The Andrews Sisters' "Where Have We Met Before?"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of the Andrews Sisters, and I think I found some allusions in "Where Have We Met Before?"

The second verse begins with the lines: "It might have been way back in Nagasaki / Where women wicky wacky 'round your door."  I think this is a reference to the song "Nagasaki."  Apparently this is a jazz standard, but I have only Django Reinhardt's version, which has the lines "Back in Nagasaki where the fellas chew tobaccy / And the women wicky wacky woo."

The third verse of "Where Have We Met Before?" begins with "It might have been in Paris in the springtime," which I think is a reference to "April in Paris."  It's not as direct as the allusion to "Nagasaki," but April is in spring, so the temporal elements do match.

I lookt up the dates for these songs, and I think the chronology allows for the allusions.  The dates I found say that "Nagasaki" is from 1928; "April in Paris" is from 1932; and the Andrews Sisters' "Where Have We Met Before?" is from 1938.

I can't fully articulate it, but there's something fitting about referencing other songs in a song that asks, "Where have we met before?"

Wilco's "Born Alone"

Yester-day I listened to Wilco's Roadcase 002 - 2012-07-08 Geneva, IL.  It's a live recording of a Wilco concert I attended some years ago.  Anyway, I noticed the phrase "Mine eyes have seen" in "Born Alone" (from The Whole Love), and I realized that this same phrase is in the first line of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" - "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."  I lookt up the lyrics of "Born Alone" on Wilco's website, and I found "Mine eyes deceiving glory," which also bears some resemblance to that line in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

I'd previously noticed the phrase "The finger, divine extremity," which I always thought was a reference to Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam."  I still find the song enigmatic, but I'm pretty sure these are meant as religious-inspired images.

The Yardbirds' "He's Always There"

This morning I listened to the Yardbirds' Roger the Engineer, and I noticed something about the melody in "He's Always There."  The first two lines of the "I'd like to get to know you, sure..." section have the same melody except for the last note.  They're both E G B A G A B, but the first (and third) line ends with an E note where the second line ends with a D.  For the second line, the melody goes higher, which musically represents the "one step more" mentioned in the line itself ("And take this thing just one step more").

The other instruments sort of underline this representation too.  For that section, the bass plays the same notes that are sung, and the guitar part plays the last three, adding further emphasis.  For the first (and third) line, it's A B E, but for the second, it's A B D.

Argent's "Celebration"

This morning I listened to Argent's Ring of Hands, and I noticed something about "Celebration," the first track.  The first couple lines ("Celebration / An invitation") are sung by just one voice, but then more voices join in for the next lines ("To come and join in / The ring of hands together"), so there's a musical representation of that "join[ing] in."

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas

This morning I listened to Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and I noticed something about "Come away, fellow sailors" at the beginning of Act 3.  The text is:

Come away, fellow sailors, come away
Your anchors be weighing
Time and tide will admit no delaying
Take a bowsey short leave of your nymphs on the shore
And silence their mourning
With vows of returning
But never intending to visit them more

This continues with some variation on "But never intending to visit them more," but otherwise that's the entirety of the text.  I guessed at the line breaks, judging by what words receive capital letters in the notation I have (found here).

"Mourning" and "returning" don't rhyme perfectly.  At best, it's a slant rhyme.  That imperfection in rhyming seems to betray the sailors' "never intending to visit them more."  If there were a perfect rhyme there, it would imply the sailors' faithfulness to their "nymphs on the shore."

Bobby Darin's "Mighty Mighty Man"

Last night I listened to the first disc of a two-CD set of Bobby Darin titled Purely... Bobby Darin.  Last time I did Collection Audit, I postulated that "Mighty Mighty Man" took some lyrical inspiration from "Good Rockin' Tonight."  This time, I noticed that "Mighty Mighty Man" also has the exact same line that starts Little Richard's "Rip It Up."  The second line in the third verse is "It's Saturday night, and I just got paid."  I lookt up the release dates, and chronologically, this influence is possible.  Little Richard's "Rip It Up" is from 1956 (and apparently many other artists recorded it in the following years), and "Mighty Mighty Man" is from 1958.

Because I found that these two lines match more or less exactly (there might be a "well" or an "a-" differentiating them), I'm more confident in what I said in my post from two years ago.  It seems more likely that Darin took some lyrical phrases from "Good Rockin' Tonight" and "Rip It Up" rather than both of these similarities in the lyrics of "Mighty Mighty Man" being just coincidences.

