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.