Monday, October 9, 2017

"Kuiama"

I recently learned one of the guitar tracks and the bass part for the first section of the Beatles' "Sun King."  The third guitar phrase (at about 0:13) sounded familiar to me, and I discovered that this same phrase is also in ELO's "Kuiama."  It's at about 2:55 (and around 4:51, although the last note's different).  I should specify that those are the timings of the version on ELO II; I discovered that the version of "Kuiama" on the compilation Olé ELO is a few minutes shorter.

I did the notation for both parts in order to show their similarity, but since both parts contain glissandi, I did the tab too (the ~s indicate glissandi).  I should note that the notation for both is an octave higher than played (otherwise, there'd be a mess of ledger lines).

First, here's the phrase from "Sun King":


And here's the phrase from "Kuiama":


The phrase in "Kuiama" starts exactly the same as that in "Sun King" (even beginning on the same beat in the measure) and then the same phrase is played again an octave higher.

I don't know if the phrase in "Sun King" had anything to do with this phrase in "Kuiama," but they are essentially the same and there are other Beatle references in ELO songs, so it's possible.