Bach: Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende?, BWV 27

This morning I listened to Bach's Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende?, BWV 27.  A couple musical phrases at the beginning of the third movement sounded familiar:

(notation found here, although there seem to be some problems accessing it now; if you're that interested, you might have to search through the revision history)

The first eight notes in the oboe da caccia part are what first caught my attention (the same phrase is also in the vocal part later in the movement).  It took some research, but I eventually found the other work I knew this from; it's in the first movement of Vivaldi's Spring concerto from The Four Seasons (Concerto No. 1 in E major, RV 269).  Specifically the phrase that bridges the seventh and eighth measures, starting at the forte marking:

(notation found here)

I did some research, and Vivaldi's concerto is from 1723 where Bach's cantata is from 1726, so it seems that Bach took that phrase from Vivaldi.

There's also a six-note phrase in Wer weiß... that sounded familiar to me.  It's the one that bridges measures four and five in the oboe da caccia part.

I didn't recognize this immediately (because that part in BWV 27 is in alto clef), but that phrase is actually the exact same (save for the rhythm of the last two notes) as a phrase in Bach's Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645.  In that work, it bridges measures seven and eight:

(notation found here)

The only date I could find for BWV 645 is 1748, so it seems that the seven-note phrase there is derived from the six-note phrase in BWV 27.

Bob Dylan's "Visions of Johanna"

This morning I listened to the first disc of Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (and I'm listening to the second disc now).  I found something in "Visions of Johanna" that both excited and confused me.

At about 3:49, there's a short guitar riff:

This is the fifth song I've found that riff in (which is the exciting part), but now I have even less of an answer to questions of influence (which is the confusing part).

I first found that riff in the Zombies' "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" (there are two versions on Into the Afterlife, but that riff is only in the second version - the one with fuzz guitar).  Then I found it in the Moody Blues' "So Deep within You" from On the Threshold of a Dream.  A few months later, I stumbled across it in the Tremeloes' "Hello World."  And then I also found it (albeit on piano) in Colin Blunstone's "Caroline Goodbye" from One Year.

"Visions of Johanna" predates all of those though.  It's from 1966.  "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" is from 1968 (but wasn't released until 2007).  "So Deep within You" and "Hello World" are both from 1969, and "Caroline Goodbye" is from 1971.

I'd postulated that there was some influence between "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "So Deep within You" because the Zombies and Moody Blues knew each other, and there's almost certainly some connection between "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "Caroline Goodbye" because Rod Argent was the leader of the Zombies and played piano for Blunstone (who was also in the Zombies).  I'd had trouble fitting in the Tremeloes though.

Finding that same phrase in this Dylan song still doesn't clear up everything, but it does introduce a new line of influence.  The Tremeloes covered Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" at the end of 1968, so they were familiar with him, possibly including that particular riff in "Visions of Johanna."

A strumming pattern in "Visions of Johanna" also stuck out to me.  I'm not sure if I have the chord phrasing right, but it's something like:

There's an Asus4 that modulates to an A major.  With a slight difference (modulating to A minor rather than A major) that same rhythm is in the Zombies' demo of "Call of the Night":

"Call of the Night" was later re-workt into (and put into a different key for) "Girl Help Me," but that feature is present there too.

I'm not sure if any of this really provides evidence that any of these musicians were influenced by an-other, but their songs at least share some similar features that I thought interesting.

Joey Dee & the Starliters' "Peppermint Twist, Pt. 1"

I just listened to Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits: 1962, and I noticed something about Joey Dee & the Starliters' "Peppermint Twist, Pt. 1."  Starting at about 1:36, there's a vocal tag, and one of the phrases in it is:

These are the same intervals that I noticed in three songs by the Isley Brothers just over a year ago ("Twistin' with Linda," "Respectable," and "Shout"):

As in "Shout," after the lead singer sings that phrase, it's repeated in the backing vocals.

"Respectable" and "Shout" are from 1959; "Twistin' with Linda" is from 1962; and "Peppermint Twist, Pt. 1" is also from 1962 (as the title of the album would suggest).  Chronologically, it's possible that the Starliters took that phrase from the Isleys, but I don't know anything about them, so I wouldn't argue that influence too strongly.

The Lemon Pipers' "Catch Me Falling"

An-other thing I noticed while listening to The Best of the Lemon Pipers is some more panning in "Catch Me Falling."  (It's really obvious, so I don't know how I'd never noticed it before.)  After the lines "I'm slippin' through" and "Stop me from fadin' away," the vocal track moves from side to side, reflecting the inconstancy.

