Success!

I just listened to the last disc of the Zombies' Zombie Heaven, which is the last thing I have in my collection.  So I've finished this project for this year!

Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" and "Summertime"

For each of the past three days, I listened to a disc of a three-CD compilation of Sam Cooke titled You Send Me.  I found some interesting things in two of the songs.

"You Send Me" has some interesting articulation.  The "in-" in "infatuation" is stressed instead of the "fa," but I think that's just to make the meter of the line work.  In the same part, the "so" in the line "But, ooh, it’s lasted so long" is drawn out to three syllables, to sort of show how long it's lasted.  And when Cooke sings "marry you," the rest of the instrumentation drops out so that he sings the line almost a cappella, which could represent the seriousness or finality of marriage.

I also found some interesting stuff in his version of Gershwin's "Summertime."  Apparently Cooke recorded more than one version; "Summertime" is included on an-other Sam Cooke compilation album I have, but it's a different recording (the You Send Me set also contains a different take of "Win Your Love for Me," which is distinct in that there are no backing vocals and the bass is more prominent in the mix).  In any case, in the version of "Summertime" in the You Send Me set, Cooke takes some of the phrases from the first two verses and combines them in some phrases that he sticks between the second and third verses.  He takes "don't cry" from the end of the first verse and combines it with "they're standin' by" from the end of the second to get:

They’re standin’ by so don’t cry
They’re standin’ by; don’t cry

Not only does it tie the song together by strengthening the connection between those two verses, but it also points out the rhyme scheme used in the song.

"The Red Baron" from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

I'm currently listening to the soundtrack to You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.  I'd never noticed that in the piano part in "The Red Baron," there's a brief quotation of the song "Over There."  The only version of "Over There" I have is by Glenn Miller, but apparently it was written during and for World War I, so it does fit chronologically.

The Byrds' "Thoughts and Words" and "Don't Make Waves"

This morning I listened to the Byrds' Younger than Yesterday.  I found an interesting structural thing in "Thoughts and Words."  There are harmony vocals during the third verse, but the lyrics for those harmony vocals are different from the lyrics for the lead vocals.  The lead vocal line is "One day you came into my mind, and everything looked as though it was all mine," and the harmony vocal is "One day you came into my mind, and everything, it was all mine."  This happens for the other line in that verse too, but I can't make out all of the harmony vocals.

I've written a few posts about this sort of thing already, but I'm still always really excited when I find something like it.  The lead vocals and the harmony vocals are saying different things even though they're saying (singing, technically) almost the exact same words.  Here, the lead vocals say that "everything looked as though it was all mine" (although it should be "everything looked as though it were all mine" since it's in the subjunctive mood).  The lead vocals realize that what it seems like isn't what it is, but the harmony vocals are more taken by whoever came into his mind, saying that "everything, it was all mine."

Also, a very minor point about "Don't Make Waves," which is a bonus track: I found an instance of internal rhyme in the line "Malibu is calling you, her days and nights so warm."

The Beatles' "Sea of Monsters"

I just listened to the Beatles' Yellow Submarine.  The second half of this is the soundtrack to the Yellow Submarine movie, which I've never seen, and I think this is only the second time I've listened to it, but I still found something to say about it.

At about 2:22 in the track "Sea of Monsters," there's a fairly lengthy quotation of the opening of the second movement of Bach's third orchestral suite (BWV 1068).  It lasts until about 2:36.  Judging by the recording I have of the third orchestral suite (by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields directed by Neville Marriner), the quotation is pretty accurate too.  The only major differences I can find are that the accompaniment in "Sea of Monsters" is pizzicato where in the original it's done with the bow and that there are a few extra notes in the descending melody in "Sea of Monsters" before the quotation ends.

Because I haven't seen the movie, I don't know how or if that Bach quotation relates to it, but now I'm curious.

Belle & Sebastian's "The Ghost of Rockschool"

I just listened to Belle & Sebastian's Write About Love.  I'd never noticed that in "The Ghost of Rockschool" after the line "Every clock in the hall is bending slowly," there's a bent note in the guitar part, ostensibly to portray that bending musically.  However, there's also a bent note just before "Everything hums as the blue heart turns," which doesn't seem to have any lyrical connections to bent notes.

Jefferson Airplane's "Good Shepherd"

I just listened to The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.  Throughout the repetitions of the chorus of "Good Shepherd," I realized that there are three sheep mentioned:

One for Paul
One for Silas
One for to make my heart rejoice

The Good Shepherd, Paul, and Silas are all figures from Christianity, in which three is a significant number.  In the song, that significance is shown in the three sheep mentioned in the chorus.

Interestingly, the chorus itself appears in the song three times, and there are three things to be avoided:  "the blood-stained bandit," "the long-tongued liar," and "the gun-shot devil" (at least those are as I heard them).  So there are multiple instances of groups of three.

The Smiths' "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"

I'm currently listening to a compilation album of the Smiths titled The World Won't Listen.  I've listened to a lot of these songs on other Smiths albums this year, but it wasn't until now that I realized the weird conditional phrases in "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out."  Specifically:

And if a double-decker bus crashes into us
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us
To die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine

Because of the structure, grammatically, dying "by your side" is only "a pleasure," a "privilege," and "a heavenly way to die" if the method of that death is a collision with a "double-decker bus" or "ten-ton truck."

That might be splitting grammatical hairs, but I think it's an important distinction that indicates something about the singer/speaker's outlook: dying is positive only if it occurs in the manner that he's described.

Additionally, until I transcribed the lyrics, I hadn't really noticed how parallel those lines are.  "And if a double-decker bus crashes into us" parallels with "And if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us."  And "To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die" with "To die by your side, the pleasure, the privilege is mine."  But there's even parallelism in the alliterative hyphenated adjectives: "double-decker" and "ten-ton."

Punch Brothers' "No Concern of Yours"

This morning I listened to Punch Brothers' Who's Feeling Young Now?  I'd forgotten that there was whistling near the end of "No Concern of Yours."  It doubles the melody during the "When your name is on his building" part (at least I think that's what the lyrics are).  The whistling itself took me a few listenings to discover, if I remember correctly.

But rediscovering it now, I realized that it's sort of related to the lyrics.  The actual concern in the song isn't really defined since the speaker/singer is trying to avoid talking about it, but his insistence to not talk about it suggests that it's important.  (At least, that's my understanding.)  And I think the whistling helps to indicate that.  It's the same sort of thing as in old movies and television shows where people start whistling to disguise the fact that they're nervous about something.

She & Him's "Silver Bells"

This morning I listened to She & Him's A Very She & Him Christmas.  (I'm not one of those overly-enthusiastic-for-holidays people; I'm going alphabetically and just happen to be in the Vs.  Although, coincidentally, the album was released to-day three years ago.)

In any case, I found some interesting structural things in "Silver Bells," which I don't think is limited to just She & Him's version.  In the first line of each stanza, there's a repeated word that appears in similar phrases - sidewalks in the first stanza ("City sidewalks, busy sidewalks") and lights in the second ("City street lights, even stop lights").  And then in the third line, there's the same structure, but instead of the same word, there's a pair of words that rhyme (or almost rhyme) - "Children laughing, people passing" in the first stanza and "Hear the snow crunch, see the kids bunch" in the third.

Additionally, the last lines of both stanzas are sort of similar in structure ("And on every street corner you’ll hear" and "And above all the bustle you’ll hear"), specifically with regard to every and all.  Both lines have to lead into the chorus ("Silver bells / Silver bells..."), so it's not too surprising that they're similar, but it's not something I'd paid attention to earlier.

The Coasters' "Little Egypt"

I already wrote a post about the Coasters compilation album I listened to this morning, but I found enough to say about "Little Egypt" that I felt I should make it a separate post.

At first, all I was going to say was that Leiber and Stoller use the phrase "one thin dime" again.  ("Just one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar, step right up, folks")  It also appears in "On Broadway."  ("One thin dime won't even shine your shoes.")

I actually don't know much about "On Broadway," but according to internet research, it was written by Leiber and Stoller along with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.  It's possible that Mann and Weil came up with the line while writing "On Broadway," and then Leiber and Stoller later used it in "Little Egypt."  I don't know how the chronology fits into this either.  ("Little Egypt" was released in April 1961.)

But because I'm transcribing the lyrics for the songs whose lyrics I comment on, I found some other interesting things:

There's some opposites in the line "They pulled the curtain up and when they turned a spotlight way down low."

There's a fair amount of alliteration in some lines:  "Little Egypt came out strutting, wearing nothing but a button and a bow," "She had a ruby on her tummy and a diamond big as Texas on her toe," and "When she did her special number on a zebra skin I thought she’d stop the show."

And, finally, there's some internal rhyme in a line in the last verse:  "She’s too busy mopping and a-takin’ care of shoppin’ at the store."

The Robins' "Riot in Cell Block #9"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of The Coasters, which also includes two songs by The Robins (an earlier group that evolved into the Coasters).  I found "Riot in Cell Block #9" interesting because of the connections it has to Ritchie Valens' "Framed," which I listened to a few days ago on a compilation album of Valens (I'm in the midst of the The Very Best of albums).  While listening to "Framed," I noticed some musical similarity between it and "Riot in Cell Block #9" - specifically that both songs are built around a riff that separates each line of the verses.  Both also have repetitious choruses and feature verses that - aside from the punctuating riff - are unaccompanied by any instruments (or mostly unaccompanied, there's slight percussion throughout the verses in "Framed").  So I noticed that they were similar, but I didn't think any more about it.

