Peter & Gordon's The Ultimate Peter & Gordon

About a year ago, I listened to The Ultimate Peter & Gordon and noticed a couple things about some tracks.  I listened to the album again recently for my Collection Audit project (and found some more things to write about), so I thought I'd finally get around to writing about those original ones too.

"Broken Promises"

Each verse ends with the lines "Broken words / Broken promises / Cause broken hearts."  While Gordon sings "hearts" to just a single note (a G), Peter sings it to the phrase D E F# E (and there's a more complex figure for the final line).  The way that Peter sings it, the "hearts" are literally broken into separate pitches.

I think it's also significant that the phrases "Broken words" and "Broken promises" don't have any melismas like that.  It's as if the speaker/singer is more concerned about the broken hearts than about what caused them.

"To Know You Is to Love You"

The introductory couplet and the whole first verse is sung in harmony (save for Gordon's "And I do," which Peter echoes rather than harmonizes), but in the second verse, Peter drops out for the line "Oh, everyone says there'll come a day" (so Gordon sings it alone).  He joins back in for the next line, which is "When I'll walk alongside of you."  There're two voices there, which - to some degree - represent the singer/speaker and the girl he's addressing, but since those two voices also represent the single I earlier in the song, it doesn't work that well as an effect.

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 Apple in Stereo's "Dance Floor"

Last week I listened to the Apples in Stereo's Travellers in Space and Time, and I thought a part in "Dance Floor" sounded pretty easy to figure out, so I did that.  I'm still not really sure what instrument it's played on, but I think it's a synthesized string instrument.  A couple days after I figured it out, I realized that it would be pretty easy to notate too, and while I was doing that, I also figured out a part in a higher register:

(click the image to enlarge it)

I feel I should draw attention to the fact that this begins on a downbeat.  Either there isn't a way to make that more obvious in the program I use or I don't know how to do it, so when I edited the image, I just took the half rest from the first bass clef measure and used it to replace the whole rest in the first treble clef measure.  (Although now the notes in that first bass clef measure are off-center).

This is the figure as it appears at the beginning of the song.  When it recurs, some of the four-measure phrases are either omitted or repeated, but the notes remain the same in each occurrence.

The Who's "The Seeker"

Back in June, I realized something about the Who's "The Seeker."  I listened to it recently as part of my Collection Audit project, so I thought I'd finally get around to writing about it.

The second verse starts with the lines "I asked Bobby Dylan; I asked the Beatles / I asked Timothy Leary, but he couldn't help me either."  Instead of Bob Dylan, he's called Bobby Dylan.  The meter of the line might be partially responsible for the diminution, but that diminutive both literally and figuratively belittles Dylan because he "couldn't help me."

Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You"

Last month, I learned the bass part for Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You."  I'd recently listened to the Hollies' first five albums for the first time, so I realized that I have four versions of the song.  Along with Berry's original and the Hollies' cover, I had a version by the Yardbirds and a live version by the Beatles.  So I figured I should learn it.

I tried something different and notated the whole thing using my MIDI software.  After a couple weeks of printer difficulties, I printed the notation and indicated some structural way points.  I should mention that I'm a bit unsure of the last two measures of the solo.  I'm pretty sure the figures are different from what they are during the verses, but I don't know if what I have is exact.  I'm pretty confident on the rest though.  Chuck Berry's recording fades out at the end, so there are only about five measures of that last figure.  I continued it for the eight measures that it has in the verses and then resolved it with a C whole note.

Click the images to enlarge them:

Bob Dylan's "Standing in the Doorway"

As I've been going through my music collection for my Collection Audit project, I've rediscovered some things I'd forgotten about and/or haven't written about.  A couple days ago, I listened to Bob Dylan's Time out of Mind, and I re-realized that the line "I'll eat when I'm hungry, drink when I'm dry" at the beginning of the last verse of "Standing in the Doorway" is a quote from the folk song "The Moonshiner."  I have only Tommy Makem & the Clancy Brothers' version, in which the line is "I'll eat when I’m hungry, and I'll drink when I'm dry."  The Wikipedia article for "The Moonshiner" notes that Dylan recorded the song in 1963 and that it's included on one of his Bootleg Series albums.  I don't have any of those though, so I couldn't say how much of a connection his recording has with either the version of "The Moonshiner" with which I'm familiar or "Standing in the Doorway."

