Elvis Presley's "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"

About a week ago, I figured out the bass part to Elvis' "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You."  The rhythms seemed pretty easy (aside from the triplet in the second measure, which I almost missed), so I notated it too.

As always, this comes with the disclaimer that I might be wrong:

Saint-Saëns: Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12

A while ago, I was thinking about the final movement of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12.  I wrote about this last year, and I even translated the first line of the Latin text:

For the last couple years, I've been slowly working through my Latin textbook from college again, and a couple months ago, I ran into the same verb that starts this movement.  In the infinitive form, it's tollere.  In Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, it's a 2nd person plural imperative (tollite), and in the sentence in my Latin textbook, it's a 2nd person singular imperative (tolle).  It can be translated a few different ways.  My Latin dictionary lists: to lift, raise; to take away, remove; to do away with, abolish, destroy.  In the text of the Christmas Oratorio (with hostias [victims or sacrifices] as the direct object), it has the sense of "lift" or "raise."

After running across tollere in my Latin textbook, I realized that "tollite hostias" is musically represented.  In the soprano part, there's an interval of a fourth between the notes for "tollite" and the note for the first syllable of "hostias."  In the other vocal parts, there are smaller intervals between "tollite" and "hostias," but - for the tenor and bass parts, at least - the word "tollite" itself has an ascending melody:

 (notation found here)

After I realized that, I started thinking about the rest of the line ("et adorate Dominum in atrio sancto eius"), and I realized that the melody for "adorate" (the 2nd person plural imperative form of adorare, to worship) generally descends, as if those singing it were bowing before God in their own worship while also calling others to worship.

Harry Nilsson's "Without Her"

I recently listened to a compilation album of Harry Nilsson, and the bass part in "Without Her" sounded like it would be easy to figure out and to notate.  (It helps that it's panned left and isn't buried beneath other instruments.)  So I did that.  Here it is:

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' "I'll Be Home for Christmas"

Last year, while listening to 20th Century Masters - The Christmas Collection: The Best of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, I noticed that their version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is unique in how it renders a phrase.  In all of the other versions of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" in my music collection, the lines are "Christmas Eve will find me / Where the love light gleams."  In Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' version, however, the grammatical number is changed so that instead of "the love light gleams" it's "the love lights gleam."

Because of this change (the lack of the S, specifically), the rhyme between "Christmas Eve will find me / Where the love lights gleam" and "I'll be home for Christmas / If only in my dreams" isn't as exact, although it certainly doesn't become a slant rhyme or anything like that.

Despite that, I prefer the plural "love lights."  The singular "love light" casts "I'll Be Home for Christmas" as something like a love song, but the plural "love lights" merely describes someone's endeavour to be with his family on Christmas.  The focus there is on familial love rather than romantic love, and that seems more appropriate for a holiday.

The Yardbirds' "Still I'm Sad"

About two years ago, I got a two-disc compilation album of the Yardbirds titled Smokestack Lightning.  I was very surprised to find that I already knew the song "Still I'm Sad."  The first forty seconds or so is used near the beginning of THX 1138 (George Lucas' 1967 student film, not the 1971 feature).  Recently, after listening to the album again, I figured out the notes, and this morning I finally got around to notating it.  Of course, as always, this comes with the disclaimer that I might be wrong:

There are four instrumental bars before this vocal phrase starts, and with some extra measures afterwards, it repeats throughout the song.

The Shirelles' "Maybe Tonight"

I recently figured out the chords to the Shirelles' "Maybe Tonight," so in lieu of notation this week, I thought I'd post those.

The verses are just B major, G# minor, E major, and F# major (played for two measures each).  It's the so-called 50s Progression in B major.  For the bridge, there are four measures of E major, four measures of B major, back to four measures of E major, and then two measures of C# major and two measures of F# major.

Written more simply, that's:

Verses: B major / G# minor / E major / F# major

Bridge: E major / B major / E major / C# major / F# major

Herman's Hermits' "I Know Why"

A couple weeks ago, I happened to hear Herman's Hermits' "I Know Why," and I realized something about the melody.  There's quite a drop for the "heart" in the line "I know deep in my heart," apparently to represent the depth mentioned in that line.  I learned the notes in the melody and discovered that between "my" (A) and "heart" (C#) there's the interval of a sixth.  The next line ("I'll always feel the same") picks up with an A note again.  Not only is that a fairly large interval, but it's the largest interval in the entire melody.  The interval between most notes is either a second or a third.  Aside from that one sixth interval, the largest is a fourth (between "at" [D#] and "me" [G#] in the first line "Ev'ry time you look at me, I know why" and - with the same melody - between "so" and "fine" in the line "Ev'ry time you look so fine, I know why").

The Hollies' "Here I Go Again"

Last week, I listened to the Hollies' 30th Anniversary Collection, and I noticed a small thing about "Here I Go Again."  At the end, there's the repeated line "Falling in love," and the melody to which it's sung descends.  It's B A G E, so there's a musical falling and a metaphorical falling.

The Apples in Stereo's "Floating in Space"

Last month, I learned the bass part to the Apples in Stereo's "Floating in Space" from Travellers in Space and Time.  The rhythms were pretty easy (which is part of the reason I decided to learn it in the first place) so I thought I would notate it (primarily just to practice notating).  In doing so, I discovered that I actually had a few notes wrong when I figured it out last month.  I'd thought the final section of eighth notes is the same as the first section of eighth notes, but there are a few different notes.

The Vogues' "Five O'Clock World"

A couple days ago, I happened to think of the Vogues' "Five O'Clock World," and I realized something about the melody in the third verse.  The end of the line "She talks, and the world goes slippin' away" has a descending melody.  "Slippin' away" is sung to the phrase B A G# E.  The backing vocals echo that line with "It slips away," which has the same sort of musical representation of slipping.  It's sung to the phrase G F# E G F# E (I think), so there's not a continuous descent, but there is something of a slide.  The melisma for "away" (E G F# E) also portrays that slipping; "away" is sung to more than just the two syllables it's pronounced with.

