Africa by the American rock band Toto is the tenth and final track on their fourth studio album, Toto IV, which was released in 1982. The song was written in 1981 by band members David Paich and Jeff Porcaro. In 1982, "Africa" was released as the third single from the album through Columbia Records. It reached number one in America in 1983 and also achieved a place in the top ten in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland.
The song is written in a soft rock style, popular in the 1980s, and features synthesized sounds which were also typical of this time. Toto is a rock band comprising lead and bass guitars, synthesizers, male lead and backing vocals, and a drum kit with additional percussion.
Structure of "Africa"
The song is in a verse-chorus form and is moderately fast. Here is the structure and features of note below:
- Instrumental - Bars 66-82
Africa - Angel City Chorale
Vocal Features
The lead vocals and backing vocals are used in different ways in this song, giving a variety of textures to the song. The use of voices is summarised below:
- Verse 1: Lead vocalist sings all of the verse. This is quite low in the voice. The backing vocals harmonise “Hurry boy, she’s waiting there for you”. This emphasises the lyrics and is higher in pitch than the rest of the verse.
- Chorus 1: The first line is sung as a solo, the second as a duet, and the third and fourth lines in three parts. The singing is much higher than in the verse.
- Verse 2: The lead vocalist opens verse 2, but is joined by backing vocals much more frequently in this verse. There are harmonies on the final words of each of the lines.
- Chorus 2: This is the same as chorus 1.
- Chorus 3: There are many harmonies in this chorus, especially in the repeating “I bless the rains” with some improvisations.
One of the distinctive features of this song is that the tonality is different in the verse and the chorus. The verses are in B major, whereas the choruses are in A major.
Read also: Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority
Instrumental Features
The instrumentation of this is a typical rock band with some additions: drum kit with additional percussion and synthesisers.
On the recording of the song, there is an eight-bar introduction, performed only on the unpitched percussion instruments. There are layered rhythms and ostinatos, often found in many African musical traditions. These influences can also be heard in the synthesisers emulating a number of instruments from this continent, whereas the lead and bass guitar represent the Western influences.
A synthesiser is an electronic musical instrument which can create and replicate instruments and sounds.
Analyzing the Chorus
The song "Africa" is Toto's only number one hit on the Billboard charts. The melody of its chorus is astonishingly simple.
Chord Progression
While the verse of "Africa" contains some interesting chords weaving through multiple keys, the chorus chords are as straight forward as it can be for a pop song:
Read also: Amazing Facts About Africa
F#m D A E
or
vi IV I V
This progression is so ubiquitous in pop music, that it is often called the "pop progression". Some songs start it on the second chord, some on the third or fourth, but half of the pop music since 1950 is made up of one variant of this chord progression!
The progression is four bars long (one chord per bar) and the entire thing is repeated four times. But Toto add a little twist at the end: The final repetition of the progression extends the ending, extending it to six bars.
Read also: Discover Thula Thula
F#m D A C#m7 E F#m E/G#
This extension uses an old music theory trick: Instead of going straight to the E they insert a C#m7 chord. This is a so-called deceptive resolution, because we expect to hear the E after the A, but we're deceived. Our expectation is disappointed. Instead of getting the E, we hear the C#m7. But to us, it feels less disappointing and rather joyous. The reason is threefold.
First, as much as we humans love patterns and predictability, we also yearn for a small amount of surprise. Disappointing our expectation actually tickles our logical brain in a delightful way. Second, the C#m7 chord is not that much different from an E chord. In fact, the E triad is a part of the C#m7 chord. Third, Toto deliver the original E chord right after this little journey to C#m7. They give you what you wanted, but only after inserting that little twist before.
After this nice music theory trick, the song moves on to the familiar F#m, but without starting a fifth repetition of the progression. This time, the F#m actually sounds like a final resolution and brief point of rest. It only lasts for half a measure though, because Toto yank it back up to A via the transitioning chord of E/G#. And before we know it, we're back in the intro phrase. The intro acts as an interlude here and has two functions:
- First, it transitions us back to the verse.
- Second, it repeats the famous hook of the song just two more times.
While the chorus was in the key of either A major or F#m (aeolian) minor, the hook is in C# (aeolian) minor. These keys are right next to each other and their only difference is the d (in F# minor) versus d# (in C# minor). This whole moves prepares us for going back to the key of the verse, which is B major (and moving to E major) - but the harmony of the verse is food for another article. You can see all these keys right next to each other on the circle of fifth.
