"Beware"

When I listened to Journey yester-day, I noticed a couple things in specific songs.

In "Beware," "ev'rything" in the line "Beware, for I wish you ev'rything" is sung with a melisma (E A B C B A, I think), which musically gives a sense of the number of things.

Journey

Last week, the phrase "a month of Sundays" was in a Jeopardy! clue (which I got right), and this got me thinking about Colin Blunstone's Journey (because "Shadow of a Doubt" uses that phrase: "It would take a month of Sundays to understand you now").  I just listened to the album, and I had two general thoughts about it.

1. A number of songs (or song titles) either reference or use common sayings:

• "It may sound Greek to you" in "Weak for You" references "it's Greek to me"
• "See the forest for the trees" in "Weak for You"
• "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" in "Smooth Operation"
• The title "Shadow of a Doubt"
• "A month of Sundays" in "Shadow of a Doubt"

I don't really have anything to add to that; I just thought it interesting and wanted to note it.

2. The title Journey doesn't seem too far off from the title Odessey and Oracle, since journey is a synonym for odyssey, but I don't know if that's an intentional reference or just coincidence.

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

Years ago, I noticed that in "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," after the line "Late at night I hear footsteps sound down the hall," there's a descending bass part, apparently to represent those footsteps musically.  This morning, I was thinking about this feature again and realized that there's more to it than that.

Here's the bass part for that line:

Although there are a number of accidentals, the notes in the last two measures are fairly conjunct.  The intervals are mostly half steps or whole steps, so there are musical "steps" in the bass part to represent the footsteps in the lyrics.

Looking at this again now, it strikes me that those accidentals could hold some significance.  For those two measures, all of the flats in C minor are made natural, resulting in a section of a C major scale.  This turn from minor to major is the same sentiment expressed in that verse: the singer/speaker is "kid[ding] myself that you're coming back after all," and so there's a glimmer of happiness.

"In Memory"

Last night, I figured out two parts for the first section of "In Memory" from Rod Argent's Red House.  I was surprised to discovered that - apparently - these are the first parts I've figured out from Argent's solo material.  I was also surprised to discover that this is the first recording I've made for this project since last May.

I figured out what I think are two synthesizer parts: one sounds like a clarinet, and one sounds like an upright bass.  I used the clarinet voice on my keyboard and electric bass.

I thought I'd mentioned this before, but apparently not: "In Memory" seems to be just a different arrangement of Argent's "A 4th Gymnopedie."

"Music from the Spheres"

For years now, I've had a digital sticky note on my computer desktop reminding me that the phrase "across the universe" in "Music from the Spheres" might be a little nod to the Beatles song "Across the Universe."  I happened to look at this yester-day, and I realized something about that line in the Argent song:  the "universe" is sung with a melisma (B C# D# E), musically giving a sense of the breadth of "across the universe."  At the same time, there's a string glissando*, which gives the same impression of breadth in two different ways: the glissando itself encompasses a large span of notes, and because it's recorded in stereo, it seems to travel from left to right, giving a sense of spatial range.

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*I'd always thought it was a harp glissando, but after listening more closely, I'm not so sure now.  The timbre seems too different.  I think it might actually be piano, played by striking the strings directly, not using the keyboard.  Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer did this on "Take a Pebble," and Rod Argent's mentioned him a few times (for instance, in this interview originally published in March 1975 and - more recently - in this interview from 2017 [in response to a question asked at ~17:33]), so it might even be a bit of his influence.

"Butcher's Tale"

Although my flute skills aren't advanced enough for me to play hardly any of them, I follow the daily music pieces posted on flutetunes.com.  A couple days ago, they posted a piece titled "The Queen's Shilling."  Accompanying the piece, there's a short paragraph that explains that "the queen's shilling" or "the king's shilling" is "a historical slang term referring to the earnest payment of one shilling given to recruits to the Armed forces of the United Kingdom."  Here's Collins' dictionary entry for "king's shilling."

Now that I've learned this term, I finally understand one of the lines in "Butcher's Tale" a bit better: "But the king's shilling is now my fee."

