The Top 10 - Phineas and Ferb Song Ranking

Introduction
300-251
250-201
200-151
150-101
100-76
75-51
Intermission
50-31
30-21
20-11

Continuation of Tier 2: Songs with Life-Changing Potential

10. Everything's Better with Perry (from Across the 2nd Dimension)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Jeff “Swampy” Marsh

• Martin Olson

• Aliki Theofilopoulos

• Antoine Guilbaud

• Danny Jacob

If I could do this whole project over again, I would change one thing. I would have done more writing before beginning to post. By giving myself only one week in between posts to write all the reviews for that week, I found myself falling into stale habits, getting tired of the whole project, almost dreading the task of writing. I worry that the last few posts have been getting progressively less engaging. On the other hand, the routine of posting did force me to complete the project. If I had tried to finish it all before even publishing the introduction, I likely would not have managed to get through it all until December. I guess I just needed to strike a slightly better balance. Oh well. You live and you learn.

I say this in order to clarify why I spent two weeks putting together all the writing for this top ten list. I could not in good conscience let myself go out with anything but a bang. I’ve put a lot of hours into this project. A grand finale is in order. This post has got to be the best one yet.

So it’s only fitting, I think, that the song which kickstarts my Best Post Yet is the same one which kickstarts the best piece of Phineas and Ferb media ever made: Across the 2nd Dimension. That would be “Everything’s Better with Perry.” A song written by six people. A song which topped the infamous Phineas and Ferb Musical Cliptastic Countdown Hosted by Kelly Osbourne. A song which is clearly heavily influenced by I Want You Back.

And as great as “Everything’s Better with Perry” is by itself, as a standalone song, it’s ten times better as an opening number to a movie. The film begins in the thick of the drama, with Phineas and others about to be ‘fed to a monster the size of a two-car garage’ and all that, before we flash back to ‘earlier that day.’ Narratively, this use of a time-skip is excellent. Musically, it’s impeccable. ‘Everything started out so well this morning,’ says Phineas, and we cut away from a life-or-death situation, to 6:59 A.M., where the funkiest bass-line I’ve ever heard, doubled up by all sorts of instruments, offers us a jarring shift to the mood. I can imagine no device that would be more effective at sucking us out of the dire circumstances, and placing us, with a little bit of humour, into the happy-go-lucky opening.

There are two points of articulation in this early part of the song. The first is at 0:20, when the high violins begin to play, and a new musical phrase is clearly beginning. This coincides with Perry waking up, and this is not an accident. He chatters once, and then Phineas has the easiest, most enviable wake-up I’ve ever seen. The entire band plays a most precise fill as Phineas baselessly exclaims: ‘This is gonna be the best day ever!’ And the lyrics begin. They thoroughly explain why and how everything is in fact better with Perry, including brushing our teeth and sitting in a chair. If I found out that this song had been written in a painstaking, months-long process of lyric-tweaking, chord-altering, and band-arranging, I would not be surprised. If I found out the entire process was a smooth workflow which took place between midnight and 3AM in a pizza-fuelled fever dream, this would also be very unsurprising. This is a major compliment; the song is both highly complicated in several respects, and an entirely natural stream of joy.

The relevance of the visual dimension cannot be understated. My favourite clip is at 1:19, the first time we hear the line ‘everything’s better with Perry,’ when Phineas boinks his nose (face?) up against Perry’s bill, with a big smile on his visage. This is exactly the expression of love that most of Phineas and Ferb lacks! Due to the nature of the show, we very rarely get to see Phineas, Ferb, and Perry hang out and have a good time; we only hear of their love, we don’t often see it. And on the whole of the sequence, Phineas and Ferb actually do have a great time with Perry. He wakes up the brothers, helps them get dressed, hangs out with them while they brush their teeth, and plays golf with them. And most wholesomely of all, lies on the bed with them and makes chattering noises. Just three brothers takin’ care of things. 

***

9. Busted (from I Scream, You Scream)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Jeff “Swampy” Marsh

• Martin Olson

• Antoine Guilbaud

• Bobby Gaylor

As you can probably tell, my natural trend has been to make these reviews longer and longer as I’ve gotten closer to the end of the countdown. One reason is that I have more I want to say about the better songs. Another reason is that, as the reader gets more accustomed to my writing style, I feel more justified in going off on tangents, many of which are self-referential, like this one. But I think that the biggest reason is that people, generally, have a tendency to improve upon themselves. I realized that if I weren’t consciously making the content of these reviews more thorough and detailed, then I would have been susceptible to making them less thorough, less detailed, or in a word, worse.

