Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, Op. 21

For the last two days, the classical piece I've listened to as part of my Classical Music Queue project has been Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream music.  I became curious about a particular phrase in the overture, so I looked up the notation and followed along when I listened to it yester-day.  What I heard wasn't what I thought, but in looking through the notation, I found something else that I found interesting.

The overture starts and ends with a four-note phrase in the flutes.  The second flute part in the opening is different, but the two flute parts at the end form progressively larger intervals.

(notation found here)

First, there's a third (E, G#), then a fourth (F#, B), a fifth (A, E), and finally a sixth (B, G#).

I don't have anything extra-musical to say about this; I just thought it was a really interesting feature.

Delicious Pastries' Pretty Please

I got Delicious Pastries' album Pretty Please shortly after it came out, and even though they're not that famous of a band, that album became my favorite new album at the time.  I hadn't listened to it for a while, but I recently got back into it and noticed lots of things I'd been oblivious to.

"safe & sound"

The couplet "and I will do all those things / that I would have done unto me" seems to be a reference to the Golden Rule.  "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" - Matthew 7:12.

"dad"

This is where most my re-sparked interest lay, specifically in the line "you never gave us stones, we only ate bread."  I'd always thought that, following the Matthew 7 reference in "safe & sound," this was based on Matthew 7:9-10:  "Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?"  But then while reading Lord Byron's Don Juan, I came across a reference to Saturn:

One system eats another up, and this
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny;
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones (Canto 14, stanza 1, lines 5-8)

I also looked up Saturn in Edith Hamilton's Mythology.  She explains that

Cronos [the Greek name for Saturn] had learned that one of his children was destined some day to dethrone him and he thought to go against fate by swallowing them as soon as they were born.  But when Rhea [his wife] bore Zeus, her sixth child, she succeeded in having him secretly carried off to Crete, while she gave her husband a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes which he supposed was the baby and swallowed down accordingly.

Later in "dad," there's the line "you'd have to eat the veins and arteries too," which seems more relevant to the story of Saturn than the Matthew text.  I still can't seem to make much sense of it, but running across that reference to Saturn in Don Juan has at least showed me that there's more to "dad" than I originally thought.

At the very end of the song, there's the sound of a train, which I'm fairly certain is a reference to "Caroline, No," the last track on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, which also ends with the sound of a train.

"marian"

The book-related metaphors ("you're no open book" and "I'd dog-ear a couple of your pages") made me realize that this might be a reference to Marian Paroo, the librarian in The Music Man.  The names are spelt the same, and there are those book references.

"Careless Love"

Since July, I've been working my way through the piano book I used in my beginner's piano class in college.  Last week I re-learned and practiced "Careless Love," which - according to the book - is a Tennessee folk song.  I'm sure I didn't notice this when I first learned the song, but there's a chromatic phrase in the chords at the end of the third phrase and into the fourth:

F7 (F, A, Eb), inverted Bb (F, Bb, D), inverted Bbm (F, Bb, Db), F (F, A, C)

I remember liking that part, but I didn't know it was because of that chromatic phrase (I didn't even know what a chromatic phrase was back then).  In the four years or so since I took that piano class, I've learnt a lot more about music, so when I discovered that chromatic phrase now, I realized that it reflects the feeling of the lyrics.  There seems to be an inherent melancholy associated with descending chromatic phrases, and the lyrics include a despairing "See what careless love has done to me."

Shortly after I played this song in piano class, I discovered a version by Fats Domino already in my music collection.  (For what it's worth, his version is in Ab major where my piano book has it in F major, so the chromatic phrase in his is within the chord sequence Ab7 C# C#m Ab.)  I recently listened to it again and transcribed the lyrics.  They're different from the ones in my piano book (not unusual for folk songs), but they too have a downhearted feeling, with phrases like "Can’t you see what careless love done to me" and "You said that you love me, and it didn’t mean a thing."

Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals

A year or two ago, I thought I found a phrase in Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, KV 550 that sounded similar to a phrase in Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals.  Recently, because it was in the CMQ, I listened to that Mozart symphony and remembered this possible connection that I'd never followed up on.  So I looked up the notation for both pieces and found the specific phrases.

The viola phrase at the very beginning of the second movement of Mozart's symphony:

(click on the image to enlarge it)

(notation found here)

The first contrabass phrase in Saint-Saëns' "The Elephant":

(notation found here)

Both start with an ascending fourth from Bb to Eb, and then that Eb is repeated.  Near the end of both phrases, there's a three-note section where the middle note is lower than the outer two (a whole step in Mozart's symphony, but a half step in "The Elephant").

