"Be Glad"

March 29 was Piano Day (because it was the 88th day of the year and pianos have 88 keys), so I listened to Rod Argent's Classically Speaking.  I was finally able to confirm something I've been suspicious of for a long time.  I'd thought that the section of "Be Glad" starting at ~3:31 was a quotation (or near quotation) of a classical piece, but I hadn't been able to place it.  It turns out that the piece I was looking for is on Classically Speaking.  At ~3:12 in the Prelude in C# minor, Op. 45, No. 1 by Chopin, Argent starts playing this:

[source]

I don't know if what he plays in "Be Glad" is exactly the same (for one thing, it sounds quite a bit lower), but I think it's a similar sort of figure.

"This Old Heart of Mine"

I recently listened to some live versions of "This Old Heart of Mine" and noticed two small things.

"Away" in the line "Each time you break away" is sung with a melisma (B B A), musically giving a sense of movement.  (Note that this is only in the version recorded on 1 November 1966 for Saturday Club [track 26 on disc 4 of Zombie Heaven, track 13 on disc 2 of The BBC Radio Sessions]).

The second "more" in the line "Hurting me more and more" is also sung with a melisma (E F#), musically giving a sense of the growing amount.

"Photograph"

I didn't have the time to write about this yester-day, but when I listened to Planes/Never Even Thought recently, I noticed a small thing about "Photograph."  "Forever" in the chorus ("I have a photograph of you / A memory or two, my love / Lasting forever") is sung with a melisma (C# E# D# D#), musically giving a sense of duration.

"I'll Never Forget You"

When I listened to Planes/Never Even Thought a couple days ago, I noticed that "away" in the line "If no one's watchin', I walk away" in "I'll Never Forget You" is sung with a melisma (Eb Bb Ab), musically giving a sense of that movement.

When I referenced the song in order to transcribe a bit of the lyrics and to find those specific pitches, I also noticed that there's a merism in the chorus, specifically in the line "You're here with me night and day."

"Only with You"

Yester-day, I figured out some parts in Colin Blunstone's "Planes" (a synth phrase and some of the chords), after which I decided to listen to the Planes/Never Even Thought two-albums-on-one-CD reissue.  I noticed a few small things.

In "Only with You," "down" in the lines "Before love had always had / Its ups and downs" is sung with a descending melisma (C# B A), musically reflecting the word's meaning.

I referenced the Beach Boys' original (on Holland), and while it also has this feature, it's less pronounced; it's sung to just two notes (B# G#, I think).

"He's a Dynamo"

This morning I listened to a live performance by Argent from 1972, and I noticed a couple things about "He's a Dynamo" (partially because the lyrics in the live performance are actually easier to understand than in the studio version).

A couple years ago, I noted that "head to toe" is sung to a descending phrase (G F# E), musically giving a sense of top to bottom, but there's more to it than that.  I'd thought the chorus was:

See him rock; see him roll
From his heart to his soul
Oh, oh no, from his head to toe
He's a dynamo

But based on the live version, now I think it's actually:

See him rock; see him roll
From his heart to his soul
High or low, from his head to toe
He's a dynamo

I realize now that "from his head to toe" is actually a merism, as are "From his heart to his soul" (in a figurative sense, anyway) and "High or low."  Additionally, the notes to which "High or low" is sung (C B A) also have that "top to bottom" quality.

"Hold Your Head Up"

The last thing I noticed when I listened to Encore a few days ago is that at ~1:52 in "Hold Your Head Up," Rod Argent plays a very brief quotation of "Antioch," the tune to which "Joy to the World" is sung.  (For what it's worth, a couple years ago, I discovered that Argent also quotes from "Antioch" in "Be Glad" on In Deep.)

I also revisited the quotation of "Cwm Rhondda" (from ~6:01 to ~6:27).  I wrote about it years ago, but since then, I've learned how to format notation better.  Argent's quotation* is in red; the section of "Cwm Rhondda" that he's drawing from is in black:

In "Cwm Rhondda," this is played only once, but Argent plays it twice (with some variation).  I put the six measures from "Cwm Rhondda" under both lines of Argent's part for easier comparison, and I adjusted the width of some of the measures for something of a one-to-one relationship.

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*I should specify that this is what he plays on Moog.  Simultaneously, he's playing organ, and while much of that simply doubles what he's playing on Moog, there are differences that I haven't even ventured to figure out yet.

"I Am the Dance of Ages"

This is just a small point, but when I listened to Encore a few days ago, I noticed that at ~3:30 in "I Am the Dance of Ages," Rod Argent starts wordlessly singing along to what he's improvising - the same thing he does at the end of "Indication."

"Music from the Spheres"

Unique to the live version of "Music from the Spheres" on Encore, "tremble" in the line "All around the world the people tremble" is sung with a melisma (G# G# A G# F#), musically giving a sense of the word's meaning.  In the studio version, it's simply sung to two G#s.

Previously, I'd noticed (but apparently hadn't fully realized) that there's a brief quote of "Dies Irae," which is featured so prominently in "The Coming of Kohoutek."  In the studio version, it occurs at ~4:10; in the live version on Encore, it's at ~5:27.  It lasts only two measures (because it's so brief, I'm uncertain of the key for that section, but there's at least one sharp):

On both Nexus and Encore, "Music from the Spheres" is a few songs after "The Coming of Kohoutek," but this quotation links them in a small way and - along with the cosmic theme of each - provides a bit of cohesion.

"Thunder and Lightning"

I listened to Argent's Encore this morning and noticed a number of things, although I have to go back and make sure I haven't already written about some of them.

About four years ago, I noticed that in "Thunder and Lightning" after the lines "There are times when you feel so good / That the only way to move is down" there's a descending phrase in the bass part to representing that "mov[ing]... down" musically.  Listening to the song this time, I noticed that the "down" in the lines "Thunder and lightning / Striking me down" is sung with a descending melisma (C Bb Ab F) for the same effect.  This is present in the live version on Encore and in the studio version on Nexus.

"Goin' out of My Head"

This morning I was thinking about "Goin' out of My Head," specifically the "Day and night / Night and day and night" lines near the end.  I realized that this is a rhetorical effect called merism - naming the beginning and end of something in order to refer to the entirety.  With "day and night," the sense is actually "all the time."  Because it's repeated and reversed in "Goin' out of My Head" ("Day and night / Night and day and night"), there's an even greater sense of this duration.

"Liar"

This morning I figured out the electric piano part in "Liar."  Apparently, I'd figured out some of it back in May 2015, but I never wrote this down and had forgotten it.  I made sure to write it down this time.

For much of the song, the bass register of the electric piano plays on the off-beats.  In my post from 2015, I seem to mention this, but I wasn't very clear, so I don't know if I really understood what was going on there or not.  In any case, I realized that the bass register of the electric piano in "Liar" is like Rod Argent's vocal line in the second half of the second verse of "Friends of Mine."  In August 2016, I discovered that it's on the off-beats.  Here's some better formatted notation than what's in that post:

"Friends of Mine" was written by Chris White, and "Liar" was written by Russ Ballard, but since both of them have Rod Argent singing or playing a part on the off-beats, I'm assuming that these are parts of the arrangements that he contributed.