About a month ago, I received a call from a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in a little bit but have been trying to meet up with. Unfortunately, he called with bad news- a mutual friend of ours, John, had passed away. I was quite devastated, not because he was a particularly close friend (I hadn't spoken to him in over a year), but because he was such an ebullient spirit. He was that guy who I always assumed I could run into and chat it up and all that jazz, and now he's dead. (Adding to the misfortunate, his band was on the verge of making the national indie circuit- his death was picked up by Pitchfork and the NY Times) I had played a couple of gigs with him and a friend of ours opening for me, and always was impressed both by his musical chops, his invention, and his general style- sort of folky, reminiscent of the style of young, detached literate intimate songwriting that acoustic indie has attempted to take up lately, though my friend focused on the brightness instead of the dourness available in the genre.
The reason I bring him up is that one of the last times I ever spoke to him, after one of our shows together, he mentioned the Incredible String Band. I had heard of them, but not heard anything by them. At the time (and still now), I had a serious jones for anything in the late 60's folk-genre that spanned Nick Drake and Fairport Convention, and so this band seemed right up my alley. He mentioned that he'd rip them for me, but considering my group and his group rarely crossed paths, I assumed it wouldn't happen, and it, with a somber air of finality, didn't.
A couple of weeks ago, about a year and a half after he promised me the CDs, I acquired the Incredible String Band's debut CD through lala.com, the used CD trading service. As soon as I got it and heard one note, I was doubly reminded of my friend. Not just because of his recommendation, but because I now understood where his sound was indebted to. The Incredible String Band, at least in this incarnation (their lineup and sound changed heavily over time), is a barebones "folk" group. I hesitate to call them folk, though I don't particularly know what to call them other than themselves. They certainly aren't in the folk-pop vein which was massively popular at the time (1966) thanks to Peter, Paul and Mary, but they aren't exactly traditional folk, playing all original material and staying outside of the stylistic strictures imposed by Joan Baez and the New Lost City Ramblers, though their playing style leans heavily towards a more traditional sound. It sounds like a couple of guys interested in the swing and sound of folk and playing off its more difficult, resonant edges.
This is not to suggest a particularly difficult album to grasp, though. The songs are quite ebullient, perfect for two guys to play with 20-25 friends watching them. Songs like "Dandelion Blues," "Can't Keep Me Here," "Footsteps of the Heron" and "Everything's Fine Right Now" are imbued with almost-too-effortless melodies, "Maybe Someday" grabs you with its Eastern-tinged timbres, and songs like "The Tree" expertly mix the jocular with the skillful. The technical chops, the songwriting inspiration, and internal confidence in the material all gush forth throughout every single note of this all-too-short album.
One of the great ironies to me in listening to this album is that, in the decade preceding this album, the great debate in folk circles was which direction the music should pursue- one staying true to authentic styles (or as true as white collegiate kids could approximate) or one that sheared off the rough edges for popularization. By the time the Incredible String Band debuted, folk music had come from "Tom Dooley" to "Desolation Row," and folk music had numerous stars, whether enthusiastic or uneasy. Yet the Incredible String Band was one of the few who actually seemed to use authenticity correctly (if such a thing can be done) by being authentic to themselves. The music is for them, for their friends, and for whoever wanted to join the fray. John's music (not counting that which was enveloped in his bands) reflected this to a tee, wearing the confidences and postures of a confident, musically adept, literate college kid singing like he's always felt he should. I have too many musical aches and regrets, but one of them is not being around to hear these guys play intimately 40 years ago. Or actively getting those CDs from John and talking to him just a little bit longer.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Thomas Tallis- Spem in Alium
Moving from music from the 1960s, to that of the 1560s, I have spent a great deal of the past week reading, listening, and analyzing Thomas Tallis' "Spem in Alium," his grand motet for FORTY voices. Not forty musicians, as many choral works and masses are performed today, but forty distinct voices, each given their own part unique from all other singers. Given the strictures of Renaissance voice leading and harmonic movement, this is an exceptional feat, perhaps more clever in compositional resources than, say, Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima," whose 52-voice texture was made possible through the explosion of strictures regarding harmony, pitch, and extended technique throughout the 20th century. Given that only triadic and seventh harmonies were allowed, and voice leading could not involve parallel fifths or octaves, it is a remarkable feat, a drastic extension of Renaissance compositional techniques.
