Listening Assignment #2 - "Paper Airplane" by Alison Krauss & Union Station

This song gives everyone a peak at the dobro in use, also.  This song's form is A, A, B, A but of course Alison Krauss doesn't come without complications.  The song has an intro and an interlude with odd counts inserted/taken out.  It starts with an intro of 4 and a half measures of guitar and steel guitar; although there is no visual of a steel guitar in the video I'm pretty sure I hear one in the background. The first A section adds in Alison's voice and the steel guitar disappears.  As she sings into the second A section the dobro comes in here and there, just filling in the gaps and the steel guitar is barely haunting her in the background.  The bridge gets louder all together and the mandolin tip-toes in with the base.  As soon as the bridge is over, the mandolin takes over and we first hear it's full sound for a few measures, the solo then being taken over by the talented Jerry Douglas on the dobro.  At this point, Alison returns to sing the second verse before the next bridge, which she sings louder once again.  A short dobro interlude of only 3 and a half measures interferes before one more A section at the end.  This song ends abruptly without any sort of vamp to keep us in the mood; it just ends on a cliffhanger with a bitter taste left in our mouths.  But they did this on purpose; even though I haven't listened to the whole lyrics, the abrupt ending made me notice that the very last lyrics are "Our love will die, I know".  It is a skillful way to keep us thinking about the song and wanting to know more.

In this song I find it interesting that even though there is a standup base, it doesn't even come in until the bridge and until that point the guitar has kept the rhythm all by itself.  The happiest sound in this song comes from the mandolin while the steel guitar haunts and the dobro moans.  I can't say that this song fits the 32-bar popular song form because when we even disregard the odd counts in the intro and interlude, there is still 9 measures to each section of the chorus.

[1] Jerry Douglas playing his dobro with Zac Brown band.

Since not many people actually get to know what a dobro is because it is mostly confined to bluegrass and is replaced by the steel guitar on country radio, I thought I would do a little bit of research on the instrument.  Two men, the Dopyera brothers from the Slovak Republic, invented the dobro in the 1920s in the United States.  The name of the dobro actually comes from the beginning letters of their last name and the word brothers (DOpyera BROthers).  The first dobro in a band format was used by the Foggy Mountain Boys. This was a couple decades before the name "bluegrass" music came around in the 1950s [Academy of Bluegrass].  Dobro also meant "good" in Slavonic languages. The dobro is actually a resonator guitar, or a guitar built with several resonating discs to provide its unique moaning sound. It was orginally built because of the demand for guitars that played at a louder volume, back before we had amplifiers. The electric guitar took over this market after World War II. The dobro at first was used in country blues and hillbilly music.  Like I said, its mainly heard only in bluegrass now, but apparently is also used by some rock and jazz musicians [Oxford Music Online].  I actually have a friend that plays the dobro and he is part of The Franz Family band.  I would put him up there with Jerry Douglas as he can really cause goosebumps with his music and take the breath from an entire audience.