however, these
elements are suddenly countered by the distant
sound of a womans
intense laughter. This womans warm laughter
brings to mind a playful
state of ecstasy. These two distinct atmospheres
immediately establish a
discordant feeling of uncertainty in the song.
There is a silent moment in the music, before a
dramatic crescendo
into a new instrumental obbligato, made by using
the pitch wheel on a
synthesizer to create a portamento effect; this effect
is repeatedly achieved
by an ascending slide into each of the intended
notes. Although it sounds
similar to the slow introductory melody, which
continues to play, this
obbligato is faster, with frequent sixteenth note
changes instead of whole
note changes; the sliding effect creates a whining
tone instead of the clear
ringing tone of the introductory melody and the
group of notes is the same

with the added subdominant, A natural, beneath the
dominant. However,
this whining, fast-moving melody sounds
conflicting to the warm laughter
and blustery accompaniment of the introduction.
This conflict of sound is further supported in the
bass, as the bass
melody is constructed differently than the rest of the
song. The E natural
minor melody in the introduction leaves the listener
expecting to hear the
tonic, E, in the root upon the bass entrance;
however, the bass enters on the
raised submediant, C#. This is audibly not diatonic,
nor is this note a
common embellishment to the tonic chord, as it
creates a tritone with the
third of the chord, the mediant. An initial analysis of
a raised submediant
in a minor scale may lead one to believe that the
bass line will ascend to
the raised subtonic, D# (the leading tone), utilizing
the melodic minor;
however, in the next measure the bass does ascend,
but only chromatically
to the subtonic note, D natural. It is not until the
next measure when the
60
bass finally moves to the dominant note that the
progression sounds like it

will finally resolve to a root position tonic chord.
But, as stated earlier, the
progression repeats, creating the sound of a
deceptive cadence by moving
the bass up a whole step, back to the raised
submediant.
One could initially analyze this four part
progression as a
continually repeating deceptive cadence, giving a
perpetual lack of
resolution to provide the principal feeling of
instability in the song. The
harmony strongly suggests E minor, with tonicdominant motion
embellished by the bass C#, however, upon closer
analysis of the bass line
with the new obbligato, introductory instrumental
phrase, and later
harmony, one can see that this song is never truly
established in E minor;
in fact, the repetition of the C#, D, and B in the bass
gives a strong sense of
B minor. E minor and B minor are closely related
keys, only one sharp
removed from each other, and although the melody
in the chorus helps to
make the song feel primarily in E, neither E minor
nor B minor is fully
established; moreover, the use of these nearly
unified key centers, barely

off from one another, is the most appropriate choice
to embody the
uncertainty of the male character and the close
conflict between both the
characters in this song.
The diagram below provides an example of the
tonal conflict present
between the instrumental introduction and the
primary obbligato, shown
in the appropriate, diatonic key signature above the
bass line:
61
The theme of uncertainty in this song is further
displayed in the
lyrics and supported by the instrumentation. The
conflict of the closely
related key centers is most prominently supported in
the conflicting
statements of the main character to She: Dont
leave, dont stayMake
me wonder where you are, then forget you...Were
oh-so close, but yet so
far. In the chorus, the two characters are clearly
established as engaged to
be married, with the male character saying that
She is forever, my
fiance. Andrs negative opinion is made clear
with the main character
admitting that hell get the courage one day.
The woman laughing in the introduction of the song
is the She

that the male narrator, played by Andr, refers to
throughout the song.
She is played by Rosario Dawson; 52 this woman
speaks throughout the
song, hoping to help the main character feel
comfortable with love and to
reinforce the stability in their relationship, pleading
with him, Baby, why
are you acting like this?...I care about you. Baby, I
love you. The
concerned, soothing tone of her spoken lines are
contrasted by Andrs
52 Rosario Dawson is primarily a theatre and film
actress, see: <http://rosario-dawson.net/>.
62
aggressively sung melody, highlighting their failure
to establish a
connected relationship and to emphasize the
instability of the main
character in the song.
The instrumental uncertainty is seen is the excess of
choices,
noticeably more than other songs on the album,
which are added and
removed throughout the song. Andr uses at least
ten different
instrumental timbres throughout to further the
indecisive texture of the
song. The funky rhythmic bass line and driving beat
push the entire song

forward at the same time as the legato introductory
accompaniment
underscores various parts of the song. Andr uses
double tracked lead
vocals in the verse, using one lead vocal to conflict
with the other, which is
significantly behind.
In the choruses, two different electric guitar lines
are put in
opposition, with one panned to the far left and the
other panned to the far
right. The sliding, shifting sound of the obbligato is
in conflict with the
clear, ringing tone of the organ that accompanies
Rosario Dawsons
spoken dialogue. Previously mentioned is the warm
laughter of the girl
character that gives the impression of playful
surrender, which is also in
conflict with the wail of a muted trumpet,
introduced only at the end of
the song, which gives the impression of desperation.
These last two
conflicts can be seen as a specific embodiment of
the male narrator versus
the She in this song, with the instability of the
narrator imbued in the
sliding obbligato and the wailing trumpet, in
opposition to the boldness of
the She imbued in the clear organ and the warm
laughter.

Throughout the song, the use of an unresolved
harmonic conflict,
along with an excess of conflicting instrumentation,
helps to support the
lyrical conflict established between the two main
obbligato, and gives a
63
feeling of uncertainty. The trumpet squeals over the
held vocals at the end
of the song to push the sense of uncertainty through
the silence between
tracks into the deceptively reassuring, next song,
Hey Ya!
Hey Ya!
Hey Ya! is seemingly a simple song, memorable
and catchy
enough to receive multiple awards and perform well
throughout pop
charts, winning a Grammy Award for Best
Urban/Alternative
Performance of 2003, 53 and staying at the number
one position for nine
weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.54
However, although the
song is very accessible to a mass audience, it has
musical intricacies that
mirror the intricacies in the lyrics, which are easily
missed (Andr says
before the second chorus, yall dont wanna hear
me, you just wanna

dance) without a closer examination of the subtly
distinct musical
choices.
Andr begins this song with simple diatonic
harmony in G major, IIVV. However, then Andr not only avoids the
expected cadence to tonic,
but uses modal mixture to create the non-diatonic
triad of E major, a VI
chord with a raised third. This makes E major sound
like the key center
and complicates the tonality or modality of the
song, before returning
53 For Grammy results, see: The Recording
Academy,
ners/Results.aspx>.
54 Hey Ya! was knocked out of the number one
spot on the Billboard Hot 100 by another Outkast
single from the Speakerboxxx disc, The Way You
Move. See: Todd Martens, Outkast Ousts Itself
From No.
1, Billboard Online (February 2004)
<http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_dis
play.jsp?vnu_content_id=2084763>.
64
again to the initially perceived tonic to begin the
pattern again. This
progression creates an uncertain musical mode for
the song, as two

possible tonal centers may be perceived, creating
two different modal
possibilities, as shown below.
The first possibility in G major can be heard
initially in the
previously mentioned I-IV-V progression in the first
four measures of the
harmonic pattern. However, when hearing the
progression in G major the
final chord is heard as using modal mixture, raising
the tonic to create an E
major chord rooted on the submediant. In the fourth
measure, the D major
chord may sound like a dominant chord, preparing
for return to the tonic
in G; however, upon hearing the E major chord in
the next two measures,
the D major chord may sound like the a diatonic
subtonic major chord
within E mixolydian. When hearing the progression
in E mixoydian, the
opening G and C major chords are altered, but the
subtonic D major chord
creates an accepted mixolydian cadence into E. The
lack of a definitive
tonal center or mode within this deceptively simple
pop song can be
interpreted as a musical example of Andrs lyrical
declaration that you
think youve got it, but got it just dont get it til
theres nothing at all.

The indefinite harmonic pattern is repeated in
simple verse-chorus
form, with a breakdown before the final chorus, and
is shown below:
65
The unique harmonic choices in this song are
complimented by the
distinctive metrical pattern. Andr creates an
irregular meter from the very
beginning of the song with his eccentric count off,
One, Two, Three,
Uhh!, establishing the song in 4/4 time, however,
the count off actually
begins on the second beat, thus putting the
perceived fourth beat in the
count off, Uhh, on the downbeat of the first
measure, making his initial
count off incorrect and metrically confusing. The
first three bars of the sixbar
repeating progression are in common time, with the
bass rhythm
accenting the downbeat and the fourth beat.
However, the fourth bar is
then changed to a bar of two, accenting both
downbeats, before returning
to the 4/4 time rhythmic pattern in the fourth
measure.
The changes in harmony are also irregular. The G
major triad is
only present for one measure of 4/4, then C major
for two bars of 4/4, D

major for only one bar of the shortened 2/4
measure, and then E major for
two bars of 4/4 before returning to the beginning of
the pattern. The
pattern and count off are shown below:
0:00 0:01 Count off, 1m. 1, 2, 3, unh!
0:01 0:34 Verse, 24mm My baby dont mess
around
0:34 1:07 Chorus, 24mm Hey Ya!
1:07 1:40 Verse 2, 24mm You think you got
it
1:41 2:14 Chorus, 24mm Dont want to meet
your daddy.
2:14 2:47 Verse 3, 24mm Alright now, fellas!
2:47 3:20 Break Down, 24mm Shake itshake
it like a Polaroid
picture!
3:20 3:54 Chorus, 24mm Fade out last twelve
bars
66
The simple melody of the chorus mimics the
metered changes in the
harmony, and it repeats throughout each chorus. The
words, Hey Ya!,
are the only words used in the two, three-bar
phrases. The melody repeats
four times during each chorus and is the simplest
melodic chorus of the
entire album, with only embellished stepwise
movement, all within the
interval of a third.

While the chord progression and melody in the
chorus stay the same
throughout the song, the melody varies between in
each verse. The sixnote
range, stepwise movement, quarter-note heavy
rhythm, and accented
downbeats in the long melodic phrases (sung in one
breath) during the
first verse are abandoned in the second verse in
favor of staccato eighthnote
rhythms at the beginning of each phrase. Both the
first and second
verse similarly conclude the last two measures of
each phrase with a
legato, dotted whole note on the mediant,
embellished during the second
verse with accented leaps of a third. The melody in
the third verse is
completely different than the first two, with the
third verse actually
abandoning sung pitch, instead using spoken word
to specifically address
the audience and invite them to join in the song.
The varied melodies of
verse one and two are shown below:
67
Lyrically, this song is much more ambiguous than
the previous
songs on the album. It is the first song on the album
that does not take an

explicit point of view from a single character,
multiple characters, or
narrative; rather, it seems to be about the
complexity surrounding modern
relationships in general. The chorus is most
perplexing from a lyrical
point of view, with only the unspecific lyrics, Hey
Ya! to inform the
listener. The patter-like lyrics of the first two verses,
though difficult to
follow, help to clarify the narrators opinion.
The one similarity in the lyrics heard throughout the
verse is the
frequent use of the conjunction but, highlighting
the narrators thoughts
about the conflicting nature of relationships
between lovers. The first verse
begins with the narrator singing that his lover is
loyal to him, My baby
dont mess around because she loves me so and this
I know for sure. This
68
is immediately contrasted with the possibility of her
secretly wanting to
cheat on him, as he wonders But does she really
wanna but cant stand to
see me walk out the door? In the second verse, the
narrator discusses the
frequently opposing feelings that one may have
when being in love, again

