"You Still Believe in Me"

I've been slowly reading The Beach Boys (the band's only official book, from 2023), and lately, I've been reading about the songs on Pet Sounds.  Yester-day, I read the lyrics to "You Still Believe in Me" (on page 205, with a bit of "I Know There's an Answer" accidentally included).  I noticed that in the line "Ev'ry time we break up, you bring back your love to me," "ev'ry time" is sung to notes of all different pitches (B E F#), providing something of a sense of entirety.

"You Still Believe in Me"

I've been listening to The Pet Sounds Sessions box set again, and I discovered a couple things about the vocal melodies.  While listening to the first disc a couple days ago, I noticed that the end of the line "I try hard to be strong, but sometimes I fail myself" in "You Still Believe in Me" descends.  The "myself" is sung to a melisma (D# D# C# C), so the speaker/singer is literally letting himself down ("fail[ing] myself") in terms of musical pitch.  Additionally, "You Still Believe in Me" is in B major, so that C natural is an accidental.  The foreign tonality there almost represents that "fail[ing]."

"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:

Pet Sounds

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[link to original on tumblr]

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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#.

"Let's Go Away for Awhile" and "You Still Believe in Me"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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I just listened to some of the recordings I made for this project.  The last two I did were the bass parts for "Let's Go Away for Awhile" and "You Still Believe in Me," and - even listening to the first few measures - I thought they sounded slightly similar.  So I played around with my recording software, and after plotting some MIDI notes, I confirmed that they have the same rhythm (for some sections, at least):

(That notation is meant to indicate only the rhythm; the pitch isn't relevant.)

Almost from the very beginning of this project, I've been wondering if there are certain musical elements that tie the Pet Sounds songs together.  I'd actually been thinking more about tonality, but rhythms certainly apply too.

"You Still Believe in Me"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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I haven't posted anything here for almost two months, but I've been regularly listening to the box sets of The Pet Sounds Sessions and The SMiLE Sessions.  I listened to the third disc of The Pet Sounds Sessions this morning, and the bass part to "You Still Believe in Me" sounded like it would be pretty easy to figure out, and it was.

"You Still Believe in Me"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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This is one of the few parts to Pet Sounds that I already know - the opening piano figure for "You Still Believe in Me."  I'm fairly certain I learned this in October last year, after discovering that the "You Still Believe in Me" on M. Ward's Transistor Radio is, in fact, the same "You Still Believe in Me," although arranged differently.

I don't have the same effect on this that's on the original.  Off the top of my head, I don't remember exactly what it is, but I think it's something like holding down all of the keys and then hitting the strings, which is obviously something I can't do with an electronic keyboard.