The Searchers' "When I Get Home"

Near the beginning of last year, I realized that there can be some interesting connections between a song's tonic chord (the tonal home) and "home" in the lyrics.  I just listened to the Searchers' "When I Get Home," and - because I already know the chords - I found some interesting ones.

The song starts with a riff in F major, but then changes keys to E major.  There are some chords in the progression that don't really fit into E major though.  At the end of the first line (on the "see" in "just wait and see"), there's a D major, and at the end of the second line (on the "be" in "like it used to be") there's a G major.  For both of those though, that foreignness sort of works.  There's the anticipation in "just wait and see" (the tension of a D major chord in E major) and a recalling of days past in "like it used to be" (the otherness of a G major chord).  Similarly, in the second verse, that G major corresponds to the "go" in "wherever you go," providing a tonal example of that "wherever."  At the end of each of the first two verses, "When I get home" is sung to an E major chord, the tonic (or "home chord") in the key of E major.

After the bridge though, there's a key change to F major.  Musically, there's a sense of some movement happening, and the lyrics match that.  The first line of the third verse is "You'll hang on a little bit longer, and we'll see it through."  Like the odd chords in the first two verses, there's an Ab major chord in F major for the "you" in "There ain't no nothing can stop me from reachin' you," implying 1) the distance between the singer/speaker and his girl and 2) that not even a wonky tonality will keep him from her.  Then the third verse ends with "When I get home" repeated over an F major chord (the tonic, "home chord," now that the song's moved to F major).  The riff that started the song comes back, and the lyrics end, but then the song goes back to E major.  Because of that sudden and unexpected key change, the stability of the "home" that was just sung to the tonic chord is undermined, and the listener is left with a sort of unsettled feeling.  The song doesn't really resolve musically, and the singer/speaker is "five thousand miles from you" again.

The Searchers' "When You Walk in the Room"

I'm in the midst of the first disc of a two-disc set of the Searchers.  I've been transcribing a few of the songs (mostly just the ones I know how to play), and I noticed something in the bridge of "When You Walk in the Room."

The first two lines are:

Baby, it's a dream come true
Walkin' 'round 'longside of you

The missing letters in that second line struck me as interesting.  Instead of "Walking around alongside of you," it's "Walkin' 'round 'longside of you."  Of course, taking out those syllables might be purely for the sake of the syllable count.  "Walking around alongside of you" has two more syllables than "Walkin' 'round 'longside of you."  But I think those missing letters also betray that the "walkin' 'round" is a fantasy.

The line before says that "Walkin' 'round 'longside of you" would be "a dream come true," and in the next two lines, the singer/speaker admits that he can't even tell the girl "how much I care" and that he has only "the nerve to stare."  Clearly, the "walkin' 'round" is something that he's only imagining, and those missing letters seem to speak to that fact.  Like a dream compared to reality, there are some missing or changed elements.

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.

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).