You can probably also tell that I have done my best to avoid abstractions and shallow statements which are void of meaning. This brings us to “Busted.” It is a song which is so simple, so popular, and so obviously good, that to explain why I like it feels like a waste of time. Pick any detail of the song. Point out the singing, the animation, the straightforward chord progression, the straightforward melody, or the thematic relevance to the whole show. Ask me what I think about it and I will say ‘it rocks.’ In the face of “Busted” and “Busted” alone I will succumb to the easy way out. I will give in to shallow statements which are void of meaning. I will not be detailed or thorough in the slightest.

***

8. Haunted by You (from Druselsteinoween)

Songwriters:

• Michael Diederich

• Jennifer Hughes

• Robert F. Hughes

• Kyle Menke

This song’s appearance in the top ten should surprise no one. It measures up to its presumed inspiration, Sway, in every respect. And it is my favourite one of those Phineas and Ferb songs which I once sincerely felt should be longer. It’s a measly verse and chorus! Like “I Love You Mom,” it urges one to start from the top as soon as it finishes, thinking ‘I must have missed something!’ This is why I jumped so quickly at the chance to collaborate on an elaborate extension of the song. (Which Robert F. Hughes complimented. But that is neither here nor there.)

You may remember a number of weeks ago when I said that “One Good Scare” is not my favourite Phineas and Ferb Halloween song, but it is still certainly the Halloweeniest. Indeed, it is “Haunted By You” that is my favourite Phineas and Ferb Halloween song, despite the fact that it is not necessarily extremely Halloweeny. It is very much more than that. It is a tango masterclass, it is a charming love song, and it is the bearer of the single most inventively fascinating melody which has ever been affiliated to Phineas and Ferb.

From start to end, the piece is unwaveringly tango. Notice the first seven seconds of the guitar! It slips and slides and tangos all on its own, soon to be flourished by the impeccably timed winking sound effect, and spotlight sound effect. Across the entire song, the things that make it sound tango are the exact same ones which make it sound haunting, and chief among them is the melody, which has a range of nearly two octaves. There’s a leap of an octave at 0:15, again at 0:31, and back down at 0:36, and again at 1:03, which is then followed up by another leap upward, by a perfect fourth, to the melodic peak of the song, which also creates a quickly resolving suspension! What a chilling apex! That’s a lot of enormous leaps for such a short song! And that vastness is what haunts us.

***

7. Gotta Get Back in Time (from Last Day of Summer)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Martin Olson

• Robert F. Hughes

Notice this song! Talk about it! Rave about it! This was my top Spotify song of 2021, because I listened to it very often that year, because it is extremely good.

The CSWPF often proved their chops as musical mimickers, but this one takes the cake in that respect. It might as well have been lifted straight off of Help! or Rubber Soul and enhanced with 21st century technology. Dan, Martin, and Robert locked themselves into the mindscapes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney; it's a historic feat.

We can start with the extremely famous and weird drum pattern found throughout the first minute of Ticket to Ride, able to be picked out in “Gotta Get Back in Time” from a mile away. But the latter repurposes it. While Ticket to Ride creates rhythmic instability throughout the entire first minute, before resolving into a more typical backbeat, “Gotta Get Back in Time” constantly moves back and forth between the odd syncopation and the regular drum pattern. Matt Bissonette sings: ‘when you’re running out of time, it’s hard to know how-’ atop the odd pattern, for two measures. He carries on: ‘-fast you’re going,’ the regular pattern, for two measures. This is the interplay, a very small circle of tension and release, tension and release. And this is thoughtfully taking place alongside the exact same pattern in the chords and harmony! The first chord which strikes is the dominant chord, the E major, for those same first two measures, which resolves to the subdominant and then the tonic, the D and the A, across the stable next two measures.

And then, and this is the most real stroke of genius, after the repetition of this pattern, the order is inverted. This is at 0:16, in the second half of the verse: ‘and when I say we’re running out of time…’ we are met with the regular backbeat, followed up then by the Ticket to Ride backbeat. There is a constant interplay of rhythmic stopping and starting, leaping and halting, asking when we will finally get rolling. While this is all happening, we simultaneously hear the most Beatlesque harmonies put down since The Beatles themselves. Not only is Bissonette approaching the timbre of John Lennon and George Harrison’s voices, but replicated most astutely is the incredibly rich depth of the voices, layered across a wide range. One voice can maybe be picked out as the main melody, but it is barely in the foreground; all the voices are more or less of equal importance. Listen to certain parts of the underrated Wait to hear the same thing, or better yet, the rightly-rated Nowhere Man. 

In addition to all that is the lead guitar, which George Harrison himself might as well have recorded. It has a plucky timbre and sits at the ideal floor in the mix, like in If I Needed Someone.

