Understanding Somebody That I Used To Know

Gotye never wanted to be famous. he just wanted to make music. which is why he was just as surprised as the rest of us when his weird little song about the emotional complexity of romantic endings became the #1 single in 24 countries. and it's also why he never did it again. he probably could have, but he decided not to try, instead stepping out of the spotlight, starting an independent label, and going back to playing drums with his friends. in interviews, he always deflected away from the importance of fame and onto the value of experience and art. ("I kinda like the idea of doing anything once, so, I mean, people ask me, y'know, like, about whether I worry about being a one-hit wonder, and I'm kinda like, well, I've had that experience, that's what it was like, it was kind of cool sometimes, strange, a bit weird, not very good other times, yeah, I dunno. having, like, number ones as like a statement, or a status or something like that I… doesn't really count for much, I think. ") he's honestly a fascinating artist to me, and a lot of that comes through in that one hit, so today, I want to talk about Somebody That I Used To Know. let's take it apart. (tick, tick, tick, tock) before we get started, if you want to see my next video a month early or just watch this one ad-free, those are both live now on Patreon. there's a link in the description, more on that at the end of the video. I'm gonna structure this video a little different than usual, 'cause Somebody That I Used To Know is different from a lot of the songs I've looked at. for starters, it's mainly samples, which means if we really want to understand it, we can't just ask what the sounds are, we also have to ask where they come from, what he did to them, and why he chose them. like, the main guitar loop: (bang) is borrowed from the intro to Seville by Brazilian Jazz guitarist Luiz Bonfá. (bang) Bonfa is actually a pretty popular sample source, showing up in songs by The Pharcyde, Gucci Mane, and Black Eyed Peas, among others. and that makes sense: Brazilian Jazz is known for its cool harmonies and infectious rhythms, so it makes a great foundation for a sampled beat. in fact, Bonfá's playing here is so percussive that I kinda wanna try reading it as a drum pattern. do some simple substitutions, line everything up, and… (bang) yeah, that's a pretty standard beat. kicks, represented by the low-string notes, on 1 and 3, snares, or chord stabs, on 2 and 4, and some extra kicks in between to set things up. it's a complete, recognizable drum groove all on its own, just played on a guitar. and that's important for Somebody That I Used To Know, because while the song has a lot of percussion, none of it is doing anything as straightforward as playing a backbeat. so this guitar loop kinda becomes the drums, filling in that rhythmic function with chord stabs instead of snare hits. the guitar does double duty, taking charge of both the harmony and the beat all in one instrument, and Gotye uses that to its full advantage. but he doesn't just rip the intro. the sampled guitar loop sounds really different from what Bonfá originally played. and to understand why, we need a brief digression to look at what the song is about. the short answer is it's about a breakup. but it's about a very specific kind of breakup. he's not angry, or wounded, or even really sad. he's just stuck. he can't let go, even after she's made it very clear that she doesn't want him in her life. it's an anxious, unsettled kind of pain, not deep but still visceral, a longing for closure that's never coming, and he doesn't know how to accept that. he describes their relationship as an addiction, and this song is his withdrawal. to capture that, he makes two big changes to the loop. the obvious one is length: Bonfá played four chords, but Gotye only uses the first two. instead of cascading down the scale to a bombastic finale, he's just pacing back and forth between the I chord and the bVII. the bVII has an interesting, ambiguous sound. it can be a departure point taking you away from the root, or it can drive a resolution back. but asking it to do both at once means neither function feels satisfying, and you wind up with motion that never really goes anywhere. (bang) but there's also a more subtle change in the chords themselves. these are not the chords Bonfá played, at least not in these positions. instead of the D minor chord that's supposed to be first, Gotye borrows the third chord of the progression, which is actually Bb major. it happens really quickly, and the attack is so percussive that the precise notes kinda disappear, so I don't think the point is to change the harmony. to my ears, this still reads as D minor. we'll get to the actual point soon, but first, let's look at the second chord. this is C major, but Bonfá never played C major. his second chord is still D minor, so Gotye had to do some sonic surgery, pitch-shifting the individual notes to get the harmony he wanted. and the point of all of this is contour. Seville has this powerful descending figure, but that's a little too directional for such a sensitive song. manipulating the chords like this means that the second chord is voiced higher than the first, creating a beautiful contrast with the descending bass. (bang) they keep drifting apart, then coming back together, putting musical shape to this unhealthy obsession with past events he can't change. next, I want to look at the percussion. in the verses, this consists of two

