"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]

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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]

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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.

The Elevated Musical Consciousness of The Beach Boys

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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