"It Ain't Necessarily So"

Over the last two months, I listened to three different versions of Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So" from Porgy & Bess for my Collection Audit project.  A couple days after I listened to the Moody Blues' version (on The Magnificent Moodies), I realized something about the song; however, one of the sections I realized something about isn't in the Moody Blues' version.  So when I listened to Brian Wilson's version (on the Reimagines Gershwin album) about a month ago, I was paying a bit more attention than I would have otherwise.

Some syllables in specific words are omitted so that words that wouldn't rhyme ordinarily do rhyme here.  Liable is shortened to li'ble in order to rhyme with Bible in the lines "The things that you're li'ble / To read in the Bible," and possible is shortened to poss'ble in order to rhyme with Gospel in the line "I take that Gospel whenever it's poss'ble" in the bridge.  The words that rhyme with Bible and Gospel are truncated, and doing that demonstrates exactly what the speaker/singer plainly says in the song: he takes the Bible "with a grain of salt."  In the same way those words lack some syllables, the speaker/singer lacks complete faith.

In looking into this, I discovered that - of the four recordings I have of "It Ain't Necessarily So" - only one is complete: that by the Bethlehem Orchestra (apparently their 1956 recording of Porgy & Bess was only the second complete recording of the opera).  Both Bobby Darin's version and the Moody Blues' version omit the the bridge ("To get into Heaven, don't snap for a seven..."), and Brian Wilson's version omits the verse about Methuselah.  For what it's worth, in addition to the bridge, Darin's version also omits the verse about Moses, and the Moody Blues' version also omits the verse about Methuselah.

Looking at what version has what verses, it occurs to me that none of them have the verses in the order in which the people named in them are in the Bible.  In chronological order, it would be Methuselah, Moses, David, and then Jonah.  Except for the Moody Blues, who switch Jonah and Moses, the order is David, Jonah, Moses, and the Methuselah.

The Searchers' "Sugar and Spice"

A couple days ago, the riff from the Searchers' "Sugar and Spice" popped into my head, and I realized that the notes are just quarter notes and eighth notes, so with my limited notation skills, this was a part I could notate.  My notate-a-part-every-week project kind of fell on its face, but I think I'll still do it occasionally.

I should mention that I notated this an octave lower than it's played (otherwise, there would have been ledger lines all over the place):

(click the image to view a larger size)

The chords are very simple too.  Under the riff and the verses, the progression is |: C major / G major / F major / G major :|.  The choruses alternate between that and the same progression where an A minor is substituted for the first G major, so:

C major / G major / F major / G major
C major / A minor / F major / G major
C major / G major / F major / G major
C major / A minor / F major / G major

At the end of the song, the |: C major / G major / F major / G major :| progression resolves to C major, and after the riff I have notated above, there's a shorter version, ending with G and C notes:

(click the image to view a larger size)

Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You"

A couple months ago, I happened to hear Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You" on the radio, and I thought I noticed something.  I listened to it recently for my Collection Audit project, and I confirmed what I thought I heard back then.  Every occurrence of the titular "stuck in the middle with you" line has a vocal harmony part.  There are two voices there to musically represent both the singer/speaker and the "you" he's stuck with.

Manufactured Monkees

Last year I started four projects in which my aim is to try to learn every part to every song by a particular band (with some stipulations).  I'd already been doing this with the Zombies since 2012, and while I knew that actually learning every part to every song is next to impossible, my experience with the Zombies' music showed me that even learning a few parts gave me a new appreciation of the music.  As I learned more parts, I started analyzing things from a musicological point of view, which gave me a deeper understanding of the songs.  So while the end goal of each of these projects is probably unattainable, it's still an enlightening journey.

