In Theory: 'Basket Case' by Green Day

Written by Sam Schwartz

“Basket Case” is one of Green Day’s biggest hit songs off of their breakthrough album, Dookie. If it sounds particularly familiar, there’s a reason – and it’s all a matter of numbers!

Let’s look at the Eb major scale in terms of numbers before we go any further with “Basket Case.” The Eb major scale goes as follows:

Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D

You can also look at those notes just in terms of their positions on the scale, which is simply the first note through the seventh note:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Now, if we combine each of those scale degrees with the note a third above it in the scale, we would see this:

Major, minor, minor, Major, Major, minor, minor

Where a Major third is four half-steps and a minor third is just three. Put the notes, their numbers, and their scale degrees together and you get the Major and minor harmonizations in the key of Eb Major:

1 = Maj = Eb

2 = min = F

3 = min = G

4 = Maj = Ab

5 = Maj = Bb

6 = min = C

7 = min = D

Whew! Now let’s take a look at the first part of the main chord progression in “Basket Case” with the (implied) diatonic harmony (go ahead, sing along!):

EbMaj / BbMaj / Cmin / Gmin / AbMaj / EbMaj / BbMaj

“DO you have the TIME to LISTen to me WHINE aBOUT nothing and EVERYthing all at ONCE”

These chords represent the key and representative harmony of “Basket Case.”



Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, live at Germany's Rock im Park in 2013

Let’s go a step further and take a song that has the same progression in a different key and look at its key and harmony. Recognize this piece?

That's Pachelbel’s Canon in D, probably written in the late 1600s (it's inconclusive) and often played at weddings in the modern era. Here’s the chord progression with its key and representative harmony:

DMaj / AMaj / Bmin / F#min / GMaj / DMaj / AMaj

(Note that Pachelbel’s Canon actually passes through G before going to A, which is the only harmonic deviation between it and “Basket Case.” This detail has been omitted here for pedagogical clarity.)

Looking at both chord progressions, they don’t look very similar at first glance -- but if you substitute the letter name for each chord with its corresponding number for both progressions, you end up with essentially the same structure:

1Maj / 5Maj / 6min / 3min / 4Maj / 1Maj / 5Maj

Using this harmonic analysis with numbers allows musicians to see past keys and chord symbols to understand how the harmony in a particular song relates to itself and key, regardless of what the key is. In other words, the chords may change, but the song structure remains the same. Those numbers are a fast, universally accepted way to show the relative harmony for any song in any key.

Though you may not want to play Green Day’s “Basket Case” instead of Pachelbel’s Canon in D at your next wedding gig, you now know that they have the same relative harmony!

Sam Schwartz joined the Rocksmith team as a Notetracker in 2013 and was a featured guitarist for the Bachsmith project. His credits include campaign music for the Mayor of Oakland, promotional videos for local artists, recording with Rappin 4Tay and Dynamic Truth and developing music courses for summer camps and elementary schools.

RiP2013 GreenDay Billie Joe Armstrong 0022 and RiP2013 Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong 0013 by Sven-Sebastian Sajak (Sven0705) are licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0