I wish to pivot upon the word "drastic" for a moment. Clearly a work for forty voices by a composer who rarely strayed above five or six (which is no small feat in itself) in a time and place (Tudor England) with few works for even a quarter of these voices could be considered extreme, or drastic. It is no surprise that the general history of this piece has been anxious, existing among its peers like Robert Wadlow. It has been called a curiosity, an amazing feat, and put on a pedestal for its astonishing features. Tell anyone who doesn't know about this piece but who is aware of basic counterpoint, and watch their jaw drop. Forty voices? That can't be possible! Until the past thirty years, it was analyzed as a compositional exercise, a drastic feat of compositional wit, rather than a piece of music.
Luckily, recent scholarship has attempted to "normalize" the work through showing its relationship with other forms and composers. Paul Doe has seen the work as a blown-up version of the Elizabethan respond-motet, a type of motet that, while I'm not particularly familiar with its specifications, would have been composed by Tallis and Byrd. Davitt Maroney has indirectly proposed a possible link with Alessandro Striggio, an Italian string virtuoso at the Florentine court. Striggio is known to have composed a 40-voice motet, "Ecce beatam lucem" (which is a fascinating work in its own right, full of virtuosic counterpoint), as well as a 40-voice Mass that concludes with a 60-voice Agnus Dei II. Striggio is known to have visited England during 1567 on his trip around Europe as essentially the musical ambassador for his Excellency, a voyage where he carried at least the mass with him. While we do not have any record of exactly what transpired while Striggio was in England, he ostensibly visited the court, as he later wrote a piece glorifying Queen Elizabeth. It would stand to reason, then, that he came into contact with her composer, Thomas Tallis. It has been hypothesized that "Spem in Alium," for stylistic reasons, was dated in the late 1560s or early 1570s. Thus, Striggio's influence, though still cirucmstantial, is highly likely, given the shared number of voices in the respective pieces. Clearly, "Spem in alium" does not exist in a vacuum. It can be seen as a mixture of a genre Tallis was well versed in, and the influence of Striggio, though one cannot claim this definitively.
If we can forge a link between composers and genres for "Spem in alium," the question then becomes, how should this work be analyzed? This work, given its gargantuan size and Trivial Pursuit-Music Version regard, seems optimally primed for an analysis of the notes, to look at the little details and harmonic patterns to understand just how Tallis created a piece at once stylistically cogent and aesthetically stunning. However, at this point I wish to recall the description of this piece as "drastic." Cannot this work be analyzed in a drastic manner, one that focuses on a different reading of its "drasticness?"
In a recent article, the musicologist Carolyn Abbate creates a binary between "drastic" analysis and "gnostic" analysis. In it, gnostic analysis is seen as analysis of music made into monuments, through listening to recordings and reading scores in order to discuss the Work. Drastic analysis instead looks at the performers and performances themselves, remembering that music (and here she is talking about Romantic Opera, and the same is true for Renaissance Motets) is given life only through performers who, lest we forget, are human. I unfortunately have not heard this piece live, and all I can be in contact with is a recording and score. But, perhaps this can be transcended by reading the score as a live performance, rather like a conductor than a music theorist.
It is just these large works, those that seem ripest for formal blow-by-blow musical analyses, that can be best understood from the performance aspect. Recordings cannot differentiate forty voices- they can be a tool for hearing the notes, but not the affects. Likewise, while looking at the notes on this score is helpful for understanding compositional strategies, the individual pitches and lines are swallowed up during performance. Furthermore, the piece is not all that interesting harmonically or registerally- it never moves outside of a three-octave span, from the G on the bottom line of the bass clef to the G perched atop the treble, and it is, compared to other contemporaneous works, progressively static. What is missing is the phenomenological affects of the music in performance. After all, this is what ought to be the fundamental draw to such a work- if it offered nothing interesting aesthetically, it would be just a curiosity. But it does, and that something must be evident in performance.
