Pride and Joy
by Stevie Ray Vaughan
- 126
- BPM
- Ab major
- Key
- 4B
- Camelot
- 43
- Danceability
- 3
- Acousticness
Chris Layton, the drummer of Double Trouble, said Stevie Ray Vaughan wrote "Pride and Joy" for a new girlfriend. A later fight with her inspired "I'm Crying", which Layton called somewhat ironic. Vaughan played the song live before he ever recorded it.
Epic Records released it in late 1983 as his debut single, taken from the debut album Texas Flood. It is a twelve-bar blues, called a classic Texas shuffle. The main guitar figure combines a bassline with muted chord chops, That gives it a percussive effect. Vaughan also chose finger shapes that let the most strings ring at once, and his guitar was tuned a half step low.
Vaughan was born in Dallas and started on guitar at seven, inspired by his brother Jimmie. He moved to Austin in 1972, and he formed Double Trouble with Tommy Shannon on bass and Layton in 1978. David Bowie saw him play at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1982 and invited him to play on Let's Dance.
Pride and Joy runs at 126 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.9 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 476 ms. It is in Ab major, Camelot 4B, which shares its notes with F minor and mixes cleanly with Db major and Eb major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.