"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.

"My Name Is Jack"

Earlier this week, I watched this video of Manfred Mann miming to "My Name Is Jack" on German television:

The following day, I realized that the verses (particularly the last) are something of a rhetorical catalogue, listing the inhabitants of the Greta Garbo Home:  Fred (with his hands on his head), Superman, Carl (with his funny old hair), my friend Paul, Melody Menn, and Ma with brother Tom.  I'm not sure if this rhetorical catalogue really has a function though, unless it's simply to illustrate that these are "friends I will remember wherever I may roam."

"Everyday Another Hair Turns Grey"

I did some musical detective work regarding the Mellotron part in "Everyday Another Hair Turns Grey."

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

A couple weeks ago, I figured out the chords for "That's All I Ever Want from You Baby" and noticed a handful of things.

With the disclaimer that I may have something wrong, here's the chord progression:

Chorus

|: F major | Bb major :|

F major | C major | Bb major

[resolves with F major]

Verses

|: F major | F augmented | Bb major | C major :|

F major | F major 7 | Bb major | G major

The song is in F major, but there are a couple accidentals in these chords (C# in F augmented and B natural in G major).  Because these pitches venture outside of the song's key, there's something of a musical sense of the encompassing nature of the "all"s in the first verse ("Let me kiss away all your tears / And let me chase away all your fears / Baby, love me though all the years") and the "every" in the second verse ("When you're kissin' me, hold me tight / And when you're holding me, oh, baby, do it right / Oh, let me be with you, girl, every night").  This "every" is also sung with three syllables, an articulation that gives a sense of number.

I also noticed that "fears" (A G) in the line "And let me chase away all your fears" and "night" (A G F) in the line "Oh, let me be with you, girl, every night" are sung with melismas, giving a sense of entirety (for "all") and number (for "every").

"Happy Families (with Edwin O'Garvey and His Showband)"

In "Happy Families (with Edwin O'Garvey and His Showband)," the parts about "one big happy family" are sung with multiple voices, illustrating the "big" size.  Additionally, the syllables of "family" are each sung to a different pitch (first A F# D and later Bb G Eb), also giving a sense of breadth.

"Harry the One-Man-Band"

In the line "Anywhere the people are, Harry's sure to go" in "Harry the One-Man-Band," "go" is sung with a melisma (A G F), musically giving a sense of movement.

"Ha! Ha! Said the Clown"

In "Ha! Ha! Said the Clown," there's a particular sound under "this" in the line "In a while, run a mile, I'm regrettin' all this."  I'm pretty sure this is a Mellotron cello.  It seems that Mann pressed a key so that the note started, and then he turned the pitch knob so that the note goes up in pitch.  Whatever it is, this glissando-type effect illustrates the entirety of the "all" in "all this."

"Cubist Town"

In the line "I go outside where darkness sets me free" in "Cubist Town," "free" is sung with a melisma (C Db C Bb C, I think).  Since the word isn't constrained to a single pitch, there's a sense of its meaning.

In the line "But music filled my mind, and they passed by," "by" is sung with a melisma (C A F), musically giving a sense of movement.

"Each and Every Day"

The line "Daytime, nighttime" in "Each and Every Day" is a merism.

There are some more interesting features in this section, however:

Got a feelin' goin' for each other, yeah

I could never leave her for another girl

Always miles away, we're in another world

And I love her, yes, I love her

In the same way that the narrator doesn't need or want "another girl," the word "girl" here isn't really necessary.  "Another" rhymes with "other" from the previous line, so there's a poetic completion, and no sense would be lost if this line were simply "I could never leave her for another."  The Mellotron brass part literally underscores how that "girl" is out of place here.  Until that point, it plays on the downbeats, but coinciding with "girl," it switches and plays on the upbeat.

The same feature is also present in the next line:  "Always miles away, we're in another world."  Here, the Mellotron brass part switches to the upbeat on the word "world," and that change in the rhythm illustrates the "otherness."

"The Vicar's Daughter"

Although it doesn't affect the meaning very much, there's a grammatical ambiguity in the line "And I can see her smiling as I caught her" in "The Vicar's Daughter."  "Her smiling" could be parsed either as a possessive adjective modifying a gerund or a pronoun modified by a participle.