using but to highlight the contrast, You think
youve got it, but got it
just dont get it til theres nothing at all. We get
together, but separates
always better when theres feelings involved.
Love, and the relationships between lovers, may be
perceived as
natural and seem an essential part of humanity, but
are actually filled with
intricacies and complications.55 The musical
aspects of Hey Ya! subtly
embody this through the use of an unclear harmonic
mode, the changes in
meter, and the melodic variations within the three
different verses, which
each contribute to the music mirroring the narrators
thoughts.
In the chorus, the narrator seems to acknowledge
the lack of
resolution in relationships with his unspecific
declaration of Hey Ya!,
sung over the unresolved tonal center and mode.
The narrator references
himself (Andr 3000) and recalls earlier characters
in the album, taking a
practical point of view toward the feelings that the
Love Hater embodied,
saying If what they say is Nothing is forever, then
what makes love the
exception?, while contrastingly mocking the
seemingly cool attitude that

the Love Hater would take towards relationships, by
asking the men,
Whats cooler than being cool? and responding by
saying Ice Cold!
During this call and response between Andr and
the audience,
which makes up the entire third verse, there are
further complications
subtly altering the simple expectations from this
song. The exchange
55 George Nelson, Hip Hop America, p. 22. Nelson
explores the relationship between lovers and hip
hop in his chapter entitled Hip Hop Wasnt Just
Another Date, as well as throughout his book.
69
begins with the narrators precise rhythmic call,
Alright now, fellas, and
the fellas scatteredly answer, Yeah? on the upbeat
of beat three. Next,
however, the ladies answer his precise rhythmic
call, also scatteredly, on
the downbeat of beat four. This is a seemingly
strange rhythmic deviation
to choose, especially considering that it would be in
Andrs best interest
for the mass listening audience to be able to easily
answer with the prerecorded
responses. However, Andr continues to musically
embody the
intricate nature of love and the often contradictory
feelings in relationships

by putting the fellas and ladies responses on
different beats, before going
into the breakdown section.
The breakdown of Hey Ya! is possibly the most
recognizable part of
the song. Its repeating rhythm and memorable catch
phrase, Shake
itShake it like a Polaroid picture seem to ignore
the conflicting elements
of love and relationships, and simply encourages
everyone to get on the
floor and break this thing down. The single bar
of 2/4 is especially
noticeable in this breakdown, as the spoken shake
it, shake, shake it
mantra of staccato eighth-notes is distinctly altered
with the full quarter
rest on the second beat of the 2/4 measure, creating
another slight
complication within an otherwise repetitive and
seemingly simple phrase,
further establishing Hey Ya! as a song that is very
accessible to a mass
audience, while having musical intricacies that
mirror the complicated
nature of love as discussed in the lyrics.
70
Roses
Roses begins much in the same way as Spread,
with a solo

keyboard introducing an eight-bar harmonic
progression that establishes
the bass ostinato, which is used throughout the
song. This stepwise,
descending harmony, in E minor, descends through
the diatonic triads of
each scale degree on the E natural minor scale,
varying only slightly by
lowering the supertonic a half-step (F-sharp to Fnatural), creating a major
triad on the lowered supertonic. This may lead the
listener to expect a
move to the dominant, as the major triad on the
flatted supertonic could
function as a Neapolitan chord; however, rather
than move directly to the
dominant, the harmony continues to descend with
stepwise motion,
moving through the tonic and the subtonic, before
using the leading tone
to create a dominant seventh chord, creating a final
cadence back to the
beginning of the phrase, as shown below:
This descending pattern immediately establishes a
musical
representation of the narrators views about the
main character of
71
Caroline. The narrator feels that Caroline is the
reason for the word

bitchand uses a repeating harmonic phrase, based
on the introductory
descending pattern, to embody Carolines cyclical
negative habits. The
bass line in each verse and chorus continues to
descending through the
altered E minor scale, as in the introduction, while
the organ moves
between the tonic and dominant triads, until the
cadential measure, again
using the dominant seventh chord to begin the
pattern. This creates a
simple verse-chorus form; however, as was the case
with Spread, Andr
creates a slightly varied formal structure through the
use of diverse
melodic choices. While in Spread the sectional
variations were primarily
heard in the changing register of Andrs voice in
each, here the sections
are varied by a guest appearance, an extended coda
with new melodic
material, and can be formally analyzed as the
following:
0:00 0:17 Introduction, 8 mm.
0:17 0:52 Verse 1, 16 mm.
0:52 1:27
A section
Chorus, 16 mm. 2xs through 8bar chorus
1:28 2:03 Verse 2, 16 mm.

2:03 2:
A
Chorus, 16 mm.
2:38 3:13 Guest Verse, 16 mm
3:13 4:23
A
Chorus (4x), 32 mm.
4:24 4:59 Mars Verse, 16 mm.
4:59 5:34 Crazy Bitch Verse, 16mm
5:34 6:09
Extended Coda
Instrumental Ride-out,
16mm
Fade out
The last two beats of the introduction are
rhythmically accented to
foreshadow the supplanting of the solo piano with
the entrance of the
descending bass line, drum beat, electronic
instrumentation, and rhythmic
72
vocals to begin the verse. Although the piano gives
an accented dominant
chord on the last two beats of the preceding
measure, the listener may be
surprised by the sudden, dramatic shift in dynamics
and style, as the
music goes from a mezzo-piano, jazz groove into a
fortissimo electronic
rock groove. Beginning at this point, the bass acts
as an obbligato part,

with a slight overdrive effect helping to emphasize
the bass line. The
drums stay fairly straightforward, keeping a straight
backbeat throughout
the song. The rest of the instrumentation helps to
create a style
reminiscent of funk, with the heavy use of
synthesizer to create cosmicsounding
keyboard ornamentation, in addition to the
prominent bass,
bringing to mind the sounds of George Clinton,
Parliament, or the P-Funk
All Stars.
Andr uses a raw, howling tone for his lead vocal
that boldly
matches the forward tone quality of the bass. Using
his chest voice, he
confidently slides to notes, warps his vowels, and
chews his diphthongs to
create a highly-stylized lead vocal that matches the
energetic style of the
instrumentation. The vocal choices suggests the
style of James Brown,
including the familiar exclamatory shouts of
Yeah!, Ha-ah!, and Dig
this now! Andrs lead vocal is complimented and
contrasted with a
more supported, rounder, double-tracked backup
vocal by Killer Mike, in
unison with Andr during the choruses, while acting
in a call and response

manner during the verses. This resonating backup
vocal contrasts the raw
tone of Andrs lead vocal.
The strident vocal and bass lines create an
unsentimental musical
setting for the portrayal of the subject, Caroline, a
woman who is
possessed by the want for material wealth and
depends on her looks and
sexual prowess to survive. Caroline is described as
a woman who all the
73
guys would say shes mighty fine, but mighty
fine only got you
somewhere half the time and the other half either
got you cussed out or
comin up short.
The critical attitude towards Caroline is further
described in the
guest verse, when the listener is introduced to Big
Boi, the second half of
Outkast, for the first, and only, time on The Love
Below, as he raps in the
third verse.56 Big Boi creates a dense rhyme
scheme, in his unfavorable
depiction of Caroline, using a long series of rapid,
imperfect interior and
exterior rhymes. An example of Big Bois intricate
and lengthy imperfect
rhyme schemes is highlighted below:
Well, she got a hotties body

But her attitude is potty
When I met her at a party
She was hardly acting naughty
I said shawty, would you call me?
She said, pardon me, are you balling?
I said, Darling, you sound like a prostitute
pursing.
The explicit lyrics throughout Roses are
complemented by the
demonstrative musical portrayal, making clear the
singers disdainful
feelings toward this womans actions. During the
final repetitions of the
harmonic progression, two new melodic sections
are used over the
previously heard accompanying material to create
an extended coda. With
melodic material that is different from the
previously heard chorus, Andr
creates two new verses in these final sections
(labeled as the Mars and
56 Both members of Outkast are rather creativity
and have numerous nicknames. Big Boi is also
known as Daddy Fat Sacks, Lucious Leftfoot,
Billy Ocean, and Francis the Savannah Chitlin
Pimp.
Andr 3000 is also known as Possum Aloysius
Jenkins, New Kid Blossom Gang, the Third,
and, as seen

in the analysis of Where Are My Panties and
Hey Ya!, he is also referred to as Ice Cold. As a
team,
Outkast deservedly refers to themselves on ATLiens
as being cooler than polar bears toenails.
74
Crazy Bitch verses), however, the repeated use of
melody and lyrics that
remain constant create the sense of an extra chorus
and a separate section
of the song.
With all of these varied sections developed over the
repetitive
harmonic material, the listener gets a expansive
understanding of the
narrators disdain for the cyclical habits of Caroline.
This unflattering
perspective of Caroline is further reinforced and
juxtaposed by the
contrasting musical and lyrical portrait of, what the
narrator perceives to
be, a sophisticated lady in the next two tracks of
Good Day, Good Sir
and Behold a Lady. This specific contrast helps to
continue a throughline
from track to track and unify the second half of The
Love Below, which
is less explicitly connected than the first eight tracks
of the album, but is
still distinct in connecting songs through thematic
music and lyrics.

Good Day, Good Sir
This sketch can be seen as homage to Abbott and
Costellos famous
sketch Whos On First?57 Andr employs the
services of Fonzworth
Bentley (whom Andr addresses as Bentley
Fonzworth in the sketch), a
hip-hop artist and violin player. Emulating the
comic duo style, Bentley
plays the straight man to Andrs funny man. The
sketch is an
introduction for the ensuing song and uses formal
language to set-up the
scenario and lyrics of Behold A Lady.
57 Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Whos on
First?, Whos on First?, Stardust, RGI 1F8, 2007.
75
The sketch begins with audience applause,
emulating a radio show,
and later continues this premise by adding canned
laughter, seemingly
acknowledging the satirical nature of the sketch.
The gentlemen both use
false British accents and, following the start of the
applause, Bentley plays
the first eight measures of the first movement from
Johann Sebastian
Bachs Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor
(BWV 1043). Bentley takes
a moderately slow tempo compared to the Vivace
indication in the

score.58 The piece is played as a solo, with only the
concert violin and, in a
similar fashion as many of Andrs solo vocal lines,
is somewhat off-pitch
at certain difficult passages. Finger snaps are added
to give an eighth note
backbeat and a double-time feel to the moderate
tempo.
Andr immediately informs the listener that this is a
comedic sketch,
whereupon hearing the eighteenth-century German
Baroque violin
concerto, he ironically references a twentiethcentury American Musical
that employs Jewish folk music from the Nineteenth
Century, saying, Ah,
such sweet soundsthe fiddler on the fuckin
roof!
The overt reference to the well-known Whos on
First sketch
focuses on love instead of baseball, but uses
similarly nonsensical names,
like those in Whos On First, in order to create the
comic confusion:
Andr says that Bentley look[s] fine to which
Bentley contradicts that he
is Fantastically Well! I am certainly not Finebut
you could say Im close
to Spectacular. Thus, the confusion is wrought
based on three characters

that are addressed by the formal names of Fine,
Fantastically Well,
and Spectacular. This creates the expected
confusion as Andrs
character wonders how Bentleys name can be
Close to Spectacular
58 Johann Sebastian Bach, Concerto in D Minor for
Two Violins and String Orchestra: BWV 1043,
edition Eulenberg (London: Ernst Eulenberg, Ltd.,
1940).
76
when he just said his name was Fantastically
Well. Which one are
you? he demands. To this, Bentley explains that he
is named
Fantastically Well, he was standing close to a
character named
Spectacular, and he is meeting a character named
Fine in a minute.
The nonsense-name characters have been
diagrammed below.
Fantastically Well
(Bentley Fonzworth)
- close to Spectacular
- meeting Fine in a
minute
Fine
(A Lady)
- she is fine
- walks by at
end

