The Byrds' "You're Still on My Mind"

About two weeks ago, I figured out the chords for the Byrds' "You're Still on My Mind" (from Sweetheart of the Rodeo).  Even before I figured them out, I thought there was a cyclical nature to them.  Figuring them out revealed that it's just a I IV V I pattern, but that has some interesting implications when the lyrics are considered.

The song is in A major, so with that standard I IV V I progression (played twice for each verse), it's A major / D major / E major / A major (although I should mention that an E major underlies the introductory figure).  At first, all I noticed was that the song returns to A major (the tonic or "home" chord) for the end of the line "'One more,' I keep sayin', 'and then I'll go home,'" so the music reflects the lyrics there.  But then I realized that the cyclical returning is present in other lyrics too.  Each verse ends with the line "An empty bottle, a broken heart, and you're still on my mind," and the "you're still on my mind" is sung above an A major chord.  In the same way the "you" is "still on my mind," there's a constant returning to that A major.

The opposite sort of thing is present in the second verse.  When the speaker/singer notices "the people... dancin' and havin' their fun," he's briefly distracted from his own plight, and the chord progression modulates away from that A major chord to D major.  But when he starts "thinkin' about what you have done," the progression returns to A major again.  In the third line, in order "To try and forget you," he "turn[s] to the wine," and - again - the chord progression modulates from A major to D major to musically portray that turning, only to return to A major again at the end of the verse because "you're still on my mind."

The I IV V I progression is pretty run-of-the-mill and a bit uninteresting, but because these lyrics connect with it in a clever way, it's elevated above its usual mediocrity.

The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Since 20 January (the 50th anniversary of their first studio session on 20 January 1965), I've been reading Christopher Hjort's So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star: The Byrds Day-by-Day 1965-1973.  A month or two ago, I reached August 1968, when Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released (on 30 August according to Hjort and the liner notes of my CD reissue).  It's probably my favorite Byrds album (although I've heard only the first six so far), so after reading about it, I listened to it a few times and found a few interesting things.

"I Am a Pilgrim"

I'm surprised I didn't realize this earlier, but there are two Biblical stories mentioned in the lyrics.

"I’m going down to the River of Jordan / Just to bathe my wearisome soul" is a reference to Naaman in the Old Testament.  In 2 Kings 5, the prophet Elisha tells Naaman to dip himself in the Jordan River seven times to be cured of his leprosy.

The other reference is in the lines "If I can just touch the hem of His garment, good Lord / Then I’d know He’d take me home."  Recounted in three different books of the New Testament (Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8), a woman is healed from a discharge of blood after touching only the fringe of Jesus' garment.

(I feel it's also worth mentioning that last September I wrote about some similarities between "I Am a Pilgrim" and "Wayfaring Stranger" as part of my Collection Audit project.)

"The Christian Life"

The CD version I have of Sweetheart of the Rodeo includes bonus tracks, one of which is a rehearsal of "The Christian Life."  After listening to both, I discovered that the two versions flip the first line of the two verses.  In the version on the final album, the first verse starts with "My buddies tell me that I should have waited" and the second with "My buddies shun me since I turned to Jesus," but in the other version, the first verse starts with "My buddies shun me since I turned to Jesus" and the second with "My buddies tell me that I should have waited."

In both versions, there seems to be a discrepancy between the lead and backing vocals during the line "For what is a friend who'd want you to fall."  The lead vocals seem to have "who'd want" where the backing vocals have "who wants."

"You're Still on My Mind"

Lately, I've been really interested in melismas that add meaning to the lyric.  "You're Still on My Mind" has some of them with the "heart" in the line "An empty bottle, a broken heart, and you’re still on my mind" that ends each verse.  Where "heart" would normally have only one syllable, it has two here, so it sounds "broken."  Oddly, though, that melisma isn't present in every verse.  It's in the first verse and the repeated line in the third verse.  In the rehearsal version (included as a bonus track), it's in the second verse and that repeated line in the third verse.

"You Got a Reputation" [Bonus Track]

Like the melismas on "heart" in "You're Still on My Mind," there are some interesting melismas on "down" in a few of the various "You’re just tearin’ your own reputation down" lines.  They're slight, but some of those "down"s have multiple syllables, and later syllables are at a lower pitch than earlier ones.  So the word "down" is falling, pitch-wise.