"Without Her"

Last week, I was thinking about some Harry Nilsson songs, and I realized a couple things about "Without Her" (I think I'm actually more familiar with the Neil MacArthur version than Nilsson's). 

First, just a simple thing: "And I rise" in the first verse is sung to an ascending melody (D E F), musically representing that "ris[ing]."

More significant is the vocal melody during this section:

We burst a pretty balloon, took us to the moon
Such a beautiful thing, but it's ended now
And it sounds like a lie
I said I'd rather die than be without her

The melody rises (almost a full octave: from F# to F) from the beginning up until "but it's ended" and then falls from "ended now" onwards.  The descent skips around a bit (the lowest note is a B), but generally it goes from F to C.  The ascending melody musically portrays the happiness of going "to the moon" and the "beautiful thing," and the descending melody the sadness of "it's ended now" and the singer/speaker's change in mood.

"Butcher's Tale"

I've been reading a book about World War I (The Somme by Martin Gilbert), and this morning I read about some German ammunition dumps that were destroyed in a British shell barrage on 25 June 1916.  One of the places listed was Mametz Wood, which - of course - got me thinking about "Butcher's Tale" and the lines "And the flies come down in Gommecourt, Thiepval / Mametz Wood, and French Verdun."  I realized a couple things about these lines.

Listing places (or people) like this is a rhetorical technique called cataloguing.  Here, because of the number of places listed, there's a sense of the multitude of flies that are "com[ing] down."

The other thing I realized is that this cataloguing connects (albeit loosely) to the title Odessey and Oracle.  Cataloguing is a convention of epic poetry, and a prime example of epic poetry is The Odyssey, which is referenced in the album title.

"Time of the Season" b/w "I'll Call You Mine"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (6 May 1968), the Zombies' "Time of the Season" b/w "I'll Call You Mine" (Date 2-1604) was released in the US and Canada.

"Celebration"

The other thing I noticed when I listened to Argent's Greatest: The Singles Collection recently is in "Celebration."  There's a "rise" sung to successively higher notes (B G# B' E', I think), which musically represents that "ris[ing]."  I should note that I might have the lyrics wrong here.  When I lookt at my transcription, I had "In the sound of the night we can ride."  Really, I think Argent sings just "ri..." with the rest of the word left unpronounced, but I feel "rise" is more likely than "ride."  (Transcribing the lyrics of "Celebration" has given me a lot of difficulty, more than most Argent songs.)

When I drafted this post Sunday night, I also noticed that the "forever" at the end of the second verse ("A ring of hands forever") is sung with a melisma (A G# G# F# E), giving a musical sense of that long length of time.