Colin Blunstone's "A Sign from Me to You"

When I listened to the second disc of the 30th anniversary of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass this afternoon, the first vocal phrase in "The Art of Dying" sounded vaguely familiar to me.  In my head, I could hear an-other part that wasn't in Harrison's song, so I figured that I was remembering an-other song that it sounded like.  I eventually placed it as Colin Blunstone's "A Sign from Me to You," and I just lookt into the similarities.

The similarity is between only the first vocal phrase of each verse.  I didn't figure out the exact melody for either, but they're both (roughly) a rising and falling phrase (something like A, B, C, D, C, B, A).  They both have eleven syllables too.  The first line of "The Art of Dying" is "There'll come a time when all of us must leave here"  (in the liner notes, the lyrics are rendered with a line break ["There'll come a time / When all of us must leave here"], but there isn't really a break there as they're sung.  The first line of "A Sign from Me to You" is "You say all you wanted was a sign, my love."  The first lines of all the other verses in both songs also have eleven syllables.

In some interviews and things I've read, Blunstone has mentioned that he's a fan of the Beatles, but I don't know if that extends to their solo material.  This similarity with Harrison's "The Art of Dying" would seem to suggest so.

George Harrison's "Thanks for the Pepperoni"

I just finished listening to the 30th anniversary of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass.  I think I'd noticed before that the opening of "Thanks for the Pepperoni" seems to have been inspired by Chuck Berry, but after listening to it this time, I think I found a specific referent.  After the third phrase, there's a bit of string bending, and that same feature (also after the third phrase) is present on Berry's "Carol."

The Zombies' "I Love You"

I'm listening to a compilation album of the Drifters.  I figured I'd better transcribe their "Some Kind of Wonderful" because I noticed something about it last time I did this Collection Audit project, and in doing so, I noticed something else.

In the bridge, there are the lines "There's so much I wanna say / But the right words don't come my way."  It reminded me of "I love you / Yes I do, but the words won't come" and "My words should explain / But my words won't come" in the Zombies' "I Love You" (written by Chris White, their bass player).  I'll cite the same source I cited two years ago:  in the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Paul Atkinson (their guitarist) says, "We hung out in Ben E King and the Drifters' dressing room, and we'd play poker and sing and play guitar."  "Some Kind of Wonderful" is from 1961; that Atkinson quote refers to 1964; and "I Love You" is from 1965, so the chronology would allow for that influence.

This also calls into question something I noticed a few years ago.  There's a similar line in "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You" from Colin Blunstone's The Ghost of You and Me album.  It's "It's alright if the words won't come."  Since Blunstone is the leader singer for the Zombies and wrote "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You," I thought that it was likely that he took that line from "I Love You," even if just subconsciously.  But now that I found a similar line in a Drifters' song, I'm not so sure.  Two years ago, I postulated that this same Drifters' song influenced Blunstone's "Wonderful" from his Journey album.

I feel it worth noting that the Zombies recorded a version of Blunstone's "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You" (titled just "Never Get over You") on their new album Still Got That Hunger, so that Drifters' influence - if it's viable - has caught up with them again.

Electric Light Orchestra's "Livin' Thing"

I'm halfway through a compilation album of Electric Light Orchestra (All over the World: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra).  After a post I wrote here two years ago (after listening to this same album), I started a project where I look into ELO's music in some depth (I haven't gotten that far yet), so I've been transcribing these too.

I noticed the line "Takin' a dive 'cause you can help but slide, floating downstream" in "Livin' Thing," and I think it's a small lyrical reference to the Beatles.  The "floating downstream" part is very similar to the first line of "Tomorrow Never Knows" - "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream."  In my project, I've found more than a few references to the Beatles, so I'm more confident that this is a reference rather than just a coincidental resemblance.

Jefferson Airplane's "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil"

This morning I listened to Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's.  There's one line in "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil" that had always sounded familiar to me, and after listening to it this time, I finally looked it up.  The line in question is "Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit and think about you and me."  I finally placed it, but the chronology didn't work out because I knew it from "Halfway Down the Stairs" - a song on The Muppet Show, which was ten years after this album.  But I looked that up and discovered that "Halfway Down the Stairs" is an A.A. Milne poem set to music.  I'm not sure if Jefferson Airplane took their line from Milne's poem or the song it became, but it does seem to have its origin with Milne.