But then I listen to "Riot in Cell Block #9," and the first line is "On July the 2nd, 1953."  That was pretty good evidence for the two songs' being related since "Framed" contains the line "He says, 'Where were you on the night of July 1953?'"  Both songs are musically similar, refer to July 1953, and mention law enforcement in one form or an-other.

But then I looked up the publication data and discovered that both were written by Leiber and Stoller, so the two songs are irrefutably related.  They both seem to have the same setting, although the singer/speaker couldn't be the same in both.

Judy Collins' "Farewell to Tarwathie"

Yester-day when I listened to that Judy Collins album, I noticed a small detail in "Farewell to Tarwathie."  The song starts and ends with the same stanza (although the ending stanza has "we" where the opening one has "I"), and the first two lines of that stanza exhibit structural parallelism:

Farewell to Tarwathie, adieu Mormond Hill
And the dear land of Crimond, I bid you farewell

The first line shows this more than the second, but each section ("Farewell to Tarwathie," "Adieu Mormond Hill," and "The dear land of Crimond, I bid you farewell") says goodbye to a particular place, just using different ways of saying goodbye and - obviously - different places.

Judy Collins' "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)"

I just listened to a compilation album of Judy Collins.  While I'm more familiar with the Byrds' version of "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)," Judy Collins articulates some of the lines differently, which got me thinking about these lines:

A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

From hearing the Byrds' version, I'd always thought that these lines meant that there is a time when embracing is allowed and a time when it should be avoided, but because Collins articulates them differently (she emphasizes may), I realized that they could mean something else - that there's a time that you'll want to be a part of and a time that you won't want to be a part of.  In some ways, it's similar to the carpe diem idea.  There are some days where you'll want to seize the day and some days where you won't.

It's interesting how the articulation of the lyrics can draw out these different meanings.

Herman's Hermits' "Smile Please"

I just listened to the second disc of that Herman's Hermits compilation album.  I'd previously noticed a few interesting things in the lyrics of "Smile Please," but listening to it this time, I found more that ties the whole song together.

In (what I think is) the second verse, there's the line "Don’t be quite so negative, I’m positive they’ll turn out fine."  I'd noticed the internal rhyme with negative and positive and also how they're opposites, but it wasn't until now that I really understood the context.  The first verse explains how the singer/speaker and the girl he's addressing are in a photo booth.  So negative works in the pessimistic sense, but it also hints at the photographic sense.  (The next line is "The scene will soon develop if we stay in here a little time.")

The internal rhyme of negative and positive also has a precedent in the first verse: "We’re sitting in this cubicle, it’s beautiful to get you alone."  It's more of a slant rhyme (cubicle and beautiful), but it still works in the song because there's also the line "Things are getting better all the time."  So it's as if the rhyme itself is improving (from slant to perfect) along with the situation (or at least the assertion that the situation is improving).

Herman's Hermits' "Show Me Girl"

I just listened to the first disc of a compilation album of Herman's Hermits.  Even before I listened to it, I got thinking about the lyrics to "Show Me Girl."

Just from what I remembered, I thought the first line is interesting:  "A one-way love can hang you up awful bad."  Specifically the phrase "awful bad."  It seems like it should be "awfully badly," but while both words in "awful bad" look like adjectives, they function as adverbs.  They're actually flat adverbs, which Merriam-Webster has an informative video about.  I just thought it was interesting that they're both flat adverbs for the sake of syllable count in the line and - in the instance of "bad" - so that it will rhyme with "the only kind of love I had" at the end of the next line.

But a more interesting thing about the song is the backing vocals in the third verse:

Oh, I’d love to love you, you know I think you’re out of sight
(I’d love to love you, but you’re out of sight)
But first I’ve got to be sure you’re gonna treat me right
(You’re gonna treat me right)

Taken individually, the main lyrics are "Oh, I’d love to love you, you know I think you’re out of sight / But first I’ve got to be sure you’re gonna treat me right," and the backing vocals are "I’d love to love you, but you’re out of sight / You’re gonna treat me right."  The primary concern of each set of lyrics is different.  The main lyrics are concerned with the potential lover's treating him right (incidentally an-other flat adverb), where the backing vocals seem to be concerned that a difference between the singer/speaker and the potential lover will keep them apart and that he is lower than she is according to some hierarchy that isn't fully explained.  (Appearance is the most obvious if "out of sight" is taken somewhat literally, with the emphasis on the visual nature.)  And the line "you're gonna treat me right" as it is in the backing vocals seems to be an idealization of the relationship, whether it's an actual relationship or just an imagined one.  At the end of the line, there's a descending melisma on "right," which sounds a bit like a sigh and makes it sound more like an idealized fantasy.

The Who's "I'm a Boy"

Yester-day, I listened to a compilation album of the Who.  "I'm a Boy" got stuck in my head, and I got thinking about the names of two of the girls mentioned in the song, Felicity and Sally-Joy.  Both of their names indicate the well-being that the speaker/singer doesn't have.  Felicity means happiness, and Sally-Joy's name obviously contains joy.

Also, in transcribing the lyrics (which I've decided to do to all of the songs I write about here, provided I'm commenting on the lyrics), I discovered that the first word of each line of the second verse starts with P:

Put your frock on, Jean-Marie
Pluck your hair, Felicity
Paint your nails, little Sally-Joy
Put this wig on, little boy

(It might technically be the third verse, if "My name is Bill, and I'm a headcase..." is an-other verse, but I think that's a bridge.  I might be wrong; I'm bad at structural terminology.)

I think the words that start with P are too far away for it to be alliteration (at least in a strict sense), but it still indicates how the boy is forced into conforming with the girls.

OK Go's "Bye Bye Baby" (demo version)

This morning I listened to OK Go's Twelve Days of OK Go (which you can still get for free here).  I listened to a few of these songs when they were coming out (they were posted one-per-day during late 2012), but about half of them I still hadn't listened to yet.

I noticed something interesting in "Bye Bye Baby" - the demo version.  I should note that I've not heard the actual, "proper" version, so I don't know how/if the demo is different from that version.  (This was the even first time I listened to this version.)  In any case, the demo version contains the lines "So take me to winter / As if it was discontent I’d see," which seems to be a reference to the first lines of Shakespeare's Richard III:  "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York" (I.i.1-2).

However, I'm not exactly sure why that Shakespeare reference is there.

M. Ward's "You Still Believe in Me"

I just listened to M. Ward's Transistor Radio.  I don't think I've listened to this that much, and last time I listened to it, I almost certainly wasn't as familiar with the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album as I am now.  Because otherwise, I would have noticed that M. Ward's "You Still Believe in Me" is, in some ways, an instrumental cover of the Beach Boys' "You Still Believe in Me" from Pet Sounds.  Mostly, it's a repetition of the opening piano figure, but M. Ward also includes the melody from the verse.  He changes some notes here and there, so it sounds a bit different, but it's still recognizable.

The Traveling Wilburys' "Handle with Care"

This morning I listened to the Traveling Wilbury's first album, The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1.  I think I'd been somewhat aware of the alliteration in the first verse (also the first line) of "Handle with Care" - "Beat, beat up, and battered around."  But there's a lot in the lyrics that I'd missed.

This alliteration is also present in the third verse:

I’ve been fobbed off, and I’ve been fooled
I’ve been robbed and ridiculed

These lines also demonstrate anaphora with the repetition of "I've been" and internal rhyme with "fobbed" and "robbed."

The third line of the final verse is also alliterative: "Oh, the sweet smell of success."

In the first two verses that feature the alliteration, there are also pairs of opposites.  In the first verse, it's in the line "Been sent up, and I’ve been shot down," with the opposites up and down.  And in the third line of the third verse - "In day care centers and night schools" - the opposites are day and night.

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen's "Good Rockin' Tonight"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen titled Too Much Fun: Best of Commander Cody.  I found "Good Rockin' Tonight" (written by Roy Brown) particularly interesting, although not for anything specific to their version (at least not at first).  Mostly, I was interested in the phrase "mighty, mighty man," which appears in the first verse.  "I wanna hold my baby as tight as I can / Tonight she’ll know I’m a mighty, mighty man"

"Mighty, Mighty Man" is the title of a song by Bobby Darin ("by" as in written by and performed by).  So I looked at the lyrics of his song, and I'm pretty sure he took some inspiration from "Good Rockin' Tonight."  It couldn't have been Commander Cody's version because Darin predates him by almost twenty years, but I do have versions of "Good Rockin' Tonight" by Elvis Presley (recorded 10 September 1954) and by Buddy Holly (recorded November/December 1956), both of which predate "Mighty, Mighty Man," which is from 1958.