I wish to give an example of what such an analysis could entail by looking at the opening of the piece. Given that the work is written for forty unique voices who are not compositionally grouped off (though they are in the score), one can imagine the choir standing in one large semi-circle or circle, 1 to 40. (As a sidenote, Striggio's large works are divided into choirs, which allows for an antiphonal feel.) The opening introduces the voices almost exactly in order, from 1-40, with anywhere between 5-10 voices singing at any given time. Imagine this experience live- a wash of sound slowly moving down the line from beginning to end. Two or three measures after the 40th voice enters, all 40 voices erupt together, the explosion at the end of a lit fuse. What happens next? The voices reverse, with voice 40 beginning and the voices moving back along the line until voice 1, when the fuse erupts again and all 40 voices enter. In this opening bit, Tallis clearly utilizes the performative aspect of the ensemble. The movement and overwhelming of the sound are effects that, while evident in the score, do not come alive until actively heard, whether in performance or an imagined version thereof.
"Spem in alium" deserves better than its label as an interesting factoid in music history. Thankfully, scholars are committed to providing context for the work that can help it sit comfortably among its peers. In attempting to find a way to do so, I do not want to diminish its special qualities; after all, it is a motet for FORTY individual parts, and that's pretty damn astounding. Instead, I want to redirect analysis and appreciation of its unique attributes from a drastic compositional example to a drastic performative experience.
I wish to pivot upon the word "drastic" for a moment. Clearly a work for forty voices by a composer who rarely strayed above five or six (which is no small feat in itself) in a time and place (Tudor England) with few works for even a quarter of these voices could be considered extreme, or drastic. It is no surprise that the general history of this piece has been anxious, existing among its peers like Robert Wadlow. It has been called a curiosity, an amazing feat, and put on a pedestal for its astonishing features. Tell anyone who doesn't know about this piece but who is aware of basic counterpoint, and watch their jaw drop. Forty voices? That can't be possible! Until the past thirty years, it was analyzed as a compositional exercise, a drastic feat of compositional wit, rather than a piece of music.
Luckily, recent scholarship has attempted to "normalize" the work through showing its relationship with other forms and composers. Paul Doe has seen the work as a blown-up version of the Elizabethan respond-motet, a type of motet that, while I'm not particularly familiar with its specifications, would have been composed by Tallis and Byrd. Davitt Maroney has indirectly proposed a possible link with Alessandro Striggio, an Italian string virtuoso at the Florentine court. Striggio is known to have composed a 40-voice motet, "Ecce beatam lucem" (which is a fascinating work in its own right, full of virtuosic counterpoint), as well as a 40-voice Mass that concludes with a 60-voice Agnus Dei II. Striggio is known to have visited England during 1567 on his trip around Europe as essentially the musical ambassador for his Excellency, a voyage where he carried at least the mass with him. While we do not have any record of exactly what transpired while Striggio was in England, he ostensibly visited the court, as he later wrote a piece glorifying Queen Elizabeth. It would stand to reason, then, that he came into contact with her composer, Thomas Tallis. It has been hypothesized that "Spem in Alium," for stylistic reasons, was dated in the late 1560s or early 1570s. Thus, Striggio's influence, though still cirucmstantial, is highly likely, given the shared number of voices in the respective pieces. Clearly, "Spem in alium" does not exist in a vacuum. It can be seen as a mixture of a genre Tallis was well versed in, and the influence of Striggio, though one cannot claim this definitively.
