"Floating"

I listened to To Our Children's Children's Children this morning and noticed something about "Floating."  The "I'm floating"s in the coda move between the left and right stereo channels, so there's something of a sonic picture of that "floating."  The singer is "floating" across the stereo image, if you like.

"I Really Haven't Got the Time"

Last week, I discovered a legitimate YouTube channel of clips from the German show Beat Club.  There are two videos of the Moody Blues (performing "I Really Haven't Got the Time" and "Bye Bye Bird").  Here's "I Really Haven't Got the Time":

The day after I watched this (the 20th), I realized something about the song.  In the chorus, the title phrase is interrupted:

But I really
I really haven't
I really haven't got the time
I really
I really haven't
I really haven't got the time
I really haven't got the time

That it's constantly interrupted illustrates that the narrator is "a busy man," as if he's called away to something else in between each fragment.

Yester-day, while thinking about the song again and drafting this post, I realized something else.  The "Really haven't got the time" in the coda (at ~2:57) is sung to this phrase:

This is just a slight reworking of a section of "Westminster Quarters," which is often used in clock chimes.  As I know it, it's something like:

with one measure played for every quarter hour (one measure at fifteen past, two measures at half past, and so on).  At the top of the hour, the whole thing is played, followed by the third (B in this key) played once to mark one o'clock, twice to mark two o'clock, or what have you.

Using a section of this melody indicates the importance that the narrator places on his time.

"Visions of Paradise"

A couple weeks ago, I learned about half of one of the flute parts in "Visions of Paradise."  I was thinking about the song recently and realized a small thing about it: in the line "And the call of your eyes makes waterfalls of me," "waterfalls" is sung to a descending phrase (E D C), musically giving a sense of the "-falls" part.

"The Day Begins"

I recently learned that ἥλιος is the ancient Greek word for sun, and of course this got me thinking about the poem at the beginning of Days of Future Passed, which invokes the mythological figure with the same name: "Brave Helios, wake up your steeds."

In thinking about the poem, I realized that there's internal rhyme in the line "The mighty light of ten thousand suns" and that the repetition of -ight helps indicate that strength.

"Tuesday Afternoon"

Last night, I learned the flute part in the coda of "Tuesday Afternoon."  I'd learned the piano part (or at least the bass register of the piano part) last May, before I'd even started this project.  Since I had two simultaneous parts, I thought it worth recording.

All but three pitches of the flute part are out of my range, so I used the mellotron flute voice on my keyboard.

"Floating"

This afternoon, I was thinking about "Floating," and I realized a small thing about the chorus.  "So" in the line "Do as you please with so much ease" is sung with a melisma (A B).  Musically, this emphasizes that adverb and gives a sense of degree.

A Question of Balance

This is just a post to note that I got a copy of A Question of Balance a few days ago and listened to it for the first time to-day.  I knew some of the songs: "Question" is on a couple compilation albums I have, and I was sort of familiar with "Tortoise and the Hare," "Minstrel's Song," and "Melancholy Man" via the live versions on the Live at the Isle of Wight Festival album.

"Lovely to See You"

I just figured out the chords and at least part of the main guitar phrase in "Lovely to See You" and noticed a couple things.

The song is in E major (the verses just alternate between E major and A major), but the bridge is comprised almost entirely of chords with accidentals.  It's |: F major | G major :| F major | E minor | A major.  Musically, these foreign tonalities help to portray the "far away" nature of the "forgotten lands."  Additionally, "far" is sung with a melisma (E F), musically giving a sense of distance.

"Something You Got"

This afternoon, I was thinking about "Something You Got" and realized a small thing about the first two lines: "Something you got, baby / Makes me work all day."  The "all" is sung with a melisma (D C), which gives an impression of the duration of "all day."  When I referenced the song to verify this and to find those specific notes, I discovered that the next two lines have a similar feature: "pay" in "Something you got, babe / Makes me bring you all my pay" is sung with a melisma (D E E D C, I think), which gives an impression of the quantity of "all my pay."

"Candle of Life"

This morning, I lookt at the lyrics printed in the liner notes of To Our Children's Children's Children, and - just in reading the lyrics to "Candle of Life" - I realized that the line "Falling slowly" descends (A G# F# B), musically illustrating that "falling."

"My Song"

In "My Song," the line "And love with all your might" seems to have Biblical origins.  It borrows a phrase (if not exactly the whole sentiment) from Deuteronomy 6:5:  "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."