 This ‘small circle’ of instability and stability finally reaches its satisfying conclusion when stability wins out at the chorus. ‘We gotta get back in time’ is the first phrase of the song which begins on the tonic chord, but the preceding one is not dominant. In fact, I can’t even tell by ear exactly what it is, but it includes a flat seventh degree, for sure. It thus arrives at its emphatic stability through the back door instead of through the front. Then the verse begins anew:

‘When I say we gotta get back in time I must admit that I mean it two ways / I mean we have to get back into the flow of time but also that we have to do it fast because we’re running out of time but not the way I said that earlier (not the way I indicated earlier.)’

In Last Day of Summer, the song ends right here, and this is one of the very few shortcomings of this episode. A very broad overview of this song’s episode version is: unstable, then stable, then unstable, then it ends, leaving the song hanging on a string. But in the full version, i.e. the one embedded here, there is another final section, a triumphant return to stability on an even higher level than before. The drums drift even more closely to Ringo’s style, and the chorus is performed twice, allowing for total immersion in the driven beat and melody. Indeed, there are six songs from Phineas and Ferb which I prefer to this one, but there might be no song from Phineas and Ferb by which it is easier to become transfixed.

Tier 1: Songs with World-Changing Potential

6. Gitchee Gitchee Goo (from Flop Starz)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Jeff “Swampy” Marsh

• Jon Colton Barry

The slanderers incorrectly call it overrated. I know why. “Gitchee Gitchee Goo” has all the ingredients of an overrated song. It is from one of the show’s extremely early episodes, and that episode is actually about the song becoming popular. It is extremely memorable for the fact that it is about its lack of meaning. It is literally the song which inspired there to be subsequent songs in Phineas and Ferb at all! None of these factors have anything to do with the song itself! This list alone would have one believe that “Gitchee Gitchee Goo” is indeed overrated. But wait. It is not an accident that “Gitchee Gitchee Goo” inspired the decision to include a song in every episode. “Today Is Gonna Be a Great Day” did not have that effect, nor could have “Backyard Beach” or “S.I.M.P. (Squirrels in My Pants)” or even “Ain’t Got Rhythm” or “Disco Miniature Golfing Queen.” The only song which could provoke such a choice is one with world-changing potential, like “Gitchee Gitchee Goo.”

With respect to the bridges, which are not present in the episode, I will devote my attention to picking apart the famous chorus. It is eight measures long, and its chord progression is as follows: C major for two bars, G major for two bars, G major for two more bars, and C major for two bars. It is so simple, a child could have written it. And canonically, one did.

How about the chorus’s melody, which has a narrow range, spanning only a major sixth? It has a standard amount of passing tones, and the closest it ever gets to dissonance is on the line: ‘never gonna stop,’ which is only dissonant briefly and for the purpose of pulling back towards the tonic, towards ultimate consonance. It is so simple, a child could have written it. And canonically, one did.

And how about the lyrics: ‘Bow chicka bow wow, (that’s what my baby says) / mow mow mow (and my heart starts pumping) / chicka chicka choo wop (never gonna stop) / Gitchee gitchee goo means that I love you.’ They are so simple, a child could have written them. But the child would have had to be a brilliant genius to decide to include an interplay between a lead singer and backup singers. ‘Bow chicka bow wow,’ sings the lead singer, and it is only retroactively that the listener understands what is being spoken about. ‘That’s what my baby says,’ sing the backup singers, and we now understand that ‘Bow chicka bow wow’ has actually been a direct quote.

The penultimate repetition of the chorus is accompanied by handclaps alone - a perfect segue into the final repetition, of which Candace is a part. The melody experiences some slight changes, and it kicks off into an untouchably perfect coda: 

‘Gitchee gitchee goo means that I love you, gitchee gitchee goo means that I love you, gitchee gitchee goo means that I love you baby, baby, baby, (ba-bay-ba-bay-ba-bay-ba) gitchee gitchee goo means that I love you.’

What is emotional about this? Nothing. What appeals to the depths of the soul? Nothing. The world-changing potential in “Gitchee Gitchee Goo” lies in how fun it is. All the key musical elements, those which I’ve mentioned already, and even those to do with instrumentation, might as well have been manufactured in a lab for the sole purpose of fun maximisation. This is music for its own sake. This is believable as a one-hit wonder, and if there were no other songs in Phineas and Ferb, it would have been so in the real world too.

***

5. Us Against the Universe (from Candace Against the Universe)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Jeff “Swampy” Marsh

Candace Against the Universe is not a perfect movie, but it came out at the perfect time. For me personally, at least. That is to say, it came out on August 27th, 2020, only about seven months after I became interested in Phineas and Ferb again. I had ample time to get excited about it. And I accidentally woke up at 6:00 that day to watch the entire thing before I had to go to online class, and then I listened to the soundtrack, went to my other online class, took a nap, and watched it again.