If we can forge a link between composers and genres for "Spem in alium," the question then becomes, how should this work be analyzed? This work, given its gargantuan size and Trivial Pursuit-Music Version regard, seems optimally primed for an analysis of the notes, to look at the little details and harmonic patterns to understand just how Tallis created a piece at once stylistically cogent and aesthetically stunning. However, at this point I wish to recall the description of this piece as "drastic." Cannot this work be analyzed in a drastic manner, one that focuses on a different reading of its "drasticness?"
In a recent article, the musicologist Carolyn Abbate creates a binary between "drastic" analysis and "gnostic" analysis. In it, gnostic analysis is seen as analysis of music made into monuments, through listening to recordings and reading scores in order to discuss the Work. Drastic analysis instead looks at the performers and performances themselves, remembering that music (and here she is talking about Romantic Opera, and the same is true for Renaissance Motets) is given life only through performers who, lest we forget, are human. I unfortunately have not heard this piece live, and all I can be in contact with is a recording and score. But, perhaps this can be transcended by reading the score as a live performance, rather like a conductor than a music theorist.
It is just these large works, those that seem ripest for formal blow-by-blow musical analyses, that can be best understood from the performance aspect. Recordings cannot differentiate forty voices- they can be a tool for hearing the notes, but not the affects. Likewise, while looking at the notes on this score is helpful for understanding compositional strategies, the individual pitches and lines are swallowed up during performance. Furthermore, the piece is not all that interesting harmonically or registerally- it never moves outside of a three-octave span, from the G on the bottom line of the bass clef to the G perched atop the treble, and it is, compared to other contemporaneous works, progressively static. What is missing is the phenomenological affects of the music in performance. After all, this is what ought to be the fundamental draw to such a work- if it offered nothing interesting aesthetically, it would be just a curiosity. But it does, and that something must be evident in performance.
I wish to give an example of what such an analysis could entail by looking at the opening of the piece. Given that the work is written for forty unique voices who are not compositionally grouped off (though they are in the score), one can imagine the choir standing in one large semi-circle or circle, 1 to 40. (As a sidenote, Striggio's large works are divided into choirs, which allows for an antiphonal feel.) The opening introduces the voices almost exactly in order, from 1-40, with anywhere between 5-10 voices singing at any given time. Imagine this experience live- a wash of sound slowly moving down the line from beginning to end. Two or three measures after the 40th voice enters, all 40 voices erupt together, the explosion at the end of a lit fuse. What happens next? The voices reverse, with voice 40 beginning and the voices moving back along the line until voice 1, when the fuse erupts again and all 40 voices enter. In this opening bit, Tallis clearly utilizes the performative aspect of the ensemble. The movement and overwhelming of the sound are effects that, while evident in the score, do not come alive until actively heard, whether in performance or an imagined version thereof.
"Spem in alium" deserves better than its label as an interesting factoid in music history. Thankfully, scholars are committed to providing context for the work that can help it sit comfortably among its peers. In attempting to find a way to do so, I do not want to diminish its special qualities; after all, it is a motet for FORTY individual parts, and that's pretty damn astounding. Instead, I want to redirect analysis and appreciation of its unique attributes from a drastic compositional example to a drastic performative experience.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Bob Dylan- Modern Times
Note: I originally published this on October 16, 2006, on my old blog. The one other review from that blog will be up here shortly.
Intensely creative composers who have perfected their craft, when they age, tend towards the expansive, the encyclopaedic. The formal elements are allowed to breathe with quiet confidence. The demands for immediate aesthetic appeal, the white-hot fury of composition, is replaced with a focus on stately perfection of form and detail. Witness, for example, the difference between Bach's two Well-Tempered Claviers, written over twenty years apart. The first, in the same approximate period as the Brandenburg Concerti, is filled with incredibly imaginitive, not to mention tuneful and memorable, preludes and fugues. It is difficult to forget the harmonic perfection of the opening arpeggiated prelude in C major, or the French overture theme of the D major fugue. While the second has nothing as immediately ear-catching, it lengthens the preludes and fugues somewhat, trading efficiency for all-encompassing displays of contrapuntal virtuosity. Beethoven's early string quartets, examples of brusque classicality, give way to the exploration of chromatic musings in his last opera.
