100-76 - Phineas and Ferb Song Ranking

Introduction
300-251
250-201
200-151
150-101

Continuation of Tier 6: Songs Which Tickle My Fancy

100. Technology vs. Nature (from Perry Lays an Egg)

A few entries from my previous part are deeply beloved by many people, but less beloved by me. As we venture into the top 100, expect that script to be flipped from time to time, beginning with “Technology vs. Nature.” Some readers may find this song as annoying as I once did. They may call it the forgotten sibling of “Phinedroids and Ferbots.” But I do not take part in such activities. Its mechanical, percussive, electronic noises work especially well in contrast to the song’s actual meaning: that nature will always have a leg up on technology. It’s as if a song with soft woodwinds and chirping birds had lyrics about how great cell phones are. And most importantly, every line in this song is golden. It would be hard for me to choose a favourite between the opening couplet: “Motherhood’s for life, it’s not something in which you dabble / for machines not built to last, ‘I love you’’s only technobabble,” and the first line of the bridge: “When a child cries out in the night, it’s rarely for the washing machine!” So true.

**

        99. Gordian Knot (from Knot My Problem)

This song is very special for being the only instance, at least that I can think of, of Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, Baljeet, and Buford singing all together, not really taking turns. If any of them duck out for a line or so, it’s barely even noticeable. Plus, there are no harmonies of any kind; we almost get the sense that they’re all singing along to a fun song which already (somehow) exists in-universe. You know, like something kids would do! Candace’s bridge sours the whole mix slightly. Besides the fact that it completely interrupts the content of the song and changes the subject entirely, Candace’s lists about coffee pots and tractors and pianos or whatever are practically never funny.

**

98. Fly on the Wall (from Fly on the Wall)

This song’s fandom page is the thing that made me realize that Danny Jacob and Aaron Daniel Jacob are two different people. This is a very embarrassing moment for me. If at any previous point in this countdown, I refer to Danny Jacob when I should have referred to Aaron Daniel Jacob, now you know why. In fact, I’m almost certain that I have done so. My shame is mighty. If any of you readers embodied the form of a fly on the wall in order to watch me type such stupidities, you would have thought so little of me firsthand. Perhaps a song with smooth built-in modulations in the verses, and an ear-wormy chorus with a series of descending bass lines would have accompanied you on your journey. And perhaps it would have been sung well by Aaron Daniel Jacob.

**

97. Ready for the Bettys (from Ready for the Bettys)

The direction of the song is shaky during the verse, and the listener is left with the brief impression that things could potentially move nowhere and be boring, or even completely fall apart. However, things are made clear and begin to make sense in the few bars leading into the chorus, as the dominant chord is sustained, and a small lyrical fragment, “going to a Betty bash,” is repeated on itself in overlapping fashion. This hanging chord makes the crisp clarity of the Betty backbeat which immediately follows all the more satisfying.

**

96. Dancing in the Sunshine (from Just Our Luck)

This is the better big sister of “Girls Day Out.” Just Our Luck, as an episode, is conceptually strong, especially when seen as a predecessor to The Phineas and Ferb Effect, but “Dancing in the Sunshine” is a rarity among Phineas and Ferb songs in that it can be totally taken out of context, and none of what makes it so delightful would be missed. Sure, it’s nice to see Candace walking around all happy, and it’s nice to see Suzy blast herself with some water, but it’s even nicer to hear the artist now known as L.C. Powell harmonize with herself, sometimes by the octave, and sometimes by the sixths. It’s the latter ones which I really enjoy, especially on the lines ‘dancing in the sunshine,’ themselves, where the lower harmony sometimes instigates some brief but very cool oblique motion.

**

95. I'm Lindana and I Wanna Have Fun (from Flop Starz)

#95 is a relatively high ranking, especially considering the quality of this show’s music as a whole, and yet, I get the odd sense that my ranking is dissonant with the importance of this song to Phineas and Ferb’s (extremely minimal) lore. Linda being a one-hit wonder is so jarring that the lasting impact of “I’m Lindana and I Wanna Have Fun” far outweighs its low complexity in nearly every dimension. Much of its legacy within the show is confined to elevator music gags, and to the funniest line in Ladies and Gentlemen, Max Modem, that being, “Now I’m Linda, and I wanna stir broth.” But when removing this song from its heftiness, one can begin to appreciate the fact that it is what it is. It’s got a catchy chorus. It harkens back to Madonna and to Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, a song which was of course improved upon by Miley Cyrus many years later. It’s a memorable pop song from the 80s. It’s fun. And that’s all Lindana wants to have!

