Chilly Gonzales’ ‘Pop Music Masterclass’ takes on Lana Del Rey

Chilly Gonzales’ “Pop Music Masterclass” featuring Lana Del Rey (YouTube video). These days those looking for an education in song craft can find any number of series and podcasts that explore the ins and outs of making music. The most prominent of them is the “Song Exploder” podcast, in which musician-host Hrishikesh Hirway has interviewed artists such as Stephen Merritt, Best Coast and Thundercat about the creation of particular songs.

The Canadian pianist-entertainer Chilly Gonzales’ online series takes a different approach. For the past year he has offered YouTube videos that illuminate from a musicianly perspective choice songs by artists including Drake, Taylor Swift, Lykki Li and Drake. Anyone who’s ever seen him perform knows Gonzales is a charismatic figure, and his ease in front of the camera and the keyboard makes for fascinating lectures.

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The new episode focuses on the American classic, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” and specifically singer Lana Del Rey’s recent syrupy rendition. In four-plus minutes, Gonzales reveals nuances in a song that to untrained ears might otherwise go unnoticed. Tracing the descending “Misunderstood” bass line and chords on his piano, for example, Gonzales says, “It’s so simple because it just keeps getting lower and lower in a kind of loop of infinite sadness that must have attracted Lana Del Rey.”

He compares the song, written for Nina Simone by Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell and Sol Marcus, to other similarly constructed pieces: “Greensleeves,” Chopin’s “Fantasie in F Minor,” “Hit the Road Jack,” “California Dreamin’.” He pulls back to rejoice at the chorus for “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” which he describes as “that brief moment where we hear that major chord right when the lyrics say, ‘I’m a soul whose intentions are good.’ This is classic word-painting.’” In a kind of double exclamation point, Gonzales then leaps back centuries to play a kindred work with a major-minor interaction, Beethoven’s “Fur Elise,” before delivering his own mesmerizing version of “Misunderstood” as an Argentine tango.

Eric Church, “Round Here Buzz” (EMI Records Nashville). Country singer Eric Church’s new album, “Mr. Misunderstood,” is a follow-up to the hardened, smart artist’s Grammy-winning 2014 album “The Outsiders.” Less than a year later, the surprise-released “Mr. Misunderstood” features 10 tightened songs that wrestle with stories of drunken flings, Louisiana murders (“Knives of New Orleans”), language (“Kill a Word”) and heartbreak.

The latter theme is central to “Round Here Buzz,” a narrative ballad in which Church longs for the rush of first love. Set in an empty high school parking lot during an away game, the song places our hero drinking alone on the hood of his truck while reminiscing about a lost love. The song’s a ready-made country radio hit, perhaps the most conservative on “Mr. Misunderstood.” (When, after all, was the last time you heard conga drums on a country album, as on “Chattanooga Lucy”?) But it’s as durable as a Ford truck and just as heavy.

randall.roberts@latimes.com