Spectacular
(silent character)
- get pissed off
and leaves
Andr 3000
- Spectacular
is right in of
him
Exactly
(silent)
- briefly
mentioned
The character of Exactly is only briefly
mentioned, as having also
been pissed off at the same time when
Spectacular leaves, due to
Andrs lack of acknowledging them. Apparently,
Andr does not see
Spectacular, even though Bentley tells Andr,
Spectacular is right in
front of you. While the other characters have at
least one confusing
name, Andr is not addressed as such, and is, in
fact, not addressed by
name at all, only being welcomed as Good Sir.
At the end of the sketch, the confusion is cleared, to
a certain degree,
when the woman character of Fine walks by in
high heels. Creating the
sound of high heels across a hardwood floor is the
main use of sound

effects in this sketch; this is similar to the use of
sound effects used in the
previous skits and songs. Andr sees the woman
character walking by
and now understands, agreeing with Bentley that
she is fine! The
woman character, Fine, cordially greets the
Gentlemen as she walks
by; the gentlemen make no attempt to woo her, but
rather are silent until
she has passed.
77
This polite exchange is in line with Andr and
Bentleys attempts at
antiquity and high culture, with the put-on British
accents and Bach
musical reference. The exchange between the men
and the woman
provides the nostalgia of a time when males acted
like gentlemen and
females acted like ladies, creating an appropriate
segue into the next song,
as the gentlemen confirm that to look on the
character of Fine is to
Behold A Lady!
Behold a Lady
Behold a Lady is in direct lyrical contrast to
Roses, and musical
devices are, once again, used to underscore this
contrast. While both songs

have a nearly identical time signature and backbeat,
Andre creates two
diverse songs and two diverse portrayals of women
through these surface
similarities.
Behold a Lady is a depiction of Andrs image of
an ideal lady,
whereas, Roses is a depiction of Andrs image of
an archetypal
bitch.59 Behold a Lady is dominated by a
clean, treble
instrumentation, a syncopated bass rhythm, an
atypical harmonic
progression, and the use of improvised, elevated
prose; whereas, Roses
is dominated by a prominent bass line with
overdrive effect, diatonic
59 The sexual language and heavily maledominated point of view in this album are flagrant
and
worth detailed study; however, within the scope of
this paper, it is not possible to survey Andrs the
implications therein. For more on the dominating
male ego in hip-hop, see: George Nelson, Hip Hop
America.
78
chord progressions, and repetitive, colloquial
speech. These musical
differences typify Andrs characterization of these
women.

The commanding treble nature of Behold A Lady
begins
immediately when a solo, synthesized
accompanying melody starts the
song by repeating an F natural an octave and a half
above middle C (F4).
This ringing, treble tone is the lone harmonic
accompaniment,
complimented by only the percussion of a bass
drum, group hand claps,
and shaker.
The bass drum is the only instrument sounding in a
low register. It
hits on the downbeat of every measure and on the
upbeat of the second
beat, creating a syncopated groove that helps
separate this song from the
straight ahead groove of Roses. The bass drum
slightly alters in pitch, as
the bass tone shifts up and down with the movement
in the root of the
harmony. The group hand claps take the place of a
snare, and the pitch of
these hand claps is significantly higher than the low,
flat sounding snare
drum used in Roses, further adding to the
definitive treble sound of the
song. The shaker is used in various stanzas to add
another treble texture
onto every beat of the measure. The use of the
shaker gives a feel of a

soldiers march and boots walking in time on the
gravel, similar to the
march heard later in Love in War. When used in
conjunction with the
group hand claps, the back beat is reminiscent of the
high sounding crack
of a whip striking against thin air. These aspects
give a strict, rigorous feel
to the music, while the bass drum gives a
syncopated, sexy intimation to
the music.
This contrast between strict and syncopated can be
seen as a musical
representation of Andres juxtaposed images of how
a true Lady speaks,
which he demonstrates by saying how you dont
say too much, but when
79
you do its profound, as well as how a Lady will
act in private and in
public, daying in the streets you hold your head
high; at home you get
low down for me. And the treble dominated
instrumentation can be seen
as a musical representation of this elevated
womanly figure.
While the harmonic structure in Behold A Lady is
repetitive like
in Roses, the harmony of Behold A Lady uses a
chromatic bass

ostinato, creating fewer diatonic triads than those
frequently used in
Roses. This can also demonstrate how Andr feels
that the type of
idealized woman evoked in Behold A Lady is a
rare breed, indeed,
while a maligned woman, like the one evoked in
Roses, is just another
one of them freaks.
The harmonic pattern that repeats throughout
Behold A Lady is
based on a chromatic tetrachord, alternating a semitone apart, beginning
on F natural and moving to E natural. This phrase is
arpeggiated for two
full measures and then inverted, creating half-step
movement from D
natural to E-flat. Then this inverted phrase is also
given rhythmic motion
by a synthesized arpeggiator for two full measures
before the entire
sequence starts again. This creates entirely
intervallic motion within a
minor third, and this use of a chromatic tetrachord
helps to create a rare
musical portrayal for the song and the lady
described.
Another rare aspect to this song is the elevated
language, made
immediately apparent in the title, Behold A Lady.
The previous sketch,

Good Day, Good Sir used elevated language in a
tongue-in-cheek
manner, and this song is a continuation of that
sketch. The use of the word
Behold, is in stark contrast to the connotations of
similar expressions
Andr has previously used; for instance, he
introduces his verses with
phrases like dig this now in Roses and check
it in Spaghetti
80
Junction and Players Ball from Stankonia and
Southernplayalisticadillacmusik, respectively. His
use of the word Lady
also contrasts his usual address of women, seen
most noticeably in the
comparison with Roses through the continual use
of the word Bitch,
but also in the songs We Luv Deez Hoez from
Stankonia and Mamacita
from Aquemini.60 With the majority of Andrs
lyrics, he is far removed
from the formal language of a phrase such as
Behold a Lady.
Andrs vocal improvisations also play a key part in
defining
Behold A Lady, along with his use of elevated
language. Throughout
this song, Andre appears to be improvising over the
repetitive harmonic

pattern to create unique sections throughout each
part of the song.
Improvisation is a recurring theme throughout this
album, and an essential
component of this song, as it gives personality to
repetitive sections of
harmony. The listener can hear Andr improvising
throughout The Love
Below, like at the end of Prototype; many parts of
A Life in the Day of
Benjamin Andr (Incomplete) appear to be have
begun as free-styles and
were then refined into a finished phrase.61 This
conjectured use of
improvisation is best heard in Andres imaginative
use of spoken word
over the already established sung chorus: Andr
continues to juxtapose
formal and informal language while wondering,
Where do all the good
girls go? What club they hang at? He uses simile to
demonstrate how the
classic lady [is] a rare breed, indeed, comparing a
woman with an
imaginary creature, Candy coated unicorns are
quite hard to find, a
60 Outkast, Southernplayalisticadillacmusik;
Aquemini; Stankonia.
61 Andrs use of ad-lib is deduced from the
discussion of the ad-lib which happens at the end of

both Prototype and A Life in the Day of
Benjamin Andr. This is discussed further in the
discussion of
each song.
81
classic car, Is that make and model discontinued?
and the omnipotent
former inhabitants of the earth, Maybe they
disappeared with the
dinosaurs. Andr invokes popular culture,
referencing bubble gum, Baby
Boomer nostalgia, Eastern philosophy, and Cole
Porter as he sings about
the ideal lady, proclaiming that youre not ExtraExtra, youre so Plain
Jane, the yin to my yang, darling, youve got that
thang. This wide array
of references and thorough use of improvisation
over a repeating trebledominated
accompaniment demonstrates Andrs admission
that he is
always changing, but [the ideal lady] stays the
same.
Andr also changes the musical choices in the last
three bars of
many of the stanzas, creating a miniature codetta for
each. For instance, in
the last verse of the song, Andr repeats the phrase
Cant Get No Lower
three times, in different incarnations: Andr creates
these incarnations by

panning two different voices into each far side of
the mix. On the far right
side of the mix, one voice descends stepwise while
a higher voice stays
stable, building wider intervals by lowering the
root. However, on the far
left side of the mix, one voice ascends stepwise
while a lower voice stays
the same, building wider intervals as the upper
voice ascends. This
juxtaposition creates a unique codetta-like ending to
the verse and
musically lampoons the phrase Cant Get No
Lower. Andre adds a
lower register descant and a falsetto descant to the
last repeat of the
chorus; he adds a gospel-like Thank you, Jesus;
thank you, Lord! to the
end of the first stanza of the second verse; and he
adds a different melodic
variation to the end of each stanza throughout the
song, all contributing to
the uniqueness of each section and the uniqueness
of the ideal lady.
The choices of treble instrumentation, syncopated
percussion, atonal
harmonic progressions, elevated prose, along with
vocal improvisation
82
and transformative lyrics form a unique song that
creates an unique

musical picture of an ideal woman. These choices
also help to create a
musical contrast between this exceptional picture of
a lady and the
unexceptional picture of a bitch in Roses.
Pink & Blue
Pink & Blue shows a younger mans slow
seduction of an older
woman, seducing her sexually, but also
philosophically, convincing her
that their socially taboo love should not be looked
down upon, but, rather,
embraced. Andr makes this seduction a palpable
experience for the
listener with both the lyrics and music explicitly
conveying the seduction.
The listener is first informed of this seduction by
the narrators
lyrics, from his explicit dismissal of age differences
in the introduction
insisting to the older woman that age aint nothing
but a number, to the
use of double entendre in the chorus suggesting in a
sexual manner that
she, crawl, baby, crawl, baby! The male narrator
seduces the woman by
using foreplay, changing styles, and building to a
climax; Andr does the
same, slowly building the music to a climax,
juxtaposing contrasting

timbres, and creating a musical embodiment of the
younger mans
seduction of the older woman.
It is no wonder then that Pink & Blue is cowritten with R. Kelly, a
trendsetter in 1990s sexually driven R&B. Kelly
has released such hits as
83
Bump n Grind, Down Low (Nobody Has To
Know), and the
infamous, hip-hop soap-opera film, Trapped in the
Closet.62
More importantly, it is worth noting that Kelly also
wrote and
produced the song that is sampled at the beginning
of Pink & Blue, Age
Aint Nothing but a Number, which was a hit for
the young singer
Aaliyah in 1995.63 In that year, Vibe magazine
printed unconfirmed
allegations that Kelly and Aaliyah had married and
that Aaliyah had lied
about her age in order to do so.64 Regardless of the
verity of Kelly and
Aaliyahs romantic involvement, their musical
collaboration is specifically
pertinent to Pink & Blue, as one may perceive the
introduction in this
song as a tribute to Aaliyah, who died tragically in
an airplane crash in
2001.65

The sample from the hook of Age Aint Nothing
but a Number,
immediately sets the common meter and moderate
tempo for the song,
although the rhythm initially seems difficult to
follow due to the out-oftime
scratches preceding each repetition of the hook.
After the fourth loop
of the Age Aint Nothin' but a Number hook, the
musical style changes
completely: the listener suddenly hears only pitched
percussion, amplified
to be a prominent feature of the song, which is
exposed alone for eight
measures.
62 For more on R. Kelly, see: Zomba Recording
LLC, <http://www.r-kelly.com/index2.html>.
63 For more on Aaliyah, see: MTV Networks,
<http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/aaliyah/artist.jht
ml>.
64 Abdon M. Pallasch, Indecent Proposal, Vibe
15/5 (May 2007): pp. 83-85.
65 Some readers may care to note the social
information that Kelly will be taken to trial in 2008
under accusations of involving a minor in sexual
conduct; while Pink & Blue portrays the love
between an
adult man and an older woman (the narrator notes
that both of them have a couple of grey hairs), the
possible implications derived, if Kelly is found
guilty, regrettably, must be noted.

