"Her Song"

I was thinking about "Her Song" yester-day and noticed a couple features in the lyrics.

The lines "And in the light there I can see / A sleepyhead so close to me" could be understood in two different ways.  "So close to me" seems to be meant primarily literally (in physical proximity), but it could also be taken more metaphorically (in the sense of a deep emotional attachment).

In the line "And ev'rything I have is nothing if it can't belong to you," there's a copulative clause that can be simplified to "ev'rything is nothing."  Because the subject and the predicate nominative have similar forms (both end in "-thing"), there's a sense of balance between the two halves (despite the opposite meanings of "ev'rything" and "nothing"), and consequently, there's a sense of precision in the sentiment.

"Hold Your Head Up"

According to Jim Rodford's Sideman (p. 186), fifty years ago to-day (13 April 1975), Argent performed a concert at the Roundhouse London.  "The titles of the album tracks [on Circus] relate to various circus acts, and we rehearsed the whole album with these acts devising their routines around us."

Last year, the Reelin' in the Years archive posted a video of Argent performing "Hold Your Head Up," and while the date given is 1974, I think it's actually from this 1975 concert that Rodford details.  There are a number of circus acts around the band, and it seems unlikely that there would be a second occurrence of such an extravagant show.

"It's Only Money, Pt. 1"

When I was looking at the lyrics of "It's Only Money, Pt. 1" recently in order to compare them to a line in "The Jester," I noticed that there's anaphora in the lines "Pay the butcher; pay the baker / Pay the taxman; pay me later."  This repetition illustrates the frequency and number of payments that must be made.  Additionally, the first three of these clauses are sung to nearly the same melody (the pitches are the same [D E G E], but the rhythm differs a bit), highlighting this effect.

"The Jester"

In "The Jester," there's the line "It is within your fortune lies," and perhaps just coincidentally, this bears some resemblance to a sentiment in Argent's earlier "It's Only Money" (both parts):  "It's not what's at the door / But the money you have in your soul."

"Highwire"

I listened to Argent's Circus yester-day to mark the fiftieth anniversary of its U.K. release, and for the first time, I noticed an allusion in "Highwire."  About halfway through the song, there's the line "With amazing grace and sweet sensation captured by the high flier," which seems to contain a nod to the spiritual "Amazing Grace" ("Amazing grace - how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me!").  I find some of the singing on Circus hard to understand; otherwise, I'm sure I would have discovered this reference earlier.

Circus

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (4 April 1975), Argent's Circus (Epic S EPC 80691) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. and Canada release (Epic PE 33422) had been on 10 March 1975.

"Brief Candles"

I was thinking about "Brief Candles" this morning and had a realization about the coda.  In the stereo mix, the piano (along with the bass) is in the left channel, and the right channel contains merely its reverb.  This particular distribution of the sound creates a sense of space, and consequently, the isolated position of the instruments is emphasized.  This sort of separation matches the solitude of the characters in the lyrics ("She only needs to be alone" in the first verse and "He's alone" in the second).

"Her Song"

When I watched the Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} concert, I noticed a similarity between "Her Song" and the Beatles' "Because."  "Her Song" has the recurring clause "You are love to me," which is the same sentiment as "love is you" in "Because," simply inverted.  "Because" predates "Her Song" by only a couple years, but I suspect that this similarity is just a coincidence, not a conscious echo.  Still, I thought I'd note it.

Odessey and Oracle

Yester-day was the anniversary of the concert that was recorded for the Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} CD and DVD (on 8 March 2008), so I watched it again.  In the original album liner notes, there's a quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest:

Be not afraid;

The Isle is full of noises

Sound, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices

Caliban says this to Stephano and Trinculo in Act 3, Scene 2 (roughly lines 131-134), although in the two editions of the play that I have, it's formatted a bit differently:

Be not afeard.  The isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again

I recently re-read The Tempest and noticed a detail that, purely coincidentally, is related to this 40th anniversary concert version of "Butcher's Tale."  During the concert, Rod comments on the "1896 Victorian pedal organ similar to the one [used on the original recording] that Chris gave away many years ago and I had to go searching for for these concerts."  In a few shots, it can be seen that the organ was made by the Clarabella Organ Co.:

In The Tempest, Alonso's daughter (who's merely mentioned in the play, at II.i.68, 240, 253, and V.i.209) is named Claribel, which is just a slightly different form of Clarabella.

In re-reading The Tempest, I also noticed that the word oracle appears a couple times.  At the beginning of Act 4, Scene 1, after Prospero tells Ferdinand that Miranda "will outstrip all praise," Ferdinand replies, "I do believe it / Against an oracle" (lines 11-12), and in Act 5, Scene 1, Alonso, reflecting on his experience on the island, says,

This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod,

And there is in this business more than nature

Was ever conduct of.  Some oracle

Must rectify our knowledge.  (lines 242-245)

Caliban's lines are quoted in the liner notes, so maybe one of these instances of oracle had something to do with the album's title.

The title also seems to reference the Greek epic poem The Odyssey, and it occurred to me that The Odyssey and The Tempest both deal with maritime voyages (although most of The Tempest occurs after a shipwreck).

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For what it's worth:  on Rod's birthday a couple years ago, the Zombies' social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram) posted an old picture of him at an organ, and this seems to be the original "Butcher's Tale" organ.

"Moving On"

In The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images, I recently read about "Moving On."  Rod comments specifically on the line "What doesn't kill me will fill me with life," and I realized that because this line features internal rhyme, there's a sense of that abundance of being "fill[ed]."

As Far As I Can See

A few years ago, I wrote a post about how the cover of Begin Here bears some resemblance to the cover of With the Beatles.  In both, the band members' faces are lit primarily from one side.

I recently started reading the final section of The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images where As Far As I Can See is referred to (but not actually named; the book just says that the Zombies "released an album of new material in 2004"), and I realized that the cover of As Far As I Can See is even more similar to With the Beatles than Begin Here is.  The cover is in black and white (aside from the O in "The Zombies," which features a bit of the Odessey and Oracle cover art), and the contrast in the lighting is more extreme so that - like the Beatles - only half of Rod's face is visible.

"Brief Candles"

I had an-other small realization while reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images.  As it's formatted in the book, the first verse of "Brief Candles" is:

There she sits, her hands are held

Tight around her glass

She only needs to be alone

She knows this mood will pass

To realise that she was strong

And he too weak to stay

And to realise that she is better off this way

I would have done it differently, but this formatting highlights a structural contrast between "she was strong" and "he too weak."  By itself, "he too weak" is just a phrase.  The preceding "she was strong" sets up an instance of ellipsis, and the verb is merely implied ("he [was] too weak").  "He too weak" needs "she was strong" in order to make sense (formally speaking, at least).  It can't stand on its own, and in a way, this dependence matches the person it describes.