**

94. Mid-Life Crisis (from Act Your Age)

“Everyone’s so discontent, I wish I felt the same,” sings Doofenshmirtz, seconds before his kazoo solo begins. A kazoo solo which is the decisive factor in making this number as good as it is. A kazoo solo which pulled “Mid-Life Crisis” into the top 100. The rest of the song is very good as well, but the kazoo solo, not just by virtue of being a kazoo solo, but by its actual melody, especially the massive upward leap at 0:50, is reason number one, two, and three for my enjoyment. The range of the kazoo solo spans nearly two octaves! The kazoo solo!

**

93. Meet Our Leader (from Candace Against the Universe)

The strings, brass, and orchestration and instrumentation in general is better in Candace Against the Universe than it had ever been before, and this song is a prime example of it. Right off the top, the horns sound as crisp as can be! The two vocalists singing in parallel octaves works quite well for the style too. I could have done without the cell phone and the flossing, but every detail of the arrangement is so precise that those minor eye-roll moments barely bother me.

Tier 5: Songs Which Slap or Equivalent

92. Evil Tonight (from Bullseye!)

The melodic and harmonic progressions which this song puts forward are very good, but they are secondary to the implication that Dr. Doofenshmirtz is not alone in being an evil-scientist / musical-theatre aficionado. For this revelation alone, “Evil Tonight,” and Bullseye! as a whole, is by far the greatest justification for the existence of L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. at all. Dr. Doofenshmirtz, as we know, regularly fails at his attempts to be evil, but it appears as though Rodney is actually in quite a similar camp. No evil can be detected in the hypothetical act of doing away with Mount Rushmore! As for a musical highlight, the entire sequence of “disqualified! You can’t do that! Yes, we can! Why? Cuz we’re evil…” is the easy choice. Without even taking the joke itself into account, the dialogue itself is placed in such a succession so that the verse contains an unusual amount of measures: seven. The syllables, at a certain juncture, land on every single beat, so that the group appears to be practically tripping over itself to answer Dr. Diminutive’s question in the form of an exclamative chorus.

**

91. I Believe We Can (from Summer Belongs to You)

The original idea for this musical slot in Summer Belongs to You was a song called This Is Our Inspirational Song, whose lyrics you can read here. I cannot stress enough how great an idea it was to cut self-reference loose in this instance, in favour of something at least a little bit heartfelt. Of course, the Phineas and Ferb crew knew how big the Summer Belongs to You event would be, and brought in Clay Aiken and Chaka Khan for special appearances accordingly, but they did so in a way which shows that Phineas and Ferb themselves also understand how big this event is, seeing as they each canonically hired one of these singers too. Sure, most of the lyrics are very cheesy, but the mere fact that it’s Aiken and Khan singing allows the self-awareness to slip through the cracks quietly, without needing to rely on meta lyrics. “I believe we can,” they sing, to a melody that was probably written in a minute and a half, and the groundwork is thereby laid for one of the themes of the special.

**

90. Ain't No Kiddie Ride (from Ain’t No Kiddie Ride)

Remember all the rock songs I ranked super low? “Flying Fishmonger?” “All-Terrain Vehicle?” “Troy?” Even “My Chariot?” Well, “Ain’t No Kiddie Ride,” is the only entry in that mold which actually accomplished everything that it set out to do. It’s the exception. The anomaly. The hyperspecific rock ‘n’ roll number that escaped its fate, and against all odds, rules very hard. Its double-shuffle rhythm is groovy from the get-go, and its drumming syncopation on “Like Jekyll and Hyde, appearances aside,” is one of its most memorable flavours. It even overtly ties itself to a ‘greater meaning’ without a trace of insincere or tongue-in-cheek stretching. Despite its hyperspecificity, the metaphor of a ‘kiddie ride’ blasting off into the sky is actually, probably, applicable to real life!

