House with no door

I wrote the other day about receiving the live cd boxset of Peter Hammill. Last night I had the opportunity of listening to one of the discs closely - I chose the disc which I have subtitled "Peter Hammill murders songs by VdGG".

First of all, I doff my hat to someone who is prepared to even try and play these complicated songs on his own. Some of them come off quite well whereas some don't. Hammill has never been known as a particularly good guitarist (he admits as much himself), so the songs which he plays on guitar start with a handicap which he never manages to beat. Some of these guitar songs - especially 'Masks' and 'When she comes' - sound like a 16 year old playing them on guitar. To be modest, I think that I would have played them better than Hammill when I was 16 - except for the fact that the songs had yet to be written. On the other hand, I would never have attempted to play the apocalyptic "After the flood", which actually comes out reasonably well (of course, there's no twelve tone dirge passages in this solo version).

Hammill plays piano much better than he plays guitar, so the piano songs should theoretically sound better, even approaching their original versions. Again, I admire the chutzpa of Hammill to play 'Scorched earth' on his own; whilst certain parts bear almost no resemblance to the original, the majority of the song shows a high accuracy (including the metric irregularities).

The one song which I want to write about most is a song which has been close to my heart since its release in 1971: "House with no door". I even performed this a few times in public around the time of its release (when I was indeed 16 years old) so I have a deep knowledge of it. Hammill  played piano on the recording so he too should be more than familiar with the chord sequence. 

I note that the song is credited to Hammill/Jackson, but I have never been able to ascertain what David Jackson's credit is for. Did he write all the music? Maybe the credit was for his multiple flute/sax solo?

Anyway, in the key of C, the chords to the verse are

C G Dm6 C F Em Bb F

C G Dm6 C F Em Bb Fm

The chords show a beautiful movement;  the change from Em to Bb creates a very strong cross- relation and is most distinctive - to my ears, it makes the verse. Similarly, the F at the end of the first line (there is a double plagal cadence here, Bb -> F -> C) is mirrored and saddened by the Fm in the same place in the second line: another brilliant chord change.

Unfortunately, Hammill almost ignores this sequence: I'm not sure what chord he played after the Dm6,  but the Bb chord is replaced by Dm  (a weak if possible replacement) and the F is replaced by G, which totally ruins the harmony as well as wrecking the double plagal cadence. To make matters worse, the Fm in the second line is also replaced by G! 

Why sabotage one's own song deliberately?

As it happens, I read an interview with Hammill from 2005 the other day which was very illuminating. It goes with great depth into subjects such as Hammill's guitars, his guitar style, his effects pedals, his keyboards, etc - subjects which interest me greatly. For some reason, Hammill comes across as slightly inarticulate regarding these subjects, and it's quite difficult to understand what he really means. He disparages his guitar playing (quite rightly) but also claims that he knows nothing of chords, possibly disingenuously. I find this last statement very hard to believe; maybe he doesn't know about diminished fifths and sharpened ninths, but he should know chords and standard chord sequences. 

Maybe this lack of knowledge about chords is what caused him to murder the lovely piano ballad, 'House'?