"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").