All of the verses of Darin's song end with the line "Tonight I feel like a mighty, mighty man," which includes not only the phrase "mighty, mighty man," but also "tonight," just like "Tonight she'll know I'm a mighty, mighty man" in "Good Rockin' Tonight."  In the third verse of Darin's song, there's the line "Well, come a little closer, don’t you be afraid," which bears some resemblance to a line in the second verse of "Good Rockin' Tonight" - "Don’t you be afraid, I’d do you no harm."  Also in the third verse, there's the line "I’m gonna love you, little baby, all that I can" (at least, that's the best I could transcribe it as), which has the same sort of idea as "I wanna hold my baby as tight as I can" in "Good Rockin' Tonight."

In looking at the three versions of "Good Rockin' Tonight" I have, I also found some interesting variance in the possessive pronouns in the second verse.  All three direct the girl to "bring along... rocking shoes," but in Elvis' and Buddy Holly's versions, it's "my rocking shoes," where Commander Cody's version has it as "your rocking shoes."  The line after "bring along my rocking shoes" is some variation of "tonight I'm gonna rock away all... blues."  Elvis' and Commander Cody's versions have "all my blues," but Buddy Holly has "all your blues."

I've written about this type of thing before - where tiny words like pronouns and tense markers drastically affect what the speaker/singer is saying - and I never know whether it's an intentional change or not.  Regardless, that's illustrated again here.  In his version, Buddy Holly seems more interested in his girl's well-being than his own, wishing to rock away her blues rather than his own.

The Polyphonic Spree's Together We're Heavy

This morning, I listened to the Polyphonic Spree's Together We're Heavy.

I haven't listened to the album that much, but I had never noticed the descending melody on "down" in the line "it takes a lot to find yourself way down" in "Section 16: One Man Show."  There's even a melisma, breaking "down" into more syllables to emphasize that descending melody.

In "Section 18: Everything Starts at the Seam," there's the line "I think it was the Fourth of July."  I'm pretty sure that an-other time I listened to this I recognized that line but I couldn't place it.  This time I did.  "I think it was the Fourth of July" also appears in Chicago's "Saturday in the Park."  I'm not sure if the Polyphonic Spree took it from that Chicago song, but it's not that common a phrase.  Plus, both bands bear some resemblance to each other in that they use some uncommon instruments, like flute and brass.  So I think it's more likely than not that they took that line from Chicago.

Hey Marseilles' "Gasworks"

This morning I listened to Hey Marseilles' To Travels & Trunks.  I've always liked the line "long nights and hollow days" in "Gasworks," but I discovered something interesting about how it's articulated.  There's a slight pause between "hollow" and "days."  Ostensibly, it's there for enunciation.  Otherwise, the words might bleed into each other and sound like "holidays" or maybe even "hallowed days."  So the pause is there for clarity, but the pause also indicates the despondency and numbness inherent in the phrase "hollow days."  It's as if the singer/speaker doesn't have the energy to even describe the days.

Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire's Thrills

I just listened to Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire's Thrills, and - like I did back in March and in August - I found some lyrics that Andrew Bird later re-used.

The line "two sure fatal doses of malcontent through osmosis" (or at least I think those are the words) in "Eugene" also appears as "sure fatal doses, malcontent through osmosis" near the end of "Imitosis" on Armchair Apocrypha.

"Cock O' the Walk" contains the line "took the 4:50 Addison to see Pulaski at night," and I Want to See Pulaski at Night was the title of Bird's EP from 2013.

Additionally, "a dog with a nasal disease" from "Nuthinduan Waltz" seems to be a precedent for "a wolf with a lung disease" from "Natural Disaster" on Noble Beast.

Willi Stanke und Sein Orchester's "Der Schwarzen Panther"

This morning I listened to the first disc of the compilation Swing Tanzen Verboten!, which is subtitled German Swing, Dance, and Jazz Bands 1937-1944.  The opening of "Der Schwarzen Panther" ("The Black Panther") by Willi Stanke und Sein Orchester sounds a lot like part of "Tiger Rag," specifically the part that corresponds to the lyrics "Hold that tiger," provided it's a version of "Tiger Rag" that has lyrics.  The rhythm of the phrase is the same, and in Willi Stanke's version, it's accompanied by a rapid descending phrase, which is also featured in the Mills Brothers' version of "Tiger Rag" (although theirs isn't as rapid).  This descending phrase is also in Canadian Brass' "Tuba Tiger Rag," which they included in their Tiny Desk Concert for NPR.

The problems with determining whether "Der Schwarzen Panther" is a copy of "Tiger Rag" are that there are so many versions of "Tiger Rag" and that they differ so much.  I have versions by Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Les Paul, and - as mentioned - the Mills Brothers, but parts of one version sound totally unrelated to parts of an-other version.

The publication data say that it's a different song.  "Der Schwarzen Panther" is credited to Consiglio and Casirolli, where "Tiger Rag" is credited to LaRocca, Shields, Edwards, Ragas, and Sbarbaro (with lyrics by DaCosta).  However, the musical phrase in "Der Schwarzen Panther" is so similar to that in "Tiger Rag" that I can't believe Consiglio and Casirolli didn't have "Tiger Rag" in mind while writing "Der Schwarzen Panther."  Their title mentions a large feline, too.

It makes me wonder just how different a song has to be to be garnered with a different writing credit.  "Tuba Tiger Rag" is credited to Luther Henderson, yet it's not that different from "Tiger Rag."  By hearing the two, you could tell it's the same song.  Assuming that "Der Schwarzen Panther" is a copy of "Tiger Rag," why are Consiglio and Casirolli given their own credit, where the versions by all of these other artists are credited to the original ensemble?  How different does an arrangement have to be to be considered a separate song?

The Byrds' "I Am a Pilgrim"

Earlier I listened to the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and I noticed that “I Am a Pilgrim” is pretty similar to “Wayfaring Stranger.”  I’ve heard a few versions of “Wayfaring Stranger,” but the lyrics I’m most familiar with are actually the ones that Roger McGuinn’s posted on his Folk Den (so this might not be a very impartial assessment).  He also has an entry for "I Am a Pilgrim," which is only slightly different from the version on Sweetheart of the Rodeo.  The lyrics are roughly the same too (typos notwithstanding).

The first verse of “I Am a Pilgrim” matches up to the first verse of “Wayfaring Stranger” pretty closely.  There’s the description of a “stranger” (both songs) “travelling through” (“I Am a Pilgrim”) or “wandering through” (“Wayfaring Stranger”) a land that’s “wearisome” (“I Am a Pilgrim”) or full of “woe” (“Wayfaring Stranger”).  These first two lines are followed by a contrast, specifically the “bright land” (“Wayfaring Stranger”) or “yonder city” (“I Am a Pilgrim”) that the pilgrim is trying to reach.

The next section in each (a verse in “I Am a Pilgrim” but a chorus in “Wayfaring Stranger”) talks about relatives who have already reached the pilgrim’s destination:  “I’ve got a mother, sister, and a brother / Who have gone this way before” in “I Am a Pilgrim,” and “I’m going there to see my father” in “Wayfaring Stranger.”  The second chorus of “Wayfaring Stranger” starts with “I’m going there to see my mother.”

Both also mention the Jordan River (“I’m going down to the river of Jordan / Just to bathe my wearisome soul” in “I Am a Pilgrim” and “I’m just a-going over Jordan” in “Wayfaring Stranger”), but I don’t think the river has the same rôle in both songs.

I also have a book that contains the music and lyrics for “I Am a Pilgrim.”  It’s from 1964, so it predates the Byrds’ version of the song, but it still includes these similarities to “Wayfaring Stranger.”  The lines are slightly different though.  Instead of “I’ve got a mother, sister, and a brother / Who have gone this way before,” the book has “I got a mother, sister, and a brother / Who have gone to that sweet land.”  And where the Byrds’ version has:

I’m going down to the river of Jordan
Just to bathe my wearisome soul
If I can just touch the hem of His garment, good Lord
Then I’d know He’d take me home

the book has:

As I go down to the river of Jordan,
Just to bathe my weary soul,
If I could touch but the hem of His garment, good Lord,
Well, I believe it would make me whole

It’s the same idea, but slightly different grammatically.  The book’s lyrics also rhyme (“soul”/“whole”) where the Byrds’ version doesn’t (“soul”/“home”).

A lot of folk songs exist in slightly different versions (like the version of "I Am a Pilgrim" in this book I have and the Byrds' version), so I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere back in history, "I Am a Pilgrim" and "Wayfaring Stranger" were the same song.

[Last April, I recorded a version of "Wayfaring Stranger," for which I wrote some additional vocal parts.]

The Mountain Goats' "Dance Music"

This morning I listened to the Mountain Goats' The Sunset Tree.  I'd noticed before how the harmonies in "This Year" come in during the line "twin high-maintenance machines," in order to musically portray what's in the lyrics, but this morning I discovered that this feature is also present in "Dance Music."  Aside from the choruses, the only part with a harmony vocal is the line "I don't wanna die alone."  Like "twin high-maintenance machines" in "This Year," it's an-other instance where the musical qualities add to the lyrics.

In both songs, there are harmony parts in the more anthemic sections ("I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me" and "dance music," for example - the choruses of both songs), but in some verses (moreso in "This Year" than in "Dance Music"), the harmony parts serve to emphasize particular lines, sort of like musical underlining or highlighting.

