"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").