"Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James"

A couple days ago, I ran across my note on "Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James" that I wrote about in this post about a year ago:  there's a contrast between the fixedness of "Hanging things upon the line" and the movement of "your life slip[ping] away."  I added the concession that "one is literal, and the other is metaphorical," but I realized recently that in a way, this difference between the tangible and intangible actually matches the contrast between being static and passing away.

"Happy Families"

Yester-day, I was thinking about the lines "Look around at the things God created / Look around at the things He has made" in "Happy Families (with Edwin O'Garvey and His Showband)," and I realized that they exhibit the same sort of parallelism that's common in some parts of the Bible, especially the Psalms and Proverbs.  (For example, Proverbs 16:18:  "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.")  This borrowing of a Biblical style is appropriate for the quasi-religious tone of the song.

In "Happy Families (with Eddie 'Fingers' Garvey)," the couplet is slightly different but has the same feature:  "Look around at the things that God created / Look around at the things that He hath made."

"Harry the One-Man-Band"

In "Harry the One-Man-Band," the lines "Give him a penny / He don't get many / Give him a shilling if you can" are sung to a melody something like:

The paucity of "He don't get many" and the small value of the penny itself are both reflected by the few pitches in the first half of the phrase (only F, A, and Bb).  Similarly, the greater number of pitches in the second half corresponds to the greater value of the shilling.  The inclusion of an accidental (B natural) in the second half of the phrase further highlights this contrast.

Some of these features are present even in the lyrics alone since "Give him a penny" and "He don't get many" are both short lines and "Give him a shilling if you can" is longer.

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

I listened to Mighty Garvey! a few days ago, and yester-day, I had a number of realizations about some of the songs.

In "Happy Families (with Eddie 'Fingers' Garvey)," the repeated line "Just look around" in the backing vocals is sung to a phrase of all different pitches (I think it's C D Eb F), and this musical span matches the breadth of "look[ing] around."

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

This morning, I transcribed a couple more lines of the bass part in "That's All I Ever Want from You Baby" (I've been slowly writing it out since I learned it a few months ago), and I realized something about the choruses.  The bass part is different every time, but the first two iterations are something like this:

The lyrics also vary, but they're something like:

That is all I ever want

That is all I ever want

That is all I ever want from you, baby

In the first two iterations of the chorus, the bass plays diatonically ascending phrases spanning an octave (F to F), and these phrases highlight (and even literally underline) the "all"s in the lyrics because every note in the song's key is included.

"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.