complementary samples: Co-Gona Voodoo, by Chaino: (bang) and Woke Up This Morning, by Mexicali Brass. (bang) they're very similar rhythms, saturating the metric landscape with near-constant 8th notes, but the thing that really ties them together is how they start. in each bar of both samples, there's a strong hit on the downbeat, then a gorgeous little triplet roll into beat 2. (bang) and that's one of the beautiful things about sampling: you find two songs by very different artists in completely different genres that just happen to have the exact same rhythmic flourish, so you clip them both, snap 'em together, and transform them into something completely new. it puts artists in conversation across styles and across decades, all while making your own art to keep the conversation going. in terms of function, I think the most important thing about these two samples is they're both constant, with their driving 8th notes filling all the little nooks and crannies of the bar. the guitar is already doing the work of defining the metric pulse, so the percussion instruments are free to take on roles that are less about rhythm and more about saturation and timbre. together, the two samples have this sharp, rumbling quality that makes the verses feel uneasy, as if, lurking just beneath the surface, is some deeper emotional meaning that he's afraid to directly express. when we finally get that expression in the chorus, the percussion switches to a completely new approach, centered on a new cowbell sample from Puerto de Baranquilla by Los Machucambos. (bang) that cowbell gives us a real percussive beat, and it's joined by kicks, shakers, and some midrange drum, I think maybe a cajon, all filling in the rest of those percussive functions. there's even a vibraslap every couple bars for punctuation. once he admits to his actual frustration, the music starts moving forward. then we have the actual bass. there is a normal bassline that sometimes doubles the low strings of the Seville sample, but I'm not talking about that. instead, I want to talk about whatever the hell this is. (bang) this one's not a sample: it was played in-studio by Lucas Taranto, then utterly destroyed by engineer François Tétaz. it comes in during certain instrumental hooks, as well as the chorus, and the thick layers of reverb and compression makes it feel not just far away, but almost under water. it sounds nasty, like some sort of horrifying beast hidden deep beneath the metaphorical waves, and the long rests between notes give it time to sink back down before suddenly appearing again. we first encounter it in the interlude after the first verse, and the pickup he plays gives the transition a strong textural cue: (bang) that seems to drag you down into its beckoning depths. it's a disgusting bassline and I love it so much. speaking of the interlude, let's talk instrumental hooks. (bang) this is a fun sample. it comes from a 1967 educational album called A Child's Introduction To The Instruments Of The Orchestra, which is exactly what it sounds like, and it demonstrates the xylophone like this. (bang) basically Baa Black Sheep, with a little melodic flourish in the middle. but if the sample sounds wrong to you, there's a reason. the song is in the key of D minor, but this clip isn't. it's C major. it's also a really strong tonal melody, with clear, powerful points of resolution, but by choosing not to pitch-shift it to the correct key, all those resolutions miss. (bang) they're in the wrong place at the wrong time, transforming the simple innocence of this classic children's song into something a lot more distressing. he's insisting everything's fine, but anyone listening to him could easily tell that it's not. that brings us to the second hook: (bang) and this is another really cool sampling technique. it comes from another Luiz Bonfá track, called The Exodus Song, but even hardcore Bonfá fans could be excused for not recognizing it, because the original sounds like this. (bang) yeah, instead of sampling a segment, he's just sampling a tone, taking that first guitar note and sequencing it on different pitches to write his own melody. this time, that melody is in D minor. he starts on A, does a big leap up, then works his way back down the scale to a low D. with just that description, you might assume he's jumping to a high D: (bang) but no. this top note is, once again, C. so let's talk about that. C is the b7 of the key, and the b7 is a really weird sound.