We find a much different Bob Dylan at age 66 than the micro-analyzed don't-call-him-folk-rocker of his mid-twenties. His songs of the mid 1960s are Romantic flashes of stream of consciousness poetry set to skewed blues forms. The first half of Bringing It All Back Home, his first foray into electric music since his Minnesota days, sounds like a kid desiring to sing the mad, spinning world in twenty minutes, crystallizing protest songs, dreamscapes, abstract beat poetry, and the end of his relationship with Joan Baez in Biblical metaphor, surrealist humor, and spitfire rhymes. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a torrent of allusion and resistance tidied up in just over two minutes; even the longer tracks, like "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" are entire absurdist novels coalesced into six-and-a-half minute romps. Not until the final tracks of Blonde On Blonde do we find songs, such as "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" that lack any undercurrent of tortured anxiety; even then, the stately tempos are tinged with melancholy brought on by weariness, that most human side effect of celebrity.
Fast-forward 40 years. Having been relieved of the nasty connotations of Voice of the Young Generation for 35 or so years has relaxed Dylan. Dylan's oeuvre has passed through exploring country roots, Christian music, and, perhaps in reaction to the popularity come-on that was his folk period, creating down home blues with comparatively direct lyrics. Songs like "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," "Sara," and "Things Have Changed" are devastatingly sincere, and show the power Dylan's words have even when stripped of the absurdism of his mid-sixties period. His recent songs, no longer Schumann-esque bursts of passion, portray a wise man thoroughly in control of his compositional form (in his case blues mixed with poetry), no longer needing to rely on stylistic crutches, commercial concerns, and esotericism.
Modern Times, Dylan's most recent studio recording, contains ten songs, which alternate uptempo blues and ballads. Each song, except for one near miss, pass the five minute mark with ease. In fact, it has been a bit of a fallacy for this reviewer to focus on time markers, because these songs couldn't be concerned less with temporal matters. Dylan allows these songs to take all the time and space they need; there is no need to rush. Blues songs like "Rollin' and Tumblin'," whose fast tempo would be propelling to a younger songwriter, are allowed to roll but never tumble. Ballads like "Spirit On The Water" and "When The Deal Goes Down" are sung and performed with eloquent confidence by a man who has no need for oversinging to elicit appreciation, instead focusing on singing solid songs. "The Levee's Gonna Break" is stripped of the Gesamtkunstwerk of Led Zeppelin's bombast, instead sung with the eloquent melancholy of what Bessie Smith would evoke if stripped out of the recording limitations of her time.
Like the composers mentioned in the opening paragraph, the aged Dylan is no longer interested in anxiously striving to capture the world in a lyric, crystallizing philosophies in a verse, or exploding meaningful sentiments in melodically-highlighted allusion. The collection of songs on Modern Times, much like the eponymous Chaplin silent, confidentally perfect an art form whose heyday has passed in quiet sincerity. Dylan, unlike Chaplin, is none too concerned about making an innovative exclamation point (which is why the reviewer only briefly touched upon the connection between the two works), rather in letting his music breathe without presumptions and pretensions, writing great blues without needing to speak for anyone but himself.
Intensely creative composers who have perfected their craft, when they age, tend towards the expansive, the encyclopaedic. The formal elements are allowed to breathe with quiet confidence. The demands for immediate aesthetic appeal, the white-hot fury of composition, is replaced with a focus on stately perfection of form and detail. Witness, for example, the difference between Bach's two Well-Tempered Claviers, written over twenty years apart. The first, in the same approximate period as the Brandenburg Concerti, is filled with incredibly imaginitive, not to mention tuneful and memorable, preludes and fugues. It is difficult to forget the harmonic perfection of the opening arpeggiated prelude in C major, or the French overture theme of the D major fugue. While the second has nothing as immediately ear-catching, it lengthens the preludes and fugues somewhat, trading efficiency for all-encompassing displays of contrapuntal virtuosity. Beethoven's early string quartets, examples of brusque classicality, give way to the exploration of chromatic musings in his last opera.
