Friday, June 22, 2018

"Starlight"

I noticed a couple different things about how the vocals are articulated in "Starlight."

"Run" in the line "And then you run" is sung with a melisma, although it's not always the same.  At ~0:47 and ~2:52, it's C Ab F, but at ~1:47, it's Ab G F G.  For both, there's a musical sense of the movement of "run[ning]."

"Away" in the line "Your eyes are lookin' out so far away" (at the beginning of the second verse) is sung with a melisma (C D F), musically giving a sense of distance.

At the end, in the repeated line "Starlight, your eyes are lookin' down on me, so far away," "down on me" is sung to a descending phrase (D C Ab, I think), giving a sense of that "down," and "away" is sung with a melisma (Eb D C Bb A), giving a sense of distance again.