"Since I Don't Have You"

I plan on posting notes from the first seven EPs once the new year starts, and because I don't want to interrupt those with a recording of what I know of "Since I Don't Have You," I did that to-day.  I have two guitar parts (although my tone doesn't match very well, and I don't think I have the right rhythm for the chords during the bridge) and the bass part.

Here are the parts written out (with the disclaimer that I may have something wrong).

Lead guitar:

At beginning:

E|-----5-6-8-8-6-5---|

B|-8-8-------------6-|

In verses:

G|---------|:-------2-3-:|

D|---------|:-----3-----:|

A|-3-3-3-3-|:-3-5-------:|

The string of C notes (just by itself) also occurs before the bridge, but it's omitted when this phrase is played at the end of the song.

Chords

Introduction

G minor | C major | F major

Verses

|: F major | Bb minor :|

G minor | C major [F major in transition to bridge]

Bridge

|: G minor | F major :|

G minor | C major

Bass:

The bass plays mostly roots and fifths, so the notation may help elucidate the chord progression.

"Another Kind of Music"

I listened to As Is this morning and noticed a couple small features in "Another Kind of Music."

In addition to the line-ending rhyme in the song, there's internal rhyme in the line "His records sell extremely well, but does he really want it," and this poetic excess gives some indication of the character's success.  (The internal rhyme is part of the structure, however, and not unique to this particular line; it's also in the line "It's not the way he wants to play; he does it for a living" in the first verse.)

There's alliteration in the line "But no one knows just how he feels as he cuts his comical capers," and the artifice of this device mirrors the character in the song, who is putting on a façade and doing something other than what he actually wants.

"Look Away"

I listened to the first disc of a two-CD set of the Spencer Davis Group this morning because Spencer Davis recently died.  I noticed a couple features in the Spencer Davis Group's version of "Look Away" that are also present in Manfred Mann's version.

"All alone" at the very beginning alliterates, and because there's only one initial sound, there's an illustration of that singularity.

In the line "With the eyes and the lips and the skin that I know so well," "and" and "the" are unnecessarily repeated, and this helps to give a sense of degree (for "so well").  Polysyndeton is the rhetorical term for the repetition of conjunctions; I don't know if there's a term for the repetition of articles.

Hohner Pianet

A couple months ago on my blog devoted to the Hohner Pianet, I wrote a post about Manfred Mann's Pianets and what songs they were used on.  I felt I should link to it here.

"Stormy Monday Blues"

I listened to Mann Made this morning and noticed an ambiguity in "Stormy Monday Blues."  One line could be written as "And Thursday's also sad" or "And Thursday's all so sad."

"Questions"

A couple months ago, I figured out and wrote down the bass part for "Questions."  Of course, there's the disclaimer that I may have something wrong:

"L.S.D."

About two months ago, I got a box set of the first seven Manfred Mann EPs.  On the back cover of the seventh EP (As Was), there's a description of how the band formed.  One of the sentences is "And it happened that they came one day upon the house of John the Burgess [their producer] who with soft words converted them to the cult of Elessdee."  At first, I thought this referred to the drug (L.S.D.), but then I remembered Brian Matthew's comment about the song "L.S.D." on the first Live at the BBC album:  "a cynical song about love of money, or as we call it, 'L.S.D.'"

Because of that added context (and because I happened to have read about British money around that time), I realized what "L.S.D." means.  Those letters are the abbreviations for "pounds," "shillings," and "pence."  They come from the Latin words libra, solidus, and denarius.

"Just Like a Woman"

In the lines "Ev'rybody knows that baby's got new clothes" in "Just Like a Woman," each of the four syllables of "Ev'rybody" is sung to a different pitch (C B A G), musically giving a sense of breadth.

While referencing the song in order to find those specific pitches, I also noticed that "fallen" in the lines "But lately I see her ribbons and her bows / Have fallen from her curls" is sung to two notes that form a fairly large descending interval (a fourth: E B), musically giving a sense of the word's meaning.

Both of these features are also present in Bob Dylan's version.