We find a much different Bob Dylan at age 66 than the micro-analyzed don't-call-him-folk-rocker of his mid-twenties. His songs of the mid 1960s are Romantic flashes of stream of consciousness poetry set to skewed blues forms. The first half of Bringing It All Back Home, his first foray into electric music since his Minnesota days, sounds like a kid desiring to sing the mad, spinning world in twenty minutes, crystallizing protest songs, dreamscapes, abstract beat poetry, and the end of his relationship with Joan Baez in Biblical metaphor, surrealist humor, and spitfire rhymes. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a torrent of allusion and resistance tidied up in just over two minutes; even the longer tracks, like "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" are entire absurdist novels coalesced into six-and-a-half minute romps. Not until the final tracks of Blonde On Blonde do we find songs, such as "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" that lack any undercurrent of tortured anxiety; even then, the stately tempos are tinged with melancholy brought on by weariness, that most human side effect of celebrity.
Fast-forward 40 years. Having been relieved of the nasty connotations of Voice of the Young Generation for 35 or so years has relaxed Dylan. Dylan's oeuvre has passed through exploring country roots, Christian music, and, perhaps in reaction to the popularity come-on that was his folk period, creating down home blues with comparatively direct lyrics. Songs like "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," "Sara," and "Things Have Changed" are devastatingly sincere, and show the power Dylan's words have even when stripped of the absurdism of his mid-sixties period. His recent songs, no longer Schumann-esque bursts of passion, portray a wise man thoroughly in control of his compositional form (in his case blues mixed with poetry), no longer needing to rely on stylistic crutches, commercial concerns, and esotericism.
Modern Times, Dylan's most recent studio recording, contains ten songs, which alternate uptempo blues and ballads. Each song, except for one near miss, pass the five minute mark with ease. In fact, it has been a bit of a fallacy for this reviewer to focus on time markers, because these songs couldn't be concerned less with temporal matters. Dylan allows these songs to take all the time and space they need; there is no need to rush. Blues songs like "Rollin' and Tumblin'," whose fast tempo would be propelling to a younger songwriter, are allowed to roll but never tumble. Ballads like "Spirit On The Water" and "When The Deal Goes Down" are sung and performed with eloquent confidence by a man who has no need for oversinging to elicit appreciation, instead focusing on singing solid songs. "The Levee's Gonna Break" is stripped of the Gesamtkunstwerk of Led Zeppelin's bombast, instead sung with the eloquent melancholy of what Bessie Smith would evoke if stripped out of the recording limitations of her time.
Like the composers mentioned in the opening paragraph, the aged Dylan is no longer interested in anxiously striving to capture the world in a lyric, crystallizing philosophies in a verse, or exploding meaningful sentiments in melodically-highlighted allusion. The collection of songs on Modern Times, much like the eponymous Chaplin silent, confidentally perfect an art form whose heyday has passed in quiet sincerity. Dylan, unlike Chaplin, is none too concerned about making an innovative exclamation point (which is why the reviewer only briefly touched upon the connection between the two works), rather in letting his music breathe without presumptions and pretensions, writing great blues without needing to speak for anyone but himself.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The Mamas and the Papas- Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon)
Like many twenty-somethings born and raised in the Northeast (or anywhere, really), I find myself in the New York City area. The Greatest City on Earth is truly astounding in the way it alienates as it creates community, fragmenting and disorienting people while allowing us to meet absolutely fascinating, generally intelligent people. If all the world is a stage, then New York is the greatest example of this, millions of self-conscious simulacra running around hoping for truth, style, and people to solve the contradition therein. New York pulls me in with promises, with endless activities which enlighten, help me find meaning, and ultimately distract me from the loneliness that comes with so much around, with the knowledge that 10 million people couldn't give two shits about who you are. Yet even this loneliness comes with a wry smile- after all, how alone am I if I'm alone together with so many?
