Understanding The Chain
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- In many ways, The Chain is the story of Fleetwood Mac. Located right in the middle of Rumours, widely viewed as one of the best albums of all time, The Chain breaks from the soft rock sound of the rest of the album, stripping back the layers of false happiness and revealing a darker, harder, and more painful side of the band. Written in parts by all five band members, it lays bare the turmoil going on between them, and shows just how hard they're working to keep things together just a little bit longer.
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Last: • A Scale With Two Faces
Polyphonic's video: • How Fleetwood Mac Wrot...
Script: docs.google.co...
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And thanks as well to Corvi, Henry Reich, Gene Lushtak, Eugene Bulkin, Logan Jones, Abram Thiessen, Anna Work, Oliver, Jc Bq, Adam Neely, nico, Michael Fieseler, Rick Lees, Ben LaRose, Justin Donnell, rhandhom1, Dave Mayer, Thomás, Davis Sprague, Justin Aungst, Harold Gonzales, Paul Quine, Alex, Marc Himmelberger, Chris Borland, CodenaCrow, Nikolay Semyonov, Daniel Gilchrist, Arnas, Sarah Spath, Skylar J Eckdahl, billy roberts, Elliot Burke, Alex Atanasyan, Amlor, Greg Borenstein, Tim S., Elias Simon, Caroline Simpson, Michael Alan Dorman, Jerry D. Brown, Lauren Steely, Fabian, Nathan Petchell, Blake Boyd, Trevor, Michael McCormick, Lilith Dawn, Jonathan Beck, Dmitry Jemerov, Ian Seymour, Charles Gaskell, Luke Rihn, Rob Holton, Ohad Lutzky, Jon White, Kurtis Commanda, James A. Thornton, Benjamin Cooper, Kevin, Elliot Jay O'Neill, Elliot Winkler, Payden Nissen, Tom Evans, John Bejarano, Brian Dinger, Nervilis, Stefan Strohmaier, Adam Wurstmann, Kelsey Freese, Shadow Kat, Adam Kent, Max Wanderman, Lee Rennie, Richard T. Anderson, Angela Flierman, Mark Feaver, Tyler Lukasiewicz, Kevin Johnson, Brian McCue, Stephan Broek, Hape Company, Matt Giallourakis, Marcøs, Ryan Nicholls, ml cohen, Sylvain Chevalier, Darzzr, Roger Grosse, David Hardin, Rodrigo Roman, Francois LaPlante, Jeremy Zolner, Matthew Fox, Paper Coelacanth, Britt Ratliff, Koen Hoogendoorn, Tae Wook Kim, Eddie O'Rourke, Ryan, Jon Bauman, Vincent Sanders, John July, Volker Wegert, Paul Koester, Danny, Matthew Kallend, Patrick Callier, JH, Joshua Gleitze, Jake Lizzio, Ben Straubinger, Emilio Assteves, Alex Keeny, Alexey Fedotov, Charles Hill, Harry Hume, Valentin Lupachev, Joshua La Macchia, David Conrad, John Paul Welsh, Lisa Lyons, DSM, Gary Butterfield, Niko Albertus, Luke Wever, Elizabeth von Teig, Steve Brand, Rene Miklas, Connor Shannon, Chris Chapin, max thomas, Jamie Price, Kennedy Morrison, Red Uncle, Tiago de Caux, Toby M. Schreier, Daniel Garcia, Kirk Natoza, Doug Nottingham, Scott Howarth, Barendo, Smackdab, Nicholas Wolf, Ben Phillips, Hex86, Scott Nystrom, Douglas Anderson, ZagOnEm, Robert Beach, Todd Davidson, Fahzbehn, chaoticgeek, Lionel Dresta, veleum, and Kevin Boyce! Your support helps make 12tone even better!
Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!
Some additional thoughts/corrections:
1) I screwed up my transcription on the first chord of the verse. The electric guitar plays a G, so I called it E minor, but it seems like the vocal harmonies include a G#, which'd make it major, so I guess the whole thing's a split chord?
2) I was pretty confident that the sarcasm around 6:43 would be obvious, but apparently some folks missed it, so to be clear, yes, there was a lot of fighting going on within the band at the time. Watch the Polyphonic video, he explains it all.