"Happy Families (with Ed. Garvey & the Trio)"

At the beginning of "Happy Families (with Ed. Garvey & the Trio)," the announcer who introduces the band mentions "the Omar Khayyam room."  I don't know if this is an actual place, but Omar Khayyam was a real person.  He was a Persian poet and astronomer who lived from 1048 to 1131.

"It's So Easy Falling"

The repeated line "Falling in love with you" in the choruses of "It's So Easy Falling" is sung to a descending melody spanning an octave:  A G F F C Bb A ("love" is sung with a melisma [F C], and "you" is sung with a melisma the first time only [instead of the final A above, it's A Bb A G A]).  While "falling" is used metaphorically here, there's a sense of its meaning because of that descent.

"Run" in the line "I say that I can't take no more; I've said it more than once before, and I never run" is also sung with a melisma (D Bb C, I think), so while it's negated, there's a sense of movement.

"Country Dancing"

In the line "We'll make love through to the break of day" in "Country Dancing," "day" is sung with a melisma (C Bb Ab), so while it's used metaphorically, there is a representation of that "break[ing]."

"Everyday Another Hair Turns Grey"

At ~1:36 in "Everyday Another Hair Turns Grey," the last bit of "Ring around the Rosie" ("We all fall down") can be heard among the noises of children.

Side note:  the title should really read "Every Day Another Hair Turns Grey."  "Every day" functions adverbially; "everyday" is an adjective.  On this blog, however, I'm going to follow what's printed on the CD case and the original record sleeve.

"No Better No Worse"

I noticed a couple small features in "No Better No Worse."

In the line "Need I tell ya, they'll say you've broken ev'ry law," "law" is sung with a melisma (although the two pitches are the same:  Db).  Musically, then, there's a sense of being "broken."

In the chorus, the repeated "any man" is sung by a few different voices, and its syllables are all sung to different pitches (C B G).  Both of these features give a sense of the breadth of possibility of "any."

"Happy Families (with Eddie 'Fingers' Garvey)"

In the first iteration of "Happy Families" (with Eddie "Fingers" Garvey), some of the "family"s in the repeated phrase "one big happy family," are sung with various melismas, giving a sense of size (for "big").

Mighty Garvey!

I've had Mighty Garvey! for about a year now, and since I've become fairly familiar with the album, I'm going to write some posts about things I've noticed.  I wanted to write a more general post before going song by song, however.  I noticed a couple features on the album that - whether intentionally or coincidentally - are similar to elements on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and I wanted to put all of these into a single post.

Like Billy Shears at the beginning of "With a Little Help from my Friends" and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band itself, Garvey is a figure that Manfred Mann can hide behind, and through his different personas, the band can try different styles.

Mighty Garvey! and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band also begin and end in similar manners.  At the beginning of the first song on each, there are sound effects to give the impression of a live performance, and at the end of each album, there's a loop of repeated sound.  According to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (entry for 21 April 1967, p. 109), the Beatles' "gibberish" was placed in the concentric run-out groove of the record.  Lewisohn writes that "People with automatic players would hear a quick burst of it before their pick-up arm returned to base, people without such luxurious equipment would find the noise in the concentric playing on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the arm was manually lifted off."  I don't know if the voices at the end of Mighty Garvey! are actually looped on the recording or whether - like the Beatles' gibberish - it's merely an apparent loop because of where the sound is placed on the record.  On the CD re-issues of the albums, however, the effect comes across as the same.

"It's Getting Late"

In the lines "Baby, I've been inquiring around / Baby, to see what you're putting down" in "It's Getting Late," the phrase "putting down" is sung to a group of descending notes (D C Bb), so while it's used more metaphorically, there's a sense of the words' meaning.

"Driva Man"

In the line "Don't you be so bad" in "Driva Man," both "so" and "bad" are sung with melismas (I think "so" is sung to the notes F D D C Bb and "bad" to the notes C Bb) giving a sense of degree.

That each verse ends with the lines "Ain't but two things on your mind / Driva man and quittin' time" illustrates the predominance of those two things.

