"We Three Kings of Orient Are"

Earlier this week, I wrote about "We Three Kings of Orient Are" on my general music blog.  The Beach Boys' version is the only recording I have, so I used that as my primary referent and felt I should post it here too:

Last month I was wondering if there were any Christmas songs in minor keys besides "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."  I suspected "We Three Kings of Orient Are," but when I sat down at my keyboard and played through it, I discovered that it's not that straight-forward.  The verses are in a minor key, but the choruses are in a major key (the relative major of the minor key).

The only recording I have of "We Three Kings of Orient Are" is the Beach Boys' version, so I referenced that and figured out the vocal melody.  Here's the melody for the verses, in F# minor:

And here's the melody for the choruses, in A major:

The minor key doesn't have implications for all of the verses, but for the first (along with the alliterative catalogue of "Field and fountain, moor and mountain"), it suggests the weariness of lengthy travel ("we traverse far... Following yonder star").  The turn to the major key for the chorus almost gives a sense of the joy and enlightenment that the kings receive from the "star of wonder" that "Guide[s] us to the perfect light."

While thinking about the melody, I also realized that its being in 3/4 is significant.  There are three beats in each measure, and the song is about three kings.

Holland

Last week I listened Holland (for only the third time), and I noticed two small things:

"Steamboat"

The backing vocals sing the lines "Don't worry, Mr. Fulton / We'll get your steamboat rollin'," which refers to Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat.

"Funky Pretty"

One of the lines is "A book of verse, a jug of wine," which comes from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.  I got this for Christmas last year, but I haven't read it yet; I actually recognized the reference because this same line is quoted (misquoted, actually) in an episode of The Monkees ("The Wild Monkees" S2E10) and the DVD trivia points out the allusion.  In Edward FitzGerald's translation, the relevant section (XI) is:

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

"I Do"

I just learned the chords and most of the tubular bells for "I Do," which is included as a bonus track on the Surfer Girl/Shut Down Volume 2 re-issue.  When I listened to the album last week, I noticed that the melody for the verses of "I Do" is more or less the same as the melody for the verses of "County Fair" from Surfin' Safari.  The chords are slightly different though, which makes it a bit more interesting musically.

I'm not sure if there are strummed chords in "County Fair," but the bass arpeggiates the standard I vi IV V progression in G major.  Each chord last two measures:

I | I | vi | vi | IV | IV | V | V

The progression during the verses of "I Do" (in Ab major) is only slightly different:

I | I | vi | vi | IV | ii | V | V

The liner notes for Surfer Girl/Shut Down Volume 2 don't note the resemblance between the melodies in "County Fair" and "I Do," only that "Brian produced a version of 'I Do' for the Castells" and that "it was on non-Beach Boys productions like this that Brian really liked to experiment with new sounds."  In this instance, it seems that he also experimented with altering the chord progression under an existing melody.

"Don't Worry Baby"

A couple days ago, I listened to the Surfer Girl/Shut Down Volume 2 two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue, and I noticed a small thing about "Don't Worry Baby," specifically the first line: "Well, it's been building up inside of me for I don't know how long."  The melody to which "building up inside of me" is sung ascends (B B C# C# D# D# E), so there's a musical representation of that "building up."

"Heroes and Villains"

A few months ago, I tried figuring out the organ phrase in "Heroes and Villains" with no success, but since 1967: Sunshine tomorrow has the backing track in stereo, I thought I'd try it again.  This time, I think I got it.  I also figured out the chords (it's just a simple I IV V I progression, although in C# major) and the bass part.  I had to tune the lowest two bass strings down a half-step to get the low D# (then I just played it as if the song were in D major and as if those strings were still in standard tuning).  It doesn't sound very clear, but I think that's just because of my novice audio engineering rather than my having the part wrong.

"Country Air"

Last month, I learned the bass part for "Country Air" from Wild Honey.  Intermittently over the last few weeks, I wrote out the notation.  As always, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong:

In some instances, there are glissandi in the transitions from one four-note group to the next, but I didn't include those in my notation.

Wild Honey

Last month, I finally got the new 1967: Sunshine tomorrow album.  I've listened to it only twice so far (and in between I listened to the old Smiley Smile/Wild Honey reissue), but the first time I listened to it, I noticed some lyrical connections among songs on Wild Honey.