12tone I’m gonna be honest. I did not catch that and told it to my friend as a fact. But I don’t really know much Fleetwood Mac history.
@Spanish Moustache He has said at one point that he's autistic, and misinterpretation of sarcasm and a flat affect can be part of that. It's been speculated that I may have Asperger's myself, so I have read a bit about it.
@12tone I hope that I didn't unintentionally insult or offend you with that other reply. I was simply referring to another one of your videos.
i know nothing about fleetwood mac, i picked the sarcasm from what you said in the beggining, but like someone else said, your voice tone didn't really change
Awesome vid. Would it be possible to do a special vid doing an in depth analysis on a really complex song like Giant Steps, Rite of Spring, or a prog metal song like CAFO by animals as leaders?
The Chain is so well known, the fact it wasn't a single is in itself remarkable.
It is well known in the UK as part of it (the instrumental middle section) was used by the BBC for many years as the theme music for their F1 race programming.
Oddly enough, just another "link" in a "chain" of FM songs that DESERVED 45s but just never got em imo...
There's a lot of irony to Rumors - an album of love songs, written by a group of people who were all having affairs and couldn't stand each others company at the time.
Nice video - always loved the album though!
Nevermind cocaine is a powerful drug.
It’s an album of passion, written by people immersed in passion.
Great love songs are written by people who believe in lust, not love. Barbara Cartland believes in love. She writes mush. Sensual arg comes from sexual people.
The chain is definetely one of the most underrated rocksongs ever. It's so deep and well aranged it should receive way more attention than it actually does.
The Chain is not underrated lol
It’s Fleetwood Mac’s #2 song on Spotify, I wouldn’t call it underrated (plus it was in a major movie-GotG 2, so that kinda helped it a *lot*).
bruh ever? im sorry but its good and probably deserves somewhat more praise than it does but so do a lot of other songs. that are significantly smaller by smaller bands
'you came back'
'never left'
the fact i was looking for this comment
For us Brits (who watched Formula 1 anyway), that bass riff and guitar solo has extra-special significance :-)
Indeed. If the solo alone is about tension, I can see why the BBC picked it up for F1 coverage, over stock music, or an originally composed theme. The fast tempo, and the tense chord structure really showcase the ups and downs of racing.
Indeed. And as both an American and a Top Gear fan, I really want him to do one of these on Jessica by the Allman Brothers Band.
Even those of us who don't really watch F1 associate that riff with F1.
I don't watch F1 and, until I was 14 didn't know the actual name of the song, so before then it was "the F1 song"
FOR US BRITS (WHO ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE ON EARTH WHO WATCH FORMULA 1) THIS IS EXTRA SPECIAL FOR US! :O) :-) :-D. (I AM BRITISH. WE ARE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE)
The Chain's Guitar Solo is one of my all time favorites. It's such a clear metaphor outlining the metaphorical chain, and then at the end he finally gets up to that high note, in a sense breaking the chain, and it just feels so Good. So simple, but so telling. Love your vids!
Non sono per niente d'accordo con queste letture metaforiche, ma rimane un gran solo, proprio per l'insistenza su un'unica nota. Qualcosa di simile si ritrova nel solo di Andy Summers in "Bring On The Night".
12tone: (talks in great detail about each part of the song)
Me: *Well I don't know what your talking about, but I like the way you say it..*
Welcome to music theory mate 🤷 take a seat and maybe some notes if you want
this is the first time I heard someone say that The Chain is 'underrated'. Just because it wasn't released as a single, doesn't make it underrated. That song has always been one of their most popular tunes and the band has played it at every gig for the past 30 years.
Yeah. And it was in GotG 2.
I think he meant like an underrated Classic like tho it’s considered a classic it doesn’t have the same “status” as some of the other more prevalent ones but I see your point
I love the chain and I love the analysis. and I just wanted to point out how damn important the beat of the song is, and how the heavy trudging along feeling it creates complements the story its trying to tell perfectly
I am SO glad you chose this! The guitar part has been the 'theme' to UK tv's Formula 1 programmes. These days the new owners of F1 have got their own piece, but it still gets slipped in LOL. It's decades of the start of excitement to me. I only heard the full piece years after I started watching it and was staggered by how freaking awesome it is! Thanks for explaining it, it really is incredibly interesting.