Herman's Hermits" "I'm Henry VII, I Am"

Last month, I challenged myself to learn at least thirty-two parts to songs (I ended up with thirty-six).  One of the parts I learned was the bass part to Herman's Hermits' "I'm Henry VIII, I Am."  Shortly after I learned it (within an hour or two), I realized that it consists of only eight notes.  In order of appearance: A D B E C# D F# B (there are D and B notes in two different octaves):

In the same way that there are eight Henrys in the song, there are eight notes in the bass part.  Furthermore, almost all of the "I am"s or "I'm"s in the song correspond to the bass's playing A notes, which is the tonic note because the song is in A major.  So there's a connection between the singer/speaker's affirming his identity as Henry VIII and the most important note in this key.

Here's the full notation:

To my own frustration yet also amusement, when I'd filled this sheet, I discovered I needed one more measure than my paper afforded me.  Rather than use an-other sheet of paper, scan both, and then edit them together into a single image, I just squeezed the last three measures into the space where I had written the penultimate two.  Initially I'd miscounted the beginning measures (and I'm still not sure whether the first measure, which is just drums, is a full four beats or whether it begins with an upbeat), so I ended up with a coincidental book-ending of three measures squeezed into the space of two.

The Shadows' "Driftin'"

Last month, I listened to The Very Best of the Shadows and decided to figure out the bass part for "Driftin'."  I'm actually more familiar with (and might even prefer) a live version that's included on a couple Cliff Richard compilation albums I have, but I discovered that that version is in between E minor and F minor, which made figuring it out too difficult.  The version on The Very Best of the Shadows is firmly E minor though (with some C# accidentals).  After figuring it out, I wrote out the notation too.  All of my notation comes with the disclaimer that I might be wrong, I feel I should stress that a bit more for this one. While writing it out, I found a few parts I'd misheard, and there are some slight variations in it, rather than repeated sections.  Additionally, I think there's an error where there's a D note played as a quarter note instead of two D notes played as eighth notes.  In any case, take this with a grain of salt:

There are a few empty measures at the end because I mark out all of the bar lines on a sheet before I start filling in the notes.

Peter & Gordon's The Ultimate Peter & Gordon

About a year ago, I listened to The Ultimate Peter & Gordon and noticed a couple things about some tracks.  I listened to the album again recently for my Collection Audit project (and found some more things to write about), so I thought I'd finally get around to writing about those original ones too.

"Broken Promises"

Each verse ends with the lines "Broken words / Broken promises / Cause broken hearts."  While Gordon sings "hearts" to just a single note (a G), Peter sings it to the phrase D E F# E (and there's a more complex figure for the final line).  The way that Peter sings it, the "hearts" are literally broken into separate pitches.

I think it's also significant that the phrases "Broken words" and "Broken promises" don't have any melismas like that.  It's as if the speaker/singer is more concerned about the broken hearts than about what caused them.

"To Know You Is to Love You"

The introductory couplet and the whole first verse is sung in harmony (save for Gordon's "And I do," which Peter echoes rather than harmonizes), but in the second verse, Peter drops out for the line "Oh, everyone says there'll come a day" (so Gordon sings it alone).  He joins back in for the next line, which is "When I'll walk alongside of you."  There're two voices there, which - to some degree - represent the singer/speaker and the girl he's addressing, but since those two voices also represent the single I earlier in the song, it doesn't work that well as an effect.

The Byrds' "You're Still on My Mind"

About two weeks ago, I figured out the chords for the Byrds' "You're Still on My Mind" (from Sweetheart of the Rodeo).  Even before I figured them out, I thought there was a cyclical nature to them.  Figuring them out revealed that it's just a I IV V I pattern, but that has some interesting implications when the lyrics are considered.

The song is in A major, so with that standard I IV V I progression (played twice for each verse), it's A major / D major / E major / A major (although I should mention that an E major underlies the introductory figure).  At first, all I noticed was that the song returns to A major (the tonic or "home" chord) for the end of the line "'One more,' I keep sayin', 'and then I'll go home,'" so the music reflects the lyrics there.  But then I realized that the cyclical returning is present in other lyrics too.  Each verse ends with the line "An empty bottle, a broken heart, and you're still on my mind," and the "you're still on my mind" is sung above an A major chord.  In the same way the "you" is "still on my mind," there's a constant returning to that A major.

The opposite sort of thing is present in the second verse.  When the speaker/singer notices "the people... dancin' and havin' their fun," he's briefly distracted from his own plight, and the chord progression modulates away from that A major chord to D major.  But when he starts "thinkin' about what you have done," the progression returns to A major again.  In the third line, in order "To try and forget you," he "turn[s] to the wine," and - again - the chord progression modulates from A major to D major to musically portray that turning, only to return to A major again at the end of the verse because "you're still on my mind."

The I IV V I progression is pretty run-of-the-mill and a bit uninteresting, but because these lyrics connect with it in a clever way, it's elevated above its usual mediocrity.

The Apple in Stereo's "Dance Floor"

Last week I listened to the Apples in Stereo's Travellers in Space and Time, and I thought a part in "Dance Floor" sounded pretty easy to figure out, so I did that.  I'm still not really sure what instrument it's played on, but I think it's a synthesized string instrument.  A couple days after I figured it out, I realized that it would be pretty easy to notate too, and while I was doing that, I also figured out a part in a higher register:

(click the image to enlarge it)

I feel I should draw attention to the fact that this begins on a downbeat.  Either there isn't a way to make that more obvious in the program I use or I don't know how to do it, so when I edited the image, I just took the half rest from the first bass clef measure and used it to replace the whole rest in the first treble clef measure.  (Although now the notes in that first bass clef measure are off-center).

This is the figure as it appears at the beginning of the song.  When it recurs, some of the four-measure phrases are either omitted or repeated, but the notes remain the same in each occurrence.

The Who's "The Seeker"

Back in June, I realized something about the Who's "The Seeker."  I listened to it recently as part of my Collection Audit project, so I thought I'd finally get around to writing about it.

The second verse starts with the lines "I asked Bobby Dylan; I asked the Beatles / I asked Timothy Leary, but he couldn't help me either."  Instead of Bob Dylan, he's called Bobby Dylan.  The meter of the line might be partially responsible for the diminution, but that diminutive both literally and figuratively belittles Dylan because he "couldn't help me."

Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You"

Last month, I learned the bass part for Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You."  I'd recently listened to the Hollies' first five albums for the first time, so I realized that I have four versions of the song.  Along with Berry's original and the Hollies' cover, I had a version by the Yardbirds and a live version by the Beatles.  So I figured I should learn it.

I tried something different and notated the whole thing using my MIDI software.  After a couple weeks of printer difficulties, I printed the notation and indicated some structural way points.  I should mention that I'm a bit unsure of the last two measures of the solo.  I'm pretty sure the figures are different from what they are during the verses, but I don't know if what I have is exact.  I'm pretty confident on the rest though.  Chuck Berry's recording fades out at the end, so there are only about five measures of that last figure.  I continued it for the eight measures that it has in the verses and then resolved it with a C whole note.

Click the images to enlarge them:

Bob Dylan's "Standing in the Doorway"

As I've been going through my music collection for my Collection Audit project, I've rediscovered some things I'd forgotten about and/or haven't written about.  A couple days ago, I listened to Bob Dylan's Time out of Mind, and I re-realized that the line "I'll eat when I'm hungry, drink when I'm dry" at the beginning of the last verse of "Standing in the Doorway" is a quote from the folk song "The Moonshiner."  I have only Tommy Makem & the Clancy Brothers' version, in which the line is "I'll eat when I’m hungry, and I'll drink when I'm dry."  The Wikipedia article for "The Moonshiner" notes that Dylan recorded the song in 1963 and that it's included on one of his Bootleg Series albums.  I don't have any of those though, so I couldn't say how much of a connection his recording has with either the version of "The Moonshiner" with which I'm familiar or "Standing in the Doorway."

"It Ain't Necessarily So"

Over the last two months, I listened to three different versions of Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So" from Porgy & Bess for my Collection Audit project.  A couple days after I listened to the Moody Blues' version (on The Magnificent Moodies), I realized something about the song; however, one of the sections I realized something about isn't in the Moody Blues' version.  So when I listened to Brian Wilson's version (on the Reimagines Gershwin album) about a month ago, I was paying a bit more attention than I would have otherwise.

Some syllables in specific words are omitted so that words that wouldn't rhyme ordinarily do rhyme here.  Liable is shortened to li'ble in order to rhyme with Bible in the lines "The things that you're li'ble / To read in the Bible," and possible is shortened to poss'ble in order to rhyme with Gospel in the line "I take that Gospel whenever it's poss'ble" in the bridge.  The words that rhyme with Bible and Gospel are truncated, and doing that demonstrates exactly what the speaker/singer plainly says in the song: he takes the Bible "with a grain of salt."  In the same way those words lack some syllables, the speaker/singer lacks complete faith.

In looking into this, I discovered that - of the four recordings I have of "It Ain't Necessarily So" - only one is complete: that by the Bethlehem Orchestra (apparently their 1956 recording of Porgy & Bess was only the second complete recording of the opera).  Both Bobby Darin's version and the Moody Blues' version omit the the bridge ("To get into Heaven, don't snap for a seven..."), and Brian Wilson's version omits the verse about Methuselah.  For what it's worth, in addition to the bridge, Darin's version also omits the verse about Moses, and the Moody Blues' version also omits the verse about Methuselah.

Looking at what version has what verses, it occurs to me that none of them have the verses in the order in which the people named in them are in the Bible.  In chronological order, it would be Methuselah, Moses, David, and then Jonah.  Except for the Moody Blues, who switch Jonah and Moses, the order is David, Jonah, Moses, and the Methuselah.

The Searchers' "Sugar and Spice"

A couple days ago, the riff from the Searchers' "Sugar and Spice" popped into my head, and I realized that the notes are just quarter notes and eighth notes, so with my limited notation skills, this was a part I could notate.  My notate-a-part-every-week project kind of fell on its face, but I think I'll still do it occasionally.

I should mention that I notated this an octave lower than it's played (otherwise, there would have been ledger lines all over the place):

(click the image to view a larger size)

The chords are very simple too.  Under the riff and the verses, the progression is |: C major / G major / F major / G major :|.  The choruses alternate between that and the same progression where an A minor is substituted for the first G major, so:

C major / G major / F major / G major
C major / A minor / F major / G major
C major / G major / F major / G major
C major / A minor / F major / G major

At the end of the song, the |: C major / G major / F major / G major :| progression resolves to C major, and after the riff I have notated above, there's a shorter version, ending with G and C notes:

(click the image to view a larger size)

Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You"

A couple months ago, I happened to hear Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You" on the radio, and I thought I noticed something.  I listened to it recently for my Collection Audit project, and I confirmed what I thought I heard back then.  Every occurrence of the titular "stuck in the middle with you" line has a vocal harmony part.  There are two voices there to musically represent both the singer/speaker and the "you" he's stuck with.

Manufactured Monkees

Last year I started four projects in which my aim is to try to learn every part to every song by a particular band (with some stipulations).  I'd already been doing this with the Zombies since 2012, and while I knew that actually learning every part to every song is next to impossible, my experience with the Zombies' music showed me that even learning a few parts gave me a new appreciation of the music.  As I learned more parts, I started analyzing things from a musicological point of view, which gave me a deeper understanding of the songs.  So while the end goal of each of these projects is probably unattainable, it's still an enlightening journey.

I knew the Monkees started releasing records and broadcasting television episodes in 1966 (fifty years ago), so on 1 January, I started reading Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story of the 60s TV Pop Sensation, and I planned (and still plan) to watch each episode on the 50th anniversary of its original broadcast and listen to each album on the 50th anniversary of its release (although for some album, Sandoval provides only the months they were released, not the exact days).

Between reading the book and listening to some of the albums for my Collection Audit project, I experienced a recrudescence in my interest in the Monkees.  I first got interested in them in about 2008, when I saw re-runs of the television series (the first episode I saw was actually the second episode of the series, which was a pretty good place to start).  Seeing Peter Tork playing bass on television was one of my main motivations to be a musician rather than just someone who listens to music (however, at the time, it was easier to get a guitar; I didn't get a bass until the end of 2010).  Even now, I still wear my belt bucket one belt loop over, just like he did (apparently to avoid scratching the back of his bass).

So reading about the Monkees and listening to their music sparked this renewed interest, and I found myself figuring out a few parts to their songs (the guitar part to the demo of "She'll Be There" [because it sounded brilliant], the bass part to "Sweet Young Thing" [because it sounded easy], and most of the parts to "She" [because it sounded interesting]).  After getting the chords to a couple more songs, I realized that I'd sort of stumbled into doing yet an-other of my cover projects.  The only purpose this post serves is to announce that I'm officially adding the Monkees to my roster of bands whose entire catalogue I'm trying to learn.  However, I'm going to restrict myself to the original albums by the quartet (even of those, I have only the first four and the soundtrack to Head).

Once I had the idea to do this, I had to come up with a name for the project.  I eventually decided on Manufactured Monkees.  Most of the inspiration behind this is a stanza in "Ditty Diego" – "You say we're manufactured / To that we all agree / So make your choice, and we'll rejoice / In never being free."  However, since I'm also interested in languages, I liked the etymological reference to hands in manufactured.  The "manu-" part comes from manus, the Latin word for hand, so there's something of a very subtle allusion to "magic fingers," which is in "Papa Gene's Blues" ("Play, magic fingers!") and which is Micky's moniker in the episode "Monkees on the Wheel" (which is one of my favorite episodes).  And also, obviously, hands are important in playing instruments.

Like my other cover projects, I've started a separate tumblr for this, and I'll be uploading rough (and possibly erroneous) versions of what I know of the songs.  Like I mentioned earlier, I'm doing my Collection Audit project this year (where I attempt to listen to the entirety of my music collection), so I don't have as much time to devote to this project as I would otherwise, but at least this is a start.

Buddy Holly's "Fool's Paradise"

I think I underestimated how much work writing out notation every week would be, and I'm going to have to adjust my schedule.  This week, in lieu of notation, I have the chords to Buddy Holly's "Fool's Paradise," which I wrote about recently for my Collection Audit project.

Verses:
F major / Bb major / C major
F major / C major / F major

Bridge:
Bb major / F major / G major / C major

For what it's worth, Don McLean's version is a half-step lower.

The Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'"

The notation I have this week (which I was going to do last week but completely forgot about until it was late at night) is a little different from what I've done previously.  Because most of the bass part for the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'" is just the same measure of G notes (with the last note in a different octave) over and over again, I didn't write out the notation in full.  I have one line of that repeated measure; I skipped the second line (although I still have bar lines because I insert bar lines into a couple pages of blank notation at once and then use them for various projects later); and the third line is the only different part (for "And I'm so glad we made it..."), which transitions back to that repeated measure with a glissando.  That same measure of G notes is repeated to the fade out at the end.

(click here for a larger image)

Because that measure with G notes is so prevalent, I think the song is in G major, although there are also Bb and Eb notes, so I'm not positive on the key.  I should mention that I figured this out about four years ago, and I'm assuming that what I have is accurate.

The Lumineers' "Stubborn Love"

Elie Wiesel died a few weeks ago, and a day or two afterwards, I happened to see one of his quotes, which - in full - runs:  "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.  The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference.  The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.  And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death."  The first line of this sounded familiar to me because it's also a line in the Lumineers' "Stubborn Love."  In the second verse, it appears as "The opposite of love's indifference."  I haven't seen anything that confirms this influence, but the lines are so similar that it seems unlikely to be just coincidence.

Mel Tormé's Jazz and Velvet Disc 3 - Blue Moon

About three weeks ago, I listened to a four-CD set of Mel Tormé titled Jazz and Velvet.  There were a couple things I'd previously noticed about a couple songs on disc three (subtitled Blue Moon), and I thought I'd write about them this week.

"Pythagoras, How You Stagger Us"

The first two lines of this song are "Friends, Romans, and fellow students / Gather 'round and little to [a] little math,"  I might not have the end of that second line right, but in any case, it's a reference to the first line of Mark Antony's speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" (III.ii.73).

If I understand the liner notes correctly, this was a song from Tormé's radio show, which had a collegiate setting (an-other song on the disc is "Dear Old Fairmont"), so along with the mathematics that are integral to the song, literature and history are also touched on via that allusion.

"The French Lesson"

This is probably pretty obvious, but there are some quotations of "La Marseillaise" here.  There are a few instrumental quotations throughout, and at the end, Yvonne sings the first line: "Allons enfants de la Patrie."  Since the song is about learning French and "La Marseillaise" is the French national anthem, it makes a lot of sense.

The Dave Clark Five's "Don't Let Me Down"

About a month ago, I listened to The History of the Dave Clark Five, and I became interested in the bass part of "Don't Let Me Down."  It follows a paradigm that - with some variation - I've noticed in a lot of rock and roll songs from the '50s with a I IV I V IV I progression.  For the first three chords (I IV I), the bass part arpeggiates the chords with a root, third, fifth, sixth, minor seventh figure (which is then played backwards to return to the root).  For the next two (V and IV), there are arpeggiations of pure triads (root, third, fifth, third), and then the last chord (I) goes back to the root, third, fifth, sixth, minor seventh figure.

It wasn't until notating "Don't Let Me Down" that I realized that it diverges from that at one point.  Near the end of the piano solo there's a D (the fifth scale degree) instead of an F natural (the minor seventh scale degree).  In the notation, this is the first note of the fourth measure in the fourth line.

(click here for a larger image)

I have a few extra comments (I can't really say "notes") about my notation.  First, I can't for the life of me draw a good-looking quarter rest.  Second, I think there may be some glissandi that I didn't indicate.  I wasn't sure if what I was hearing was part of the bass line or the saxophone, but since I couldn't figure out a good way of playing those glissandi, I didn't include them in my notation.

The Kinks' "Something Better Beginning"

For my Collection Audit project, I recently listened to the deluxe edition of Kinda Kinks.  The opening guitar figure in "Something Better Beginning" (which also recurs later in the song) sounded interesting to me, so I figured out how to play it.  I was wondering if it involved an interval of a fourth or a fifth, but it's actually just a second.  Simplified, it's a modulation from D major to Dsus2.  Specifically, it's this:

E|---2-0-
B|---3---
G|---2---
D|---0---
A|-0-----
E|-------

Once I had that, I started figuring out the rest of the chords and eventually got the whole chord progression:

|: D major / Dsus2 :|
D major / C major
E minor / A major / E minor / A major / D major

D major / D7 / G major
G major / D major / A major / G major
G major / D major / A major
|: D major / Dsus2 :|

Bb major / D major / Bb major / D major
F major / C major / Bb major / A major

D major / C major
E minor / A major / E minor / A major / D major

D major / D7 / G major
G major / D major / A major / G major
G major / D major / A major
|: D major / Dsus2 :|

Where I have "|: D major / Dsus2 :|" in the chord progression, it's more accurately the tab I have written out above.

Once I had the chords, I started thinking about the lyrics, and I found a couple instances where the tonality of the chords emphasizes the lyrics.

While the song's in D major (two sharps), the bridge is (with some accidentals) in F major (one flat).  The first two lines in the bridge mirror this unexpected tonality with unexpected love:  "I never thought I'd love like this until I met you / I found something I thought I'd never have."

The song ends with that D major to Dsus2 transition, so it doesn't really resolve.  Similarly, the singer/speaker's question ("Is this the start of another heartbreaker / Or something better beginning") is left open.  There isn't an answer.

The Searchers' "What Have They Done to the Rain"

When I started this project of posting notation every week, I failed to realize that 50/90 takes up a lot of time.  Because of 50/90 (and other projects) I don't have notation this week.  Instead, here are the chords to the Searchers' "What Have They Done to the Rain."  I was really into the Searchers in college (even though the only album I had was a two-disc compilation, which is still the only Searchers album I have), and I figured out how to play a lot of their songs.  At one point, I knew more songs by the Searchers than any other band, so for the next few weeks, if I don't have notation, I'll probably have the chords to a Searchers song.

Anyway, the chords for "What Have They Done to the Rain":

Verse 1
E major / F# minor / B major / E major
C# minor / B major / A major / B major

Verse 2
E major / F# minor / B major / E major
C# minor / B major / A major / E major
A major / B major

Verse 3
same as verse 1

Verse 4
E major / F# minor / B major / E major
C# minor / B major / A major / E major
A major / B major / A major / B major

Ending tag
E major / D major / E major

Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

I recently watched a video from The Art Assignment, an art show produced in association with PBS.  The video itself is about art around Los Angeles, and they briefly show this picture, labelled "Lee Bontecou in Her Wooster Street Studio":

I had to double-check, but I quickly confirmed that this picture lookt familiar to me because it's used as the cover for Spoon's album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga:

The Dave Clark Five's "I Need Love"

A couple weeks ago, I listened to The History of the Dave Clark Five.  I wanted to figure out the bass part to "Don't Let Me Down" (because I thought it followed a pretty common paradigm, which it does; hopefully, it'll be the notation I post next week), and I got my bass out even before the first disc was over.  Sort of by accident, I figured out the bass part for "I Need Love" (the last track on the first disc) while waiting for the disc to finish.  The majority is just the same four notes repeated over and over again:

(click here for a larger image)

I wrote this out by hand because I don't know how to insert the squiggly lines that indicate glissandi in the MIDI in my DAW.

I probably could have shortened the second line (I have the four-bar phrase, and then the same four-bar phrase within repeat signs, which is sort of redundant), but I thought it might be a bit more clear (as far as what note has a glissando to which) the way I have it here.  And then, since the bass part repeats, I just repeated what I had.

I hadn't realized until I started notating that the last G in that repeated four-bar phrase has a glissando back to the first C.  Because of that, it seems like that four-bar phrase is played on only one string.

Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman"

This is the first post in a new project where I try to post some notation (or, failing that, some chords I've figured out) every Friday.  For this one, I have the guitar riff from Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman."  I heard it in a commercial recently, and I figured I should learn it because it's probably one of the most famous riffs.  I think it won an award recently.  Plus, the note values are pretty simple; nothing more complex than an eighth note.

I have a few comments about how I've notated this.  First, this is written an octave higher than it's played.  I didn't want to have to mess with a bunch of ledger lines.  Second, this is the riff as it's played at the very beginning; later in the song, the riff is played without the three introductory bars.  Third, at the beginning of the song, there's a measure of just drums, which I didn't include in my notation.

(click here for a larger image)

Notation! (An-other Musical Project)

I have over a dozen musical projects, but I'm adding an-other one, which in some ways is a combination of elements from two others.  For about four years now, I've been trying to learn every part to every song by the Zombies (although I know I never will), and recently I started posting some of the chord progressions and notation.  From late 2012 to early 2015, I recorded a hymn every week to try to familiarize myself with notation.*  I've gotten better at knowing where the notes go on the staff, but the note values still give me problems sometimes.  So in an attempt to get better at that aspect of notation, I'm going to try to write out the notation for a part of a song every week (on Fridays).  The other projects** I have in the same vein as my Zombies project (trying to figure out a band's entire catalogue) are excepted from this, although I should start doing this same thing within each of those projects.

I have only three parts planned so far***, and I know I won't be able to do this every week, so it's likely that I'll often just post chords (or maybe even a tab) instead.  When I first started learning to play guitar, I was dismayed by how often I lookt up the chords for a particular song I wanted to learn to play and either didn't find it or found a chord progression that had a lot of errors in it.****  I'm under no delusions about how much traffic my blog gets, but there's still a possibility that my posting something will be helpful.  If nothing else, it's a resource that I can use myself.

--
*in January I revived and revised this project into Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals, which is about sacred music in general
**see this page for more on these
***of these three, two are bass parts, which is a trend I'll probably continue inadvertently; bass parts just seem easier to notate
****I can still remember finding something that said the chord progression for the Zombies' "The Way I Feel Inside" was the common group of I IV V vi chords in G major, but - after having figured it out myself - I know that it's in B major and a lot more complex than just I IV V vi

The Yardbirds' "For Your Love"

A couple months ago, while listening to Herman's Hermits' cover of the Yardbirds' "For Your Love," I realized that I'd misunderstood some lines.  However, the more I got thinking about it, I realized that how I'd originally understood it is also a valid reading.  I recently listened to the Yardbirds' original version for my Collection Audit project, and when I transcribed the lyrics, I discovered a third reading.

The line in question is the second line in the second verse.  I'd always understood it as "I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live," with the meaning that the singer/speaker would want to give the universe to the girl he loves before he'd allow himself to live and be with her.  (In explaining this, I've realized that it actually doesn't make that much sense, but this reading persists for me just because it's the only one I had for so long.)

When I recently heard the Herman's Hermits version, I realized that the line break might not interrupt the meaning.  Instead of two separate sentiments ("I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live" and "To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright"), it's just one thought divided by the line break ("I'd give the stars and the sun for I live / To thrill you with delight") and then the shorter promise that "I'd give you diamonds bright."  The "[be]fore" that I had thought was a temporal conjunction could be rendered as "for" and used as a causal conjunction.  (It could be rephrased as "I'd give the stars and sun because I live to thrill you with delight.")

I suspect that the first of those readings ("I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live" as a distinct thought from "To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright") made more sense to me because the same structure is present in the first verse:  "I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright."  Because of the line break, it's read more obviously as the two promises "I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door" and "To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright" rather than the uneven "I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight" and "I'd give you diamond bright."

But if that weren't enough, when I transcribed the song, I found yet an-other reading.  I'd been thinking of just the lead vocals, but in between those two lines, the backing vocals add "For your love."  This addition multiplies the ways in which the lines can be understood.

In the first verse, there's now:

1. I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright
2. I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight; I'd give you diamonds bright
3. I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door (For your love) / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright

And for the second verse:

1. I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright
2. I'd give the stars and the sun for I live / To thrill you with delight; I'd give you diamonds bright
3. I'd give the stars and the sun for I live (For your love) / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright

In the third reading of each, the "For your love" is given as a reason for the singer/speaker's bringing and giving certain items.  In the first verse, he says he'll "bring... diamond rings and things" for love, and in the second, he says he'll "give the stars and sun" as gifts because he lives for love.

There are so many ways in which the words can be understood, yet they still mean more or less the same thing.

Will Practice Scales for Employment

As of last month, I've been unemployed for two years (I graduated from university but haven't been able to find a job because I live in a cesspit devoid of occupational opportunity).  I routinely check job listings but haven't been able to find anything that 1) I'm qualified for and 2) wouldn't detest doing (it seems like everything is medical, heavily industrial, or truck driving).  My unemployment has become even more frustrating because a number of my former classmates are either continuing their education with more advanced degrees or already have really good positions.  For the last month or two, whenever I saw something someone posted about their amazing job, my reaction was to go check the job listings again.  And - of course - because I was already checking them almost everyday, nothing new (and certainly nothing good) came up.

Recently, I thought that I should redirect this impulse and make it productive.  I eventually came up with this: every time I see something that reminds me of my shameful unemployment, I'm going to practice a scale.  I already delineated a cycle of the twenty-four scales (I'm following the order in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, even though I've never heard it, much less played it) on five instruments (piano, bass, guitar in open D tuning, mandolin, and guitar in standard tuning).  For the fretted instruments, I'll start one fret higher every time I repeat the cycle of twenty-four scales.

Last week, I reviewed the left-hand finger positions for playing piano scales because - despite a semester of piano class - I didn't remember them (I did remember the right hand).  In doing this preliminary practice, I realized that I should actually give this project some more structure, so I'm going to practice a scale everyday regardless of unemployment woes.

I'm sure that relentlessly practicing my scales won't help me get a job, but music (in one form or an-other) is something I've been intensely interested in for the past few years, so drilling myself in one of its most basic structures surely can't be a waste of time (maybe I'll finally develop some more advanced keyboard skills too).  My chances of actually getting a job in music are astronomically minuscule (although that also seems to describe my chances of getting any sort of job), but I'm sure it'll always be a hobby for me.  In fact, if I do ever get a job, I'll still probably put more effort into my various musical endeavours than my professional work.

I'm not sure for how long, but I'll be documenting what scales I practice on my Twitter feed.

The Kingston Trio's "'Round about the Mountain"

For my Collection Audit project, I recently listened to the two-disc compilation album I have by the Kingston Trio.  When I listened to it last September, a line in "'Round about the Mountain" (written by Louis Gottlieb) sounded familiar to me.  I finally finished my transcription, so now I can write about the song.

One of the verses is:

If you can't pray like Peter
If you can't preach like Paul
Go home and tell your neighbor
That He died to save us all

I'm pretty sure that for this verse Gottlieb took some inspiration from the hymn "Hark, the Voice of Jesus Calling" (text by David Marsh, music by Joseph Barnby).  Apparently, there are alternate verses, but in the version I'm familiar with (#318 in the Lutheran Worship hymnal), the second verse is:

If you cannot speak like angels, if you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus; you can say He died for all.
If you cannot rouse the wicked with the judgement's dread alarms,
You can lead the little children to the Savior's waiting arms.

The clause "If you can't preach like Paul" in Gottlieb's song is identical to Marsh's "if you cannot preach like Paul" (save for the contraction), which is the initial similarity I noticed.  Additionally, Gottlieb's "tell your neighbor / That He died to save us all" is quite similar to Marsh's "You can tell the love of Jesus; you can say He died for all."

After transcribing "'Round about the Mountain" and comparing it to "Hark, the Voice of Jesus Calling" I found some more similarities.  These two verses - aside from the specific examples of Paul's preaching and telling of Christ's redemption - have the same general idea: even if you don't have the eloquence of angels or saints, you can still proclaim the message of Christ.  As Marsh puts it in a later verse: "Let none hear you idly saying, 'There is nothing I can do.'"

The last line of the Marsh verse quoted in full above might have inspired a recurring line in Gottlieb's song.  There are two repeated sections in "'Round about the Mountain":

'Round about the mountain
'Round about the mountain
My God is waiting
You can rise in His arms

and

The Lord loves a sinner
The Lord loves a sinner, man
The Lord loves a sinner
Who will rise in His arms

Both end with "ris[ing] in His arms," which isn't dissimilar to the image in Marsh's phrase "the Savior's waiting arms" (from Matthew 19:13-15).

Gottlieb's use of the phrase "If you can't preach like Paul" is the more irrefutable indication of the influence that "Hark, the Voice of Jesus Calling" probably had on him, but there might be something to these others too.

Simon & Garfunkel's "America"

Last December I thought I realized something about Simon & Garfunkel's "America," but I wanted to listen to it again before I wrote about it.  A couple weeks ago, I listened to Bookends for my Collection Audit project and took that opportunity to transcribe most of the song.  What I was thinking in December is valid, although it's only a small point about the line "'Kathy, I'm lost,' I said, though I knew she was sleeping."

What I realized is the importance behind the singer/speaker's admission that he "knew she was sleeping."  He knew Kathy was sleeping, but he told that he's lost anyway, which reveals something about him.  He wants to tell someone that he feels lost, but he also doesn't really want that feeling to be known.  That's why - when he does tell someone that he feels lost - he makes sure that it's at a time when it won't be heard, namely when Kathy's asleep.

"As Time Goes By"

Last week, I started thinking about "As Time Goes By."  I think it's most famous from the movie Casablanca (which I watched for the first time only a few days ago, mostly to hear the song), but the version I'm most familiar with is Cliff Richard's.  In any case, I noticed some things about the first verse:

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply as time goes by

There's assonance (with "i") in the second line - "A kiss is still a kiss."  There's an insistence and prevalence of that "i" sound, which emphasizes the constancy inherent in the meaning of "still."

Furthermore, that same "i" sound is in the "this" from the previous line.  The whole line "A kiss is still a kiss" is linked to "this" grammatically ("A kiss is still a kiss" is part of what "You must remember"), but they're also linked through that assonance.  There's the "i" in "this," and it's widespread in the line "A kiss is still a kiss."

The third line is interesting in its lack of that insistent assonance.  In "A sigh is just a sigh," that "i" sound is present only in the verb ("is").  In the two nouns ("sigh"), it's changed from a short "i" to a long "i," and there's a complete lack of any "i" (short or long) in the adverb ("just").  Because this line doesn't have the same repeated vowel sounds as the previous line (or any consistently repeated vowel sounds at all), it's slightly disappointing, so - compared to the kiss that "is still a kiss" - this line has the same unimpressive quality as a sigh, which is "just a sigh."

I should note that in the movie Casablanca, it's sung as "A kiss is just a kiss," which decreases the strength of the assonance-linking present in "A kiss is still a kiss."  I lookt up the lyrics for some other versions, and it seems like some have "A kiss is still a kiss" and some have "A kiss is just a kiss."

Punch Brothers' "Another New World"

Last month (the last day of the year, actually), I listened to Punch Brothers' Ahoy! EP.  I'd listened to it only a few times before, so listening to it then was the first time I really caught the name "Annabel Lee" in "Another New World."  The only other "Annabel Lee" I know of is the Edgar Allan Poe poem, so when I listened to Ahoy! a few weeks ago for my Collection Audit project, I transcribed the lyrics and compared them to the Poe poem.  The situations in each poem are different, but there are enough similarities to make me think that the song (written by Josh Ritter) took at least some inspiration from Poe.

In Poe's poem, there's the recurring line "In this kingdom by the sea," and "Another New World" is about maritime exploration.  There are lines about "set[ting] the course north" and "study[ing] the charts" to find "another new world at the top of the world."  In the song, Annabel Lee is a ship, and in the poem, she's "a maiden," but the connection between an Annabel Lee and the sea is a significant one in both works.

The speaker in the poem mentions the "love that was more than love" that he had with Annabel Lee, and the same sort of thing seems to be in the song.  The singer/speaker calls the Annabel Lee "the most beautiful ship in the sea."  Together, they're "happy to think back on all we had done," and he stays in "the loving embrace of her hold."

Both speakers are eventually separated from their respective Annabel Lees by means that are somewhat similar.  In the poem, "the wind came out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee," and in the song, the Annabel Lee is trapped in the ice and snow of the arctic.  The singer/speaker has to use "her mainsail for timber" and says he "burned her to keep me alive."  The cold is what does both of them in, either directly or because it leads to something worse.

Nevertheless, both speakers dream about Annabel Lee after her demise.  The speaker of the poem says that "the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee," and the singer/speaker of the song explains that "sometimes at night in my dreams comes the singing of some unknown tropical bird / And I smile in my sleep thinking Annabel Lee's finally made it to another new world."

Aside from the narrative, there are also some similarities in the poetic elements (although that doesn't really demonstrate Poe's influence in particular).  Both have some lines (or parts of lines) that have repetitive sounds.  There's alliteration with Gs in "So I said, 'All I got, all my guts, and my God'" in "Another New World," and in "Annabel Lee," there's some alliteration with Ls in "And this maiden she lived with no other thought / Than to love and be loved by me" and "we loved with a love that was more than love."  There's some internal rhyme in "the waves that once lifted her sifted instead into drifts against Annabel's side" in "Another New World," and in "Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee" in "Annabel Lee."  I should note that I'm quoting from my own (possibly incorrect) transcription.  I did look up some other transcriptions, but I thought their accuracy questionable.

Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode"

A couple months ago, I happened to think of the line "Strummin' with the rhythm that the drivers made" in Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."  A few lines before that, it's mentioned that Johnny used to "sit beneath the tree by the railroad track," so I'm assuming that the "drivers" there are steel drivers, hammering in the railroad spikes like John Henry did.

Then it occurred to me that what Johnny B. Goode is doing here is sort of the opposite of a sea shanty.  Sailors sang sea shanties to coordinate work; the rhythm of the song synchronized the workers.  Here, Johnny's taking the rhythm of the workers and - through extracting its rhythm - practicing his strumming.

Herman's Hermits' "The Most Beautiful Thing in My Life"

A couple months ago, I discovered some ambiguities in the lyrics of Herman's Hermits' "The Most Beautiful Thing in My Life," specifically the second half of the second verse:

She glows to me, arose to me
A shining star she is by far
The most beautiful thing in my life

Almost each one of these lines could be parsed a different way.  First, I found just "arose"/"a rose."  So either "she... arose to me" or "[She's] a rose to me," almost the same as the "A shining star she is by far" in the next line - listing metaphors for the girl.

But once I transcribed that part of the lyrics, I found something else.  The last two lines could have a break in two different places.  It could follow the line break: "A shining star she is by far / The most beautiful thing in my life," or it could be "A shining star" (either a metaphor like "a rose" or "A shining star arose to me" inverted as "Arose to me a shining star") and "She is by far the most beautiful thing in my life."

2016 Musical Projects

Most of my musical focus this year is going to be spent on doing Collection Audit again.  Every other year since 2008, I've attempted (and so far been successful) in listening to all of the music in my collection.  Since 2014, I've also been writing about things I notice while listening to everything.

The only new project I started is Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals.  Last year, I got a box set of Bach's complete sacred cantatas, and I started LHC mostly as a way just to write about them.  I'm also writing about other church music, and I revived the Hymnal Habitation project that I did from late 2012 to early 2015 (although it's not called Hymnal Habitation anymore).

The other projects I'm doing are just continuations of what I've already been doing:

• Cover projects - last year, I started a bunch of projects where I try to learn every part to every song by a particular band.  I'm well aware that I'll probably never finish (especially because this year I'll be more focused on Collection Audit than these projects), but even in just attempting to learn all of the parts, I've discovered some interesting things I probably would have been oblivious to otherwise.
• Verulam Cover Project - The Zombies and related bands (Argent, Colin Blunstone, Rod Argent)
• APP Stereotomy - The Alan Parsons Project and Keats
• Pendleton Sounds - The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and SMiLE (and maybe others eventually)
• 10538 Orchestra - Electric Light Orchestra
• Beatle Audit - The Beatles
• February Album Writing Month (FAWM) - the challenge to write a fourteen-song album in February, which I've participated in since 2010 (and completed in various degree every year, although I think I deserve credit only for the last four years, when I actually recorded fourteen songs).  Because it's Leap Year, the requirement might be fourteen and a half songs this time; that's what they did in 2012.
• 50/90 - the challenge to write fifty songs in ninety days (from 4 July to 1 October), which I've also participated in since 2010.  I've never actually finished, but I've still written some pretty good stuff for this project.  For the last two years, I've suddenly run out of momentum once July is over (I think I must get stuck in the FAWM mindset).

Because I'm doing Collection Audit, I've put the Classical Music Queue and the Cover Project Listening Schedule on hold.  Once I finish Collection Audit (or once the year is over, whichever comes first), I'll restart both of those.

I'm going to try to continue to have weekly posts here, but because I'm doing Collection Audit, that's where I'll be writing the most.  I do have some things that I noticed last year that I never got around to investigating, and if the schedule works out, I'll be able to listen to them for Collection Audit and write about them here.