"I Am the Dance of Ages"

In the line "Blinding out all eyes" in "I Am the Dance of Ages," "eyes" is sung with a melisma (G F), lending a small sense of the entirety of "all."  I'd noticed this before but apparently neglected to write about it.  I was reminded of it yester-day when I listened to the 14 December 1972 Argent concert.  I also realized that the note values contribute to this sense of entirety, too:  the two notes to which "eyes" is sung have longer durations than the other notes in the line.

Encore

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (22 November 1974), Argent's Encore (Epic S EPC 88063) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. and Canada release (Epic PEG 33079) was on 9 December.

Additionally, the single "Keep on Rollin' (#2)" b/w "I Am the Dance of Ages (live)" (Epic S EPC 2849) was released in the U.K.  Apparently, this single wasn't released in the U.S.  As far as I can tell, this second version of "Keep on Rollin'" has never been re-issued.

"I Am the Dance of Ages"

This is just a small point, but when I listened to Encore a few days ago, I noticed that at ~3:30 in "I Am the Dance of Ages," Rod Argent starts wordlessly singing along to what he's improvising - the same thing he does at the end of "Indication."

All Together Now

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For my Collection Audit project, I listened to Argent's All Together Now to-day.  I never got around to mentioning something that I noticed last time I listened to it:  in "Tragedy," after the synchronized guitar and bass part, there's an overdubbed percussion part (I think it's a hi-hat, but I don't know much about percussion, so I'm not sure) starting at about 2:38.  It does something similar to the mellotron at the beginning and end of "Changes" (the stereo version of "Changes," at least).  But where the mellotron part in "Changes" goes in only one direction (from left to right at the beginning and from right to left at the end), this percussion part seems to travel in a circular direction.  It goes right to left, but then left to right and continues on that way.  There's a similar effect (I think also with mellotron) in the Moody Blues' "The Best Way to Travel."  They add echo or reverb or something to every other pass to create some depth though, which Argent doesn't do.

Listening to it to-day, I also noticed something about "I Am the Dance of Ages."  Some sections of the lyrics have doubled-tracked vocals.  I can't find anything in the lyrics that would really lend themselves to having doubled-tracked vocals though (I can't find anything that they particularly emphasize, I mean).

It's the bold sections below:

I am the beat of anger
The temple of your hate
Horseman in the night
Hell-bound in the night

And

I am the body power
The rhythm of your joy
Spiral in the air
A line inside a prayer

That "I am the body power" section appears twice, but only the second time has that vocal double-tracking.

All Together Now

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I listened to Argent's All Together Now because (according to Russo's Collector's Guide) it was released to-day in 1972.  As usual, I worked on lyric transcription and noticed a few things.

There's some interesting elements in the chorus in "I Am the Dance of Ages":

Ride on the rising tide
Walk on the water
Spray with each burning day
I'm going high

There's alliteration ("Ride on the rising tide / Walk on the water"), assonance ("Ride on the rising tide / Walk on the water"), and internal rhyme ("Ride on the rising tide" "Spray with each burning day").

I think there's a small Bach reference in "Be My Lover, Be My Friend."  The song changes at about 4:01 and goes into an organ interlude.  At about 4:04, there's a trill between A and G - the same trill that starts Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (I looked up the notation).  I've written about Bach-influenced trills with the Odessey and Oracle material, but I think this is more of an intentional quotation than a mere influence.

"I Am the Dance of Ages"

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While going through and tagging all of the posts with the relevant song titles, I discovered that I'd learned the bass part to Argent's "I Am the Dance of Ages," which I had pretty much completely forgotten about.

The bass part by itself is pretty boring and doesn't sound like much, but here it is anyway!

"I Am the Dance of Ages"

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To-night I learned the bass part for Argent's "I Am the Dance of Ages."