Form
The pop chord progression vi IV I V repeats four times. By growing the fourth phrase to 6 bars - making the whole chorus an odd 18 bars long, Toto break the symmetry during the last repetition. In song form terms we could write the form as something like this:
AAAA’
Here A is our standard pop progression and A’ is the slightly modified, 6-bar long form. The psychology in use here is simple: if you hear a phrase two or three times, your brain recognizes the pattern and expects another repetition next. Disappointing that expectation is what draws our attention and gives us delight.
This trick of modifying the final repetition helps to create attention and make the rather straight forward chorus more memorable. It is often applied in the more general form AAB or AAAB, in which the final repetition is replaced by a completely new part. Of course, you can always debate when an A’ has enough changes to become a completely new part B; the point is to change something in your final repetition.
Finally, the chorus lands us right back at the 8 bar intro hook. This catches us after the odd 6 bars before and lets us contemplate what just happened, before we move on to another verse.
Melody
The melody of "Africa's" chorus consists almost entirely of only one note: an a! As strange as a simple melody with only one note may seem, it is not an uncommon phenomenon in pop music. One-note melodies have two distinct advantages in hit song writing:
- Easy to sing along! Almost anyone can sing a one-note melody. You don't have to worry so much about pitch or musical ability - perfect for a big audience.
- Easy to remember! Because the melody is easy to sing along, it is also easy to sing after you heard the song.
The harmony changes underneath the melody, the melody note actually sounds different with every chord change! This is the phenomenon of the “common tone”: a note that is part of all chords in the progression.
The a is the minor third in the first chord of F#m. Then that same a becomes the fifth in D and the root in A. Only once the E hits do we need to adjust the melody note to its closest neighbor g# to still make it a chord tone. The a thus sounds like a third, then like a fifth and then like a root! An although the pitch of the melody note does not change, our ear hears it in a different context on each chord change.
Without the little adornments of the singer we can identify three notes for the core melody: a, g# and f#. While the melody stays on a most of the time, Toto adjust the note to g# on every E chord. The certainly could've stayed on a turning the E into an Esus4 chord, but the little variation in melody pitch nicely contrasts with the static pitch before (and music is so much about contrast!). The f# finally is the note the melody arrives on after four repetitions of the chord progression. It is the resolution of the melody and creates a feeling of finally being able to sink down to the root of the first chord of the progression.
Despite these extra notes, the melody is still mainly a one-note affair on a. This teaches us once again, that music theory is not necessarily about complexity. To write great songs, we always aim for the right balance between simple and complex elements.
Learnings
What can we learn from analyzing the chorus of a great song like "Africa" by Toto?
Contrast
We neither want our song to be too simple nor too complex. Too simple would bore the listener, while too complex would overwhelm them. To achieve this contrast, we can balance certain songwriting elements:
- Contrast complex harmony in the verse with simple harmony in the chorus
- Contrast a moving melody with a static (even an extreme one-note) melody
- Contrast complex harmony with a simple melody
- Contrast complex melody with a simple rhythm
- Contrast many short notes in the verse with few longer notes in the chorus
Expectation and Deception
Music plays a lot with the expectations of the listener. Fulfilling an expectation gives the listener security and familiarity, but it can sound dull and boring after some time. Deception jolts us awake and makes us experience the moment with more attention. Both have to be balanced in a good song.
The chorus of "Africa" uses a few expectations:
- By repeating the chord progression three times, the song sets up the expectation to hear it a fourth time. This expectation is especially strong, when we hear the first three chords of the progression a fourth time. But then! Toto frustrate the expectation and hit with the C#m7 chord. At the same time they catch us softly by using a relative minor and even land us on the original chord a little later.
- The form also sets up an expectation. Apart from our usual experience of a chorus having 8, 16 or 32 bars, the 4-bar chord progression certainly lets us expect a 16 (4x4) bar chorus. But with the extension of the last repetition to 6 bars, our expectation of symmetry is disappointed (4,4,4,6!).
Common Chords
To move between adjacent keys on the circle of fifths, use common chords. Two directly adjacent keys always have a few chords belonging to both keys. You can use these common chords for smooth modulations. You can also keep a key deliberately ambiguous, by never really defining which of the keys you're in.
One-Note Melodies
Don‘t be afraid to write one-note melodies! They create a nice contrast to a more complex harmony or other complex parts of your song. One-note melodies are easy to sing along, which appeals to a wide audience. They don't have to sound boring either, because the same note will play a different role relative to the underlying chord.
Popular articles:
tags: #Africa
