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.