This Week’s Obsession: Lawrence “Do You Wanna Do Nothing With Me?”

I discovered the brother-sister duo Lawrence a hot second before the pandemic broke. I was in San Francisco for a 3-day whiplash trip, performing at a synagogue in the city and then flying back home the next morning. It was also the week before the whole country shut down. After the gig ended I found myself amped up but with nowhere to go. Flipping through my phone, I found the band Lawrence was playing at the Fillmore and previewed a few of their tracks. I was blown away by their sound (though not enough to schlep back out in the cold March night).

I love the upbeat soul groove of the song “Do You Wanna Do Nothing With Me?” The tempo is pitched so perfectly that you can’t hardly help from dancing. The horns, the swingin’ Hammond B-3, the heavily syncopated rhythm that sits in the pocket better than my phone when I’m at the movies.

I also absolute love the chord progress which uses a number of uncommon substitutions to add a lot of awesome color to the track. Not to get too deep in the weeds, but it goes like this:

I – #i◦ - ii7 – iv

While the use of a minor IV chord is common enough in pop music (“the sad chord” I heard a Hungarian klezmer musician call it), it is usually used either moving to a dominant or coming after a major IV. It makes for a build-up of tension in every phrase, rather than giving us a resting place along the way.