"You're My Girl"

In the line "When our hearts beat, they beat so close" in "You're My Girl," "so" is sung with a melisma (G A), musically giving a sense of degree.

"Superstitious Guy"

I noticed a couple significant melismas in the bridge of "Superstitious Guy."  "Spell" in the line "Tries to break the spell" is sung to the notes F# E, so there's a sense of "break[ing]" (into more than one syllable).  "Well" in the next line ("But he knows only too well") is sung to the notes B A B D (I think), musically giving a sense of degree (for "too").

While referencing the song to transcribe the lyrics and find those specific pitches, I also noticed that in the line "Believes that when he wears it, he can't come to any harm," "harm" is sung with a melisma (B C# B A in the lead vocal, D E F# E in the harmony vocal), giving a sense of the breadth of possibility (for that "any").

"Autumn Leaves"

I don't know if this was the intent, but the title "Autumn Leaves" is something of a pun.  It could be understood either as an adjective ("autumn") modifying a plural noun ("leaves") or a noun ("autumn") and a verb ("leaves").

"As Long as I Have Lovin'"

In the line "And you can keep a-searchin', searchin' ev'rywhere" in "As Long as I Have Lovin'," "ev'rywhere" is sung with a melisma (F# F# E D E F#), musically giving a sense of breadth.

"Ev'ry day, ev'ry night" in the last line is an example of a merism.

"Morning after the Party"

In the first instance of the line "But my poor head starts aching ev'ry time I turn" in "Morning after the Party" (at ~1:25), "turn" is sung with a melisma (F# E D, I think), musically giving a sense of movement.

"Box Office Draw"

In the line "He's done alright so far" in "Box Office Draw," the "far" is sung with a melisma (E D C D E, I think), musically giving a sense of that (metaphorical) distance.

"Each Other's Company"

I noticed a few features in "Each Other's Company." "We don't live it up" is sung to an ascending phrase (F F G Bb C), so while it's used in a more metaphorical sense and negated, there's a musical representation of that "up."  "Long" in the line "In front of the fire we sit all night long" is sung with a melisma (D C, I think), for a sense of duration.  In the second occurrence of "It can rain; it can storm," "storm" is sung with a melisma (D Eb D C, I think), giving a sense of turbulence.

"A Now and Then Thing"

In the line "Like the seasons ever changing" in "A Now and Then Thing," "changing" is sung with a melisma (C B B), musically giving a sense of its meaning.

When I referenced the lyrics, I realized that this line could also be parsed in two different ways.  "Like the seasons ever changing" is how it's printed in the liner notes; "changing" is a participle modifying "seasons."  An equally valid rendering is "Like the seasons' ever changing," where "changing" is a gerund and "seasons'" is a plural possessive.  There is a difference between these two readings:  in "Like the seasons ever changing," love is compared to the seasons; in "Like the seasons' ever changing," love is compared to the changing.

"Trouble and Tea"

Last month, I got a copy of Mighty Garvey! and I've listened to it twice now (technically four times because the CD I got has the album in mono and stereo).  Because As Is is no longer the Manfred Mann album I got most recently and because I've had it for a while now (about seven months), I'm going to write a few posts in the coming weeks about some of the things I've noticed about the songs on it.

The title line of "Trouble and Tea" ("She's always brewing trouble and tea") contains an instance of zeugma.  The verb "brew" governs both "trouble" and "tea," but it has a different sense for each (metaphorical for "trouble" and literal for "tea").

This might be obvious enough not to need pointing out, but I'll note anyway that the mono version has an alto recorder part that's not present in the stereo version.

Stacking Keyboards

Manfred Mann and the Zombies' Rod Argent often stacked a Hohner Pianet on top of a Vox Continental for live performances.  I was thinking about this recently (because I wrote a post about Argent's use of the Pianet), and after I did some research, I discovered that Mann started doing this before Argent.