Apparently Saint-Saëns was familiar with Mozart's work, so I'm assuming that he would have known Symphony No. 40, but I'm not sure if it inspired that phrase in "The Elephant."  There's certainly a similarity between them, but I'm still hesitant to assert anything about classical music because I don't know very much about it.

The Tremeloes' "Hello World"

Last month, I wrote about a riff that's in both the Moody Blues' "So Deep within You" from On the Threshold of a Dream and Rod Argent and Chris White's "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," which was recorded after the Zombies broke up.  At the time, I'd thought I knew an-other song that had a similar-sounding part, but I couldn't identify it.  Recently though, I listened to an anthology of the Tremeloes, and I discovered that I'd been thinking of the beginning of "Hello World."

The phrase in "Hello World" is longer than those in "So Deep within You" and "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," and it repeats more frequently.  The song starts with it played four and a half times.

In "Hello World," it starts on a different pitch relative to the key than in "So Deep within You" and "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," but the intervals are the same in all three (and the pitches of the first five notes are the same between "Hello World" and "So Deep within You").

(click the image to enlarge it)

(standard disclaimer that the notation may be wrong because I did it myself)

Unlike the other two, the notes in that phrase in "Hello World" are picked individually where the second of each pair of eighth notes are hammer-ons in "So Deep within You" and "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)."

According to the liner notes in my Tremeloes collection (Silence Is Golden: The Very Best of the Tremeloes), "Hello World" was issued as a single in 1969.  On the Threshold of a Dream - the album on which "So Deep within You" appears - was also released in 1969 (specifically, April).  Apparently "So Deep within You" was the B-side to the "Never Comes the Day" single, released the same month.  According to the liner notes for Into the Afterlife, "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" was recorded in March 1968, although it wasn't released until Into the Afterlife in 2007.

So I have even fewer answers than I did when I wrote my original post.  Now I have three songs that were all recorded and/or released within about a year and that all share the same phrase.

The Shangri-Las' "Remember (Walking in the Sand)"

Last month, I listened to a compilation album of the Shangri-Las, and I became really interested in "Remember (Walking in the Sand)."  It has some great features, and the more I looked into it, the more I found.

The first thing I noticed was the bass parts during the "(Remember) Walking in the sand..." section:

(click the image to enlarge it)
(standard disclaimer that the notation may be wrong because I did it myself)

I should note that I combined the electric bass part and the bass register of the piano part in the notation.  After two eighth notes spanning a fourth (A to D) in the bass register of the piano, the electric bass echoes that fourth in quarter notes.  Musically, there's a portrayal of memory.  There's the initial event (the fourth on piano), and then that event is revisited but - because of the unreliable nature of memory - it's slightly different.  It's still the interval of a fourth, but it's played on a different instrument and the note values are longer, almost as if that memory is being dwelt upon rather than hurriedly passed over.

In figuring out how to play the bass part (so that I could write about what was happening in that section), I discovered that during the verses, it's has a downward trend:

This repeats throughout the verse, but I don't know how to add repeat signs (the program I use is actually meant to create MIDI files, not notation, but it works well enough for that purpose).

Between that descent and the key (D minor), the sadness in the lyrics ("Seems like the other day / My baby went away," "He said that we were through / He found somebody new") is emphasized.

About a month after I realized those two things about the bass part, I realized that those two sections are in different time signatures.  The verses are in 3/4, and the choruses are in 4/4.  There's a musical distinction between the events that the singer/speaker is currently relating and the events that she's remembering.

The Shirelles - Greatest Hits

Over the last month or so, I've been listening to a Greatest Hits album by the Shirelles fairly regularly, and I found some interesting things in a number of the songs, mostly just interesting melismas.  Coincidentally, it was a year ago to-day that I first listened to the album.

"Tonight's the Night"

There are some nice features with melismas in the bridge here.  The "so"s in both "I might love you so much" and "I may want you so much" have melismas, as if to emphasize how much, and the "heart" in "You may break my heart" has three syllables instead of the usual one, portraying the fragmented nature that the heart would have if it were broken.

"Baby It's You"

Similar to the "heart" in "Tonight's the Night," there's a melisma on "apart" in the second line -  "It’s not the way you kiss that tears me apart."

"Everybody Loves a Lover"

The last two "fell"s in the lead vocals have melismas and the later syllables have lower pitches than the first ones, so as the word is sung, it becomes lower.  The word itself is falling as the speaker/singer explains how she fell in love.