The Lemon Pipers' "Through with You"

This morning I listened to The Best of the Lemon Pipers, and I noticed something about "Through with You."  At about 7:45, the drums, which had been in the left channel, pan to the right, and the bass, which had been in the right channel, pans to the left.  The first line after that is "My world takes on a different form."  That panning illustrates that musically.

The Guess Who's "Hang on to Your Life"

Earlier, I listened to The Best of the Guess Who and the spoken part at the end of "Hang on to Your Life" sounded sort of familiar to me:

They gaped upon me with their mouths
As a ravening and a roaring lion
I am poured out like water
And all my bones are out of joint
My heart is like wax
It is melted in the midst of my bowels
My strength is dried up like a potsherd
And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws
And thou hast brought me into the dust of death

I had to do some research, but I eventually found the source.  Translations may differ, but it's Psalm 22:13-15.

The Cowsills' "Gotta Get Away from It All"

An-other thing I noticed while listening to The Best of the Cowsills is that there's a descending trumpet part after the line "But I can't win; I just go down" in "Gotta Get Away from It All."  It emphasizes the "down-ness."

The Cowsills' "Meet Me at the Wishing Well"

This morning, I listened to The Best of the Cowsills and noticed a couple places in "Meet Me at the Wishing Well" where the melody emphasizes the lyrics.  After the line "I sense that love will someday have it's way" in the third verse, there's "So I'll stay" in the backing vocals.  The "stay" there lasts for about four measures; there's a considerable amount of time in the music, just as the words say in the line itself.

At the end of the fourth verse, there's an "away" where the first syllable is sung to an F and the second syllable is sung to an E, so there's almost a whole octave between the two syllables, illustrating distance.

The Band's "The Weight"

Yester-day, I listened to The Best of the Band, and this morning, I was thinking about "The Weight."  After the line "And you put the load right on me," there's a descending line in the piano part (A, G#, F#, E, D, I think), which seems to represent the oppressive weight of the load.

Bach: Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16

This is a very small point, but I just listened to Bach's Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16 and noticed a significant grammatical inversion in the first movement (also in the title).  It's "Herr Gott, dich loben wir," not "Herr Gott, wir loben dich."  Translated, "Herr Gott, dich loben wir" is "Lord, you praise we," which sounds odd because English doesn't really have different forms for different cases.  In a smoother translation, it's "Lord, you we praise."  Through that inversion, the focus is placed on God because He comes first in that phrase.*

---
*"Phrase" in a loose grammatical sense because "Herr Gott, dich loben wir" has a subject and a verb.  Technically, a grammatical phrase has - at most - only one of those.

Bach: Es ist Heil uns kommen her, BWV 9

This morning I listened to an-other Bach cantata (I've been listening to one a day since 1 February, and I'll be doing that until early August).  This time it was Es ist Heil uns kommen her, BWV 9.  In the second movement, I heard the word "Spiegel," which is German for mirror.  Because of that, I thought I knew the Biblical text used, but first I lookt up the notation so I could see the rest of the text for that section:

(notation found here)

It's not the best translation, but I translated

Wir sollten in Gesetze geh'n
Und dort als wie in einem Spiegel seh'n
Wie unsere Natur unartig sei
Und dennoch bleiben wir dabei

as

We were supposed to go into the laws
And there as in a mirror see
How our nature be ill-behaved
And nevertheless we stay with it

This wasn't the text I was expecting after I heard that "mirror."  I'd thought I would find the text from 1 Corinthians 13:12 - "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

To some degree, both texts have the same contrasting ideas of seeing perfectly and seeing imperfectly.  In the cantata, there's the perfect seeing of sinful nature through the law (what "We were supposed to... see") and the imperfect seeing involved with "nevertheless we stay with it."  It's the same notion as turning a blind eye.  In the 1 Corinthians text, there's perfect seeing in knowing God "face to face" and imperfect seeing of knowing Him only partly.

So while this Bach cantata doesn't use that 1 Corinthians text, by using the same image of a mirror, it seems to hint at it.

