Fred Astaire's "Cheek to Cheek"

Last week, I happened to think of Fred Astaire's "Cheek to Cheek," and I noticed something about the melody for the line "When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek."  The "cheek to cheek" part is sung to the notes C B C, and there are two musical elements there that indicate the proximity that's mentioned in the line itself.  First, both "cheek"s are sung to C notes.  In the musical phrase they're separated by a note, but those two notes have the same pitch.  It's as if they (like the cheeks in the line) are occupying the same space.  Second, C and B (the two pitches to which that phrase are sung) are next to each other.  Without going into quarter tones, notes can't get any closer, so it's as if the notes C and B are themselves "cheek to cheek."

The Decemberists' "The Island"

Because it was St. Patrick's Day a few days ago, I listened to a 2-CD set titled 40 Irish Songs Everyone Ought to Know.  One of them was "Whiskey in the Jar," which reminded me of something I noticed last summer (when I listened to Thin Lizzy's version of "Whiskey in the Jar") and needed to get around to writing about.

Because it's a folk song, there are different versions of the lyrics, but in "Whiskey in the Jar," there are lines where the speaker/singer draws a pistol and then a sword.  In versions I have, this is rendered as "I first produced my pistol / And then produced my rapier" (Thin Lizzy), "I first produced me pistol / And then I drew me saber" (The Original Irish Boys) and "First produced me pistol / I then produced me rapier" (The Countdown Singers).

In "The Landlord's Daughter" section of the Decemberists' "The Island" (on The Crane Wife), there are similar lines:  "Produced my pistol / Then my saber."  I haven't really lookt into the narrative of the songs to see if there are any similarities there, but the resemblance of the lines is indisputable.

A couple years ago, I wrote a post about some similarities between the folk song "Molly Malone" and the Decemberists' "Eli, the Barrow Boy."  I think this is an-other instance of Colin Meloy's interest in folk music making its way into his writing.

Badfinger's "Storm in a Teacup"

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a Shakespeare reference in Badfinger's "Storm in a Teacup."  A couple days ago, I learned the chords, so I figured it'd be good to post those.  It's actually pretty simple:

Introduction:
|: G major | D major :|

Verses:
|: E minor | B minor :|
C major | D major

Choruses:
|: G major | D major :|

Tag:
G major | F major | Eb major | G major

Del Shannon's "So Long Baby"

I've been listening to my two-CD set of Del Shannon a lot lately, and I noticed a couple of little things about the vocal melody in "So Long Baby."

The end of the line "Step by step you put me down" descends, and "down" has a melisma (Bb Ab F), so there's a musical representation (in two ways, actually) of the putting down.

The "hearts" in the line "We tried to break each other's hearts" also has a melisma (Eb F Eb), so the word itself is broken into syllables, mirroring the broken hearts in the lyric.

Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More"

Karen Carpenter's birthday was last week (2 March), so I listened to the Carpenters' Gold album.  I remembered something I noticed a while ago but hadn't written about yet, so I thought I might as well get around to doing that this week.

At the beginning of "Yesterday Once More," the only instrumentation to accompany Carpenter's voice is piano.  During the first half of the second verse, there's a bit of bass, but it's in a higher register so it's not as noticeable.  After the line "How I wondered where they'd gone" (where "they" refers to the "happy times" from the previous line), the bass drops to a lower register, becoming more prominent, and organ and drums come in.  It's a musical representation of the next line: "But they're back again."

The first verse links the joy of those "happy times" with music:

When I was young, I'd listen to the radio
Waitin' for my favorite songs
When they played, I'd sing along
It made me smile

So when more instruments come in to represent being "back again," it's almost literal.  The music of those "happy times" - which the additional instrumentation represents - has actually come "back again."