**

89. Such a Beautiful Day (from Candace Against the Universe)

I was in love with this song for a little while after Candace Against the Universe came out, and I like it a little bit less than I used to. Part of this is because of odd lyrical turns like “I don’t even think I’m gonna go ballistic :) ” and “Today I’m not worried about any of that noise,” have soured on me, but such minor complaints don’t change the fact that Candace, happily riding her bike and singing about her fragile optimism, was the perfect way to open this movie. ‘Fragile’ is a word I choose carefully. One can easily observe her good mood evaporate as soon as she sees her brothers’ big clown machine, but even besides that, who in a truly good mental state attributes it to the weather? To it being a beautiful day? No one. Of course, the weather can affect a mood, but if it is the primary reason for one’s mood, there are likely underlying problems that need addressing. And this is exactly the case with Candace. Whether intentional or not, the fact that Candace’s happy song is so reliant on it being a beautiful day, and not on the actual state of her life, is extremely revealing and poignant.

**

88. When Tomorrow Is This Morning Again (from Last Day of Summer)

I don’t want to use this particular review as a chance to gush over Last Day of Summer, but all the elements which make the finale so spectacular also make this song slap. After seven years on air, Phineas and Ferb itself finally acknowledges that the respective strife of Candace and of Doofenshmirtz is the engine on which runs the show. And that both forms of strife are repeating, looping, Sisyphean, if you will. Who cares that the last day of summer is looping indefinitely? They’ve both practically been living the same day over and over again since the start of the summer, and neither of them has learned their lesson! It’s those thematic elements, more so than the music (especially the music preceding the chorus,) which make this song appealing to me. This is not to totally dismiss the music itself. It gradually improves as the song proceeds. The layered, staggered voices on ‘use it for fun’ from 0:45-0:49 lead charmingly into the chorus, and throughout the chorus, both singers are constantly teasing the listener, thinking that they’ll begin to duet any second now. They sing simultaneously on ‘this afternoon’ at 1:10, and on ‘morning again’ four seconds later, before finally committing to sing every word together, with the beautiful “Busted” backdrop.

**

87. Robot Riot (from Across the 2nd Dimension)

At other points on this countdown, I’ve made note of ‘late risers,’ i.e., songs like “Come on, Kids,” which I did not like very much until I considered them more closely and paid them the attention they deserve. “Robot Riot” is, by far, the most drastic example of this. From the first draft of this list until now, this song has shot up the ranking by over 150 slots. At the time, I was confused as to why this, of all songs, would be one of the very, very few from the show which are longer than three minutes. At the time, I thought the heavy rock sound was overbearing. Thanks to some nudging from some friends in the M.W.C.A. Discord server, I decided to approach “Robot Riot” with a fresh perspective and give it a fair shake. Within 24 hours, I understood the appeal. And oddly, a lot of it comes down to the lyrics. It’s only with the added context of the “graphic” lyrics about “sell(ing) you for scrap metal but keep(ing) enough to build myself a trampoline,” and “melt(ing) you down and pour(ing) you on some baby shoes,” and most violent of all: “Rip out your CPU and show it to you, still processing,” that the other details: the length, the style, etc, are justified. “Robot Riot” opens with a verse, and then hits the chorus, and never looks back. It builds on its own momentum, like an army on a battlefield, taking a slight breather in the ‘I’m gonna rip you up’ section, but with energy still obviously ruminating under the surface. If this song were any shorter, or any less bombastic, the passion with which Love Handel wishes to utterly decimate the army of robots would have been undersold.

**

86. Watchin' and Waitin' (from Don’t Even Blink and M.W.C.A. Date Announcement)

I first want to congratulate the Phineas and Ferb writers for resisting the temptation to make the invention disappear while everyone was distracted by singing the song. For a number that’s about sitting down and not moving, it has a very reasonable build from the ticking clocks, quiet guitar, and tambourine, slowly layering instruments on top of each other, and culminating logically in the rock and roll section at 1:08, which, at 1:18, includes one of my favourite rhythmic devices of all time, a series of quarter notes pushing against the beat in a swung time like 6/8. Essentially, there are six pulses in one of those bars, and the first and fourth ones are the strong ones, leading to ambiguity when the first, third, and fifth ones are emphasized instead. West Side Story’s America is famous for alternating constantly between those two kinds of rhythm.