"You Can Never Go Home"

In "You Can Never Go Home," the line "Turning my back on the past" is sung to a melody that illustrates this sentiment.  There's a descent for "Turning my back on the" (D C# B A G E), but then the melody jumps up a fourth (to an A) for "past."  Instead of descending from beginning to end, there's a reversal of direction there, which musically mirrors "turning my back" in the lyrics.

"One More Time to Live"

In "One More Time to Live," the "by" in the line "See the world passing by" is sung with a melisma (G F# E A), musically giving a sense of movement.

In the middle section (the liner notes label it "Middle 8"), the -tion words come faster for "Saturation / Population," reflecting the meaning of those words.  The end of "Degradation" is sung to a descending melody (E D E D C), musically reflecting its meaning.

"After You Came"

In "After You Came," there's a melisma for "roam" in the lines "Things you want from your life's font / Will never let your spirit roam."  It's sung to two syllables (to the notes G and A), rather than just one, which musically gives something of a sense of the movement of "roam[ing]."

"Eternity Road"

In "Eternity Road," "road" is sung with a glissando from D to C (in one vocal part, at least).  Musically, the word is stretched out, which gives something of a sense of "eternity."  "Load" in the next line - "Carrying your heavy load" - is sung with a descending melisma (F D C), which gives a sense of the "heavy" weight, as if the melody itself is faltering beneath it.

"Procession"

A couple days ago, I learned the flute and guitar parts for a section of "Procession" (~3:26 to ~3:37).  I wanted to use actual flute on this, rather than substituting the mellotron flute voice like I did for "Nights in White Satin," especially because this is a fairly simple part and all of the notes are in my limited range.  Recording it gave me a lot of trouble though.  Part of the difficulty is just that I'm not very good at flute (I slowed the tempo down considerably to make it a bit easier for myself), but I don't think I even have the right type of microphone to record flute.  I did the best I could.

I think the original track uses a nylon-string guitar, but since I don't have one, I just used my steel-string acoustic.  I've been looking into getting a nylon-string guitar, but it's not very high on my priority list.

Here's the notation for the flute part:

And the guitar chords, strummed once on the first beat:

|: D major | G major :| A major | D major

Of course, both of those come with the disclaimer that I might have something wrong.

"The Eyes of a Child - Part One"

I'm not sure of the specific notes, but "'round" in the line "That your world's spinning 'round" in the chorus of "The Eyes of a Child - Part One" is sung with a melisma (in one of the vocal parts, at least), musically giving a sense of the movement of "spinning 'round."

"Higher and Higher"

As the liner notes for To Our Children's Children's Children explain, "the imminent landing of the first man on the moon proved a major source of inspiration to the band."  This is probably most evident in "Higher and Higher."  It's obvious, but I'm going to note it anyway: to reflect the title, various elements in the music ascend.  The line "Climbing to tranquility far above the cloud" references Tranquility Base, the location on the moon where the astronauts landed.

"Procession"

In my initial notes on all of the albums, I didn't have much (or even anything) to say about To Our Children's Children's Children or Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, so I've been listening to those fairly regularly since I started this project (and I have some notes I need to get around to fleshing out into posts here).

To-day I figured out the guitar and flute parts for one section of "Procession" (~3:26 to ~3:37), and I'm working on the harpsichord part that follows it.  In playing that section over and over again in order to figure out the notes, I noticed the organ trill that immediately follows it.  It's a trill between A and G, which is the same trill that starts Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.  Since "Procession" apparently traces the development of music, I think this is an intentional reference.  The organ there sounds more like a Hammond than a pipe organ though, so it's not historically accurate, but whatever.

"And My Baby's Gone"

On Friday afternoon I was thinking about "And My Baby's Gone" (because it features electric guitar controlled by a volume pedal and I've been thinking about getting one), and I realized something about the first verse:

Without a love
Anymore
I'm like a rich man
Gone poor

"Gone poor" is sung to a phrase something like:

(I guessed on the key based on the song's resolution.)

"Gone" is sung to that first Ab, and "poor" is sung to the rest of the notes, which generally descend a fifth from Ab to Db.  This descent in pitch musically mirrors the descent in status that the lyrics describe ("a rich man / Gone poor").

"Nights in White Satin"

I think I've now collected everything I've previously written about the Moody Blues' music, so now I'm moving on to recording some examples of what parts I've already learned (although recordings might be few and far between).  I don't think it's worth it to make a recording unless I know two simultaneous parts and a decent amount of them (time-wise).

