Ivan & Alyosha's It's All Just Pretend

Last night I listened to Ivan & Alyosha's It's All Just Pretend and found a couple Biblical references.

"Bury Me Deep"

Here, there's the line "I'm learning that the sins of the father will trickle down," which I think is just a rephrased version of a phrase in Exodus 20:5-6:  "You shall not bow down to them [carved images] or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."  I don't think the contexts for these two phrases are the same, but the phrases themselves have a certain similarity.

"Drifting Away"

The phrase "the least of these" in the line "I guess that I'm the least of these with my empty cup" comes from Matthew 25.  The whole section (verses 31-46) is too long to quote in full, but either caring or not caring for "the least of these" is an important distinction between the blessed and the cursed.  Again, the contexts are different, but here the phrase matches exactly.

The Kinks' "Where Have All the Good Times Gone"

I'm currently listening to a compilation album of the Kinks (and transcribing some of them), and I noticed something about "Where Have All the Good Times Gone."  The first line in the last verse is "Well, yesterday was such an easy game for you to play."  I'm pretty sure this is a reference to the Beatles' "Yesterday" and its lines "Yesterday / Love was such an easy game to play."

The chronology works out.  The index of release dates in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions lists the release date of the Help! album (with "Yesterday") as 6 August 1965, and the liner notes to the deluxe edition of The Kink Kontroversy list the release date of the "Till the End of the Day" b/w "Where Have All the Good Times Gone" single as 19 November 1965.

Kooks' "Seaside"

This afternoon I listened to the Kooks' Inside In/Inside Out.  I noticed something about the bridge of "Seaside" that should have been obvious.  The "away" in the line "But I find it hard to love you, girl, when you're far away" has a melisma (as does the single "away" after that line).  They're both sung to a Bb Bb Ab Gb Eb phrase, which helps to portray distance.

Argent's In Deep

Last night I listened to Argent's In Deep, and I noticed two small things about two songs.

"God Gave Rock and Roll to You"

The first line of the first verse is "Love your friend and love your neighbor," and the "Love your neighbor" part is a quote from the Bible.  I think it's actually in a couple places, but this is the first one I thought of:

But when the Pharisees heard that he [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.  And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"  And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:34-40)

For what it's worth, last year, I wrote about what I think are some more Biblical references (to the Sermon on the Mount) in "It's Only Money, Pt. 1" and "It's Only Money, Pt. 2" (a lot of the lyrics are the same in both songs).

"Losing Hold"

I'm surprised I hadn't noticed this before, but "slide" in the line "Let my fingers slide" has a melisma.  Instead of being sung as just one syllable, it's sung as two, and the note changes from an A to a B, so the word "slide" is itself sliding between those two pitches.

The Moody Blues' "House of Four Doors (Part 1)"

Yester-day I listened to the Moody Blues' In Search of the Lost Chord, and I discovered two things about "House of Four Doors (Part 1)."

I'm not sure to what degree, but it seems that the inscription on the last door bears some resemblance to the Gate of Hell in Dante's Inferno.  In "House of Four Doors (Part 1)," there are the lines "Enter in, all ye who seek to find within / As the plaque said on the last door."  It seems to be the opposite of "All hope abandon, ye who enter in!" (Canto III, line 9).

The other thing I noticed is the melody to which the middle section ("House of Four Doors / I could live there forever...") is sung.  When I first listened to this album two years ago, I wrote about a piano part later in this song that I thought took a phrase from George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.  This "House of Four Doors / I could live there forever..." section uses the same melody, and it has more of a resemblance to Gershwin's.  The piano part has just the three note diatonic ascent and octave fall, but the vocal melody - like the phrase in the Rhapsody in Blue - has a diatonic ascent after that octave fall.  While they're in different keys and the note values are different, the intervals are the same.  I still haven't been able to find the Rhapsody in Blue score (I've found a lot pieces that quote it but have been unable to look at the original notation to see how they all compare), but here's some notation I made for this particular section of "House of Four Doors (Part One)":

(click here for a larger image)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's "Promise"

I just listened to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Howl, and I noticed the line "But tread softly, you tread on my dreams" in "Promise."  I knew this was a reference to a poem, but I had to look up which specific one.  It's Yeats' "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," specifically the last two lines: "I have spread my dreams under your feet; / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

On Christmas Music

This is more of a general thing, but I probably wouldn't have been thinking about this were it not for this project, so it makes sense to post it here.

This morning I listened to an album of Herbert Howells' church music and then an album of some music from the Home Alone movies (I don't think it really qualifies as a soundtrack, but it's pretty close), and I knew that later to-day I was going to listen to a Bach cantata and an album of Hildegard von Binden canticles.  All of this made me think about sacred music, and it occurred to me that Christmas music occupies a sort of liminal space with regard to that.  At its core, Christmas music is kind of religious because it's about a religious observance, but on the other hand, there's often not very much about that religious observance in Christmas songs.  Take "White Christmas" or "Blue Christmas" as examples.  Both are (literally) nominally about Christmas, but there's nothing about Christmas in them.

The Rip Chords' "Here I Stand"

I listened to an album of the Rip Chords a couple days ago, but this afternoon I was thinking about "Here I Stand" and realized something about the bridge.  The "so" in the first line ("I love you so") has a melisma, which emphasizes the degree of the loving.  The "so" is drawn out to various pitches to represent the greatness of singer/speaker's love.

In the first and third iteration of the bridge, the "I love you" is all sung to an F, and the "so" is sung to a G F G F Eb phrase.  In the second iteration, the "I love you" is sung to a Db, and the "so" to Eb F Eb Db Eb.  The specific melismas are different, but the idea behind both is the same.

The Fratellis' "Stragglers Moon"

I just listened to the Fratellis' Here We Stand.  At the beginning of "Stragglers Moon," there's a sort of chant of "She can't help it; the girl can't help it."  I think this might be a reference to Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It," which also has this recurring line.

I don't know much about the Fratellis, so I couldn't say if Little Richard had any influence on them, but the lyric matches exactly and the music is sort of similar.  I think the notation for it is still above my skill level (and I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out), but - musically - the phrases are based on the root, fifth, and seventh (either dominant seventh or major seventh).  Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" is in C major, and the phrase "She can't help it; the girl can't help it" sung to G C B C; G C C B C.  If I have "Stragglers Moon" right, it's in E major (at the beginning, it alternates between E major and F major, which doesn't really establish a key).  There, "She can't help it; the girl can't help it" is sung to B E E D; B E E E F.

Like I said, I don't know much about the Fratellis, so I don't know if Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" influenced their "Stragglers Moon," but the phrases are pretty similar.

The Decemberists' Her Majesty

I just listened to the Decemberists' Her Majesty and noticed a couple things.

"The Gymnast, High above the Ground"

The "light brigade" in the line "Waiting out this long light brigade" is a phrase from Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (I'm not sure if he coined the phrase, but his poem is probably the reason it's well-known).  I don't think it's used the same way in the song though.

About a year ago, I found an-other instance of the same phrase in "Cavalry Captain" from What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World.  There, it's "we'll away on the light brigade."  Again, I don't think it's used in the same sense in which Tennyson used it, but it is the same phrase.

"Song for Myra Goldberg"

This is just a minor point, but the line "Listen in as shin-kicked Jim relates his story sad" could be parsed two different ways, hinging on the "sad" in "Jim relates his story sad."  It could be either inversion ("his story sad" instead of "his sad story") or a flat adverb ("Jim relates his story sad" instead of "Jim relates his story sadly").  Either it's a sad story or Jim tells it in a sad manner; it's grammatical hair-splitting, but there is a slight difference.