Carnival Promises

One of the albums I've been listening to every week is Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery.  The whole second half of the album is the Karn Evil 9 impressions.  Listening to it to-day, I revisited an old idea I had:  Karn Evil 9 does the whole carnival/circus bit much better than the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" or even "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"

But it wasn't until now that I really thought about why.  "Magical Mystery Tour" makes all of these promises about how great the magical mystery tour is and invites you to "roll up for the mystery tour."  But before it actually shows anything from the Magical Mystery Tour, the song ends.  "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" has a similar problem in that it advertises what will happen but never actually shows it.  "For the benefit of Mr. Kite / there will be a show to-night."  The first line indicates that the show is happening later, not now.

The Karn Evil 9 impressions fulfill that promise.  You actually get to see the attractions (in a figurative sense of course) in the present.  The show is happening right now.  While ELP also make promises not unlike a carnival barker attracting an audience ("Roll up!  See the show!"), at least they deliver on their promises in the present tense:

There behind a glass is a real blade of grass
Be careful as you pass
Move along!  Move along!

And then near the end, it's clear that something has actually happened:

We would like it to be known the exhibits that were shown
Were exclusively our own.
All our own.  All our own.

Unlike "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" which both remain in future tense, the Karn Evil 9 songs have past, present, and future.  Both groups of songs deliver initial promises, but only the Karn Evil 9 impressions fulfill that promise, reflected in the verbs' changing tense.  That's why the Karn Evil 9 impressions are better; instead of merely promising something, they actually show it.

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Covers

I've recently been reading a book by Michael Feinstein about George and Ira Gershwin.  The chapter I read yester-day talks about covering some of the standards of the '20s and '30s.  Early in the chapter, Feinstein says that "if a singer can't bring his own style to a song, his craft is lacking; if he simply imitates another singer, it's karaoke."

Lately, I've been thinking about the very point that Feinstein brings up and talks about - at great length - in this particular chapter.  If you're going to cover a song, you have to do something differently than the original.  The challenge in doing that well is knowing what elements you can change and what elements are absolutely necessary.

But that's not the way I approach doing cover songs.  And that's because I have a different purpose in covering songs than most people.  While most people cover songs to get attention, to build their repertoire, or just because they like the song so much, I cover songs in order to learn the parts.  I've not had much formal musical training, so I tend to do what most of the musicians I admire did - learn to play by listening to records.  I can remember listening to the Zombies' "Maybe after He's Gone" one day and realising that that song (no doubt among many others) had taught me the simplest finger-picking pattern.  I internalised strumming from listening to a lot of America songs.  I'm sure listening to Chris White and Jim Rodford taught me something about playing bass.  Later on, I started watching videos of old performances, and I learned things from them too.  I learned economy picking from watching Tony Hicks and the chugging guitar rhythm from watching Keith Hopwood and Al Jardine.

Around the same time I was learning these various techniques, the idea to cover all of the Zombies songs started forming in my head.  I've never really sat down and defined my reasons for it (aside from the nebulous "they're my favourite band"), and since Feinstein's remarks got me thinking about why people cover songs, I thought I would do that.

I think part of my apprehension at changing parts in songs that I cover is that I like the original too much.  It's the epitome, and I have to try my best to get it exactly right.  I've spent hours closely listening to songs to get parts right.  Often, it's taken months before I can play a part right.  (I just recently learned the opening mellotron part from the Zombies' "Changes."  I've been working on it since November 2011, and I have early recordings to prove it.)  So when I cover a song, I don't want to throw all of that work and faithfulness to the original out of the window.  It's in learning those parts exactly that I've learned a lot about music.

So when I cover a song, my primary motivation is not to entertain people with it; it's more to prove that I've spent enough time with this song that I know every part down to the exact notes.  Sure, part of it may be to gain some attention, but - like Feinstein says - doing covers that are more like karaoke than my own style won't keep people coming back for long.

Verulam Cover Project

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Vestigial Traces of Vinyl

I remember reading somewhere that when artists were sequencing songs for albums, they used to put an up-tempo, energetic song at the beginning of the B-side.  I suppose this was an attempt to make the B-side worth listening to - either at all or from the very beginning.

But I just realised that that decision in sequencing is still apparent even after those albums have been released on CD.  Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery both have clear distinctions between the sides.  The A-side of Tarkus is the Tarkus medley, and the B-side of Brain Salad Surgery has (at least most of) the Karn Evil 9 impressions.

I think the difference is most clearly illustrated with Brian Wilson's SMiLE.  The songs were written in 1966, but no versions of the album were official released until 2004.  Yet despite its release as a CD, the 2004 release still has that dichotomy of sides.  What would have been the B-side contains the suite of elements - earth ("Vega-tables"), wind ("Wind Chimes"), fire ("Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"), and water ("Blue Hawaii").

Since most albums aren't sequenced specifically for vinyl release anymore (and many aren't even released on vinyl), that dichotomy of sides has faded.  The only way you can really see it now is if there is a collection of inter-connected songs.  And since most of the music being released to-day seems to be stand-alone songs, there aren't many instances of either inter-connected songs or side-specific sequencing.

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