I prefer the "spoofed" version used in Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix (1992).
ua-cam.com/video/ND4GX_d8Qj4/v-deo.html
Idk why I watch these videos. I don’t understand the theory of it and the analysis of chords and stuff. But there’s just something about these videos.
Danny Zafar same, i didnt understand this at all either
man me too i have no clue what’s going on
You'll learn as time goes on; watching these kind of videos was pretty much what made me get into music in the first place.
I couldn't ever imagine missing one of these videos - such a fascinating, immersive look into the why of what makes music work. I just wish I understood anything about what's being said! I just picture a world full of people who know stuff about music, who get what's being said, while I stand off to the side, pressing my nose against the window, determined to be part of the conversation regardless of the lack of background knowledge necessary to follow along. These videos are obviously not written for me, and I love tagging along for the ride.
Nice shout out to Polyphonic. You two are my favorite music analysis channels. Never miss an episode of either!
This song is definitely my favorite Fleetwood Mac song ever, and it is the Bass line at the end that does it for me, and like you mentioned. In the end tells the story.
That bass line is so effective, that it can go on and on and on forever, like the aforementioned Chain.
I first heard this song on the Guardians 2 soundtrack and instantly fell in love with. Listened to it hundreds of times since. Amazing.
We all start somewhere. Welcome to the party. If you want to go deeper, I have to recommend Tusk, it's another fantastic song of theirs.
@@georgesikorski9891 Oh yeah, I've loved that one for years.
So watching this in the year of our Lord 2022 after our flag means death has hit, I squealed a little bit when you chose to sketch a lighthouse to illustrate the idea of the E as a beacon. 😁💚💯👌😆
*bass riff*
F1 occurs.
Preeeeeoooooooowwww!
Murray Walker starts the intro 😍😍
What I think is even better about the fact that it was used for that show is that 3/5 of the Rumours lineup was British
RIP Christine McVie ❤🙏
I love the humor you put into this. The analysis is great.
After watching this at work while I was on break, I had the song stuck in my head for the reminder of my shift.
Great video! I just want to point out that the instrument is called a resonator guitar (or resophonic guitar). Dobro is a brand name
You are an inspiration. I dropped out of music School a long long time ago and this is encouragement to catch up. 💗
I hope you do more videos on songs Polyphonic has done too. You’re like the yin to his yang. He focuses on the story of a song, how the emotion influences the music. You focus on the theory, how the music influences the emotion of the song. Watching both of your videos makes me feel like I know The Chain inside and out. I love it! Thanks for the awesome vid.
I love the way you explain this! I've heard this song so many times, and I've often felt that I couldn't quite place its key, but I never analysed why. I now feel that this ambiguity is perhaps the heart of its excellence.
Both yours and polyphonic's videos of this song helped me to appreciate this song on such a whole new level. I LOVED your explanation of the bass line, where it stays in a state of ambiguity. Whether intentional or not, it illustrates the state of limbo that the band must've been in, wondering if this was their last album together or not. That's how music works. The best, most intense and meaningful songs always manifest themselves when the writers are at their rope's end. Great video bro, keep it up!!
P.S. do best of you by foo fighters next. I think we all would love to see how you analyze the tension in that song
You just took a song I love and made me love it even more.
Not sure how I haven’t found this channel before now, but based on the subscriber count, I’m obviously late to the party. It hurts my head to even think about how much time and effort it took to make/edit this video. So, even though I haven’t checked out a single, other video on your channel to see if they are all like this one, you win a new subscriber regardless! Great stuff 😎
Wow. That was fantastic. A fascinating theoretical analysis with cute drawings to emphasis your point. Amazingly effective. Definite sub!
It is an otherworldly experience to watch one of these intense musical breakdowns... and then go re-listen to the original song.
Pretty sure a resonator guitar (dobro) still qualifies as an "acoustic guitar", it's not "acoustic guitar-like", it's just not a flat-top acoustic.
Exactly. It's an acoustic guitar with a sheet-metal resonator where the sound hole would be. It used to be popular in bluegrass and country music, so it might have been used to keep this angry song from sounding too aggressive.
