"That's All I Ever Want from You Baby"

I listened to the As Was EP yester-day and noticed a small feature in "That's All I Ever Want from You Baby."  Under the phrases "all the years" in the first verse and "every night" in the second, the bass plays a chromatic phrase (Bb A Ab G), musically giving a sense of the entirety of "all" and "every."  It's a bit more noticeable in the second verse because there it's played an octave higher than in the first verse.

"Groovin'"

I listened to a couple Elvis Presley albums yester-day because it was his birthday, and I found a similarity between his "My Baby Left Me" (written by Arthur Crudup) and Manfred Mann's "Groovin'" (which the Groovin' with Manfred Mann EP credits to King and Bathea, apparently Ben E. King and James Bathea.)

To me, it sounds like the third verse of "My Baby Left Me" starts with the lines:

Baby, one of these mornin's, Lord, it won't be long

You'll look for me, baby, and daddy will not know

although some internet sources I referenced transcribe the lyrics (with odd line breaks) as

Baby, one of the mornings

Lord, it won't be long

You'll look for me

Baby, and daddy, he'll be gone

In any case, the second verse of "Groovin'" starts with nearly identical lines:

One of these mornin's and it won't be long

You'll look for me, and I'll be gone

Because the lines resemble each other so closely, I think this is an intentional similarity, but I'm not certain.

"Each and Every Day"

Last night, I figured out some more parts for "Each and Every Day."  I wrote about the song a couple years ago, and I had a few more realizations to add to those comments.

I'm not completely sure of my voicings, but I think the Mellotron (brass + strings) part in the bridges is something like:

In my original post, I noted that since the Mellotron plays on offbeats coinciding with "girl" and "world" in the lines "I could never leave her for another girl / Always miles away, we're in another world," it highlights that sense of being "other."  I realized yester-day that the note values contribute to this, too.  In contrast to the steady quarter notes that precede those spots, there are irregularities and notes of longer values.

If the voicings I have are correct, the intervals also demonstrate this feeling of being "other"; instead of thirds, as in the rest of the section, there are fourths under "girl" and "world."

"She Needs Company"

I listened to the Machines EP yester-day and noticed that, aside from the last two iterations, the choruses of "She Needs Company" have a chiastic structure:

She needs comp'ny; he needs a helping hand

He needs money; she needs a man

This structure mirrors the reciprocity of the relationship.

The objects that the two characters need sort of rhyme with each other ("comp'ny" with "money" and "hand" with "man"), and to some degree, this also illustrates that parity.

"Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James"

I recently found a note I made last year about "Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James."  I first heard the song via this live version on Beat! Beat! Beat!:

Videos from this performance were uploaded to Manfred Mann's YouTube channel in October 2019 but were taken down on copyright grounds.  In August 2021, however, they were uploaded to Beat-Club, which apparently owns the rights.  An exact date (18 November 1966) was given when the videos were on Mann's channel, but Beat-Club provides just the year.

In any case, I think that even from the first time I heard the song, I noticed that "away" in the line "As your life slips away, yeah" is sung with a melisma (D D C# E G), providing something of a sense of movement.

Last year, I realized that there's a contrast between the fixedness of "Hanging things upon the line" and the movement of "your life slip[ping] away," although, obviously, one is literal, and the other is metaphorical.

"Each Other's Company"

Recently, I figured out and notated the guitar part in "Each Other's Company."  As always, the notation comes with the disclaimer that I may have something wrong.  I think there are a few flubbed notes in the recording, but I ignored those.

While learning the part, I remembered something about the song that I'd realized before but didn't think worth mentioning:  this may be coincidental, but it expresses the same sentiment as "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," written by Irving Berling.  ("Each Other's Company" was written by Mike Hugg.)

The first two lines of the bridge of "Each Other's Company" are "It can rain; it can storm / But her love will keep me warm," and these are similar to a recurring couplet in Berlin's song:  "What do I care how much it may storm / I've got my love to keep me warm."

"Mighty Quinn"

Yester-day, I listened to The Best of the Fontana Years (which I got a few months ago), and I noticed a small feature in "Mighty Quinn."  The "without" and "within" in the line "Come on without; come on within" form a merism.

"Harry the One-Man-Band"

I listened to Mighty Garvey! yester-day and noticed a small feature in "Harry the One-Man-Band," specifically in the structure of the line "Anywhere the people are, Harry's sure to go."  The structure seems partly dictated by the rhyme scheme:  "go" comes at the end of the line in order to rhyme with "snow" in the previous line.  This specific structure, however, with "Anywhere the people are" placed at the beginning of the line rather than at the end ("Harry's sure to go anywhere the people are"), results in a closer proximity between "the people" and "Harry," and this mirrors the meaning.

"Tennessee Waltz"

Yester-day, I figured out the chords for "Tennessee Waltz."  I think I'd noticed before that while it's called the "Tennessee Waltz," it's not actually a waltz; it's in 4/4.  Yester-day, I realized that this may have significance.  It seems that because the narrator's friend stole his darling while the Tennessee Waltz was playing, the narrator is now trying to avoid waltzes, so although he's relating this story, he's doing it in a different meter.

"Hubble Bubble (Toil and Trouble)"

Recently, I ran across the phrase "toil and trouble," which reminded me of some lines in Shakespeare's Macbeth, where the witches say:

Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.  (IV.i.10-11) 

This, in turn, reminded me of the Manfred Mann song "Hubble Bubble (Toil and Trouble)," which I have only on a vinyl re-print of the American version of The Five Faces of Manfred Mann.  I listened to the record again and paid close attention to that song, and while it seems obvious enough that the title line was inspired by Shakespeare, there's not really anything else that connects the song to the play.

Mike Vickers' Moog Tune

This is a bit tangential to the focus of this blog, but I'm putting it here anyway.  I recently got a Moog (the Subsequent 37), and for the first recording I did with it, I tried to replicate a little piece that Mike Vickers played in this BBC segment from 1969.

I tried to match the tone as closely as I could, but I still don't really know what I'm doing.

"It's So Easy Falling"

About a month ago, I was thinking about the vocal melodies in the chorus of "It's So Easy Falling."  I think they're something like this (lead vocal on the top line, backing vocals on the bottom line):

These lines are repeated with little musical variation.

Like I mentioned before, that the melodies descend gives a sense of the (metaphorical) "falling."  Recently, though, I realized that the shapes here also illustrate the inevitability expressed in the line "I can't help it falling."  That the lead vocal briefly ascends (at the end of the first measure) and then holds the note for a longer value can be thought of as hesitancy or resistance.  This is when the backing vocals come in and reassert the descent (the "falling in love"), after which the lead vocal complies or is coerced and then descends again.