[link to original on tumblr]
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I'll just go by track order.
I never remember when the mellotron comes in during the verses of "Care of Cell 44," so I wrote down on my arm the words on which it comes in:
It looks kind of funny because arms are not the best surface to write on, and my pen was giving me difficulties.
The last two verses have the same lyrics, but the mellotron comes in on different words the second time. The first time, it comes in on "again" and "saved;" the second time on "have" and "train." The whole verse:
It's gonna be good to have you back again with me
Watching the laughter play around your eyes
Come up and fetch you, saved up for the train fare money
Kiss and make up, and it will be so nice
After seeing those four words written out, I realized that they're pairs of imperfect rhymes - "again" & "train" and "saved" & "have." I'm not sure if this was Rod Argent's intention either in 1) writing those particular pairs of words or 2) having the entrance of the mellotron emphasize them, but as imperfect rhymes they sort of provide the sense that the ideal situation that the speaker/singer is describing isn't going to work out. This is also seemingly hinted at by the "could" in the line "And it could be so nice," which appears twice in the bridge.
Since 2014's version, I've learned some of the chords for "A Rose for Emily" (mostly from a book I have that has some sheet music for a few of the songs). Knowing some of the chords has helped in correcting the bass notes I'd had. And - if I'm right in what I have now - there's a Bachian sort of sequential half step. C# to D and then G to F#. I've mentioned multiple times that Rod Argent likes to use sequential half steps, but his are usually linked (the second note in the first pair is the first note in the second pair), but that's not the case here. It's not strictly Bachian either, because one is a rising half step and the other is a falling half step (in the B-A-C-H motif, they're both falling half steps). Still, I thought it interesting.
Apparently I've severely neglected "Maybe after He's Gone." Before this year, I've mentioned it in only two posts. So it's good that I have six things to say about it:
- For the first time, I noticed how much of the music is chromatic and diatonic. Excepting the chorus ("Maybe after he's gone / she'll come back / love me again") the chords are almost entirely diatonic, and there's a chromatic phrase (E to C#) in the backing vocals (it's most prominent at the end, when the instruments fall away). Similar to Argent's imperfect rhymes and mellotron, I don't know if this is what Chris White had in mind while writing the song, but that predictability and steadiness of the diatonicism and chromaticism give the assurance that the singer/speaker seems to need so desperately.
- There's an-other instance in "Maybe after He's Gone" of remembering - "I remember joy and pain." I'm fairly certain that joy is present in some Zombies songs and more particularly in early Argent songs (like "Bring You Joy," obviously), but - again - I need to work on a lyrical concordance to investigate this.
- "Maybe after He's Gone" also has crying! The line after "I remember joy and pain" is "Her smile, her tears are part of me." Later, there's "And all the dreams I'm dreaming now / Hide the tears that I cry."
- And, of course, dreams: "All the dreams I'm dreaming now."
- Along with the A, Bm, D chord progression that I mentioned earlier, "Maybe after He's Gone" contains an-other musical element that's present in some of the other Odessey and Oracle songs and that helps to tie the album together. Specifically, high and insistent A notes. During the chorus, these A notes are in the piano part (later, they move to B, then D, then back to A, to follow the chords, and then there's a chromatic phrase from B to C# [which is a good example of Rod Argent's type of sequential half step - B to C to C#]). There are also high A notes in "Changes" (also on piano) and in "Brief Candles" (prominently on guitar, but I think also on mellotron). The bass parts for "Care of Cell 44" and "Brief Candles" also contain high A notes at times (high for bass, at least). Incidentally, both sides of the album start on A notes. That is, both "Care of Cell 44" (the first song on Side One) and "Changes" (the first song on Side Two) start with an A note.
- In checking the notes for that chromatic phrase, I learned how to play the melody for the lead vocals (just to see how the two parts go together), and I discovered a phrase that's also in the mellotron part in "Hung up on a Dream." The melody that accompanies the lyrics "she'll come back, love me a[gain]" (just the first syllable of "again") is the phrase G# A B G# A B. And if I have that section of the mellotron part from "Hung up on a Dream" right, that phrase (even repeated like that) is in the solo (at about 1:04). Some of the note values differ, but not too greatly.
I have one other thing I noticed about "Hung up on a Dream," but I still have to look into that.
