"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.