Dr. David Yearsley

Along the way they inform us that the verse is in E-Major the chorus moves to F-sharp to lend the proceedings more “Gravitas”—right from the starting gate we experience Cullinan’s knack for elevating the listeners rather than pulling them down with boring baby babble. Cullinan’s vast gifts and irreverent pursuit of his mission of education and uplift allow him to take a seemingly ponderous Latin word like Gravitas and toss it out there with nonchalant lightness.Aside from the concrete knowledge about structure and harmony conveyed in the set-up, the message imparted by this opening tableau is that music is an irrepressible delight for all: as the song proceeds in rich colors, and harmonic turns worthy of Lennon and McCartney, we are swept up and along, through to the disarming, colloquial injunction of the refrain: “Go be Awesome!