The Decemberists' "Of Angels and Angles"

I just listened to the Decemberists' Picaresque and noticed a small thing about "Of Angels and Angles."  The "aways"s in the lines "Down we go away / Away" have melismas.  The first is just F# G F#, but the second is F# G F# E D G.  Both - but especially the second - give a sense of the movement (downward movement in particular, since the phrase descends) that's mentioned in the previous line: "And, darlin', we go a-drownin'."

Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Sam Cooke titled Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964, and I noticed something small about "Chain Gang."  There's a melisma for "down" in the line "Till the sun is goin' down" in the bridge.  Instead of a single syllable, it's sung to two (the notes are A and G), so there's a musical representation of the sun's descent.

Electric Light Orchestra's Out of the Blue

This morning I listened to Electric Light Orchestra's Out of the Blue.  Last March I started a project where I look into ELO's music specifically (which I started because of this project, actually), and I've already written a fair amount about Out of the Blue there, but I noticed some more things this morning.

"Starlight"

I've had this album for years (it was actually the first original ELO album I got), but it wasn't until this morning that I deciphered the line "You've gotta stop" in "Starlight."  Had I noticed that sooner, I probably would have understood long ago that there's a musical/lyrical connection there.  After "You've gotta stop," the music stops before the lyric continues with "Foolin' around."

"Big Wheels"

There's a musical connection between "Big Wheels" and "Steppin' Out."  After some measures of tied whole notes, the bass part in "Steppin' Out" has this figure:

(click here for a larger image)

I use the MIDI component of my digital audio workstation to make these examples of notation, and where I would have tied a half note and a dotted quarter note, it put two dots on a half note.  I guess it ends up with the same value, but I haven't seen double-dotted notes anywhere else.

When the bass part finally starts in "Big Wheels," every other measure has the same rhythm as that in the bass part in "Steppin' Out."  The phrase also alternates between fourths, although here it's a semi-tone higher:

(click here for a larger image)

"Birmingham Blues"

Near the beginning, there's the line "Yeah, I've been rollin' like a stone," which recalls "Like a rollin' stone" in "Steppin' Out."

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Both of those last two things make the album more coherent.

Simon & Garfunkel's "A Most Peculiar Man"

From August 11th to the 13th, I listened to Simon & Garfunkel's three-disc Old Friends set (I listened to a disc a day).  Yester-day I was thinking about "A Most Peculiar Man," and I realized something about the melody.  It ascends for the first part of the line "She lived upstairs from him."  The live version on Old Friends is in a different key (D major, although it sounds a bit out-of-tune) from the studio version on Sounds of Silence (Db major), so in the live version, "She lived upstairs" is sung to the phrase E F# G A where it's Eb F Gb Ab in the studio version (those are Paul Simon's parts at least; I think Garfunkel's harmony is a third lower, so C# D E F# in D major and C Db Eb F in Db major).  At first, I assumed that the live version on Old Friends is the same recording from Live from New York City, 1967, but closer listening reveals that they're different recordings, although the Live from New York City, 1967 version is in D major too.  In any case (and in any key), that melody ascends as if to show Mrs. Reardon (the spelling of which I'm guessing on) going up the stairs, while the titular man (the "from him," sung to F notes in Db major or F# notes in D major) remains below.

Colin Blunstone's "Say You Don't Mind"

A couple days ago I listened to Colin Blunstone's One Year (on vinyl, even), and I noticed some things about "Say You Don't Mind."  I knew there are melismas during certain parts of the verses, but I found connections with the lyrics that I hadn't noticed before.  The two melismas in question are for "growin'" (E D# C# C#) and "goin'" (E D# C# C# B A, I think) in the lines "I've been doing some growin' / But I'm scared of you goin'."  The melisma for "growin'" sort of indicates the breadth of experience or knowledge that the singer/speaker claims he now has, and the melisma for "goin'" portrays the leaving of the titular "you."  Both encompass a distance in pitch rather than a single note, which would imply staying the same or staying of a stationary sort, respectively.