"Summertime"

When I transferred my old posts here, I noticed that I'd made some mistakes in my notation of the bass part in "Summertime."  I still think I have the right pitches, but I had some wrong note values.  I was under the mistaken impression that the length of a whole note is equal to the number of beats in a measure no matter what the time signature is, but whole notes are actually equal to four beats.  Where I had whole notes (four beats), I should have had dotted half notes (three beats).

Recently, I re-wrote the notation to correct my mistake, and I added in the guitar chords.  However, this still comes with the disclaimer that I might have something wrong:

1971 Argent Concert

Via the Zombies Fan Club on Facebook, here's a link to a page on Russ Ballard's website of an Argent concert from 1971.  The data from the Facebook post give only the year and that it was probably recorded from the radio on Sunday.  I did some research and discovered the exact date: 14 February 1971.  In the audio file itself, the announcer (identified as John Peel in the Facebook post) mentions that a band called Egg played the first half and that next week's program will feature the Roy Young Band.  There's a wiki devoted to Peel's radio broadcasts, and the page for 1971 lists a program with Egg and Argent on 14 February 1971 and a program with the Roy Young Band the following week (21 February).  The specific page for 14 February 1971 links to an archived version of a BBC site with details on the Egg recording, including the location of Lower Regent Street, which Ballard confirms in the Facebook post: "I remember the show, it was recorded at the BBC Regent Street."

Here's the set list:

• "Lothlorien"
• "Chained"
• "Rejoice"
• "The Fakir"
• "Sweet Mary"

After that, the tape seems to skip, and there are additional, different versions of "Rejoice" and "Chained."  Those don't seem to be from the same show, since Peel says, "Argent finish with 'Sweet Mary.'"

"Summer"

Yester-day I listened to Rod Argent's Moving Home (I think for only the third time).  I don't think this was new to me, but I'd forgotten that "Summer" contains a Biblical allusion.  In what I think is the second verse (I'm not that familiar with the song yet, so I'm going purely by how the lyrics are formatted on the record sleeve), there's the line "Take me to your milk and honey lands."  In Exodus 3:8, God says, "I have come down to deliver [my people] out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey...."

"Imagine the Swan"

I've noted before that, as the Zombie Heaven liner notes point out, the harpsichord at the beginning of "Imagine the Swan" arpeggiates chords in the same manner as Bach's C major prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846).  I recently printed out the notation for the prelude because I want to learn to play it (or try to, at least), and I noticed a couple things.

In the C major prelude, the initial two notes in each arpeggiation are held underneath the other notes:

I don't think Argent follows this in "Imagine the Swan."  It sounds like only the initial note is held, but only for the duration of the second note and only in the two introductory measures.  The rhythm is scaled down too, so it's something like:

As a bonus track on one of my editions of Odessey and Oracle, there's a mix where this harpsichord part is doubled on organ, and the organ certainly doesn't hold that initial note for the duration of the whole arpeggiation.  It plays all of the notes with equal values.

In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Argent explains that "Imagine the Swan" uses "Chris' chord sequence but we did it like [the Bach prelude]."  Adjusted for key, though, the first two chords are the same... sort of.  The Bach prelude is in C major and arpeggiates a C major and then a D minor; "Imagine the Swan" is in F major and arpeggiates an F major and then a G minor.  Both have the tonic chord (I) and then the supertonic (ii), but the arpeggiations of the supertonic chords differ.  Bach puts a C note under his D minor and skips over an F (C D A D F), but Argent plays a regular old triad with some notes repeated higher (G Bb D G Bb).

Odessey and Oracle

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (15 July 1968), Odessey and Oracle (Date TES 4013) was released in the U.S. and Canada.

"Time of the Season"

I recently listened to a compilation album of Ray Charles and noticed the lines "Well, tell me, baby, what is your name" in "Kissa Me Baby" and "Well, now, baby, tell me what is your name" in "Jumpin' in the Morning."  Both of these have some resemblance to "What's your name" in "Time of the Season."  Rod Argent has mentioned Charles in a number of interviews, so I think this might be a bit of his influence, even if subconsciously.