Due to some stressful circumstances recently in my life, I've had moments where I've sunk into this deeply cynical view of this area. Perhaps this is why the Mamas and the Papas' song "Twelve-Thirty" has been resonating so deeply for me lately. Yes, it helps that I'm a sucker for impeccable songcraft, delicious harmonies, and twisting melodies with as many flavors as a meditative sip of fine wine. Yet, the meaning of the song really speaks to me because deep down it is a melancholic song that is suppressed through cheerful exclamations. One can sing along to it joyfully and playfully. But, the melancholy is there, lingering after the song fades.
The song opens on a delectably baroque minor chord, which will eventually become the relative minor of the main key. The relative quiet stasis of the melodic line, which resolves entirely on either guarded majors or deceptive minors, accents the melancholy of the lyrics:
I used to live in New York City
Everything there was dark and dirty
Outside my window was a steeple
With a clock that always said 12:30
This is the realistic NYC, the downtrodden wasteland and dank isolation that characterized it in the 1960s. Even the church, for John Phillips the last outpost of solace and safety (see "California Dreaming"), is stuck in the past, stolid, unable to help. The grass must be greener, or the pavement cleaner, on the other side. And where is it cleaner? Where else for the Mamas and the Papas- Southern California!
Young girls are coming to the Canyon
And in the morning I can see them walking
I can no longer keep my blinds drawn
And I can't keep myself from talking
The music shifts at this point to emphatic major, to a forceful melody that's instantly memorable and celebratory. The voices and instrumentation open up as well, reflecting the narrator's open personality. The mood shifts from delicate Baroque-pop to mid-1960s pop that unabashedly uses that poppiest of rhymes, walkin' and talkin'. Most importantly, though, is the change in tense between verse and chorus. The melancholic verse is in the past, and the music sounds like a black and white photograph. The celebratory chorus, though, is present all the way, and the ensemble sings with color and vibrancy. Cheerfulness and optimism reign supreme!
Or so it seems. The second verse describes the bewilderment of being friendly and cheery. "At first so strange to feel so friendly/To say "Good morning" and really mean it," sings the narrator. It is a dig against the rudeness of New York City, its posture of importance and business that views simple pleasantries as naive idiocies worthy of the deepest scorn. But, it also signals discomfort with letting go of that. Like a child discovering social mores through his/her parents, the narrator must re-rediscover how to act. The buoyancy of the chorus is still subdued by the narrator's self-consciousness. However, the chorus comes in to signal his attempt to overcome himself and celebrate the beautiful canyon full of approachable beautiful women.
Attempt, though, is the key word. The bridge contains one of the strangest lyrics in '60s pop music:
Cloudy waters cast no reflection
Images of beauty lie there stagnant
Vibrations bounce in no direction
But lie there shattered into fragments
Through its almost labored abstraction, the narrator realizes that the beauty and "vibrations" of Southern California are just as fragmented as that dark and dirty New York City. Bizarrely, this lyric is set to music that extraordinarily recalls the chorus. A listener can completely miss these lines if s/he doesn't pay careful attention. The critique is devastating in a close listen, but Phillips' songwriting mitigates against comprehension. Listen to the happy Southern California music, he is saying, but if you pay attention, I'm still searching, still alone, the clocks here all read 12:30 too. Southern California is the narrator's home, but the melancholy still remains. Grass is still grass, pavement is still pavement, the narrator is still the narrator.
I've always enjoyed traveling for the new experiences and escapes that it provides. But I try not to harbor illusions about how great the place I just saw was, or, more accurately, I try to keep a disaffected stance towards my leanings for having what I don't have now. Sometimes that dark and dirty place is, despite my every wishes and desires, where I really should be. I have to always remind myself of what I actually have, focus on the people who care for me rather than the hordes who don't know and won't know who I am. But still, I can dream and sing to the young girls who can't wait to meet me, even if I know they won't change a damn thing about me.