For my first recording, I pickt one of the most well-known sections: the flute solo in "Nights of White Satin."  While I own a flute and can play it, most of this solo is well beyond my current range, so I used the mellotron flute sound.  The guitar part is vastly simplified; I just played chords.

"And My Baby's Gone"

When I listened to The Magnificent Moodies yester-day, I noticed something new about "And My Baby's Gone" (a bonus track on the edition I have).  In the second iteration of the chorus, there's the repeated line "When I'm walkin', I fall."  The first time, that "fall" is sung to a descending melody (Ab to F), and after each time, there's a descending phrase played on guitar (Ab G F).  Both of these musically illustrate that "fall[ing]."

"It's Easy Child"

I listened to The Magnificent Moodies this morning and discovered that I'd forgotten to mention something about "It's Easy Child" (included as a bonus track).  Some of the "Falling in love with you"s in the backing vocals are sung to descending phrases (F# F# F# F# E D and G G G G E D), giving a sense of that metaphorical "falling."

There's also this phrase in the backing vocals (at ~1:03 and ~2:51), where there's a sustained pitch with pitches added beneath it:

This too gives a sense of that "falling."

In verifying these things, I also noticed that the "Falling in love with you" in the lead vocals at the end of the chorus is sung to the descending phrase C C C B A G.

"Veteran Cosmic Rocker"

Last week I listened to Long Distance Voyager and noticed a small thing about "Veteran Cosmic Rocker."  Near the end of the song, there's the line "He's the apple of their eye," which borrows a phrase from the Bible.  Apparently the first instance is Deuteronomy 32:10, where Moses says, "He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye," but Psalm 17:8 is probably more well-known:  "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings."

"The Voice"

I'd previously noted the parallelism of "Make a promise, take a vow" in "The Voice," but just recently (in fact, the day my other post about it was published, which is the reason I decided to delay this post), I realized that this parallelism illustrates the seriousness of that pledge.  It's as if the gravity of the situation requires this to be said twice.

"Question"

When I was writing a post about "The Story in Your Eyes" a couple days ago, I discovered that "Question" also slipped through the cracks.  (I don't yet have A Question of Balance, so I have "Question" only on compilation albums.)

When I listened to Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 last month, I noticed that "through" in the phrase "would safely lead me through" is sung with a melisma.  In the live version, it's C A G F E, but in the studio version, it's just C A G.  Either way, this musically represents the movement of "lead[ing]... through."

I also noticed that one of the lines is a bit ambiguous when heard.  It could be either "It's more the way you really mean it when you tell me what will be" or "It's more the way you really mean it when you tell me what we'll be."

"The Story in Your Eyes"

I'd thought I'd finished my initial notes, but then I realized I forgot about "The Story in Your Eyes."

In the final verse, there's some internal rhyme in the line "And it's certain that the curtain's gonna fall."  To some degree, that internal rhyme emphasizes the certainty, as if the words' starting to resemble each other represents the inevitability of the end.

The "more" of "Forevermore" has nine syllables instead of the usual one (the whole word is sung to the phrase D E G G B A G A B A G A), so it provides a musical sense of eternity.

I'm familiar with "The Story in Your Eyes" mostly because it's on both of the compilation albums I have (20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Moody Blues and The Best of the Moody Blues).  Originally, it's on Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, which I've listened to only twice.  I listened to it somewhat recently (20 March) and noticed that the end of the line "It's been shining down upon me now" descends to represent that "shining down" musically (A B C B A G F# E D).

Yester-day, after I realized I'd forgotten about it, I also realized that "away" in the line "Wash all our heartaches away" is sung with a melisma (G G F#) and that "fall" in the line "And it's certain that the curtain's gonna fall" is sung with a glissando (A to F#), both of which musically represent movement (downward movement specifically for "fall").  While referencing the song in order to find specific notes and write this post, I also realized that the line "For the love that's deep inside us now" descends (it's sung to the same melody as "It's been shining down upon me now"), musically illustrating that depth.

"Once Is Enough"

Days of Future Passed is referenced in the second verse of "Once Is Enough."  As printed in the liner notes, the lyrics are:

Sometimes you're first
Sometimes you're last
Then again you're somewhere
In your "days of future passed"

There's also a musical representation of number at the beginning of the song.  The first line is "Just ask me once," and it's sung by a single voice.  The second line is "Don't ask me twice," and it's sung by two voices.

