Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile)
Steve Harley (1975)

The main chords* of the song are F, C and G. Classic, common and probably the first three chords budding musicians try first - on guitar or keyboard.

I've referred before to the genesis of the song or the kernel - Steve had in 1972 (maybe even in 1971).

It's interesting to speculate that he maybe started with it whilst he was still playing with Odin...

Anyway, the backing track couldn't have been simpler. This must give hope to budding young songwriting talent, in terms of what might be possible from three basic chords, for the verses and three more for the guitar solo....

In the guitar solo, Em, Am and Dm feature, again much used chords. The outro also uses these. Dm is also used in the opening of the chorus....

I'm sitting here slightly stupefied (is that the right word?) suffering from at best, a bad chesty cold, or at worst, Covid or even bronchitis (I got each for the first time in 2022, at the end of our break in the Channel islands), and I've just written about Big Big Deal (currently the adjacent thread) and was thinking that Harley was not only a masterful lyricist, he was the master of pause in a song.

Make Me Smile and Big Big Deal (latterly to a greater extent) are each examples of how he could do that.

Once he'd strummed those chords, got that octave shift and had the interaction with 'blue eyes....', the rest is history!

120 or more covers, speak for themselves...x

* chords source: Ultimate Guitar