"Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)"

When I watched "Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)" a few months ago, one of the musical cues sounded familiar, but I couldn't identify it.  Yester-day, I watched an episode of The Addams Family ("Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family") in which the same piece was quoted.  I referenced the IMDb page for that episode and discovered that the piece is Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5.  In "Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)," it's background music as the Monkees are getting their tea leaves read.

"What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?"

Recently, I listened to a two-disc set of four Johnny Cash albums, one of which is Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar, which includes "Folsom Prison Blues."  I'm more familiar with a live version that's on both of the Johnny Cash compilation albums I have, but while listening to the studio version, I noticed that there are some similarities between it and the Monkees' "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?"

The first verse of "Folsom Prison Blues" ends with the line "But that train keeps a-rollin' on down to San Antone," and the choruses of "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" include the line "I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone."  The second verse of "Folsom Prison Blues" ends with the line "When I hear that whistle blowin', I hang my head and cry," and "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" also mentions a train whistle and the effect that it has on the narrator:  "And still I can't stop thinkin' when I hear some whistle cryin' // What am I doin' hangin' 'round?"

I don't know if these similarities are intentional or coincidental, but there is a resemblance between the two songs.  For what it's worth, "Folsom Prison Blues" was written by Johnny Cash and recorded on 30 July 1955 (the live version was recorded at Folsom Prison on 13 January 1968), and "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" was written by Michael Martin Murphey and Owen Castleman and, according to the liner notes of the deluxe edition of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., was recorded on 20 June, 5 September, "& other dates" in 1967.

"Love to Love"

Recently, I listened to the super deluxe edition of Headquarters and noticed a small feature in "Love to Love."  In the lines "And I've heard if warm lips don't touch you / Love won't grow no matter how much you try," "try" is sung with a melisma (G F Eb), giving a sense of degree (for "much").

"One Man Shy"

Yester-day, I read in The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story that "One Man Shy" was broadcast on BBC-1 at 6:15 p.m. on 28 January 1967, and I realized that the title of the episode is a play on words.  By itself, the phrase means "lacking one man" or "missing one man," but in light of the episode's plot (Peter's difficulties in talking to Miss Cartwright), "shy" takes on the meaning of bashful or reserved and functions as a post-positive adjective.

"Zor and Zam"

This is just a minor point, but the phrase "to one and to all" in the line "Out went the call to one and to all" at the beginning of the second verse of "Zor and Zam" contains a merism.

"Magnolia Simms"

In the line "After rain has fallen" in "Magnolia Simms," "fallen" is sung to a descending pair of notes spanning a fourth (C G), musically giving a sense of the word's meaning.

In the line "When she's walking so close by my side," "close" is sung with a melisma (C G), musically giving a sense of degree (for "so").

"P.O. Box 9847"

In the line "I'm not liking what I'm typing; throw it all away," in "P.O. Box 9847," "away" is sung with a melisma (Bb G), musically giving something of a sense of movement.

I think the song is in G major (for the most part, the chord progression just alternates between G major and C major), but under the lines "I've described me very poorly, better try again," "I've been writing advertising; that's not really me," and "I'm not liking what I'm typing; throw it all away," there's an Eb major.  This foreign tonality mirrors the narrator's dissatisfaction with what he's writing.

It's also significant that after the second verse, the narrator refers to what he's "been writing" (as if with pen and paper) but after the third verse, he talks about what he's "typing."  In the same way that each verse accentuates different aspects of his personality, he uses different methods of composition.

"The Poster"

I'm finally getting around to writing about some features I noticed in songs on The Birds, The Bees, & the Monkees.

In the line "A dancing bear and a circus clown; it's so funny" in "The Poster," the word "funny" is held for more than a full measure (five beats), and this length provides a sense of degree (for "so").

In the line "Oh, I can't wait to see ev'rything there," the three syllables of "ev'rything" are each sung to a different pitch (C# D E), musically giving a sense of breadth.

"Hold on Girl"

When I listened to the deluxe edition of More of the Monkees recently, I also noticed a couple features in "Hold on Girl."

In the line "He took your love and then just walked away" in the first verse, the phrase "walked away" is sung to a group of conjunct notes (A B C#).  To some degree, this gives the impression of footsteps.

There's a grammatical ambiguity in the lines "I promise you the sun is gonna shine again / And help is on its way" at the end of the second verse.  The clause "help is on its way" could be part of what is "promise[d]," or it could be its own statement (as it is in the lines "I know that you have got a reason to be sad / But help is on its way" at the end of the first verse).

"Of You"

I recently listened to the deluxe edition of More of the Monkees and noticed an interesting structural feature in "Of You," which is included as a bonus track.

The third verse is:

And when the skies are once more blue

I get that old longing to

To be held in the arms of you

The first two lines complement each other since they're the same number of syllables ("old" is sung with two syllables, so each line has eight) and they rhyme, but the placement of the second line break creates an interruption in the meaning.  The "to" of the infinitive "to be held" must be completed, and this need for semantic resolution mirrors the "longing" that the lyrics themselves describe.

"I've Got a Little Song Here"

I watched "I've Got a Little Song Here" this morning and noticed what might be a reference to the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night movie.  Mike thinks that Joannie Jans is going to sing the song he wrote in her new movie and goes to visit her on set.  She doesn't know what he's talking about, however, and when he asks her, "Does the name Mike Nesmith mean anything to you?" she replies, "No, it's only a rumor; we're just good friends."  In a scene with the press in A Hard Day's Night, Paul McCartney also uses this as a stock response, saying three times, "No, actually, we're just good friends."

"All the King's Horses"

Recently, I listened to the deluxe edition of The Monkees.  When I listened to the second disc yester-day, I noticed something about "All the King's Horses."  Except for the first instance and the repetitions in the coda, the chorus is sung so that as one voice finishes singing "All the king's horses and all the king's men," an-other starts singing it, and as that second voices finishes, the first starts singing "They couldn't put my broken heart back together again," and then the second likewise echoes this.  (Note that I'm using "voice" in a more generic sense here; there are actually multiple voices singing each part.)  I'm not sure if the term quite applies here, but this is at least similar to stretti in classical music.  The parts are something like this:

I think one of the voices sings, "Now all the king's horses and all the king's men," with the "now" as an eighth note pick-up (G#) in the preceding measure, but this "now" isn't consistently included.  Sometimes it's there, and sometimes it's not, so I left it out of my notation.

This may be making too much of it, but because the lines are sung like this, with one echoing the other, there's a musical sense of the fragmentation that's in the lyrics ("my broken heart").