@@purplealice Quite possible. I play one and it definitely has a characteristic sound, that's for sure.
It was characteristic of "hillbilly" music in the middle of the 20th century (I was a country-and-western DJ.) The metal resonator made its sound carry better when there was a banjo in the band, and it also made the notes "ring out" in an identifiable way. (The dobro can also be played as a lap guitar, and it was the ancestor of the "pedal steel" that came to dominate country music.)
@@purplealice Yup. And to be heard over the drum kit in an era before amplifiers. It's loudness is primarily why I play one, the bell-like tone is gravy.
I want to say that this series has given me new appreciation for songs I love as well as introducing me to songs and artists I wouldn't have listened to otherwise.
Now that that's out of the way, can you analyze a Metallica song? Enter Sandman or Master of Puppets would be the obvious ones, but I'd like to see something on Fade to Black.
Fade to Black would be nice! :D
...do puppets?
Start by blasting a lot of E power chords, then move to the 3 and the 2 and slip in some b2's and tritones for edginess. Bam. Enter Sandman.
(This is a joke please don't kill me. I would actually love an analysis of some of their songs)
Ah man, I am binge watching thins channel like nobody's business. Great stuff and what a corker of a song. Secretly hoping I'll find From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea amongst your archives as that's a slice of heaven centred around a single note backbone... please be so... OK, next!
I’ve learned more about music theory from these videos than I ever did in class
Of all the things I was expecting you to sketch today, a Tesla coil was not among them. I love your work, you are a delight to listen to.
I'm shocked you haven't done an Alice in Chains video! Though most people call them the grunge era's Black Sabbath, I honestly thought they were more musically closer to a sludge rock version of Fleetwood Mac (especially with the country influence and paired harmonies)
TOTALLY!
Go your own way would be great too.
If you're interested be sure to check out the song exploder episode where Buckingham breaks down how he wrote that song!
🎶"You can go your own way"🎶
When I hear this song I think of drugs.
12tone: explains the entire songs structure
me: i like the noises
Thanks for doing this song! I love these videos by the way👌
III chord, IV chord, V chord ... and it's GO GO GO GO for The Chain at 12tone!
Really love Rumors. Dreams is my personal favorite.
Mine too.Probably my favorite Mac song behind Little Lies.
This is definitely a great song. It’s a great example of how a few simple elements put together can just sound so great. I would put it in the same box as the Johnny Cash cover of “Hurt.”
Lindsey Buckingham was influenced by classical
Music his whole life which is the most emotive genre out there so much passion in the chords and notes. He brought that vibe to the mac
Most addicting way to experience music and theory ever cheers friends
So this video made me just go listen to the song again, so thank you for that.
And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again! I can still hear you sayin' you would never break the chain!
(Never break the chain!)
RUSH
Please the Holy Trinity needs some love
please dont get ur politics from 1970s prog lyrics
@@llamamall3653 I don't and I wasn't getting political.
Wow, illustrated music theory, sped up narration, snippets of isolated tracks, music major depth. Really GREAT...if you like this sort of thing.
It's not underrated at all. It's one of their most popular and well known songs and always has been. It was also the theme for the Formula 1 for years as well.
listening to the song at the same time adds a lot to it.
dude this is amazing. mind blowing.
This an amazing video!
the fact that adding a "sus" in the chord makes it more mysterious is somewhat hilarious to me
I didn’t expect a breakdown THAT detailed 🥵
Mustlehard ahh you must be new
Insanely Insightful
I didn't understand a thing but it sounds amazing...
I'd sort of like to hear what you think of Tusk, as well.
Thank you for the link tho on the history of them !!
Why yes, my favorite key Æ
Anyone else watch Matthew Colville's "The Chain" D&D stream and then get this in their recommended?
As a teen, I once shook pictures off a wall by the sheer volume of John’s bass line! 😂
omg, the "interrupting cow" killed me
These videos help me write. Thank you
"Starless And Bible Black" is a very interesting one... In fact, most of K. Crimson tracks are very clever.
Im surprised you didn't do a video about one or two from Fripp & friends.
maybe its cause frippster is real trigger happy with the copyright strikes. but 12tone has that problem no matter what so eh
one of my favorite songs.
also I want to become a patron exclusively to suggest Trout Mask Replica lol
I see you slipped in a sketch of the bicycle from the old TV show "The Prisoner" when you mentioned the number 6, very droll! Now there was an interesting theme tune, maybe you could analyse that sometime ....