84
Going right from the remixed Aaliyah introduction
into the pitched
percussion provides a dramatic contrast from
electronically busy to
acoustically simple. The expectation has been set
for this song, from the
Aaliyah introduction, to be filled with scratches and
multiple tracks; the
stark contrast in timbre going into the pitched
percussion immediately
draws the listeners attention into the basic track of
the song, as the listener
hears a full eight bars of only the pitched
percussion. The introductory
Aaliyah sample is never heard again.
This is a demonstration of the narrators seduction
techniques. He
begins with the busy introduction, showing that he
is capable of building
great excitement quickly; Andr shows this by using
the kind of material
in the introduction that listeners may be used to
hearing in an energized
hip-hop song: busy, sampled, multi-tracked music.
However, instead of
rushing forward in this style, he grabs our attention
by immediately going
to the naked calm of the pitched percussion, testing
our patience with a

full eight bars of this calm. This evokes the sexual
tension that builds
throughout this song. The pitched percussion recalls
the essence of tribal
music, further evoking a raw, unfettered sexuality.
Here, the narrator also
shows that he is capable of the assumed youthful
tendencies of haste and
impatience, but instead chooses to seduce the older
woman in the manner
that she prefers, with patience.
Upon hearing these starkly contrasting sets of eight
bars, the listener
may be uncertain of what musical choices will
follow. The pitched
percussion continues and the listener is next
introduced to the bass line,
which will repeat throughout the song to create the
overall formal
structure of simple verse-chorus, as shown below:
85
0:00 0:19 Introduction, 8mm Sample of
Aaliyahs Age Aint
Nothing But a Number
Turntable scratches re-mix the
hook
One beat pickup
0:19 0:57 Instrumental Chorus (2xs),
16mm
Two Eight Bar Phrases
1x percussion only

2x add Bass
0:58 1:35 Chorus (2xs), 16mm Vocals enters,
Pretty pink, baby
blue
1:35 2:13 Verse, 16mm Miss lady, you coulda
been born
a lil later
2:13 2:50 Chorus (2xs), 16mm 2x sexual, adlib
vocals added
2:51 3:10 Instrumental Chorus, 8mm Percussion
only
3:10 5:04 Extended Coda (6xs), 48mm
Completely new melodic material:
Youre so phisticated!
New Instrumentation: Electric
Guitar and Strings (Bowed and
Pizzicato)
1x electric guitar and staccato
strings
2x Legato strings come in
3x adlibbed vocals teach me
somethin' new
4/5x fade out vocals
6x strings only
The entirely legato synthesized bass line, along with
the pitched
percussion, act as the musical basic track of the
song. The synth bass
sounds sexually aggressive and primal, as it attacks
each pitch and inserts

a change of envelope on each attack, creating an
instrumental diphthong.
With each change of pitch, the bass gives the
impression of quickly biting
into and chewing each note before releasing the
actual pitch, implying
aggressive sexuality.
86
Together, the pitched percussion and bass line
establish the key of
the song in E-flat major. The bass line begins by
attacking the tonic for the
whole first measure, followed in the second
measure by the third and fifth
of the dominant triad, D and F natural. These are the
same pitches that are
used throughout the song in the pitched percussion,
creating the continual
musical tension of the dominant to represent the
sexual tension from
beginning to end.
The use of melody in the chorus creates the
framework for the
musical embodiment of sexual foreplay through the
first three minutes of
the song. The melodic phrases in the chorus use
simple eighth and quarter
note rhythms focused on the downbeat to primarily
move in unison with
the bass line, embodying the man and the woman
simply attempting to

achieve unity during sexual foreplay. In the chorus,
the simplicity of the
melody moving with the accompaniment is
highlighted by the double
tracked lead vocal. Through the steady, slow, swung
groove of the bass
line, Andr continues to make the melody simple,
with stepwise pitch and
slow rhythms, holding elongated note values, up
until he stutters Why
dont -- why dont you where he brings melodic
variation to the chorus
with the sudden leap to the tonic followed by
descending eighth notes.
This is a musical embodiment of the lyric; as he
says --why dont you
teach me something new he brings the strongest
rhythmic and interval
variation to the song since the introduction. The use
of melody in the
chorus against the dominant tension in the pitched
percussion to create the
expectation of foreplay, is shown below:
87
Andrs pitch is imperfect and his voice wobbles
throughout the chorus,
too inconsistently and too far off-pitch to be
considered vibrato. Whether
or not this is done purposefully, the sliding pitches
and quavering tone
quality add to the sexual rawness of the song.

The verse of the song can be seen as the musical
foreplay, with
Andr displaying his expressive and creative vocal
ability to build
excitement into the final chorus. His animated
inflections and sexual
screams are reminiscent Princes sexually charged
inflections,66 and
display his own vocal range and strength. He
musically embodies the
possibilities of sexual foreplay by playing with the
melody, changing
dynamics, highlighting the syncopated rhythm by
over-articulating certain
consonants, over-emphasizing audible breaths,
demonstratively sliding up
66 Prince recorded innumerous vocals with sexual
inflections, comparable to those Andr makes in
this song. For some of the many examples, see:
Prince, Ultimate, Warner Brothers, 8122 73381 2,
2006.
88
and down to pitches, inserting beats of subito piano
to highlight adjacent
matching rhythmic phrases, modifying certain
words, and speaking in the
low, primal part of his voice.
The second (and final) chorus explicitly builds upon
the first chorus,
with Andr adding erotic vocal riffs to emulate the
exclamations made

during foreplay and sex, building the storyline and
the music with greater
anticipation. Andr, however, breaks the mold
again, by abruptly pausing
the seduction and taking the music back to the
Instrumental Chorus, with
another eight bar phrase of only the tribal, pitched
percussion.
This abrupt stop functions as a subito piano within
the whole of the
song, providing the anticipation of something big
about to happen in the
music, and it does: Andr inserts a new section. The
double entendre here
should be clear, but, to clarify, the music reaches a
new height of the song
with an extended coda, just as the lovers reach new
heights in the story
and begin actual intercourse. The music provides
the first string
instrumentation in the song, with the electric rhythm
guitar embodying
the love of the younger man and the classical bowed
string section
embodying the love of the older woman. This string
instrumentation also
recalls the usage of the Bach quote in the earlier
track, Good Day, Good
Sir, which sets up the lyrical description of the
older woman as
sophisticated.

This new Sophisticated section also has new
melody and lyrics,
and Andr creates matching rhythmic phrases by
creating a clever play on
words by fusing the phrase so sophisticated into
one, putting the word
so on the downbeat to exclaim that this woman is
so phisticated,
creating a matching five syllable rhythm for the
next line me and miss
lady. He highlights her sophisticated nature by
showing that although
89
this woman is older, their playfulness together in the
bedroom is
unfettered and open, saying that she makes me talk
baby-talk. This also
shows her lack of inhibition, adding to her
sophisticated nature, which
helps bring out Andrs willingness to surrender any
possible masculine
ego for the experience of an sophisticated woman.
The extended coda
contains repeating melodic phrases that continually
ascend up and down
in a steady rhythmic motion focused on the
sixteenth and eighth note pickup
rhythms, embodying the playful release achieved
during sexual
intercourse, complimenting the lyrical examples,
which highlight Andrs

ability to create detailed character portrayals in each
word and phrase.
In the final repeat of the coda, the legato and
pizzicato strings play
for eight bars, without other accompaniment,
providing a fitting ending
contrast to the opening eight bars of busy, electronic
sampling. The
profusion of strings in the second repeat of the coda
can be seen as the
musical embodiment the lovers sexual climax. And
Andr shows that the
echoes of this shared experience between lovers
will continue on well-after
the sex is over, as a gradual diminuendo of vocals is
overtaken by the forte
string accompaniment, eventually continuing on its
own, without the
pitched percussion or bass. This demonstrates that
the love between this
younger man and older woman will stand alone,
without the need for
seduction.
The additional use of pizzicato strings, alongside
the full legato
strings, further enriches the final coda, using a
texture rarely heard in hiphop
music. This pizzicato string texture leads directly
into the downbeat
of the electronic march of Love in War, without
breaking tempo or

adding rests. As with the beginning of Pink &
Blue, this smooth, yet
sudden, change thrusts the music into a completely
new timbre and
90
texture without stopping the rhythmic motion of the
song. This pushes the
momentum of the album forward as a whole.
Love in War
The song Love in War is based on the John F.
Kennedy quotation
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put
an end to Mankind.
Andre makes this phrase tangible for the listener by
equating the struggles
in a relationship with worldly struggles,
personalizing Kennedys broad
vision.
From the very beginning of the song, Andr sets the
scene with an
illustrative musical accompaniment to make a clear
mental picture of war.
A definitive soldiers march is used as the beat for
the song, sounding on
every beat and repeating throughout the song. This
is used along with a
low resonating bass drum, more removed and
explosive than any other on
the record, that sounds like exploding bombs
created by a synth trigger.

And the most palpable indication of war is the
definitive sound of a snaredrum
roll, which can be heard as emulating the antiquated
snare drum of
the drummer boy on the battlefield or the sound of
machine gun fire. The
constancy of the soldiers march, the exploding
bass, and the snare-drum
roll immediately establish the feeling of war.
In addition to these war-like references in the
percussion, a quieted
synth chorus of ahhs is panned from one side of
the mix to the other at
the beginning of each four measure phrase, evoking
the sustained vocal
style of a chant. The synthesized chant used here is
reminiscent of
91
evocations of church chants, frequently used by film
composers to create
accompaniment for war scenes and to suggest a
character struggle.67
While Andr sets up a clear feeling of battle for the
listener with the
percussion and chants, he makes an even more
effective evocation of battle
through a discreet use of contrasting melodies in the
instrumental
obbligato and the melody in the first verse. An
instrumental obbligato in

the high register, played on synthesized plucked
strings, plays throughout
the track, establishing the main motive for the song.
The melody of this
four bar motive is played in a staccato fashion with
each note resonating
for no more than the duration of a sixteenth note,
while each note is
panned to a different part of the mix, making the
obbligato sound as if it is
echoing from one side of the speakers to the other.
This motive is the
featured melodic element of the song from the
beginning, playing over the
sustained chant, and it continues to be prominently
featured throughout
the song, even during the lead vocal melody.
Between this obbligato and
the rest of the song material, there is a subtle
conflict of harmony and the
feeling of the soldiers march sounds twisted and
disturbed.
This conflict is between the obbligato theme and the
lead vocal
melody. The lead vocal melody, and synthesized
chant, are based on an A
minor triad, with four bar phrases in the chorus that
begin and end on A,
and use the first five diatonic scale degrees of the A
minor scale. The

obbligato theme also uses the diatonic scale degrees
of A minor, however,
the listener can detect a conflict between the parts;
the obbligato is based
on an F major triad, with only the semi-tone change
from E to F making
67 The use of a chant style is used in a generic
fashion in countless contemporary films to
accompany scenes of war. To find examples of this,
see: Alan Mencken, The Hunchback of Notre
Dame.; James
Horner, Troy.; Hans Zimmer, Crimson Tide.
92
the difference between the two trichords. Along
with the F replacing the E
in the trichord, the F becomes the tonic pitch and
tone center of the
obbligato, whereas the E was the dominant pitch in
the lead melody.
Analyzing the obbligato with the lead vocal melody,
one can see the
frequent conflict between the semitones E and F, as
well as the difference
in tonal center between the two parts. The obbligato
initially sounds like it
is based on the F major scale, however, at the end of
the second and fourth
measures, the raised B-natural is used instead of the
diatonic B-flat. This
could also be considered as a conflict between the
obbligato based in F