"Bless the Wings (That Bring You Back)"

The last three lines of the bridge of "Bless the Wings (That Bring You Back)" are "The dust of many centuries / Has blown across this land / But love will not be scattered like the sand," which are fairly similar to the bridge of "Lovely to See You" from On the Threshold of a Dream: "Tell us what you've seen in faraway forgotten lands / Where empires have turned back to sand."  There are a number of similarities here: both songs were written by Justin Hayward; both of these sections are bridges; and both rhyme "land(s)" with "sand."

Like I mentioned already with "Lovely to See You," this image of the eroding sands of time might have come from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias."

Keys of the Kingdom

I haven't found anything that connects the title Keys of the Kingdom with the songs on the album (maybe I'll find something now that I've started this project), but the title itself seems to come from the Bible.  In Matthew 16:19, Jesus tells His disciples, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

"The Voice"

In "The Voice" after the lines "'Cause out on the ocean of life, my love / There's so many storms we must rise above" (at about 1:52), there's an ascending synth phrase (panned left, playing the notes A B C, I think), which musically represents this "ris[ing] above."

The next two lines are "Can you hear the spirit calling / As it's carried across the waves," which seems to take an image from Genesis 1:2:  "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."

"Long Summer Days"

In "Long Summer Days" (from the "+ 5" on Caught Live + 5), the last word of the first and third lines of the verses is sung with a melisma (D to C# [although the "ways" in the last verse seems like it has a third note]), which musically indicates the length of "days" in "Long summer days," the number of "ways" in "So many ways," and movement in "Time hurries by" and "Don't let it by."

"Lovely to See You"

The bridge of "Lovely to See You" has some resemblance to Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ozymandias."  In the liner notes, the bridge of "Lovely to See You" is rendered as:

Tell us what you've seen in faraway forgotten lands
Where empires have turned back to sand.

Although, appropriate to their being "forgotten," the "lands" is cut off:

The "empires... turn[ing] back to sand" is the same image as Shelley's once-vast domain that has since "decay[ed]" so that only "lone and level sands" and fragments of a statue remain.

There really isn't anything else in "Lovely to See You" that seems connected to "Ozymandias," but between the same image of "empires... turn[ing] back to sand" and the land(s)/sand rhyme (which is also in "Ozymandias"), I think Shelley's poem might have influenced "Lovely to See You," if only slightly.

"In the Beginning"

In "In the Beginning," the line "I think, I think I am, therefore I am, I think" is a slight rephrasing of René Descartes' famous statement "I think, therefore I am."

On the Threshold of a Dream

Shortly after I started this project, I dug through my CD collection to pull out some of the Moody Blues albums so I could easily reference the liner notes if I need to.  Looking at the cover of On the Threshold of a Dream, I discovered that there are some elements from the songs in the art work:

There might be others that I'm missing, but off-hand I noticed three.  In the top center, there's "the white eagle of the North flying overhead" from "The Dream."  From "Are You Sitting Comfortably," there's "a fleet of golden galleons" in the lower left hand corner and "Merlin cast[ing] his spell" on the right.  Because there are these two references to "Are You Sitting Comfortably," it would seem that the castle-like building in the upper left hand corner is meant to be Camelot, which is also mentioned in the song.

"A Simple Game"

This is just a minor point, but in "A Simple Game," the line "We'll touch the sky" ascends (B C# D E), which gives a musical sense of reaching up in order to "touch the sky."

"Legend of a Mind"

I'm fairly certain that the second (and also the fourth) section of "Legend of a Mind" contains the lines "Takes you trips around the bay / Brings you back the same day" (I might be wrong in my transcription).  There's parallelism between "Takes you trips" and "Brings you back."  Both are alliterative, and the word order is similar ("Takes you trips" / "Brings you back" - [verb][direct object][word that alliterates with the verb]).

