Whatever You Want (song)

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Whatever You Want is a rock song by the British rock band Status Quo. It was released on the album of the same name in 1979 and has become one of the band's better-known works.

[edit] Composition

Music sample:

The song commences with a quiet introduction, containing a guitar solo. This lasts for approximately 1 minute, 11 seconds, and fades out towards the end. After this, the guitar picks up once more, and 1 minute, 25 seconds into the piece, the familiar bass riff of the song begins, accompanied by drums from the 1 minute, 40 second mark.

At 1 minute, 45 seconds, all audio pauses for approximately half a second; at this point, the lyrical portion commences. The music returns as soon as the first lyrics are heard. This pause creates a short-lived dramatic start to the song, which lasts for a total of 4 minutes.

[edit] Impact

Within the United Kingdom, the song reached 4th position in the music charts in 1979. The song has been used in advertising campaigns by popular UK retailer Argos.

[edit] Instruments

The song is guitar oriented, like most Status Quo songs. During recording up to three guitar 'layers' were used, though it can be played with two: rhythm guitar and solo guitar. The other instruments are a bass guitar and drums. The lyrics are multi-vocal; for instance the 'Whatever you want' part is sung entirely with two voices.

The guitar low 'E' string is tuned to a D (the song is also in the D chord). This is required to play the intro and also the low strumming after the intro. In this later part a flanger effect is used together with the ever-present overdrive/distortion effect.