The Beatles' "Don't Pass Me By"

I'm listening to The Beatles' eponymous album, and the bass part for "Don't Pass Me By" caught my ear.  It's more elaborate than just the root and the fifth of whatever chord it's played beneath, but the root and the fifth are the most prominent notes.  It provides an alternating figure that seems to portray the footsteps that are mentioned in the first verse:

I listen for your footsteps comin' up the drive
Listen for your footsteps, but they don't arrive

I also noticed that there's a bit of a pause within the last line of the first two verses, so there's a separation between " I don't hear it" and "does it mean you don't love me anymore?" and between "I don't see you" and "does it mean you don't love me anymore?"  That pause emphasizes the not hearing and not seeing that are in the lyrics themselves.

Bach: Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?, BWV 8

This morning I listened to Bach's Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?, BWV 8, and I noticed something in the second movement.  There's a section of the text that recurs a few times; here it is in measures 60-69:

(notation found here)

I translated "Mein Leib neigt täglich sich zur Erden" as "My body daily bends to the earth."  To musically demonstrate this bending to the earth, the melody is descending.

The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride"

I'm listening to the Beatles' The Beatles 1 and working on my transcriptions of their songs for my Beatle-specific project.  I noticed something about the chorus of "Ticket to Ride."  Two of the four lines are "She oughta think twice; she oughta do right by me."  It's very similar to the last line of each verse (and also the title) of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," except that where Dylan says not to think twice, the Beatles say "she oughta think twice."  The "think twice" and "(al)right" are the two similar elements.

Apparently, "Ticket to Ride" is more of a John Lennon song than a Paul McCartney song, and since he mentioned that "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" from Help! (the same album that "Ticket to Ride" appears on) is from his "Dylan period," it seems a bit more likely that "Ticket to Ride" had some of that Dylan influence too.

The Who's "The Seeker"

I'm listening to the Who's The BBC Sessions, and I noticed something in "The Seeker" that should have been obvious but that I'd never really noticed (it's also in the studio version).  In the line "I've been searchin' low and high," there's a rather large interval between the two syllables of "high" (I think it's C# to A).  That interval encapsulates the search not only because of that span of distance (like the "low and high" search) but also because that A seems to be in the higher vocal range.

Bach: Wo soll ich fliehen hin, BWV 5

This morning I listened to Bach's Wo soll ich fliehen hin, BWV 5.  I thought I noticed something in the third movement, but I had to look up the notation and the text to make sure.

Part of the text for the third movement is "Ergieße dich reichlich du göttliche Quelle" ("Flow amply, you divine spring").  There's a leap of almost an octave (Bb to Ab, if I'm reading the notation correctly) for the first part of "Quelle" ("spring"), and a full octave (Ebs) in the bass part:

(notation found here)

That leap sort of musically represents the flowing or springing of the source.

Bach: Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4

This morning I listened to Bach's Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4.  I noticed that at the word "nichts" ("nothing") in the fourth movement, the instruments drop out, but - after this feature seemed familiar - I did some research and discovered that I actually made a note of that when I listened to this cantata last summer.  I still intended to write about it (on a different blog) this afternoon, so I lookt up the notation, but then I found something else.

Leading up to that "nichts," there are double, triple, and quadruple stops in the violin part:

(notation found here)

Purely as a musical feature, those multiple stops set up a contrast with the rests after "nichts," but I think there's also an extra-musical intent.  The text for this movement includes:

Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn, an unser Statt ist kommen,
Und hat die Sünde weggethan, damit dem Tod genommen
All' sein Recht und sein' Gewalt,
Da bleibet nichts denn Tod'sgestalt,
Den Stach’l hat er verloren.

Which I've translated as:

Jesus Christ, God's Son, has come in our stead
And has put away sin and with it taken death
All its [death's] authority and its power
There remains nothing because death
Has lost its sting.

The Biblical text is from 1 Corinthians 15:

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:  "Death is swallowed up in victory."  "O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?"  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)

After "sein' Gewalt" ("its power") the triple and quadruple stops occur, as if to demonstrate that power, and then they're absent once "da bleibet nichts" ("there remains nothing").

"Gewalt" can also be translated as "violence," which those triple and quadruple stops could also represent.

Bach: Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2

This morning I listened to Bach's Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2.  At the beginning of the fourth movement, there's a wrenching accidental on the second syllable of "verstört" and the accompanying violin part:

(notation found here)

I had to look up "verstört" to understand the reason behind that accidental though.  "Die Armen sind verstört" translates to "The poor [people] are distraught."  Those tonally-abrupt accidentals audibly demonstrate that agony.