There's a "theme" (of sorts) of honey and bees.  Obviously, this is in the title track, which compares loving a girl (who has "the sweetness of a honey bee") to "a taste of wild honey."  Later on the album, there are the lines "I'm like a busy bee" (in "I'd Love Just Once to See You") and "Let the bees make honey" (in "Let the Wind Blow," which is also the origin of the phrase "sunshine tomorrow" used for the album title).

The other connection I found doesn't seem as significant.  Near the end of "Wild Honey," there's the expression "sock it to me, wild honey," which is also at the end of "How She Boogalooed It" ("Come on, sock it, sock it to me / S O C K I T to me").

"Hully Gully #3"

I recently listened to the Beach Boys' Party! Uncovered and Unplugged album.  The first time I heard the album, I noticed something about "Hully Gully #3" (track 24 on disc 1).  At about 1:45, Mike Love says, "Right on into 'Lonesome Traveller.'"  It's a reference to the Kingston Trio's medley of "Shady Grove/Lonesome Traveller" on their live album ...from the Hungry i.  In the transition, one of the Kingston Trio says, "Right on over to 'Lonesome Traveller.'"

I knew that Al Jardine was a fan of the Kingston Trio and that he suggested that the Beach Boys record "Sloop John B" based on their version, so I thought it interesting that this nod in the direction of the Kingston Trio came from Mike Love.

I lookt up the recording dates and discovered that the backing track for "Sloop John B" (12 July 1965) was actually recorded before "Hully Gully #3" (8 September 1965).

"Then I Kissed Her"

I listened to Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) yester-day, and I thought the little organ part in "Then I Kissed Her" sounded easy to figure out.  I'd figured out the chords last October, so I already knew the key (C# major!).  I tried figuring out the running guitar phrase, but I wasn't very certain of some sections.  The song starts with that guitar phrase unaccompanied, but since I don't know the whole thing, I left it out entirely and my recording starts two measures after the real beginning of the song.  I did get most of the bass (the bridge is the only part I'm missing), and I'm suspicious that the bass and guitar play the same thing.

I double-tracked acoustic guitar playing chords; I'm not sure if that instrumentation is accurate (it probably isn't), but I'm pretty sure I have the right chords.

For what it's worth, the original version by the Crystals ("Then He Kissed Me") is in E major.

"Kokomo"

For whatever reason, I started thinking about "Kokomo" this morning.  The only album I have it on is the compilation Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys, which I haven't listened to since last September.  In any case, I realized something about the first section:

Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya
Bermuda, Bahama, come on, pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby, why don't we go

The listing of places (a rhetorical technique called cataloguing) recalls the earlier Beach Boys song "Surfin' U.S.A." specifically these two sections:

You'll catch 'em surfin' at Del Mar
Ventura County Line
Santa Cruz and Trestle
Australia's Narrabeen
All over Manhattan
And down Doheny Way

At Haggerty's and Swami's
Pacific Palisades
San Onofre and Sunset
Redondo Beach L. A.
All over La Jolla
And Waimea Bay

I referenced the lyrics found here, although I'm dubious of their accuracy.  It's clearly "You'll catch 'em" rather than "You'd catch 'em" and "We'll all be planning out a route" rather than "We'll all be planning that route."  I also referenced the Wikipedia page to verify and correct some of the locations.

The music for "Surfin' U.S.A." was taken from Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen," so it seems that the notion of cataloguing places is also taken from Berry's naming various locations in "Sweet Little Sixteen."  I'm not sure whether the catalogue of places in "Kokomo" was meant to be reminiscent of that in "Surfin' U.S.A." (or "Sweet Little Sixteen"), but it is the same technique.

"Heroes and Villains"

Yester-day I listened to the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey reissue from 1990, and I remembered a reference in "Heroes and Villains" that I'd recognized before but had forgotten about.  It's in the lines:

My children were raised, you know they suddenly rise.
They started slow long ago, head to toe; healthy, wealthy and wise.

(They're how they're written in the liner notes from the 2004 SMiLE.)

The "healthy, wealthy, and wise" part seems to come from "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."  (I'd thought this was a Benjamin Franklin quote, but The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations says it's a proverb from the 15th century.)  Both the lyrics and the proverb rhyme "rise" with "wise," which makes me a bit more confident that they're related.