"Foolish Little Girl"

I think ever since the first time I listened to this, the opening sounded vaguely familiar.  It wasn't until about a month ago that I placed it; the first line ("You broke his heart and made him cry") is quite similar to the first line in "Do You Love Me" ("You broke my heart / 'Cause I couldn't dance").  Both songs also have the same contrast in instrumentation.  That first section is quieter with fewer instruments, but then more instruments join in and the song becomes louder.

I should note that I actually don't own the Contour's version of "Do You Love Me."  I'm writing based on the Tremeloes' version, which I think is a pretty faithful cover.

Grieg: From Holberg's Time, Op. 40

Last month, I listened to Grieg's Op. 40 a few times, both the orchestrated version and the solo piano version.  As the title page notes, From Holberg's Time was purposely written in an older style ("im alten Style"):

The Holberg in the title is Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754), a Norwegian man of letters.

While listening to the piano version, I noticed a phrase in the first movement:

(click the image to enlarge it)
(notation found here)

When I heard this it sounded familiar to me, although I had to look up the notation to figure out what was going on and why it sounded familiar.  Starting in the forty-ninth measure, the bass part starts descending, but after every two notes, it alternates octaves and repeats the last note from the previous pair.  Or, at least, it alternates octaves to some degree, since the notes are also doubled in octaves.  (This is in the orchestrated version too, although the notes aren't doubled by octaves.)

This sounded familiar because this same type of figure is in the continuo parts of two Bach works that I looked into recently, Christ lag in Todes Banden (BWV 4) and the Third Orchestral Suite in D major (BWV 1068).

(notation found here [BWV 4] and here [BWV 1068])

For the past year and a half (I finished it yester-day), I'd been reading a book of Edvard Grieg's letters (Edvard Grieg: Letters to Colleagues and Friends, Benestad and Halverson, eds.), and I recently read a letter he wrote to August Winding on 4 February 1875 saying that

recently in St. Thomas Church [in Leipzig] I heard the first concert by a Bach Association under the leadership of Volkland, von Holstein and Spitta (the author of an excellent book on Bach).  The concert included three cantatas by Bach that had not been performed publicly before.  I have never heard anything so beautiful by Bach; they are marvelous, great, profound, childlike and fervent.

I'm not sure if Christ lag in Todes Banden is one of the cantatas that Grieg heard, but that letter at least illustrates that Grieg was fairly familiar with Bach's works.

From Holberg's Time is from 1884, almost ten years after Grieg heard those Bach cantatas in Leipzig.  So between Grieg's documented familiarity with Bach's works and the close historical time period between Holberg (1684-1754) and Bach (1685-1750), it seems like Grieg might have taken that particular phrase from Bach's suite and/or cantata and used it to evoke that particular time period in his own work.

The Decemberists' "Eli, the Barrow Boy"

Recently, I've been listening (for the first time) to a box set of Pete Seeger.  Since a lot of the songs are folk songs, I've heard other versions of some of them.  So while "Molly Malone" wasn't a new song to me, because I recently listened to Seeger's version, I got to thinking about it and realized that it shares some similarities with the Decemberists' "Eli, the Barrow Boy" from Picaresque.

The first lines of both mention a city.  "Molly Malone" names Dublin specifically ("In Dublin's fair city") where "Eli, the Barrow Boy" has just a general "town."  I'd always heard it as "Eli, the barrow boy of the old town," but according to the Decemberists' website, it's "Eli, the barrow boy, you’re the old town."  It's a minor point, but both start with a location.

Both characters "cry" out the wares that they have to sell.  The second verse of "Molly Malone" explains that "She was a fishmonger," and the "Cryin' 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'" line is at the end of every verse and acts as a transition to the chorus (which is comprised of all the same words).  While Eli has a wider variety of merchandise (he "Sells coal and marigolds" and "Corn cobs and candlewax"), he too "cries out all down the day."

It's not as obvious in "Eli, the Barrow Boy" as it is in "Molly Malone," but both have a fair amount of repetition to describe how much time the characters spend trying to make sales.  "All the day," "All down the day," or "Down the day" appear (usually twice) in every section of "Eli, the Barrow Boy," and "Through streets long and narrow" (or, as some versions have it, "Through streets broad and narrow") is the second-to-last line in every verse in "Molly Malone."