Waylon Jennings' "Lucille (You Won't Do Your Daddy's Will)"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Waylon Jennings.  I was surprised to find that "Lucille (You Won't Do Your Daddy's Will)" turned out to be the same song as Little Richard's "Lucille."

I compared Jennings' version with Little Richard's, just to make sure, and I noticed that some of the lyrics are different.  Jennings' version has lines like, "Lucille, you won't do your daddy's will" and "There ain't nothing to you, but I love you still," where Little Richard's has "Lucille, you won't do your sister's will" and "You ran off and married, but I love you still."  Jennings' alliteration ("Lucille, you won't do your daddy's will") is more concentrated and easier to find than Little Richard's ("Lucille, you won't do your sister's will").

In the "I woke up this morning" sections, Jennings' version changes the lyrics in the repetition.  So the first time, the line is "I asked my friends about her, but all their lips were tied," and the second time, it's "I asked her friends about her" (emphasis added).  Jenning's speaker/singer is concerned to the point that he not only asks his own friends, but he asks Lucille's too.  In Little Richard's version, the line is the same both times.

I think Jennings' version has more lyrical complexity, but Little Richard's has a great rock 'n' roll energy (and he also co-wrote the song with Al Collins, which certainly counts for something), so I don't think one is better than the other.

Cat Power's "Real Life"

Yester-day I listened to Cat Power's Sun.  I noticed a clever bit of wordplay in "Real Life," specifically:

I met a preacher, he want to be sinister

Sinister is only a letter different from minister, which is an-other word for preacher.
I think there's also something to be said about that similarity between sinister and minister (differing only by one letter) and how a preacher's wanting to be sinister sort of makes him ineligible of being a minister (or at least a good one).  It's as if that one quality is the thing that invalidates him and changes the M to an S.  I'm not quite sure if that's a valid point in the context of the rest of the song though.

The Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball"

I'm currently listening to some compilation albums, one of which includes the Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball."  I'd never noticed the appropriateness of the key change.  It comes right before:

The story's in the past with nothing to recall
I've got my life to live, and I don't need you at all
The roller coaster ride we took is nearly at an end
I bought my ticket with my tears, that's all I'm gonna spend

The first part of the song describes the nature of the (apparently failed) relationship, but the verse after the key change has a decidedly different outlook.  It's moving past the sentiment in those earlier verses, which is reflected in the new key.

Arcade Fire's "Rococo"

I just listened to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs.  I'd never noticed that there's harpsichord in "Rococo" (or at least I hadn't paid much attention to it), but it's fitting.  I don't know much about it, but Rococo was an artistic period in the 18th century, sort of a smaller branch of the Baroque, if I understand correctly from my skimming of the Wikipedia article.  And the harpsichord was "widely used" in Baroque music.

Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo Choo"

Yester-day, I listened to a five-CD set of Glenn Miller titled Still in the Mood.  It includes "Chattanooga Choo Choo," but listening to it this time, I noticed something weird.

It's in these lines:

Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina

They're talking about the food available on the train, but it seems to imply that the passengers eat ham and eggs (which I'm fairly certain are breakfast foods) for dinner.

It might just be two separate meal times that are squished together because of the phrasing, but - in that case - I think a word or two could have been changed or added to prevent any misunderstanding.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's "Find the Cost of Freedom"

Yester-day, I listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's So Far.  I noticed two things about songs on it, although neither of them is a very large point.

First I noticed that the melody in "Find the Cost of Freedom" goes along with the lyrics:

Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down

The melodies corresponding to "buried in the ground" and "lay your body down" go down.

An even smaller point: I'd never noticed that there's tambourine in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes."

Loudon Wainwright III's "New Street People"

I'm currently listening to Loudon Wainwright III's Social Studies.  I found a reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet in "New Street People."  Wainwright's line is "a thousand toxic, natural shocks," which adds only one word (toxic) to a sentence from Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy:  "To die--to sleep-- / No more; and by a sleep to say we end / The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to" (III.i.68-71).

However, I'm not exactly sure what Wainwright is trying to say with that Hamlet quote.

Bing Crosby's "Love Is Just around the Corner"

I'm listening to a compilation album of songs from the 1930s.  One of them is Bing Crosby's "Love Is Just around the Corner," written by Lewis E. Gensler and Leo Robin.  It includes the lines:

Venus de Milo was noted for her charms
Strictly between us, you are cuter than Venus
And what's more you've got arms.

Back in July, I found a reference to Venus de Milo in Ray Charles' "Ain't That Fine" (which, as far as I can tell, was written by Betty Hall, Dorsey Burnette, and H. Robert), and I said that "Grecian art doesn’t seem to be a very common topic in popular music."  Having found this, it looks as if I was wrong.  So now I'm not so sure that, as I posited in that post from July, Ray Charles' "Ain't That Fine" is connected to Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," which also mentions Venus de Milo.

The Tremeloes' "Shake Hands (and Come out Crying)"

Yester-day and the day before, I listened to the two discs of an anthology of the Tremeloes titled Silence Is Golden: Anthology.  I noticed that the riff in "Shake Hands (and Come out Crying)" is really similar to that in the Byrds' "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better."  And then I remembered that the riff in that Byrds' song came out of the Searchers' "Needles and Pins."  Between the three, I think there's a difference of only one or two notes.  They're all in the same key too - A major.

Not much is said about "Shake Hands (and Come out Crying)" in the liner notes to this anthology.  Really, the only relevant detail I can find is that it's from 1967 - a few years after "Needles and Pins" and "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better."  So while it's possible that the riff in "Shake Hands (and Come out Crying)" was taken from either "Needles and Pins" or "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better," I'm not sure if it was.  It's also possible that it's just a coincidence, but it's too similar for me to think that it's likely.

If it was taken from "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better," it'd be an interesting instance of inspiration hopping across the Atlantic - first the Byrds' taking that riff from the Searchers' "Needles and Pins" (an American band taking inspiration from a British band), and then the Tremeloes taking it from the Byrds (a British band re-claiming that inspiration from an American band).  But - again - I don't know where the Tremeloes got the riff.

The Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four"

Yester-day, I listened to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  For the first time, I realized how much the instrumentation does for "When I'm Sixty-Four."  I had to look up exactly what instruments I was hearing though.  According to Mark Lewisohn's The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970, there are two clarinets and a bass clarinet.  I feel that those in particular help give the song it's old time-y feel.

In the time between that realization and looking up the specific instrumentation, I also realized that "When I'm Sixty-Four" has a connection to "P.S. I Love You" in that they both feature epistolary writing.  "P.S. I Love You" starts out with "As I write this letter" and continues that theme through the lines "I'll be coming home again to you, love" (indicating the separation) and - of course - "P.S. I love you."  "When I'm Sixty-Four" also uses that letter-writing language with the line "Yours sincerely, wasting away."

What I'm unsure of is whether that letter section of "When I'm Sixty-Four" pre-dates or post-dates "P.S. I Love You."  Obviously "When I'm Sixty-Four" was released after "P.S. I Love You," but as Lewisohn's book notes, "["When I'm Sixty-Four"] was not a new song, the Beatles having performed a variation of it back in their pre-fame Cavern Club days whenever the amplifiers broke down."  As Lewisohn mentions, that "pre-fame" version of "When I'm Sixty-Four" was probably different from the version that's on Sgt. Pepper, especially considering the Beatles' rapid evolution.  So I don't know whether the letter section of "When I'm Sixty-Four" was written for the Sgt. Pepper version and was a throw back to that in "P.S. I Love You" (similar to how "All You Need Is Love" would reference "She Loves You" later in the year) or whether "When I'm Sixty-Four" was always that way and the letter elements in "P.S. I Love You" were something like a later try and an expanded version.  And, of course, it could just be a coincidence that the two songs - both written mostly by Paul McCartney - use the same lyrical device.

In any case, I still think it's an interesting connection that ties the Beatles' more experimental period of recording to their earlier days.

Jerry Keller's "Here Comes Summer"

After discovering the reference to Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home" in Jerry Keller's "Here Comes Summer" (I have versions of it by Cliff Richard and by the Dave Clark Five), I got thinking about an-other part of the song - the line "I'll meet the gang at Joe's café."  (This line doesn't appear in the DC5's version, however.)  I'd previously wondered whether this was a reference to Leiber and Stoller's "Smokey Joe's Café" (I have versions of it by the Coasters [although it's credited to the Robins], by Buddy Holly, and by Loudon Wainwright III), but because of how common a name Joe is, I wasn't sure if this was an actual reference or whether it was just a coincidence.

But now, knowing that Jerry Keller included some words and part of the melody of Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home," it seems more likely that he would also include a nod to a more contemporary song.

Three Dog Night's "My Old Kentucky Home (Turpentine and Dandelion Wine)"

I just listened to Three Dog Night's Seven Separate Fools.  I knew that part of "My Old Kentucky Home (Turpentine and Dandelion Wine)" sounded familiar (the line "oh, the sun shines bright on our old Kentucky home"), but I couldn't place it.  I looked it up on the internet and discovered that "My Old Kentucky Home" (which contains a similar line - "the sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home") is a song by Stephen Foster.  I found this interesting, but that's not how I knew that line.