I mentioned in my review of “Takin’ Care of Things” that Across the 2nd Dimension was unsuited for a big classic finale song. Candace Against the Universe, on the other hand, is extremely suited for such a thing. Dan Povenmire has actually pointed out that his favourite Phineas and Ferb songs are “Summer Belongs to You,” “Carpe Diem,” and “Us Against the Universe.” He’s clearly got a type: finales. And from the moment it was released, “Us Against the Universe” inspired conversations on whether or not it was the greatest song in the show’s history, with a notable faction taking the side of the brand new song. I never quite agreed, but it speaks to the emotionality and quality of “Us Against the Universe” that, for some, it was able to overcome its lack - in some respects - of nostalgia factor, and shoot its way to the top of lists. That includes Jonathan Edewaard of The 2nd Dimension, who said in his video on September 12, 2020, ‘I think it’s my favourite song the show’s ever done.’

The benefit of having a verse-chorus-verse-chorus format, besides the fact that it typically leaves the listener wanting more, is that it’s very easy to make every moment in the song sound fresh and new. The soft and directly heartfelt opening ten seconds give way immediately to a backbeat, and some kind of echoey synth, not to mention a new chord progression. Ten seconds later, five new characters, Jeremy, Baljeet, Isabella, Stacy, and Buford enter the picture, and we hear a new guitar lick, offering a simple suspension and resolution, but a bone-chilling one. Soon we hear Doofenshmirtz and Vanessa share a line, another new arrival. New, new, new, new, new.

And the section culminates with a most seamless modulation, and I say modulation instead of key change because this one is built and fixed into the melody. Suddenly, the bVII is treated like a IV, and the tonal center has shifted from F-sharp to B. This is the flavour of the chorus, which moves around the I and the IV and the V with complete confidence and happiness.

In the aforementioned The 2nd Dimension video, Jonathan also says that “Us Against the Universe” ‘really embodies everything that Phineas and Ferb is,’ intentionally repeating the words ‘uplifting’ and ‘fun.’ With that, it’s hard to disagree, but I want to shine a light on the other side of the puzzle, the bittersweetness in the song. I’ve already mentioned the bittersweetness in Candace Against the Universe altogether, stemming partly from the story itself, and Candace’s deep insecurities and internal troubles, but also stemming partly from the external world of which we, the audience, are a part, and our knowledge that, on one hand, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen the show, and we don’t (at that point) know when or if we will ever see it again, and on the other hand that the universe can indeed be a rough place, and can indeed punch you on the chin.

The bittersweetness comes across sharply in Phineas’s first line: ‘So far it’s been a rocking summer…’ The sweetness comes from the lyrics, and Phineas’s voice, which is practically always cheery. The bitterness comes from the fact that this is the repetition of the chord progression and melody which opened the song. Solemn piano and reflective singing.

A build happens towards another final chorus, which ends, like “Gitchee Gitchee Goo,” with a variation: ‘Together we have been through worse,’ and some different chords. And despite the fact that the song proves itself, front-to-back, to be celebratory, it is not purely so. It is not exactly a song of having overcome an obstacle and being glad about it. The celebration comes from a continuous mindset of teamwork and solidarity and love and all that jazz, the best tactics to weaponize when facing hardship. ‘When it’s us against the universe, we win’ comes from the knowledge that there will be more struggles and obstacles, but that we are equipped with the ability to fight back. That is worth celebrating!

***

4. There's No One I'd Rather Go Nowhere With (from Last Day of Summer)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Jeff “Swampy” Marsh

• Robert F. Hughes

• Madison Scheckel

Some of you may know that I kind of have a podcast called Disney Channel Discourse. I released an episode almost every week from July 2020 till April 2021, then I got a job, and I had no choice but to cut it out of my routine. Not to mention, I was working on Musical Without a Cool Acronym that summer, and once that show came out, I started university, and got heavily involved with political activism. I have released a few episodes here and there, one in July, about The Owl House, featuring Carlybella and AuthenticCadence, one in November, about The Owl House, featuring AuthenticCadence, and one which was released like a week and a half ago, about The Owl House, featuring Brian Koch, Carlybella, and AuthenticCadence. Unfortunately, however, I have no prospects to turn this podcast back into a regularly scheduled thing.

I do not say this for self-promotional purposes. I merely want to contextualize the fact that I have taken a stab at ranking Phineas and Ferb songs before now. In September of 2020, I released an episode in which I ranked my top 30 Phineas and Ferb songs, and included about 21 honourable mentions. Naturally, my opinions have not remained static over the past 30 months. But at the time, I admit, I was not knowledgeable enough about the deep discography of Phineas and Ferb to trust myself with the task of a ranking. This is why three of the songs in this top ten were nowhere to be found in that entire top 51. Those songs are “Haunted By You,” “Gotta Get Back in Time,” and the best of them all, “There’s No One I’d Rather Go Nowhere With.”

