Liquor Store (Remi Wolf): a structural magic trick
My friend played this song for me a long time ago and I recently rediscovered it- and since then I have not been able to stop thinking about it. The other day I realized it's been distracting me every time I sit down to work on my own music... There was something baffling about it that I just could not let go of- something I completely didn't understand that felt like a magic trick.
I'm a huge fan of interesting structures in songwriting. Sometimes I think about a song's outline like a vehicle. Many, many, journeys are made in some version of a standard 4 door sedan/suv. It's a format that works decently well, and gets the job done. For many journeys, we probably care more about where we are going than how we get there. But... if you wanted your vehicle to go really fast, or launch into space, or dig a hole through a mountain, or submerge underwater and roll across the seafloor... a 4 door sedan is not going to cut it. There are some places you simply cannot go (some goals you cannot achieve) unless you build something new for it. I get really excited when I find a song that requires a new type of vehicle to get where I want it to go- that's when I know something really special and cool is happening.
Liquor Store is a 3 wheeled sports car of a song.
When I listened to again the other day I realized that the sections were organized like nothing I've ever seen in a pop song. There is a super early chorus- but it's not?* (it never actually comes back in that form) and there's gutpunching secret special long verse-bridge thing?* right where the second chorus might be? and there's this rude, moody, sneaky lead guitar riff that fills in all the cracks and glues everything together... It's cool as hell.
I don't usually care much for covers, or spending lots of time learning other people's songs- but desperately needed to take it apart and see what makes it tick, lol. So I opened it up in my daw and started making notes, dropping pins and cutting it up to try to give a name to everything that's happening. There is A LOT to love about this track.
Naming sections in this song feels wrong- or, it requires somewhat loose, flexible definitions of these things (at least within my own musical vocabulary) It's really a song full of motifs, that follow their own logic and achieve musical goals in their own ways. I think this song is an excellent example of how to break out of the conventional verse/chorus structure, while still achieving similar musical goals.
The intro is a rude, bossy guitar lead played over the main beat/ pulse of the song. It introduces something we can call "home" and indeed it does act like a "home"- returning 4 separate times throughout the song.
Then suddenly right after the opening, *WHAM* the song hits you with this big Chorus*. We know it's a chorus because it sounds huge, it has tons of elements, it's bold, layered, and rich. It wraps you up in this world of sound and texture... and then suddenly before the lyric finishes- it gets cut off by the first verse.
The first verse builds like you'd expect, until it reaches a climax- and breaks away into this quite, smaller section- it almost sounds like the song got distracted by the line "Liquor Store" and meandered into this funny little bridge bit... Which is then relieved by a bridge featuring the second instance of the intro guitar lead.
Then we enter verse 2... still without ever returning to the landscape promised by that first chorus in the first propper section of the song... At this point, we've been shown all the elements of that chorus separately in the first verse, post-verse?, bridge etc... but still no return of the big vocals and gut wrenching lines from that first chorus. Verse 2 brings more wordplay, and morphs into a big call/response cheering? section. (It's a vibe, you gotta trust me, it's awesome.)
This time, the verse give way straight into... another section dominated by that intro guitar riff, as another bridge :) lol. That makes 3... I think this section works only because of where we are going next (BIG bridge energy). It just wouldn't flow right to have the previous weird cheering/self actualizing moment come right on the heels of the next big reveal, lyrically. This bridge serves as a musical buffer of sorts.
Then... FINALLY. We arrive back at the opening line. The chorus has finally returned... but this time all the instruments we've known so far drop out, and suddenly there's this big, booming piano chord rumbling underneath. It's dramatic as hell. What I love about this section is how much it both follows and breaks my expectations. Like- I know that at this point in the song I'm ready for a change in texture, and a more conventional "bridge" moment... but I also know I've been waiting for that big huge chorus to come back since the beginning... and now they're both here at once!!! Ah! It builds like a conventional "bridge" adding texture and harmony and tension as it goes, and when we get to the end of the line (the moment when the first chorus got cut off by that verse)...
Everything breaks down- there's a double chorus, with a second half that's completely different from the first. All the elements get thrown back into the mix, but this time they follow the big booming idea introduced by the piano, instead of the bouncier things they did before. Even the electric guitar that has been playing it's lead throughout has a moment of freedom to play something new over this line. It's awesome. Everything is huge and awesome.
And it resolves back down into the 4th instance of that familiar guitar lead from the very beginning which plays us out, while the vocals carry through.
I have barely touched so many parts of this song. I could go on and on about what each sound is doing where, and how unforgettable, evocative, and unique Remi Wolfs lyrics are... but I highly encourage you to go give it a listen. That song is truly unique and resoundingly brilliant. I learned a lot from spending a day studying it. I feel like I got to examine a rare exotic flower and try to identify all it's parts.
When I'm working on my own music, I often spend some time transcribing it into a midi editor. I usually do this when I'm in the early stages of writing and still trying to get my head around what ideas I have, and how I want to fit them together. I ended up spending some time doing a midi mix of Liquor Store while I was analyzing it- which you can check out here if you'd like!