Lydian mode, with the use of a raised fourth scale
degree, against the lead
melody based in A minor. The following diagram
compares these
differences between the obbligato and the melody:
The conflict using E versus F to create two
contrasting melody lines,
based in two different tonal centers, strengthens the
feeling of battle in the
music, and adds to the illustrative nature of this
song. This semitone
change between E and F can also be seen as a
musical motive connecting
Love in War with the earlier song, Behold a
Lady, as the chromatic use
93
of E and F is the basis for the tetrachord in Behold
a Lady. This musical
connection between songs can be heard as a literal
musical device to help
connect the tracks in this second half of the album,
in which a specific
narrative is not employed; or it may be interpreted
as a representation of
the sub-textual commonalities that lie beneath the
surface of all
relationships.
While Love in War lacks the forward harmonic
motion used in
many songs on The Love Below, the form is similar
to many songs on the

album, as it is straightforward and strophic; Andr
uses similar
techniques to those used in other songs that are in
simple verse-chorus
form, varying the lead vocals and melodies in each
stanza, and adding
varied instrumentation to make the simple versechorus form sound more
diverse. The basic form and added diversions are
charted below:
0:00 0:20 Introduction, 8 mm. Synth
instrumentation only
0:20 0:41 Chorus, 8 mm. Lets kiss, not fight
0:41 1:21 Verse, 16 mm. Repetitive verse melody
with beat
and chant instrumentation
1:22 1:43 Chorus, 8 mm. Use of affected voice
reading J.F.K.
quotation
1:43 2:24 Instrumental Verse, 16 mm Legato
string solo
2:24 3:05 Chorus (2x), 16 mm. Turntable scratch
effects
3:06 3:25 Coda Fadeout, 7mm Fade out
This is song is lyrically simple, containing only one
sung verse, in
which Andr broadly philosophizes about the nature
of love and life. In
the frequently repeated chorus, Andre proposes his
hope for the general

advancement of love over war in relationships,
Lets kiss, not fight, and
compares this with the 1960s, Vietnam War-era
hope for love in the world,
94
Make love, not war. This is framed by an affected
loop of the John F.
Kennedy quotation during the choruses. Andr also
uses a legato string
part as the lead in the second verse and adds
turntable scratches to the
J.F.K. quotation to diversify the simple verse-chorus
form.
Andrs use of conflicting melodies in the obbligato
and verse
melody, the church style chants, the rolling snare
drum, the exploding
bass, and the soldiers march musically embody the
conflict in Love in
War, as Andr musically and lyrically furthers his
case for seeking out
love, both personally and on the battlefield.
Shes Alive
Shes Alive creates a musical characterization of a
single mother
raising her son. The actual voice of the woman is
heard on this track and it
seems to be Andres mother, as the often sheet
music from Hal Leonard
states that the woman is Miss B, presumably
Miss Benjamin.68

Musically and lyrically, this song embodies the
mothers straightforward
and clear approach to raising a child, by simply
doing what she needs to
do in order to provide for the child, even after she
has been left without a
partner. The music and lyrics display her clear and
steady response to the
challenges of single motherhood.
The form and instrumentation are among the
simplest on the album;
the song is dominated by a chorus in D minor,
repeated six times, that
features an oscillation between the subdominant and
dominant chord,
68 Chrysalis Music Group, Selections from
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (Milwaukee, WI:
Hal
Leonard Corporation, 2004).
95
resolving to the tonic in standard eight-bar phrases.
The chorus is
accompanied by jazz-style drums and a single piano
that outlines the
chords and doubles Andrs melody. The simple
instrumentation, jazz
drum kit and the continual brush along the snare
drum embody the single
mother as a simple, calm, and steady force.
The lyrics and melody of the chorus, among the
most candid and

straightforward on the album, also embody her
qualities as a single
mother. Andre describes how she had a boy to raise
at a young ageno
help from [the father], but shes alive. This is not
an easy task for any
mother, but the further lyrics reveal that the mother
does not seek
sympathy for her troubles; rather, she lightly mocks
any possible
sympathy for her plight by using tongue-in-cheek,
juvenile slang to create
a blunt, mature mantra, describing how life must
be a drag, but shes
alive. The use of such a casual phrase, must be a
drag, in contrast with
the severity of the most vital point, shes alive,
displays the single
mothers ability to keep a calm, and even
lighthearted, manner in dealing
with such a difficult situation.
Likewise, Andre does not provide a lyrical, emotive
melody to this
song; on the contrary, the melody of the chorus is a
repetitive, descending
motive of only four notes, matching the
straightforward simplicity of the
lyrics. Andr, using his head voice, is frequently off
pitch in the chorus,
often fluctuating from the doubled melody of the
piano. This happens so

frequently in this song that it seems as though it
may be a deliberate
choice; however, this is unlikely, considering the
other times in the album
when Andr is off pitch, primarily while using his
head voice. Since the
musical choices on this album focus on detail, it
seems that Andres pitch
96
fluctuations have been kept to preserve the
authenticity and uniqueness of
Andres singing voice.
In fact, the practice of imperfect, seemingly
untrained, singing is
frequently heard in popular music and often seen as
an essential part of a
performers character. Bob Dylans vocal sound was
prominently nasal,
gruff, lacking resonance, and frequently not even
sung, yet his albums are
counted among the greatest of the twentieth
century; Paul McCartney
would sing a lead vocal part over and over again (in
the latter part of his
career with the Beatles) in order to obtain a rawer
quality to his voice;
Elliot Smith was well known for the light, breathy
tone quality of his voice
and his lead vocal was almost always double
tracked, further displaying

the unique quality in voice.69 While the
advancements in recording
technology allows some contemporary pop singers
voices to be tweaked
and homogenized in the studio, Andres wavering,
breathy falsetto and
affected, stylized chest voice helps define his
dramatic style and makes his
voice clearly distinguishable from other artists. And
while inconsistencies
in pitch may bother some listeners, Andres
technique is in line with artists
who discount the general presentation of technical
prowess in the
singing, and instead embrace their own unique
characteristics that allow
the voice to reveal the particular workings of the
physicality in the
singing.70
69 For examples of the untrained sounds of these
artists, see the following albums: Bob Dylan, The
Freewheelin Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, CK
8786, 1990. The Beatles, Abbey Road, Parlophone
Records,
CDP 7 46 446 2, 1987. Elliott Smith, Figure 8,
DreamWorks, DRMF-13510-2, 1998.
70 Michael David Szekely, Gesture, Pulsion,
Grain: Barthes' Musical Semiology, Contemporary
Aesthetics (December 2006)
<http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pag
es/article.php?articleID=409>.

97
The choruses of this song are interspersed with
eight-bar verses and
a restatement of the four bar introductory phrase.
The main point of
harmonic interest is found in the introductory
phrase: the song begins with
the E-flat major seventh chord scratched to skip
four times, creating the
count-off for the tempo of the song. This chord
then begins a chain of
major seventh chords descending through the circle
of fifths, creating
forward harmonic motion, from E-flat to B-flat. The
descending circle of
fifths in the introduction is accompanied by the
sound of a crying baby.
The combination of these gestures can be seen as a
representation of how
life can be filled with complications, especially in
the case of a single
mother. The musical response of the chorus,
grounded in unwavering
tonality, to this complicated introductory gesture,
displays the single
mothers steadfast reaction to the complications
found in life.
The verses adapt the introductory motive by
elongating the first four
major seventh chords into full measures, and
repeating them to make a full

eight-bar phrase for each verse. This creates a
varied, shifting harmonic
texture to contrast the firm tonal texture of the
chorus. Within the second
and third verses, the voice of the single mother is
featured speaking about
her experiences raising a child on her own and the
lessons she learned
from it. Her strong words and confident tone over
the tumultuous musical
accompaniment, further confirm the thematic ideas
that are expressed both
lyrically and musically in the song. Through twists
and turns in the
introductory phrases and verses, the single mother
stays steadfast and
returns to her mantra of subdominant dominant
tonic harmonization.
The musical choices inform the lyrics, embodying
the mothers
straightforward reaction to the difficulties of raising
a child alone.
98
Draculas Wedding
In Draculas Wedding, Andr uses music to create
one of the most
vivid characterizations on the record, as well as
create one of his most
poignant theme-related metaphors. Andre creates a
scenario where the

legendary monster, Dracula, whose weaknesses are
few and has little to
fear, is terrified by his lover. Andr uses this
character as a direct metaphor
for those strong men, like the Love Hater embodied
in the earlier parts of
the album, who show no fear in so many aspects of
life, yet are afraid to
get married or commit to a partner. Andr brings to
light the ironies of
this type of person with the exaggerated situation of
someone like Dracula
who, as Andr notes, will live forever.
Draculas Wedding is created as a list song to
further display the
ironies of Dracula being scared of marriage. List
songs are an integral part
of the American Musical Theatre tradition and it is
likely that Andr could
have been influenced by any number of well-known
list songs in
establishing a clear and comical characterization,
including My Favorite
Things, which is the very next song on the
album.71 Andr constructs
each line to show an aspect of Draculas life that
makes him fearless, only
to end each line with Dracula admitting, but Im
terrified of you. This is
one of Andrs most carefully and creatively crafted
lyrics; as the lyrics of

the verse and chorus display, Andr, playing the role
of Dracula, includes
most every possible aspect of his life that makes
him fearless to vividly
show the irony of his being afraid of marriage:
71 For more on the list song, see: Stanley Green,
The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre.
99
You're all I've ever wanted, but I'm terrified of you
My castle may be haunted, but I'm terrified of you
I've cast my spell on millions, but I'm terrified of
you
Baby, I do this from the ceiling, but I'm terrified of
you
I wait my whole life to bite the right one
Then you come along and that freaks me out
So I'm frightenedoh!...Dracula's wedding
I've never ran from no one, but I'm terrified of you
See, my heartbeat is a slow one, but Im terrified of
you
I've been around for ages, but I'm terrified of you
Put my fang across the stage, but yet I'm terrified of
you
I wait my whole life to bite the right one
Then you come along and that freaks me out
So I'm frightenedoh!...Dracula's wedding
This is a impressive display of Draculean
references, and Andr uses
the same detail in musically characterizing Dracula.
The song is in the key

of E-flat minor and the only chords in the entire
song are the minor tonic,
the subtonic, and dominant chords. The song is
propelled by virtuosic
rhythmic bass movement, and includes a menacing
backbeat and a
repeating two-bar strummed guitar accompaniment.
The guitar constantly repeats the same rhythmic
two-bar phrase
with accents on the second beat, effectively
reinforcing the backbeat. In
the verses, the guitar stays on the same chord
throughout. This creates
staccato, accented phrases and repeated, short
themes reminiscent of
themes used in suspense and horror films, most
notably similar to style
made famous by Bernard Hermann. The repetitive,
driving theme in the
guitar is akin to the repetitive, driving themes in the
strings in the
Prelude, Flight, and Rainstorm sequences of
Psycho. Hermann is
100
well-known for having composed short themes to
shape the score for such
famous thrillers as Vertigo, Cape Fear, and, most
famously, Psycho.72
The basic bass line follows the chord changes in the
rhythm guitar,

and adds a three note descending melodic line at the
end of each phrase,
emulating a stock gesture to suggest suspense and
horror, which is
especially reminiscent of techniques portraying
comically scary characters,
used liberally by Danny Elfman in his in playful
scores for films like The
Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice.73
However, the bass line
contains frequent variations that bring special
attention to the bass:
Throughout the song, the bass line is continually
panned back and forth
between the left and right speaker, there are
multiple sections of wide
ranging leaps and slides, and the bass line is
frequently interwoven with a
synthesized bass line played at least an octave
higher than the usual bass
range; these combined elements provide the listener
with a very busy,
constantly changing bass line. This transmuted style
imitates a Draculean
bat that is flying around, terrified of his to-be wife.
The movement in the
bass not only simulates his rapid bat-like
movement around the room,
but can also represent Draculas transmutation
between forms, and his

vacillating commitment to his partner. While a full
transcription of this
bass line is not possible for this paper, an excerpt
displaying the bat-like
movement of the bass and connected high-synth
line in the instrumental
chorus section (1:44 1:54) is shown below.
72 Royal Brown, Hermann, Hitchcock, and the
Music of the Irrational, Cinema Journal 21/2
(Spring 1982): 14-49.
73 Tim Burton, The Nightmare Before Christmas,;
Henry Selick, Beetlejuice.
101
In addition to the guitar and bass emulation of
Draculean suspense,
the backbeat in this song is provided by a
synthesized snare, a chompinglike
sound, which acts as the only percussion instrument
in the song. This
menacing backbeat provides further musical
characterization of Dracula,
by emulating the sound of Draculas fangs
chomping down on the neck of
a victim. All these factors play a large part in
Andrs musical
characterization of the world of Dracula.
Andr makes captivating vocal choices throughout
the song to keep
the attention of the listener and embody a
suspenseful Draculean style.

