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.