"Mr. Radio"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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A thing I forgot to mention in my post about No Answer is that the famous motif from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 seems to be hidden in "Mr. Radio."  At about 2:15, the cellos (and I think also the bass part of the piano) has a phrase that isn't too dissimilar.  While the intervals don't match Beethoven's ("Mr. Radio" has Ab to F and then F to D where Beethoven's motif is G to Eb and then F to D), the rhythm is roughly the same.  (I tried notating it, but I'm still not good at figuring out the rhythms for notation.)

Considering that ELO used that motif in other songs (near the beginning of "Roll over Beethoven" and after "I think she'd die for Beethoven" in "Rockaria!"), it wouldn't be too surprising if the similarity here were intentional.  And actually, in referencing "Roll over Beethoven" and "Rockaria!," I found that they didn't use the motif exactly as Beethoven wrote it anyway.  "Roll over Beethoven" has it half a step higher (G# E F# D#), and "Rockaria!," which has only two notes of the motif, has it as G and E, not G and Eb.  They all have roughly the same rhythm though.