hi everybody my name is ixi and welcome
back to my channel where i analyze nine
inch nails music and i am so excited i'm
very excited to be analyzing various
methods of escape there's just
so much going on with the production and
i was just totally
geeking out about it and i wanted to
cover everything so i have three pages
of notes
this video is going to be long i just
know it so let's get right to it this
song is definitely different
than a lot of nine inch nails music but
it is still very very very nine inch
nails first let's talk about kind of
what's different about it so i'll do
that by making a proclamation
various methods of escape is very groovy
it's groovy it's psychedelic i think the
baseline and the rhythm guitar make it
very
psychedelic and the groove makes it
groovy the drum groove reminds me of
trip hop and trip hop
is like psychedelic hip-hop it has
influences from soul
from funk from psychedelic rock from
blues
but also from electronica if you don't
know what i mean by trip hop then i
recommend you check out massive attack
so the intro
i experience a sense of rhythmic
displacement there's no drums it's just
the bass line and the sort of repeating
[Music]
the pianos on the downbeats the bass
line is very syncopated there's no drums
so there's no down b
so it's really hard to tell if the bass
line syncopated with the piano on the
downbeats or if the piano is syncopated
with the bass line on the downbeats to
this day
i still can't hear it correctly i always
hear it as the piano being on the
offbeats being syncopated but it's not
so once
the drums come in then you're like oh
even knowing the song very well and
what's going to happen it's just
something that my brain does but
i like that i'd be curious to know if
you hear it that way or if you do hear
the piano on the downbeat and i can't
help but wonder though if that was in
any way intentional as a musician myself
i love playing with people's
expectations and i like throwing people
off i could totally see trent being one
of those people
and then the groove comes in and this
groove is cinca syncopated
[Music]
the kick is very syncopated
there's like a lot going on in that kick
and little production note there's a lot
of high end in that kick
so it's a little bit clicky so you
almost get like a percussive quality to
it that's beyond it just being
a foundational piece of the drum kit now
this groove swings a little bit and what
do i mean by that if you take
a measure that's in four four which this
song is in and you subdivide it you
could say one
two three four one and two
and three and four and one e and a two e
and a three e and a four e
and a so i went from quarter notes to
eighth notes to sixteenth notes if you
take those sixteenth notes and you
lengthen the first one then you have to
shorten the next one and then you
lengthen the next one and shorten it so
you end up with
or you can swing it just a little bit
and i would say that this is a light
swing but swinging adds even more
syncopation okay so now let's talk about
the first verse to me the verse feels
kind of like a high it's just very
psychedelic this slow
groove it kind of feels good so i
already kind of talked about the drums
but another thing to note is that you
have high hats on the offbeats
so
[Music]
that's going the whole song and that
adds another level of syncopation a lot
of dance music has high hats on the
offbeats
disco has high hats on the offbeats i
say hi hots i'm developing an accent
there's also like a drum
fill at the end of the phrase where it
goes like
i like that fill it's interesting it's
engaging it's also an example of what i
would consider like
ear candy which this song has a ton of
like little
interesting bits and pieces of things
that kind of just come in and out
sometimes they only come in once and
never come back
and it keeps your interest so i think
this song is an f dorian with the
occasional pickerty third which is like
a minor scale but with one change
[Music]
fit word minor
my favorite mode so you have a raised
six degree and that makes things sound a
little bit more open
like light is coming through a dark
corridor of trees or something
now the baseline is awesome and it's a
little hard for me to hear exactly what
it's doing because it's very low and
it's very bloopy doesn't have the
sharpest attack so things are a little
bit ambiguous it sounds to me
like it is also syncopated
that that's the main emphasis there's a
lot of cool little bloops and stuff
happening but that's like the main thing
is
[Music]
but it's also doing some other stuff
it's definitely going up to the octave i
think sometimes going to the flat seven
definitely doing this and even at the
very end
of the whole phrase
now i wouldn't say that there's really
any harmonic movement
in the verse it's just the baseline the
drums and his voice with some little ear
candies
there's no rhythm guitar there's no
