"I'm in the Mood"

I listened to Rod Argent's Moving Home a couple days ago and noticed a small feature in "I'm in the Mood."  In the lines "You know I feel so good, / Feel so good!" the second "good" is sung with a melisma for a sense of degree (for "so").

Argent mentions Duke Ellington in the lyrics, and I think the title "I'm in the Mood" might be a subtle reference to "Mood Indigo," one of Ellington's songs.  For what it's worth, Argent also mentions Ellington in this radio piece from 2009.

"Trapeze"

While going through my notes for Out of the Shadows, I discovered an-other note about "Trapeze" from earlier this month (the 17th) that I'd forgotten about:  "Faces" in the line "Upturned faces" is sung to an ascending phrase (although only a whole step: A B), musically giving a sense of that "upturned."

"Danger Zone"

I also found some significant melismas in "Danger Zone."

"Late" in the line "For we could leave it much too late" is sung with a melisma (E D) for a sense of degree (for "too").  "Lives" in the line "All of our lives" is sung with a melisma (although it's the same pitch twice:  A# A#) to portray something of the entirety of that "all."  "Go" in the line "And it's hard to know we should let it go" is sung with a melisma (G# F#) for a sense of (metaphorical) movement.

"Baby Don't You Cry No More"

Some of the "more"s in "Baby Don't You Cry No More" are sung with melismas, so while it's negated, there's something of a sense of its meaning.  While writing this post, it occurred to me that "no more" has the same semantic ambiguity (it could be taken either temporally or as an amount) as "any more"/"anymore," which I wrote about five years ago.  I also referenced Rod Argent's version (titled just "Baby Don't You Cry") on Red House and discovered that it too has these melisma'd "more"s.

"A Girl Like That"

I listened to Out of the Shadows a couple days ago and noticed a few small features.

In "A Girl Like That," "down" in the lines "And when I'm down and feeling flat" and "But I've come down; she brought me back" is sung with a descending melisma (D# C# B), musically giving a sense of its meaning.

"Trapeze"

I've been listening to Argent a lot lately.  Over the last month or so, I listened to Circus four times, and somewhere along the way, I realized something about "Trapeze."  At ~0:56 and again at ~6:49 there are sections that really exploit the stereo mixing, with electric piano (I'm pretty sure it's a Fender Rhodes) panned far left, bass centered, and guitar panned far right.  Musically, these alternate so that there's something of a sense of the music moving back and forth from left to right.  Extra-musically, this seems to present the movement of the singer/speaker's act.