Wagner: Die Walküre

I've spent much of to-day listening to Wagner's Die Walküre.  This is only the second time I've listened to it, and I haven't really tried to understand the story yet, but I did notice a small thing about a particular phrase (mostly because I happened to glance at the title of the movement).

Near the beginning of Act 3, Scene 1, Brünnhild sings, "Schützt mich und helft in höchster Not!"  ("Protect me and help in most dire need!"):

(notation found here)

The word "höchster" here is what caught my interest.  Paired with "Not" ("need," "distress," &c.), it's most likely to be translated as "most dire" (as I've done above*), but in other contexts, "höchster" would be translated as "highest."  In the melody here, the first note to which "höchster" is sung is the highest in the phrase, which emphasizes that superlative and mirrors that alternate meaning.

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*In double checking my translation with my German-English dictionary, I also found that "höchster" can be translated as "deepest" in some contexts, but considering that the note to which it's sung in this phrase is the highest, it would be something of a musical/lingual contradiction to translate it as such.

The Easybeats' "St. Louis"

I'm surprised I didn't notice this either, but the Easybeats' "St. Louis" starts with "Countrymen, friends, lend me your ears," which is pretty close to Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" (III.ii.73) in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

The Easybeats' "Good Times"

I just started listening to a two-disc compilation album of the Easybeats.  I'm surprised I never noticed this before, but a line in "Good Times" is "Long Tall Sally's gonna be with Slim," which is a pretty obvious reference to Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally."

Bread's "Aubrey"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Bread and noticed something in "Aubrey."  The "past" in the line "Catching all the words but then the meaning going past" has a glissando; it's sung to three pitches rather than just one.  It slides from F# to E to D, which conveys the movement of passing that the lyric mentions.

The Mamas & the Papas' Deliver

This morning I listened to The Mamas & the Papas' Deliver and found a few things.  None of them are that significant though, so I'm putting them all together in one post.

"Dedicated to the One I Love"

There's a fairly large interval between the two syllables of "away" in the first line ("While I'm far away from you, my baby"), which helps to demonstrate the distance.  It's a fourth (D to G).

"Free Advice"

The "ground" in the line "And keep your ear to the ground" has a melisma, and the later notes have lower pitches (F to E to D), so as the word it sung, it goes lower, just like the line itself says to do.

"Look through My Window"

I actually didn't notice this until transcribing the song to look at what I had discovered, but the end of line "To the street below" descends, as if looking down on the street.  "Street below" is sung to a F Db Ab phrase.

What I noticed when I listened to the song this morning is that the "go" in the line "Someplace to go" has a melisma, suggesting the movement that stated plainly in the line itself.  It's actually the same descent as the "ground" in "Free Advice," although there's also a C# at the end.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young's "Almost Cut My Hair"

This morning I listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young's Déjà Vu and noticed a small thing about "Almost Cut My Hair."  There's some alliteration in the lines "When I finally get myself together / I'm gonna get down in that sunny, southern weather," specifically the "sunny, southern."  Experiencing that weather is described as a reward of sorts of "get[ting] myself together," and those adjectives' being alliterative furthers the sense of harmonious well-being.

Tommy James & the Shondells' "Ball of Fire"

Yester-day I listened to a compilation album of Tommy James & the Shondells and found a couple things about "Ball of Fire."  At first, I noticed that the second "down" in the repeated line "Tumblin' down" has two syllables and that the second syllable is lower than the first (although I think it's just D to C), so it sort of represents that "Tumblin' down."  But in transcribing the lyrics, I found something else.  I think the line "As it was, so it shall be" is inspired by the doxology:  "As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever."  I've read that "Crystal Blue Persuasion" was inspired by the book of Revelation, and in Me, the Mob, and the Music, James talks about religion a bit, so that influence would make sense based on what I know.

The Zombies' "Indication"

The third (and final) thing I noticed while listening to the Zombies' The Decca Stereo Anthology is in the backing vocals in "Indication."  For the last line of the verses, the backing vocals have a consist descent.  For the first two verses, that melodic arc emphasizes the lyrics:  "Tied down every day and every night" and "I won't be the one to settle down."  Both have "down" in the line, and the melody descends.

The Zombies' "Don't Cry for Me"

The second thing I noticed when I listened to the Zombies' The Decca Stereo Anthology yester-day was some melismas in "Don't Cry for Me."  I'd noticed the descending melisma on "down" before, but apparently I'd neglected to recognize the melisma'd "heart" in the line before it:  "Don't break your heart / Thinking you have let me down."

The descending melisma for "down" is easily explained as a musical representation of the "down," but I was initially confounded by the melisma'd "heart."  The full line is "Don't break your heart," but that melisma does break the heart (into notes of different pitches).

After thinking about it for a while, the only explanation I can come up with (aside from just a simple vocal embellishment) is that the sentiment there is disingenuous.  The singer/speaker says, "Don't break your heart," but he doesn't really mean it.

The Zombies' "I Don't Want to Know"

Yester-day I listened to the Zombies' The Decca Stereo Anthology and noticed a few things.  The first was in "I Don't Want to Know."  There are the lines "I believe what I want / No matter what you do," and I'd always understood the "do" there as representing an action.  "I believe what I want / No matter what action you perform."  But listening to it yester-day, I realized that it could be a sort of abbreviation standing in for the same verb, so "I believe what I want / No matter what you believe."

The singer/speaker's steadfastness in his belief remains the same, but - depending on how that second line is parsed - he's resisting different things.