While Molly Malone dies of a fever and Eli drowns, both return as ghosts to continue pushing their wheelbarrows through the streets and sell their goods.  The last verse of "Molly Malone" explains that "Now her ghost wheels the barrow / Through streets long and narrow," and - likewise - the last section of "Eli, the Barrow Boy" has Eli saying, "But I am dead and gone and lying in a church ground / But still I push my barrow all the day."

I know Colin Meloy has some interest in folk songs (evidenced by the Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins EP and The Hazards of Love album), so I'm assuming that "Molly Malone" did have at least some influence on "Eli, the Barrow Boy."  I think the similarities would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.

The Moody Blues' "So Deep within You"

When I listened to the Moody Blues' On the Threshold of a Dream last month, the recurring guitar riff in "So Deep within You" caught my ear.  I figured out how to play it and confirmed that - save for the key - it's identical to a part in "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," which was recorded by Chris White and Rod Argent shortly after the Zombies broke up.  (There are two versions of "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" on Into the Afterlife, but this riff is present only in the second version [track #18], the one with fuzz guitar.)

(click the image to enlarge it)
(standard disclaimer that since I did the notation myself, it might be wrong)

I didn't know how to indicate it in the notation, but the second note in each pair of eighth notes is a hammer-on.

In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Paul Atkinson (the Zombies' guitarist) says that the Zombies were friends with the Moody Blues and used to go to their parties (p. 31).  While that provides evidence that the Zombies and the Moody Blues knew each other, it's slightly misleading as far as guitar players, since Atkinson didn't play on "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)."  The Into the Afterlife liner notes explain that it was Mac McLeod.

The chronology is also troublesome.  The Into the Afterlife liner notes say that the session at which "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" was recorded was in March 1968.  On the Threshold of a Dream came out in April 1969.  But "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" wasn't released until the Into the Afterlife album in 2007.  So while it would appear that there was some mixing of influences since the songs originated only about a year apart, since the riffs are so similar (with the same accidental even), and since the bands knew each other, it doesn't seem possible that the Moody Blues could have known "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)."  Apparently, the similarity is just a coincidence.

Handel: Messiah

A few months ago, I wrote a rather long post about Handel's Messiah, and - just like I thought - a few days after I posted it, I found an-other Biblical source for the text.  And then I kept finding more.  I still haven't found all of them, but I've found enough that I didn't have in my last post to think that it's worth updating.  So this post is an addendum to the first, although I'm including only the sources I've found for the Biblical texts.  Like I said in my original post, I could probably just look them all up somewhere, but I wanted to find them myself.

What I've written about the music can still be found here.

Part I

1.  Symphony
2.  Comfort ye my people

"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.  A voice cries: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'" - Isaiah 40:1-3

3.  Ev'ry valley shall be exalted

"'Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.'" - Isaiah 40:4

4.  And the glory of the Lord

"'And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.'" - Isaiah 40:5

5.  Thus saith the Lord of hosts

"For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.  And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts." -Haggai 2:6-7

"Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.  And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts." - Malachi 3:1

6.  But who may abide the day of His coming

"But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?  For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap." - Malachi 3:2

7.  And he shall purify the sons of Levi

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD." - Malachi 3:3

8.  Behold, a virgin shall conceive

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." - Isaiah 7:14

This is also quoted in Matthew, where it includes the "God with us."

"'Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us)." - Matthew 1:23

9.  O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion

"Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God!'" - Isaiah 40:9

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you." - Isaiah 60:1

10.  For behold, darkness shall cover the earth

"For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you." - Isaiah 60:2

11.  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined." - Isaiah 9:2

12.  For unto us a child is born

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." - Isaiah 9:6

13.  Pifa
14.  There were shepherds abiding in the fields

"And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear." - Luke 2:8-9

15.  And the angel said unto them

"And the angel said to them, 'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'" - Luke 2:10-11

16.  And suddenly there was with the angel

"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying," - Luke 2:13

17.  Glory to God in the highest

"'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!'" - Luke 2:14

18.  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth." - Zechariah 9:9-10

19.  Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy." - Isaiah 35:5-6a

20.  He shall feed his flock like a shepherd

"He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young." - Isaiah 40:11

"'Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.'" - Matthew 11:28-29

21.  His yoke is easy

"'For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.'" - Matthew 11:30

Part II

22.  Behold the Lamb of God

"The next day he [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'" - John 1:29

23.  He was despised and rejected of men

"He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide the faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." - Isaiah 53:3

"I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting." - Isaiah 50:6

24.  Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried out sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace..." - Isaiah 53:4-5

