"Devoted to You"

Recently, I discovered some features in the Everly Brothers' "Devoted to You."  Since the Beach Boys covered this on Beach Boys' Party!, I thought I'd write a post about it.  (I feel I should note that I have only Beach Boys' Party! Uncovered and Unplugged, not the original album.)

The first line of the second verse is "I'll be yours through endless time."  "Endless" is sung with a melisma (E D E in one voice; C# B C# in the other), and because it's drawn out, there's a musical sense of duration.

The first two lines of the third verse are "Through the years, my love will grow / Like a river, it will flow."  "Love" is sung with a melisma (E D in one voice; C# B in the other), and that extra syllable provides a musical sense of its "grow[ing]."  Both "river" (A G F# in one voice; F# E D in the other) and "it" (E D in one voice; C# B in the other) are sung with melismas, musically giving a sense of the movement of "flow[ing]."

There are two structural features that illustrate the speaker/singer's constancy:  every verse ends with the phrase "Devoted to you," and the bridge uses the rhetorical device of anaphora with the repeated "I'll never...."

"I Get Around"

I haven't been very active on this blog recently, but I have been learning parts.  Earlier this week, I learned the rhythm guitar for "I Get Around," and then - in order to have enough to make it worth recording so I could write a new post here - I also learned almost all of the lead guitar (I'm missing just the solo) and the organ phrases.

The rhythm guitar is panned slightly left, and the lead guitar is panned slightly right.  Along with the organ phrases that are actually in the song, I also played some of the lead vocal phrases on organ, just to make my recording a little more interesting.

Until learning the chords, I'd never realized that there's a key change in the song.  At the end of the guitar solo, it raises a half step from G major to Ab major (although the specific chords there are E major to F major).  Musically, this helps give the impression of "get[ting] around."  Similarly, there are some accidentals that portray the wanderings.  The first half of the song is in G major, but the chord progression contains an E major (with a G# accidental) and an F major (with an F natural accidental).

In an opposite sort of musical picture, the guitar part is simple (only four pitches) and repetitive to represent the mundane sameness of "I'm gettin' bored drivin' up and down the same old strip."

"Cindy, Oh Cindy"

This afternoon, I figured out the chords for "Cindy, Oh Cindy" (a bonus track on the Surfin' Safari/Surfin' U.S.A. reissue) and noticed a couple things about it.

First, here are the chords (with the disclaimer that I might have something wrong):

Introduction
|: C# major | A# minor :|

Verses
|: C# major | A# minor | F# major | C# major :|
C# major | A# minor | F# major | A# minor

Choruses
C# major | G# major | C# major

Coda
C# major

I noticed three small features in the song:

The line "Cindy, don't let me down" in the chorus is sung to a descending phrase (G# G# E# F# E# D#), so while it's negated, there's a musical representation of "let[ting] me down."

At the end of the chorus, the chord progression goes to the tonic (C# major), and there's a tonic note (C#) at the end of the vocal melody for that section (the second syllable of the melisma'd "bound").  The tonic is the musical "home," so there's a musical representation of "And I'll be homeward bound."

The same feature is in the third verse.  The chord progression moves to the tonic, and there's a tonic note (the second syllable of the melisma'd "home"), both of which musically represent the home in the line "Soon I'll be headin' home."

"Heroes and Villains"

Specifically, this is "Heroes and Villains: Part 1 Tag" (disc 2, track 11 of The SMiLE Sessions [Deluxe Edition Box Set]).  I learned the clavinet part back in May, and yester-day I learned one of the two piano parts.  Here's the notation, with - as always - the disclaimer that I might have something wrong.

Clavinet (notated an octave higher than it's played):

Piano (the last half note is held longer; I just didn't want to have to include any more measures):

"Surf's Up"

I never got around to writing about it, but years ago (10 April 2015, according to my records), I noticed that the end of "domino" in "columnated ruins domino" in "Surf's Up" descends, musically illustrating that falling.  After I listened to The SMiLE Sessions box set recently, I started thinking about this again and realized that there's more to it than that.  "Domino" is sung to the notes A F E D, and I think "Surf's Up" is in D minor, so these last three notes are a diatonic descent (they fall downward in the scale without skipping any notes).  One note falls into the next in the same way that one domino falls into an-other, so it's not just the descent that's musically significant here; it's also the intervals.

I also noticed that there's painting imagery in the line "Canvas the town and brush the backdrop."  This might connect with the short quotation of "The Old Master Painter."

"Heroes and Villains"

When I listened to The SMiLE Sessions box set last month, I noticed a couple things about the way some vocals are articulated.  I wanted to wait to write about these until I'd listened to the whole box set, but then I never got around to doing it.

I noticed two small things about "Heroes and Villains."  The line "Once at night, cotillion squared the fight, and she was right in the rain of the bullets that eventually brought her down" is sung to a descending melody, starting at F# and descending diatonically (in C# major) for more than an octave to D#.  This descent seems to represent that bringing "down" in a musical way.

In the cantina section, "margaritas keep the spirit high" is sung to an ascending phrase (B# C# C# D# D# E# E# G# G#), so there's something of a musical representation of that "high."

"God Only Knows"

I recently found some notation I wrote out a couple years ago of the first half of the bass part for "God Only Knows."  This reminded me that I'd learned the chords and French horn for the introduction back in October.  I don't know why I didn't record it then; maybe I intended to look for the bass part but then forgot about it.

"I'm Waiting for the Day"

I just figured out some flute parts in "I'm Waiting for the Day," and I discovered that a couple sections in the flute part have the same rhythm as some sections of the timpani.  Here's the flute part at the beginning (~0:05), which is also repeated over and over again in the coda:

Here's the flute part at ~1:09:

I might be missing some sections, but the timpani follow this same rhythm at the very beginning, throughout the second verse, and in the coda.

"The Girl from New York City"

Yester-day I listened to Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) and noticed a small thing about "The Girl from New York City."  The "every-" part of "every day" in the line "They took a small apartment down on the beach where you find them every day" is sung with three syllables rather than the usual two.  This pronunciation gives a sense of the frequency of how often the titular girl and her friend are on the beach.

"Wind Chimes"

I've been listening to The SMiLE Sessions box set again, and when I listened to disc four a couple days ago, the clarinet and saxophone parts in "Wind Chimes (Version 1)" (track 4) sounded (and were) easy to figure out.  When I referenced the recording on disc 1 (track 16), I discovered that the clarinet and saxophone parts are present there too, although the marimba in the first half of the track isn't present in disc 4, track 4.  Like I mentioned last time I recorded "Wind Chimes," I think there's an edit there.  It seems that disc 1, track 16 is comprised of disc 4, track 5 (first half) and disc 4, track 4 (second half) and maybe even some others.  In any case, I followed disc 1, track 16 for my recording.

Since I recorded this last time, I got a new keyboard, and the marimba voice on it sounds a lot better.  I also used keyboard voices for clarinet and saxophone because I don't (yet!) know how to play those.  Like last time, I used electric bass in place of upright bass (because I don't have one).

"California Girls"

Last week, I was thinking about "California Girls," and I realized something about the second verse.  The "girls" in the line "I've been all around this great big world, and I've seen all kind of girls" is sung with a melisma (A G# F#, I think).  Because "girls" is sung to more than one note, there's something of a musical representation of that wide variety.

"Little Pad"

After I learned the organ part for "Here Comes the Night," I remembered that (back in October) I'd learned the organ part and (I think) marimba for one section of "Little Pad."  So here's that.  It doesn't last very long.