Similarly, the "up" and "down" in the line "The wave of emotion takes you up, pulls you down" are demonstrated by the melody: "up" (F#) is above "down" (E), and the phrase "takes you up" is sung to an ascending group of notes (D E F#). The phrase "pulls you down" isn't as exact, but it is sung with at least some descent (D F# E).
House of Four Doors
Friday, October 31, 2025
"Never Blame the Rainbows for the Rain"
In "Never Blame the Rainbows for the Rain," the melody for the line "The earth that's beneath us, the heavens above" reflects these positions: "earth" is sung to lower pitch (D) than "heavens" (two F#s). "Us" is sung to a D, so while "earth" isn't really "beneath" it in terms of pitch, "heavens" is above it.
Thursday, October 30, 2025
"Celtic Sonant"
"Celtic Sonant" contains the phrase "yesterday's dreams" ("cups overflowing / Brimful of mem'ries and yesterday's dreams"), which also appears in "Another Morning" on Days of Future Passed ("Yesterday's dreams are tomorrow's sighs"). That the phrase is in both songs might be just a coincidence, but the reflective mood in "Celtic Sonant" ("brimful of mem'ries") seems to hint at an intentional re-use, especially since both songs were written by Ray Thomas.
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Celtic Sonant
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
"Say What You Mean (Part I)"
In the line "As you turn your face to the sky" in "Say What You Mean (Part I)," the phrase "to the sky" is sung to an ascending group of notes (C D E). Although it's slight, this ascent does give some sense of the meaning here.
I figured out the chords for the song and discovered that this ascent is also in the chord progression for this line: D minor | G major | A major. If I'm not mistaken, the song is in D minor, so there are additional half step raises in the accidentals (B natural in G major and C# in A major, instead of the key's usual Bb and C natural, respectively).
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Say What You Mean (Part I)
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
"Is This Heaven?"
I listened to Keys of the Kingdom last week and noticed a handful of small features.
The first words of "Is This Heaven?" ("Walkin' home with you last night") are sung to an almost exclusively diatonic melody (there's only one break: C D E F C D E), so there's a musical sense of the steps involved in this "walkin'."
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Is This Heaven?
Monday, October 20, 2025
"Your Wildest Dreams"
I was thinking about "Your Wildest Dreams" recently and realized that "wildest" in the title phrase is sung with a melisma (most of the time, it's A G F#, but there are also D C B C and D G F# in the coda). Because the word isn't constrained to its usual number of syllables, there's a sense of its meaning. Additionally, the extra syllable indicates (in a small way) the superlative nature of this adjective (more notes for a greater degree).
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Your Wildest Dreams
Thursday, September 11, 2025
"Tortoise and the Hare"
Yester-day, I was thinking about "Tortoise and the Hare." Initially, I had just a small realization about the first half of the bridge, but the more I lookt into the song, the more I found to write about.
The bridge starts with the lines:
Your friend is heavyBut he was readyAnd never stopped for a while
sung to a melody something like this:
The lines "Your friend is heavy / But he was ready" establish a rhythmic pattern, but this is broken by "stopped," which is sung with a value that's shorter than what's expected (a quarter note instead of a half note). In a way, this truncation matches the meaning (even though the line describes how the tortoise "never stopped").
In an opposite manner, "while" is sung with a long note value (two full measures, I think), lending a sense of this duration.
The second half of the bridge is:
While you were sleepingHe went on keepingThe final line in his mind
The line "The final line in his mind" exhibits assonance (the long i). This sound is sustained in the same way that the tortoise maintains his focus on his goal. That the sense is spread across the line break ("He went on keeping / The final line in his mind") also demonstrates this endurance.
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Tortoise and the Hare
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
"Eternity Road"
About a year and a half ago, I thought that there was some resemblance between the guitar solo in "Eternity Road" and the vocal melody in "Lovely to See You." Recently, I finally got around to looking into it.
Really, the similarity is one of rhythm, not so much of tonality. Each measure consists of an initial group of three eighth notes and then a longer note (starting on the "and" of the second beat) that lasts for the remainder of the measure (or, in the case of "Lovely to See You," for most of it; there need to be breaks for breathing). It's worth pointing out, though, that roughly the second measure in "Lovely to See You" (corresponding to the lyrics "For passing my way" in the first verse) is entirely conjunct, as are most of the phrases in this section of the solo in "Eternity Road."
The guitar solo in "Eternity Road" has two different parts, separated in the left and right channels. The last four measures are something like this (I'll admit that I'm a bit unsure of the A in the last measure of the top line):
Usually, there's a glissando between the first two notes of each measure. In tablature, the parts are something like this:
Left-channel (top line):
B|-6~5-3---|---------|---------|---------|
G|-------5-|-4~2-0-2-|---------|---------|
D|---------|---------|-3~2-0---|-----2-0-|
A|---------|---------|-------3-|-0-3-----|
G|-------5-|-4~2-0-2-|---------|---------|
D|---------|---------|-3~2-0---|-----2-0-|
A|---------|---------|-------3-|-0-3-----|
Right-channel (bottom line):
B|---------|---------|-6~5-3---|---------|
G|-5~4-2-0-|---------|-------5-|-4~2-0-2-|
D|---------|-3~2---0-|---------|---------|
A|---------|-----3---|---------|---------|
The vocal melody in the verses of "Lovely to See You" is something like this:
Really, the similarity is one of rhythm, not so much of tonality. Each measure consists of an initial group of three eighth notes and then a longer note (starting on the "and" of the second beat) that lasts for the remainder of the measure (or, in the case of "Lovely to See You," for most of it; there need to be breaks for breathing). It's worth pointing out, though, that roughly the second measure in "Lovely to See You" (corresponding to the lyrics "For passing my way" in the first verse) is entirely conjunct, as are most of the phrases in this section of the solo in "Eternity Road."
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Eternity Road
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
"Another Morning"
Yester-day, I was thinking about the line "Yesterday's dreams are tomorrow's sighs" in "Another Morning" and realized that there are some musical elements that highlight the contrasts between "yesterday" and "tomorrow" and between the eager anticipation of "dreams" and the reflective disappointment of "sighs." The first half of the line ("Yesterday's dreams") is sung to a generally ascending melody (C D E D D, with the "-day" of "yesterday's" sung with a melisma, E D), but the second half ("are tomorrow's sighs") is sung to a generally descending melody in a lower register (B B B A G B A, with "tomorrow's" also sung with a melisma, in a bit of parallelism). The dynamics also change: "Yesterday's dreams" is sung forte, as if full of energy, but "are tomorrow's sighs" is sung more piano, even diminishing near the end of the line.
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Another Morning
Sunday, March 30, 2025
"Have You Heard - Part 2"
I recently re-encountered a Biblical text that "Have You Heard - Part 2" seems to echo. Previously, I wasn't convinced that this similarity was anything more than coincidence, but I felt now that I should at least note it. In Matthew 13:24, Jesus starts telling His disciples a parable: "He put another parable before them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.'" Much of the same vocabulary appears in the line "Scatter good seed in the fields" in "Have You Heard - Part 2."
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Have You Heard Part 2
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
"After You Came"
I listened to Every Good Boy Deserves Favour yester-day and noticed a small feature in "After You Came." In the lines "So you just have to laugh / When it hurts so much," "hurts" is sung with a melisma (B A), giving a sense of degree (for "so much").
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After You Came
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