synth path so it kind of feels like we
just exist in
f we do get like the seventh degree and
this
but those to me feel more like
embellishments they don't feel like
actual chord changes it's all relative
[Music]
though it's kind of bluesy we're missing
a couple notes
these two you could argue though that
it's sort of implying like
that sounds like psychedelic rock to me
so here's what his vocal melody is doing
so he's starting on the super tonic
which is the second degree of the scale
this is one this is two so that kind of
gives this expanded suspended feeling
right off the bat then we come to home
the edginess of that minor seventh and
the curiosity of the major
sixth ending on the fifth which is very
[Music]
stable
there's that seventh again tonic
little kind of trill essentially he's
going up and down the scale but just the
top part
and that's the most mystical part of
dorian in my opinion
do you recognize this rhythm
[Music]
maybe
or
it's a great rhythm short long short
long short long think it lends itself
really well to lyrics because i feel
like it mimics
human speech really nicely at least
english but the emphasis on the second
syllable
if anyone's out there like a linguist
then you can kind of tell me what that's
called
is that what iambic is construction of
the high
is quality the peace is of the plan
and this rhythm is very syncopated i've
talked about it in zero sum and all the
love in the world but it's basically
anda and anda and uh both
and and uh are offbeats so i mentioned a
pickerty third a piggerty third is when
you resolve
meaning you arrive on a major third
instead of the minor third which is in
the key and i will point out the moments
where he does that he does it twice i'm
pretty sure the reason that's important
is that the major third and the minor
third
of the key you're in it's very
influential on the tone and the mood
of the song nobody listening
normally he would have just gone nobody
listening
now he goes
that is such a nine inch nails thing is
to have these major tonalities when you
don't expect them
okay so there's an effect on his voice
and there are often effects on his voice
especially during the verse and i don't
know what they're called but it's some
kind of filter
that makes him sound a little bit
muffled like it just kind of
tones down the high end a lot so it
sounds almost lo-fi
this one has some crazy filter on it
it's like
it's being filtered through a note or a
harmonic
and it's f let's listen to it for a
second you'll hear
that there's sort of this reflection of
this
f with every note he's singing even
though he's not singing f
well sometimes he is but even when he's
not you hear
like this f feeling
[Music]
do you hear that got a lot of emphasis
on f in the bass line
and we had that piano
in the intro which i think maybe went
away now you still have
f kind of ringing in his vocal melody to
me this has the effect of a drone
without actually having a drone which
would just be like
one note with no interruption just going
and going going forever so it's like
everything is related to the drone
everything is like reaching up and then
but it's coming down it's
elastic it's attached so you're like
moving but you're stuck
f okay so on top of the vocals is
something that i call
spiderwebs i don't know exactly what it
is but it sounds like maybe a synth or
maybe it was an instrument
sampled and then reversed very very high
and they kind of come in and out and at
first they're like
something like that
you hear that so
if you consider this spider web
important harmonically which i kind of
do
then we have a minor third and these
spider webs do some other cool things
right before the horse comes in
combination of this drone feeling with
these spider webs
and the kind of like yeah trippy like
feeling reminds me a lot of that beatles
song tomorrow never knows
one of my favorites it's super weird it
is not dying
that's in mixolydian though anyway but
yeah just to sum it up the verse does
feel like
a high i think we're supposed to feel
like disconnected from reality
we're in another place yet we're like
kind of stuck and anchored in this sort
of timeless feeling because
i think chord progressions give us a
concept of time
there's a lot of other things that give
us a concept of time obviously rhythm
and structure
and lyrics and everything but chord
progressions too because it it propels
you forward creates points of tension
points of release and things just kind
of you know they're going in a direction
you have expectations where things are
going to
end and begin and and return
second page okay so the chorus oh chorus
is so good so remember there hasn't
really been any harmonic movement yet
but the chorus
delivers and it's not through the bass
line the bass line stays on
f which i'll talk about in just a second
so the rhythm guitar comes in using
barre chords which is the root and fifth