Eventually though, I realized that it's also in the song "Here Comes Summer," which I have by both Cliff Richard and the Dave Clark Five.  It's slightly altered though, so there's no mention of Kentucky; it's just "oh, let the sun shine bright on my happy summer home."

Listening to the two lines of both songs back-to-back, they sounded similar, not only in the words, but also in the melodies.  I found the notation for Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home," and I'm fairly confident that both "My Old Kentucky Home (Turpentine and Dandelion Wine)," written by Randy Newman, and "Here Comes Summer," written by Jerry Keller, took Foster's melody (modifying it slightly) and at least some of his words.

Rachmaninov's Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op. 3

I've discovered that Rachmaninov must have really liked "Dies Irae."  I've found it in three of his works now.  Back in May, I found it in his Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, although I never looked it up in the notation.  Last night, I found it in his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43.  And then I found it in his Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op. 3 (it took me awhile to find it in the notation though).  In the second movement (Prélude in C sharp), it's in the 7th to 9th measures:

(notation found here)

He plays around with it more here than in the other two instances I've found, but it's still recognizable.

I'm sort of painfully out of my depth here, but it seems like he's taken "Dies Irae" and sort of inverted the notes and - after shortening the note values from the original - expanded his new note values in order to come up with the rhythmic motif that (with the exception of the Agitato section) he uses almost throughout the movement.

Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43

I listened to a lot of Rachmaninov to-day, including his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43.  I noticed that he includes "Dies Irae" in Variation X and Variation XXIV.

(notation found here)

If my counting is correct, this is measure 26 of Variation X.  This phrase also appears an octave higher two measures earlier, but this one was easier to take a screen clipping of.

In Variation XXIV, it appears at measure 39, again, if my counting is correct.  (I had to take two screen clippings to show the whole phrase.)  Here, he also slows it down in note values and changes the E to an Eb.

Buffalo Springfield's "Special Care"

I just listened to Buffalo Springfield's Last Time Around for the first time.  At the very end of "Special Care," there are some spoken parts.  I can't make out all of them, but at the end there's "only some, they [are] more equal than others."

I'm not sure if it's intentional on Stephen Stills' part (although the similarities in phrasing suggest that it was a conscious quotation), but this is the same sentiment expressed in George Orwell's Animal Farm:  "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Johnny Rivers' "Memphis" and "Help Me, Rhonda"

Between yester-day and to-day, I listened to the two discs of a Johnny Rivers compilation titled Secret Agent Man: The Ultimate Johnny Rivers Anthology.  I found some interesting things about two of his covers.

The liner notes mention Rivers' "flair for interpreting and rearranging other people's material" and explain that he took the riff for his version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis" from "Tommy Tucker's recent R&B hit 'Hi Heel Sneakers.'"  Aside from Berry's original and Rivers' cover, the only other version of "Memphis" I'm really familiar with is a live version by the Searchers (slightly re-titled to "Memphis, Tennessee") that appears on the 40th Anniversary Collection.  (I have two versions by the Beatles, but I haven't listened to them that much.  They're both closer to Berry's original, so are irrelevant to my point here anyway.)  Until reading the liner notes for the Rivers anthology, I hadn't fully realized that his version and the Searchers' version have the same riff.  The liner notes for the Searchers album don't give an exact date for their version; they mention only that it's from a live appearance on Swedish radio from 1964, although based on the track listing - which is more or less chronological - it seems that it's from December 1964.  So Rivers' version, released in May 1964, is older, and the Searchers probably modeled their version after his.  (It seems unlikely that they would use the same riff - and in the same way - that Rivers did.)

It's hard for me to wrap my head around that because not only am I more familiar with the Searchers' version, but I've always thought that the Searchers were older than Johnny Rivers.  I knew that both had long careers, but I'd always placed the Searchers' pinnacle of success in the early '60s and Johnny Rivers' in the mid- to late-'60s.  The Searchers' taking inspiration from Johnny Rivers certainly illustrates that I was wrong and that they overlap more than I'd thought.

Secondly, I think Rivers' cover of the Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda" is particularly interesting because it adheres more closely to the album version ("Help Me, Ronda," from Today!) rather than the single version (which was also released on the Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) album).

Rivers' cover re-instates the harmonica that appears on the Today! version (it doesn't appear on the Beach Boys' single version), and he replaces shattered with ruined in the line "but she let another guy come between us and it shattered our plan," which - again - is what the Today! version has.  The Beach Boys changed it to "shattered our plan" for the single version.

According to the liner notes, Rivers' version of "Help Me, Rhonda" was released in 1975, which is well after the Beach Boys' versions and well after their single version became a hit.  The liner notes also mention that Brian Wilson contributed backing vocals to Rivers' version.  Rivers' basing his version on the older, album version and Wilson's appearance on the track both seem to suggest that Rivers recorded the song because he genuinely liked it and not because he was just trying to get a hit song (although it apparently did well in the charts anyway).

Schubert's Octet in F major, D. 803

I listened to a fair amount of Schubert to-day.  First was an album of some excerpts of symphonies and such, and then (after an album of some Schumann piano pieces) an album of two octets (D. 803 and D. 72, both in F major).  This is only the second time I've listened to both octets in their entirety, although I'm rather familiar with the fifth movement of D. 803 because it also appears on that album of excerpts, which I've had for about a decade.

In any case, while listening to the fourth movement of D. 803, I thought the clarinet part sounded familiar.  At first I thought it was a re-working a phrase that appears elsewhere in the piece, but I later expanded my search, and I found that a very similar phrase starts off the fourth movement of his symphony no. 5.

(notation found here and here)

According to the sources for the notation, Symphony No. 5 was written in 1816, and the octet in 1824.  So, if this is Schubert's reusing past material, he's taking the phrase from his symphony for his octet.

The phrases are pretty simple though, just a rising and then falling diatonic phrase with a steady rhythm, so I'm not sure if this really is an instance of Schubert's reusing material; it might just be a coincidence.  If the phrase were more complex, I'd be more confident in saying that he is borrowing from himself.  Still, it's a similarity I felt worth noting.

The Animals' "Baby Let Me Take You Home"

I'm currently listening to a compilation album of the Animals.  It includes "Baby Let Me Take You Home."  I can't believe I didn't notice this earlier, but the first six notes or so are the same as those in the theme from "Peter Gunn" (except the Animals play them much faster than they are in the "Peter Gunn" theme).  I've never actually seen the show, but the tune is a pretty popular one; I have four different versions in my collection.

Bobby Darin's "Rock Island Line" and "Silly Willy"

To-day, I listened to a compilation album of Bobby Darin titled Purely... Bobby Darin.  In the continuing theme of train-sounds-in-songs, I've noticed that in his version of "Rock Island Line," he sings some "ooh"s, ostensibly to mimic the train's whistle.

Also, I think I've found a connection to Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" in "Silly Willy," which is also included in this collection.  In "Silly Willy" there are the lines:

Willy was a-dreamin' 'bout an automobile
With a pair of diamond headlights and a gold steering wheel

They're not exactly the same, but they do bear some resemblance to lines in "Minnie the Moocher":

He gave her a home built of gold and steel
A diamond car with the platinum wheels

Both mention cars, diamond, and gold.

Jim Croce's "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)"

Earlier this week I listened to a compilation album of Jim Croce titled Photographs and Memories: His Greatest Hits.  I'd noticed before that there are some purposely absent lyrics in one of the verses of "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)," but thinking about that now I realized - to a greater degree - just how well it works in furthering the despondency of the song.

Here's the first verse:

Operator, oh, could you help me place this call
See, the number on the match book is old and faded
She's living in LA
With my best, old ex-friend Ray
Guy she said she knew well and sometimes hated

And the second verse:

Operator, oh, could you help me place this call
‘Cause I can’t read the number that you just gave me
There’s something in my eyes
You know it happens every time
I think about the love that I thought would save me

In the first two verses, the last line rhymes with the second line ("faded"/"hated" and "gave me"/"save me"), but in the third verse, the lyrics that would rhyme aren't there:

Operator, well let's forget about this call
There's no one there I really wanted to talk to
Thank you for your time
Oh, you've been so much more than kind
You can keep the dime [*absent lyrics*]

If you're just reading the lyrics, you might be struck with the fact that this last verse doesn't hold to the format instituted by the first and followed by the second (that is, that there's nothing to rhyme with "talk to") and then just keep reading.  But if you're listening to it, you're forced to confront the absence of those lyrics because there are a few seconds devoid of vocals.  Unlike reading, the recording of the song plays out in a fixed duration, which makes that absence blatantly obvious.  Additionally, the articulation of "you can keep the dime" is different from that of the other two verses' corresponding lines.

In typing out the lyrics, I've noticed another way in which this is a great omission.  The caller eventually decides that he doesn't want to complete his call, and that's reflected in the lyrics - there's no rhyme for "talk to."  His initiation of a conversation isn't completed, and neither are the lyrics pertaining to it.