"Wind Chimes"

Last week I listened to the fourth disc of The SMiLE Sessions, and over the next few days, I learned the bass part and some of the marimba for "Wind Chimes."  (A couple years ago, I thought "Wind Chimes" had xylophone, but it's marimba.)

Here's the first section.  The original track has upright bass, but since I have only electric bass, I used that instead:

I also wrote out the notation for the parts I learned (as always, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong).  Here's the marimba:

When I lookt at the sessionography later, I learned that there are four marimba tracks, all played by Van Dyke Parks.  I inadvertently combined two parts in my notation.  In track 5 of disc 4 of The SMiLE Sessions, Brian Wilson tells Parks to "hit 'em both at the same time" and later mentions "D and F#."  There are half as many notes for the first two thirds of the track, so it seems that Parks played two notes simultaneously (on beats one and three) on one pass, and played single notes (beats two and four) as an overdub, aside from the few measures where there are two notes on each beat (the beginning of line five in my notation).  I haven't figured out the other two marimba tracks yet.

I figured out the bass part for the entire track (as it appears on disc 1), but I played only the section for which I also know marimba.  It seems that there's an edit at the end of that section anyway.

I referenced the 2004 SMiLE too and noted a few differences in the bass parts.  Mostly, I was pretty impressed by how closely the 2004 SMiLE matches the track from 1966, but the difference in line 6 bothers me a bit.  In track 5 of disc 4 of The SMiLE Sessions - at about 3:17 - Brian Wilson tells the bassist (Chuck Berghofer), "the pick-up is da da da da da," giving him the pitches for that part.  I'm assuming that the musicians who put together the 2004 SMiLE had access to these tapes, so I can't understand why that's different if Wilson draws specific attention to it on the tape.

"Little Bird"

Yester-day, Brian Wilson had a post saying that to-morrow (that is, to-day, the 24th) is the 49th anniversary of the release of the Friends album:

I listened to the album this evening, and I discovered something about "Little Bird."

At about 1:24, there's this phrase (played twice) on muted trumpet:

This phrase sounded familiar to me, so I did some looking and found a very similar phrase (also on muted trumpet) in "Child Is Father of the Man" from SMiLE:

I should note that I guessed on the keys for both of those based on the notes in the muted trumpet parts.  I don't know any other parts for either song.

Aside from the note value of the first note and a half-step transposition, the two phrases are exactly the same.

"Stoked"

Yester-day I remembered that I'd learned the repeating guitar phrases in "Stoked" a few months ago.  Awhile after I learned them, I figured out the note values for the notation, but I didn't get around to actually notating it until to-day.

To some degree, I guess what I notated could be considered the rhythm guitar part, although "rhythm guitar" usually means just playing chords.

I have two copies of the Surfin' U.S.A. album: the 1990s release where it's paired with Surfin' Safari and a more recent reissue (2012) that has the album in mono and stereo.  I'm not sure whether it's the way the instruments were tuned when they were recorded or something with the transfer process, but I think the track is slightly out-of-tune.  The Surfin' Safari/Surfin' U.S.A. version is off even more than the mono/stereo Surfin' U.S.A. versions.

"You Still Believe in Me"

I thought I should do something on this blog because to-day's Brian Wilson's birthday, so here's the notation of the opening piano figure for "You Still Believe in Me."  As always, though, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong:

"Why Do Fools Fall in Love"

About two weeks ago, I wrote a post on my general music blog about descending phrases in Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers' "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"  Since the Beach Boys covered this on Shut Down Volume Two, I figured I should also post that here.

The Beach Boys' version is in a different key though.  Where Lymon's is in F# major, the Beach Boys' is in the much simpler F major (with only one flat rather than F# major's six sharps).  Because of that difference, all of the notes in my original post are a half-step higher than those in the Beach Boys' version, but this doesn't affect the musical/lyrical connections.

A couple years ago, I happened to think of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers' "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" and I realized that a lot of the musical phrases descend, as if to illustrate that "fall[ing] in love."