I knew the Monkees started releasing records and broadcasting television episodes in 1966 (fifty years ago), so on 1 January, I started reading Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story of the 60s TV Pop Sensation, and I planned (and still plan) to watch each episode on the 50th anniversary of its original broadcast and listen to each album on the 50th anniversary of its release (although for some album, Sandoval provides only the months they were released, not the exact days).

Between reading the book and listening to some of the albums for my Collection Audit project, I experienced a recrudescence in my interest in the Monkees.  I first got interested in them in about 2008, when I saw re-runs of the television series (the first episode I saw was actually the second episode of the series, which was a pretty good place to start).  Seeing Peter Tork playing bass on television was one of my main motivations to be a musician rather than just someone who listens to music (however, at the time, it was easier to get a guitar; I didn't get a bass until the end of 2010).  Even now, I still wear my belt bucket one belt loop over, just like he did (apparently to avoid scratching the back of his bass).

So reading about the Monkees and listening to their music sparked this renewed interest, and I found myself figuring out a few parts to their songs (the guitar part to the demo of "She'll Be There" [because it sounded brilliant], the bass part to "Sweet Young Thing" [because it sounded easy], and most of the parts to "She" [because it sounded interesting]).  After getting the chords to a couple more songs, I realized that I'd sort of stumbled into doing yet an-other of my cover projects.  The only purpose this post serves is to announce that I'm officially adding the Monkees to my roster of bands whose entire catalogue I'm trying to learn.  However, I'm going to restrict myself to the original albums by the quartet (even of those, I have only the first four and the soundtrack to Head).

Once I had the idea to do this, I had to come up with a name for the project.  I eventually decided on Manufactured Monkees.  Most of the inspiration behind this is a stanza in "Ditty Diego" – "You say we're manufactured / To that we all agree / So make your choice, and we'll rejoice / In never being free."  However, since I'm also interested in languages, I liked the etymological reference to hands in manufactured.  The "manu-" part comes from manus, the Latin word for hand, so there's something of a very subtle allusion to "magic fingers," which is in "Papa Gene's Blues" ("Play, magic fingers!") and which is Micky's moniker in the episode "Monkees on the Wheel" (which is one of my favorite episodes).  And also, obviously, hands are important in playing instruments.

Like my other cover projects, I've started a separate tumblr for this, and I'll be uploading rough (and possibly erroneous) versions of what I know of the songs.  Like I mentioned earlier, I'm doing my Collection Audit project this year (where I attempt to listen to the entirety of my music collection), so I don't have as much time to devote to this project as I would otherwise, but at least this is a start.

Buddy Holly's "Fool's Paradise"

I think I underestimated how much work writing out notation every week would be, and I'm going to have to adjust my schedule.  This week, in lieu of notation, I have the chords to Buddy Holly's "Fool's Paradise," which I wrote about recently for my Collection Audit project.

Verses:
F major / Bb major / C major
F major / C major / F major

Bridge:
Bb major / F major / G major / C major

For what it's worth, Don McLean's version is a half-step lower.

The Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'"

The notation I have this week (which I was going to do last week but completely forgot about until it was late at night) is a little different from what I've done previously.  Because most of the bass part for the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'" is just the same measure of G notes (with the last note in a different octave) over and over again, I didn't write out the notation in full.  I have one line of that repeated measure; I skipped the second line (although I still have bar lines because I insert bar lines into a couple pages of blank notation at once and then use them for various projects later); and the third line is the only different part (for "And I'm so glad we made it..."), which transitions back to that repeated measure with a glissando.  That same measure of G notes is repeated to the fade out at the end.

(click here for a larger image)

Because that measure with G notes is so prevalent, I think the song is in G major, although there are also Bb and Eb notes, so I'm not positive on the key.  I should mention that I figured this out about four years ago, and I'm assuming that what I have is accurate.