Eldorado

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I finally got around to listening to Eldorado and writing up more detailed versions of my past notes.  I also found some new things.

"Boy Blue"

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the lyrics to the early ELO songs (so my transcriptions are all over the place in terms of accuracy and completeness), but I think one of the lines in "Boy Blue" is "I've seen bald nights," which is probably a reference to Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain.  I listened to Night on Bald Mountain immediately after Eldorado, and while there do seem to be similarities in mood, I didn't find anything specific that links them.

"Poorboy (the Greenwood)"

This mentions "sweet Maid Marian" who comes from the Robin Hood stories, so there's a connection between this song and the earlier "Can't Get It out of My Head," specifically the line "Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot."  (Incidentally, Raleigh's Ivanhoe and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur are both on my to-read list, so once I get around to those, maybe I'll understand those allusions better.  I read Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood last summer, so that could stand re-reading at some point too.)

"Mister Kingdom"

This contains the line "Go to sleep, perchance to dream," which is a reference to and quote of Shakespeare's Hamlet - "To sleep - perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!" (III.i.73).

"Nobody's Child"

"Nobody's Child" exhibits anaphora:  every line in the verses starts with the vocative "Painted lady."  There's also some alliteration in the line "Painted lady, don't you do these dirty deeds."

"Eldorado"

There's a recurring section that goes something like:

And I will stay
I'll not be back
Eldorado
I will be free, yeah
Of the world
Eldorado

The last one of these, however, breaks off halfway through, so that it's just "And I will stay / I'll not be back / Eldorado."  That last section is left incomplete, as if the speaker/singer indeed hasn't come back.

"Eldorado Finale"

This is also present in "Eldorado Overture" but the lines aren't successive.  In both though, there are lines that mention "The unwoken fool" who is "High on a hill in Eldorado," which might be a reference to the Beatles' "The Fool on the Hill."