More interesting, though, is the section half-way through (~1:52), where the length of the lines increases:

Along the coast, you'll hear the most about a light they say that shines so clear
So raise your glass, we'll drink a toast to the little man who sells you thrills along the pier
He'll take you up, he'll bring you down, he'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground
He flies so high, he swoops so low, he knows exactly which way he's gonna go

The rhyme scheme here is the interesting thing.  The first two couplets rhyme with each other ("clear"/"pier"), but the last two couplets seem like they're each two couplets re-arranged into a single line.  So they could be re-rendered as

He'll take you up, he'll bring you down
He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground
He flies so high, he swoops so low
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go

Later in the song (~5:01), they do appear almost in that form:

He'll take you up, he'll bring you down
He'll plant your feet back on the ground
He'll fly so high, he'll swoop so low
Timothy Leary

But in that lengthened verse, the internal rhyme is key.  "Coast," "most," and "toast" are irrelevant to the rhyming of the first two couplets, but they act as an indication of what the rhyme scheme will become.  The words that are in the same position in the line as "most" and "toast" (the words that the eighth syllable falls on: "down" and "low") will become important in that new rhyme scheme:

Along the coast, you'll hear the most about a light they say that shines so clear
So raise your glass, we'll drink a toast to the little man who sells you thrills along the pier
He'll take you up, he'll bring you down, he'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground
He flies so high, he swoops so low, he knows exactly which way he's gonna go 

That internal rhyme acts as a sort of structural foreshadowing.

There are also a couple phrases for which the melody provides a musical representation.  "So raise your glass," "He'll take you up," and "He flies so high" ascend (E A B C#); "He'll bring you down" and "He swoops so low" descend (E' C# B A).  When that "He'll take you up..." section is revisited (~5:01), the "down" and "low" are sung with descending melismas (E to D).  Similarly, the end of "back on the ground" descends (a string of F# notes to an E).

At about 2:22, there's a brief change in meter (a duple meter becomes a triple meter).  I think this is intended to represent the mind-altering effects of Leary's drugs.

In all three of the live versions I have in my collection, Mike Pinder plays the "Charge" fanfare (or something close to it) on mellotron after the line "Along the coast, you'll hear the most about a light they say that shines so clear" (although in some of the versions, it sounds more like "life" than "light").  In chronological order:

• 12 December 1969 (Caught Live + 5), ~2:17
• 17 December 1969 (bonus track on To Our Children's Children's Children), ~1:04
• August 1970 (Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970), ~1:49

"House of Four Doors (Part 1)"

I wrote a post about both "House of Four Doors" songs, but I also have some comments specific to "House of Four Doors (Part 1)."

The line "Shadows fell from trees" descends (one of the vocal parts is D D C Bb A), so there's a musically representation of that falling.

More interesting, though, is the last section of lyrics.  I'm not completely sure of my transcription, but I think it's:

"Enter in, all ye who seek to find within"
As the plaque said on the last door

I think this is meant to be the inverse of the inscription above the Gate of Hell in Dante's Inferno:  "All hope abandon, ye who enter in!" (canto III, line 9).  If nothing else, it's a similar image.

"House of Four Doors"

The melody to which "House of four doors / I could live there forever..." in "House of Four Doors (Part One)" and "House of four doors / You'll be lost now forever..." in "House of Four Doors (Part Two)" are sung has some similarity to a phrase in George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

I still haven't been able to find a complete score for the Rhapsody in Blue, but there are some piano arrangements on IMSLP.  Digging through those, I found the phrase (beginning at con moto):

Specifically, it's:

Apparently, this is called the "love theme" of the Rhapsody in Blue.

The phrase in "House of Four Doors" doesn't have much resemblance as far as rhythm, but the intervals of the pitches are exactly the same (save for the end).  "House of Four Doors" is just a fifth lower, something like:

Both phrases ascend diatonically, have an octave drop after the first three notes, and then continue upwards again.

Because the Moody Blues recorded the Gershwins' "It Ain't Necessarily So," I'm assuming that they were at least somewhat familiar with George Gershwin's other work and that this might be an intentional reference to the Rhapsody in Blue.  I should point out, though, that "House of Four Doors" was written by John Lodge, who wasn't part of the line-up that recorded "It Ain't Necessarily So."

Aside from the possible Gershwin reference, I also noticed that every "forever" sung to this phrase is sung with a melisma (the last four notes: C# C# B B).  This provides something of a musical sense of "forever" since the word itself is stretched out.

"Dr. Livingstone, I Presume"

Each verse addresses a famous explorer.  The first (and title) line is what Henry Stanley said to Dr. David Livingstone after he went looking for the explorer in Africa; "Captain Scott... out there in the snow" refers to Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who endeavored the reach the South Pole; and, of course, Columbus in the third verse is Christopher Columbus, who "discovered" America.

