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.
