Wilco's Kicking Television: Live in Chicago

Last night I listened to Wilco's Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, and I noticed something about the lyrics in two songs.

"Misunderstood"

This song is also on Being There, but when I listened to it earlier this year I guess I didn't pay attention to the line "Short on long-term goals."  Because of the opposition between "short" and "long," there's a sense of incongruity that emphasizes the aimlessness and confusion of not having goals.

"Airline to Heaven"

Originally, this is a song from Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (which I have but haven't listened to yet) with lyrics by Woody Guthrie.  I haven't listened to this version that often, but I hadn't noticed until now that "Them's got ears let them hear / Them's got eyes let them see" is a quote from the Bible.  I had to look up where it is specifically and actually found two instances: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" - Matthew 11:15 and "And he [Jesus] said, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear'" - Mark 4:9.  I think it's interesting that Guthrie pluralized it ("them" instead of "he").  It seems that he also extended the Biblical "ears to hear" to "eyes to see."

Colin Blunstone's "Beginning"

Last night I listened to Colin Blunstone's Journey and noticed a small thing about "Beginning."  The choral background doubles the "surrounds you in the night" in the line "Oh, self-doubt surrounds you in the night."  The choral background surrounds Blunstone's lead vocal just like the self-doubt in the lyric.

Mel Tormé's "I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling"

I just wrote about this in "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas," but Mel Tormé's "I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling" also features Wagner's wedding march from Lohengrin (popularly known as "Here Comes the Bride") on - I think - celesta.  Here, when the "Say, mister parson, stand by" verse is repeated, it starts halfway through the first line, and variations on it continue through the next line: "'Cause I've got a feelin' I'm fallin'."  It's not directly stated in the lyrics, but that musical quotation indicates that the singer/speaker is thinking about marriage.

Mel Tormé's "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas"

I just started listening to the last disc in a four-disc set of Mel Tormé titled Jazz and Velvet.  I noticed that after the lines "We vowed and said someday we'd wed / In the church in the vale" in "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas," the first four notes of the "Here Comes the Bride" wedding march (from Wagner's Lohengrin) are played on what I think is a celesta.

Additionally, there's an-other hint of wedding accoutrements with the vale/veil homophone.  It actually took a bit of thinking before I sussed out the line.  It's "vale" as in "valley."

Jefferson Airplane's Jefferson Airplane Takes Off

This morning I listened to Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, the first Jefferson Airplane album.  This was only the second time I've listened to it, so while I noticed some obvious things, they're novel because I'm not very familiar with the album yet, not because I haven't been paying attention.

"Bringing Me Down"

The "down, down, down" in the backing vocals at the end is sung to a descending phrase (F, E, D in octaves, I think), so there's a descent in the words and the music.

"Don't Slip Away"

The last "away" in the line "Don't slip away, oh, no, don't slip away" have melismas.  The first two syllables are sung to C# notes, but then there's an extra third syllable sung to a B.  So the "away" slips from one pitch to an-other.

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)