"In the Beginning"

I'm pretty sure I noticed before that in "In the Beginning," the phrase "our great computer" is spoken more loudly than the preceding and following words, but I realized yester-day that this change in dynamics highlights that exalted status.

"Question"

Since I finished transcribing the lyrics in the CD booklet from On the Threshold of a Dream, I've moved on to A Question of Balance (I'd already done To Our Children's Children's Children).  Last night, I transcribed "Question" and noticed polysyndeton (the repeated "and") in the lines "With a thousand million questions / About hate and death and war."  It's only a slight use of this rhetorical device, but to some degree, it provides a sense of amount (the "thousand million" from the previous line).

"Have You Heard - Part 2"

Yester-day, I finally finished transcribing the lyrics from the CD booklet from On the Threshold of a Dream.  While copying the lyrics for "Have You Heard - Part 2," I realized something about the line "Scatter good seed in the fields."  Each syllable in the line is sung to a different pitch, and as a whole, the pitches span more than an octave (A B C D E G B).  Musically, then, there's a sense of the breadth and extending of that "scatter[ing]."

"In the Beginning"

This morning, I started transcribing the lyrics from the booklet of On the Threshold of a Dream into Google Documents so that they're easier to reference.  So far, all I've done is "In the Beginning," but in transcribing it, I noticed something:  the insistently repeated rhymes in "I've miles / And miles / Of files / Pretty files..." and "Face piles / And piles / Of trials / With smiles" help provide a sense of abundance in both of these instances.

"Ride My See-Saw"

This morning, I watched this live performance of "Ride My See-Saw" in France in 1969:

I realized two things about the instrumental section (which starts at ~1:50 in this performance but at ~1:40 in the studio recording).  Years ago, I figured out two of the vocal parts.  They're something like:

The higher part generally descends, and the lower part ascends.  This simultaneous up-and-down illustrates the confusion that's mentioned in the lyrics that come before and after this section.  The preceding line is "But by now that answer just ain't true," and the next lyrics are "My world is spinnin' around / Ev'rything is lost that I've found."  The vocal parts' going two different directions provides a sense of this disorientation.

Alternatively, this simultaneous up-and-down gives a musical picture of that see-saw.  It's like each vocal part is an end; as one goes up, the other comes down.

"Eternity Road"

Years ago, I wrote about some significant vocal articulations in "Eternity Road," and recently I found an-other one:  "alone" in the line "And so very much alone" is sung with a melisma (D A G), giving a sense of degree (for the description "so very much").

"Out and In"

A few years ago, I wrote a short post about how in "Out and In," "view" in the line "Looking for total view" is sung with a melisma and that this provides a sense of the entirety of "total."  After I listened to To Our Children's Children's Children recently, I realized that there's an-other musical feature that gives a sense of this breadth.  Underneath this line, the chords are F major and D major.  Usually, those two chords would not go together, but their juxtaposition here provides a sense of tonal breadth, especially since Mike Pinder uses the pitch shift knob on the Mellotron to slide from the F major down to the D major.

"Higher and Higher"

I listened to To Our Children's Children's Children yester-day and noticed a handful of features.

The first line of "Higher and Higher" exhibits alliteration:  "Blasting, billowing, bursting forth with the power of ten billion butterfly sneezes."  I think it's significant that the alliterative sound here is a plosive.  In a way, these plosives give the sense of a rocket's propulsion.

"I Know You're Out There Somewhere"

I was thinking about "I Know You're Out There Somewhere" yester-day, specifically this synthesizer phrase:

The first half ascends (save for the last note), and the second half descends.  Throughout, the notes occur alternately on downbeats or upbeats.  Because of this alternating (in rising or falling and in where the beat falls), there's something of an impression of looking up and down.  This searching is also referred to later in the lyrics:  "I know I'll find you somehow."

"You Can Never Go Home"

Yester-day, I figured out the chords for "You Can Never Go Home" and noticed some significance with the tonic chord and note.  The song is in D major, so D is the tonic note and the musical "home."  In the two instances of the lines "Memories can never take you back home sweet home / You can never go home anymore" (at ~0:49 and ~3:43), the first "home" is sung to a G above a G major, the second to a pair of F#s above a D major, and the third to a D above a G major.  Some of these may give a hint of being musically at home either because "home" is sung above the tonic chord (the second "home") or because it's sung to the tonic note (the third "home"), but there isn't a fully realized homecoming with "home" sung to a D note above a D major.  Musically, then, there's the same sentiment that's in the lyrics:  "You can never go home."