Hello, welcome to 2-5-1. Two pianists, five minutes, one subject. And today we're going to be doing one of our tunes we love, and it's You Go To My Head. My name's Nick Tomlin. My name's Simon Whiteside, and this is 2-5-1.

2-5-1. You Go To My Head is from the writing duo Fred Coots, and the lyrics are by Haven Gillespie, which is a brilliant name. In terms of what the tune is like, it's in 4-4. It's an A-A-B-A plus a tag format, and it's normally done in E-flat.

Interestingly, it's the same tune. Who brought us the tune Santa Claus is Coming to Town? Mostly it's done as a ballad, and I think lyrically it's a really good song. It's about being drunk with love, and there are a lot of alcohol references.

So there's champagne, burgundy, and a julep, which is, for those of you who don't know, normally known as a mint julep, which is bourbon, whiskey poured over crushed ice, mint leaves sweetened with sugar syrup. We're not sponsored by any cocktail bars.

Yeah, but for me, the interesting thing is that in some tunes, a tag is just really what it says. It's something lopped onto the end that makes the tune a bit longer. But in this one, I think actually that's the punchline. It's really where everything happens in the tune.

And I guess it's really a song about infatuation and unrequited love. And musically, you never know with these things what is intended, but certainly the way I interpret it is that the A sections are quite tight in terms of range, or what's called tessiatura, i.e. the difference between the lowest and the highest note.

They're quite tight. And then the bridge is a lot more expansive, and the tag is expansive again. So it's almost like that, the ruminating and the not. It's sort of an exposition, if you like.

But also, it goes between major and minor all the time. So there's that she loves me, she loves me not kind of feel to the harmonic progression. Have you got anything you'd like to add before I... I think it's interesting what you said about the tag being almost the climax of the tune,

which is kind of unusual. Because very often... The tag is almost just a... You can almost sometimes drop the tag, you know,

whereas this time it's like it really, like you say, it's the climax of the tune, really, the tag. Well, that last A has got one of my favourite lines in lyrics, which is, You go to my head with a smile that makes my temperature rise

Like a summer with a thousand jelies You intoxicate my soul with your eyes And then the tag happens Though I'm certain this heart of mine hasn't a ghost of a chance

It's a dream of mine, it's a dream of mine And in this crazy romance Romance? You go to my head.

Yeah. So if you sing it in American, it would be chance and romance, I guess. But, yeah, you're rising up through those words to... And you hit crazy romance at the highest point of the tune.

Although it is only as high as the bridge went. But you feel like that's the climax. Yeah, absolutely, you feel like that's the climax. And also it's that thing of it being...

So all the way through, if it's a man, if it's a woman, if it's a man singing to a woman, it will be he's talking about... You go to my head like the bubbles in a glass of champagne

or the kicker in a julep or two, those sorts of things. It's all about that feeling of sort of rush that you can get from... Presumably everyone listening to the podcast has been at least once in love. You would hope.

We hope so. If not, this is the song to get you into it. But, yeah, it's that... I just think it's really one of those hand-in-glove melody and words and harmony

all just add up to a brilliant example of a song that, like you say, it has more shape than many jazz songs. Yeah, definitely. Well, we've run out of time.

So to wrap up, my name's Simon Whiteside. Goodbye. And my name's Nick Tomlin. Goodbye.

Goodbye. It'd be great if you joined our On Podium website, which gives us a bit more of a presence if you... There's no cost.

And you just put in your name and address and then you're signed up. But also, we've been listed, haven't we, Nick? Yes, on the Feedspot website, we've been listed as one of the top ten jazz piano podcasts.

I think we're number three at the moment. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! So, yeah, that's feedspot.com, basically.

Check them out and we'll put it in the show notes. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Goodbye.