House of Fun is a breezy, quirky, cheersome little pop song by Madness. It has an up-tempo ska groove to it and a video that steals liberally from Monty Python sketches.
It’s great fun, but this is Songwright so the important question is: are there any songwriting ideas we can steal from this song?
Of course there are! And in particular House of Fun includes a fantastic idea for changing key.
1. The structure
Intro, verse 1, verse 2, chorus, verse 3, chorus, middle section, verse 4, chorus to end.
That, in a nutshell is the stucture of ‘House of Fun’. Each section is very short, made even shorter by the tempo, and in between most sections the song returns to the opening groove of the intro.
It isn’t a unique structure, it’s been used many times, and it works brilliantly. In particular it’s worth noting that the middle section (I’m sorry son, but we don’t stock…) is the only part of the song that breaks from the up-beat groove. Contrast is very important in songwriting and if there’s anyplace that contrast really needs to stand out it’s after the second chorus.
2. The chord choices
Or rather the order that they’re put in. In particular I want to point out the chords in the chorus.
Why?
Because they’re different every time.
Chorus one: Em C Em Bm, F#m D F#m C#m (which, as you’ll see is the same idea twice, but the second time it’s changed key and moved up a tone)
Chorus two: F#m D F#m C#m Em C
Chorus three is the big one, and it’s here that we find out the song has actually been building to one circular repeating chorus. Em C Em Bm, then a tone up to F#m D F#m C#m, then a tone down when it goes back to the beginning.
Yup, it’s changing key, and yup it’s doing so in exactly the same way that those cheesy boy band songs do. Except it’s doing it over and over again in a short space of time.
Why?
To stop things getting boring. By constantly changing key and changing back like this a manic, unresolved mood is developed, perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the song.
So there you go, ideas to take from House of Fun, and a new variation on this key changing idea that we’ve been talking about recently.
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