"Rings" and Other Lyric Clarification Thread

[ForHerCryingSoul]

Can anyone figure out the lyrics in the really obscure BW song "Rings"?  There is a set of words I cannot for the life of me decipher, as well as some of the lyrics in Oh Lord? 

I know a lot of these lyrics to these piano pieces are in fact, impossible to hear, but I feel there should be a consensus as to what they could be. 

Let's start with the two I mentioned, discuss, and go from here.   

[Jay]

I'm still trying to figure out Oh Lord, years later. Your guess is as good as mine. 

[Howie Edelson]

"Rings" is a longtime favorite of mine.
I recently asked Brian if he remembered it and he did. I asked him what exactly he remembered about it and he answered, "Only that I wrote it once."

[JK]

Can anyone figure out the lyrics in the really obscure BW song "Rings"?  There is a set of words I cannot for the life of me decipher

Have you typed out the ones you can hear? (If they were to be here in this topic we could all contribute.)

If not, I may do it when I find the time.

https://youtu.be/4X760PK_cSY

[JK]

This is a start. The line marked * is particularly troublesome! Those with good ears please step forward...


Rings around my neck at last
The memories of the past
Are catching me so fast
Someone's calling me
To see if I could be
How you could best be like me
Just how you can do tonight
Woh-ohhhhhhh
Oh oh oh

Rings around my neck so tight
One singer is wondering tonight
You can't tell if this is right
Someone's got pressure on me
To see if I can be
How you can just be like me
Just how you can do tonight
Woh-ohhhhhhh
Oh oh oh

[Matt Bielewicz]

I've never heard this before - is it from 'The Cocaine Sessions'? I tried to download that once but gave up when I heard how bad the recordings were.

And indeed, the recording quality here is awful... but as with so much BW stuff from this, uh, *difficult* time, there's the spark of something interesting lurking in there. Some of the chords are great!

Anyway, I'd say that JK got it mostly right. The only amendments I would table are that the line "How you could just be like me" is actually, I think:

"How you could best be like me"

...and the troublesome line "One singer is wasn't tonight"

...is actually "One singer is **wondering** tonight".

The words still don't make much sense, but then we're clearly listening to a work in progress that, er, didn't subsequently progress. Or, not that I can tell - it doesn't sound particularly like any subsequently released tunes I can think of.

[JK]

I've never heard this before - is it from 'The Cocaine Sessions'? I tried to download that once but gave up when I heard how bad the recordings were.

And indeed, the recording quality here is awful... but as with so much BW stuff from this, uh, *difficult* time, there's the spark of something interesting lurking in there. Some of the chords are great!

Anyway, I'd say that JK got it mostly right. The only amendments I would table are that the line "How you could just be like me" is actually, I think:

"How you could best be like me"

...and the troublesome line "One singer is wasn't tonight"

...is actually "One singer is **wondering** tonight".

The words still don't make much sense, but then we're clearly listening to a work in progress that, er, didn't subsequently progress. Or, not that I can tell - it doesn't sound particularly like any subsequently released tunes I can think of.

Thanks, Matt. I've modified it accordingly. Now it makes sense grammatically, if nothing else.   

[Mr Fulton]

https://youtu.be/7gEJea900JE

Here it is

[Lonely Summer]

This is a start. The line marked * is particularly troublesome! Those with good ears please step forward...


Rings around my neck at last
The memories of the past
Are catching me so fast
Someone's calling me
To see if I could be
How you could best be like me
Just how you can do tonight
Woh-ohhhhhhh
Oh oh oh

Rings around my neck so tight
One singer is wondering tonight
You can't tell if this is right
Someone's got pressure on me
To see if I can be
How you can just be like me
Just how you can do tonight
Woh-ohhhhhhh
Oh oh oh

Interesting. Not the song I thought of when I saw "Rings".
Ring, Ring, telephone rings,
somebody says baby what cha doin?

[JK]

I rather fear "Oh Lord" is going to be a much tougher nut to crack...

[HeyJude]

To answer a question above, and someone can correct me of course, but I don't think "Rings" is from the same "source tape" as the "Cocaine Tapes" tapes (meaning the one with "Oh Lord" and "City Blues", etc.).

Not sure if "Rings" is pre or post-1983. I always assumed it was one of the early post-Landy things, perhaps from 1983. Sounds like was just copied a million times before it circulated.

Much like when I first heard "City Blues" years ago (well before Brian re-recorded it in 2004), I thought both "City Blues" and "Rings" could be two songs that would sound good in a Jeff Lynne-Brian production collaboration. I would have loved to hear a Jeff Lynne-produced "City Blues" that wasn't drenched in reverb and effects like the 2004 version, and perhaps without Clapton's proficient yet kind of cold guitar noodling all over it.

[Ang Jones]

I've always thought that it sounds as if the singer feels enslaved. 'Someone's calling me/To see if I could be/How you could best be like me' suggests to me that he is being asked to be how he was in the past. It isn't hard to imagine that is how Brian might have felt when he was trying to move forwards but was forever being pursued by the memories of the past.

I've always thought of it as Brian's Frodo Song because it reminds me of the part of Lord of the Rings where Frodo is wearing the ring on a chain about his neck and is hardly able to walk because of the weight of it.

I love this song and I'm so sorry that it was never fully completed.

[Mr Fulton]

I've heard people refer to Rings as. Reins   Which would probably make more sense