Good Good Father by Chris Tomlin Study

Hey everyone! So today, I wanted to dissect Good Good Father by Chris Tomlin.

Let’s get into it. 

The Chords

This song is very interesting because it does something that I have only seen one other time in my life in a song. 

And that’s that, they use the same chord for the entire verse and change it up slightly to add variation but it’s still the same chord. 

It’s doable and it’s an awesome technique to use, but you have to change the chorus drastically in order to make it work and that’s what they do right here with the chords. 

They actually do something that I don’t see in pop music as often. 

And that’s that they modulate between the key of C and the key of G in the chorus. 

They are changing keys in the middle of the chorus. 

Which is odd because usually when you have too much change, the song can sound unbalanced and yet it makes it work. 

And it’s strange the way that they make this chord progression in the chorus.

They almost make a whole I-V-vi-IV Chord progression, however, they modulate the last chord to go back to the key of G and they make it a D major chord. 

So technically they do a I-V-vi-II chord progression. 

Which is odd in a pop song, you almost never use this much theory in a pop song and so far I’ve almost covered the length of my typical blog post just talking about the chords. 

The meter is 3 / 4. Which is another odd thing in a pop song. 

The typical song is in 4 / 4 

It looks to me like the songwriter who wrote this song had an extensive music theory background. 

The melody

The melody is an ascending and descending melody in the verses. 

But the verses do another interesting thing here. 

There are a couple of rules of intervals that you should be aware of when writing music. 

Certain intervals create specific emotions. 

And the way that you use that interval will create a specific emotion. 

What happens is that the lowest note that the verses hit is a D note, However, immediately after the D note, it leaps to a B note which the interval is a 6th. Just know that when you leap like that, it means that you are trying to emphasize and put powerful stress on the high note that you’re hitting. And it creatively falls and rises in the verses to create a sad and yet inspirational emotion. 

The chorus follows basic music theory songwriting rules, When doing the chorus, you want to go to a higher note.  And that’s what it does right here. 

It goes to a high note in the range that they are singing.  And then follows the same ascending and descending pattern that was in the verses. 

Which is another odd thing about the melody because usually when you have a melody, making the song too repetitive can sound boring. 

But in this song, the melody shines in the chorus. 

So on top of the fact that they have taken an approach to music theory that quite frankly isn’t supposed to work with the chords, melody, and meter, they still make it work which is why this song is so ingenious. 

Broadcast

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Thank you all for listening in on this blog post. 

German Gonzalez, signing out!