"You Don't Believe"

A couple days ago, I figured out the chords for "You Don't Believe."  (I'm not sure if it's actually true, but it seems that I learn more parts from Ammonia Avenue than the other albums.  It's alphabetically first, so when I go to that part of my music collection to try to learn a part, that's the first album available.)  Because that's the only part I know and because listening to a recording of just chords would be boring, I'm not going to record a version.  Furthermore, according to the liner notes for the demo of "You Don't Believe," the chords (in both the demo and the final version) are sampled guitar chords played on a Fairlight, so I doubt I could match the tone very well even if I did try to record it.

I made sure to write them down, and while listening to the recording again to verify them, I noticed a connection between the chords and the lyrics.

The chords for the verses, as I figured them out, are:

C minor | Bb major | Eb major | C minor
Eb major | F major | C minor
C minor | Bb major | Eb major | C minor
Eb major | F major | C minor

Each line in the verses contains both a C minor chord and an Eb major chord.  C minor and Eb major are relative keys; they both have all of the same notes, just starting in different places.  Since "You Don't Believe" fades out at the end, there's no resolution, so it's sort of ambiguous whether the song is in C minor or Eb major (if I had to guess, I'd say C minor because it starts with a C note).  Tonally, it's like the song is alternately pulled toward either C minor or Eb major, and that same sort of division is in the lyrics.  Each line in the verses contains both "my" and "your."

First verse:

My eyes with your vision
My choice but always your decision
My play with your direction
Well it's my lead but always your connection

Second verse:

My words, your expression
My land, always your possession
My song, your production
My expense is always your deduction

Third verse:

My fame, your reflection
My weakness always your protection
Well it's my terms on your conditions
And they're my tunes but they're your compositions

In each line, possession is alternately first person ("my") or second person ("your") in the same way the song seems to be alternately in C minor or Eb major.

Ammonia Avenue

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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A few weeks ago, I got Ammonia Avenue on CD (with bonus tracks!), so - excepting The Sicilian Defence - I now have all of the APP albums on CD.  I listened to Ammonia Avenue to-day, and I noticed two things:

There are recurring drum parts in "You Don't Believe" that sound really similar to recurring drum parts in "Lucifer" from Eve.  The first one in "You Don't Believe" is at about 0:20, and in "Lucifer," the first one is at about 1:28.  According to the APP website, Stuart Elliot played drums on both tracks.

The other thing I noticed is a line in "Ammonia Avenue" - the title track.  After the first verse, there's this couplet:

And who are we to criticize or scorn the things that they do?
For we shall seek and we shall find Ammonia Avenue

I think that the line "we shall seek and we shall find" is a Biblical reference.  I'm not really sure how it relates to the rest of the song, but at the very least, there's a strong resemblance between that line and Matthew 7:7: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."