Our song of the week for (02/04) this Thursday is Godspeed by Frank Ocean. This song came out of his Blond album in 2016. This song falls under the R&B genre. You can find this song on all streaming platforms, like spotify and apple music.

Best Scenario for this song to be played: When you need to shout it out in your car and feel some emotions.

Lyrics 

Before we get into this song, lets just talk about Frank Ocean. If you’re not familiar with who he is, Frank Ocean is a 33 year old singer who hasn’t released an album since 2016. If I’m being honest I am a die hard fan of his and may or may not have a very large poster of this album cover in my dorm room. Frank Ocean’s Blond album is considered one of his bests and people do speculate that he won’t release anything else because he doesn’t want to handle the rejection of not being able to top it. Alot of his fans don’t complain though and will still listen to blond religiously like he just released it.

Do you have an album like that? Where even though it came out over 5 years ago, you can still listen to it everyday like you’re just hearing it for the first time? If so, tell me what it is below.

Okay, now to the analysis of this song. I suggest you listen to this song more than once because it’s easy to miss how well crafted it is. We hear some nice instrumental throughout the song, pitch changes and background singers. In the beginning, where I bolded the first line, Frank comes in strong. You get a lightly increasing  instrumental build up and then he comes in hitting a fairly high at the beginning. As he continues to sing his voice gets higher and he sings out the words longer.

He sings stronger as well . You can hear him singing with his throat, his entire voice, is another way to say it. It’s more noticeable when he says ” I let go of my claim on you”. He says “let go” higher pitched and then tones it down just for a second when he says “on you”. Now when he says “always”, his pitch is perfectly seated in the middle.

Frank Ocean’s pitch is strong and medium high In this song and it helps you feel the song. You can hear the emotion of the song in his voice which allows you to feel it deeply, if you apply yourself. Another way he made this song just hit that nerve, is that the instrumental/background instruments are lower than his voice. It’s significantly lower, allowing his voice to triumph over it, but not eat it. When he isn’t singing though, you have to take the time to listen to the background. I bolded “Ball so hard, all my boys flex” because that’s a prime example. You have to really listen to the song to actually hear that part, because you more than likely will miss it. That’s the art of some of his music, it’s hidden.

Lastly, I bolded the last three verses because it’s not him singing. His background vocals, gives off very much church choir sound, but quieter. You hear that in the “ooooh” and then the women singing the last verses comes in. It’s just a nice end detail to the song and really brings it together. She matches the tone and pitch Frank Ocean used throughout the song, just softer.  his song is well crafted with the piano in the back, the increasing instruments that then fade out to make a higher anticipation sound, the background vocals and his vocals.

This song only runs for 2 minutes and twenty seven seconds. It’s one of those songs that you wish were longer, just so you could hear more. Frank Ocean never fails to deliver or downplay the voice he was gifted. This song is a great representation of Blond the album.

What did you think of it? 🙂  Also our song for next week will be Kids by Current Joys! Go give it a listen.