**

85. Improbably Knot / Buford Is in Trouble (from Primal Perry)

LMAOOOO I Can’t Believe I Actually Ranked “Improbably Knot / Buford Is in Trouble” at #85. I came so, so, so, so, so close to putting it earlier on the list, at many, many, many points. But I didn’t have the heart, nor the brain to do so. Every time I checked my gut and asked myself: “Do I actually like “Improbably Knot / Buford Is in Trouble” less than I like ‘Weaponry’ and/or ‘Backyard Beach’ and/or ‘Little Brothers’ and/or ‘I’m Me’ and/or ‘When Tomorrow Is This Morning Again,’ etc?” the answer was: “No!” Mock me. Ridicule me. Laugh at me. I don’t care. If Baljeet’s rock-music plot was the best one ever gifted to him, the one which tracks his struggle to make decisions of any kind, essentially nodding toward the butterfly effect without saying those words, is a close number two. He is failing to decide whether he prefers loop theory to string, or vanilla ice cream to strawberry, but by the complete opposite token, he had no problem whatsoever in making a myriad of bold artistic decisions in putting together a “little presentation to illustrate (his) point.” This is a massive undersell. He has, in his state of distress, put together the most innovative music video of the century. Yes, it is based off of a music video by Devo, for the song "Freedom of Choice," but as I will explain, “Improbably Knot” improves upon its inspiration by incredible proportions.

In earlier entries, I have expressed disparagement unto so-called “random humour.” Why then, do I derive such a rush of pleasure from this sequence, which includes Baljeet dressed in funny costumes, sometimes inexplicably wearing green goggles, sometimes inexplicably wearing lipstick and a bowtie, and which sometimes inexplicably focuses on a cactus, which at one point inexplicably rests upon Baljeet’s head after a ham and a crab have already done so, and at another point is inexplicably struck with xylophone mallets by Baljeet, and at another point is inexplicably blasted off like a rocket ship, and at another point is inexplicably passed from a person dressed as a cowboy to a person wearing a horse-head prop, before inexplicably encircling the cowboy’s head, before the horse-head prop is inexplicably worn by Baljeet, and long after the letters ‘A,’ ‘B,’ and ‘C’ had inexplicably encircled the horse-head? And in which a fly is inexplicably murdered? And in which Baljeet’s little off-the-shelf 3-D package robots inexplicably march and sing simultaneously? And in which we have the pleasure of seeing a real live hanging Chad? And in which there is, for some reason, a scared fish in a glass? Why do I enjoy this randomness so greatly? Because this song is about randomness! The unpredictable buffoonery is finally relevant! The more insane the antics get, the more sense it makes, and the funnier it is. And the funnier it is that it makes more sense! I don’t even know why it’s called “Improbably Knot!”

Devo’s “Freedom of Choice” is less about randomness in general, and more about some kind of (flawed) commentary on the false dichotomy between autonomy and authority. The video’s off-colour visuals do not supplement this theme. It is also musically repugnant. “Improbably Knot” opens with a catchy synthesizer riff, and after working through the main points without pitches, Baljeet calmly introduces the melody and explains while hitting the cactus as if it were a xylophone and then blasting it off into the sky: “Even doing nothing is still a choice that I must make, I’m paralyzed by fear that it will all become a big mistake.” Cue the robots, who are, of course, unable to sing on any note except the tonic. Does this lack of melodic motion bother me? Why would it! It perfectly represents Baljeet’s paralysis regarding choice! “Everything is probable, nothing is impossible / choices left to random chance are highly irresponsible.” And this appears to include choices regarding what notes to sing. Better to stay on a single note than to irresponsibly come up with a melody!

If you’ve seen Primal Perry, you’ll remember that Phineas and Ferb make a machine which allows Baljeet to split into multiple Baljeets each time he is faced with a choice. The stupidity of this idea is revealed in short order; the brothers had failed to consider the fact that the Baljeets would influence each other by speaking to each other, thereby nullifying the entire experiment. Naturally, what follows is that the Baljeets begin to recognize the great power they wield in numbers, and decide to weaponize this to finally get back at Buford after all the torment he has put him (them?) through. It ends with Phineas remarking: “Huh, so that’s what comeuppance looks like,” proving that even Phineas knows, Buford deserved this. Buford, for all the ways he’d picked on Baljeet in the past, despite his ‘good heart,’ deserved to see his life flash before his eyes at the hands of a militant army of Baljeets. “Buford Is in Trouble” looks to claim that ‘mob mentality’ is a bad thing, which in many instances it is. Yet in this context, this message directly contradicts the evidence of our eyes and ears. The thirty nerds are becoming a giant bully, and standing up for what’s right! This is not ‘mob mentality’ at play, it is the power of unity and solidarity! Let this be a lesson to all the oppressed people of the world: we are stronger united!

