There is near-universal consensus that the best Boston song was the first Boston song.
“More Than a Feeling”, Track One of Side One of Album One, was the first the world ever heard of the band. Released as the lead single in the fall of 1976, a month after the album itself, it announced to the rock universe that there was a new team on the field – one with formidable chops, through-the-roof skills in arrangement and production, and a sense of melody and musical dynamics that the barest handful of bands could match.
Of course, the “team” wasn’t really a band; it was Scholz and Delp. But “More Than a Feeling” paraded the strengths of each with astounding energy – Delp's soaring, emotive voice and dizzying harmonies; Scholz’s signature melodic lead work, brilliant harmonic innovations and unprecedented rhythm power.
The song went to #5, a first-stage booster rocket that would make Boston the greatest-selling debut album in history – and it remains a classic rock radio staple to this day.
Writing
“More Than a Feeling” is a song about listening to a song. More specifically, it’s an acknowledgment of the power of music to take us back to another time and place.
The time and place, in this case, aren’t real. “It was written about a fantasy event,” Scholz later said to Entertainment Weekly, “but it’s one that almost everybody can identify with, of somebody losing somebody that was important to them, and music taking them back there. There actually was a real Marianne. She was my older first cousin, who I had a crush on when I was ten.”
The song referred to in “More Than a Feeling” isn’t a fantasy, however; it’s “Walk Away Renée”, a 1967 pop hit for the Left Banke, which evoked in Scholz “a heart-tugging mood.”
This accounts for the song’s moody intro and verses; but its formidable chorus is actually built on the rhythmic pulse of another classic tune: the Kingsmen’s “Louie, Louie”. It’s a simple two-measure cycle, wherein each measure hosts chords on quarter-note beats 1 and 2, leaving an eighth-rest on 3, then dropping a pair of eighth-note beats on and-of-3 and beat 4. It’s incredibly obvious when you listen to the songs side-by-side, or simply clap out the chorus rhythms for a few seconds.
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Recording
Scholz worked on the song for five years before it became the Boston calling card. The version that became part of his six-song demo pack in 1975 featured Jim Masdea on drums (Sib Hashian would remake the drum tracks for the official release); Delp on all the vocal parts; and Scholz on everything else. Delp’s harmony stacks are typically flawless.
Scholz layered the guitars carefully, creating “an expert mixture of multiple guitars (at least one acoustic and multiple electrics, and a balance of 12 strings and six strings) morphed into one faultless and unique whole. Throughout Boston, Scholz orchestrates guitars like a master tailor; you never see the seams,” according to Tim Sommer of observer.com.
Breakdown
The song starts with a fade-in, extremely rare in pop-rock. There is only one part – a 12-string acoustic guitar, picked, laying down a simple D-major chord progression. But right away, we begin to see Scholz’s production technique and the core of the Boston sound: the guitar is double-tracked (the same part is played twice) - and there is a clean electric guitar layered in beneath it, so subtly that it’s unnoticeable.
Musicologist Rick Beato points out that this is Scholz boosting the midrange while leaving the acoustic guitar pristine: it’s how he adds clarity to every instrumental part, shaping the sound perfectly and articulating every note and chord, which is what makes one of the most distortion-heavy, power-rocking bands of all time as sonically clean as Steely Dan.
At 0:09, and again at 0:14, harmonic thirds are heard, bell-like; the second one dissolves into vibrato, coaxed by the whammy bar on Scholz’s guitar. Hashian’s low-tom fill brings in the verse.
Delp’s voice is likewise double-tracked, and he lays down the song’s wistful melancholy - “I looked out this morning and the sun was gone / Turned on some music to start my day / I lost myself in a familiar song...” - his voice is quiet upper baritone register. The double-tracking of his voice doesn’t go for the Barry Manilow effect of intensifying it; instead, it evokes a dream-like quality. And when the melody goes high at 0:32 (“I closed my eyes and I slipped away”), climbing to D-above-high-C, he reaches into a vulnerable-sounding falsetto, then comes back full power on the final note, a B, which he holds for two measures. That’s powerful, and emotionally stirring; it sets up the confession to come in the chorus.
That B hangs there, until a pre-chorus walk-down surfaces the first guitar lead line, announcing the chorus, which surges hard, taking the song from D-major to G-major, and those punchy “Louie, Louie” chords. Beato points out another layering that’s invisible to the ear, yet sonically clarifying: Delp is still singing, after sustaining that B, doubling the guitar riff with a stratospheric ahhhh. The guy was a force of nature!
The chorus of “More Than a Feeling” is a master class in power-chord guitar. The pattern is a variation of the famous Four Chords of pop-rock – I-IV-vi-V – and the intensity is an utter upheaval of the song’s gentle opening. The guitars are again carefully layered: the same distorted electric rhythm guitars, with a non-prominent acoustic guitar beneath, again shaping the chords and boosting sonic clarity.
Two things happen here: first is the transition into the chorus, which features the first-ever presentation of a Boston staple – The Scrape.