This might be a bit far-fetched, but each verse - along with describing a famous explorer - also has water in one of its three states.  There's water vapor in the African jungles in the first verse, frozen water in the arctic snow and ice in the second, and liquid water in the form of the ocean in the third.

"Ride My See-Saw"

Compared to the first verse of "Ride My See-Saw" ("I worked like a slave for years..."), the chord progression for the second verse ("Left school with a first class pass...") is different.  The first verse is

|: C major | Bb major | F major | G major :| Bb major | C major

but the second verse is

|: C major | Bb major | F major | G major :| Bb major | D minor

Part of this difference seems to be because the first verse transitions into a different iteration of the chorus ("Run, run my life's race...") while the second verse transitions into an instrumental section, but putting a D minor where a C major is expected is also something of a musical representation of the lyric there: "School talk one and one is two / But by now that answer just ain't true."  It's as if the song goes to a different chord (and a minor chord, at that, where everything up to this point has been a major chord) because "by now that answer just ain't true."

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"

Shortly after I first listened to the edition of Days of Future Passed with bonus tracks (including "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" performed live on the BBC), I learned the guitar phrase and chords for the Animals' version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."  After I learned those parts, I tried playing the guitar phrase from the Animals' version on flute (which is how it's played in the Moodies' version).  In doing so, I discovered that the Moodies' version (in A minor) is a whole step lower than the Animals' version (in B minor).

At first, I thought the key was changed just to make the guitar phrase from the Animals' version easier to play on flute*.  In the Animals' version, it's:

On guitar, that C# to D transition isn't anything special, but it's a bit difficult on flute.  The fingerings for C# and D don't have any keys in common.  Here's part of the fingering chart from the back of my flute book:

Lowering the phrase a whole step makes it a lot easier to play on flute.  Here's the notation:

(I should note that in a few instances of this phrase, Ray Thomas adds some trills, but I didn't include those in my notation.)

Here are the relevant fingerings:

All of the fingerings here have at least two keys in common.

Initially, I thought that facilitating that part on flute was the reason the Moody Blues lowered the key from the Animals' version, but as I continued to think about the song, I realized that there might have been an-other reason.  B minor has two sharps, but A minor doesn't have any accidentals.  It might be a bit arcane, but that lack of accidentals is a musical representation of the purity mentioned in the line "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good."  (There are some accidentals in the song [for example, there's a D# in the bass part during the verses and - although I think it might be more implied than outright strummed - there's an E major chord, which contains a G#], but there aren't any accidentals "built-in" as it were in A minor.)  That extra-musical meaning might just be a coincidence and moving the song to A minor was just for a practical purpose, but it's still a valid explanation.

---

*Because the liner notes specifically mention the Animals' version and because the two versions of the song have roughly the same structure, I'm assuming that the Moodies based their version off the Animals' version.  There are some significant differences in the lyrics though.

"Nights in White Satin"

This post is more about the narration that follows "Nights in White Satin" than the song itself.  Accompanying the line "Impassioned lovers wrestle as one," there are tremolos in the strings, apparently to represent that "wrestl[ing]" musically.

"Dawn Is a Feeling"

I'm skipping back a bit in order to write about something I realized this morning.  A couple weeks ago I figured out the piano part for the first two verses of "Dawn Is a Feeling."  I don't think the piano in the third verse is played in the same manner as it is in the first two, but it does have the same structure.  Each chord lasts for four measures except for one (Ab major 7th, I think) under the line "It's true life flies faster than eyes could ever see" (beneath "eyes could ever" specifically).  That one chord change is faster than the others (it lasts only two measures), which musically reflects the notion of "fl[ying] faster than eyes could ever see."

"Twilight Time"

During the bridge of "Twilight Time," there's the line "Building castles in the air."  The melody to which this is sung ascends, representing the increasing height of the castles as they're built.  It's something like:

(I guessed on the key.)

"The Sun Set"

Back in January, I realized that the first line of "The Sun Set" ("When the sun goes down") is sung to a descending melody (Bb Bb Bb A G), musically representing the sun's going down.

Last night (while writing this post) I realized that the line "From this great height" ascends (Bb C D), and that ascent musically represents something of that "height."

"Another Morning"

Just recently (18 March), I realized that there's a significant difference between the verses and choruses of "Another Morning."  The verses are all comprised of notes with short values ("Balloons flying, children sighing / What a day to go kite flying..."), while in the choruses ("Time seems to stand quite still..."), the note values are considerably longer.  Compared to the short notes values in the verses, the long values in the chorus musically demonstrate that "Time seems to stand quite still."