Andrew Bird's "Are You Serious"

This morning I listened to Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire's Oh! The Grandeur, and I think I found an-other instance of Bird's borrowing from his past work (when I listened to Oh! The Grandeur last Collection Audit, I discovered that he reworkt "The Confession" into "The Privateers" on Noble Beast).  The pizzicato part that starts "Feetlips" sounds a lot like the pizzicato part that starts the title track of Are You Serious.  I spent a bit of time trying to figure out the parts, and while I'm not super confident in what I came up with, I think they're something like this:

"Feetlips":

"Are You Serious":

In the same rhythm, there's a two-octave jump, then down a sixth, up a third, and down a fifth.  Aside from the initial note, that phrase is repeated in "Feetlips," but the "Are You Serious" part continues descending in a skipping manner.

I should mention that I don't actually have Are You Serious yet.  I listened to it when it was on NPR's First Listen, but I've become familiar with the songs via Bird's radio appearances.  I figured out (or tried to figure out) the part in "Are You Serious" based on this performance on KFUV.

Simon & Garfunkel's "Richard Cory"

This morning I listened to the first disc of Simon & Garfunkel's Old Friends three-disc set, and (probably because I was working on transcribing it) I noticed a couple things about "Richard Cory," from the Sounds of Silence album.

The contrast between Richard Cory and the singer/speaker is one of the critical points of the lyrics, but I noticed that the contrast is also illustrated in the length of the lines.  Each of the lines in the sections that describe Richard Cory is at least fourteen syllables, but the lines that describe the narrator are all under ten syllables each.

I also noticed that there's a contrast in the vocabulary.  The sections that describe Richard Cory have hardly any repetition.  Really, there's only "Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show," and that doesn't illustrate a scarcity; instead it portrays Richard Cory as someone who - because he's wealthy - can attend various spectacles of entertainment.  The sections that describe the narrator have a paucity of words.  Nearly all of the lines start with "But I," "And I," or "Oh, I."  Cursing is repeated in sequential lines:  "And I curse the life I'm livin' / And I curse my poverty," and wishing in three more:  "And I wish that I could be / Oh, I wish that I could be / Oh, I wish that I could be."  While this repetition demonstrates the caliber of the singer/speaker's dissatisfaction with his lot and the earnestness of his wishing that he could be like Richard Cory, it also shows that he's limited in what he has and what he can acquire because he's merely a worker in Richard Cory's factory.

I feel it's worth mentioning that while this song is based on Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Richard Cory," Robinson's poem doesn't have these features.  In the poem, each line is ten syllables, and there aren't distinct sections focusing on either Richard Cory or the speaker.

The Zombies' "Hung up on a Dream"

This afternoon I listened to the 30th anniversary edition of the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, and I noticed something about "Hung up on a Dream."  There's an interval of a fourth between "sights" and "above" in the line "And showed me strangest clouded sights above."  "Sights" is sung to an A, and the two syllables of "above" are sung to D notes.  The distance between the pitches of those notes helps to give a sense of the spatial distance mentioned in the lyric.

Buddy Holly's "You Are My One Desire"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Buddy Holly titled Oh Boy, and I noticed something about "You Are My One Desire."  The "love" in the line "You'll never know how much I love you" has a melisma (the notes are B A G).  At first I just thought that because there are multiple notes instead of the single syllable with which "love" is pronounced when spoken, there's a musical representation of the greatness of the singer/speaker's love.  But then I realized that there's more to it than that.  When I was looking at the lyrics I'd transcribed, there was no indication that the "love" in that line has a melisma, and that itself mirrors the lyric.  "You'll never know how much I love you" when the words are written, but there's some indication of it (although that might not be an adequate representation either) when those words are sung.

Badfinger's No Dice

I recently listened to Badfinger's No Dice twice (on Sunday and again this morning).  I have two copies, and the bonus tracks are different, so I listened to both.  The first time I listened to it, I noticed that a number of the songs mention giving and taking in the same line, so when I listened to the album a second time, I made notes of these.  There are three.  "Blodwyn" has the line "And say you'll take from me what I will give to you;" "Better Days" has the line "You give all you want, but you take away what's mine;" and "We're for the Dark" has the line "If you're gonna take, then you have to give."  Each of these instances doesn't seem to have any connection to the others, but giving and taking are certainly recurring actions on the album.

The Zombies' Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} The 40th Anniversary Concert

Over the last two days, I listened to the two discs of the Zombies' Odessey & Oracle {Revisited}: The 40th Anniversary Concert.  I noticed some things (with melismas, naturally) on two songs on the first disc.

"Maybe after He's Gone"

The "breathe" in the line "I feel I'll never breathe again" is sung to two syllables instead of just one.  There's a deliberateness in how it's sung, almost as if the speaker/singer wants to draw out the breaths he has now because he feels there will soon be a time he can't breathe at all (the next line is "I feel life's gone from me").

