"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 Keyboard Approach

A couple months ago, I subscribed to the Zombies Fan Club's YouTube channel.  This morning, I was very surprised to find two clips from Rod Argent's A Keyboard Approach in my subscription box.  According to Russo's Collector's Guide it came out (on VHS) on 11 August 1992.  A couple times (even as recently as a month or two ago), I went looking for a used copy on Amazon, but I never had any luck.

It's an instructional video that runs just over an hour (66 minutes), but the clips feature only Argent's performances of "Baby Don't You Cry" and "A 4th Gymnopedie" from Red House (1988).

In the video itself, instead of "Baby Don't You Cry," as it's titled on Red House, Argent calls the song "Baby Don't You Cry No More," which is the title it later had on Out of the Shadows (2001).

Argent confirms what I was pretty certain of: "A 4th Gymnopedie" (titled "A fourth gymnopédie" on Classically Speaking) is meant as "a little tribute to" Satie's gymnopédies.  In verifying my spelling there, I discovered that Satie's gymnopédies were published in 1888, so Argent's "A 4th Gymnopedie" from 1988 is from a hundred years later.

A little bit of scrolling credits is included at the end of the video with "A 4th Gymnopedie."  All that's visible is "Fugue in C minor," which I'm assuming is Bach's Fugue in C minor, BWV 846 from The Well-Tempered Clavier, which Argent later recorded for Classically Speaking (1998).

I'm pretty sure that the "Baby Don't You Cry" video was filmed in the same studio where the Zombies recorded Breathe Out, Breathe In.  Here's the video of the title track for comparison:

Obviously, the equipment is moved around, but the windows look the same.

"Baby Don't You Cry No More"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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The last things I noticed when I listened to Out of the Shadows a few days ago are in "Baby Don't You Cry No More."  At the end of the last section, a few lines are repeated, resulting in:

Baby, don't you cry no more
No more
My baby, don't you cry no more
I've been a lot of trouble, but I won't be any more
Baby, don't you cry, no
Baby, don't you cry no more

There are two interesting ambiguities in this (which typing the lyrics out kind of ruins).

First there's the line "I've been a lot of trouble, but I won't be any more."  That's the way it's printed in the liner notes, but audibly, it's no different from "I've been a lot of trouble, but I won't be anymore."  They negate slightly different things:  "I won't be any more" is quantitative ("I won't be any more [trouble]"), and "I won't be anymore" is more temporal ("I won't be trouble any longer").  However, just by hearing it, it could be taken either way.

Second, there's the "no" in "Baby, don't you cry, no" - the penultimate line.  That part isn't printed in the liner notes at all (apparently because it's just a repetition, so they assume the reader can figure it out), but like any more/anymore, it can be rendered in two different ways.  There's either "Baby, don't you cry no" or "Baby, don't you cry, no."  The comma makes a big difference.  Without the comma, it seems like the line is interrupted and that it was supposed to be the same as the following line "Baby, don't you cry no more" but the "more" was left out for any number of reasons.  With the comma, the "no" becomes an interjection instead of an adverb.  Those two options also vary the function of "cry" - whether it's transitive (taking "no more" as an object) or intransitive (taking no object at all).  The difference in semantics isn't as different here as it is with any more/anymore, but it's still an ambiguity that's present only in an audible form.

Referencing Rod Argent's version from Red House (titled just "Baby Don't You Cry"), I've discovered that the ambiguous "any more"/"anymore" and "no" are present there too.