On "The Feeling's Inside"

As previously noted, I've been listening to all of the Argent albums I have this month.  I've also been using this as an opportunity to make some progress on the Verulam Cover Project - my attempt to learn and cover all of the songs by the Zombies, Colin Blunstone, and Argent.  Mostly, this has just been lyric transcription.  And while transcribing lyrics, I noticed something, which led me to an idea.

Rod Argent and Chris White started sharing writing credits for the Argent songs, and I had the idea that it might be interesting to try to figure out whether a song is more of a Rod Argent song or a Chris White song.  It seems that people are always trying to decide whether a McCartney/Lennon song is more McCartney or Lennon, so I figured I would try the same with a Argent/White song.

I would wager that "The Feeling's Inside" from Argent's eponymous debut album is mostly a Chris White song for two reasons.

First, there's the line "there is nothing to hide," referring to someone's love.  This is extremely similar to a line in "Friends of Mine," which is undoubtedly a Chris White song.  In "Friends of Mine," there's the chiasmus "that's something to see / that's nothing to hide," again referring to love.

Second, there's a chromatic descending bass part that goes from A to G to F# (and then to lower notes which I haven't figured out yet).  This is also characteristic of White's writing; this same thing occurs in "Brief Candles" (both descending and ascending) and in "Don't Go Away" (though only ascending)

So between the lyrical and musical similarities with his earlier work, I'm almost certain that "The Feeling's Inside" is a Chris White song.

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People/Candles

I've finally started doing the idea I had back in February.  Namely, listening to all of my Argent albums every week in August (also, alliteration).  However, since I decided to do that, I bought Circus.  It had worked out perfectly:  seven albums for seven days of the week.  Now I have eight albums that I have to squeeze into seven days.  So I've decided to listen to Greatest: The Singles Collection and Encore on Sunday and then listen to the other albums on the rest of the days of the week, going chronologically:

• Monday:  Argent
• Tuesday:  Ring of Hands
• Wednesday:  All Together Now
• Thursday:  In Deep
• Friday:  Nexus
• Saturday:  Circus

So because to-day is Thursday, I listened to In Deep to-day.  And I realised a few things:

I've heard "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" dozens of times, but until to-day, I had never been able to understand what Rod Argent sings at about 3:45.  It's "To every boy he gave a song to be sung."

I'm pretty sure that Rod Argent musically quotes some classical piano piece in "Be Glad."  I'm fairly certain that it's something he later recorded for Classically Speaking, but I have yet to listen to both albums back to back and figure out which one it is.

I revisited an earlier idea I had about "Candles on the River" and figured out something interesting.  According to Bob Henrit's comments on the LP sleeve, "Candles on the River," while billed to "Argent/White," is mostly a Chris White song.  And the "candles" part reminded me of "Brief Candles" from the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, which Chris White also wrote.  He re-uses the metaphor of people as candles.  But then I remembered that that wasn't his original idea; he took it from Aldous Huxley's collection of short stories titled Brief Candles.  And Huxley took "brief candle" from Shakespeare's Macbeth.  But I realised that Shakespeare didn't really come up with the metaphor of people as candles either.  It's in Isaiah 42:  "Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.  He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench." (Emphasis added.)

Which has a lot of interesting connections.  Even though it doesn't appear that Chris White was familiar with the "brief candles" line in Macbeth, the Zombies did list Shakespeare as an influence.  There's a quote from The Tempest in the original liner notes to Odessey and Oracle.  Similarly, while Argent (the band) may not have recognized the Biblical reference that the people/candles metaphor has, there are religious influences in their work.  There's the musical quotation of the Latin hymn "Dies Irae" in "The Coming of Kohoutek" from Nexus.  In the version of "Hold Your Head Up" on Encore, Rod Argent includes part of "God of Grace and God of Glory" in his solo.  And there are also religious connections (or at least hints to them) in "God Gave Rock and Roll to You," "Gonna Meet My Maker," "Music from the Spheres," and "Rejoice."

So even though it doesn't appear that these bands realized where some of their references came from, the references still fit within the context of the band's past work and acknowledged influences.

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