"I'll Go Crazy"

I listened to The Magnificent Moodies yester-day and noticed a plethora of things about which I'll have posts for the next week or so (although almost all of them are just small points).

In the third "You know I feel alright" at the beginning of "I'll Go Crazy," the "al-" of "alright" is sung with a melisma spanning an octave:  F Eb C Bb Ab F.  Musically, this gives a sense of entirety.

I'm not sure of the specific notes, but "much" in the line "Oh, love you too much" is also sung with a melisma, musically giving a sense of amount or degree.  This is also present in James Brown's original (although Brown's melismas are just two notes [C Bb] where the Moodies have many more).

"I'll Go Crazy"

I listened to The Magnificent Moodies this evening, and then I figured out some of the piano in "I'll Go Crazy."  I also compared it to James Brown's original version.

The piano in the verses of the Moodies' version is something like:

In Brown's version, it's played on guitar, something like:

It starts an octave lower (and it's in a different key), but what I thought at least fairly interesting is that the Moodies change the relative position of the second series of triplets.  Compared to Brown's version, it's shifted down an octave.  This avoids playing the same note twice in succession when the second series of triplets goes back into the first (the last note of the second measure and the first note of the third).