Sam Cooke's "Little Red Rooster"

I'm listening to a compilation album of Sam Cooke titled Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964.  I'm fairly familiar with most of these songs, yet - until now - I'd failed to noticed the program music aspects in "Little Red Rooster."  The various organ parts in the song illustrate the animals that are mentioned in the lyrics.  For example, the song starts out with (what I think is) an octave jump in the organ part (it's also present in the first and final verses), which represents the crowing of the rooster.  Later, there are swipes up the keyboard to represent the lyric "dogs begin to bark," and there's an-other organ sound I don't even know how to describe to reflect the line "the hounds begin to howl."

Meredith Wilson's "Rock Island"

While writing that last post about instrumental emulations of train sounds, I got thinking about Meredith Wilson's "Rock Island" from The Music Man again.  In the post I wrote about that (where I incorrectly referred to it as "Rock Island Line," and which I've since fixed), I noted that the song is "set to the rhythm of the train they’re riding in," but I didn't really expand on that.

But after thinking about how other songs did it, I realized that at least part of how Wilson's song emulates a train is the sound of the words.

Cash for the merchandise
Cash for the button hooks
Cash for the cotton goods
Cash for the hard goods
Cash for the fancy goods
Cash for the soft goods
Cash for the noggins and the piggins and the frikins
Cash for the hog's head, cask, and demijohns
Cash for the crackers and the pickles and the flypaper 

Each line's starting with "cash" provides the sound of the train's engine getting started - the onomatopoeic chugging of the train.  Also, as the later lines are longer, you start to get the feeling that the train is picking up momentum.

There are other ways in which the song emulates train sounds, but I think this is one of the most important.

Lonnie Donegan's Original Hits of the Skiffle Explosion

In listening to all of this music, I've discovered (and then started paying attention to) ways in which trains are portrayed musically.  To-day I listened to a compilation album of Lonnie Donegan and other skiffle artists titled Original Hits of the Skiffle Explosion (the first two discs are Donegan, and the third is a variety of other artists), and I discovered that "Rock Island Line" - a song about a railroad line - has certain musical elements that emulate trains.  Some of the background vocals contain "woo!"s, which sound like the train whistle, and the washboard mimics the sound of the wheels against the rails.

Some of the other songs on this collection are about trains and also feature train-influenced sounds.

"Wabash Cannonball" emulates the wheels-on-rails sounds with what I think is a snare drum played with brushes (I might be wrong on that; like I've said before, I know next to nothing about percussion), and some of Donegan's vocals are rather whistle-like, especially "call" in the line "hear the lonesome hobos call" near the end.

In "Wreck of the Old '97," the snare drum effect is also used, and the guitar part after the line "the whistle broke into a scream" mimics the whistle.

The guitar-as-whistle and washboard-as-wheels is also used on the Vipers Skiffle Group's "Streamline Train."  Additionally, it emulates a train in starting out slow and then increasing tempo, like a train increasing in speed, before slowing down at the end.

Johnny Duncan & The Bluegrass Boys' "Last Train to San Fernando" also employs the tempo variations at the beginning and the end to sound train-like, and the repetitions of "last train" at the end are a bit like a train whistle.  And at the very end, there's a vocal imitation of a train sound.

Jacques Brel's "La Mort"

To-day I listened to a collection of Jacques Brel's music titled One, Two, Three, Four.  My two years of high school French notwithstanding, I don't understand much of the lyrics, only a few words here and there and maybe a phrase every now and then.  But I did notice that "La Mort" starts off with a musical quotation of "Dies Irae," which is appropriate, as "La Mort" means "the death" and "Dies Irae" is about Judgement Day.

Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire's "The Confession"

I just listened to Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire's Oh! The Grandeur.  I can't remember if I knew this or not, but I discovered that he (Andrew Bird) later adapted "The Confession" from Oh! The Grandeur into "The Privateers" on Noble Beast, which I listened to just two days ago.

A good deal of the adaption is just in the musical style of the two songs.  "The Confession" is slower than "The Privateers" and has a bit of the jazziness that's present on a lot of the other Bowl of Fire songs, where "The Privateers" is faster and has more of an acoustic and ambient sound, in fitting with the other Noble Beast songs.

But there are also some lyrical changes.  "The Privateers" reorders some of the lyrics and shortens the last two verses.  The only major changes I can find are inserting "flood" into the types of insurance ("I don't want your life insurance / Home, auto, health, flood, and fire insurance"), substituting the line "And speak of me in the present tense" for "And employ a little common sense" in "The Confession," and substituting "profiteer" for "privateer" in the last verse of "The Privateers."

The Byrds' The Notorious Byrd Brothers

I just listened to the Byrds' The Notorious Byrd Brothers.  I feel kind of dumb for not noticing this before (or at least I don't remember noticing it before), but they sneak "Taps" in at the very end of "Draft Morning."  It makes sense, as the whole song is about the draft (the song is in opposition to it) and "Taps" is what's played at military funerals.

There's some interesting vocal effects on "Get to You."  Near the end there's a repeated phrase consisting of a sharp intake of air followed by two exhalations.  The intake is like that on the Beatles' "Girl" from Rubber Soul, and the exhalation isn't too dissimilar from that on the Zombies' "Time of the Season."  I don't know if it's the case here, but the Beatles certainly influenced the Byrds in other areas, so it's possible that they got that effect from "Girl."  I'm not so sure that there's any connection with "Time of the Season" though, as The Notorious Byrd Brothers came out on 3 January 1968, and "Time of the Season" wasn't released until April 1968.  So the use of that effect around the same time is probably just coincidental.

An-other interesting similarity that's probably just coincidental is that they used the Moog (or at least I think it's the Moog) for nautical effects on "Dolphin's Smile," and almost a decade later (in 1977), Electric Light Orchestra did the same thing for "The Whale" on Out of the Blue.

Badfinger's "No Matter What"

I'm listening to Badfinger's No Dice, which includes "No Matter What."  I've always like the backing vocals during the later repetitions of "break down the old gray wall" - the ones after the slide guitar part, where the backing vocals are just "ah"s.  Listening to them this time, I decided to figure out the notes, to see why I like them so much.  I was delighted to find that it's a chromatic phrase, from E to B (E D# D C# C B).

The Zombies' "Heaven's Gate"

I'm listening to the Zombies' album New World, and for the first time, I noticed the expansion in the a cappella part at the beginning of "Heaven's Gate."  The first few lines ("And now Heaven's gate is open wide / For you have put a light inside me / I can see that Heaven is near") are mostly centered, but the next line ("Heaven is here") is spread throughout the stereo channels.

That stereo expansion and the instrumentation's coming in only after that a cappella introduction both serve to further what's in the lyrics - the feeling of arrival at the titular Heaven's gate.

Furthermore, the drumming pattern is similar to that on "She's Not There."  Like I've said before, I'm not a drummer, and I don't know the terminology, but both songs have two drum hits followed by a cymbal crash (although I think "She's Not There" uses a snare and "Heaven's Gate" doesn't).  It's important to note that I'm referencing the stereo version of "She's Not There."  The mono version has an overdubbed drum part.  However, the drum part during the choruses of "Heaven's Gate" (and at the very end) sounds a bit like the overdubbed version of "She's Not There," with the extra drum beat.  In any case, it's interesting that Hugh Grundy's drumming retained that characteristic element.

Paul Simon's Negotiations and Love Songs 1971-1986

I'm currently listening to a compilation album of Paul Simon titled Negotiations and Love Songs 1971-1986.  In listening to this, I've discovered that the title ("Negotiations and Love Songs") is actually a line from one of the songs - "Train in the Distance."

I don't really have anything in-depth to say about this, but I do think it's really interesting that the title of a compilation album is a line from a song and not a song title.  A decent number of the compilation albums I have are titled after one particular song, so it seems that the whole collection is being sold on the strength and popularity of just the one song.

But here, with the title being a line from a song instead of the title, it seems to be more about the songs and what they say rather than just trying to sell an easily-recognizable song.

Meredith Wilson's "Rock Island"

Two days ago, I listened to the soundtrack to Meredith Wilson's The Music Man.  I kept thinking about it, and I realized something interesting about "Rock Island."

Near the end of the song, there's the lines

No, the fellow sells bands, boys bands, I don't know how he does it, but he lives like a king and he dallies and he gathers and he plucks and he shines.

(I'm not even going to try figuring out where the line breaks should be.)

In between "I don't know how he does it" and "but he lives like a king," there's a pause in the lyrics for maybe half a measure.  I'd grown so used to that pause that it was only after stepping back and wondering why it's there that I realized how important it is.

The song occurs near the beginning of the movie (apart from the main title, it's the first number), and it serves the purpose of introducing the audience to Harold Hill via what the other travelling salesmen say about him.  A good deal of the lyrics illustrate that the other salesmen are dubious about Hill's selling.  Later in the movie, the audience learns that Hill sells instruments, instruction books, and band uniforms before skipping town; he never actually teaches the band to play or leads it.

The salesmen's uncertainty and wariness about (and even aggressive dismissal of) Hill is certainly present in the lyrics, but it's also present in that pause.  Its presence after the line "I don't know how he does it" shows that the other salesmen can't figure it out.  It's as if they need to stop in the middle of what they're doing and ruminate about it.  Furthermore, the sudden lack of lyrics in a song that's otherwise pretty fast-paced and very meter-conscious (it's set to the rhythm of the train they're riding in) imparts a discomfort associated with the idea of Hill's selling.  Listening to the song, you get the feeling that's something's missing there, in the same way that there's something lacking in Hill's veracity.

