EVE'S TEMPTATION

From MUSIC BLOG

From MUSIC BLOG

EVE'S TEMPTATION

1. I heard you sing your songs of love
As you sipped your glass of wine.
And the songs you are singing now
Are according to your design.
But it looks to my tired eyes
You do not sing for me.
You sing now only for yourself.
Your eyes are like a shield.

(Interlude:)
And now is Eve's Temptation
In the Garden of Desire.
And now you have tasted
The Fruit of Eternal Fire.

(Refrain:)
Standing in the smoke and flames
Of the Fires of Hell,
I can hear you whisper oh so plain
Is there a doctor who can make me well?
Doctor make me well.

2. Please send me to the doctor
To take away this hurt.
I took all my medicine
But it didn't seem to work.
I reach and reach to try to find
Some virgin place to go.
But I can't pass through without you, babe,
And you have sold your soul!

(Instrumental)

3. And when you were standing
Outside of human form,
Did you not see the game of chance
Being played on the Devil's board?
Unplug/short circuit/darling lose control.
Look deep within my eyes.
Seek to find your stolen soul
Beyond the flesh of lies. Beyond!

(Repeat Interlude.)

(Repeat Refrain.)

(COMMENT: In the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s rock was influencing jazz and jazz was influencing rock. Musicians wanted more freedom for instrumental improvisation. One of the solutions was songs with more flexible chord structure. Improvising over complex chord structure had already become too restricting for jazz musicians, so Miles Davis and John Coltrane came up with the idea of modes. Modes offer a scale or a key which doesn’t change but offers a jazz musician free rein for improvisation. Many rock songs of the era were constructed over a riff or chord pattern two to four measures long which repeated over and over again establishing a key and a rhythm. Usually these songs introduced contrasting material later in the structure, but when musicians wanted to improvise, they would just improvise on the pattern or riff for as long as they wanted without worrying about the song structure. Examples of songs which lend themselves to this kind of playing are "All Along The Watchtower" by Bob Dylan and "Season of the Witch" by Donovan. Also certain compositions by Neil Young, including "Down by the River", "Cinnamon Girl", and "Southern Man", have sections for improvisation which do not correspond to the song structure but feature jamming in a key instead.

EVE’S TEMPTATION is basically Verse-Chorus, or AB in structure with three verses and a repeated chorus. The verses are in F#m with a short connecting section setting up the key change to Em for the chorus. The chorus is more flexible, however, and can be expanded as necessary to accommodate instrumental improvisation. In the recorded example, after the second verse the lyric is left off and the soloist is free to improvise over the Em-F progression as long as desired. The last chorus is extended as long as desired to make an ending.

It was written in 1970.)