Radical Face and The Land Before Time

Musical artist Radical Face, one of my favorites, recently released a new EP: Therapy. It’s great stuff, catchy melodies, memorable lyrics. While listening to the third track, “Personal Giants”, a simple four-note phrase that appears at the end of the main melody caught my ear. You can hear it first appear at about 12 seconds in:

Just those four notes there. “And kept the light…” And again at 30 seconds in. “You told me time…” Sounds like a simple ascending major triad, with a minor chord on the second beat. Something like this:

This simple phrase stuck out to me because it reminded me of one of my favorite film scores, James Horner’s score for The Land Before Time. The “Great Valley” theme begins with a similar phrase, an ascending major triad with a minor chord (iii?) on the second beat. You can hear it enter at 3:07 in this track:

Other than those four notes, the melodies are quite different. But to me they’re memorable enough that hearing them in Radical Face’s song immediately conjured up images of Little Foot and rocks and a great valley and dead cloud dino Mama beckoning… And the lyrics in “Personal Giants” perhaps could apply to Little Foot. “To me you’re a giant, some distant lighthouse” … maybe a stretch, but it could work, yep yep yep.

So then just the other day Radical Face does a livestream Q&A, and what does he say at 37:07? Behold…

“Ooh, I love movie soundtracks. Some top ones would be, I really specifically adore The Land Before Time soundtrack by James Horner. I think it’s so good.”

Aha!! You see?! Clear and undeniable evidence of musical influence here! And only I understood, only I could see the secret of those four notes, only I made the connection, haha!

By the way, one of my pieces also features some clear and undeniable influence from The Land Before Time soundtrack, if you can find it…