25.  And with his stripes we are healed

"... and with his stripes we are healed." - Isaiah 53:5

26.  All we like sheep have gone astray

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." - Isaiah 53:6

27.  All they that see him laugh him to scorn

28.  He trusted in God that he would deliver him

29.  Thy rebuke hath broken his heart

30.  Behold and see if there be any sorrow
31.  He was cut off

"By oppression and judgement he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?" - Isaiah 53:8

32.  But thou didst not leave his soul in hell

In my previous Messiah post, I postulated that this was related to Psalm 16:10 - "For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption."  I found a similar verse in the New Testament:

"'For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.'" - Acts 2:27

33.  Lift up your heads, O ye gates

"Lift up your heads, O gates!  And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.  Who is this King of glory?  The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!  Lift up your heads, O gates!  And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.  Who is this King of glory?  The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory!" - Psalm 24:7-10

34.  Unto which of the angels

"For to which of the angels did God ever say, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you'?  Or again, 'I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son'?" - Hebrews 1:5

35.  Let all the angels of God worship Him

"And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, 'Let all God's angels worship him.'" - Hebrews 1:6

36.  Thou art gone up on high

There's some similarity between the text here and Ephesians 4:8:  "Therefore it says, 'When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.'"

37.  The Lord gave the word
38.  How beautiful are the feet

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'  The voice of your watchmen - they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion.  Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem." - Isaiah 52:7-9

39.  Their sound is gone out
40.  Why do the nations so furiously rage together

"Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and his Anointed, saying," - Psalm 2:1-2

41.  Let us break their bonds asunder

"'Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.'" - Psalm 2:3

42.  He that dwelleth in heaven

"He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision." - Psalm 2:4

43.  Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron

"You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." - Psalm 2:9

44.  Hallelujah

"Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, 'Hallelujah!  For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.'" - Revelation 19:6

"Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.'" - Revelation 11:15

"On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of Lords." - Revelation 19:16

Part III

45.  I know that my Redeemer liveth

"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God." - Job 19:25-26

"But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." - 1 Corinthians 15:20

46.  Since by man came death

"For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." - 1 Corinthians 15:21-22

47.  Behold, I tell you a mystery

"Behold!  I tell you a mystery.  We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." - 1 Corinthians 15:51-52a

48.  The trumpet shall sound

"For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality." - 1 Corinthians 15:52b-53

49.  Then shall be brought to pass

"When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:  'Death is swallowed up in victory.'" - 1 Corinthians 15:54

50.  O death, where is thy sting

"'O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?'  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." - 1 Corinthians 15:55-56

I looked into the source for this text a bit more, and - apparently - it's a quotation of Hosea 13:14: "Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?  Shall I redeem them from Death?  O Death, where are your plagues?  O Sheol, where is your sting?  Compassion is hidden from my eyes."

51.  But thanks be to God

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Corinthians 15:57

52.  If God be for us, who can be against us

"If God is for us, who can be against us?" - Romans 8:31b

"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us." - Romans 8:33-34

53.  Worthy is the Lamb, Amen

"[Many angels were] saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!'  And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!'  And the four living creatures said, 'Amen!' and the elders fell down and worshipped" - Revelation 5:12-14

The Roulettes' "This Little Girl"

Back in April, I got the Roulettes' one and only album Stakes and Chips.  The first time I listened to it, I thought that the beginning keyboard part of "This Little Girl" (credited to Holland, Stevenson, and Cosby) sounded similar to the beginning keyboard part of Ray Charles' "What'd I Say."  A few months later (in June), I learned the two parts in order to compare them, and recently I finally got around to notating them:

(click the image to enlarge it)
(standard disclaimer that since I did the notation myself it's entirely possible that I have something wrong)

When I figured out the parts, I was actually surprised by how similar they are.  They both start with the same four-note figure: E, B, D, E' (although "What'd I Say" plays the B as two eighth notes, where "This Little Girl" has a single B as a quarter note).  It wasn't until notating it that I discovered that both have notes tied over a bar line too.

Like the phrase in "This Little Girl," the phrase in "What'd I Say" is two measures long, but - barring a slightly different rhythm so that an E note from the next measure intrudes a bit - it's the same notes in every measure.  As the song goes on, that same phrase is raised by intervals so that it starts on A and later on B.  The phrase in "This Little Girl" doesn't do that, but it's similar enough that I think it took some inspiration from the phrase in "What'd I Say."