So, if you played a C major chord to pretty much any person on the planet, they'd say that it sounds "harmonious" (or pleasing, or happy, etc, etc). But now when you want to put chords and melodies in an ordering and make a larger piece called a "song", then that is a much more difficult process, and gets very subjective. At that point, it's not just the chords, it's the lyrics, rhythms, instrumentation, tempo, intensity, any number of other things that goes into a song... so many variables that it's almost impossible to predict how a song will affect a given person.
Andrew Sega
It's just rock and roll. A lot of times we get criticized for it. A lot of music papers come out with: 'When are they going to stop playing these three chords?' If you believe you shouldn't play just three chords it's pretty silly on their part. To us, the simpler a song is, the better, 'cause it's more in line with what the person on the street is.
Angus Young
We started out in the middle ages creating music which had certain desirable physical properties (for example, a major chord sounds "nice" because the frequencies are in integer ratios to each other). And then as society evolved, we created these emotional contexts for certain instruments and progressions. Major-chord arpeggios sound "happy", minor chords sound "sad", chromatic scales can sound "scary", et cetera. In the 20th century, film soundtracks reinforced this point as people associated certain kinds of music with certain visual and emotional experiences. It's a giant feedback loop, really; once you grow up in a given culture, it leaves this musical fingerprint on you which colors your experiences.
Andrew Sega
[On 2 Live Crew] One song was 'Suck My Dick'. Not please. Not honey, do you have a minute? 'Suck My Dick'. Like soomething the Beatles coulda rolled out. "Hey, Jean, would you like to write 'Suck My Dick'?" "Well, I don't know, do we have time? Sounds like such a hard song to write." That was the song! 'Suck My Dick'! F**kin' album sold two million records with a song called "Suck My Dick"! Like the guy got up one morning and went, "you know, today I wanna write a song. Today I want to write a love song. I want to write a song that tells how a woman and a man feel when they meet each other for the first time and they fall in love; I want to put into words feelings that men have always had, but they've never been able to express. All right, I think I'll call this song..." [Pauses, then the audience yells "Suck My Dick"] Yeah. It's that song that's gonna be on that f**kin' Golden Oldie rap album in ten years... "Where were you when you heard 'Suck My Dick?'" Remember those old days?
Sam Kinison
We were recording a song called "I Don't Ever Want To Be Without You." The same Christian record company radio guy called me and asked me if we could change the song's title and lyrics. when I asked why, he said, "Because there are two negative words in the title-don't and without ... I'd like some positive ones; can you call the song, 'I Always Want To Be With You?"'
Mark Heard
Arguably the finest recording found in all the Sun sessions, "Trying To Get To You" (1955), is a song that Presley made his own due to his hugely committed vocal, and the simple carefree abandon with which he performs it; at first, it feels like a classic country song with simple, elegant lyrics; but it is at the bridge - where Elvis really lets fly -, that the song is transformed from a lovely country lament, into deep blues; although the 1955 version is magnificent, Elvis manages to better it on his "1968 Comeback Special", in which he sings the song with so much intensity, it prompted critic Greil Marcus to exclaim "this is probably the finest rock and roll ever recorded.
Elvis Presley
Sega, Andrew
Segal, Erich
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