Andr uses a thick, nasal falsetto to personify the
fearfulness of the usually
unafraid Dracula, and his voice is affected
throughout the song in a
slightly distorted fashion, further displaying
Draculas shaky anxiety. The
entire song begins a cappella, with only Andres
voice on the subtonic,
showing Draculas unresolved tension before the
characterized
accompaniment even begins. In the first chorus, the
lead vocal is cut off to
make way for the list of ironic fears in the second
verse, further showing
Draculas nervous energy, as he cuts himself off. In
the second chorus,
Andr uses exaggerated vibrato on his head voice to
characterize a
descending Scooby-Doo-like scared oooooh,
before repeating the lyric,
102
You know Im terrified. These exemplify some of
the vocal choices
Andr makes to musically personify the character of
Dracula.
In the second half of Draculas Wedding, the voice
of the character
of Dracula is absent; instead, the listener hears the
voice of Draculas
partner or bride-to-be, played by Kelis.74 The
second half of the song

begins with the character of Dracula fearfully
announcing the arrival of his
partner, by whispering, Shh! Shh! Here she
comes!. Kelis is heard
calling Andrs name through a reverberating echo
that is panned from left
to right and back again; immediately following each
of her calls, the batlike
high, synth bass line is panned in the opposing
direction, continually
moving away from the pan of Keliss voice. This
gives the effect of
Draculas fianc stalking through the immense halls
of Draculas Castle
looking for Dracula, while he evades her as quickly
as possible. This short
section is played out over the harmonic structure of
the third chorus;
however, the usual attributes of the chorus are
disguised by the new
melodic material and the shifting bass line, helping
to form a transitional
section from the first half of the song, consisting of
Draculas two
verse/chorus stanzas, into the second half of the
song, consisting of Keliss
stanzas.
Whereas the form of Love in War exemplified
conventional use of
varied vocals and melody to break up a strophic
structure, Draculas

Wedding is a more complicated use of this
technique to create difficult
definitions for the form of song. The basic outline
of each section of the
song is the following:
74 For more on Kelis, see:
<www.Kelisonline.com>.
103
0:00 - 0:01 Pick-up 2 beat pick-up, Youre
0:01
0:20
Verse 1
8mm
Stanza 1
0:20
0:29
Chorus
4mm
Lead vocal at the end is cut short
by the next verse, showing
Draculas nervousness
0:29
0:49
Verse 2
8mm
Stanza 2
0:48
0:57
Chorus
4mm
The melodic leap up on, that

freaks me out! and the
exaggerated vibrato, ooh,
show his terror.
Andr
3000
as
Dracula
0:57
1:16
Verse 3
8mm
Andres codetta: You know Im
terrified
Stanza 3
___
1:16
1:25
Chorus
4mm
Introduction for Draculas Bridetobe
1:26
1:44
Verse 4
8mm
Stanza 4 New rhyme and melodic scheme
1:44
1:54
Chorus
4mm
Instrumental

1:54
2:13
Verse 5
8mm
Wedding Vows
Kelis
as
Draculas
Bride-tobe
Stanza 5
2:13
2:22
Chorus
4mm
Well, not in our case, cause we
will live forever
Coda 2:22
2:31
Verse 6
4mm
Instrumental; half verse
While the harmonic structure of this song
continually switches back
and forth between verse and chorus, forming five
full stanzas, the
variations make some sections expressly unique and
more difficult to
define: the melodic chorus that is established by
Andr in the first and
second stanzas does not reappear in the remaining
stanzas; the third verse

is used as a codetta to Andrs half of the song, in
conjunction with the
previously discussed third chorus (Introduction for
Draculas Bride-to-be)
104
in forming a transition section, which breaks up the
third stanza, as shown
on the chart; verse 4 has a new rhyme and melody
scheme; chorus 4 is
completely instrumental, featuring the synthesized
bass; the fifth stanza
features Draculas bride-to-be chanting a modified
version of the
ceremonial wedding vows. The main five stanzas
are followed by a
conclusion (coda) that simply uses the first half of
the verse material.
These variations between sections help to create a
narrative
sequence within the song; Andr also uses recording
techniques to help
create musical characterizations. In Verse 4, Keliss
lead vocal is double
tracked with two differing melodies, creating a twopart harmony; these
two vocal parts are separated by the moving
melodic line panned to the
left side of the mix and the monotone line spokenon-pitch in the right side
of the mix. This creates a exotic timbre evoking the
mysterious presence of

presence of Draculas Bride-to-be, as well as
establishes her presence on all
sides of the mix, leaving no place for Dracula to
hide from her; whereas,
before the bass line shifted in the opposite direction
from the pan of her
voice, it no has nowhere to go.
Draculas Bride-to-be speaks directly to Dracula in
Verse 4,
continuing the already established, authentic
narrative, style of two
characters speaking directly to one another, as in the
traditional style of a
stage work or film. The satirical Draculean
references in the lyrics are
continued here in witty form, with Draculas Brideto-be encouraging
Dracula to have no fear of her, with puns and
references to Draculas true
weaknesses:
Give me a chance to dance romance
Don't run, I'm not the sun (hot!)
So much at stake - oh! - bad choice of words
But I'm not the gun (shot!)
105
With silver bullets
And I can count (1, 2, 3!)
Plus I make great peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches
Van Helsing

Keliss lyrics and singing style are more carefree
and calm when
compared to Draculas verses. She is quick to make
fun of Draculas
weaknesses and playfully demonstrates how he has
nothing to fear from
her, by comparing the things he fears the most with
her domestic ability to
make great peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
This simplistic
comparison is underlined by a tacet bar in the
accompaniment,
highlighting the comedy and playful nature of her
comments. The
instrumental chorus that follows seems to insinuate
that her words have
relaxed Dracula and that there may be some
Draculean lovemaking
occurring, as the rapid, bat-like movement is, once
again, featured in the
bass, but this time along with animalistic, highpitched oohs and ahhs
pervading the mix. Following this encounter,
Draculas Bride-to-be has a
heavier tone of voice, as she reminds Dracula of the
slight variation on the
traditional wedding vows that comes with
immortality: Til death do us
partTil death do us part. You only live once, well
not in our case, cause
we will live forever.

This ultimately serious statement closes the song
with a reminder of
the terror and severity that began the song, as the
music drops out the
percussion and features only the haunting sound of
the solitary, striking
guitar and descending bass line.
106
The Letter
The sketch, The Letter, was not on the original
2003 compact disc
release; it was an addition for the iTunes release and
is still unreleased on
CD. The Letter mainly functions as an
introduction to My Favorite
Things, but it is a telling addition to the album in
terms of cohesive
structure, adding another dramatic sketch to the
concept album, and
thematic connectivity, setting up the wordless My
Favorite Things to a
specific scenario.
The Letter uses heightened sound effects to create
a vivid mental
picture of the scene for the listener; the listener
hears the amplified sound
of paper crumpling as the letter is opened by Andr,
who reads the
introductory Dear Andre, and then the reading of
the letter is switched

to the voice of the actual letter writer, changing the
point of view in the
mind of the listener. These characterized sound
effects are most similar to
those used in old radio shows like War of the
Worlds and The
Shadow, but also similar to those used in cartoons
like Looney Tunes and
the Foley sound affected films, all of which may
create an exaggerated
sound for a vivid mental depiction of the scene
for the listener.75
From the sensual tone and formal language of the
letter writer, the
listener can infer that this is possibly a former lover.
The writer of the
letter is unidentified; as Andr opens up the letter,
the name of the writer
is bleeped out, presumably to allow for the
listener to understand that
The Letter is a character sketch, and not a
reference to Andrs personal
life. Through this, Andr is making the identity of
the writer more
75 Ray Brunelle, "The Art of Sound Effects,"
Experimental Musical Instruments 12/1 (September
1996): p. 9.
107
intriguing and mysterious, but also continuing the
non-personal, character

driven features of this album. When Andre wants to
specifically talk about
his own life, he does, giving specifics in A Life in
The Day of Benjamin
Andre. Here, the anonymity of the letter writer
allows this listener to
hear the sketch in relation to the next song, and not
in relation to Andrs
personal life.
The heightened sound effects of this sketch help
create a mental
picture for the listener of the scene and characters
that is in line with the
other musical and dramatic characterizations that
Andre has created
throughout the album in other songs and sketches.
My Favorite Things
The Letter creates the narrative set-up for the only
cover song on
this album, My Favorite Things. My Favorite
Things is a list song
from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The
Sound of Music. My
Favorite Things was first sung by Mary Martin on
Broadway and made
famous by Julie Andrews in the film version. The
Sound of Music was a
success on both Broadway and in film, winning the
TONY Award for Best
Musical in 1960 (in a tie with Fiorello!), and
winning the Academy Award

for Best Picture in 1965.
It is no surprise that Andr would cover this song,
considering the
multitude of celebrated artists from different
musical genres that have
done so, such as Barbara Streisand, Dave Brubeck,
Diana Ross and the
Supremes, Tony Bennett, The Boston Pops, Luther
Vandross, and others,
continuing the tradition of diverse covers. Perhaps
the most noticeable
108
influence on Andres version is the emblematic jazz
studio recording by
John Coltrane from 1961.76
Andr pays homage to Coltranes cover with the
featured use of
soprano saxophone and piano. Like Coltranes
version of nearly fourteen
minutes, the melody here is repeated numerous
times over a five minute
series of virtuosic solos. The primary instrumental
difference between
these covers is Andrs heavy use of electronic
sound effects to, once again,
create a driving up-tempo beat. As Coltrane was
noted for expanding the
musical language of jazz, Andr may be comparing
his own influence in
Hip-Hop to Coltranes influence in Jazz.

Andr uses this song, not only to address the
woman in The
Letter, but also to reference his own, personal
favorite musical things,
such as orchestral instrumentation and heavy
electronic beats. The style of
the song itself is also unique on the album, as it is
the only song which is
completely void of singing. There are other songs,
notably The Love
Below (Intro) and God, that have heavily
featured instruments with
minimal vocal accompaniment, but this is the only
true instrumental.
Since so many artists have covered this song, the
melody and
meaning are well-known in popular American
culture; this may be why
Andr leaves the song unlisted in many available
track lists online, 77
including on Outkasts official website.78 Unlike,
The Letter, which only
appears on the iTunes version of the album, this
song appears on all album
versions, but simply goes unlisted in the track order.
76 John Coltrane, My Favorite Things, My
Favorite Things, Atlantic, 7567-81346-2, 1990.
77 Amazon.com, Inc.,
<http://www.amazon.com/Speakerboxxx-LoveBelow-

OutKast/dp/samples/B0000AGWFX/
ref=dp_tracks_all_1#disc_1>.
78 Outkast, <http://www.Outkast.com>.
109
My Favorite Things also fits into the overarching
theme of love on
this album, as a personal statement of Andrs
embrace of diverse musical
choices. Using a musical-theatre list song as the
only cover song on a hiphop
record is a unique choice and Andr shows that,
unlike the Love
Hater, he is unafraid to reveal his desires. And his
varied musical styles
continue to embody an broad acceptance of love
and self, as the next song
specifically demands to take off your cool.
Take Off Your Cool
The only instruments used in Take Off Your Cool
are acoustic
guitars and minimal synthesizer additions, a marked
change from the
busy, electronic instrumentation of My Favorite
Things and much of the
album. The uncovered use of acoustic guitar and
lack of percussion, along
with the slow, bluesy groove, creates a comfortable
musical setting for the
simple, yet poignant, lyrics to connect with the
listener.