"Dawn Is a Feeling"

Just recently I noticed that in "Dawn Is a Feeling" the "thousand" in the line "This day will last a thousand years if you want it to" is sung with a melisma (F Eb D), which musically gives a sense of that duration of time since the word itself is drawn out.

Days of Future Passed

I realized years ago that there's a sort of parallelism in the album's beginning and ending with the sound of a gong (I think it's even the same recording, just played backwards at the beginning).  Half of the poem at the beginning is repeated at the end too ("Cold hearted orb that rules the night...").  Recently, though, I realized that there's also a parallelism in the time signatures.

"Dawn Is a Feeling" is the first track played by the Moody Blues (rather than the orchestra), and it's in 3/4.  "Nights in White Satin" is the last track, and it's also in 3/4.  All of the other tracks are in duple meter (most are 4/4, but I think "Another Morning" is 2/4).  Those two songs in 3/4 are an-other parallel feature on the album, but when contrasted with the other songs in 4/4, I think they also represent the lingering effects or beginning stages of sleep.  3/4 has one fewer beat per measure than 4/4, and since the two 3/4 songs are positioned at the beginning and end of the day, this "missing" beat can be attributed to sleepiness.  There's not as much energy at dawn or night in the same way that there aren't as many beats per measure in the songs describing those periods of time.

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

The first two lines of the bridge in "Come Back (I Don't Want to Go on without You)" are "Here in the gloom / Of my lonely room."  These same lines also appear in the Ink Spots' "I'm Making Believe."  The two songs were written by different people ("I'm Making Believe" by Monaco and Gordon; "Come Back (I Don't Want to Go on without You)" by Berns and Wexler), but I think there might be a connection because these lines are so similar.  Apparently, "I'm Making Believe" is from 1944, and "Come Back (I Don't Want to Go on without You)" was originally released by the Drifters (as just "I Don't Want to Go on without You") in 1964.

The "every" in the second verse ("I keep seeing your face / Whoa, every place") is sung with three syllables rather than just two, which musically gives a sense of the variety of places in which the singer/speaker sees his girl.

"It Ain't Necessarily So"

In "It Ain't Necessarily So," liable is shortened to li'ble in order to rhyme with Bible in the lines "Things you're li'ble / To read in a Bible," and - to some degree - this illustrates the speaker/singer's doubt.  In the same way that liable lacks a syllable, the speaker/singer lacks complete faith.

None of the versions of "It Ain't Necessarily So" in my collection have the verses in the right chronological order.  The Moody Blues' version has David, Moses, and then Jonah.  In the Bible, Moses appears first ("found in a stream" in Exodus 2), then David (who "slew that Goliath" in 1 Samuel 17), and then Jonah (who "lived in a whale" in Jonah 1).

"Stop!"

The first line of the second verse in "Stop!" is "So you talk better than me."  The flawed grammar demonstrates the singer/speaker's self-acknowledged poor grasp of language.  It should be "You talk better than I [do]."

Introduction

Every so often, I go through a period where I'm obsessed with the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed.  I listened to it every week in 2013 (on Tuesdays because of "Tuesday Afternoon") and again for a couple months in spring 2017 when I got the CD re-issue with bonus tracks.  Recently, I've been getting into it again.

Over the last few years, I've also been getting more and more interested in learning note-perfect instrument parts.  Throughout last year, I learned a few parts (or bits of parts) for almost all of the songs on the album.  Because I've been getting into it again, I've been learning even more parts (I recently acquired a Nord Electro 5D on which I can play samples of the original mellotron tapes, which helps spur my enthusiasm).

Between my renewed interest and the Moody Blues' upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I thought I'd start a blog where I can write about the songs and maybe even post some chords and notation (but always with the disclaimer that I might have something wrong).  I have a number of similarly formatted blogs for other bands already.  The conceit is that I try to learn every part to every song, and on the way to my impossible goal, I discover interesting features that I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not undertaken this endeavor.

For my initial posts, I'm simply going to collect various things that I've already written (perhaps with some editing), going chronologically by album.  I should note that I don't have all of the albums: my collection is complete up until To Our Children's Children's Children, and I have a few albums later on in the catalogue and two live albums.

As with my other projects, there might be some long periods of dormancy, but since I seem to be working towards learning every part of Days of Future Passed already, I figure I might as well make it an official project.