Colin Blunstone's "Say You Don't Mind"

A couple days ago I listened to Colin Blunstone's One Year (on vinyl, even), and I noticed some things about "Say You Don't Mind."  I knew there are melismas during certain parts of the verses, but I found connections with the lyrics that I hadn't noticed before.  The two melismas in question are for "growin'" (E D# C# C#) and "goin'" (E D# C# C# B A, I think) in the lines "I've been doing some growin' / But I'm scared of you goin'."  The melisma for "growin'" sort of indicates the breadth of experience or knowledge that the singer/speaker claims he now has, and the melisma for "goin'" portrays the leaving of the titular "you."  Both encompass a distance in pitch rather than a single note, which would imply staying the same or staying of a stationary sort, respectively.

Andrew Bird's "Are You Serious"

This morning I listened to Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire's Oh! The Grandeur, and I think I found an-other instance of Bird's borrowing from his past work (when I listened to Oh! The Grandeur last Collection Audit, I discovered that he reworkt "The Confession" into "The Privateers" on Noble Beast).  The pizzicato part that starts "Feetlips" sounds a lot like the pizzicato part that starts the title track of Are You Serious.  I spent a bit of time trying to figure out the parts, and while I'm not super confident in what I came up with, I think they're something like this:

"Feetlips":

"Are You Serious":

In the same rhythm, there's a two-octave jump, then down a sixth, up a third, and down a fifth.  Aside from the initial note, that phrase is repeated in "Feetlips," but the "Are You Serious" part continues descending in a skipping manner.

I should mention that I don't actually have Are You Serious yet.  I listened to it when it was on NPR's First Listen, but I've become familiar with the songs via Bird's radio appearances.  I figured out (or tried to figure out) the part in "Are You Serious" based on this performance on KFUV.

Simon & Garfunkel's "Richard Cory"

This morning I listened to the first disc of Simon & Garfunkel's Old Friends three-disc set, and (probably because I was working on transcribing it) I noticed a couple things about "Richard Cory," from the Sounds of Silence album.

The contrast between Richard Cory and the singer/speaker is one of the critical points of the lyrics, but I noticed that the contrast is also illustrated in the length of the lines.  Each of the lines in the sections that describe Richard Cory is at least fourteen syllables, but the lines that describe the narrator are all under ten syllables each.

I also noticed that there's a contrast in the vocabulary.  The sections that describe Richard Cory have hardly any repetition.  Really, there's only "Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show," and that doesn't illustrate a scarcity; instead it portrays Richard Cory as someone who - because he's wealthy - can attend various spectacles of entertainment.  The sections that describe the narrator have a paucity of words.  Nearly all of the lines start with "But I," "And I," or "Oh, I."  Cursing is repeated in sequential lines:  "And I curse the life I'm livin' / And I curse my poverty," and wishing in three more:  "And I wish that I could be / Oh, I wish that I could be / Oh, I wish that I could be."  While this repetition demonstrates the caliber of the singer/speaker's dissatisfaction with his lot and the earnestness of his wishing that he could be like Richard Cory, it also shows that he's limited in what he has and what he can acquire because he's merely a worker in Richard Cory's factory.

I feel it's worth mentioning that while this song is based on Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Richard Cory," Robinson's poem doesn't have these features.  In the poem, each line is ten syllables, and there aren't distinct sections focusing on either Richard Cory or the speaker.

The Zombies' "Hung up on a Dream"

This afternoon I listened to the 30th anniversary edition of the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, and I noticed something about "Hung up on a Dream."  There's an interval of a fourth between "sights" and "above" in the line "And showed me strangest clouded sights above."  "Sights" is sung to an A, and the two syllables of "above" are sung to D notes.  The distance between the pitches of those notes helps to give a sense of the spatial distance mentioned in the lyric.

Buddy Holly's "You Are My One Desire"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Buddy Holly titled Oh Boy, and I noticed something about "You Are My One Desire."  The "love" in the line "You'll never know how much I love you" has a melisma (the notes are B A G).  At first I just thought that because there are multiple notes instead of the single syllable with which "love" is pronounced when spoken, there's a musical representation of the greatness of the singer/speaker's love.  But then I realized that there's more to it than that.  When I was looking at the lyrics I'd transcribed, there was no indication that the "love" in that line has a melisma, and that itself mirrors the lyric.  "You'll never know how much I love you" when the words are written, but there's some indication of it (although that might not be an adequate representation either) when those words are sung.

Badfinger's No Dice

I recently listened to Badfinger's No Dice twice (on Sunday and again this morning).  I have two copies, and the bonus tracks are different, so I listened to both.  The first time I listened to it, I noticed that a number of the songs mention giving and taking in the same line, so when I listened to the album a second time, I made notes of these.  There are three.  "Blodwyn" has the line "And say you'll take from me what I will give to you;" "Better Days" has the line "You give all you want, but you take away what's mine;" and "We're for the Dark" has the line "If you're gonna take, then you have to give."  Each of these instances doesn't seem to have any connection to the others, but giving and taking are certainly recurring actions on the album.

