"Be Glad"

March 29 was Piano Day (because it was the 88th day of the year and pianos have 88 keys), so I listened to Rod Argent's Classically Speaking.  I was finally able to confirm something I've been suspicious of for a long time.  I'd thought that the section of "Be Glad" starting at ~3:31 was a quotation (or near quotation) of a classical piece, but I hadn't been able to place it.  It turns out that the piece I was looking for is on Classically Speaking.  At ~3:12 in the Prelude in C# minor, Op. 45, No. 1 by Chopin, Argent starts playing this:

[source]

I don't know if what he plays in "Be Glad" is exactly the same (for one thing, it sounds quite a bit lower), but I think it's a similar sort of figure.

"Be Glad"

I recently listened to In Deep, and this evening I figured out the lead vocal melody for the middle section of "Be Glad" (from ~4:01 to ~4:38).  I noticed a subtle feature about it.

I still don't know for sure what key "Be Glad" is in, so I left my notation in C major, resulting in a slew of accidentals:

The lyrics here are:

Long was the summer
Torn from the spring
Deep were the days of your longing

Now you are risen
Free as the wind
Watch as your woman is dancing

The melody for the "Now you are risen..." section is essentially the same as the melody for the "Long was the summer..." section.  The significant difference is that it's raised a half step, so between the two, there's a musical sense of having "risen."

In Deep

As promised, here's a post about a couple songs on Argent's In Deep.

"God Gave Rock and Roll to You"

While listening to this, I started wondering if the musical phrase to which Rod Argent sings "To ev'ry boy He gave a" is a scale.  The first note (F#) is doubled, but otherwise it is a section of a D major scale:

The next word in the phrase ("song") drops to an A note, discontinuing the scale.

While I was thinking about that, I also started wondering if the "ev'ry boy" part of that lyrical phrase is a reference to the "Every good boy does fine" mnemonic for remembering what notes go on the lines in written music (in treble clef, at least).  It seems to fit because both that phrase and "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" are about music.  Furthermore, that musical phrase is a scale (the same sort of thing that would be learned along with that mnemonic), and it begins on the last of the lines in that mnemonic.  But I'm not confident that it's a reference.

"Be Glad"

At about 6:28, there's this phrase in the piano part (I think I have the notation right):

It occurs again at about 7:22 (after the line "Your soul, your voice, your freedom"), lowered a whole step so that it starts on Bb.

I'm surprised I never noticed before, but it's very similar to the first phrase of the tune "Antioch":

Both are diatonic descents that start with the same rhythm.  "Antioch" is the tune to which "Joy to the World" is sung, so the lyrical connection of "Joy" and "Be glad" is there too.

As I mentioned a couple years ago, Rod Argent quoted the hymn tune "Cwm Rhondda" in a live version of "Hold Your Head Up" (on the Encore album, which was released about a year after In Deep), so there's precedence for his borrowing and altering hymn tunes.  (Maybe precedence isn't the right word though, since "Be Glad" pre-dates that quotation of "Cwm Rhondda").

As I realized only recently, the next song on the album - "Christmas for the Free" - quotes the phrase "Joy to the world," which seems to suggest this was an intentional borrowing and not just a coincidental resemblance.

"Be Glad"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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I'm not sure it's really worth posting, but here's the notation for the tubular bell part at about 6:00 in Argent's "Be Glad."  I've been notating some things recently (partially to practice my notation skills and partially so that I have some record of parts if I forget them), and this one seemed easy.

This might be a bit grandiose, but I also feel that by preserving these parts in notation, I'm acting as something of an archivist for these songs.

I don't think the whole song is in G major, but this part fits into it nicely:

"Be Glad"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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When I listened to In Deep a couple days ago, I thought this part (doubled on piano and tubular bells) from "Be Glad" would be easy to figure out.  It's only a couple bars from around the six minute mark, but because I figured this out, I'm pretty sure the song is in G major.

In Deep

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I listened to Argent's In Deep to-day because according to Russo's Collector's Guide, it came out to-day in 1973.  And I noticed things!

"God Gave Rock and Roll to You"

There's some really obvious alliteration in this that I'd missed.  It's in the title line ("God gave rock and roll to you") and the second line of the first verse ("Love your life and love your labor"), which actually exhibits a sort of parallel alliteration.

There's parallel structure in the line "Don't step on snails, don't climb in trees."

"Losing Hold"

There's some parallelism in different iterations of the chorus in "Losing Hold":

I'm losing hold
Let my fingers slide
I see you slowly close your eyes on me
I'll keep mine open wide

And later:

I'm losing hold
Let my fingers slide
I've watched you slowly take the day from me
I'll keep the night to hide

To some degree, this parallelism connects "your eyes" with "the day."

—

I found a structure that connects "It's Only Money, Pt. 2," "Be Glad," and "Rosie."  Each has a section where a line is repeated twice and then there's an-other line.

"It's Only Money, Pt. 2":

It's only money
It's only money
It's only money
Ain't it funny when you want it you ain't got it

"Be Glad":

Be glad
Be glad
Be glad
Oh, be glad

"Rosie":

Rosie
Rosie
Rosie
What have I got to do?

—

Somewhat similarly, there's a lyrical connection between "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" and "Be Glad."  "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" mentions that God "put [rock and roll] in the soul of everyone," and "Be Glad" continues that idea with "So throw the music in your soul to Heaven."

Like the similar structures in "It's Only Money, Pt. 2," "Be Glad," and "Rosie," including that idea of music in the soul in both "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" and "Be Glad" makes for a more unified album.

[I learned a couple parts too, and I'll get around to posting those in the next few days.  I discovered something really interesting about "Christmas for the Free" that deserves its own post and audio example.]