Take Off Your Cool begins with the fade-in of an
acoustic guitar
strum that makes the meter of the song difficult to
pinpoint at first. Since
the song comes out of the accelerated My Favorite
Things, the listener
still has the feel of the pounding eighth note beat.
The fade-in begins
audibly with four eighth-note chords, one
immediately after the other, that
are the pick up to the downbeat. These four chords
create a quarter-note
tempo nearly identical to the one in My Favorite
Things; this may lead
the listener to hear the phrase as a measure of slow,
straight, 3/2, with the
beginning of the phrase starting on the eighth note
before the downbeat, as
shown in the diagram below.
110
In this meter, the downbeat is concealed and the
second beat is
accented, so the rhythm seems to not yet be in the
pocket and the
listener may still be unsure of the time signature.
However, the meter
becomes apparent once the lead vocals come in on
the downbeat and the
guitar strum is accented on the downbeat and the
eighth note preceding

the third beat. Thus, the meter can be heard as a
moderate swung 4, rather
than a slow, straight 3/2. The four eighth-note pickup chords, which are
initially believed to make up the third beat of 3/2,
equaling two quarter
notes from the driving rhythm from My Favorite
Things, are actually
part of the eighth-note triplet feel of the swung
rhythm. The correct swung
4/4 rhythm, notated below in 12/8, can be compared
with the previously
shown straight 3/2 rhythm.
111
While songs like Happy Valentines Day and
Roses use a swung
rhythmic design, Take Off Your Cool is the only
relaxed groove on the
album. This creates an entirely different feel from
My Favorite Things,
creating one the strongest rhythmic contrasts
between two songs on the
album. Norah Jones sings the first lyric section over
this accompanying
swung 4/4 groove, establishing the simple message
of the song with a
beautifully raw vocal, double tracking her voice for
the repeated line, I
want to see you, to ensure that the listener hears
the warmth in her sung

declaration. As Norah Jones warm alto melody is
released into the
instrumental B section by a noticeably audible
Ahh! from Andr, Take
Off Your Cool continues to exhibit some of the
most intriguing choices on
the album, through effective, simple means.
The form of this song is unlike any other yet heard
on the album.
The song is without a true chorus or verse, but can
actually be considered
in a basic ternary form. The first and last sections
have the same harmonic
phrase repeated throughout, with variations in
melody and
accompaniment; this warrants the label A and A for
the first and last
sections, respectively. The instrumental middle
section provides
significant contrast to the A sections, warranting the
label B, by altering the
phrasing of the harmony to make the B section
sound in a completely
different meter, and function as a separate, definable
section.
0:00 0:18 a - introduction
8 mm.
Instrumental introduction;
in 12/8
Fade-up
0:18 0:36 a scat verse

8 mm.
Scat duet
Hey yow, bah-di-bow
0:36 0:54 a Norah Jones refrain
8 mm.
A section
24 mm.
Norah Jones solo
112
Baby, take off your cool
0:55 1:31 b instrumental
16 mm.
B section
16 mm.
Instrumental in 3/4
1:31 1:36 transition into verse
2 mm.
Transition
2 mm.
Transition in 12/8
1:36 1:54 a Andr refrain
8 mm.
Andr solo
Babeee! Take off!
1:54 2:37 a (2x) coda
16 mm.
A section
24 mm.
Instrumental coda,
Fade-out

The change of phrasing for the B section reflects the
rhythmic
ambiguity from the beginning of the song; Andr
continues to intrigue the
listener by creating a repeating phrase for the B
section that seems to
involve a change in time and meter. When the B
section begins, the
listener can detect a change from 12/8 (swung 4)
into 3/4, with four-note
arpeggiations repeated on the acoustic guitar. This
creates a rhythmic
contrast in the B section, consisting of a four
measure phrase in a straight
3/4 time, as shown in the below diagram. When
compared with the A
section, shown in the above diagram in swung 4,
this creates two
contrasting sections of four-bar phrases.
This change in meter is confirmed when the
synthesized
accompanying melody comes in at the beginning of
the third phrase, with
melodic phrases in 3/4. This metric contrast,
however, is actually
achieved by a simple change in phrasing. The
rhythm of the eighth-note
113
triplet, used in the A section to create the swing feel,
is continued exactly

into the B section, acting as the straight sixteenthnote rhythm by accenting
every four notes, instead of every three, as shown in
the below diagram:
Some listeners may argue that there is not an actual
change in meter,
but simply a change in phrasing for this section, and
that the contrast does
not warrant the label as a B section. This is a valid
argument when
considering the standard changes found in the B
section of a ternary
structure; however, within the context of this song,
the contrast is great
enough to warrant a separate distinction for this
section, thus creating a
basic model of ternary structure between the three
sections. Regardless of
the way in which the middle section is transcribed,
the metric ambiguity
plays a large part in forming the structure of this
song, which is unique on
this album. Also, in a song that is lyrically about
revealing ones true self,
this change is appropriate in showing the musical
alterations that are
possible while still staying true to the original
meter. Lastly, the change in
meter further slows down the relaxed, swung A
section, creating a calm

musical section, devoid of any lyrics or vocals,
before the triumphant, full
choral return of the A section.
In the return of the A section, Andrs voice, singing
both the
melody and harmony lines, is tracked multiple times
to achieve a glorious,
114
celebratory effect. The multiple tracks are panned
throughout the mix
creating a full enclosure of the listener, creating a
safe haven for the
listener to actualize to the lyrics.
This song contains less than 20 words total, many of
which are
repeated, making the point of the song concise and
clear. The protagonist
explicitly tells the listener, Baby, take off your
cool. I want to see you.
Since the B section is only instrumental, the point of
the lyrics must be
conveyed in the short A and A sections. Andr
creates a musical setting
for this song that can allow for the listener to take
off their cool. As
previously examined, the beginning A section
creates an simple, relaxed
environment for the lyric to first be heard. Then, the
middle B section
slows down the already comfortable environment
and adds the legato

synthesized melody, allowing the meaning of the
lyrics and feeling of the
music to gestate in the listener (in the words of Big
Boi, the listener can go
on and marinate on that for a minute).79 Finally,
the enveloping choral
return of the A section, acts as a release from the B
section, providing the
spark and warmth needed to allow the listener to
take off your cool.
It is also entirely possible to see this song as another
character piece,
in the style of a ballad in musical theatre. This
seems especially possible
considering that the song is sung by both a man and
a woman, initially
together, and then as soloists in separate sections.
Although this song
varies from a standard musical theatre duet, as the
soloist sections usually
precede the duet singing, it does contain many
fundamental aspects of the
duet: the separate solo sections, harmonized vocal
sections, and a
conspicuous release at the end of the song.
79 Outkast, Spottieottiedopalicious, Stankonia.
115
When considered in this fashion, the protagonist is
not speaking to
the listener of the album, but to another character
within the world of the

protagonist. Like a musical theatre song, the
protagonist has a clear
objective to achieve, explained in the lyric, and
attempts to achieve this
objective through the music and lyrics. The initial
attempts to achieve this
objective can be heard in the simply stated A
section, the development of
this attempt can be heard in the changes and
instrumental growth of the B
section, and the success in achieving this objective
can be seen in the
celebratory, final A, where the ornamented repeat
of the A section informs
the listener that the protagonist has achieved the
goal of getting the other
character to take off your cool.
The phrase, Take Off Your Cool, can be
understood in a dual
nature, like the effect of a double entendre. It can be
understood to mean
shedding your false behavior to reveal your true
personal self, or to mean
shedding your clothing to reveal your true physical
self. The composition
of all three sections in this song - the warm,
intimacy of the initial A
section, the simple, unspoken instrumental of the B
section, and the
explosive, romanticism of the final A section can
bring to mind the

delicate and beautiful nature of revealing ones true
self to another. This
expressive use of the double entendre can also allow
the listener to
conclude that, in this song, Andr believes that to
reveal ones true self to
another through sexual means or through personal
means is of equal
worth and equally valid in meaning to take off
your cool, and that,
moreover, to integrate the two would be the ultimate
expression of this
unique phrase.
116
Vibrate
Vibrate is the longest song on the album, reaching a
total of six
minutes and thirty-eight seconds. The song uses a
sampling of musical
choices from the entire album to create a
penultimate concluding song. As
examined in the next song analysis, A Life in the
Day of Benjamin Andr
(Incomplete) may be seen as a postlude or
appendix, removed from the
rest of the album and commenting upon it. Thus, by
succinctly expressing
a concluding message in the lyrics and combining
various musical aspects
previously used on the album, including sound
effects, a metrically

confusing introduction, simple verse-chorus form,
and familiar
instrumentation, Andr creates a concluding finale
for the characters and
stories on The Love Below.
Vibrate begins with an ethereal introduction
consisting of sixteen
measures, making the introduction the same length
as a full verse/chorus.
The introduction begins on beat three, initially
concealing the downbeat
until the fifth measure when the downbeat is
established with the entrance
of the piano. Andr has obscured the opening of
other songs on the album
like Hey Ya! and Pink & Blue using rhythmic
variation to subtly vary
the introduction. The introduction in Vibrate is
dominated by three
electronic sound effects, making the beat loop that
is the basic track for the
entire song.
The first effect sounds like an oversized object
being quickly pulled
through a vacuum; it provides a bass-like downbeat.
On each repetition,
the effect is quickly panned from the middle to the
outside on both the left
and right side, effectively creating a bass sound
moving from the back to

the front of the speakers. The second part of the
loop sounds like a blade
117
of metal slicing through wood. This higher pitched
sound provides the
backbeat, occurring on the second and fourth beats.
The third part of the
loop is reminiscent of a finger scratching against a
piece of sandpaper and
subdivides the moderately slow tempo with a
continual sixteenth note
pulse. Together, these three sounds make up the
continuous loop that
provides the basic track of the entire song, as shown
below:
These are essentially sound effects, as Andr has
used throughout
the rest of the album. In many other tracks on the
album, Andr has used
sound effects to demonstrate a specific narrative,
such in as Spread or
Where Are My Panties, or to emulate a specific
character trait, such as in
Draculas Wedding or Pink & Blue, but here
sound effects are used in
a less demonstrative way to create the actual basic
track of the song.
Symbolically, this can be seen as Andr exploiting
sound effects on a
higher level, embodying the title lyric vibrate
higher, instead of using

sound effects for specific narrative effect.
This song is strophic with a simple verse-chorus
harmonic structure,
just as most of the songs on this album have been
primarily composed in
simple verse-chorus form. As with other simple
verse-chorus songs like
Happy Valentines Day, Roses, and Love in
War, this song relies
118
heavily on melodic, instrumental, and timbral
variations to differentiate
between sections, which can be defined into the
following:
0:00 0:46 Intro, 16 mm. Two-beat pick-up
concealing the
downbeat
0:47 1:32 Chorus, 16mm 8-bar Chorus (twice)
1:32 2:18 Choral Interlude, 16mm
2:18 3:03 Chorus, 16mm
3:04 3:49 Verse, 16mm
3:50 4:35 Chorus, 16mm
4:35 5:21 Spoken, 16mm The circumcision has
already
begun
Basic track/sound effects tacet
5:21 6:06 Chorus, 16mm
6:06 6:38 Coda, 8mm One 8-bar Chorus, tacet
accompaniment
Representing a culmination of instrumental
references from

throughout the album, an instrumentation of bluesy,
arpeggiated piano is
used, along with legato, muted jazz horns, and
ethereal synth sounds.
These references help to tie together the musical
vocabulary of the album.
While this instrumentation recalls many songs from
the album, it
specifically recalls the instrumentation used in
Love Hater, though it is
used here in a different way. The jazzy piano and
horns in Love Hater
are used in a big band style, representing the
exciting possibilities that lie
ahead on the album; by the end of the album,
however, this
instrumentation is used in an indeterminate fusion
of styles to summarize
Andrs breadth of stories and songs on this album.
Only after Andr has
entertained the listener with nineteen tracks of
conceptual music, does he
use the final song to candidly convey his simple
message. Andr uses
these instrumental references to help bookend the
album with Love
119
Hater as the opening song and Vibrate as the
closing. This helps to
solidify The Love Below (Intro) as an separate
introductory track, similar

to a prelude, and A Life in the Day of Benjamin
Andr as a separate
concluding track, similar to a postlude.
The lyrics of this song help to summarize Andres
thoughts on the
album. Andr begins by sympathizing with the
listener, or any possible
Love Haters, singing that every boy and girl,
woman to man deals with
these stories and issues that have been investigated
on The Love Below.
Andr explains that he understands the plight of the
listener, knowing that
sometimes when its late at night and you have no
one to talk toThe
Love Below starts talking to ya. He brings up the
power of the Love
Below for the first time since the opening song.
The Love Below is a
metaphor for sex drive and sexual urges and the
chorus explains Andrs
remedy for rising above these sexual urges: vibrate
higher.
The chorus of this song utilizes an octave divider on
the melody,
placing the lead vocal in two registers. The octave
divider mirrors the
frequent explicit musical techniques used
throughout the album by
literally embodying the higher vibration.