A lot of the rhythms are too complex for my novice notation skills, but the first "Why do fools fall in love" (after the initial "ooh wah"s) is:

 

The "Why do they fall" in the chorus is sung to the descending phrase A# G# F# E#, and while the initial note of the "in love" that completes the line starts from a higher pitch than that E#, that short phrase descends too.  The "love" is sung with an extra syllable, and the second note is lower than the first, continuing the descent so that "in love" is sung to G# G# F#.

Some other lines in the chorus descend too.  The "Fall from up above" in the lines "Why does the rain / Fall from up above" is sung to the phrase A# G# G# F# F#, and the "fall in love" in the line "Why do fools fall in love" is sung to the phrase A# G# F#.

"I Can Hear Music"

A couple days ago, I learned the chords for "I Can Hear Music."  I referenced the Ronettes' original and found that the Ronettes' version and the Beach Boys' version are in the same key (D major) and that they use the same chords (save for the a cappella part in the Beach Boys' version where the instrumentation drops out).  However, I also discovered that the chord progression during the first half of the verses has a different rhythm in the Beach Boys' version.

The first two lines of each verse have the same chord progression:  D major | F# minor | G major | A major.  In the Ronettes' version, the chord progression has the same rhythm in both lines:  four beats of D major, four beats of F# minor, six beats of G major, and then two beats of A major.  Illustrated with single notes, using the root note of each chord, the rhythm is something like this:

In the Beach Boys' version, the chord progression has different rhythms in those first two lines.  For the first line, each chord is strummed for four beats.  Using the same notation method as above (using the root note to represent the chord), the rhythm is:

The second line has the same rhythm that both lines in the Ronettes' version have:

Because the rhythm of the second line is not just an outright repetition of the first, I think this makes the Beach Boys' version a bit more interesting to listen to.

Here are the chords in their entirety (with the disclaimer that - as always - I might be wrong about something):

Verses:
D major | F# minor | G major | A major
D major | F# minor | G major | A major
G major
A major

Chorus:
D major
E minor | A major
D major
E minor | A major
D major | D7
G major | G minor
D major
E minor | A major | D major

Like I mentioned above, the instrumentation (save for tambourine and hand-claps) drops out for the bridge, but in the Ronettes' version, the chords there are just D major | A major | D major.

"County Fair"

Earlier this month, I finally decided to widen my scope with this project.  Initially, I was looking into only Pet Sounds and SMiLE (with occasional diversions now and then), but now I'm including all of the Beach Boys albums I have.

After deciding this, I listened to the Surfin' Safari/Surfin' U.S.A. re-issue (the first Beach Boys albums seemed like the place to go), and I figured out a few parts in the following days.  One of the parts I figured out was the bass part for "County Fair," and since it was really easy, I even notated it:

Of course, there's the disclaimer that I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that what I have is accurate.

If I'm not mistaken, the guitar part consists of only one phrase:

When I notated the bass part, I noticed that one section has ascending phrases for almost every measure (arpeggiating G6 and D6 chords).  Like I mentioned in this post, the organ part there quotes "Over the Waves."  Since the bass part beneath that quotation looks like waves when notated, I'm wondering if it's meant to be something of a musical joke.

"County Fair"

When I listened to the Surfin' Safari/Surfin' U.S.A. re-issue a couple days ago, some of the instrument parts in "County Fair" sounded pretty easy to figure out.  While working on that over the last two days (I have the guitar phrases and the bass part), I discovered something about the middle sections, where the barker is trying to convince the speaker/singer to win a stuffed koala bear for his girlfriend.  During both of those sections, the organ plays Juventino Rosas' "Over the Waves."  There are some variations in the rhythm (which are necessary since "County Fair" is in 4/4 time, but "Over the Waves" is originally in 3/4), but the melody is the same.

"Ten Little Indians"

I listened to the 1990s single-CD re-issue of Surfin' Safari and Surfin' U.S.A. (with bonus tracks) to-day, and I noticed a small thing about "Ten Little Indians."  At first, I noticed only that the "waterfall" in the line "The fifth little Indian took her down the waterfall" is pronounced with an extra syllable and that that extra syllable is lower than the rest, musically representing that fall, but when I figured out the specific notes, I discovered that the whole word descends.  The four syllables are sung to the notes B B G# E.