"I Can't Believe What You Say"

The organ solo in "I Can't Believe What You Say" uses the Alberti bass figure.  I made a video about it because I felt that that would be a better demonstration:

There are a number of key changes during this section, and this may be intended to represent the capricious nature of the girl in the song, as summarized by this line in the bridge:  "You know you're one girl when you're in a public place, but another when you're in my car."

"When Will I Be Loved"

In "When Will I Be Loved," "'round" in the line "I've been pushed 'round" is sung with a melisma (D C A), giving something of a sense of movement.

The clause "it happens every time" in the bridge is sung with different articulations to give a sense of frequency.  In the first bridge, "time" is sung with a melisma (D E E D C, I think).  In the second bridge, "every" is sung with three syllables, and "time" has a different melisma (B G).

"I Put a Spell on You"

In the lines "I'm gonna put a spell on you / And you gonna be mine every night" in "I Put a Spell on You," "every" is sung with three syllables, giving a sense of number or frequency.

"Tired of Trying, Bored with Lying, Scared of Dying"

"What's in a name?" in "Tired of Trying, Bored with Lying, Scared of Dying" seems to be an allusion to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where this same question appears (II.ii.43).

The subject-verb disagreement in the line "It don't occur to you you never built enough schools" is an-other indication of insufficient education.

"Let's Go Get Stoned"

In "Let's Go Get Stoned," "long" in the line "Now when you work so hard all the day long" is sung with a melisma (D C A), giving a sense of the word's meaning.

"There's No Living without Your Loving"

In the line "Baby, I love you too much" in "There's No Living without Your Loving," "much" is sung with a melisma (C Bb), giving either a sense of its meaning (i.e. amount) or a sense of degree (for "too").

"With God on Our Side"

In the line "The cavalries charged; the Indians fell" in "With God on Our Side," "fell" is sung with a descending melisma (G F), musically giving a sense of its meaning.

Obviously, the line "That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss" is drawn from the Bible, probably either Matthew 26:48-49:  "48 Now the betrayer [Judas] had given them a sign, saying, 'The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.'  49 And he came up to Jesus at once and said, 'Greetings, Rabbi!'  And he kissed him." or Mark 14:44-45:  "44 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, 'The one I will kiss is the man.  Seize him and lead him away under guard.'  45 And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, 'Rabbi!"  And he kissed him."

"What Am I to Do"

I noticed two small things in "What Am I to Do," both in the line "That we must live each night and day apart."  "Night and day" is a merism.  "Apart" is sung with a melisma (C D C A), and since the syllables of the word are sung in something of a disjointed manner, there's a sense of the word's meaning.

"Groovin'"

In "Groovin'," "long" in the line "One of these mornin's and it won't be long" is sung with a melisma (Eb C), so while it's negated, there's a sense of the word's meaning.

"Without You"

In the line "So sad all the time" in "Without You," both "sad" and "time" are sung with melismas (C D and G F D, respectively), giving a sense of degree (for "so") and entirety (for "all").

"5-4-3-2-1"

I found two literary allusions in "5-4-3-2-1."

The first verse:

Onwards, onwards rode the six hundred

Down the valley on their horses they thundered

Ah, but was is them who really blundered

Uh huh, it was the Manfreds

This refers to Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade."  The Manfreds even borrow some specific words:  "Half a league onward, / All in the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred" (lines 2-4) and "Some one has blunder'd" (line 12).  "Thundered" also appears in Tennyson's poem, but it doesn't describe the brigade:  "Cannon in front of them / Volley'd and thunder'd" (lines 20-21).

I'm not very confident in one line (the third) of my transcription of the second verse, but it's something like:

The Trojans waited at the gate for weeks

In a wooden horse into the city they sneaked

Pulled out and then, who was it?  The Greeks?

Uh huh, it was the Manfreds

In Book II of Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas explains that the Greeks built a wooden horse, hid their soldiers inside, and left it by the city, ostensibly as an offering.  The Trojans brought the horse into the city, and when night fell, the Greeks emerged and opened the gates for their fellow soldiers.  In Book IV of The Odyssey, Menelaus briefly recounts this story too.