"Tell Her No"

The "charms" in the line "And if she tempts you with her charms" has a melisma.  Instead of the one syllable it's spoken with, there are multiple syllables, as if to make the "charms" musically alluring.

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Both of these features are on the original recordings that the Zombies did in the '60s.  However, on this live album, the melisma'd "breathe" in "Maybe after He's Gone" is more prominent, and the melisma to which the "charms" in "Tell Her No" is sung actually has more notes than the original recording.  (It's G# E F# in the original; G# F# E F# in this live version.)

The Zombies' New World

A couple days ago I listened to the Zombies' New World album, and I noticed two things.

"Nights on Fire"

I'm not fully convinced of this myself, but I think the line "Only believe and the door will open wide" might be a reference to the Bible, specifically "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8).  A couple of the other songs mention Heaven (although perhaps not in a religious sense), which seems to strengthen the possibility of this being an intentional Biblical reference.

"Knowing You"

In the line "Facing up to every day now, I will never be alone" there's a harmony part for "be alone," so the musical arrangement mirrors the lyric.  The speaker/singer says that he won't be alone, and there's an-other voice there to demonstrate that.

The Beatles' Revolver

Apparently, 5 August was the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' Revolver, so I skipped ahead in my listening (I'm currently in the midst of the albums that start with N) to listen to it on its release date.  I hadn't listened to it for over two years, and I found a lot of things to write about.

"I'm Only Sleeping"

The phrase "float upstream" is sung to an ascending phrase (Bb, Db, Gb), so there's a musical/lyrical mirroring there.  This might seem like a small point, but I'll get back to it.

"Love You To"

The first two verses end with a melisma'd "me" (the lines are "You don't get time to hang a sign on me" and "But what you've got means such a lot to me").  I'm not sure if this was intentional on George Harrison's part, but it recalls the melisma'd and line-ending "me" in "What You're Doing" from Beatles for Sale ("And should you need a love that's true / It's me").

"Here, There, and Everywhere"

The line "Running my hands through her hair" sounded familiar to me, and it wasn't too long before I placed it.  There's an identical line near the end of Colin Blunstone's "She Loves the Way They Love Her" (on One Year).  Both Blunstone and his former Zombies band mate Rod Argent (who wrote "She Loves the Way They Love Her") have listed the Beatles as an influence, and between that and both songs' rhyming "hair" with "there" ("There / Running my hands through her hair" in "Here, There, and Everywhere" and "Running my hands through her hair / And knowing she'll always be there" in "She Loves the Way They Love Her"), I think this is more than just a coincidence.  At best, it might be an instance of subconscious influence.

"And Your Bird Can Sing"

I was either only dimly aware of this or had forgotten, but it was very obvious to me as I listened to "And Your Bird Can Sing" this time that the line "You say you've seen seven wonders" is a reference to the Seven Wonders of the World.

"For No One"

I don't know how to play "For No One" (yet), so this isn't as precise as it could be, but I don't think the song resolves at the end.  There isn't a sense of completion, which (somewhat literally) underscores the disconnected feeling in lines such as "You stay home / She goes out" and "And in her eyes, you see nothing."

"I Want to Tell You"

I was working on transcribing this song as I listened to it, so the pleonasm in the line "All those words they seem to slip away" was especially evident.  Instead of the more fluid and more grammatically correct "All those words seem to slip away," there's a redundant "they" in the line.  The song itself is about problems in communicating, so that pleonastic "they" actually emphasizes that sentiment.

"Tomorrow Never Knows"

The phrase "float downstream" is sung to a descending phrase (E, C, G), so there's a musical/lyrical mirroring there.  Furthermore, there's a parallelism between the descending "float downstream" here and the ascending "float upstream" in "I'm Only Sleeping."  So while it's a rather simple feature, it's used to a greater effect because there's that parallelism.

Electric Light Orchestra's A New World Record

Yester-day I listened to Electric Light Orchestra's A New World Record, and I noticed something about the string parts in a couple songs.  Aside from the key, the same string part is in "So Fine" and "Livin' Thing."  I guessed on the keys based on the notes in the parts themselves, but here they are in notation (with the disclaimer that I might be wrong; notation still isn't my strong point).

"So Fine"

"Livin' Thing"

Having what is virtually the same part in two songs (which are back-to-back in the track listing) helps give the album a greater consistency.