"Add Some Music to Your Day"

I've been listening to Sunflower pretty regularly lately, and I noticed a couple things about "Add Some Music to Your Day."  To-day I listened to the 2000 re-issue of Sunflower and Surf's Up on the same CD because to-day's Paul Atkinson's birthday (he co-produced the re-issue [and was the original guitarist for the Zombies]), and I transcribed the majority of the lyrics.

The first line is "The Sunday mornin' gospel goes good with the soul."  "Soul" can have two meanings here.  There's "soul" in the same sense it has in later lines like "Music / When you're alone / Is like a companion / For your lonely soul" and "Music is in my soul."  And there's also "soul" in the sense of the music genre.  Gospel is mentioned in the same line, and the next line continues this cataloguing of genres:  "There's blues, folk, and country, and rock like a rollin' stone."  I think "soul" in the sense of a person's intangible essence is the primary meaning, but the other sense is certainly relevant too.

The other thing I noticed is the "Ev'rywhere" in the backing vocals during the section where the lyrics are just "Add some music" over and over.  It's sung with a melisma, with the "-where" part sung to the notes E B C# B.  Its being sung to more than one syllable and to a variety of pitches is a musical representation of the "ev'rywhere."

"Cool, Cool Water"

Last month, I learned the bass part for the first section of the version of "Cool, Cool Water" that's on the Sunflower album.  Recently, I notated it (after re-learning what I'd forgotten and discovering that I'd been playing some notes in the wrong octave), and then I compared it to the version from The SMiLE Sessions (the one labelled "version 2").  It's pretty much the same.  The SMiLE Sessions version alternates between Bb and F for a few more measures, and a G note that's a single half note in the Sunflower version is two notes in The SMiLE Sessions version:  a dotted quarter note and an eighth note.

Since it's just one part, I'm not going to record a version (I decided it's not worth it unless I know two simultaneous parts), so here's the notation:

"Barnyard"

Yester-day I listened to the second disc of The SMiLE Sessions [Deluxe Edition Box Set], and I noticed that in "Barnyard," there's a piano phrase that nearly doubles the vocal melody (I think it leaves out a few notes).  It sounded easy, so I figured it out.  I also noticed that the bass has double stops, where in my previous recording, I'd played just single notes.  While I was correcting that, I discovered that the bass part changes about halfway through the song.  First, it's just quarter notes:

But then about halfway through, it changes to a dotted rhythm:

I referenced the version on the 2004 SMiLE, and it doesn't have that dotted section; it maintains the quarter notes throughout the song.

When I recorded my new version, I tried the guitar part on electric twelve-string, which sounds a bit closer to what the original recording has.  I referenced The SMiLE Sessions booklet for details about the instrumentation on the track, and it seemed equally confused about whether it's an electric or acoustic guitar.

Re-Establishment

About two years ago, I started a project in which the goal was to learn every part to every song on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and SMiLE albums.  I don't think I ever thought I would actually achieve this (and I still don't), but I thought it a worthy objective all the same.

I started this project on tumblr, but recently I've started to feel dissatisfied with it.  I felt I should have a cleaner, more professional-looking platform.  (I found some aspects of tumblr's interface less than ideal too.)  Initially, I went with tumblr only because I could directly post audio files of my own recordings of the songs, as a way to demonstrate that I had in fact learned the parts I said I had.  But I can achieve the same thing just with embedded YouTube videos.

So essentially, I'm jumping ship.  I'm going to continue doing everything I would normally do for this project, just on Blogger rather than on tumblr.  I'll be going back and copying my old posts over to this blog, so I'll have the complete archive, but it'll take a while to transfer everything.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---

Last night I figured out the mandolin tremolos in "Wouldn't It Be Nice."  I'm not sure how many mandolins are on the original track (although I suppose I could look it up), but I have four: two for each part.  I put some reverb on my recording, which I don't normally do, because - despite having played mandolin for six years - I'm not very good at tremolos.

"Vega-Tables"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---

I knew it had been a long time since I workt on this project, but I was surprised (and a bit embarrassed) to find that the last time I recorded anything was in March.

A couple days ago, I figured out the bass register of the piano for the verses of "Vega-Tables."  I think I have the chords too, but I don't know the rhythm they're played in yet (and even if I did know that, I don't think I'd be able to play both hands together, at least not without a lot of practice).  I'm not sure of the specific phrasing either.

At the end of my recording, I added an extra E note (which isn't in the original) just to resolve it.