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"Getting to the Point"
I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but the line "Spinnin' softly through the blue now" bears some resemblance to "You're sailing softly through the sun" in "Strange Magic." Also, there's a "blue" again.The "long" in "Forever / Is a long way" is sung as a whole note. There are four beats of "long," so the length of time in the music emphasizes the length of time in the lyric.
"Is It Alright"
I'm not sure if it's the Beatles' influence specifically, but like "P.S. I Love You" and part of "When I'm Sixty-Four," "Is It Alright" is an epistolary song. "Dear Joe / Just thought I'd write and let you know" clearly indicates that this is a letter. There are other epistolary songs, but I think the Beatles' "P.S. I Love You" is one of the most famous, and considering the Beatles' influence on other ELO songs, it's likely that - were this inspired by an-other epistolary song - it was that one."Sorrow about to Fall"
The second syllable of "ground" in "Moved to higher ground" is a higher pitch than the first (I think there's actually a glissando there), so the musical change in pitch reflects the moving itself.The "fall" in the last "Yeah, there's a sorrow about to fall" (and possibly some others) has two syllables instead of the usual one, and - like the "ground" in "Moved to higher ground" but in reverse - the second syllable is a lower pitch than the first, so the word is falling, pitch-wise.
"Calling America"
There's some resemblance between this and "Telephone Line" from A New World Record. Both are about a telephone call and a specifically American one at that. "Calling America" has "America" in the title and lyrics, and the ringing telephone at the beginning of "Telephone Line" is American rather than British. In the liner notes for the re-issue of A New World Record, Jeff Lynne explains how they called a number in the United States so that Richard Tandy could copy the ringing on the Moog.There's also some similarity between this and Chuck Berry's "Memphis." Like "Calling America" ("Information, I'm still here"), "Memphis" is directed to the information service ("Help me, information…"). There's also a similarity of opposites in a way. In "Memphis," the number isn't known ("She could not leave her number"), but in "Calling America," it is ("She left a number for me"). Berry's an acknowledged influence on ELO (they covered his "Roll over Beethoven" and named him in "Rockaria!"), so I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that "Memphis" might have had some influence on "Calling America."
Also, there's an-other "blue" in "Pretty soon she really got the notion / Of flying out across the big, blue ocean."
"Endless Lies"
I mentioned this when I wrote my initial notes on Secret Messages (since the re-issue includes an earlier version of "Endless Lies" as a bonus track), but the "Bye bye, pretty woman" at the beginning is almost certainly a reference to Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman.""Send It"
The "everyday" in the line "I'm waitin' for it everyday" has a Buddy Holly-esque hiccuping. The same sort of thing is on "On the Run" on Discovery, but I'm slightly more convinced on Holly's influence here because "Everyday" is also the title of one of his songs.Both "Send It" and "Sorrow about to Fall" mention wires as a method of communication. "Send It" has "Send it on the wires," and "Sorrow about to Fall" has "There's a new sound in the wires."
