Vanishing Lion

Who owns a melody? It’s a question not only for intellectual property lawyers but also for listeners sensitive to similarity.

Case in point: The Dukes of Stratosphear’s “Vanishing Girl” (1987), which, intentionally or not, borrows a melody with an already fraught copyright history.

Disney’s original “The Lion King” (1994) rebooted for a new generation a 1961 single by the Tokens, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The song grafts simple lyrics onto an essentially wordless recording from the previous decade. And the building blocks of that song come from a 1939 recording by South Africa’s Solomon Linda — whose estate fought a long legal battle with Disney for royalties.

There are three key elements in the Linda version that inform future adaptations. For the sake of comparison, the following examples have been transposed to begin on the note C.

Exhbit A: “Uyimbube.”

First there’s the backing vocalists repeating “Uyimbube,” which means “You are a lion” in Zulu. Pete Seeger and the Weavers distorted this into “Wimoweh” circa 1955. Their sped-up chant has remained the foundation of other versions of the song up to the present day.

Exhibit B: Falsetto.

The next element is Linda’s high-pitched, improvised vocal line. Seeger imitates it, and it features as a wordless introduction or interlude in subsequent versions.

Exhibit C: The mighty jungle.

Finally, toward the end of the original recording (2:23), Linda’s improvisation finds approximately the melody that the Tokens later made the focus of their rendition. This is the element that interests us here, because it’s also the melody of “Vanishing Girl.”

Exhibit D: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

The Tokens’ lyrics are confined to the first four notes of the major scale, and they are harmonized in the most obvious way, using the corresponding I, IV, and V chords. The wordless introduction uses the same melody, but reaches down at the end to a low fifth.

Exhibit E: “Vanishing Girl.”

The Dukes’ melody also reaches down at the end, but then climbs back up one semitone. This final note, a flat sixth, puts a twist on the Tokens’ melody, shifting it from the standard major scale to the harmonic major scale and requiring a different harmonization scheme. Instead of I-IV-I-V, it goes I-iv-I-iv. In other words, both chord progressions start in the same place, but where the Tokens proceed to a major subdominant chord, the Dukes’ subdominant is minor.

Some listeners have dismissed “Vanishing Girl” because of its similarity to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” perhaps forgetting that the Dukes’ whole schtick is homage and liberal borrowing from their musical forebears. Granted, the early ’60s Tokens aren’t quite of the same ilk as the late ’60s psychedelic bands the Dukes are openly emulating.

The Dukes of Stratosphear are actually the alter egos of XTC, who borrowed at least one other melody before. Frontman Andy Partridge confided in Todd Bernhardt in a 2007 interview that “Meccanik Dancing” (1978) is a condensation of “Shortnin’ Bread” (see “Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC,” page 55).

Bassist Colin Moulding (aka “The Red Curtain”) wrote “Vanishing Girl.” There appears to be no public acknowledgement from him of its similarity to “Lion.” He does remark in “XTC Song Stories” (page 220): “All I had was this very smooth-sounding melody. […] So we amped it up and got the tempo going and Hollies’d it up.” Chronicler Neville Farmer refers curious listeners to the Hollies’ “King Midas in Reverse” and “On a Carousel.”

Those influences are discernable, but not nearly as explicit as the borrowed melody. Regardless, the subtle alteration and reharmonization of that melody — and the unique direction the song takes from there — make “Vanishing Girl” worthy of another listen. Whatever the melody’s provenance, it’s clear the Dukes put a unique spin on it.

The Green Danube

It’s one of those classical melodies everyone is familiar with even if they can’t name it.

“An der schönen blauen Donau” (“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”) was written by Johann Strauss II in 1866. Its recognizability over a century later is thanks probably in large part to “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) and parodies on “The Simpsons” and elsewhere.

In 2013 I worked up an abbreviated rock instrumental arrangement of Danube for Daniel hales, and the frost heaves. We provided a live soundtrack for a theater production of “Alice in Wonderland.” The director wanted Danube to accompany a scene where the characters play flamingo croquet in slow motion.

Danube would appear to have nothing to do with Wonderland — which is why the Frost Heaves excluded it when we recorded our Lewis Carroll poem adaptations for an album called “Contrariwise.” But in fact we were not the first to make a connection between the two works.

Donovan kicks off his meandering treatment of “The Walrus and the Carpenter” (1971) with a not-quite-right excerpt on organ and calliope. And the music folks at Disney in 1947 demoed a version of “Beautiful Soup” set to the Danube melody. The Mock Turtle and his greenish broth never made it into the film, however, and we only know of his song today thanks to the DVD extras.

The version presented here sticks close to my 2013 adaptation, which covers just the first 76 bars of a 420-bar composition. Except now I’ve given the melody to the bass, in the tradition of the other fuzzy interpretations I’ve been recording lately. Daniel Hales returns as accompanist, but switches his guitar for a ukulele to counterbalance the low-end lead.

We’ve altered the title in tribute to the Frost Heaves’ home base, Greenfield, which got its name from a tributary of a certain tinge, and which was incorporated on this day in 1753.

‘Albums’ of the ‘year’: ‘2020’

Pardon all the scare quotes. These as just some song groupings I discovered and dug over the last 12 months, give or take.

Whack World – Tierra Whack (2018)

My big thing lately is getting away from repetition, and this piece does that of necessity — each song is only a minute long. Thematically, stylistically, it covers an incredible amount of ground in its total runtime of 15 minutes. Also, I’m not sure the music should be separated from its accompanying video, which accentuates its careful crafting and sense of humor.

General Dome – Buke and Gase (2013)

Between the relentless stomping and unconventional plucking it’s almost possible to lose track of the hugely expressive and sneakily high-ranging voice tying it all together.