Roy Orbison's "California Blue"

I'm currently listening to Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl.  I starting wondering about the writers for "California Blue," so I looked up the publication data.  Unsurprisingly, "California Blue" was co-written by Jeff Lynne (along with Roy Orbison himself and Tom Petty).  Lynne also produced some of the tracks on Mystery Girl (including "California Blue"), and co-produced the Traveling Wilburys album that Orbison was involved with.

His co-writing this song is unsurprising because a lot of Lynne's songs with Electric Light Orchestra have the word blue in them - "Bluebird is Dead" from On the Third Day, "Boy Blue" from Eldorado, "Mr. Blue Sky" from Out of the Blue, "Midnight Blue" from Discovery, and "Bluebird" from Secret Messages.  In the liner notes for Discovery, he says, "I've lost count of the songs I've written with the word blue in the title.  I just love the word blue."

So it's interesting that, knowing Lynne's preference for the word and the working relationship that Orbison and Lynne had, you can tell that Lynne had a hand in writing the song just by that one word.

Bobby Darin's "Down with Love"

I'm listening to a compilation of Bobby Darin titled Mighty, Mighty Man.  It includes "Down with Love."  One of the lines is "Down with songs that moan about night and day."  I'm fairly certain that this is a reference to Cole Porter's song "Night and Day," which I have performed by many different artists (including Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra).

The first few lines of "Night and Day" are:

Night and day you are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter, darling, where you are
I think of you day and night

The whole song has declarations of love like this, which is exactly the sort of thing that "Down with Love" rails against.

Mozart's Requiem

I'm still making my way through The Argo Years, the 28-disc box set of Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.  To-night, it was Mozart's Requiem.  I hadn't heard this particular recording before, but I do have it performed by Orchestra e Coro della RAI.

The first few notes of the Benedictus sounded familiar, and it didn't take me too long to discover that I'd heard them in the second movement of Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata in A major, Op. 65, No. 3.  (I just listened to Peter Hurford's recording a couple days ago.)

I wasn't sure how similar they were, so I looked up the music for both of them:

(notation found here and here)

The note values and time signatures are different, and the melodies don't really resemble each other after the fifth note, but the notes do occur in the same intervals (even if they're in different keys).

However, I'm not sure if this was intentional on Mendelssohn's part.

Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 107 "Reformation"

I've been making my way through some Mendelssohn lately.  To-day that included the later symphonies, performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker directed by Christoph von Dohnányi.

I feel pretty stupid for not noticing this earlier, but the fourth movement of Symphony No. 5 includes some variations on Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."  It becomes glaringly obvious once the name ("Reformation") is taken into account.

Additionally, I think Mendelssohn may have also included a few measures of the melody from "Ich Sterbe Täglich," a tune from 1756 that is also used for hymns (such as "I Come, O Savior, to Thy Table" and "Thy Body, Given for Me, O Savior"), so it also relates to the religious theme of the symphony.

At the eleventh measure of section I*, the melody comes in with the bassoons and trumpets:

(notation found here)

A measure or two after this, the melody diverges, but it's enough to recognize it.

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*I might not be using the correct terminology; I never really learned to read scores.  It took me long enough to actually find the particular measures.

Buddy Holly's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man"

I started listening to Buddy Holly's three-disc Memorial Collection to-day.  I'm currently on the first disc.  I noticed something interesting in his version of "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man."  Right after the lines "Well two-three the count, and nobody on / He hit a high fly into the stand," there's a drum hit that differs from what Jerry Allison (the drummer) had been playing.  Apparently, that hit is supposed to represent the bat hitting the ball - the high fly into the stand that the brown-eyed handsome man hits.

I think it's important to note that Buddy Holly also does this in "I'm Looking for Someone to Love."  There's a sudden drum hit after "foot slip" in the line "Drunk man, street car, foot slip, there you are."

According to the liner notes, "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" was recorded sometime between December 1956 and January 1957, and "I'm Looking for Someone to Love" on 25 February 1957, so it seems that after inserting that musical detail into his Chuck Berry cover, Holly incorporated it into one of his own songs.

Mendelssohn's Prelude and Fugue in G major, Op. 37, No. 2

I'm staying up late listening to some Mendelssohn organ works performed by Peter Hurford.  I noticed in the fugue part of his Prelude and Fugue in G major, Op. 37, No. 2, he sneaks in the B-A-C-H motif... sort of:

(notation found here)

In the second measure here, (skipping the first note) it's G to F# and then C to B.  While this isn't the Bb A C B of the B-A-C-H motif, it's still the same sort of paradigm.  He has a half-step from G to F# and then a half-step from C to B.  Two sequential half-steps are also heard in other places in the work (assuming I'm hearing them correctly), although I didn't look those up in the notation, so I don't know if they're also G to F# and C to B or if they're comprised of other notes.

Among the little I know of Mendelssohn is that he promoted Bach's music and was something of a Bach revivalist, so it makes sense that Bach's musical signature would - in some form - find its way into his music, especially his organ works.

Charles Ives' Symphony No. 3 "The Camp Meeting"

I just listened to the seventeenth disc of Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields' The Argo Years for the first time.  It includes Charles Ives' Symphony No. 3 "The Camp Meeting."  I'd never heard this before, but I did recognize a melody at the very end of the first movement "Old Folks Gatherin'."  It took me awhile to figure out what it was, but I eventually discovered that it's an adaptation of the melody of "Azmon," written by Carl G. Gläser.  (Apparently, "Azmon" is often used for hymns.  I know it through "Awake, O Sleeper, Rise from Death," which I recorded back in April for a different musical project I'm doing [if I hadn't, it would have taken me a lot longer to identify this melody], and it's also used for "The Savior Calls; Let Every Ear.")

According to the liner notes for The Argo Years, Ives lived from 1874 to 1954, and my hymnal says that Gläser lived from 1784 to 1829.  So Ives is quoting Gläser's work rather than the other way around.

I don't know anything about Gläser or Ives, so I can't really comment on Ives' quoting Gläser.  The only thing I can do is note it.

The Beatles' "Here, There, and Everywhere"

Because I just finished re-reading Robert Rodriguez's Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll, I'm listening to Revolver.  I'd noticed the line "but to love her is to need her" in "Here, There, and Everywhere," but it wasn't until listening to it now that I realized the reference behind it.

"To love her is to need her" is an extra step started by the line "to know her is to love her" - the title line of "To Know Her Is to Love Her," which was covered by the Beatles on the BBC (and which appears on the Live at the BBC album).  The song was originally written by Phil Spector as "To Know Him Is To Love Him," apparently inspired by the words on Spector's father's gravestone, which goes well with the "death and isolation" theme that Rodriguez traces through Revolver.

Additionally, the song was recorded by Peter & Gordon as "To Know You Is to Love You."  McCartney also had connections to Peter & Gordon - he dated Peter Asher's sister Jane Asher and wrote a few songs for Peter & Gordon.

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I also wrote an-other post on "Here, There, and Everywhere," but it wasn't related to listening to it, merely by comments Rodriguez made in the book, so I've not included it here.

The Beatles' "Blue Jay Way"

I'm currently listening to the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.  On "Blue Jay Way," George Harrison's vocals (and some of the backing vocals, too) are kind of wobbly, which I'd never noticed before.  I think they did the same thing they did with "Tomorrow Never Knows" from Revolver about a year earlier and put the vocals through a Leslie speaker.  "Blue Jay Way" also features organ, which was frequently (I might even say, "usually") put through a Leslie speaker, so it doesn't seem too unlikely that they'd use the same thing for the vocals.

Ray Charles' "Ain't That Fine"

I'm currently listening to a live album of Ray Charles.  The first track is "Ain't That Fine."  One of the lines is "But my baby beats de Milo 'cause she's got a pair of arms."

This reminded me of an-other song that mentions the Venus de Milo - Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man."  Although he pronounces it more like "Marlow," so the verse is:

Marlow Venus was a beautiful lass
She had the world in the palm of her hand
She lost both her arms in a wrestling match
To meet a brown-eyed handsome man

I'm not sure if Chuck Berry mentioned the statue in his song in reference to the Ray Charles song, but Grecian art doesn't seem to be a very common topic in popular music, so I would think it's more likely to be a reference than just a coincidence.

The Beach Boys' "Car Crazy Cutie"

I'm currently listening to the Beach Boys' Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long (the reissue with both albums on one CD).  The backing vocals on "Car Crazy Cutie" from Little Deuce Coupe are "Run run a do run run," which isn't too far from the title (and backing vocals) of the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron."  Additionally, "Da Doo Ron Ron" was produced by Phil Spector, whose productions Brian Wilson was interested in.

John Lennon's "Imagine"

I'm currently listening to a compilation album of John Lennon.  I'd never noticed the sort of expanding nature of the piano at the beginning of "Imagine."  It starts out sounding distant but still centered, and then after about fifteen seconds, it fills out the sonic sphere, so to speak.  It works well as a musical representation of the border pushing that the lyrics relate.