It happens sometimes that a song which barely pushes your buttons decides one day to push them all. So many people in my life told me that Radiohead’s OK Computer was their favourite album ever made, but I didn’t get what the fuss was about. I listened to it once, twice, thrice. It might have been only on my fourth listen that everything clicked into place. Similarly, I do not have any recollection of my first time listening to “There’s No One I’d Rather Go Nowhere With.” It was almost definitely on March 5th, 2020, however, that being the first time I watched Last Day of Summer.

I have vague recollections of thinking that this song was vanilla and forgettable. These feelings must have lasted for about thirteen months. Then, in mid-April 2021, coincidentally extremely soon after I recorded my final episode of Disney Channel Discourse (in the pre-Owl House era,) I went to visit my sister in Lennoxville. I do not know if this new location offered me a new perspective, but one way or another, it was there in Lennoxville that I had my OK-Computer-Moment.

There are, of course, significant musical reasons for my glowing admiration towards this song. With only a few exceptions, the chords which dominate the song are standard ones - the I, IV, V, and vi. What makes these typical chords pop so vibrantly out of the speakers is the order in which they’re placed. In the verse, delivered so gently into the ear-holes is: IV, vi, I, V, possibly the least typical arrangement of the most typical chords. And thus, many chord changes at this juncture leave the listener going: ‘I guess that makes sense?’ But Aaron Jacob sounds so firmly in his element, and Jen Hirsh’s harmonies, riddling the chords with the richest of extensions, sounds so godly, that the listener is forced to ask themselves the question: ‘Where are we going? Are we going somewhere? Or are we going nowhere?’

The fact of the matter is that we are going somewhere indeed, but paradoxically, that destination is nothing more than the satisfaction of having not gone anywhere at all. The chord progression in the chorus is infinitely more typical: vi - IV - I - V, and so on. But Jen Hirsh’s backup vocals are the indispensable ingredient which add a balancing act atop a predictable harmony. Her ba ba ba bas, her oohs, they always land on a merrily dissonant extension, forcing the entire song to float through, in, and around tonality, never settling into itself, never for a moment risking boredom, and in the absolute best, most intentional way possible, never going anywhere. I suppose that’s wherein lies the awesome glory of “There’s No One I’d Rather Go Nowhere With.” It is the only song I can think of whose goal is to go nowhere, and to have impeccably pulled it off, and to have left a big impact, is a true miracle.

I never truly wished that this song were longer, but it is the queen of all the songs about which I did have that wish. As I have discussed at length, “Gotta Make Summer Last” and “If Summer Only Lasted One Day” and “Sunshine and Bubble Gum” and “Haunted By You” are, in some respects, painfully short. But more so here than in any other song, to extend it by, say, another chorus, and to overdo it even by an inch, would have drastically undermined the purpose. Why sing more? What else is there to sing about? There is nowhere else that we want to go.

***

3. Summer (Where Do We Begin?) (from Across the 2nd Dimension)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Jeff “Swampy” Marsh

• Martin Olson

• Jon Colton Barry

• Robert F. Hughes

This song is not like the show's other ‘summer’ songs; it is not about an attitude towards summer, but rather, it is about summer itself. To me, one of the most endearing things about “Summer (Where Do We Begin?)” is that it conceals no part of the songwriting process. I can somewhat confidently approximate the creative journey which took place. Some combination of the five songwriters got down to work on their song which is about summer and summer alone. Perhaps they brainstormed by asking themselves the question: ‘How could summer be explained to people who have no idea what it is?’ And they came up with a list. Days are longer, nights are shorter, ice cream cones and cherry sodas, ponds and pools and garden hoses, bicycles and roller skates, crickets and cicadas. And they realized that not one of these elements should predominate over any other. None of them are the ultimate feature of summer, because there is no ultimate feature of summer. None of them are indispensable, but they are all complementary. The question of ‘where do we begin?’ has no answer, and that is why it is the final lyric Phineas sings.

“Summer (Where Do We Begin?) is improved vastly in the context of Across the 2nd Dimension. Unfortunately, the movie does not include the full version, but this does not nullify the possibility of keeping the context in mind when listening to the full version. There is a comparable bittersweetness to “Us Against the Universe” in that the song itself is happy, but the reason it is canonically required is that two boys who are just like Phineas and Ferb are living in such desolate conditions that they do not know what summer is. This song combines the joy of explaining summer with the sadness of having to do so.

The music mirrors that emotionality with precision. Danny Jacob’s opening vocals, ‘It’s summer-r-r-r-r,’ leap up, leap down, and then walk down the C-major scale with caution, not wanting to be too bold in their joy. The drums and the acoustic guitar are in the same mood, and only at 0:38, after the room has been felt out, does the mood get thoughtfully and carefully lifted to a place of summery happiness. At every juncture, “Summer (Where Do We Begin?)” empathetically connects with the consciousness of someone who has never experienced summer. Notice especially the motion of E major to A minor in the chorus, on ‘dripping down your chain,’ for an example of wistfulness. But all the while, it lifts the consciousness at a healthy pace to a point of excitement and gladness.

