Wednesday, April 9, 2025

"Another Morning"

Yester-day, I was thinking about the line "Yesterday's dreams are tomorrow's sighs" in "Another Morning" and realized that there are some musical elements that highlight the contrasts between "yesterday" and "tomorrow" and between the eager anticipation of "dreams" and the reflective disappointment of "sighs."  The first half of the line ("Yesterday's dreams") is sung to a generally ascending melody (C D E D D, with the "-day" of "yesterday's" sung with a melisma, E D), but the second half ("are tomorrow's sighs") is sung to a generally descending melody in a lower register (B B B A G B A, with "tomorrow's" also sung with a melisma, in a bit of parallelism).  The dynamics also change:  "Yesterday's dreams" is sung forte, as if full of energy, but "are tomorrow's sighs" is sung more piano, even diminishing near the end of the line.