"Papa Gene's Blues"

I listened to the deluxe edition of The Monkees at the end of October and noticed that the bass part in "Papa Gene's Blues" is much more prominent in the alternate mix that's included as a bonus track.  Yester-day, using this alternate mix for reference, I figured out the bass part and transcribed it.  As always, there's the disclaimer that I may have something wrong.

"I Wanna Be Free"

I listened to the first disc of the deluxe edition of The Monkees this morning and noticed a small feature in "I Wanna Be Free."  The line "Walk along the sand" is sung to a (mostly) conjunct melody (B D C B A), and because the melody is step-wise, there's a musical sense of that "walk[ing]."

While looking at the lyrics again, I also noticed the first line of the bridge:  "I wanna hold your hand."  This is also the title phrase of a Beatles song, but I don't know if this line is meant to be a reference to it.

"Your Friendly Neighborhood Kidnappers"

I watched "Your Friendly Neighborhood Kidnappers" this morning and noticed a detail in the set dressing.  When the Monkees go to the Vincent Van Go-Go, one of the paintings in the background is Van Gogh's "La Berceuse":

This painting is later seen in "The Picture Frame," which I wrote about here.

"So Goes Love"

Recently, I learned the bass part in "So Goes Love."  As always, there's the disclaimer that I may have something wrong.

"Early Morning Blues and Greens"

Recently, I learned some of the organ in "Early Morning Blues and Greens" and re-learned as much of the electric piano part as I used to know (I'd written down only half of it).  I started wondering about the specific type of electric piano that this part was played on, so I did some research.

The liner notes of the deluxe edition of Headquarters list simply "electric piano" in the credits (played by Peter Tork), but I think the liner notes do reveal the specific electric piano, if only inadvertently.  The first two pages of the booklet show a picture of Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith in RCA Studios in March 1967:

(Because I couldn't find the same picture on the internet, I scanned my copy of the liner notes, so the quality may not be the best.)

To the left of Nesmith, behind his pedal steel guitar, there's an electric piano.  The date of this picture (March 1967) matches the recording date for "Early Morning Blues and Greens" given in the liner notes (22 March 1967 "& other dates"), so it seems likely that this is the very electric piano used for the track.  I compared this instrument to various pictures on the internet, and I think it's a Wurlitzer 140B.

Here are some pictures of a Wurlitzer 140B for comparison:

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A post shared by WurliGuy (@wurliguy) on Oct 8, 2019 at 8:04pm PDT

"The Day We Fall in Love"

Last year, I learned the bass part for "The Day We Fall in Love."  I finally got around to scanning the notation to-day.  As always, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong.

"I Know What I Know"

At the beginning of "I Know What I Know," the production is rather sparse, just Nesmith's voice and piano.  Musically, this reflects the solitude mentioned in the bridge:  "Alone I am, with waiting heart / Alone I am, a world apart."

"Wasn't Born to Follow"

In the line "I will want to dive beneath the white cascading water" in "Wasn't Born to Follow," "water" is sung with a descending melisma (B A G), musically giving a sense of that "cascading."

"Birth of an Accidental Hipster"

In the repeated line "Do you know where we go?" in "Birth of an Accidental Hipster," the "go" is sung with a glissando (at first A to E but later it's B to F#), musically giving a sense of movement.

Extra voices sing the line "All sing along," giving a sense of "all" and demonstrating that "sing[ing] along."

"Little Girl"

The first two lines of "Little Girl" are "Little girl, don't you be brought down / Cheer up, I'll turn your frown sunnyside up," and the "down" and "up" are illustrated through the melodies to which they're sung.  "Be brought down" is sung to descending notes (D C# A), and "up" is sung with an ascending melisma (E F# G#).

"Me & Magdalena"

Under the lines "As the sun is slowly sinking / Into a distant ocean wave," in "Me & Magdalena," the bass part descends, musically reflecting that "sinking."  Furthermore, the first two pitches are C and B, and since these form the smallest possible interval (a half-step), there's even a sense of that "slowly."

"Our Own World"

The second verse of "Our Own World" starts with the lines "We been writing rhymes / And trading lines / It sounds so good."  That "good" is sung with a melisma (G Bb G F G Bb G F), musically giving a sense of degree (for that "so").