Shadowing Practice: Joe Jackson's Steppin Out: What You Missed - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hey everybody.

Welcome to Amy Nolte music.

My video today is about the great song stepping out by Joe Jackson.

It hit number six on the hot billboard 100 in America and in the UK back in 1982.

It was from Joe Jackson's album night and day.

So this song that I've heard for a long time, just on the radio.

Sometimes I was a little young.

I was five in 1982.

My parents didn't have the album.

I heard it on the radio, always dug it.

It's got this like thing going in the background and it just like makes you feel all cool right from the start.

And then there's a lot going on in it.

Theory wise, like chord wise, harmony wise, that is worth talking about.

Kudos to Joe Jackson for playing every instrument on the track.

The track had an, it had an electronic drum machine.

And the only person that actually played besides

Joe Jackson doing every instrument was a drummer, uh, just like accenting two and four, making it a little bit stronger.

And also some cymbal crashes, I think, but kudos to Joe Jackson, who is a multi -instrumentalist.

Um, he plays keyboards.

Great.

He plays saxophone.

Great.

And also kudos to Joe Jackson for having a hit and not having a full head of hair,

much like the great Phil Collins or like James Taylor,

Elton John, Michael Bolton, who were all allowed to have hits without having a full head of hair.

Like if you try to do that in 2024 today, like you are not getting on the Billboard Hot 100

because your hair doesn't come all the way to the front of your freaking hairline, your forehead.

And I think it's a travesty.

And I just wanted to say that right from the beginning.

The whole world is being deprived of great pop hits

Just because of hairlines.

Okay

We're gonna go over to the piano and we're gonna talk about this song because I love it and

It's gonna blow your friggin mind

The song is in F sharp major and let's just take a second to appreciate these lyrics now

I like this part.

It's so good.

I know it's hooked you right from the beginning because you're just like, oh, like those of you that grew up in the early 80s.

I can't even imagine having this song be part of the soundtrack of your growing up.

I think that this song is just basically about what it feels like at night

when you decide to go out with the person that you love

or that you're seeing and you step out into the night.

Now, I will admit that for years, I thought that the lyric was,

blue bird stepping out beauty alive beauty that's what i thought

not since i got older i mean that doesn't make any sense

so i looked it up it's it's me babe stepping out into the night into the light

You, babe, stepping out into the night, into the light.

And we're young.

We're getting old before our time.

We'll leave the TV and the radio behind.

Don't you wonder what we'll find stepping out tonight?

Like it's so cool.

All right.

Song, right.

F sharp major.

You'd call it G flat major if you want, but you'd have to fight me about it.

F sharp major 7 is the first chord, just like this.

Then...

So we move to E major 7, then down to D sharp minor 7.

Then we go...

We move to A, to B, then to D. And then to E.

So if we're in F sharp, we've got these notes.

F sharp, G sharp, A sharp, B, C sharp, D sharp, E sharp, and F.

And nowhere in there do I see an E.

Which is the second chord.

Like, nowhere do I see it and

and then a little bit later

we move to a d chord right nowhere in there do i see a d

i don't see d i don't see e so

if this happens you want to ask yourself where do these

chords actually come from like how can we be in a key

and then we're not in a key again we are not in a key

but then we're back to a key now

if you grow up a little bit later like me you probably recognize these chords as like the mario cadence sense.

right that's what it is let's let's look at it in c

because i know maybe some of you think better in the key of c

so right these are the notes of c

if we play a b flat chord

or an a flat chord those notes do not occur in c major

so anytime we use a chord like this

that doesn't have these diatonic notes to c major we're borrowing from some other key

and we can talk about that later but that's what this song is doing so poignantly, I think.

We move right to it.

Now, here's something to think about.

If we're going to think about where do the E and the D come from, we could think about a place that is typically borrowed from,

which is the parallel minor.

To make F sharp major, F sharp minor, allows us these two notes.

We play a natural minor scale in this key.

And we get those two notes.

We don't get them in F sharp major, but we get them in F sharp minor.

So we have to wonder if we're borrowing from F sharp minor.

This song is very major.

That major seventh chord just sounds like all things mystical and beautiful and magical to me.

I don't know, for some reason it always reminds me of the Neverending Story or something.

And the 80s.

But as soon as we move to here, we're in a new realm.

And you could think, Like, if we're using these chords,

There are plenty of songs that do that, right?

And I know that you've done that because probably the first song you wrote was in A minor.

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You, I'm talking to you.

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Probably the first song you wrote was in A minor.

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And you probably went to G next and to F next.

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Right?

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Van Morrison did it on Moon Dance.

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Like, everybody does that.

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It's the same thing.

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If we were F sharp minor, we could sing moon dance we could do it

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but we're not every time

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that we think we're going to come back to f sharp minor it comes right back to where we were

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which is hopeful i think and and it also paints this picture of the lights

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and the night and um and how cool it feels and everything the electricity, I think.

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So we do it again.

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And you might think that it's going to come back again, but it doesn't.

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It goes...

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Check that out.

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Now, I don't know about the rest of you music theory buffs out there, but to me, the way that this chord feels,

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this C sharp minor chord at this moment, it feels like the minor three.

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And then when it goes...

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These feel like a four and a five.

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That's how it feels to me.

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Like it feels like we're in A major.

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The second that we hit that C sharp minor chord, it feels like we're changing things.

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I mean, I know that you've heard this song a bunch of times, so you didn't expect it to go to A major,

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but as soon as it goes...

