On Lyric Transcription of Odessey and Oracle

At the end of October, I got (yet an-other) copy of the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle - the 30th anniversary edition put out by Big Beat that includes the whole album in both mono and stereo.  As I've mentioned before, Odessey and Oracle is one of my favorite albums, and I've been working on learning how to play all of the songs from it.  I've also been transcribing all of the lyrics.  However, I was actually a bit disappointed when I discovered that this edition has all of the lyrics written out in the liner notes.

Mostly, it was the lyrics for "A Rose for Emily" and "Changes" that caused this slight disappointment.  These liner notes claim that the first line of "A Rose for Emily" is "The summer is here at last," and yet - when compared to the rest of the song - it makes so much more sense if the first line is "Though summer is here at last."  I wrote a more in-depth post about that here.

I'd been trying to figure out the exact lyrics for "Changes" for a long time.  I'd seen people writing them as "I knew her when summer was her crown / And autumn sad how brown her eyes."  Yet, I often heard it as "I knew her when summer was her crown / And autumn sighed how brown her eyes."  I had been thinking about that particular line - whether it was "sad" or "sighed" - for months.  To come up with an answer, I looked at the rest of the lyrics.

  

There is more than one instance in Chris White's writing where he takes the grammatical structure of one phrase and inverts it for the next phrase.  For instance, in "Friends of Mine" - "That's something to see / That's nothing to hide."  So I took this parallelism approach and applied it to the lyrics of "Changes."  If the one line is "In spring her voice she spoke to me," it made sense to me that the complement was "And autumn sighed how brown her eyes."  Both of those lines are linked by breathing (speaking and sighing) in the same way that the other two lines are linked by the concept of seasons as wearable items (summer as crown and winter as cloak).

That's how I interpreted the lyrics, but then I find that in the liner notes, it's listed as "And autumn sad how brown her eyes."  Which is the very line that I had decided against based on parallelism.

I'm not sure where the lyrics in these particular liner notes came from - whether Rod Argent and Chris White were consulted or whether it's someone else's transcription, but I'm still going to hold to what I heard - "Though summer is here at last" and "And autumn sighed how brown her eyes."  Based on the other lyrics of the songs, those make more sense to me, and - ultimately - give the songs more meaning for me.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

On "A Rose for Emily"

I've run across this enough times that I feel something needs to be said about it.  The first line of the Zombies' "A Rose for Emily" is "though summer is here at last."  I think that every time I've seen the lyrics written out - even in the sheet music I have of the song - it's rendered as "the summer is here at last."  And while just listening closely enough will reveal that it's actually "though," looking at the rest of the lyrics provides sufficient evidence.

The first stanza sets up the contrast between summer and loveless Emily, which the rest of the song develops.  Summer is usually seen as one of the best times of the year, but despite that fun connotation, Emily's life is sort of dismal.

She watches her flowers grow
While lovers come and go
To give each other roses from her tree
But not a rose for Emily  

Emily, can't you see there's nothing you can do
There's loving everywhere but none for you

And while much of the song talks about this by illustrating the contrast between Emily and the other lovers, it is also illustrated by the contrast in the weather:  "Though summer is here at last / The sky is overcast."  Summer is usually a time of enjoyable weather, but here "the sky is overcast."  The though indicates the opposition between the first two lines.

"The summer is here at last / The sky is overcast" does not have that opposition, and it seems choppy and contradictory.  Though signifies a subordinate clause, which improves upon both of these shortcomings.  It illustrates that the two lines are grammatically connected and intentionally opposite.

---&---

{YouTube}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

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.

---&---

{YouTube}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

Immersion

Over the past few years, I've noticed a lot of connexions between learning different instruments and learning foreign languages.  In general, each instrument or language is the same; they produce particular notes or particular meanings.  But each instrument and language does so in a particular way.

I'm sort of interested to see if immersion in particular music styles will have the same effect as immersion in a particular foreign language.  I've experienced this in more haphazard ways; during the past two summers, I went on a skiffle kick and ended up writing a skiffle song for 50/90.  But I haven't done it in a consistent way.

I've been listening to two albums every week this year - the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle and the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed.  But I think I'm going to add more in the same sort of style and have an album (or an album's equivalent) for each day of the week.  And since one of my musical projects for 2013 is to increase the complexity of my arrangements, that's the central element I'm going to focus on.

---~---

Sunday - Brian Wilson's SMiLE

I was really behind the crowd in discovering SMiLE.  Rumours about it have abounded since recording started on it in 1966; I didn't hear about it until the box set of those recordings was released in 2011.  I found the 2004 version at Half Price Books back in January, and I think I've listened to it every week or every other week since then.  I sort of think that SMiLE has unfairly eclipsed Pet Sounds for me just because I've listened to it so much more.  Brian Wilson's productions are always interesting because they have complex instrumentation and complex vocal parts.

---~---

Monday - The Zombies' Odessey and Oracle

Naturally, I'm biased for this one.  The Zombies have been my favourite band since the end of 2008.  I heard their version of "You've Really Got a Hold on Me/Bring It on Home to Me" back to back with the Beatles' version of "You Really Got a Hold on Me," and there was no contest.  Before I looked at the artist, I thought the Zombies' version was a live recording of the Beatles because their version is just so much more energetic than the Beatles' plodding.