Here's a picture dated 10 August 1964, with Mann's Pianet on top of his Continental:

[source]

As far as I can tell, this was before Argent even owned a Vox Continental.  On the Zombie Heaven box set, there are three songs ("Leave Me Be," "Woman," and "Kind of Girl") where Argent plays Pianet on the demos (recorded on 13 August 1964) but Continental on the final versions (recorded 31 August).  These dates and the change of keyboards suggest that it was sometime between the 13th and the 31st when he got his organ.  Even at the earliest, that's three days after the above picture was taken.

In this interview (at ~30:57), Argent recalls "our first TV, we did a Ready Steady Go" and meeting Mann backstage.  (According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, the Zombies' first appearance on Ready Steady Go was 31 July 1964.)  It's possible that Argent got the idea to stack his Pianet and Continental after seeing Mann do it.

When keyboards gained importance during progressive rock in the 1970s, stacking them became de rigueur.  Mann himself did this in the Earth Band with a Moog on top of a Hammond organ:

[source]

[source]

There were a few other keyboard players in the 1960s who stacked their keyboards (notably the Doors' Ray Manzarek), but as far as I know, Manfred Mann was the first to do it.

"For You"

I listened to The Best of Manfred Mann's Earth Band to-day, and I found a small allusion in "For You" that I don't think I'd noticed before.  One of the lines is "To her Cheshire smile, I'll stand on file," and the "Cheshire smile" part is a reference to the Cheshire cat and its smile in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"Hi Lili, Hi Lo"

In the line "A song of love is such a sad song" in "Hi Lili, Hi Lo," the "sad" is sung with a melisma (E D), musically giving a sense of degree (for "such").

"Since I Don't Have You"

It's a bit difficult to tell because it occurs during the fade out, but I think the last line of "Since I Don't Have You" is "Because you know that since I don't have you, I'm so blue."  The "so" here is sung with a melisma (G F), musically giving a sense of degree.

"Untie Me"

In the line "And you don't want me anymore" in "Untie Me," the "-more" of "anymore" is sung with a melisma (B A G A B, I think), so while it's negated ("not... anymore"), there's a musical sense of continuation.

While referencing the recording in order to write this post, I also noticed that "ago" in the line "Not too long ago, you said you'd love me to the end" is also sung with a melisma (D F# E).  While this is also negated, that articulation gives a sense of duration or perhaps even degree (for that "too").

"It's Gonna Work out Fine"

I found some old notes that I neglected to include when I made my initial posts.

In the "so fine" at the end of "It's Gonna Work out Fine," the "fine" is sung with a melisma (C Bb A), musically giving a sense of degree (for that "so").

"My Name Is Jack"

I recently listened to Live at the BBC 66-69, and while I hadn't intended either to figure out parts for or write about those songs yet, I figured out the alto recorder phrase at the beginning of "My Name Is Jack" and here I am writing about it.

I should note that I did reference the studio recording (I found an official upload on YouTube) and confirmed that what I noticed in the BBC version is also true for that.

Here's the alto recorder phrase:

After figuring it out and playing it about a dozen times, I thought it sounded vaguely familiar.  Eventually, I realized that it has some resemblance to "Westminster Quarters," which is often used as a clock chime.  I think slightly different versions exist, but it's something like:

The first measure is played at a quarter past the hour, the first and second measures are played at half past, and so on.  At the top of the hour, the whole thing is played, followed by a single note (D in this key) played as many times as what hour it is (once for one o'clock, twice for two o'clock, and so on).

The alto recorder phrase in "My Name Is Jack" contains all of the same notes (plus a G); like "Westminster Quarters," it's fairly conjunct aside from dropping down to A; and the first measure of the phrase in "My Name Is Jack" matches the second measure in "Westminster Quarters" exactly.

I'm not sure if this similarity is intentional or whether it has any significance, but the two tunes do have a certain resemblance.

"Blinded by the Light"

Beginning at ~4:45 in "Blinded by the Light," there's a quotation (or at least a near quotation) of "Chopsticks."

"Quit Your Low Down Ways"

In the line "You can try to flag a ride, but you can't ride in my car no more" in "Quit Your Low Down Ways," the "more" is sung with a melisma (C Bb G), musically illustrating that (negated) continuation.