Following the third chorus, the sixteenth-note pulse
of the basic
track is tacet in the first eight measures of the
spoken section, as Andr
specifically addresses the listener. This is the
opposite of Hey Ya!, when
Andre continues the dance groove while conveying
a message, giving in to
his admission that the audience dont wanna hear
me, you just wanna
dance. Here, in Vibrate, Andre drops out the
pulse of the looped beat
to make the listener suddenly acutely aware of
Andrs message. Andre
gives a direct, soapbox-like address to the listener:
Play with your own
squishy. Become the master of your own 'bation.
And yes, God is
120
watching you. But, no need to be embarrassed, for
the future is in your
hands. Nothe future is in your hand. Play with
your own squishy.
Once again, Andr recalls techniques here that have
been used on
other tracks of the album, like in Draculas
Wedding and Pink & Blue,
using puns to lightly imprint his concluding
message about sex, love, and
the Love Below. He suggests that, instead of
following ones sexual urges,

the listener should masturbate and that the future of
humanity, procreation,
literally lies within the Love Below. And so every
listener has the
power to vibrate on a higher level, even when the
urge from the Love
Below is strong.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the changes
in the album
from initial release to digital iTunes release is the
addition at the end of
Vibrate. After the song ends, the listener hears a
monotone electronic
recording, mimicking the sound of an automated
telephone operator. The
automated voice says, L O V E. Not found.
The phrase, L-O-V-E,
Not found can be seen as a culmination of the
journey of the Love
Hater, and while the theme of the album is still
easily conveyed without
this addition, it adds further closure to the narrative
by explicitly stating
that The Love Below began with a search for love
has ended with love
not being found.
This concluding phrase may also be seen as Andrs
personal
statement, considering that in Vibrate he
addresses the listener with a

concluding message and that the next song, A Life
in the Day of Benjamin
Andr, can be seen as a separate entity, as Andr
specifically addresses
his own life. This phrase leads directly into the final
track on the album,
which can be seen as an appendix, as Andr
explores an entirely new
subject and musical vocabulary for A Life in the
Day of Benjamin Andr.
121
A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre
(Incomplete)
A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre
(Incomplete) sounds atonal,
however it does not employ any post-tonal syntax or
consistent sonorities.
When the piece is broken down into pitch classes,
the pitch intervals do
not constitute familiar post-tonal musical sets, nor
do they form diatonic
tonal harmonies. So, while one could analyze the
sets, this piece does not
appear to have been intended to fit into a post-tonal
or tonal analysis.
Rather, dissonance is generally created through
chromatic clusters, with
the use of step-wise motion between clusters. The
pitch content is shown
below, displaying the repeating pattern in the two A
sections (0:011:18

and 2:353:32) and the two B sections (1:352:35
and 3:324:49), creating a
repeating binary structure.
The pitch content, therefore, becomes secondary to
the timbre and
style of the piece. Supporting the atonal harmonic
sound is an ethereal
instrumentation, dominated by chilling synth vocal
lines that are
reminiscent of a musical saw. The beat is created
through the
juxtaposition between very low, resonant sounds
and high-pitched flat
sounds. A resonant electronic bass drum sounds on
the downbeat, the
122
upbeat of one, the third-sixteenth note of two, and
the third beat. Group
handclaps sound on every upbeat while a
woodblock-like snare accents
the eighth-note triplet at the end of each phrase,
creating the higher
sounds. A Life in the Day has a unique beginning,
like many other
songs on the album, using a three beat introduction,
with the bass drum
sounding on two, the upbeat of two, three, and four.
After this three beat
pick-up, the beat is regular through the song. The
combination of these

three dissimilar sounds and rhythms creates a
disorienting effect on the
listener and supports the harmony in making this
song sound post-tonal.
While, it is seemingly unexpected to have a song
that does not rely
on common tonal or post-tonal composition
techniques, this choice is
actually consistent with the rest of the album. Andr
has employed
tonality and modality in various forms throughout
the album, so it is
logical that he would go one step further than posttonal composition by
creating a piece in that style without using the
common practices of posttonal
composition. Considering the lack of post-tonal
structure, and the
other album songs primarily tonal structure, this
song may be considered
as a form of post-progressive tonality. Comparing
A Life in the Day
with Everetts examination of tonal systems in
Rock, we see that A Life in
the Day has many of these defining characteristics,
such as tonal centers
[that] are given little or no syntactical support,
chords [that are] related
by half-step, without any sort of harmonic, or even
normal contrapuntal,

syntax, and roots [that] strongly suggest a rather
atonal quality.80
These compositional techniques are particularly
justifiable in this
song for a number of reasons; this song is the only
one on the album to
80 Walter Everett, Making Sense of Rocks Tonal
Systems, Music Theory Online 10/4 (December
2004)
<http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/issues/mto
.04.10.4/mto.04.10.4.w_everett.html>.
123
directly discuss Andrs own real life experiences,
the title of this piece
includes the word incomplete. By including this
ambiguous tonality,
Andr musically supports his own life experiences
as being indefinable
and without rules. The use of the word
incomplete can also be seen as a
reference to the incomplete progressions and lack of
tonal center in the
song.
The only helpful possible tonal reference in this
song, which is
indefinite but worth noting, is the A-flat/C-natural
dyad on the second
beat of the A section. The final dyad of the A
section, E-flat/B-flat, may be
heard as a final cadence referencing the A-flat/C
dyad as the possible

tonal center. This is worth noting, as a replication of
the pivot chord
linking the opening songs The Love Below
(Intro) and Love Hater.
The replication of this chord in the final track,
which is central to the
opening tracks, recalls a similar device used on the
Beatles album, Sgt.
Pepper, with the harmonic relationship between the
first two songs on the
album being reused between verse and bridge of the
last song.81 While
Andrs tonal reference between the first and last
songs of his album is
indefinite, his reference to concept albums is
definitive, connecting The
Love Below to Sgt. Pepper by subverting the title of
the last song, A Day in
the Life.
This final song on Sgt. Pepper is one of the most
widely known songs
to include post-progressive tonality; the B section of
the song changes key
centers and the strings in the coda employ harsh
dissonance before
resolving to the final chord. Even the run-out
groove82 following A
Day in the Life is a repeating, indistinguishable
conglomeration of
82 Everett, p. 122.

124
sounds. By using this title, Andr shows his
intention to connect this song
with the post-progressive tonality in A Day in the
Life, and moreover,
shows his intention to attach The Love Below to
concept albums like Beatles
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, the very
first concept album. The
comparison is completed here, as A Day in the
Life is the last song on
Sgt. Pepper and A Life in the Day of Benjamin
Andre is the last song on
The Love Below.
III. The Love Below as a Concept Album
Thus, Andr makes his final statement of The Love
Below as a concept
album, not by linking the final song directly to the
other tracks, but by
linking it to, arguably, the very first concept album
in popular music.
Andr creates a connected relationship between the
individual tracks of
The Love Below, as shown in the analysis of his
music. Andr uses
composition to animate characters like the Love
Hater and Dracula, and to
establish settings such as the bedroom and the club.
The connected
narrative of the Love Hater, examined in the first
half of the album, and

the related stories of love, sex, and relationships
examined in the second
half, create a dramatic coherence for the album as a
whole. This is
strengthened by the compositional choices that
illustrate the stories of
love.
Through musical and lyrical references in The Love
Below, Andr has
linked the album to the broad scope and history of
concept albums,
including Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
While the analysis of
Andrs album does not help to clarify a concrete
definition of the genre, it
125
does help to bring to light the attributes that may be
used to create a
cohesive, dramatic work of music.
By creating two separate albums with Speakerboxxx
and The Love
Below, Big Boi and Andr 3000 have set an
uncertain path for the future of
Outkast. The follow-up to Speakerboxxx/The Love
Below was a film and
accompanying soundtrack entitled, Idlewild. The
creation of a movie
shows the strong pull of Andrs dramatic
inclinations, but may also signal
a lack of interest from Andr to create more musical
albums.

Andre Benjamin has began to work in film and
television, appearing
in the films Four Brothers and Revolver, and
creating his own cartoon series
on The Cartoon Network entitled Class of 3000,
while Big Boi has taken to
making tracks with the Purple Ribbon Allstars and
fostering his pit bull
breeding company Pitfall Kennels. The signs of
Outkasts permanent
break up are palpable: On the Purple Ribbon AllStars first album, Got
Purp? Vol. 2, Killer Mike repeats over and over,
All I know is Big here,
Dre gone, moved on, changed names from
Aquemini to Purple Ribbon.83
Similarly, the premise for Andrs Class of 3000 is a
pop music superstar
who gets tired of the business, so he retires and
teaches music to kids.
In interviews, Outkast has discussed how they are
seeking new
directions apart, however, they stress that they have
no plans to break up
entirely. An interview with Vibe Magazine for the
release of Idlewild84
quoted Outkasts members, with Andr saying that
he was kinda hating
making music right now, and corroborated that
Outkast had not

recorded an album in the same room since
Stankonia. But Big Boi
83 Purple Ribbon Allstars, Dungeon Family
Dedication, Big Boi PresentsGot Purp? Vol. II,
Virgin Records, 0946 3 12207 2 2, 2005.
84 Outkast, Idlewild, LaFace Records, 8287675791-2, 2006.
126
reminded the interviewer that Outkast is still
tight, and that Outkast
aint breaking up. Outkast growing up.85
Regardless of the future of
Outkast, the composition of The Love Below created
a coherent
compositional plan and correlation between the
narrative and the music86
that will hopefully be appreciated as an album and
analyzed as a concept
album for generations to come.
In The Love Below (Intro), Andr 3000 poses the
essential
question for the album, and for the concept album,
who knows where this
flower grows? The Love Below addresses this
question through
compositional choices on individual tracks, which
establish an overarching
coherence throughout. Thus, Andr answers his own
question by growing
a concept album that blooms with recognizable
characters, palpable

settings, and a far-reaching examination of love and
the Love Below.
85 Matthias Clamer, Back to the Future, Vibe
Magazine 7 (2006): pp. 98-105.
86 Elicker, Concept Albums: Song Cycles in
Popular Music, p. 230.
127
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