The Zombies' Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} The 40th Anniversary Concert

Over the last two days, I listened to the two discs of the Zombies' Odessey & Oracle {Revisited}: The 40th Anniversary Concert.  I noticed some things (with melismas, naturally) on two songs on the first disc.

"Maybe after He's Gone"

The "breathe" in the line "I feel I'll never breathe again" is sung to two syllables instead of just one.  There's a deliberateness in how it's sung, almost as if the speaker/singer wants to draw out the breaths he has now because he feels there will soon be a time he can't breathe at all (the next line is "I feel life's gone from me").

"Tell Her No"

The "charms" in the line "And if she tempts you with her charms" has a melisma.  Instead of the one syllable it's spoken with, there are multiple syllables, as if to make the "charms" musically alluring.

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Both of these features are on the original recordings that the Zombies did in the '60s.  However, on this live album, the melisma'd "breathe" in "Maybe after He's Gone" is more prominent, and the melisma to which the "charms" in "Tell Her No" is sung actually has more notes than the original recording.  (It's G# E F# in the original; G# F# E F# in this live version.)

The Zombies' New World

A couple days ago I listened to the Zombies' New World album, and I noticed two things.

"Nights on Fire"

I'm not fully convinced of this myself, but I think the line "Only believe and the door will open wide" might be a reference to the Bible, specifically "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8).  A couple of the other songs mention Heaven (although perhaps not in a religious sense), which seems to strengthen the possibility of this being an intentional Biblical reference.

"Knowing You"

In the line "Facing up to every day now, I will never be alone" there's a harmony part for "be alone," so the musical arrangement mirrors the lyric.  The speaker/singer says that he won't be alone, and there's an-other voice there to demonstrate that.

The Beatles' Revolver

Apparently, 5 August was the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' Revolver, so I skipped ahead in my listening (I'm currently in the midst of the albums that start with N) to listen to it on its release date.  I hadn't listened to it for over two years, and I found a lot of things to write about.

"I'm Only Sleeping"

The phrase "float upstream" is sung to an ascending phrase (Bb, Db, Gb), so there's a musical/lyrical mirroring there.  This might seem like a small point, but I'll get back to it.

"Love You To"

The first two verses end with a melisma'd "me" (the lines are "You don't get time to hang a sign on me" and "But what you've got means such a lot to me").  I'm not sure if this was intentional on George Harrison's part, but it recalls the melisma'd and line-ending "me" in "What You're Doing" from Beatles for Sale ("And should you need a love that's true / It's me").

"Here, There, and Everywhere"

The line "Running my hands through her hair" sounded familiar to me, and it wasn't too long before I placed it.  There's an identical line near the end of Colin Blunstone's "She Loves the Way They Love Her" (on One Year).  Both Blunstone and his former Zombies band mate Rod Argent (who wrote "She Loves the Way They Love Her") have listed the Beatles as an influence, and between that and both songs' rhyming "hair" with "there" ("There / Running my hands through her hair" in "Here, There, and Everywhere" and "Running my hands through her hair / And knowing she'll always be there" in "She Loves the Way They Love Her"), I think this is more than just a coincidence.  At best, it might be an instance of subconscious influence.

"And Your Bird Can Sing"

I was either only dimly aware of this or had forgotten, but it was very obvious to me as I listened to "And Your Bird Can Sing" this time that the line "You say you've seen seven wonders" is a reference to the Seven Wonders of the World.

"For No One"

I don't know how to play "For No One" (yet), so this isn't as precise as it could be, but I don't think the song resolves at the end.  There isn't a sense of completion, which (somewhat literally) underscores the disconnected feeling in lines such as "You stay home / She goes out" and "And in her eyes, you see nothing."

"I Want to Tell You"

I was working on transcribing this song as I listened to it, so the pleonasm in the line "All those words they seem to slip away" was especially evident.  Instead of the more fluid and more grammatically correct "All those words seem to slip away," there's a redundant "they" in the line.  The song itself is about problems in communicating, so that pleonastic "they" actually emphasizes that sentiment.

"Tomorrow Never Knows"

The phrase "float downstream" is sung to a descending phrase (E, C, G), so there's a musical/lyrical mirroring there.  Furthermore, there's a parallelism between the descending "float downstream" here and the ascending "float upstream" in "I'm Only Sleeping."  So while it's a rather simple feature, it's used to a greater effect because there's that parallelism.

Electric Light Orchestra's A New World Record

Yester-day I listened to Electric Light Orchestra's A New World Record, and I noticed something about the string parts in a couple songs.  Aside from the key, the same string part is in "So Fine" and "Livin' Thing."  I guessed on the keys based on the notes in the parts themselves, but here they are in notation (with the disclaimer that I might be wrong; notation still isn't my strong point).

"So Fine"

"Livin' Thing"

Having what is virtually the same part in two songs (which are back-to-back in the track listing) helps give the album a greater consistency.