Peter & Gordon's "Lady Godiva"

This month, I learned the bass/low brass part for Peter & Gordon's "Lady Godiva" (I'm not sure if the low brass instrument is tuba or euphonium).  Certainly for the first few measures, they play the same thing, and I think they play the same thing throughout the rest of the song, but it's sometimes a bit difficult to tell.  Some of the subtleties in my notation might be more brass than bass just because it's easier to pick out in the mix, although - as always - there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong.

"Edelweiss" (from The Sound of Music)

A couple weeks ago, I learned the melody for "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music.  I figured it out and notated it from memory, but when I checkt the recording on The Sound of Music soundtrack, I discovered that I even had it in the right key:  Bb major.  I standardized the note values a bit compared to how Christopher Plumber sings it, and I might have been a bit liberal with the rests:

After playing this a few times, I realized something about the melody to which "Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow / Bloom and grow forever" is sung:

The musical phrase to which each "Bloom and grow" is sung ascends, with the second starting higher than the first:

Individually, each musical phrase portrays growth through that ascent, and the effect is compounded because the second starts at a higher pitch than the first.

The second thing I noticed about this phrase is that the "forever" is sung to six beats spanning three measures.  It starts with a quarter note (on the third beat of the measure), continues into the next measure with a dotted half note, and then ends in a third measure with a half note.  This "forever" has more syllables than any other word in the song (aside from "edelweiss" itself) and spans more measures than any other word (every instance of "edelweiss" fits within two measures).  The "forever" in the line "Bless my homeland forever" has the same note values distributed across measures in the same way; it's just sung to different pitches.  That these "forever"s are sung spanning three measures demonstrates the long period of time for which the edelweiss flower is supposed to "bloom and grow" and "bless my homeland."

Roy Orbison's "I Give Up"

Last week I listened to a Roy Orbison album (The Essential Sun Years), and I learned the chords for "I Give Up."  A couple days later, I recorded a version.  Since it's just voice and guitar, it was relatively straight forward.  I recorded the vocal and guitar parts at the same time, so when I later discovered a few extraneous noises in the vocal track, I couldn't really cut them out.  The vocal microphone still pickt up the guitar in the background, so cutting parts out of that track was too noticeable.  Still, I don't think I did too badly.  I followed the original as closely as I could, including the few minor lyrical differences between repetitions of the bridge and final verse.

Here are the chords:

Verses:
E major | B major
B major | E major
E major | B major
A major | B major | E major (E7 to second bridge)

Bridge
|: A major | E major :|
F# major | B major

Coda
E major | A major | E major

The Byrds' "I Am a Pilgrim"

A couple years ago, I wrote a post about the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo in which I mentioned some Biblical references in "I Am a Pilgrim."  I wrote that the lines "If I can just touch the hem of His garment, good Lord / Then I'd know He'd take me home" reference the woman "healed from a discharge of blood after touching only the fringe of Jesus' garment" recounted in Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8.

Recently, though, I read part of Matthew 14 and found an-other passage that could just as well be the referent for those lines.  After feeding the five thousand and walking on the water, Jesus (with His disciples) "came to land at Gennesaret.  And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment.  And as many as touched it were made well" (Matthew 14:34-36).  There's a parallel account in Mark 6:53-56.

Where both of these Scriptural accounts deal with healing rather than - as it is in "I Am a Pilgrim" - being taken home (that is, taken to Heaven, "that yonder city... not made by hand... Over on that other shore"), they do both mention "touch[ing] the fringe of his garment," which is also what's in the song.

Cliff Richard's "Here Comes Summer"

Since summer starts next week, I thought I'd post the chords to Cliff Richard's "Here Comes Summer," which I actually figured out in early winter last year.

Verses:

|: D major | B minor | E minor | A major :| D major

Bridge:

G major | D major | G major | A major

~key change to Eb major~

Verses:

|: Eb major | C minor | F minor | Bb major :| Eb major

Bridge:

Ab major | Eb major | Ab major | Bb major

The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed

Over the last two months I listened to the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed every Thursday.  Originally, I'd intended to keep this up until the end of the year, but I got busy with other projects and reconsidered it.  In any case, I found a few things to write about.

"Evening: The Sun Set/Twilight Time"

During the bridge of "Twilight Time," there's the line "Building castles in the air."  The melody to which this is sung ascends, representing the increasing height of the castles as they're built:

I should mention that I guessed on the key, but whatever key "Twilight Time" is in does have at least two flats.  There's an Eb in the vocal melody and a Bb in the recurring piano phrase.

"The Night: Nights in White Satin"

During the line "Impassioned lovers wrestle as one" in the closing narration, there are tremolos in the strings, apparently to musically represent that "wrestl[ing]."

Carpenters' Ticket to Ride

Last month I listened to the Carpenters' Ticket to Ride and found some things to write about.

"Your Wonderful Parade"

When I listened to the album a few other times, the phrase "of the people, by the people, and for the people" in the spoken introduction sounded familiar to me.  I couldn't place it though, so I eventually just lookt it up.  It's from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

"Get Together"

I have four versions of this song (with various titles) in my music collection, and three of the four sing the "hand" in the line "It's in your trembling hand" (or some variation of that) with a melisma.  It's sung to more than one note to musically illustrate the trembling.  The Dave Clark Five don't include this verse in their version ("Everybody Get Together"), but Jefferson Airplane ("Let's Get Together") sing it to the phrase C B A; the Youngbloods to the phrase C# B; and the Carpenters to the phrase Bb A G.  However, the Carpenters go a bit further with this portrayal of trembling: the entirety of the vocal for the verses has a wavering effect (I'm assuming it's done through a Leslie speaker, but I didn't find anything to confirm this).

"Turn Away"

The end of the line "Or are you afraid that I'll bring you down" descends; "bring you down" is sung to the phrase A G F#.  The backing vocals after that line echo "Bring you down," and while one of the vocal parts is just sung to F# notes, the other part descends, like the line in the lead vocal.  It starts on a B, but then goes to an A#.  Because the song is in D major, that A# is an accidental.  Musically, then, the misstep of being brought down is represented not only with a descending melody but also with an accidental.