and octave typically no major minor
third here's the tonic
so it starts here
that is satisfying so what are those
chords similar and dorian those chords
would be
just a quick note about what i like
about those chords
one legobellas chords first of all i
like that it doesn't start on the one
chord
this is the one chord start on six
six and one and seven and one and six
and seven and one are my favorite
combination
of chords especially a minor one with
the major flat six
i'm gonna do a whole video about that at
some point i keep saying i'm gonna do it
but i
am gonna do it okay i will say a little
bit the reason that those chords sound
so great together is that they are
relative they share two notes these two
notes
so things that sound really good in one
sound great
in the flat six i gotta let go
i gotta let go you see so from the flat
six
we go to the major four and that is very
bright sounding because
normally if this were a minor key then
it would go
mine are four but it's dorian so we got
that raised
sixth degree which is this d natural and
then we go home
so it takes a little while for us to get
home which i just really like that
creates more tension more anticipation
and then because it's trent he goes to a
flat major three he loves flat major
threes
remember it's actually not these triads
meaning two thirds stacked on top of
each other
i'm just extrapolating imagining what
the chords would sound like like if
someone wanted to do a cover of the song
and they wanted to play the piano and
not play barre chords if they were
playing the guitar they would need to
know
which chords were major and which chords
were minor but they're bar chords
so there's no major or minor third and
the rhythm is super cool
well that was really dorky basically we
have groupings of
three so this is a three over four
dunder and
di if i count that in three
one two three one two three one two
three one two three ten d
and it kind of gets out of sync because
you have three and four just
mathematically they don't line up they
do line up eventually but it takes a
while so instead he's going
dunda
okay now we're back right what i love
about that is it makes the harmony
feel like it's moving in three as well
things are moving a little later a
little earlier than you expect it's not
squared off it's very fluid and they
really emphasize
this guitar
i mentioned the bass line is just
basically staying on f
now i love that i don't know what genres
that come from but i kind of feel like
maybe
funk where like the bass line is really
got a mind of its own i mean it's still
providing structure but it's also so
melodic and percussive and so
you have the f but on beat one of the
beginning
of the phrase no bass so one
two three four one two
three four
[Music]
just kind of giving us this like breath
at the very beginning when you don't
expect it when you're
wanting something to be concrete and so
what's the effect of having a bass line
just kind of staying on the tonic
when there's clearly harmonic movement
now the rhythm guitar is making that
very very obvious
i feel like again you get a kind of a
drone feeling from this
all the chords are in relationship i
mean they always are in relationship to
the tonic but this is just making it so
much more
impossible to ignore
oh but it makes it so funky okay and now
his vocals so first of all the effect
that i was talking about is
gone so his voice sounds very present
very clear this happens
gradually and right where it belongs but
i know that it happens in other songs
like maybe the great
below i think that it's so noticeable
because the chorus has a very
different feeling all around to me the
verse is
you know a state of being high
hallucinating in some ways a little bit
numbed out
and then the chorus is him breaking out
of it sobering up and being like i've
got to stop this
so to have his voice become very clear
it makes a lot of sense like
i gotta let go i gotta i gotta get
straight vocal clarity
mental clarity this melody is so good i
gotta
let go
i gotta get straight
[Music]
so now in the chorus he's singing the
minor third
there it is
fourth fifth minor third and that's the
main thing
i gotta let go
i love that harmony
fifth seventh minor third
and then the same note
[Music]
he goes into his falsetto i love his
falsetto it's so beautiful
this is like singing very much in the
chords
except there well that's a tritone
why'd you have to make it so hard
ah yes ninth or second
very satisfying when we get here why'd
you have to make it
i love that almost like this note is
like overreaching or overextending or
suspension
but what he resolves to is very
dissonant make it
so and then it gets much more structural
hard so hard five
one i think the minor third is kind of
the defining note of
his vocal melody for the chorus which is
totally absent in
the verse and you might think that's a
