"How Wrong Can One Man Be"

Yester-day, I listened to the 1974 Colin Blunstone concert that the Zombies Fan Club posted.  Later, I was thinking about "How Wrong Can One Man Be" (included in the set list) and had a small realization:  the song is in D major but ends with an A major chord, and this lack of musical resolution matches the open-ended nature of the question in the final line:  "How wrong can one man ever be?"

Encore

I recently listened to Argent's Encore and felt that I should note a number of small realizations I had about the title (not all recently).

The words Argent and Encore both come from French (meaning silver - or money more generally - and again or still, respectively), so the album title exhibits a sort of linguistic coherence with the band name.  If I'm not mistaken, the words are also alike in that their pronunciations have shifted in the same way:  the French words are accented on the second syllable while the English words are accented on the first.  Both also consist of only two syllables.

The two words contain the same number of letters, and the patterns of consonants and vowels nearly correspond (the final T and E are the only letters that differ in their types).

I feel it's also worth noting that the initial letters (A and E) form a perfect fifth, which is an important musical interval.

"Leave Me Be"

A couple days ago, I was thinking about "Leave Me Be" and realized that "You'd better leave me be" is sung to a single pitch (an E).  In a way, the lack of movement here illustrates the meaning.  Even the melody isn't disturbed.

"New York"

I was thinking about "New York" this morning and realized that to some degree, it's a subtle - perhaps even subconscious - nod to Gershwin's An American in Paris.  Both portray someone in a prominent foreign city (an Englishman in New York and an American in Paris).  More specifically, both also include traffic sounds:  Gershwin's piece contains parts played on car horns, and the Zombies' song features what are apparently field recordings of car horns and police sirens.

"Whenever You're Ready"

A couple days ago, I watched the new lyric video for "Whenever You're Ready" and noticed a way in which the song's structure matches a phrase in the lyrics.  The chorus begins with the line "You're not teaching me a new thing," and after its initial occurrence, the chorus itself is "not... a new thing."

"Time to Move"

I was thinking about "Time to Move" yester-day (almost certainly because a clip of a live performance was recently posted on Colin Blunstone's Instagram account) and had a small realization about it.

In the lines "You never see the real thing / You can't tell it from the fake," the phrases "real thing" and "fake" are sung to pitches that are roughly an octave apart ("real thing" is sung to A G, and I think "fake" is sung with a melisma, to Bb G), so the large interval between the pitches emphasizes the contrast between "real" and "fake," despite the narrator's claim that the two are indistinguishable.

When I found the specific notes, I also noticed that the Bb to which "fake" is sung is an accidental in the song's G major.  In a way, this foreign tonality illustrates the word's meaning.

"Tell Me How"

Last week, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD reissue of Planes and Never Even Thought in order to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the "When You Close Your Eyes" b/w "Good Guys Don't Always Win" single (although only "Good Guys Don't Always Win" is on Planes), and yester-day, I belatedly had a small realization about the cover of Buddy Holly's "Tell Me How."

"Love" (usually with the possessive "your" attached) appears in every line of the first verse (repeated as the third and fourth verses):

Tell me how to keep your love

You know how I need your love

Tell me how you'll* keep the love within your arms from me

That "your love" is repeated so frequently illustrates its importance for the narrator, emphasizing how "I need your love."

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*I think it's "you'll" in the first verse but just "you" in the third and fourth.

"Time's Running Out"

I listened to Colin Blunstone's Ennismore yester-day, but even before I listened to it, I had a small realization about "Time's Running Out" while looking at the track listing.  The song is penultimate on the album, so in a way, even its position in the sequencing illustrates the title sentiment.

"When You Close Your Eyes" b/w "Good Guys Don't Always Win"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (11 September 1976), Colin Blunstone's "When You Close Your Eyes" b/w "Good Guys Don't Always Win" (Epic S EPC 4576) was released in the U.K.

As far as I know, "When You Close Your Eyes" hasn't been re-released.

"Keep on Rollin'"

I listened to All Together Now yester-day and noticed a small feature in the line "Make me feel so strong" in "Keep on Rollin'."  As I've noted before with similar phrases, the repetition involved in the alliterative "so strong" lends a slight sense of degree.

"Mary Won't You Warm My Bed"

I listened to One Year yester-day and noticed two small features in the line "But I never could forget the day she gave me all her love" in "Mary Won't You Warm My Bed."  "Love" is held longer than the preceding words, and it's sung with a melisma (C# B).  Both of these qualities lend a sense of the extent of "all."

"I Want Some More"

I was thinking about "I Want Some More" this morning and realized that the melody gives some sense of the lyrics in the first two lines:  "I'm sittin' all alone on a sunny summer afternoon / Just sittin' alone with nothing to do."  The phrases "sittin' all alone" and "sittin' alone" (and even the following "on a" and "with") are sung to a single pitch (F#), musically illustrating this solitude.  The sense is heightened by the contrast with the extensive melismas with which the "-noon" of "afternoon" and "do" are sung; both include a multitude of notes and span a sixth (from A to F#).

I'm sure I noticed before (but apparently neglected to note here) that the alliteration involved in "all alone" also gives a sense of this singularity.