Iris Goo Goo Dolls http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdYWuo9OFAw Meter 4/4 Key is D Almost the entire song is homophony.

y. Iris by the Goo Goo dolls is one of my favorite songs of all time. Much of its impact stems from the power of its lyrics, but there is what to be said for the music as well. The structure of the music is actually quite simple. It is strophic, meaning that it repeats the same section again and again. The form could be analyzed as A A A The song begins with an instrumental introduction that introduces the musical motives of the song. This ends at 12 second. Then the voice enters. There is a theme of four bars ending at 16 seconds, which lyrically corresponds to the first line of the verse {Id give up forever to touch you}. There is then a variation on that theme composed of different chords but dynamically similar. The last chord in the first theme is a G major and the first chord in the second theme is also a G major. These two phrases are then repeated, making the third and fourth lines of the verse. {Dont want to go home right now. This is about 30 seconds into the song.} There is then an instrumental cadence. The whole verse then repeats again identically, only with different lyrics and one difference in dynamics at the very end. (At this point, one may notice that at the beginning of each phrase there is a walking baseline ,which is a bass pattern that follows the rhythm of the song and tends to move up or down a scale. The melody crescendos rather than remaining constant as in the previous instrumental cadence. The volume goes from piano to forte quite suddenly as the song transitions to the chorus, and the melody jumps an entire octave. The timbre of the lead singers voice also changes, going from smooth and melodic to rather raspy, likely a function of the volume and key in which he is now singing. This happens at about 49 seconds into the song. During the verse the primary instrument is the guitar, with the bass and drums providing a beat. Other instruments join in during the chorus. However, musically, the chorus is essentially identical to the verse, except for the octave and volume change. The notes are the same. The first chorus ends at 1:06. The song then transitions to an instrumental bridge and goes back to another verse (1:20) and then another chorus (1:40). At 1:56 we move to another instrumental bridge where the violins merge with guitars and eventually provide a staccato rhythm of their own for a few measures (starting at 2:17) moving up slightly in key each bar. This then transitions to a lead guitar solo which plays over the main song and could be called polyphony (starts at 2:38). This solo ends with a dramatic decrescendo into the same music as the first bridge. This then quickly transitions to the chorus, which repeats twice. The last line of the chorus is then repeated four times, becoming a chorus of its own. The song then ends with what could be called a codetta, an instrumental piece that differs from the rest of the song. Source: http://depauwlisteningjournal.blogspot.com/2005/02/goo-goo-dollsiris.html