Chain of Fools — Aretha Franklin (1967)

Why this song

In School of Rock, one of the students sings a few bars of this to prove she can sing. Three words are enough: chain, chain, chain. Almost nobody who has heard them could name a single chord in the song.

There is a reason for that. There is only one, and it never changes.

Play the record and try to count the chord changes. You will finish on zero, with a full band playing, three distinct sections and an ending that leaves you with more energy than you started with.

Historical context

Don Covay wrote it as a teenager, singing gospel with his brothers and sisters. That origin is not biographical decoration: it explains the shape. In gospel one voice calls and the group answers, and that is exactly what the record does from the first second.

Years later the producer Jerry Wexler asked Covay for songs for Otis Redding. Covay recorded a demo of this one. Wexler listened and decided it was not for Redding at all — it was for Aretha Franklin. It came out as a single in November 1967 and went onto the album Lady Soul in January 1968.

Atlantic Records publicity photo published in Billboard, 17 February 1968. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The band behind her were the Muscle Shoals session players from Alabama: Jimmy Johnson on guitar, Spooner Oldham on electric piano, Tommy Cogbill on bass and Roger Hawkins on drums. Aretha plays piano as well. These were people who recorded together almost every day, and you can hear it: the fit between bass and drums is not one lucky afternoon.

The guitar at the start, though, came from outside that regular team. Joe South, a guitarist from Atlanta, who years later had hits of his own as a singer.

Joe South in a Capitol Records advertisement published in Billboard, 5 December 1970. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Musical characteristics

The first thing you hear is an electric guitar on its own, and it already has a pulse. Its volume rises and falls by itself, over and over, as if someone were opening and closing a tap at a fixed speed. That effect is called tremolo, and it gives the song a rhythm before any drum has arrived.

Then the voices come in, and they work in turns: one throws a line, the others send back chain, chain, chain. This is not a choir accompanying a singer, it is a group answering. That is call and response, straight out of church.

Now listen only to Tommy Cogbill's bass. It almost never lands where you expect: he plays the note an eighth note before the strong beat, systematically. That is called anticipation, and the effect is that the music seems to push forward the whole time, as if it were about to trip and never did.

And now the drums. Roger Hawkins plays the squarest thing available: kick on one and three, snare on two and four, hi-hats in eighth notes. No decoration.

That is the whole trick. The drums hold the grid and the bass pulls at it from in front. That tension between one player running early and another who will not move is what we call groove, and it is why this song moves without changing chord once.

One strange thing is left in the harmony. The guitar insists on E natural while the voice uses E flat, so the song never quite sounds major or minor. That note stuck in between is a blue note. It is why some analyses prefer to talk about "C blues tonality" rather than C minor.

Hard facts: C minor, 4/4, 117 BPM, 2:47. Form: chorus, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus. It opens with the chorus, not the verse — the song walks in through the most recognisable door it has.

Trivia and curiosities

• It reached number two on the pop chart, held off the top by Judy in Disguise (With Glasses). It was number one on the R&B chart for four weeks and won the Grammy. Charts measure the week, not what lasts.

• The original recording runs 4:03 and what was released runs 2:47. On a one-chord groove you can cut almost anywhere without the seam showing, because there is no chord progression left hanging.

• The rhythm section were house players who recorded together constantly. A groove this tight is a working habit, not inspiration on the day.

• The answering voices are the Sweet Inspirations — the group founded by Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston's mother — together with Carolyn and Erma Franklin, Aretha's sisters. That chain, chain, chain is professional vocal-group work, not a last-minute filler.

The Sweet Inspirations in an Atlantic Records publicity photo. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Classroom activities

• Play: one chord. C minor, or E minor using the easier JamZone version. With one chord the whole class is playing from the first minute, so all the work goes to the part that is actually hard: holding the rhythm for twelve bars without speeding up.

• Sing: split the call and the response. One voice proposes, everyone else answers chain, chain, chain. The difficult part is not the note, it is coming in together.

• Analyse: a closed question. How many times does the chord change? Never. So make the list of what does change from start to finish — who is playing, who is singing, how many people — and count how many layers are sounding at the start and at the end.

• Create: one chord and sixteen bars. Decide who comes in on each bar and in what order. What you copy is the procedure, not the song.

Key vocabulary

• Tremolo — trémolo: el volumen que sube y baja solo, a velocidad fija
• Call and response — llamada y respuesta
• Anticipation — anticipación: tocar la nota justo antes del tiempo fuerte
• Groove — groove: la sensación de que la música avanza sola
• Blue note — nota blue: la que se queda entre el modo mayor y el menor

Resources

In Year 3 — this song is also used in the unit ¿Cuánto cuesta una canción cuando hay que copiarla a mano?, from the theory and history book.

Where it is explained — this song is studied in the units ¿Por qué todo el mundo da la palmada en el mismo sitio?, La sala donde suena esta canción no existe, ¿Por qué no te aburre una canción de un solo acorde?, from the modern music history book.

Official video — Aretha Franklin's official channel, with the released 2:47 version.

Guitar tutorial — Good Guitarist. Teaches the song with a single chord shape and, for anyone who cannot reach the barre, a simplification with a capo and A minor.

Piano tutorial — Christian Fuchs. A long lesson (almost fifty minutes), focused on the gospel-flavoured accompaniment.

Bass — Fusilli Jerry. No talking: he plays Tommy Cogbill's line with tab and standard notation on screen, which is exactly what you need to see the anticipations.

• Tab — attached below; the button opens it in Songsterr
• Drum tab — https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/aretha-franklin-chain-of-fools-drum-tab-s25744
• Chart and band parts — https://jamzone.musicwill.org/songs/inthestyleof-chainoffools-by-arethafranklin
• Cover image — Atlantic Records publicity photo of Aretha Franklin published in Billboard, 17 February 1968. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons