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.

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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.

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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:

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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.