Cliffs of Dover (composition)
| "Cliffs of Dover" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
Cliffs of Dover is a song by Eric Johnson. It was released on the Ah Via Musicom album in 1990. It is credited as a major step up in his successful career. "Cliffs of Dover" won a 1991 Grammy award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, beating out the Allman Brothers Band (for "Kind of Bird"), Danny Gatton (for "Elmira Street Boogie"), Rush (for "Where's My Thing?"), and Yes (for "Masquerade").
The song "Cliffs of Dover" is an instrumental in G major, featuring electric guitar. Structurally, it begins with an ad lib electric guitar solo in varying time signatures (6/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 3/4) including string skipping and hybrid picking, then settles into a 4/4 rhythmic shuffle verse (as drums are added) consisting of both staccatto and legato ringing string play, as an arpeggio progression of G-G6-Gmaj7 that is repeated several times later in the song with variations. Next it launches into a very accessible set of melodies in G, mostly played as single guitar-solo style notes (as opposed to chords) with variations on the prime melodies including octavations. The outro or coda recalls the mood and style of the ad lib intro.[1]
The song was recorded by Johnson on a Gibson ES-335[2], but Johnson almost always plays it live on a Fender Stratocaster.
While he did indeed compose "Cliffs", Johnson himself has wondered if he can take credit for creating the song, because (somewhat like Mozart), it was just "there" for him one day, and he wrote it "in five minutes". He called it a "gift from a higher place that all of us are eligible for."[3]
A cover version of "Cliffs of Dover" is featured in the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. It is the only instrumental song in the game.
See also
References
- ^ Ah Via Musicom, Full score. ISBN 0793592593
- ^ "Guitar Attack, "Tone is the thing…"".
- ^ "Eric Johnson, in Music Quotes".