Due to some stressful circumstances recently in my life, I've had moments where I've sunk into this deeply cynical view of this area. Perhaps this is why the Mamas and the Papas' song "Twelve-Thirty" has been resonating so deeply for me lately. Yes, it helps that I'm a sucker for impeccable songcraft, delicious harmonies, and twisting melodies with as many flavors as a meditative sip of fine wine. Yet, the meaning of the song really speaks to me because deep down it is a melancholic song that is suppressed through cheerful exclamations. One can sing along to it joyfully and playfully. But, the melancholy is there, lingering after the song fades.
The song opens on a delectably baroque minor chord, which will eventually become the relative minor of the main key. The relative quiet stasis of the melodic line, which resolves entirely on either guarded majors or deceptive minors, accents the melancholy of the lyrics:
I used to live in New York City
Everything there was dark and dirty
Outside my window was a steeple
With a clock that always said 12:30
This is the realistic NYC, the downtrodden wasteland and dank isolation that characterized it in the 1960s. Even the church, for John Phillips the last outpost of solace and safety (see "California Dreaming"), is stuck in the past, stolid, unable to help. The grass must be greener, or the pavement cleaner, on the other side. And where is it cleaner? Where else for the Mamas and the Papas- Southern California!
Young girls are coming to the Canyon
And in the morning I can see them walking
I can no longer keep my blinds drawn
And I can't keep myself from talking
The music shifts at this point to emphatic major, to a forceful melody that's instantly memorable and celebratory. The voices and instrumentation open up as well, reflecting the narrator's open personality. The mood shifts from delicate Baroque-pop to mid-1960s pop that unabashedly uses that poppiest of rhymes, walkin' and talkin'. Most importantly, though, is the change in tense between verse and chorus. The melancholic verse is in the past, and the music sounds like a black and white photograph. The celebratory chorus, though, is present all the way, and the ensemble sings with color and vibrancy. Cheerfulness and optimism reign supreme!
Or so it seems. The second verse describes the bewilderment of being friendly and cheery. "At first so strange to feel so friendly/To say "Good morning" and really mean it," sings the narrator. It is a dig against the rudeness of New York City, its posture of importance and business that views simple pleasantries as naive idiocies worthy of the deepest scorn. But, it also signals discomfort with letting go of that. Like a child discovering social mores through his/her parents, the narrator must re-rediscover how to act. The buoyancy of the chorus is still subdued by the narrator's self-consciousness. However, the chorus comes in to signal his attempt to overcome himself and celebrate the beautiful canyon full of approachable beautiful women.
Attempt, though, is the key word. The bridge contains one of the strangest lyrics in '60s pop music:
Cloudy waters cast no reflection
Images of beauty lie there stagnant
Vibrations bounce in no direction
But lie there shattered into fragments
Through its almost labored abstraction, the narrator realizes that the beauty and "vibrations" of Southern California are just as fragmented as that dark and dirty New York City. Bizarrely, this lyric is set to music that extraordinarily recalls the chorus. A listener can completely miss these lines if s/he doesn't pay careful attention. The critique is devastating in a close listen, but Phillips' songwriting mitigates against comprehension. Listen to the happy Southern California music, he is saying, but if you pay attention, I'm still searching, still alone, the clocks here all read 12:30 too. Southern California is the narrator's home, but the melancholy still remains. Grass is still grass, pavement is still pavement, the narrator is still the narrator.
I've always enjoyed traveling for the new experiences and escapes that it provides. But I try not to harbor illusions about how great the place I just saw was, or, more accurately, I try to keep a disaffected stance towards my leanings for having what I don't have now. Sometimes that dark and dirty place is, despite my every wishes and desires, where I really should be. I have to always remind myself of what I actually have, focus on the people who care for me rather than the hordes who don't know and won't know who I am. But still, I can dream and sing to the young girls who can't wait to meet me, even if I know they won't change a damn thing about me.
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