silly little detail doesn't matter it
matters to me
because i think thirds are very
expressive hallucinate and high fidelity
pieces of a plan have that be kind of
all in that mystical range
they're sort of dreamy and things are a
little bit more open than normal
and then to have i gotta let go
it's so much more straight forward i
gotta
get straight oh and yeah just the rhythm
[Music]
now it's i gotta let go so i think that
those things matter
because whether or not it was like trent
sitting here being like well now i'm
gonna play the minor third so the people
know that i'm not high anymore i highly
doubt it but subconsciously
i gotta i gotta do this i gotta do that
why'd you have to make it so
hard let me get away i also really like
that he's talking to his drugs that sort
of personification
of his addiction there are some other
vocals in the chorus and that's the
harmony so he's singing the melody that
the lead guitar is playing and that is
[Music]
starting on the tonic flat seven raised
to the sixth the guitar is just playing
like these kind of long languishing
notes that change in the offbeats though
vocally he's going
oohs and oz feel kind of retro to me
also he doesn't sing the vocal harmony
like the third time i think so it's like
[Music]
oh
[Music]
make it so hard let me get away
oh is cool adds variation
okay so there's something else happening
and i would call these
uh piano octaves but it's definitely a
sample like it sounds like it's been
processed a lot
it doesn't sound like him just playing
the piano and it's being looped
a little touch but it adds so much i
love
that part it really just brings a new
texture and i love the little
like octagon
it's just very tingly you know kind of
gentle the song would not be as good
without it i'm just gonna say it before
we get to the next verse
there's like an interlude sort of giving
us a second to breathe it's like a
pre-verse
kind of it doesn't have any vocals but
what it does have is a little plucking
melody and that to me sounds
very nine-inch nailsy
it's a little hard to hear exactly when
the notes change but that's what it's
kind of doing it's
like a drunk going up the scale
with this note like i just like stumbled
but how this makes it so nine inch nails
e though
plucking on the down on the eighth notes
there's also sort of this foreboding low
like flat seven note
[Music]
your candy and you got some like crazy
effects going on here too that sound
more experimental
right and then they kind of bleed over
into the verse
so like the verse is starting and it's
still sort of freaking out a little bit
and it kind of ends abruptly there are a
couple things about the second verse
that are different than the first verse
other than the lyrics
uh and one of those things is a chord
that comes in
and i remember when i first heard the
song and i heard that chord i was like
that's gotta be atticus like that does
not sound like trent rezner to me and to
this day i don't know how i feel about
it
and that's weird because for me like i
really like those chords i just don't
associate them
with nine inch nails so it goes like
this
so to me this sounds kind of like an f
minor sus two but inverted with the c
on the bottom meaning this but with the
c
down here or it could be a c
minor sus4
meaning this like five one five one
kinda just depends on how you hear it
but one thing's for certain
is this this is an inverted f minor
chord
and it's so literal it's just like yeah
it's like definitely f minor there's no
guesswork so let's listen
you hear that it's yeah i don't actually
don't know if i like it
it's pretty but it's just so like here
you go there's also like different ear
candy there's like
these like and the drums and zing zing
zingers
[Music]
yummy i also get like a way funkier like
bass guitar
[Music]
this is just all to add more interest
and just to kind of explore
it's great i love it the last two lyrics
before the second chorus
i cannot tell the difference anymore i
cannot trust myself he changes the
rhythm up instead of
can i tell the difference anymore
can i trust myself there's a lot less
syncopation so more on the downbeats
it's more straight even though he's high
again
this time he's like trying even harder
to break out of it you know like heading
into this point of clarity really like
drives home this point like
i don't know what's real i can't trust
myself i know i'm reading too far into
this but it's really fun
and anytime you change something it
emphasizes it
all right second course is pretty much
the same as the first chorus and it kind
of
starts to feel like it's building a
little bit more and then just abruptly
falls into this weird bridge limbo
suddenly everything's very very straight
it's like it's pulsing you get a
kick just
the bass guitar
and the chord progression's different we
were here and then we were doing this
and this and this so we got
