George Harrison's Cloud Nine

I listened to George Harrison’s Cloud Nine this morning, and I noticed a lot of references to other things.

A lot of this was in “When We Was Fab,” in which case I think the references were conscious and deliberate, but I found some in “Just for Today” and “Devil’s Radio” too.

"Back when income tax was all we had" in "When We Was Fab" is a very subtle reference to Harrison’s "Taxman" from the Beatles’ Revolver album.  I think it’s a reference in theme only - there isn’t any similarity of phrase or melody in it.

At the end of some of the verses is a “woo” that sounds a lot like the “woo”s in “I Am the Walrus” from Magical Mystery Tour.

Harrison sings, “But it’s all over now, baby blue,” which is a line from Dylan’s “It’s All over Now Baby Blue.”  Dylan was a big influence for the Beatles and for Harrison in his solo career.  Cloud Nine came out in 1987, and the next year saw the release of the Traveling Wilburys’ first album - a band that Harrison and Dylan were in together (also Jeff Lynne, who co-produced both albums with Harrison).  I can’t help but feel that the “baby blue” part of that phrase is also a reference to the Badfinger song.  It was on their Straight Up album, which Harrison produced part of before the Concert for Bangladesh.  Although, according to the Wikipedia page for “Baby Blue,” it wasn’t one of the songs that Harrison produced.  Still, Badfinger was one of the bands on the Apple label, so there is a connection between them and the Beatles.

Another line is “and you really got a hold on me” - a reference to the song (actually titled “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”) by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles that the Beatles covered on With the Beatles.

The end of the song includes some Indian instruments and doesn’t sound too dissimilar from Harrison’s “Within You, Without You” from Sgt. Pepper, although I don’t know whether that’s because of melodic similarities or just instrumental ones.

Since the whole song is reminiscent of the Beatles’ career, I think all of the references in it are on purpose, not coincidental or subconscious.  On some of the other tracks, however, I’m not so certain.

The melody of “Devil’s Radio” (mostly just “I heard it in the night”) is really similar to the melody of the Seachers’ “Everything But a Heartbeat” (“She may possess the best dress”), which - as far as I can tell - was released in 1981.  What’s interesting is that Harrison (in the Beatles) and the Searchers were both part of the really early English beat movement, and here they have similar melodies even after twenty years.

Finally, the guitar solo in “Just for Today” sounds like the melodies of two other songs (although there’s also the possibility that I’ve just been listening to too much music and the similarities are unwarranted).  The first part sounds a bit like the melody of “Unchained Melody” - the “whoa, my love” part - which was most famously recorded by the Righteous Brothers.  However, there are also versions by Chet Atkins and Gene Vincent, who were both influential to the beat movement in England.  Part of the solo also sounds a bit like Roy Orbison’s “You Got It,” specifically the melody for “One look from you / I drift away.”  ”You Got It” was from Orbison’s Mystery Girl album, which wasn’t released until 1989 - two years after Cloud Nine - but the song was co-written and produced by Jeff Lynne, the co-producer of Cloud Nine.  (Roy Orbison was also in the Traveling Wilburys with Lynne and Harrison.)

I don’t know if any of these other connections were conscious echoings or not, but it’s still interesting to see what sort of influences were floating around in Harrison’s head when he was recording this album.

EDIT:  I forgot some things about “Devil’s Radio.”  The guitar part that bridges the first two verses sounds a lot like the guitar part interspersed between the verses of the Beatles’ “It Won’t Be Long.”  Also, the rapidly-speaking voices near the end are like the “Anybody got a bit of money” parts from the early version of “Taxman” found on Anthology 2.  Also, the introductory vocal parts (I think it’s “gossip”) are virtually the same as the “oh yeah”s at the beginning of the Beatles’ “I’ll Get You.”

The Alan Parsons Project's "The Voice"

I stayed up late listening to the Alan Parsons Project’s I Robot.  (I’m going roughly alphabetically through my albums, but since I have both the “regular” version of I Robot and the recent Legacy Edition, I didn’t want to have to listen to both back-to-back, so I spread them out by listening to one now.)

