Imsawn Bycbeys-sa (in English: The Bridgian Speech) was the sixth song to be released by the Foundation, on 2024-12-16. It was released on the same day as the Bridgemas song Deck The Base.
It began development as a song for an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that the Devious One was working on in July 2024 – particularly, Puck’s speech at the end of the play. (In fact, the current song can still be sung with the lyrics “If we shadows have offended, / Think but this and all is mended…” if so desired. Though who would?)
However, it was always felt that, with a bit more work, it could become an effective Bridgian song. First was the time-signature, changed from 4/4 to 9/8 to match that of Forever We Stand. That worked so well with the piece – the weird syncopations being nicely matched onto the beats – that it’s surprising it wasn’t written that way in the first place.
Next, the bassline. The plan was to allow Imsawn Bycbeys-sa to be appended on the end of Forever We Stand, but work equally as a standalone piece. It was changed from quaver-arpeggios to a staggered bass – a bass-note played on the first beat of every bar, with one or two notes played on each subsequent beat.
Finally, and obviously, the lyrics. They were massively Bridgianised, with not much (besides the general theme?) being kept from Puck’s Final Speech. However, the melody is still almost the same as the original Speech, particularly to make it recognisable to attenders of that performance.
Imsawn Bycbeys-sa is in the key of Eb major, the same as Forever We Stand. It consists of four 8-bar sections, each divided into four 2-bar phrases.
Most of it uses the chord-sequence from Pachelbel’s Canon in D, obviously transposed up a minor 2nd: Eb | Bb | Cm | Gm | Ab | Eb | Ab | Bb. The chorus (3rd section) uses different chords, with a more minor tonality: Cm | Gm/Bb | Ab | Eb/G | Fm7 | Eb/G | Ab | Bb(sus4).