After the death of his father, Santana didn’t feel up to playing or even listening to music for some time. He eventually started listening to classical music. One of the pieces that he was struck with was the third movement of Brahms’ Symphony No.3 in F major. The main theme, in 3/8 metre, definitely has a somewhat sombre, melancholic, contemplative mood so it is not difficult to see how this might affect someone grieving the loss of their father.

Brahms’ melody soon became the basis for Love of My Life. The original Brahms melody is twelve bars long, in the key of C minor, 3/8 time and is played by the cello section. To make this more accessible at GCSE level, the excerpt below has been modified into 3/4 time.

Santana’s interpretation of the melody is virtually identical in relation to:
- The melodic shape
- The melody starting with an anacrusis
- A similar, sombre mood is created, although this becomes more optimistic in the final section

However, Santana’s version is a master class in creative arranging, making some clever and significant changes to alter the character and style of the music:
- He changes the metre from 3 to 4
- He changes the key from C minor to G minor
- The long notes are syncopated
- Santana splits Brahms’ theme using bars 1 - 8 for the introduction, bars 5 – 8 at the end of the verse and bars 9 – 12 for the chorus

The structure of the piece (shown below) is quite unusual for the late 1990's. It is more reminiscent of classical music, which Santana took inspiration from.

Love of My Life is heavily dominated by the guitar due to the structure and lengthy final improvised section. Santana’s riffs tend to be melodically quite simple but rhythmically complex, employing a lot of syncopation which makes them very distinctive.

Santana: Love of my Life