to my ears, at least, it's a dull, hollow tone, defined mainly by its lack of clear emotional character. it's a blank space that rejects feeling, but Gotye makes you feel it anyway, leaping up so you can't help but be drawn in to the same emotional void his character inhabits. the overall line has a clear downward trajectory, but this note pops out in the other direction like a musical bruise, a painful reminder of an injury you'd rather forget. and that same approach carries into our final hook, too. (bang) this one's a little different from the others, in that it plays during the chorus, while Gotye is also singing. so maybe it's more a background line than a hook… actually, y'know what? let's save this 'til we get to the chorus. it'll make a lot more sense after we look at the vocals. speaking of which, Gotye's verses have a gorgeous melody, following a classic pop form that music theorists call SRDC, or statement, response, development, conclusion. the statement is the first phrase, establishing the basic shape of the melody. (bang) and this shape should be familiar: it's the same idea as the Exodus hook, starting on A, jumping up to C, then working his way to a low D. in fact, you could say the Exodus hook is a melodic reduction of this vocal line, a skeletal form that strips away the connecting notes to reveal its basic structure. and that means everything I said about that hook also applies here. same emotional emptiness, made even more striking by the way he lightens his voice on the high C, fading it back into, like, a whispered cry for help. powerful start. after the statement is the response. this can just repeat the first phrase, or modify it slightly. Gotye chooses the latter, ending on A and adding some syncopation: (bang) but beyond that, it's basically the same thing. and the conclusion also repeats the statement's structure: (bang) which leaves us with the development phrase. this is usually the spiciest part: the initial statement is getting repetitive, but you're not ready to wrap up yet, so you need some sort of bridge to carry you through the rest of the section. navigating the development phrase is what separates good melody-writers from great ones, and I really like the simplicity of how Gotye handles it here. he starts the same way as before, with the same leap up to C in the exact same metric position, but then he slows down. the other three phrases are each two bars of melody followed by two bars of rest, but here he does two bars of melody followed by another, different two bars of melody. (bang) the first half covers the leap but doesn't really descend, while the second one takes that familiar walkdown and drags it out to a complete line in its own right. it's a really recognizable shape that calls back to the original statement without copying it, so the lines fit in perfectly while still bringing new ideas and filling more of the metric space. and the other thing I want to talk about here is rhyme scheme. or, rather, the lack thereof. the two halves of the development phrase do rhyme with each other, but that's it. nothing else in the verse does. and, of course, lyrics don't have to rhyme, but in pop music, they usually do. avoiding them creates a subtle disorientation, falling to meet expectations you didn't quite know that you had. and that complexity creates a sense of maturity: in the western poetic tradition, we have a strong association between simple, obvious rhymes and emotional clarity. think Dr. Seuss, with his straightforward couplets. more complicated schemes, like the quatrains in Shakespeare's sonnets, signify a more sophisticated poet with a more refined message. using no rhymes at all takes that even further, communicating a depth and nuance of emotion that makes this feel like much more than just a breakup song. it becomes a meditation on all the ways we make ourselves vulnerable to each other, and all the reasons we build walls when those vulnerabilities become too painful. compare that to Kimbra's verse. this wasn't originally part of the song, but after writing the first verse, Gotye realized that his narrator's story was done. if he's not gonna move on then there's not much left for him to say, so instead of adding new events, what the song needed was a new perspective. and we see that shift immediately in Kimbra's melodic structure. her statement phrase is similar to Gotye's: (bang) with one subtle difference that she makes a lot more obvious in the response. (bang) did you catch it? the high C is gone, replaced with Bb. still a dissonant note, but one with a much stronger emotional character, and, importantly, one that can resolve. and it does. twice. while Gotye's high note pops out uncomfortably, Kimbra's fits naturally, releasing the tension it creates by dropping a half-step to A.