Fantastic stuff.
6:27 when the chord is sus
Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics to this song and the rest used melodies from different songs of their e.g. Keep me there by C. McVie and so on. That's how The Chain is the only song in the Rumours era have all 5 members in the credits.
I longe how this sounds more complex than it is without losing accessibility
Please do Stargazer by Rainbow
Can you do an episode on Fleetwood Mac- Sara it's such a magical song with mystery!😍 Amazing video!😊
Whoa, Hang on there...Gold Dust Woman is the underrated classic from 'Rumours'
The question remains: were the writers consciously making these decisions while composing, or did it just happen?
Were they that informed and knowledgeable about music theory at that time in their young lives, or was it just pouring out of them?
Learning how *Sunshine of your love by Cream* works would feel nice
It's all about the bass break!
I never knew what a dobro was, despite always singing along to the chorus of "Curtis Loew".
Could you do an “Understanding Music” video on “Heart Shaped Box” by Nirvana?
I think it would be perfect for analysis.
Rick Beato did a great video about It, wouldn't be surprised if he got a copystrike for it unfortunately
That would be kewl
He just did! Check it out
On the unambiguous key. It could maybe be perceived as an argument in with the different instruments represent the different opinions, and what they are fighting over is which key the song is in, since each instrument pulls the song back and forth, undercutting each other by interjection.
Congratulations!
Well, if you're going to do "Iconic BBC Car-related themes", there's nowhere left but "Jessica" by The Allman Brothers.
“Extension, or tension for short“ blew my mind. Is that really where that comes from or is it just a play on words? I always thought it was a tension because it sounded tense
As far as I know, that's the etymology, but yeah it kinda works on both levels.
I watched this while high and got so confused
awesome!
Understood absolutely everything, 100%. No problems whatsoever for all of 40 seconds. After that I was picking fluff out of my belly button and imagining that I understood it all. (A bit like the open university if you are of a certain age group) Still really enjoyed the presentation though.
Awesome ❤️❤️❤️
"They stayed together for 10 more years... was that all because of how many Es Lindsay Buckingham played on his solo in the Chain?" That got a hearty laugh from me :)
If you want to play this song on guitar, you need to tune your E6 and E1st down to D.
at 5:40 - is that an Interrupting Cow??? I haven't heard that joke for years!
Please do In The Court of the Crimson King next
9:30 So this isn't just my confusion? Cause I'd say where it lands feels like it's probably technically the 1, but then that 1 feels kinda like it wants to go back to what sounded like it was probably the 1 up until that point
Dude , this is like , analyzing how to drive a stagecoach.
Dude, you missed the vocal harmonies out! They make the main E chord major, and that makes a massive difference.
Good catch! It seems like the electric guitar plays a G natural there, though, which makes the whole thing a split chord, but yeah, I wish I'd caught that.
This is harder than engineering
Music theory >>>>>>>> quantum mechanics
Flik LOL
Hey 12tone! How would you feel about making a video on Josef Matthias Hauer's concept of tropes? Greetings!
Hey 12tone. In his latest video David Bruce Composer asks a question to theorists at 8:55 (the ravel video) what's your take on that? Do you answer questions like those by other UA-camrs? Thanks
Technically a dobro IS an acoustic guitar, just a different kind with that metal cone in the body.
YES
Please do something by Kate Bush!!!
Her songs always have weird chord structures or time signatures and key changes.
At 7:50 you mentioned pushing the 3 and the 5 away from each other, which I wanted to ask about as I've stumbled across this interesting chord and wondered why it works (I have no formal music education)
I actually tried writing a piece based on these chords, and another one. I took C major, did that pushing away thing to get G# major, and again to get E major, and their notes were my scale, which was weird and fun to try writing in
anyway, what I wanted to ask is why do these chords works this well together, because I have no clue
You may be interested in 12tone's video on Chromatic Mediants. Check it out!
I'd love to see you analyze any of the new Cellar Darling songs since they're so interesting harmonically
your should do a understanding oh well by Fleetwood mac!!!!