oh oh one i think i could lose myself
in here the harmonies and the melodies
though are really strange
instrumentation is odd i don't know
exactly what these sounds are it sounds
like
samples of a very wooden instrument that
doesn't have a very defined
tonality so it's kind of ambiguous what
notes are even being played at all
i hear i hear like a metallic bell sound
that's going
but the piano makes it sound very clear
the piano's harmonics are not nearly as
crazy as this bell
the pitch is just a little bit like
almost sounds like it's out of tune
and then what's underneath it is this
and i hear like like these pitches
flat seven one kind of but there's like
slots happening slots there's a lot
happening in between
there that i just it doesn't sound like
a note to me it sounds like a percussive
instrument with a little bit of a pitch
and this pattern this is in seven but
it's seven
sixteenth notes one two three four five
six seven one two three four five six
seven one two three four five six seven
one two three four five six seven
oh my gosh that's hard so that's
disorienting as heck and it never lines
up
he doesn't even it out it's just kind of
going so this is a really strange
uh bridge to me like it always felt a
little out of place
but i do recognize that compositionally
it's important that they break it up
somehow
and this feeling of limbo might be
really important to the narrative
i think i could lose myself in here like
he could so just
let go and fall into it or he could let
go of
it and then that wailing guitar it
slowly fades in
[Music]
it's like it's trying to pull him back
into reality and
into clarity
and there's one variation
[Music]
and his voice you know has effects on it
and starts to fade away
i think i could lose myself in here and
then
[Music]
and then we're just like thrown into
this like a pseudo chorus
but something is very very different
about it first of all there's no
vocal melody at first and the drumbeat
is
completely different this is like
classic nine inch nails
rock drum beat there's like lots of toms
i think every day is
exactly the same it's very satisfying i
find it like
you know symbolically i don't know if
that meant anything or he likes to just
be like well it's the end of the song
and i'm just gonna play
you know what it would sound like with
this drum beat what would it sound like
if i made it sound like a gospel song
you know like as in all the love in the
world he just
whatever he does whatever he wants i
think and then when he starts singing in
he's singing the chorus and that's
how he leads us out of the song but
there's a difference he's singing a
different melody i don't know the lyrics
[Music]
okay so what is that
fifth degree seventh degree and the
tonic so this is so much more definitive
then
i gotta let go even though go is the
minor third which is a very defining
note of the scale
nothing is more defining than the tonic
[Music]
he's leading us there with the five and
the seven they're both kind of like
pushing you towards one and because it's
higher in his range of course he's
having to belt more there's just so much
more energy and there's like a delay on
his voice
finding the way
so epic why'd you have to make it so
hard just like normal let me get away
okay we gotta talk about this away
that is a major seventh so there's so
much tension there
let me get away
you hear that it's just a stylistic
choice i love it that's like one of my
favorite parts
let me get away
yes and then he sings this whole thing
again i think the lyrics
change again or oh sorry and then at the
very end
he goes down to a lower part of his
range in the part of the chorus that he
hasn't before
usually he goes why'd you have to make
it
so hard in his falsetto why'd you have
to make it
so
[Music]
ah so satisfying nice resolution
also we don't really get a resolution
from this three chord
make it so hard
[Applause]
[Music]
that's it i feel like i did forget
something something about high hats like
there's more high hats on the second
chorus to give more energy anyway this
song is amazing
i love it i also really like that the
title is not a lyric
from the song he usually titles things
with words or lyrics in the song
this one's not like that well i think
that is all i have to say about this
song i really do think that thank you
for watching
thank you for subscribing hi to all the
new subscribers like this video if you
liked this video and if you want to
connect with me on instagram i'm at
ixe.music you can see more about me
other things that i play that's not
ninish nails i know boring right i want
to start teaching music theory so
thank you for your enthusiasm it's
amazing share the channel with people
who you think might like it
and i will see you next week bye
okay let me try that again
hi everybody my name is ixi and welcome
back to my channel where i analyze
9-inch nails music
and today i'm i'm very excited