"The Voice"

This morning, I started transcribing the lyrics in the booklet from Long Distance Voyager for easier reference, and I noticed some significant variations in the syllable counts in lines in "The Voice."

The first verse starts with the lines

Won't you take me back to school

I need to learn the golden rule

Won't you lay it on the line

I need to hear it just one more time

The first two lines establish a pattern (seven syllables then eight syllables), but the next two lines don't completely follow it (seven syllables but then nine syllables).  In a way, this extra syllable in the fourth line represents the addition that the lyrics themselves mention ("one more time").

The beginning of the third verse exhibits a similar expansion:

Make a promise, take a vow,

And trust your feelings; it's easy now

Understand the voice within

And feel a change* already beginning

Once again, the first two lines establish a pattern (seven syllables then nine syllables), and the subsequent lines initially follow this (seven syllables in the third line) but then break away (ten syllables in the fourth).  Here, the alteration in the number of syllables matches the "change" in the lyrics.  Additionally, the rhyme scheme shifts:  instead of line-ending rhymes (like the preceding "vow" and "now"), the final syllable of "within" rhymes with an internal sound in "beginning."

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*I think it's "a change" in the recording, but the booklet has "the changes."

"Veteran Cosmic Rocker"

I listened to Long Distance Voyager yester-day.  I'm not sure this is really worth noting, but I noticed for the first time that the middle section of "Veteran Cosmic Rocker" (roughly from ~1:11 to ~2:08) exhibits something that's at least close to the Bo Diddley beat.

"Come Back (I Don't Want to Go on without You)"

Last week, I figured out the chords for "Come Back (I Don't Want to Go on without You)."  A few days later, I was thinking about the song again and had a number of realizations about it, mostly about the bridge:

Here in the gloom

Of my lonely room

I hold her handkerchief

And smell her sweet perfume

In the first verse, the narrator explains that he's alone.  Here, he "hold[s] her handkerchief" almost as a substitute for holding her hand.  The two phrases start the same way.

The lines "I hold her handkerchief / And smell her sweet perfume" exhibit alliteration, and the euphony of this effect gives some indication of the pleasantness of either the situation the narrator imagines or his actual memories of the past.

The initial sounds of this pleasant alliteration contrast with the line-ending rhymes in the previous couplet, where the narrator's sadness and isolation are highlighted.  Their opposite positions emphasize this difference.

In the first verse, there's a slant rhyme between "alone" and "home" ("It's so bad to be alone / Oh, baby, come home"), and this imperfection indicates the narrator's lack of sufficient companionship.

"In the Beginning"

I was thinking about "In the Beginning" this morning, and realized that the alliteration in the line "Keep as cool as you can" holds some significance.  The multiple instances of this phoneme provide a slight sense of degree (similar to how the persistent rhymes in other lines portray an abundance, which I've written about before).  That the phoneme is sustained from word to word also lends a sense of the constancy of "keep."

"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.

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).

"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.

"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).

"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'."

"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).

"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 heavy

But he was ready

And 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 sleeping

He went on keeping

The 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.