The Scrape is common to many hard rock bands. You’ll hear it all over the Eighties hair bands, and even Trevor Rabin’s incarnation of Yes often indulged. It’s that other-worldly screech you hear when a guitarist drags the edge of his guitar pick against the low E string. Here, it happens at 0:41. And, of course, Scholz doesn’t leave it at that; it’s not one scrape but two, and they are drowned in echo.
The second thing that happens is that the chorus begins with no vocal. Two full passes of the I-IV-vi-V progression occur before Delp begins to sing again. That gives Scholz’s last riff note time to dissolve, and introduces the song’s core hook – those monster chords.
And another touch here that we will see become a Boston standard: hand claps. As the chorus begins, we can hear handclapping beneath the lingering guitar note, and throughout the chorus itself. These aren’t necessary, but they humanize a backing track that is very technical and almost inhumanly perfect.
When the chorus does begin, we quickly hear the signature backing vocals (all Delp) that will rapidly entrench as a key component of the Boston sound. “It’s more than a feeling,” double-tracked Delp declares, and a Delp chorus repeats the line, “When I hear that old song they used to play” - and they repeat themselves – until the “I begin dreaming” pass, when they all continue and surround Delp’s lead vocal with soaring harmony as he sings, “...till I see Marianne walk away...”
Then the song is shocked back into passivity with an out-of-the-blue Eb chord at the end of that phrase. The acoustic guitar and clean electric guitar return as Delp sings “I see my Marianne walkin’ away,” and we are shortly back to the intro and D-major, with those dreamy harmonics.
The second pass, much the same, nonetheless gives us something new, as Delp’s final phrase - “As clear as the sun in the summer sky” - flows into another pre-chorus at 1:47, where Scholz is now playing harmony with himself – another Boston staple we’ll quickly come to love.
Again he scrapes into the chorus, and again we get two vocal-free passes before Delp comes back in. This, too, will become a common Boston go-to.
At the end of the second chorus, we’re treated to a new musical phrase. When Delp sees his Marianne walking away, this time the song goes to Bm, triggering an eighth-note walkdown to A. Delp goes the extra mile here, as he takes “walkin’ away” from low D up a full octave – full voice – and then up yet another full step to E, an E that overlaps with the first three notes of Scholz’s lead.
This is an astonishing piece of vocal work (at 2:22), as Delp ends a full line of the chorus with a sustained measure, jumps an octave, holds that note for two measures, then goes to an even higher note, and holds that one for a full measure.
This passage, over a progression that is unique in the song, has taken us back to D-major for Scholz’s lead, which at first is a double-tracked melody with his signature Ionian-mode exuberance, until he is joined at 2:36 by a second lead guitar playing an upper harmony. The lines build and build, as the chords beneath climb to Bm, then to A/C# and D, then tumbling through Bm-Em-A and ascending to a triumphant G, then powering down through G-D/F#-Em-D (a progression lifted from “Walk Away Renée”) to a hard power-chord D, which dissolves into the original intro acoustic guitar part.
The lead is rife with mordents – ornamental instrumental trills, extra notes thrown in that add color to a melody. This is a classical music trick, and Scholz uses it here to great effect (he even plays them in harmony).
The song’s somber tone returns as Delp intones, “When I’m tired, and thinking cold / I hide in my music, forget the day / And dream of a girl I used to know / I closed my eyes, and she slipped away...” Every teenage boy who ever lived has wallowed in that melancholy, and Delp 1) makes it seem grown-up, and 2) somehow gives it some much-needed dignity. His delivery is so earnest, so deeply emotive, that we can’t not be mesmerized.
And then, out of the blue, Scholz and Delp manage to top themselves; instead of the pre-chorus drop-off at the end of the verse that we heard before, they repeat the chords from the intro phrase as Scholz heats the song up again with power guitar. Delp repeats “She slipped away” again, this time going full-voice to D-above-high-C, holding it two measures before going up another third, to F#-above-high-C, and then giving us a final measure of G. And Scholz makes it perfect by adding the third above the G on guitar – Delp’s voice and Scholz’s guitar are doing harmony.
It’s so perfect, you can’t tell where voices stop and guitars take over; they blend into a single sound.
We get the pre-chorus in harmony one last time, with an extra measure thrown in, and we’re into the final chorus. This time, there is no Eb; the outro is just another pass of the I-IV-vi-V progression, as an analog pad of decaying guitar echo adds a spooky sonic wash to the fade...
Song structure
Intro [A]
Verse [A]
Pre-Chorus
Chorus [B]
Pre-Verse [A]
Verse [A]
Pre-Chorus
Chorus [B]
Bridge to Lead
Lead [C]
Pre-Verse [A]
Verse [A]
After-Verse
Pre-Chorus
Chorus [B]
Outro [B]
What Tom said
“‘More Than a Feeling’ was the last [demo] that I completed. Epic Records got that song and a couple of weeks later, Brad Delp and I had an offer to become recording artists.”
