"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.

"Bring It on Home to Me"

I recently listened to a compilation album of Sam Cooke and realized that in the line "If you ever change your mind" in "Bring It on Home to Me," the "mind" is sung with a melisma (E D), musically indicating that "change" through the shift from one pitch to an-other.  Of course, then I started thinking about the Zombies' version.  It has the same feature, but the melisma is broader; "mind" is sung to the phrase B C# E F# E.

In referencing both versions now to find specific pitches, I also noticed something exclusive to the Zombies' version.  Every verse in Cooke's original ends with some variation of "Baby, bring it to me, bring your sweet lovin' / Bring it on home to me," and the live version of "You've Really Got a Hold on Me/Bring It on Home to Me" by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles that the Zombies based their version on follows this, but the Zombies' version has "on home" instead of "to me" ("Whoa, bring it on home, bring your sweet lovin' / Bring it on home to me").  That "home" in "Whoa, bring it on home..." is sung to an A note, and since their version is in A major, that's the tonic or home note.

I also discovered that the second syllable of the melisma'd "me" in the line "Bring it home to me" that ends every verse is sung to an A note, so there's a musical representation of "bring[ing] it home" there too.

"Tiger in the Night"

While I'm writing posts about Colin Blunstone songs, I figured I would finally get around to writing about something I noticed when I first listened to Collected last March.  The first few lines of "Tiger in the Night" are taken almost directly from the William Blake poem "The Tyger."

The first two lines of "Tiger in the Night":

You are the tiger burning bright
Deep in the forests of my nights

The first two lines of "The Tyger":

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;

"Ain't It Funny"

When I listened to Planes/Never Even Thought a couple days ago, I noticed a small thing about "Ain't It Funny."  "More" in the line "When I first saw, wanted more" is sung with a melisma (Bb G in the version on Planes; C Bb G in the version on Never Even Thought).  Because it's sung to more syllables than it's spoken with, there's a sense of the word's meaning.

In referencing the song now to find the specific pitches, I also noticed that "down" in the line "You can feel down, wear a frown" is sung with a descending melisma (Bb G in both versions), musically representing that "down"ness.  Because it's a minor third, there might be a hint of sadness there too.

"Planes"

Because yester-day was Colin Blunstone's birthday, I listened to the somewhat recent reissue of Planes and Never Even Thought on a single CD.  I'm not sure if this is entirely necessary, but I wanted to write a post to point out the allusion to Cervantes' Don Quixote in "Planes."  I can't make out all of the lyrics, but one of the later verses has "...traces of old Don Quixote / Tilting giants on imaginary hills."  If I remember it correctly, in Don Quixote, the title character reads so many stories about knights that he can no longer distinguish between fiction and reality and, thinking that he himself is a knight, goes off on an adventure.  He goes into battle against windmills because he perceives them as giants.  This is the specific event that "Planes" references.