**

84. One Good Scare (from One Good Scare Ought to Do It!)

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I sometimes compliment a song by saying that it knows what it is, and it fulfills its aims well. Crank that compliment up to the highest degree for “One Good Scare.” It is not my favourite Halloween song from Phineas and Ferb, but of all the songs from Phineas and Ferb, it is unquestionably the Halloweeniest. It’s in C-minor, and the melody opens by outlining the tonic chord. It proceeds to weaponize every classical aspect of melodic minor, including raising the sixth and seventh scale degrees at the end of musical phrases. Above all, the bridge, or rather, the bridges, that being the ‘if you should find the daily grind…’ sections, deserve heaps of praise. The melody is characterized by small climbs upward and bigger leaps downard, mirroring the action itself of climbing up the stairs of the tall haunted house, but getting more and more afraid as one goes along.

**

83. Gimme a Grade (from The Baljeatles)

I can’t imagine an arc which encapsulates Baljeet any better than the one which culminates in his passionate, angered pleas for structure and conformity. In Baljeet’s early appearances, he was depicted as timid, soft-spoken, etc. Abandoning this mold in favour of its total opposite was absolutely the right choice, and from season two onward, Baljeet is routinely, arguably, the funniest character on the show, or at least has the highest ceiling to be so. The joke of “Gimme a Grade” could have fallen flat if not for the earnestness with which Baljeet, and the other characters, treat it. There is not a hint of irony in Maulik Pancholy’s delivery, and neither Phineas nor Ferb nor even Buford dares to be anything but a vehicle for the fury of their band’s frontman. Baljeet’s rage is played totally straight, and in tandem with the blistering guitars and the alternating drumming pattern, he learns the true meaning of rock and roll.

**

82. On the Trail / In the Mall (from The Magnificent Few)

The more I listen to this song, or rather, these songs, the more confused I am by the fact that they’re almost never talked about. Andrew Grabowski has pointed out, perhaps only in private, that Phineas and Ferb is excellent in their depiction of in-universe TV shows and movies. Of course, seeing as it is a TV show itself, it would be incredibly hypocritical for it to have a haughty attitude towards TV. Instead, Phineas and Ferb themselves, from time to time, are glad to indulge in film and television, and more often than not, will apply some inspiration from it into their own life. It warms my heart that this is even the case with regards to terrible movies, like the one which “On the Trail” is from. Of course, they acknowledge it themselves. “Nothing worse than bees a-stingin’, ‘cept this cowboy song we’re singing.” I disagree. This cowboy song is good! Its harmonic motion delivers unpredictable rates of change, and I especially appreciate the fact that it moves to the dominant after its very first line, rather than to the subdominant, which the listener likely expects. In a gag much funnier than it has a right to be, the cows stand up to singing backup vocals, and continue to sing as they carry on walking, and in one of the very best double-meta jokes ever put to paper, the singer acknowledges that the movie in which he is a character has been colourized. Unfortunately, Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella don’t live near a trail, so if they want to mimic this man and live their cowboy dreams, they’ll have to get creative. Cue “In the Mall,” a glorious example of how we can always apply lessons from films, no matter how distant, into our own life. Phineas still has a slight arrogance to his delivery at this point in season one, and Isabella gets a very short but very sweet vocal moment in the sun.

**

81. E.V.I.L. B.O.Y.S. (from Jerk de Soleil)

There was truly no need to write “Just Passing Through,” especially after the CSWPF had already put together such a successful package of 12-bar blues in the form of “E.V.I.L. B.O.Y.S.” Linda gets in the groove and plugs in her electric, and wails away with some stylish fills and licks all throughout, especially the one at 0:58. Every other band member, even Lawrence on harmonica, plays their part in the bluesy atmosphere, and in gradually building it throughout, as Candace progressively loses herself in the music. Things reach a breaking point at 1:11 with the “I know you think they’re saints…” section, and Dan Povenmire deserves props for the filterless unfurling of his voice regarding the high notes in the bridge.

