It was a single chord, played over and over, but it wasn’t monotonous.

Sometimes it thrashed the air like frozen rain on the Dakota flatlands. Sometimes it plucked lightly as if it ushered in the birth of the guitarist’s child. Sometimes it slid like raw egg down the throat of an athlete in training for the big day.

E-Major. It clung to the window sill of the fifth floor, perilessly close to the Devil’s Chord of the augmented 4th while Tony sang Maria, I just met a girl named Maria in the alley below.

It was found in Louie, Louie and Wild Thing. The Rolling Stones used it to make the girls feel wicked and make the boys want to get up on the dance floor to help them out.

The Beatles started riots with it. Folk singers sought peace with it. Country songs courted it, and rock and roll twisted all the life it could out of E-maj. After all, E holds two of the six best seats in the world. One is at the top of the guitar and the other is at the bottom of it.

Music never knew love, before E.