after that, though, is where we really see her transformation, because instead of a development or conclusion, she cuts off the verse to introduce a brand new prechorus. (bang) here, Kimbra's melody settles down even more. no large leaps, just two notes stepping back and forth. it evokes an almost meditative sense of breathing, as the end of each phrase sets up a gentle resolution into the start of the next one. specifically, a resolution to F. remember that. meanwhile, the harmony has also finally changed. (bang) the Seville sample starts alternating between, I think, F major and C major, but it's drowned out in the mix by that driving bass hammering out Cs, so to my ears, the overall effect is just 8 bars of C major. that's even less motion than the verses, but at this point it's so restrained that it kinda comes out the other side. this isn't anxiety. this is her planting her flag. and we can hear that in the lyrics too, where the vague, rhymeless form of the previous verses is replaced by simple couplets ending in way, say, go, and know. that finally brings us to the chorus, which I've been saving 'til the end for the big reveal. this whole song has been in D minor, but this melody: (bang) isn't. or, I mean, it is, but it's not, but it is, but it's… ok. so. all of these notes do belong in the key of D minor, but he uses them in a way that strongly implies F major. if we look at the last note of each phrase, it goes A, F, A, C, A, F, A, F. that's all roots, 3rds, and 5ths. you can't get much more tonal than that. he even ends on a classic 3-2-1 walkdown. (bang) and remember the synth? (bang) yeah, that's in F too. it's a very similar melodic contour to the Exodus hook, but where that one worked its way back to D, this line ends with F and C, making it, in effect, a fancy arpeggio of an F major triad. and that key change changes the emotional character of both melodies: they've still got those unprepared leaps to a high C, but now, instead of b7, it's the 5, a much more consonant, stable pitch. the higher range makes this section feel very intense, but the melody itself is a lot more comfortable and collected. and that makes sense: it's a really common trick in pop music to set the verse in a dark, sad minor key, then, for the chorus, switch to the relative major, lifting the song up for a sense of brightness and hope. but that's not what's happening here. I said the melody is in F. but the harmony isn't. the Seville sample is still chugging along in D minor. in fact, it leans in. the chord stabs are the same, but the bassline adds an extra note: a low Bb. (bang) still moving exclusively by step, so it still sounds really anxious, but by walking through the bVII, he separates its two functions, so now we hear it leave, then come back. to D minor. nothing's changed. just like with the xylophone sample, the melody's resolving to the wrong place. and that means what we're hearing from the attempted key change isn't hope. it's denial. denial of what? that depends how you interpret the story. maybe he was actually awful in ways he still doesn't recognize. maybe things were good, but then they got messy and he couldn't figure out how to adapt. or maybe the relationship meant so much to him that he never considered that, for her, it might never have been that serious. I dunno. the lyrics are intentionally vague, so, as a listener, you wind up filling in the gaps with your own experiences of relationships and breakups, and I don't know you so I don't know what those are. but regardless of the details, this tonal play in the chorus makes it clear that this outburst isn't him finding closure. instead, we hear him building these impenetrable walls around his version of the story, to ensure that no one can force him to consider what this might look like from her perspective. and that's what makes Kimbra's prechorus so brilliant. after Gotye's verse, he jumps straight to F major, unprepared and unsupported. but she doesn't. she does the work, spending enough time in the liminal space of that C chord that the old minor key begins to wash away, opening the door for an actual transformation. we don't quite hear it, because the song flips back to Gotye's perspective, but the message is clear. she has nothing more to say because, unlike him, she's genuinely over it. she's made it to that F major key. we see so little of her character in this song, largely there as a foil for his angst, but in just a couple lines she manages to convey exactly how unhealthy that angst is in a way that's both powerful and almost universally relatable. we've all been her, or we've been him, or, for many of us, we've been both at different times in our lives. and I think that's why this

song resonated with so many people: it feels honest. it feels like a real lived experience, with all the emotional depth and complexity of that experience. it's sympathetic to its narrator's pain without absolving him of fault for the situation he himself created. whenever I make these song videos, I always wind up with extra stuff I can't fit into the script, either because it's too much of a tangent, it breaks the narrative flow, or it's just too niche to appeal to the sort of broad audiences that YouTube relies on. but for this one in particular, I had to cut a lot. there are whole instruments I never got to talk about. I had to make a spreadsheet to track all the different layers, where each one showed up, which ones happened together, and how everything interacted. this video could've easily been an hour long. and while most of that didn't make the final script, I do still wanna talk about it, so if you want to hear me talk about it, you can check out the extended cut on patreon. I recorded a whole extra unscripted section looking at some of my favorite parts I didn't quite have room for, and published that over there for the folks whose support makes this channel possible. I also upload all my videos early over there, so if you want to see my next one like a month before it comes out on youtube, there's a link to my patreon in the description. and hey, thanks for watching. thanks to our featured patrons, Susan Jones, Jill Sundgaard, Howard Levine, Warren Huart, Damien Fuller-Sutherland, Neil Moore, and Geoff! check out Patreon for a fuller outro, and as always, keep on rockin'.