Themes and Motifs

Overview

The song starts off with a laid-back but foreboding 80's synthpop styled intro, that leads into the heart of the piece, where a grungy bass guitar and punchy drums are accompanied by various ornamental instruments and gun sounds. What makes this song stand out is its atmosphere and use of guns, which will be the highlight of the themes and motifs presented here.

Preparation

Notice that there is a sharp contrast in mood between the intro/outro and the main sections of the song. Before diving into analysis, we should take a brief mention of a particular concept in connotation being applied. Because the intro and outro have almost a muted feel to them, the chord it opens with tries to stay centered on columns 2 and 3, pushing the notes together to achieve a tight, suppressed feeling. Once the main section arrives, the chart will immediately transition to wide chords like 14, indicating a release to brighter, more intense sounds.

While there are gun sounds throughout the song, there is a design choice to be made to ignore most of them except for the most prominent ones: the fill using the 12 gauge shotgun as described in the title. This is to place full attention onto the most important gun sound in particular to not diminish its impact.

Analysis

The purple sections are the intro and outro, and they are nearly identical. As mentioned in the previous section, we are attempting to keep the chords centered when possible. Chords are used very lightly, and a few minijacks are sprinkled in to not only follow the percussion but build a little bit of tension within the patterns.

The chorus here is fairly straightforward in that it generally follows these major guidelines: Layer the guitar and drums, try to utilize wide chords, maintain syncopated feel, highlight the 12 gauge fill. The red highlights are where the 12 gauge fill is, where a roll pattern builds intensity into the giant release indicated by the 4-chord.

The green section is where the turntable comes in. In order to create the connotation for the back and forth motion of the turntable scratches, there are primarily two kinds of patterns applied here: the one handed minitrill (121 in this case, 434 isn't used in this section) and the turn-arounds (2132, 2312, 3243, 3423). By attempting to stick closely to these motifs, in addition to some pitch relevance, applying little bit of misdirection and an unexpected variation towards the end of the section makes this entire section interesting and engaging. (An example of this misdirection is doing 3243 twice vs doing 3243 followed by 3423. The minor differences in these two patterns makes it feel familiar while forcing the player to adapt to something unexpected.)

The last chorus section alludes to the first chorus section but with the sampled strings included this time, layered in. Notice that the first riff in the strings mirrors the exact same riff in the intro, and therefore uses the same 1234 motif.

Conclusion

What makes this chart outstanding is its use of patterns and motifs to be very clear about what sounds it wants to highlight and maintaining interest while keeping within its design restrictions, allowing certain instruments to shine, having a great feel, and setting the right mood for its overall structure.