Only at one point does it run ahead of the consciousness, and Phineas points it out: ‘Maybe we’re going too fast,’ and everything is momentarily tempered back down to its most fundamental level:

‘Summer is crickets and cicadas and a glass of lemonade / summer is sitting with your brother in the backyard under the shade of a big tree / that’s what it means to me’

When I say everything is tempered down to its fundamental level, I’m not just speaking in terms of music. What would be the point of seizing every day of summer vacation if summer itself weren’t any good to begin with? What would be the point of building incredible things with your brother if you didn’t already share an unbreakable brotherly love with him? Phineas and Ferb as a show might sometimes ‘go too fast’ and focus on its own superstructure at the expense of its foundation: summer and brotherhood. “Summer (Where Do We Begin?)” is an exercise in returning to those roots, and refusing to take them for granted.

***

2. You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart (from Dude, We’re Getting the Band Back Together)

Songwriters:

• Jon Colton Barry

• Chris Headrick

• Martin Olson

• Dan Povenmire

I’ve mentioned the gap from approximately 2013 to 2019 in which I rarely thought about Phineas and Ferb at all, but this isn’t to say I never thought about it. When I did, I was usually thinking about “You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart.” Despite the passage of time, the childhood memory of this song’s unmistakable spectacularity never faded.

In TV shows, and to a greater extent in movies, and to an even greater extent in musical theatre, musical motifs are frequently used to arouse certain feelings by calling back to themselves, and connecting different moments in the story to each other thematically. “Snuck Your Way” carries the heavy weight of Dude, We’re Getting the Band Back Together on its shoulders. The first time we hear it, we are in the midst of a flashback to the famous concert, in which Linda and Lawrence fell in love. But then the memory winds down, and Lawrence laments the fact that “some things can never be restored.” The second time we hear it, it is in the background of a documentary, teaching us about the history of Love Handel, and making the song itself seem like a relic, irrelevant to modern life. The audience comes to tie the sound of the opening riff to those feelings. ‘This is something old,’ ‘some things can never be restored.’ And this is why the coldest hearts melt when we hear the beginning of “Snuck Your Way” for the final time in the episode, with the band on stage, the backyard packed, and Linda and Lawrence’s love rekindled, in the present moment, proving that some things can be restored after all, dialectically, on a higher level than before.

People who devote their entire lives to songwriting would consider it a tall task to write a song to which people can fall in love. This particular team of songwriters rose to the challenge in a big way. People sometimes say they want this song to play at their weddings, and I don’t think they’re joking. The only reason why this would possibly be funny is because it is a song from a cartoon. But take the song in isolation, and you would be hard-pressed to find one more romantic, and better suited to a wedding.

The opening guitar riff becomes the most recognizable gesture during the episode, and therefore the most important. To call it a riff rather than a solo might be to do it a disservice, actually. It has a massive range, of nearly two octaves, and it wanders around there seamlessly. The solo opens by resolving the sixth scale degree to the fifth, then, from that point, the melody has a smooth downward motion, and ends its phrase by resolving the second to the first scale degree, while the underlying chord becomes a IV - so we are not totally at home. The second phrase begins in the same way as the first, by resolving the sixth degree to the fifth, but now this time, the melody moves smoothly upward, ending again on a resolution from the second the first degree, but this time, an octave higher than before! To have the same small pattern occurring, twice, in such short order, an octave apart, but without any jarring quality, feels like a magic trick of sorts! And it is a touching reflection of the growth of Linda and Lawrence’s relationship, and how it is now surrounded by their kids and their entire neighbourhood.

As sometimes happens when I do a deep dive into a song, I found a nightcore version, which I cannot recommend enough. When the tempo and pitch is warped so drastically, a song is, in some respects, put to a harsh test. A song which rests on shaky ground will have its flaws exposed when it is made into nightcore. But a song like “Snuck Your Way” whose foundation is unmovable, will thrive in the face of such a challenge. The guitar solo maintains all the expressiveness in its motion, but thanks to nightcore, a light is shone on its explosiveness. The ii chord on the word ‘in,’ at ‘you tiptoed in,’ - probably my favourite chord in the entire song, (a chord which also appears on ‘love’ at ‘ninja of love,’) - makes its unforeseen minor colouration even more prominent and outstanding thanks to nightcore. To hear the entire song with fresh ears puts into perspective its everlasting craftiness and undeniable perfection.

