Muse's Voice Leading at the Olympics

The 2016 Olympics are around the corner. The official song of the 2012 Olympics— “Survival,” by the British alternative rock band Muse—premiered on the radio on this day four years ago.

The lyrics of the opening are “Race, life’s a – race, That I’m gonna – win, yes I’m gonna – win, And I’ll light the – fuse, and I’ll never – lose…” The music accompanying these lyrics uses the triadic progression of BbM – Bb+ – Ebm – CbM – GbM, where M is major, m is minor, and + is augmented. The progression can also be considered in terms of smooth voice leading. First, one by one, each of the three voices in the BbM triad—on Bb, D, or F—moves up by a semitone, achieving the CbM triad. After this, two of the three voices in the CbM triad slip back down to make the GbM triad. Only the voice that started on the F and moved up to Gb never retreats, at least not until the progression starts over. Therefore, one can say that only this voice “wins,” as animated below, with the gold-colored figure as the winning voice.

What makes this more fitting is that, at least at the beginning of the song, Muse’s lead singer, Matt Bellamy, is intoning his first-person account of victory using precisely the notes of the “winning” voice. Now this, literally, is…VOICE…LEADING.