Lately, I’ve been a bit over-aware of when singers emphasis “you” in such a way that it sounds more like “choo.”  This is the case in “The Voice” on I Robot.  But I think that, in some ways, that over-emphasis to the degree of mutilation actually works because it makes the listener aware of it and thereby makes the listener aware of the titular voice.

Chicago's "P.M. Mourning"

I listened to Chicago’s Chicago II this morning.  In both “P.M. Mourning” and “Memories of Love” - although it’s more clear in “P.M. Mourning” - there’s this flute part.  It’s three ascending phrases, ending in some shriller tones.

It sounds almost the same as the whistle that Willy Wonka plays to get the attention of the Oompa Loompas in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  The movie is from 1971, and this album is from 1970, so it is possible that the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory people took that phrase from this album.  I’m not sure how likely it is, but they do sound pretty similar.  (Though I feel I must admit that it’s been a few years since I’ve last seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.)

Elton John's Cotton Fields - 16 Legendary Covers from 1969/70

I’m currently listening to Cotton Fields - 16 Legendary Covers from 1969/70 by Elton John.  Apparently, it was once a big thing for sort of unknown artists to record cover versions of hit songs.  I don’t know all that much about Elton John, but I think this album (or at least the songs on this album - I think they were all released as singles and put together as an album only recently) comes between his doing session work and becoming famous in his own right.

In any case, what I found interesting is how well-represented Creedence Clearwater Revival is.  This album includes versions of “Travellin’ Band” and “Up around the Bend” along with a version of Leadbelly’s “Cotton Fields,” which was also recorded by CCR.  These versions are actually pretty good covers, but their inclusion is still sort of weird.  I don’t know if Elton John got to choose which songs he did covers of (there might just be a lot of CCR covers because CCR were popular then), but the sort of songs that Elton John later did doesn’t really bear any resemblance to the sort of songs that CCR did.

Camille Saint-Saën's Christmas Oratorio

Yester-day, I listened to almost all of the music I have by Camille Saint-Saëns, including his Christmas Oratorio.  I’ve listened to this only a few times, no more than five, but listening to it yester-day, I found something interesting.

In the second movement - Recit et chœur - I recognized the melody from the chant “The Glory of the Father.”  Roughly, measures 3 to 8 in this part (found here):

Originally, I had assumed that Saint-Saëns was quoting an older chant [It’s not uncharacteristic for Saint-Saëns to quote other melodies in his works.  He includes “Dies Irae” in “Danse Macabre” (I found it once, but I confess I can’t seem to find it again), and he later quotes from his own “Danse Macabre” in the “Fossils” section of Carnival of the Animals.], but I looked up some things and now I think it’s the opposite way around - that the chant is quoting Saint-Saëns.

"The Glory of the Father" was written by Egil Hovland, who was born in 1924.  Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio was written in 1858.  It would truly be a feat to quote from a chant that would not be written for at least sixty years.

But the melodies are so similar that I find it hard to believe that this is just a coincidence.  The corresponding texts to each of these melodies are “Et in terra pax” (and on earth peace) in Saint-Saëns’ oratorio and “In Him was life” in Hovland’s chant.  I don’t know if Hovland intended connections to be drawn between these two texts by using a very similar, if not the same, melody.  But then again, I don’t even know if he intentionally used Saint-Saëns’ melody.

The Byrds' The Byrds Play Dylan

I’m currently listening to the Byrds’ The Byrds Play Dylan, and I don’t understand why it isn’t sequenced chronologically.  Either chronology - the Byrds’ recording these songs or Dylan’s writing them - would suffice.  But there are songs from 1969 stuck in between songs from 1965, and I just don’t understand how that was a conscious decision anyone made.