A State of Wonder – Glenn Gould (1955, 1981)

I eventually developed a strong preference between these two recordings of Johann Sebastain Bach’s Goldberg Variations. But having the chance to contrast two such different interpretations of the same compositions by the same superhuman performer is a rare treat.

A Good Thing Lost – The Poppy Family (1968-1973)

A magnificent voice backed up by ingenious pop craftsmanship. These songs ought to be part of the groovy pantheon, but I’d never gotten a whiff of any of them until this year.

For Certain Because – The Hollies (1966)

Delightful Britpop with just enough psychedelic spice, and fantastic two- and three-part harmonies.

Splendor and Misery – Clipping (2016)

The story of the sole survivor of an uprising on an interstellar slave ship. Glitchy beats created by, among other things, a dot-matrix printer like my grandmother had circa 1992. The album title is a reference to an unfinished Samuel R. Delany novel, one song references Ursula K. LeGuinn. How can I resist?

Related

Post-Looney Toons

Classical Music Diary No. 9

How does one listen to Chopin’s “Funeral March” in a post-“Looney Toons” world? The doomy, plodding left hand and ominous melody feature prominently in 1948’s “Scaredy Cat” and plenty of other cartoon and comedy settings where death and defeat require a soundtrack. Keep listening to the piece, though, and it gets sentimental, almost sweet. Media reductions put an unwelcome slant on any listening to the complete piece (Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35, 1839). On the other hand, when the music evolves beyond this popculture touchstone, the surprises are that much more surprising.

Murmuring in the fog

Classical Music Diary No. 8

As I’ve been reading classical music reviews I’ve been awed by critics who can contrast subtle stylistic differences in various recordings of the same piece. I notice superficial differences, but my ear is not that sophisticated.

There’s one case, however, where I thought I had identified one superior and one inferior recording. I returned to them this week to see if those earlier impressions held up and if I could put them into words.

I’ve owned many copies of Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta performing Henryk Gorecki’s “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” from 1992. I keep lending it to people who, quite understandably, never give it back. At some point I replaced it with a recording from a couple years later by Joanna Kozlowska and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, which didn’t seem to live up to the one I was familiar with.

In my most recent listenings, I’ve identified a few reasons. It’s meant to be a slow, meditative piece. The London version, clocking in at 53:43, hits the sweet spot, whereas the Warsaw version is too slow, stretching to 59:06.

One has to wait more than two minutes longer for the real draw of the piece — the vocals — to enter (13:18 vs. 15:23). And how can anyone compete with Dawn Upshaw? She and the Sinfonietta lean into the drama of the piece, where Kozlowska’s reading feels a bit flat.

The difference between the two versions is most stark in the third movement. The London version is legato, producing a serene, rocking sensation. The Warsaw version, on the other hand, disconnects the two repeated notes of the movement’s foundation, lurching through the whole thing.

Where the Warsaw version is superior is in the recording itself. All the elements can be heard more clearly. The best example is at the very beginning. In the London version, the murmuring doublebasses get lost in a fog, whereas in the Warsaw version they stand out like whispers across a domed gallery.

There’s plenty of music that excites me mentally, but the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” is a rare piece that also excites me dermally. At key moments it sends ripples of surface goosebumps and subsurface chills up and down my arms, my sides, my scalp.

But how do I reconcile my abiding love of this piece with my newfound dislike of repetition? I’ll evade the question and reply with an observation about intervals. Each note is rarely more than a major second away from the one that preceded it, sometimes a third in epiphanic moments.

This is a different kind of minimalism from the scrolling landscape of Adams’ “Harmonielehre.” Both tonally and structurally, “Sorrowful Songs” paces within a confined space, something like the prisoner in the Gestapo cell at Zakopane. But even within these strictures there is still the possibility of transcendence — so many higher octaves within reach.

Already legit

Classical Music Diary No. 7

Gunnar Richter / Namenlos.net / Wikimedia Commons

There’s nothing more frustrating than when a piece of music has a clear shot at perfection but doesn’t quite hit the bull’s-eye. 

Cécile Chaminade’s Flute Concertino in D major, Op. 107 (1902), is just such a piece. It’s very showoffy, with scales racing up and down and notes jumping to their octave in a split second. Although I suppose the point of a concerto (or even its diminutive) is to showcase the technical prowess of the soloist. But on top of that concedable reservation I have an unshakable one: At seven or eight minutes, it’s too long.

The piece is exciting, and it has wonderful melodic ideas. But after they’re developed they’re restated, like the head of a jazz tune, and in the process they overstay their welcome. There’s my old nemesis, Repetition. These ideas are strong enough that they don’t need repetition to legitimize them. Could some clever arranger out there perform an abridgement?

88-fingered automatons

Classical Music Diary No. 6

Sometimes I think “classical music” is not quite the best descriptor for what I’m writing about in this diary. A more accurate but clunkier term would be “rigorously composed music.” Speaking chronologically, the classical period was only from 1750 to 1820, but I’m interested in a broader sweep than even the more casual definition encompasses.

Prime example: Many of Conlon Nancarrow’s “Studies for Player Piano” (1948-1992) sound more blues-inspired than classical. But they’re painstakingly constructed, with higher technical ambitions and more harmonic wonkery than goes into even a very high-minded Steely Dan tune.

Earlier in this diary I disparaged piano plinkplonk, a term that applies very comfortably to many of the Studies. Yet I’m quite receptive to them, at least in brief listening sessions. The difference, perhaps, is that here the plinking and plonking is the main event rather than part of an ensemble with contrasting textures. As bizarro-world boogie-woogie extrapolations performed by 88-fingered automatons on Benzedrine, I like them. Good leaf raking music.