"Good to My Baby"

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On Wednesday I listened to Today!, and I became really interested in the guitar part in "Good to My Baby," particularly the glissando.  So I figured that out, and then I got the chords too.

I waited until now to record and post an example because Pet Sounds and SMiLE still take precedence.  This is just a rare divergence.

There's an interesting feature at the very end of the verses.  The chords go from D major to G major to E major, within which there's a chromatic phrase (D, F#, A; G, B, D; E, G#, B).  They're half-step increments, the smallest interval.  The lyrics there are "And when I give her my love, it's between her and me" in the first verse and "And we stay together while other couples come and go" in the second verse.  That chromatic phrase seems to portray the lyrics both times.  Because it's the smallest interval, nothing can get between the notes, just like the singer/speaker's love is "between her and me."  Similarly, they're adjacent, in the same way that the singer/speaker and his girlfriend "stay together."

"Let's Go Away for Awhile"

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I'd forgotten the bass part for "Let's Go Away for Awhile" since I learned it in May, so I just re-learned it and was writing it out (in notation, because I've been getting more into actually notating things recently).  There's a transitional bit (at about 0:58) that I'm not sure how to notate, but after that, I think the time signature changes.

I'm still not very good at notation, so I might be wrong about this, but I think the first part is in 4/4 time, but the second half is in 3/4 or maybe even 6/8.  Some triple meter.

"Cabin Essence"

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I've been focused on Pet Sounds lately, so last night I thought I'd try figuring out something from SMiLE.  I figured out three parts from "Cabin Essence," but I don't own any of the instruments that they're actually played on.  Instead of banjo, I used guitar, and instead of clarinet and Eb harmonica, I used melodica (with the clarinet part panned left and the harmonica part panned right).  Eventually, I plan on acquiring the correct instruments and learning how to play the parts on them, but currently I don't have the money to do that.

It sounds a bit weird because I couldn't use the correct instruments, but I'm pretty sure that the parts themselves are correct.

"Sloop John B"

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Yester-day I learned the flute parts for the choruses in "Sloop John B" (or at least a chorus; they're each slightly different).  It sort of invalidates what I said about the resemblance between these flute parts and the guitar parts in "That's Not Me" because there aren't two measures of rests between each phrase.  That's only for the first half; the last two phrases are longer.

I don't own and don't know how to play a flute, so I just used the fake flute setting on my keyboard.

Pet Sounds

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Between yester-day and to-day, I listened to the third and fourth discs of The Pet Sounds Sessions (because otherwise I would have ended the year in the middle of the four discs), and I discovered a few things:

"You Still Believe in Me"

There's a slight ambiguity in "I try hard to be more what you want me to be."  It's either straight-forward like that ("I try hard to be more [of] what you want me to be," or it could be two different descriptions ("I try hard to be more, what you want me to be" or even "I try hard to be more [and] what you want me to be").  It's a question of whether "more" is just a regular adjective (modifying the relative clause "what you want me to be") or a substantive adjective.

"I'm Waiting for the Day"

The "blue" in "I know you cried, and you felt blue" has a melisma.  Where it would normally have only one syllable, here it has three (at least I think it's three; the double-tracked vocal there isn't spot-on).  The later syllables are at lower pitches, so as the word goes on, it falls.  Musically it adds a "down in the depths" kind of feeling to the blue sentiment that's already there in the lyric.

"God Only Knows"

This is probably a bit trivial, but - as far as pitches - the "stars" really are "above you" in "But long as there are stars above you."  "Stars" is sung to an F#, and "you" to a C#.

"That's Not Me"

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Last night, I figured out the second guitar part for "That's Not Me."  I didn't notice until I figured it out, but I think it's actually on twelve-string guitar.  That's what I used, and it sounds right, anyway.

I listened to the third disc of The Pet Sounds Sessions this morning (about which I'll have more posts later), and I realized that "Sloop John B" has a similar structure, just with flutes instead.  In the later choruses of "Sloop John B," there's a flute phrase and then about two measures of rests before an-other flute phrase.  That same pattern is here: guitar phrase, two measures of rests, and then an-other guitar phrase.

When I was recording this though, I discovered that the first two phrases don't follow that structure.  There's the first phrase, then three measures of rests, and then the second phrase.  I'm pretty sure that's a deliberate departure since the line immediately before that phrase is "You needed my love, and I know that I left at the wrong time."  There's a wrong time in the music and in the lyrics.

"Blue Christmas"

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January's Cloak:

A few days ago, I listened to a Beach Boys Christmas album, and I noticed something about their version of "Blue Christmas."  At about 2:00, some brass instruments (I think French horns) quote a phrase from George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.  I can't find a score of the Rhapsody in Blue in order to look up the notation, and the phrase is too complex for my novice notation skills, but in "Blue Christmas," the phrase is D, Eb, F, and then an F an octave lower.  In the Rhapsody in Blue, it's G#, A, B, and then a B an octave lower.  (In the recording of Rhapsody in Blue I have by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, it's at about 11:31.)  It's the same phrase, just transposed down for "Blue Christmas."  (For what it's worth, it's also the phrase that starts "Rhapsody in Blue (Reprise)" on Brian Wilson's Reimagines Gershwin album, although that's E, F, G, and then a G an octave lower).

I did some research and discovered (in the entry for 18 June 1964 in Keith Badman's The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio) that the Beach Boys' version of "Blue Christmas" was arranged by Dick Reynolds.  While Wilson didn't arrange it himself, he probably had a hand in putting in that quotation because he's acknowledged Gershwin's influence and mentioned Rhapsody in Blue in particular.  The Reimagines Gershwin album provides ample evidence.

Purely as a reference, it's also interesting because "blue" is in the title of both works (and in the lyrics of "Blue Christmas").  To some degree, quoting Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue gives more depth to "Blue Christmas."  There's the feeling of "Blue Christmas" itself, but then - because of that quotation - there's an injection of the feeling of the Rhapsody in Blue too.

I transcribed "Blue Christmas" when I listened to the album a second time, and I found something interesting about the song itself, not just the Beach Boys' version.  The lines in the first verse all have line-ending rhymes ("without you" rhymes with "about you," and "tree" rhymes with "me"), but that same structure isn't in the second verse.  The first two lines rhyme ("certain" with "hurtin'"), but not "You'll be doin' alright with your Christmas of white / But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas."  Instead of line-ending rhymes, there's internal rhyme in the third line ("alright" and "white") and no rhyme at all in the fourth line, either within the line itself or with any other line.  That surfeit of rhyme in the third line and the lack of rhyme in the fourth poetically mirror the lyrics themselves.  "You'll be doin' alright" with internal rhyme, "But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas" with no rhyme at all.

I'm still sticking with just Pet Sounds and the SMiLE sessions for now, but I found this Gershwin quote in "Blue Christmas," and I felt I should reblog it here.