I read a book about Dylan earlier this year (Andy Gill’s Bob Dylan:  The Stories behind the Songs 1962-1969), and one of the points it made was that Dylan was a constantly-evolving artist.  There was the early folk stuff, then the protest songs, then he went electric, and then back to roots music.  Not all of those distinctions would necessarily come across in the Byrds’ versions of these songs, but I still think it would be better to sequence the album chronologically.

Even from a more Byrds-favoring perspective, the sequencing is weird.  Songs that were originally on the same album are separated in the track listing by four or five places, and the positions of those songs on the original albums are disregarded.  Both “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “Nothing Was Delivered” were on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, with “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” starting off the album, but here, it comes five tracks after “Nothing Was Delivered.”  Amazingly, ”Mr. Tambourine Man” the Byrds’ debut single (and therefore first Dylan cover) is track six.  The sequencing is just all over the place.

The Everly Brothers' "Roving Gambler"

I’m listening to a compilation album of the Everly Brothers titled Bye Bye Love.  (I actually have two compilation albums of the Everly Brothers titled Bye Bye Love.)  In any case, this album includes their version of “Roving Gambler.”  The other musical group I associate with “Roving Gambler” is Simon & Garfunkel.  It’s a bonus track on their Sounds of Silence album.

I’d always attributed Paul Simon’s interest in English folk music to his having been in England.  But I think the Everly Brothers may have had something to do with it too.  Simon & Garfunkel were greatly influenced by them (they even included “Bye Bye Love” on Bridge over Troubled Water), and since the Everly Brothers’ repertoire includes some other folk songs, it’s possible that that is what affected Paul Simon (or was at least a partial cause for his interest).  For instance, both also recorded versions of “Barbara Allen,” although the Simon & Garfunkel version (also found in the bonus tracks on Sounds of Silence) is titled “Barbriallen.”

Buffalo Springfield's Buffalo Springfield Again

I just listened to Buffalo Springfield’s Buffalo Springfield Again.  What I found interesting was that on some of the tracks, the lead vocalist also sings the harmony parts.  Like on “Expecting to Fly,” Neil Young sings the lead vocal, and he also sings the harmony part.  See also “Broken Arrow” and Stephen Stills’ “Bluebird.”

Having both parts sung by the same person would give the song more coherence, but I’m not sure if that’s why they did it that way.  Judging by the Wikipedia page, it was more likely due to acrimony in the group or Neil Young’s frequent absences, but I’m hesitant to accept Wikipedia so readily and I’m not sure if those would explain all of the cases.  Incidentally, I have a book about Buffalo Springfield that I’d planned on starting soon.  Maybe I’ll find an answer in there.

Buddy Holly's "I'm Gonna Love You Too"

I’m listening to Buddy Holly’s Buddy Holly.  Earlier in the Collection Audit project, I listened to a few Buddy Holly compilation albums, and I started paying attention to the backing vocals.  They’re great in that they don’t draw a lot of attention to themselves, and yet they’re not overly simple.

This album starts off with “I’m Gonna Love You Too.”  There’s an introductory bit (a long melisma on “I”) that’s repeated later in the song, and at first I thought the backing vocal was just doubling Holly’s own.  But when I started to pay attention to it, I noticed that this wasn’t the case.  It’s a distinct part.  And now I really want to figure out those two parts so that I can look at them more closely see how they relate to one an-other.

Andrew Bird's "Lazy Projector"

I listened to Andrew Bird’s Break It Yourself this morning, and in “Lazy Projector,” I noticed a reference to his earlier work.

In “Lazy Projector,” he says, “history repeats itself / and time is a crooked bow.”  ”Time is a crooked bow” is also a line that appears in “Armchairs” from Armchair Apocrypha.  Judging by “history repeats itself,” this was a conscious self-reference.

Some of the melody of the later part of “Lazy Projector” sounds like it’s echoing his earlier work too, but I can’t quite place it, so I don’t know if it actually is similar to an earlier melody or whether it’s just so quintessentially Andrew Bird-sounding.