Roy Orbison's "Bye Bye Love"

I actually listened to Roy Orbison's "Bye Bye Love" a few days ago, but I got thinking about it again this morning.  I'd forgotten that his melody is slightly different compared to the Everly Brothers' version (which is the well-known version).  Orbison's version is from 1960, and the Everly Brothers' is from 1957, so theirs pre-dates Orbison's, but I think the way Orbison changed the melody improves the song.

In the Everly Brothers' version, "Bye bye, happiness" and "Hello, loneliness" are sung to the same D, D, C#, B, A phrase, but Orbison has a different melody for each.  He sings "Bye bye, happiness" to that same D, D, C#, B, A phrase, but he sings "Hello, loneliness" to the phrase D, D, C#, A, F#.  Not only does it make the song a bit more interesting (because there's a new phrase, not just the same one repeated), but it also outlines an F# minor chord (F#, A, C#) and since the song is in A major (for which F# minor is the relative minor), that outline emphasizes the sadness described in the lyrics.

Handel: Recorder Sonata in B flat major, HWV 377

Over the last week, I've been listening to a six-CD set of Handel's chamber music that I got for Christmas.  I was surprised to find that I already knew one of the melodies in a Violin Sonata (from a CD my dad often plays in his car), but when I listened to the last disc this evening, I found that same melody again.  So I looked up the notation for both pieces and found that - aside from a handful of measures - they differ only by the key they're in and the instrument they're played on.

To-day I found it in the third movement of Handel's Recorder Sonata in B flat major, HWV 377:

(notation found here)

It was a bit difficult to compare this to the other piece in which I found that melody - the fourth movement of Handel's Violin Sonata in A major, HWV 361 - not only because I'm not that good at reading notation but also because the only notation available is Handel's manuscript, which wasn't as easy to read as printed notation would be:

(notation found here)

I found differences in the end of the fourth measure, the fifth measure, the end of the tenth measure, the end of the thirteen measure, and the fourteenth measure.  The differences between the respective thirteenth and fourteenth measures is one of rhythm, not of pitch, so I think that change might be because of certain qualities of the instrument in question.  Longer notes seem more appropriate for recorder; shorter notes for violin.

It wasn't until after discovering all of this and doing my research that I looked in the extensive liner notes (which I haven't read yet) and found that this borrowing is noted.  As usual, I had my order backwards though; the recorder sonata (the second thing I found that phrase in) pre-dates the violin sonata (where I first found it).

Les Paul's "I'm Sitting on Top of the World"

This morning, I listened to the second disc of a three-disc set of Les Paul.  It's not that big of a feature, but for the first time, I noticed that in "I'm Sitting on Top of the World" there's a descending guitar phrase during the line "Just like Humpty Dumpty, I’m ready to fall," portraying the falling.

Spike Jones' "You'll Always Hurt the One You Love"

I'm listening to the first of a three-disc set of Spike Jones (I have a bunch in this series, so I'm listening to all of the first discs, and then I'll listen to the second discs and then the third discs).  I noticed something in "You'll Always Hurt the One You Love" (the CD case has it printed as "You'll Always Hurt the One You Love," but the Mills Brothers' version of the same song [and the lyrics in Jones' version itself] is "You Always Hurt the One You Love," so I think that "you'll" might be a typo).

One of the couplets is "You always break the kindest heart / With a hasty word you can't recall."  In the middle of the song, where there's a different singer who adds a lot of embellishments to the lyrics, "recall" is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable.  It got me thinking about that word, and I realized that two different meanings of "recall" work in that lyric.  I'd always understood it in the sense of "taking back," but because of that different emphasis, I realized that it could also be the sense of "remembering."  So either "You always break the kindest heart / With a hasty word you can't take back" or "You always break the kindest heart / With a hasty word that you can't remember."

The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"

I'm listening to the Beatles' Abbey Road.  It's not that great of a point, but I noticed that the "heavy"s in "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" have melismas at the end, so it's as if they're bending under the weight that lyric describes.