Friday, October 31, 2025

"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).

Thursday, October 30, 2025

"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.

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

"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).

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

"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'."

Monday, October 20, 2025

"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).