Then I started going through their back catalogue, which consists basically of two albums.  And since Odessey and Oracle is the one that they had the most control over, it's the better of the two.  They have a lot of interesting harmonies and a fair amount of mellotron overdubs.

---~---

Tuesday - The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed

I had the idea to listen to this every Tuesday just because it's set on a Tuesday ("Tuesday Afternoon") and 2013 started on a Tuesday.  But shortly before the year began, I decided to add Odessey and Oracle, and the two complement each other well, mostly because they both have a lot of mellotron parts.

Days of Future Passed is also significant in that it combines more traditionally symphonic elements with the rock band paradigm, which - granted - the Moody Blues are probably not the best example of, since they included keyboard instruments and flute.

---~---

Wednesday - Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery

ELP are usually pretty broad in their scope, and I had to decide between this and Tarkus.  I think I like some of the individual songs on Tarkus better, but the songs on Brain Salad Surgery seem more consistent.  Also, the total running time of the different impressions of Karn Evil 9 is longer than the Tarkus medley.  Not that length is a definitive indicator of quality, but since my goal is elaborate and consistent production, it's a useful metric in this instance.

---~---

Thursday - Delicious Pastries' Pretty Please and Will Dixon's This Upward Curve

Both of these are different from the other albums on the list because A) they're both shorter and B) they're indie releases.  Pretty Please has some clear influence from the sort of baroque pop that I'm fond of, and it includes string arrangements along with electric guitar.  And that bending of traditional instrumental corpora is a thing that I'm interested in.  This Upward Curve also has that to some degree; the songs are more folky, but the instrumentation is more rock-based.  It's like Simon & Garfunkel's electrified version of "The Sound of Silence" turned up a few degrees.

---~---

Friday - Argent's Nexus

Argent is becoming my new favourite band.  It's the same kind of direction that the Zombies had (both were bands with Rod Argent, so that similarity is not a surprise), but the themes are beyond simple love songs and the musical scope is larger.  On All Together Now, there's about six minutes of just Rod Argent's organ playing.

I had to choose between Ring of Hands and Nexus (those two are my favourites), and I chose Nexus mostly because of the instrumental songs based on Kohoutek ("The Coming of Kohoutek," "Once around the Sun," and "Infinite Wander").  Lately, all of the songs I've been writing have been instrumental, and for the time being, I don't see that changing much (I have an-other post about this in the works), so I felt that listening to instrumental rock songs would have a greater influence.

---~---

Saturday - The Alan Parsons Project's Eye in the Sky

The only reason I started listening to the Alan Parsons Project is that Colin Blunstone from the Zombies sang on a few of their tracks, including "Old and Wise" from Eye in the Sky.  The production on Eye in the Sky is perhaps less aggressive than that on Brain Salad Surgery or Nexus, but it's still complex - the instrumental part in "Silence and I" in particular.

---~---

So I'm going to listen to these eight albums on these seven days of the week starting this week and continuing until the end of the year.  Hopefully some of the complexity of the arrangements and/or the production will rub off on me.

If you'd like, you can see exactly what I'm listening to by following my music journal blog.

---&---

{YouTube}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

Argent August and Other Musical Prescriptions

One of my minor musical projects for 2013 is to listen to the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle every Monday and the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed every Tuesday.  It started out as just Days of Future Passed on Tuesdays because 2013 began on a Tuesday and that's the album that contains "Tuesday Afternoon," but soon after, I added Odessey and Oracle just because I like it so much.

So far, I've been able to keep up with it (excepting one Monday when I was terribly ill).

For February Album Writing Month, I've excluded all string instruments and written all of my songs with at least some keyboard element.  In order to indoctrinate myself to that particular paradigm, I've listened to Rod Argent's Classically Speaking everyday for the past three weeks or so.

Because I've been listening to these albums so much, I've been able to pick out things that I hadn't heard before.  For instance, I hadn't realised how prominent the sound of the mellotron is for Days of Future Passed or Odessey and Oracle.  And I like having that; it's like I'm rediscovering music that I've known for years.

Last night, I realised that I have five Argent albums (Argent, Ring of Hands, All Together Now, In Deep, and Nexus) and that it would be interesting to listen to one of those for each day of the week.  I later expanded this to include the live album from 1974 and the greatest hits album I have, which includes different versions of the songs, such as the edited singles.  That makes seven albums - one for each day of the week.  So I decided to make this a project I'll do in August - listen to one Argent album everyday.

But then the more I got thinking about this, the more I realised that other groups could fit into this paradigm too (though they aren't as alliterative).  I have five Colin Blunstone albums (One Year, Ennismore, Journey, The Ghost of You and Me, and On the Air Tonight) - there's an album for every weekday of July.  And for June, I could have two albums by the Zombies.  One set of the original albums (Begin Here, Odessey and Oracle, New World, As Far As I Can See, and Breathe Out, Breathe In) and one set that includes the four discs of Zombie Heaven and Into the Afterlife, which includes some more Zombies songs and transitional tracks from the Zombies to Colin Blunstone and Argent.

I'll have to do some more planning to figure out specifically what albums I have to listen to on what days, but I think this is a good idea and it's certainly a thing I'm going to try to do.  Not only will it allow me to become more familiar with the artists that I enjoy, but it was also further cement them into my brain so that - with any luck - the songs I write will more closely resemble the songs that influenced them.

---&---

{January's Cloak}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}