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I mean, if we're in F sharp major, this is the fifth degree, and we have just built a minor chord.

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So we have to call this the minor five.

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It's not something that shows up very often in a major key, like ever.

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It is something that would show up if we were in F minor, right if we had these notes

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we have this one we have this one

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and we have this one we have those notes

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if we were in f sharp minor and

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if we were in a major those notes show up as well

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they do not show up in f sharp major

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so we're borrowing we're borrowing from the parallel minor um and that's that's my story and sticking to it.

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It's a type of modal interchange, I suppose.

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Now, I mean, the fact that we go back to F sharp major is killer,

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but the fact that it is another major seven freaking never -ending story chord is so early 80s.

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It's like new wave and And everything about, you know, just teenage years and freedom.

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And I don't know if you feel it.

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I totally feel that.

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And I just think it's such a nice device, like something we don't think to do.

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It's the same, right?

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It's the same as if we're in C major.

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Even the melody looks like C minor, right? But it's not.

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It's not.

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And here we go to the 5 minor.

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Still very much looks like it could be C minor or even E flat major, but no. Holy moly, isn't that beautiful?

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That's about all I wanted to say, you guys.

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I just think, I mean, I could talk about the production of this song.

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You should watch, there's a video that I'll link about Joe Jackson, like recreating this song with real instruments,

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also with the drum machine but it's a fun one from not that long ago.

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Joe Jackson was a presence in those times.

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He had that other hit, Is She Really Going Out With Him?

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If you haven't visited

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Joe Jackson in a while, go visit Joe Jackson.

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It's time well spent.

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What a great song.

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I hope that you enjoyed seeing this video come through on your feed today.

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I wanted to talk to you about what's been happening to me in my emails and in my texts recently.

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And that's the fact that it seems like my spam has gotten a lot more actually,

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but the sponsor of today's video has taken care of that for me.

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And it's crazy.

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It can get your personal data taken down every year.

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The number of data breaches on the internet goes up.

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And did you know that there are data brokers out there that buy and sell your information like it's nothing?

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It really gets to you if you start to think about it.

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They're like harvesting our phone numbers, our email addresses, our shopping habits, maybe even our social security numbers.

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And then they sell that information to the highest bidder.

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There are probably hundreds of companies out there right now that have our information.

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And of course that means more spam calls, more spam texts and everything, but it's also possible identity theft, possible doxing.

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So Incogni removes your information from these data brokers and then fights for you to keep them removed.

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And using my code today, Amy Nolte will get you a 60 % discount.

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And all you have to do is if you sign up, create an account and you give them permission to do it,

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they'll remove your information from these brokers.

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And if it shows up again, they will detect it because they do constant checks

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and they'll make sure that your personal information stays off the market for good.

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After I did it, I saw a big difference

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and it's actually pretty scary to see how many data brokers had my data, but also cool to watch as incogni deletes them one by one.

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If these brokers fight, incogni fights back for you and they send repeated letters, as many as they have to,

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until your information is removed from the databases.

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If you'd like to give it a shot,

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use the code you see right here gets you a 60 % discount and you can stop having to go click, click, click, click, click, click,

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click, delete like I have done and just check your freaking email like a normal person.

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Thanks for watching everybody.

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I'll see you next time on Amy Nolte Music.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Joe Jackson's Steppin Out: What You Missed”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: sharp, minor, chord, song, Joe. This video has 186 sentences and 2043 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:37. The speaker talks at a natural 150 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
sharp adjective	/ʃɑɹp/	Terminating in a point or edge, especially one that can cut or pierce easily; not dull, obtuse, or rounded.
chord noun	/kɔɹd/	A harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously.
broker noun	/ˈbɹoʊkɚ/	A mediator between a buyer and seller.
borrowing noun	/ˈbɔrəwɪŋ/	An instance of something being borrowed.
nowhere adverb	/ˈnoʊ.(h)wɛɹ/	In no place.
instrument noun	/ˈɪnstɹəmənt/	A device used to produce music.
spam noun	/spæm/	Any undesired electronic content automatically generated for commercial purposes.
discount noun	/ˈdɪskaʊnt/	A reduction in price.
parallel adjective	/ˈpæ.ɹəˌlɛl/	Equally distant from one another at all points.
delete verb	/dɪˈliːt/	To remove, get rid of or erase, especially written or printed material, or data on a computer or other device.
babe noun	/beɪb/	A baby or infant; a very young human or animal.
drum noun	/ˈdɹʌm/	A percussive musical instrument spanned with a thin covering on at least one end for striking, forming an acoustic chamber; a membranophone.
billboard noun	/ˈbɪlˌboɹd/	A very large outdoor sign, generally used for advertising.
killer noun	/ˈkɪlɚ/	One who or that which kills.
occur verb	/əˈkɜː/	To happen or take place.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
show up verb	To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically.
step out verb	To exit a place on foot, often for a short time.
grow up verb	To mature and become an adult.
come back verb	To return to a place.
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.
go up verb	To move upwards.
sign up verb	To add a name to the list of people who are participating in something.
take down verb	To remove something from a wall or similar vertical surface to which it is fixed.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

My parents didn't have the album.
We're getting old before our time.
Don't you wonder what we'll find stepping out tonight?
You, I'm talking to you.
That's how it feels to me.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've heard · you've done · you've heard
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being deprived · is let · is removed

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 57 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, don't, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: seventh /ˈsɛvənθ/, theft /θɛft/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like sharp, chord, broker.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Joe Jackson's Steppin Out: What You Missed - Learn English Speaking with Video

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