“It’s a piece of music that really takes me to someplace else when I listen to it. Which is my criteria for whether a recording I come up with is worthy of going on a Boston album. I shut my eyes and I play it at the end of a long day in the studio. If I still enjoy it, and it takes me some place else, and I forget about all that I had to go through that day, then it’s a winner. ‘More than a Feeling’ did that for me”.
“I was very surprised forty years ago that so many people liked it. The fact that it is still popular? I don’t know what to say. Except: ‘Thank you!’”
What the world said
“In ‘More Than a Feeling’, Scholz built a cathedral to young-adult male romantic yearning, with every second scientifically crafted for maximum impact – right down to Sib Hashian's climactic drum fills in the final fade-out. Come back, Mary Ann – come back!” ~Rolling Stone
“Few can resist indulging in fits of fleet-fingered air guitar and a spirited falsetto sing-along.” ~Guitar World
“Between its clap-along chorus and listeners' near-universal desire to play Air Guitar on the bridge, the up-tempo ballad ‘More Than a Feeling’ can make you feel pretty darn good about feeling bad.” ~John Marks, positive-feedback.com
“As slick as it sounds, ‘More Than a Feeling’ strikes an uncommonly resonant emotional note.” ~Paul Evans, Rolling Stone Album Guide
“...an electric guitar-dominated rocker... made commercial with an accessible beat and hand-clap backup and smooth, soaring vocals.” ~Billboard
“It’s a hard-rock offering, but has a sophisticated melody that makes good use of minor chords and has attractive unison guitar work and powerful vocals.” ~Cashbox
Nirvana
The resemblance between Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “More Than a Feeling” did not go unnoticed. (The former was written and recorded 20 years after the latter.)
“It’s hard to deny the similarities between a lot of classic songs, with a more than a hint of Pixies too, but confident the tune was original, Cobain and Novoselic pushed on,” wrote Far Out Magazine. “Once the song found fame, however, the similarities between it and Boston’s fist-pumping Seventies charmer, ‘More Than a Feeling’.”
Scholz was untroubled by the similarities. “I take it as a major compliment, even if it was completely accidental,” he commented later.
Perhaps to boost the bona fides of their intent, Nirvana covered “More Than a Feeling” at the 1992 Reading Festival in England before segueing into “Teen Spirit”.
Mike Huckabee
Republican presidential candidates seem to have a propensity for annexing classic rock music for their campaigns without the bother of asking permission. John McCain purloined John Mellencamp’s “Our Country” and “Pink Houses”; Donald Trump filched Aerosmith’s “Dream On”. Reagan, Bob Dole and Pat Buchanon all annexed Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”. And Bush I’s inane use of Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” is now legend.
It’s happened to Boston, too. Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee not only used “More Than a Feeling” without permission; during his 2008 presidential run, he actually performed the song on stage (playing the bass) - and had Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau up there with him.
Scholz took exception to this on several levels, and wrote Huckabee a letter:
Dear Gov. Huckabee:
It has come to my attention that your campaign’s use of my song More Than a Feeling and my band’s name BOSTON has resulted in a great deal of false information, which it now appears may exist permanently on the Internet.
While I’m flattered that you are fond of my song, I’m shocked that you would use it and the name BOSTON to promote yourself without my consent.
Your campaign’s use of More Than a Feeling, coupled with the representation of one of your supporters as a member “of BOSTON” clearly implies that the band BOSTON, and specifically one of its members, has endorsed your candidacy, neither of which is true.
I wrote and arranged More Than a Feeling, engineered and produced the recording, and actually played all the guitars on that BOSTON hit as well as most of BOSTON’s songs, not the person holding a guitar in your promotion who identified himself as being “of BOSTON.” Your claim that this was “the guy who originally did it” is a bit mystifying since he never played on that recording, nor has he been “of BOSTON” since he left my band over a quarter century ago, after performing with us for only three years.
BOSTON has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything BOSTON stands for. In fact, although I’m impressed you learned my bass guitar part on More Than a Feeling, I am an Obama supporter.
While this may seem like a little thing to you, BOSTON has been my life’s work. I hold the trademark to the name and my reputation is inexorably tied to it.
By using my song, and my band’s name BOSTON, you have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed. In other words, I think I’ve been ripped off, dude!
The unfortunate misconceptions caused by your campaign now live indefinitely on Internet news sites and blog archives.
As the “straight talk candidate,” I hope you will help undo the damage still being caused by this misleading use of BOSTON and More Than a Feeling.
Still evolving, Tom Scholz for BOSTON
The Scrapes
0:41
1:51
3:42
Cover Versions
“More Than a Feeling” was covered by *NSYNC on their debut album, and by Alan White, Tony Keys and Billy Sherwood of Yes on the anthology Rock Infinity.
Factoids
The working title of “More Than a Feeling” was “Ninety Days”.
“Walk Away Renée” also peaked at #5 on the charts.
VH1 named “More Than a Feeling” the 39th-best hard rock song of all time.
It is ranked #212 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
It is #28 on Ultimate Classic Rock’s all-time classic rock song list.
Critics Michael Gallucci and Paul Elliott have rated it Boston’s greatest song.
The single was edited down to 3:25 from the album version, which runs 4:44.
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