"The Tracks of My Tears"

I recently listened to Colin Blunstone's Collected (for only the fourth time), specifically to hear his version of "The Tracks of My Tears" and see if it has the same features that I'd noticed in the original by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.

At the end of the bridge, there's the line "My smile is my makeup I wear since my break up with you," sung to a melody something like this:

(Blunstone's version is even in the same key as the original, so I could re-use my notation excerpt from my post on how this line may have influenced the keyboard solo in an alternate take of the Zombies' "Nothing's Changed.")

After the initial D note, the melody repeats the same triplet until the phrase "break up with you," at which point it diverges.  These changes in the repeated sequence of pitches and in the rhythm musically illustrate that "break."

Because I've commented on Shakespeare references in other Zombies and Colin Blunstone songs, I feel I should mention that the idea of "the tracks of my tears" is basically the same as "With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks" in King Lear (I.iv.292), although this seems to be just coincidental.  In this video (starting at ~10:16), Smokey Robinson talks about the song a bit, including how he came up with the title phrase.

For what it's worth:  these features are also in the version by the Roulettes (a band that Russ Ballard and Robert Henrit were in before Argent), although that's a whole step lower, in F major.

Encore

I watched the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night yester-day (partially because this month marks its sixtieth anniversary), and it gave me an opportunity to write about something I'd realized last year but forgot to write about here.

The cover of Argent's Encore shows a number of film strips of various shots of the group playing live:

This is the same basic idea as one scene during the press conference in A Hard Day's Night where a photographer takes multiple pictures of George Harrison as he makes various faces and the movie shows the resulting film strips:

I don't know if this was the intent for Encore, but there's certainly a resemblance between the album cover and this shot in A Hard Day's Night.

When I was thinking about this again yester-day, I realized that the back cover of the Zombies' I Love You album uses this idea, too.  Here's a scan of the CD booklet (in which the back cover of the record sleeve has become the inside back cover), showing the group playing live on a television show in Sweden in November 1966:

According to the liner notes of the CD, this compilation album was originally released only in continental Europe and Japan since "Decca's affiliates in other countries were aware of the band's status and the need for a second long player, but the band apparently lacked the necessary profile at home to be taken seriously by the label."  Because of these circumstances, I doubt that the Zombies themselves had any input in the design of the album cover, but the similarity to the shot in A Hard Day's Night still seems to point to the Beatles' influence.

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For what it's worth, here's a post about the cover of Begin Here, which also seems to indicate a Beatle influence, and here's an-other post about the front and back covers of I Love You, where I detail some investigation I did on these pictures.

"Nothing's Changed"

Yester-day, I was thinking about Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' "The Tracks of My Tears," specifically the line "My smile is my makeup I wear since my break up with you" at the end of the bridge, which is sung to a melody something like this:

I realized that there are some similarities between this and the keyboard solo (Hohner Pianet + Vox Continental) in the alternate take of "Nothing's Changed" (track 15 on disc 3 of Zombie Heaven), which is something like this:

Both consist primarily of a repeated set of descending triplets (although the intervals in the two parts aren't the same), and both start with an eighth note pick up and an ascending fourth.

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes (p. 52), the Zombies performed "The Tracks of My Tears" live, so it's possible that the melody and rhythm of the vocal part here had something to do with Rod Argent's keyboard solo in "Nothing's Changed," even if merely subconsciously.

"So Much More"

This is just a minor point, but the line "Ev'ry night and ev'ry day" in "So Much More" contains a temporal merism.

Also, this is my 1,000th post on this blog.

"The Best Is Yet to Come"

I listened to Colin Blunstone's On the Air Tonight last week and noticed a handful of small features.

In the line "You say the words that help me carry on" in "The Best Is Yet to Come," "on" is sung with a melisma (A E G), giving a sense of that continuation.

In the line "'Cause it's hard, but it's the same for ev'ryone," "ev'ryone" is sung with a melisma, giving a sense of breadth.  Initially (at ~0:41 and ~1:44), it's A G A B, but later in the song (at ~2:56), it's E F# E B C# B.

In the line "When ev'rything is wrong, hold on," the three syllables of "ev'rything" are all sung to different pitches (C B A), providing a sense of that breadth.

"This Is Your Captain Calling"

I was thinking about Colin Blunstone's "This Is Your Captain Calling" recently and noticed a handful of features, all in the first iteration of the chorus:

This is your captain calling

This is your captain calling

To tell you I'm out of my brain again

This is your captain calling

And if you think we're falling

You're perfectly right

And I'd be delighted if any of you

Could give us a hand and land the plane

In the line "And if you think we're falling," "falling" is sung to a descending pair of notes, providing a sense of its meaning.  It's only a small interval (a whole step:  F# to E), but it's somewhat conspicuous because up to that point, the melody ascends and holds steady ("And if you think we're" is sung to the notes C# D E F# F#)

In the line "And I'd be delighted if any of you," the phrase "any of you" is sung to notes of all different pitches (A G# F# E), giving a sense of the breadth of "any."

The line "Could give us a hand and land the plane" exhibits internal rhyme ("hand" and "land"), hinting at the stability that would result from "land[ing] the plane."

"Sanctuary"

When I watched the Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London DVD a couple days ago, I also noticed an ambiguity in the lyrics of "Sanctuary," specifically in the line "When all around seems to be trouble."  It could be parsed in two different ways:  either "all" as the subject and "trouble" as a predicate adjective or "all around" as an adverbial phrase (modifying "seems to be") and "trouble" as the subject (with the structure inverted, rather than the more prosaic "When trouble seems to be all around").

"I Love You"

When I listened to The Decca Stereo Anthology back in September, I thought there was an ambiguity in the lines "I shouldn't hide / My love deep inside" in "I Love You."  Yester-day, I watched the Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London DVD (because according to Russo's Collector's Guide, the concert was recorded on 6 June 2003), and I finally sussed it out:  "deep inside" could function adverbially (modifying "hide," describing where to hide this love) or as a post-positive adjectival phrase (modifying "love," indicating the degree to which the narrator feels this emotion).  Admittedly, the first seems more likely.

"A Man for All Reasons"

I listened to Argent's Nexus a couple days ago to mark the U.S. release of the "A Man for All Reasons" b/w "Music of the Spheres" single, and I remembered something that I noticed about "A Man for All Reasons" when I listened to the album back in April, although I think I'd been dimly aware of this even before then.  There are changes in the dynamics to represent the lines "And again, there's the man of war" (played forte for bellicosity) and "And again, there's the man of peace" (played piano for tranquility), and of course, these opposite dynamics also mirror the difference between "war" and "peace."

"Trapeze"

I was thinking about "Trapeze" yester-day, and I realized that in the section

Flying, sighing headlong into dread
Hoping, praying I'll find the path to tread

the phrase "headlong into dread" is sung to a descending melody (Bb A G F# D), musically illustrating this sensation.  In other words, it mirrors that "sinking feeling."

"A Man for All Reasons" b/w "Music from the Spheres"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (3 June 1974), Argent's "A Man for All Reasons" (edited) b/w "Music from the Spheres" (Epic 5-11137) was released in the U.S. and Canada.  The U.K. release (Epic S EPC 2448) was on 14 June, coincidentally Rod Argent's birthday.

"The Ring"

I listened to Argent's Circus this morning and started wondering about the effects on "The Ring" again.  I've long suspected that at least one of the effects is ring modulation, although I can't find anything to confirm this.  If this is the case, though, the title has a dual meaning:  there's "ring" in the sense of ring modulation, and there's also "ring" in the sense of circus ring, in keeping with the album's theme.