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"In Old England Town"
A particular musical element of this caused the greatest delay in this post. I'd thought that a section of the guitar part resembles that at the very end of the Beatles' "Carry That Weight" (which carries over into a bit of "The End"), but I didn't really want to say anything until I learned the parts. I haven't learned all of the guitar phrase in "In Old England Town," but I did learn enough to compare it to that in "Carry That Weight" (a phrase which I did learn in its entirety), and I discovered that while the phrase in "In Old England Town" is much longer, it at least starts the same. Both phrases are arpeggiated chords beginning with C majors and then going to C major 7ths. "Carry That Weight" then goes to an A major, but "In Old England Town" continues various arpeggiations so that there's a chromatic phrase from that initial C all the way to (I think) D.
I'm not sure if that arpeggiated change from C major to C major 7th was directly inspired by "Carry That Weight," but considering that the Electric Light Orchestra was founded "to continue where 'I Am the Walrus' left off" or whatever it was, I'm more likely to think Beatle connections intentional than just coincidences. (I've seen that "I Am the Walrus" statement quoted in a few different places, but I haven't been able to find an original source for it.)
Speaking of which, that guitar phrase isn't the only Beatle connection that "In Old England Town" has. Along with that arpeggiated part, I learned a few other sections. "In Old England Town" starts with alternating G#s and Gs before going down to repeated Es (something like G# G G# G G# G E E E E E), which bears some similarity to the beginning of the Beatles' "Day Tripper," albeit reversed. The riff in "Day Tripper" starts with E G G#. In any case, both are sort of in-between E major and E minor (at the beginning at least; I think "In Old England Town" changes keys later). There's slightly more evidence for this connection than that with "Carry That Weight;" ELO covered "Day Tripper" on Rockpalast in the early 1970s (either '73 or '74, I think). It's on the British edition of the Live: The Early Years DVD.
Later in "In Old England Town," there's the line "Ablution, evolution" (at least I think that's the line; I was having a lot of troubles transcribing the lyrics), which might have some connection to the Beatles' "Revolution." "Revolution" doesn't contain the word ablution, but it does prominently use "evolution" and other "-tion" words in the rhyme scheme.
Also in the lyrics is policeman, abbreviated as "p'liceman," which is the same abbreviation as that in the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus." There aren't many other ways to cut a syllable out of policeman, so that might just be coincidental, but - again - considering the whole "continue where 'I Am the Walrus' left off,"” there might be something to that.
I think one of the lines is "Ten thousand tons of waste dropped then ejected," which has a slight connection to some lines in "Kuiama" later on the album: "Now ten thousand miles / Is a long, long way."
"Roll over Beethoven"
I already mentioned this in a previous post, but ELO actually includes a quotation of the famous motif from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor (although half a step higher than Beethoven) near the beginning of their version of Chuck Berry's "Roll over Beethoven."
"Kuiama"
While trying to transcribe "Kuiama," I noticed anaphora in the bridge - one of the few sections that I actually did complete a transcription of (although there's always the possibility that I misheard something). Four lines begin with "no more," and a fifth has it very close to the beginning:
No more silver rain will hedge your ground
And no more guns will sound
No more life be drowned
No more trenches where the soldiers lie
No more people die
Beneath that big black sky
"From the Sun to the World"
The opening piano part in "From the Sun to the World" bears some resemblance to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. At some point, I'm going to write a separate post about it because 1) I need to write about it more in depth than here and 2) I need more time to look into some things and this post has been held back long enough.