1:18-1:20 in the nightcore version, 1:37-1:40 in the original version, is the second repetition of the title, but the only time in which the title resolves to the tonic, resolves home. Danny Jacob’s harmony, at times, moves in the opposite direction as the main melody, and the two musical lines sneakily push closer and closer to one another, before getting home at the very same time. Thus begin the na na nas, to the tune of the guitar solo, proving its importance, and representing its significance: Some things can be restored. This episode, and in particular, this song, is what Love Handel was invented for. This episode and this song prove that music makes us better. Brings us together. And the enormous amount of people singing “Na na, na na na na na na na na na” proves it beyond doubt.

***

1. Summer Belongs to You (from Summer Belongs to You)

Songwriters:

• Dan Povenmire

• Jeff “Swampy” Marsh

• Martin Olson

• Danny Jacob

When I was 14 or 15 years old I came across a blog called Heartache With Hard Work. Despite its bad name, I found myself to be fascinated by its thirteen-part ranking of every Beatles’ song. The amalgamation, which was published in 2006, was called Beatles from Worst to First. I cannot necessarily recommend the entire thing without rereading it all; maybe my tastes have changed in the past six years or so. But either way, this was my first exposure to a blog which ranked a lot of songs, and said something interesting about each one. If I had never found it, I don’t know whether I would have undergone this song ranking project.

The part that sticks with me the most is the blurb underneath the song Hey Jude, which the blogger ranked as the 2nd-best Beatles song, behind the Abbey Road Medley. I shall quote them directly:

“This has always been my favourite Beatles song since I was about 10 years old, to the point where it was almost instinct: ‘what’s your favourite Beatles song?’ ‘Hey Jude, of course.’ I’ve sort of been dreading the arrival of the top 10 because I knew it was going to force me to really think about whether it was still true.” Ultimately, it wasn’t quite.

I understand the odd sense of duty and responsibility to the media which one has grown attached to. To be totally honest, if I had to pick a favourite Disney Channel cartoon, I would probably give a very slight nod to The Owl House, over Phineas and Ferb. Yet, I still feel guilty about this! Just because I’ve loved Phineas and Ferb for longer, or because it’s made more of an impact on my life, I feel like I owe it something. Specifically, I feel like I owe it the title of My Favourite.

As a child, it transformed my sense of humour for the better. I reconnected with the show after the launch of Disney Plus in November 2019. I watched the entire show, starting with the many episodes I had already seen, and then moving onto the unfamiliar territory of season 3, and the uncharted territory of season 4, Night of the Living Pharmacists, Act Your Age, and finally, Last Day of Summer, which I watched for the very first time on March 5th, 2020.

What does someone do when they finish binging a show? They continue to think about it frequently. Luckily for me, this show was filled with music. So I had the luxury of dwelling on the entire existence of Phineas and Ferb through the vehicle of its music, by playing its songs on the guitar and the piano, and by fascinating myself with the inner musical workings of the best ones, like “Everything’s Better with Perry” and “You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart” and “Summer Belongs to You.” Especially that last one, my favourite one. I was fascinated by how many stages the song passed through to finally arrive at the chorus, and the chords each section used to throw a listener off balance, and to set up the chorus for a grand slam. I started to listen to the song all the time, and then one evening in April, I started to look for covers. I listened to a cover by Bethany Brinton. I listened to a cover by Syde, Carmen, Glory, and Moises. I listened to a cover by Acid Flashbacks, who were putting on some kind of live performance called “M.W.C.A. (Musical Without a Cool Acronym.)” I thought they were a community center or something. And then I watched the entire show, and I thought it was very good, and I went on with my life.

It was later that year, on December 6th, that I learned about the upcoming virtual edition of Musical Without a Cool Acronym. I learned about it only hours before the deadline to apply for participation. Had I not already heard of the show, and known that it was good, I would likely not have bothered to involve myself. And the rest is history or whatever. Of course, an infinite amount of unpredictable factors can be to thank for any event, but if I had to draw my involvement in M.W.C.A., a life-changing thing, back to one song only, that song would be “Summer Belongs to You.”

This is where the ‘odd sense of duty’ might come into play. I have asked myself whether I am instinctually ranking “Summer Belongs to You” #1 just because it was very important to me. Do I feel like I owe it to “Summer Belongs to You” to crown it as champion? Ultimately - and I do not mean to sound arrogant - no. The writer of the Heartache With Hard Work blog grappled with their odd sense of duty to Hey Jude, and decided it was no longer their favourite. I have grappled with my odd sense of duty to “Summer Belongs to You,” and I have come out of it firmer in my conviction than ever that it is, in an impersonal sense, the most precious jewel in the Phineas and Ferb discography. It’s the best they ever did, whether it changed my life or not.