**

80. Jump Right to It (from Night of the Living Pharmacists)

In my opinion, this song is even better when divorced from the knowledge that it’s a play on words with regards to the plot of the episode. Puns and the like aside, this song is, off the top of my head, the only Fireside Girls feature without Isabella singing (unless you count “Waggle Dance,”) and the group is given plenty of strong material to work with. The melody starts by jumping all the way up a major triad, and then sliding up a full tone, where it jumps even higher. The underrated Gretchen gets a chance to shine, as does Ginger in the inventive bridge, backed with brilliant Beach Boys style “oohs” in the ‘it’s been your predilection’ section. The only notable downside is that Isabella’s dialogue in this video is indistinguishable from that of Alvin and the Chipmunks. 

**

79. Mexican-Jewish Cultural Festival (from Picture This)

These mere 47 seconds are so dense and musically active that one can hardly be surprised by the fact it took six individual songwriters to pull off. The Spanish guitars, and other elements of traditional Mexican instrumentation (especially Mexican percussion) are placed perfectly on top of the Jewish Klezmer style. Even if we put aside the excellent lyrics, it’s impossible not to enjoy such a flawless synthesis, in which neither culture overshadows the other for a single second, yet they each get more and more pronounced throughout.

**

78. The Universe Is Against Me (from Candace Against the Universe)

This is a song which was intended for Candace to sing in a Phineas and Ferb movie which was ultimately cut, or in other words, it is the descendant of “Mysterious Force.” Whether or not the inclusion of “Mysterious Force” would have improved Across the 2nd Dimension is up for debate, but there is no question that Candace Against the Universe would have benefitted from the inclusion of “The Universe Is Against Me,” and you don’t even really need to look beyond the titles to see why. But I will anyway. This song’s originality is striking right off the top, with the lawn-mower sounding instrument revving its engine, and the dominant melodic riff precariously alternating between the fifth scale degree, and the sharp-fourth. There’s nothing like this across the entire discography! And of course, the orchestra, when it is utilized, sounds as clean as it does everywhere else in Candace Against the Universe.

**

77. My Wettest Friend (from The Lake Nose Monster)

It is sometimes appropriately called an attempt to recreate “My Undead Mummy and Me,” but that is not a bad thing at all. The soft horns and the guitar double the opening riff, an electric piano is introduced at the start of the verse, Danny Jacob’s voice is as silky as ever, and it all combines in a swirling yacht-music sound. I - II - IV - I is not such a strange chord progression, but the IV chord is given an extremely subtle and brief extension into a dominant-7 chord, first on the line ‘lives under the’ at 0:11, and much more noticeably and jazzily on ‘never slips away’ at 0:38, making the whole thing sound a tad more playful. And of course, I must give props to the bridge’s lyrics: “He’s not the shortest, he’s not the orangest, he’s not the one who smells most like masking tape.” Masking tape doesn’t even rhyme with anything! How did you think of this!? What are you talking about!? And perhaps more curiously, which one of your friends does smell the most like masking tape? And why is this, of all lines, the one under which Danny Jacob inserts the most beautiful upward chromatic vocal motion? And to top it all off, we get a valuable lesson for the kids hastily added to the mix: “Don’t let him plug anything in.”

**

76. On the Savannah (from Where’s Perry?)

One of the few benefits to Where’s Perry? being too long was that the CSWPF was compelled to extend “On the Savannah” to nearly a hundred seconds long. Normally, a number like this would probably clock in at around sixty. Luckily, not only does Carmen Carter perform her crowning vocal achievement here, but the lyricists were not at all dry on ideas. No line is a dud, even in the ‘I’m awestruck by the waterbuck,’ section. Oddly, “On the Savannah,” doesn’t have a classical structure of verses and/or choruses and/or bridges. Much like Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road, no section is obviously alike any other. The song moves from section A along to section B along to section C without ever really stopping and circling back around. If not for a distinctive instrumental and singing style which ties the entire song together, “On the Savannah” could have easily begun to sound discombobulated. The true jewel of this song, however, lies in its underlying harmony. It sits on the tonic chord for quite awhile, before unexpectedly moving straight to the dominant at 0:30 on “some sleep in the daylight,” much like “On the Trail.” Not long after, the move to the supertonic, a minor chord, on “not a fence in sight,” beautifully sets the 2-5-1 into motion, making the return to the tonic that much more satisfying.

To be continued.