"To Julia (For When She Smiles)"

When I listened to Into the Afterlife a couple days ago, I also had a small realization about "To Julia (For When She Smiles)."  The reason that Julia was the name chosen for the song may be that it's related to July.  In any case, it's an appropriate name for the song's summertime setting. 

"To Julia (For When She Smiles)"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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I intended to clarify this yester-day, but I got busy and forgot.

A few days ago, I wrote about the "for" in "To Julia for When She Smiles" and how it's actually a conjunction.  It occurred to me later that while it's a conjunction in the lead vocals, it's a preposition in the backing vocals because they consist only of "Julia / For when she smiles."  There's a different meaning, which hinges on whether "for" is a conjunction or preposition, depending on whether you're paying more attention to the lead vocals or to the backing vocals.

"To Julia (For When She Smiles)"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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Over on my general music tumblr, I got an ask requesting my transcription of the lyrics to "To Julia for When She Smiles."*  I was missing a few words from my transcription (I work at them piecemeal), but it didn't take too long to finish it.

But because I was looking at the lyrics, I realized that I'd always misunderstood the first line (grammatically misunderstood it).  You have to take the first two lines together to really understand it:  "To Julia for when she smiles / An orchard wind will warm my face."  That "for" is a conjunction, not a preposition.  It's not "To Julia for [the time] when she smiles," but rather "To Julia [because] when she smiles / An orchard wind will warm my face."

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*I'm assuming it was related to this blog but got sent over there because I don't have the ask box enabled here.  It's not enabled because I worry about getting inundated with requests for chords or tabs (although it's not like a lot of people follow this blog anyway).  It's a mix of "I'm not super confident in what I've figured out" and the sort-of-snobbish "You'll be a better musician if you figure it out for yourself."  Although lately I've been wondering if I should post some.  It's not like I have the rights to them or anything.

Into the Afterlife

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I listened to Into the Afterlife to-day because it was released to-day in 2007, according to Russo's Collector's Guide.  I noticed two things.

The organ part at the very end of Neil MacArthur's "Don't Try to Explain" bears a pretty strong resemblance to the opening organ part of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale."  I should really write a more in-depth post about this.  Interestingly, the organ part in "A White Shade of Pale" apparently comes from the second movement of Bach's third orchestral suite.  I watched this lecture last year, and it's briefly mentioned at about twenty minutes.

As usual, I worked on my lyric transcriptions, which forces me to pay attention to the words.  So I finally realized that "To Julia for When She Smiles" is very much like "Beechwood Park, Pt. 2."  The later half of the chorus ("An orchard wind will warm my face / Summer senses touch my spine / And 'round my head fine feelings race") seems like a re-working of some lines from "Beechwood Park" - "And the breeze would touch your hair, kiss your face, and make you care / About your world, your summer world."