It also occurs to me that its relevance to my personal life is not a coincidence. There is a reason that “Summer Belongs to You” is the one song which compelled me to scour obsessively for covers. It was my favourite one in 2020, and it is my favourite one now, and I will not be surprised if it remains my favourite one forever.

Some have called it the ‘thesis’ of Phineas and Ferb. For a time, I pushed back against this. I thought perhaps that it was the thesis of only the ‘Phineas and Ferb’ part of the show, and not the ‘Candace and Doofenshmirtz’ part, which, I thought, was tonally different. ‘Summer belongs to everyone, so have some fun, there’s nothing better to do,’ etc, etc, ‘don’t waste a minute sitting on that chair, the world is calling so just get out there,’ etc. ‘What does this have to do with Candace and Doofenshmirtz’s attitudes?’ I thought. But the fact of the matter is that it is the opposite of Candace and Doofenshmirtz’s attitudes, and that is why it is relevant to them. In the most simple terms, Phineas and Ferb do something different every day, and Candace and Doofenshmirtz do the same thing every day. The audience is meant to realize that it is Phineas and Ferb who have seen the light, and who are meant to be revered, and it is Candace and Doofenshmirtz who must come around to the correct perspective, and understand the thesis. (Candace does so in this song, albeit only temporarily.)

The arrival of the chorus, and the line ‘Summer belongs to you,’ is the most important part of the song. This is partly because we jump through so many hoops to get there, just like Phineas and the gang jump through several hoops to get all the way around the world in about 36 hours, with no sleep. It is also because of the swinging purpose of one specific chord, the F-sharp major chord. Most of the song is in D-major. The first time we hear this secondary dominant, F-sharp major, is at the end of the line: ‘before the sun goes down.’ Instead of resolving to a B-minor, the song resolves to a B-major, meaning that the F-sharp major has been retroactively recontextualized as being the dominant of a major chord, rather than a minor. Likewise, we seem to have changed the key, into B major, on the line: ‘as soon as you wake up, you gotta make your move.’ The song is not shy about this; the melody makes certain to highlight the third scale degree on a strong beat. But the chord which immediately follows is the D major! The chord that we are so used to hearing as the tonic is now being used as a bIII. The chord moves up a full tone to E major, then another full tone to our friend the F-sharp major, and it is unclear whether we should be treating it like a dominant in the key of B major, or a secondary dominant in the key of D major! Sure, we resolve to B major again, but that chord is followed by a D major again! The purpose of the F-sharp major remains entirely ambiguous! Are we in B major? Are we in D major? Who’s to say?

The mystery remains until near the end of this section. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the III resolves up to the IV. The F-sharp major becomes a G-major chord on ‘yes, it’s true. It barely spends a second there before moving to the dominant, A-major, and then completing the IV-V-1 motion, setting the chorus into play. With the benefit of hindsight, the F-sharp major chord is intoxicatingly vital to the energy of the music. It bears the entire brunt of tonal uncertainty, holds back, and then, by resolving to G major, makes a decisive decision with all its might.

Some people have claimed that this song's demo, sung by Danny Jacob and Olivia Olson, is jarring and strange. I could not agree less. In fact, some of the song’s incredible details are even more pronounced in this demo, like the walk up the sixth, seventh, and eighth scale degrees on: ‘you gotta believe in something.’ This is a chillingly celebratory motion, made more so by its suddenness. (Look to the very end of The Trolley Song from Meet Me in St. Louis for a more elongated but equally beautiful utilization of this motion.)

Jeremy returns from Paris early, a detail which is too absurd to be considered as rarely as it is, and then he and Candace share their first kiss. I am usually weirded out when cartoon characters kiss, but this moment has several major factors working in its favour. For one, the key change up a semitone happens almost simultaneously, making the kiss feel almost supplementary to the all-important musical moment. And the awkwardness of the kiss is negated and then some by the fact that Candace and Jeremy, without missing a beat, immediately take part in Jump Dancing, returning to their status as cartoon characters.

I want to end by acknowledging a very important, very obvious, but often underrated fact about this scene, which is that it is evening time and the sun is down. Is it strange to sing a song about making the most of every day of summer at a time when the day is over and the sun is down? No, it isn’t strange. These characters have already made the most of the day. Now that it’s over, they have no reason to be sad; they only have reason to be happy for their success in the field of having a good day, and for having followed the sun while it was shining. 

All the reasons why people love Phineas and Ferb, I think, are found in this song. “Summer Belongs to You,” just like the show as a whole, is filled with complications, colours, flourishes, roundabouts, repetitions, variations, and all sorts of perfect mixtures. But beneath it all is a core idea - which can be phrased in a number of different ways, either ‘summer belongs to you’ or ‘gotta make summer last’ or ‘follow the sun’ - so simple that anyone can understand it, and so strong that four (now six) seasons, two movies, three-hundred songs, and a parody musical can be built on its foundation.

The end