Wednesday, 11 November 2026

After The Love Has Gone - the quiet genius of this song

On one level, it's a smooth soul ballad. But on closer inspection it's much more than that. 

After The Love Has Gone by the soul/funk group Earth, Wind & Fire is a masterful composition, full of melodic shifts, harmonic progressions and tonal modulations. 

Earth, Wind & Fire's music had a depth and sophistication that made them unique. Their upbeat songs like September, Let's Groove and Boogie Wonderland became instant dance classics. Band leader Maurice White embraced African and Latin cultural references within the band's music to create a unique template for the EW&F sound, but with strong roots in rhythm and blues. On many of their classic songs, the vocals were shared between White's tenor and the falsetto of Philip Bailey. 

Then there were the slower numbers, with a soulful sensuality that was ideal for creating an intimate connection with their audience. Think That's The Way Of The World, Would You Mind or Fantasy. 


After The Love Has Gone is the best of the bunch. A beautiful song by David Foster and Jay Graydon, and an inspired lyric of lost love by Bill Champlin. 

Its secret weapon occurs just before the chorus (at 47 secs) in the section that starts 'something happened along the way, what used to be happy is sad...'

Then wham, the song shifts up a whole tone - a modulation in musical terms - "Something happened along the way, and yesterday was all we had..."

It's a stroke of genius. They've given the song an instant boost, taking it from black and white to colour into the sublime chorus, 

"After the love has gone, how could you lead me on?"

Not content with that, Philip Bailey sends the song off into the stratosphere in the third chorus (at 2:55) with a five semitone shift. It's all the more remarkable that this is happening against a rhythm track that is as gentle as it is subtly seductive; the classic EW&F slow groove (see also the Deniece Williams song Free, on which EW&F are the backing band).

I saw an interview with the guitarist Steve Lukather, in which he was talking enthusiastically about the compositional and harmonic genius of records that were being made in the 1970s by the likes of Foster and Graydon. Luke talks about EW&F and mentions After The Love Has Gone in particular, saying of that modulation before the chorus: "nobody had ever heard that before". 

Sadly, there seems to be little room for that kind of compositional sophistication in this generic, algorithmic world of music we are now saturated with. 

My ticket from the show in '82
Back in 1982, I went with my then girlfriend Patty Binns, to see Earth, Wind & Fire live at Wembley Arena. I can still remember the special vibe at the show; the way Maurice drew you into his world, with the band performed on a sloping stage. 

They put on a real spectacle, using the magician David Copperfield to provide visual effects, the highlight of which was drummer Fred White and his drum kit turning upside down.

To bring home the true genius of After The Love Has Gone, here's the Russian tribute band Leonid & Friends covering the song and showing, through excellent editing, the true sophistication of this music; the chord changes, the horn arrangement, the subtle rhythmic shift towards the end, and a lovely sax solo to top it off. 

Earth Wind & Fire - Fantasy (live 1980s)

Questlove has produced a documentary about Earth, Wind & Fire, called To Be Celestial vs. That's the Weight of the World. He talks about it with Track Star's Jack Coyne.

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