Ritchie Valens' "Now You're Gone"

A few days ago, I listened to a compilation album of Ritchie Valens.  I really like his "Now You're Gone," so I decided to learn how to play it.  I think I figured it out one other time (or at least figured out most of it) because I sort of remembered it.

In any case, I learned some cool things about it.  First, it starts off with a key change... sort of.  It starts in C# minor (for three chords) but then changes key to E major.  They contain all the same notes though, so I'm not sure if it's technically a key change.

Second, while it is mostly a three-chord song, it has E major 6ths, which I don't think is something that's all too common in 1950s songs.

EDIT: I'd been playing this with a capo on the 2nd fret, so all of the chords I said are relative to the capo.  It actually starts in D# minor and changes key to F# major.  And it contains an F# major 6th.  So even aside from the sudden key change and major 6th chords, there's something else distinctive about it - it's in an unusual key compared to most 1950s songs.

Jerry Lee Lewis' "Jailhouse Rock"

To-day I'm listening to a two-disc set of Jerry Lee Lewis.  It includes his version of Leiber and Stoller's "Jailhouse Rock," which I found something possibly interesting about.  Elvis Presley's version (the original) has the lines as:

Number 47 said to Number 3,
"Well you're the cutest jailbird I ever did see
I sure would be delighted with your company
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me."

But Jerry Lee Lewis' version has it as "I sure would be delighted if you'd come with me."  It's not that big of a difference, and it retains the same meaning, but I still think it's interesting to note.  Especially because most of the inadvertent lyric changes I've come across are in British bands' covers of Americans' songs.

George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

Yester-day, I listened to George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess performed by the Bethlehem Orchestra.  I noticed a few things.

In "Clara, Clara, Don't You Be Down-Hearted," I noticed some structural parallelism in the lyrics:  "Clara, Clara, don't you be down-hearted" parallels with "Clara, Clara, don't you be sad and lonesome."  A lot of the Psalms are written this way (with two lines saying almost the same thing but with synonyms), and since there are quite a few religious references in the opera (especially "Oh, doctor Jesus," which not only has religious references but is chanted more than sung, recalling a liturgy and therefore strengthening those connections), I would guess that that parallelism is a conscious echo of that style of writing.

I also noticed some interesting trumpet parts in "Narration (Scene: crap game and murder)."  After the narrator says, "She [Bess] doesn't want to be left alone with the body of Robins when the police arrive," one of the trumpets has a passage that sounds like a police siren.

A few seconds after the trumpet/police siren, there are the first four notes of "Dies Irae."  I think I'm becoming something of a boy-who-cried-wolf with the "Dies Irae," but it does fit the scene.  Furthermore, the narrator's line after those four notes is, "She's desperate," which seems to reflect the mood in the "Dies Irae" too.  Additionally, there's the religious connection with "Dies Irae" and some of the other elements of the opera.

George Gershwin's "Liza"

I'm still making my way through the Gershwin albums.  This morning I listened to the seventh disc of the ten-disc set.  This one is subtitled The Later Broadway Musicals.

In "Liza" (performed here by Leo Reisman and His Orchestra), I noticed the line "we should make a date with Parson Brown."  It reminded me of the lines in "Winter Wonderland":

In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say, "Are you married?"  We'll say, "No man.
But you can do the job while you're in town."

I had to look up the dates though because I wasn't sure of the chronology.  "Liza" is from 1929, and "Winter Wonderland" is from 1934.  So either the writers of "Winter Wonderland" (Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith) took an idea from "Liza," or the writers of both songs choose "Brown" for the surname of their parson.

George Gershwin's "You've Got What Gets Me"

I recently started reading a book about George Gershwin, so I went back to listen to what Gershwin music I have.  I'd skipped over it about a month ago with the aim of returning to it while reading this book, like I did with Bach earlier this year.

Yester-day, I listened to the third disc of a ten-CD set of Gershwin music.  The disc is subtitled Gershwin on Screen I: "Girl Crazy" & "Rhapsody in Blue."  The first track is "You've Got What Gets Me," performed by Eddie Quillan, Dixie Lee, Mitzi Green and the RKO Studio Orchestra.  I didn't notice this at first, but the lyrics are really clever, specifically the lines "You've got what gets me / What gets me you've got."  What's great about them is that they could be taken in two different ways.  It could indicate physical attractiveness ("You have looks that attract me"), or it could be an expression of a deeper connection ("You have the mental capacity/empathy to understand how I feel, what I think, &c").  Of course, it could also be both.

I've always liked Ira Gershwin's lyrics because of the rhymes and phrases he uses, but finding this has got me thinking about them in different ways.

The Zombies' "It Never Fails to Please Me"

I'm listening to the Zombies' Into the Afterlife, and it's occurred to me that "It Never Fails to Please Me" is very much in the same vein as their earlier song "Care of Cell 44."  They both have a piano-driven beat (which, granted, isn't too unusual for some of the Zombies' songs) and "bum bum bum" vocals (although they're more "baum, baum, baum" in "It Never Fails to Please Me").  Furthermore, the diatonicism in the guitar part isn't too dissimilar from the diatonic bass part in "Care of Cell 44."

Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long"

I just listened to a compilation album of Otis Redding (it's probably only the second or third time I've listened to it).  In any case, I noticed the line "My love is growing stronger / As you become a habit to me" in "I've Been Loving You Too Long."  I think it's a reference to "You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me."  Likening love to a habit is in the title itself and the lines:

Oh I can't break away; I must have you everyday
As regularly as coffee or tea
You've got me in your clutches and I can't get free
You're getting to be a habit with me

Still, with the number of love songs that exist and the various similes and metaphors in them, it might just be a coincidence that both of these songs make the same comparison.

The Beach Boys' "Amusement Parks U.S.A."

I skipped ahead to listen to the Beach Boys' Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) because to-day is Brian Wilson's birthday.

I think "Amusement Parks U.S.A." references "On Broadway."  In the spoken part, the carnival barker says that the attractions cost only "one thin dime," which is also a line in "On Broadway."  "One thin dime won't even shine your shoes."

So either that line is a reference to "On Broadway" or "one thin dime" is a more common phrase than I'd thought.

Palisades Park is also mentioned in the song ("At Palisades and Salisbury Parks the roller coasters are flyin'").  It might be a reference to Freddy Cannon's "Palisades Park," which is also about an amusement park, but Palisades Park is apparently also a real place, so it might not be a viable connection.

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring

I'm in the midst of listening to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.  At the very beginning of the Dance of the Youths section, there are sudden chords from the brass instruments on top of a foundation of rapid notes in the strings:

(notation found here)

This sounded vaguely familiar to me, and before too long I realized that John Williams used this same sort of effect in the Star Wars soundtrack, specifically while the main group of heroes are being chased around the Death Star by the stormtroopers in A New Hope.

I have the soundtrack for A New Hope, so I skipped around in it a bit before I found the sort of thing that Stravinsky did.  It might be in other places, but it's certainly in "Tractor Beam/Chasm Crossfire."  However, where Stravinsky places chords from the brass instruments above the string part, I think Williams has mostly just timpani parts.  There are other brass parts in Williams' piece, but they don't really have an equivalent in The Rite of Spring; it's just the rhythm of the string part and the suddenness of the brass chord/timpani that they have in common.

Jack White's "Entitlement"

I’m currently listening to Jack White’s Lazaretto for the first time.  I noticed an interesting poetic/lyrical device he uses in the first verse of “Entitlement”:

Every time that I’m doing what I want to,
Somebody comes and tells me it’s wrong.
Whenever I’m doing just as I please,
Somebody cuts me down to my knees.

He uses structural parallelism between the two lines, so that the first part of the first sentence (“Every time that I’m doing what I want to”) is similar to the first part of the second sentence (“Whenever I’m doing just as I please”) and the second part of the first sentence (“Somebody comes and tells me it’s wrong”) is similar to the second part of the second sentence (“Somebody cuts me down to my knees”).

M. Ward's "Hold Time"

This morning, I listened to M. Ward's Hold Time.  At the very end of the title track, the vocals are just "do do do"s.  They sounded really familiar, and I was able to place them as similar to the "do do do"s in the middle of Graham Nash's "Lady of the Island" from Crosby, Stills, and Nash's eponymous debut album.  There are a few phrases consisting of "do do do"s in the middle of "Lady of the Island," but the third one (at about 1:29) is the one that's similar.  (Or, rather, as "Hold Time" is more recent, its "do do do"s are similar to the third phrase in "Lady of the Island.")

I just listened to those two sections back-to-back, and while the rhythms and number of notes are different, the notes themselves are the same.  It's a descending arpeggio on G minor (D to Bb to G), and then an ascending phrase (F to G to Ab).

Like most of these instances where two songs use a similar phrase, I'm not sure if it was intentional.  However, a lot of M. Ward's songs have the same sort of feeling that I get from "Lady of the Island" (although I don't find them quite as melancholic), so I wouldn't discount it.

Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas

I just listened to Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas for the first time.  I noticed that the repeated bass part in "Ah! Belinda, I am prest with torment" is a variation of the first musical phrase of "Dies Irae."

(notation found here)

This quotation makes sense, as "Dies Irae" is about Judgement Day and the end of the world.  To some degree, it matches the emotional tone in "Ah! Belinda, I am prest with torment."