"Danger Ahead"

Yester-day, ELO's social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram) posted that it was the fortieth anniversary of the release of Secret Messages.  I didn't have time to listen to the album yester-day, but I listened to it this morning and noticed a small feature in "Danger Ahead":  for most of the verses, the vocal is centered in the stereo picture, but in the second half of the third verse, starting with the line "With her entourage on either side," there are two sets of vocals, with one panned left and one panned right to portray "on either side" in a musical way.

"Danger Ahead"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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After I figured out (most of) the bass part for "Loser Gone Wild," I also figured out (I think all of) one of the guitar parts in "Danger Ahead."  I was going to record that yester-day, but I didn't have the time.  Now I don't think I'm going to record it at all because it's just a handful of chords and a couple diatonic phrases, so it wouldn't be that interesting to listen to (especially because there are, at most, seven measures of rests between some of those parts).  So I guess I'll just write it down and wait until I learn a part that's more substantial.  Based on that guitar part, I'm pretty certain that the song is in E major, and knowing that might help in figuring out other parts.

Secret Messages

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[link to original on tumblr]

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Secret Messages came up in my cycle of albums to listen to, so I finally got around to starting my transcriptions and putting together some initial notes on the album.  Mostly, they're just possible Beatle references.

"Secret Messages"

Jeff Lynne uses "blue" again in the line "And now they call, they sing, they play, they dance for you from out of the blue."  There's even an additional reference here because the phrase "out of the blue" is also the title of an earlier ELO album.

I'm not sure if it's really a reference, but some of the lines are reminiscent of those in the Beatles' "Across the Universe."  They're long and flowing, like "Where words cascade like rainbows tumbling from the sky."  (Compare "Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup" from "Across the Universe.")

"Letter from Spain"

The first verse has some similarities to the Beatles' "A Day in the Life."  The first two lines are "I read the papers this morning / I saw your photograph."  "A Day in the Life" starts with "I read the news today, oh boy," and later there's the line "I saw the photograph."  The situations are different, but there's a lyrical similarity.

"Train of Gold"

This one also starts with what seem to be Beatles references: "I saw her there from across the street / She was dressed in black."  Specifically, there's "I Saw Her Standing There" (with the distance mentioned in "When I crossed that room" in the bridge) and "Baby's in Black."

"Looked through her window, saw a velvet sky" is actually the second "velvet sky" on the album.  "Time after Time" has the lines "The beauty of the earth from way up high / Shines like a jewel upon the velvet sky."

"Rock 'n' Roll Is King"

It's pretty obvious, but the line "She rolled over Beethoven, and she gave Tchaikovsky back" is a nod to "Roll over Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news" from Chuck Berry's "Roll over Beethoven," which ELO covered on ELO II.

-Bonus Tracks-
"No Way Out"

In the lyrics, there's the phrase "Run, don't walk," which is an inversion of the title "Walk, Don't Run," a fairly well-known song by the Ventures.  I'm not sure if it's intended to reference it, but it seems too coincidental otherwise.

"Endless Lies"

It's in the version on Balance of Power too, but the "Bye bye, pretty woman" that starts the song is almost certainly a reference to Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman."  In the re-issue liner notes, Lynne says he was "having a go at a Roy Orbison type tune."  Musically, that's pretty clear, but that lyrical reference figures into the pastiche too.

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I also noticed the phrase "standin' there" in two different songs.  Initially, I was sort of skeptical of this, but it does seem to make an appearance in quite a few ELO songs.  On Secret Messages, it's in "Stranger" ("And I saw you standin' there / Standin' there") and "Danger Ahead" ("Look through a window, and you'll see her standin' there").

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I also have a non-musical note about this album.  One of the figures on the front cover is Titian's Venus of Urbino:

On the album cover, she's been flipped horizontally.