Secret Messages

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---

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.

—

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").

—

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.

ELO II

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---

About a week ago, I listened to ELO II so I could finally write a post about it.

"In Old England Town"

A particular musical element of this caused the greatest delay in this post.  I'd thought that a section of the guitar part resembles that at the very end of the Beatles' "Carry That Weight" (which carries over into a bit of "The End"), but I didn't really want to say anything until I learned the parts.  I haven't learned all of the guitar phrase in "In Old England Town," but I did learn enough to compare it to that in "Carry That Weight" (a phrase which I did learn in its entirety), and I discovered that while the phrase in "In Old England Town" is much longer, it at least starts the same.  Both phrases are arpeggiated chords beginning with C majors and then going to C major 7ths.  "Carry That Weight" then goes to an A major, but "In Old England Town" continues various arpeggiations so that there's a chromatic phrase from that initial C all the way to (I think) D.

I'm not sure if that arpeggiated change from C major to C major 7th was directly inspired by "Carry That Weight," but considering that the Electric Light Orchestra was founded "to continue where 'I Am the Walrus' left off" or whatever it was, I'm more likely to think Beatle connections intentional than just coincidences.  (I've seen that "I Am the Walrus" statement quoted in a few different places, but I haven't been able to find an original source for it.)

Speaking of which, that guitar phrase isn't the only Beatle connection that "In Old England Town" has.  Along with that arpeggiated part, I learned a few other sections.  "In Old England Town" starts with alternating G#s and Gs before going down to repeated Es (something like G# G G# G G# G E E E E E), which bears some similarity to the beginning of the Beatles' "Day Tripper," albeit reversed.  The riff in "Day Tripper" starts with E G G#.  In any case, both are sort of in-between E major and E minor (at the beginning at least; I think "In Old England Town" changes keys later).  There's slightly more evidence for this connection than that with "Carry That Weight;" ELO covered "Day Tripper" on Rockpalast in the early 1970s (either '73 or '74, I think).  It's on the British edition of the Live: The Early Years DVD.

Later in "In Old England Town," there's the line "Ablution, evolution" (at least I think that's the line; I was having a lot of troubles transcribing the lyrics), which might have some connection to the Beatles' "Revolution."  "Revolution" doesn't contain the word ablution, but it does prominently use "evolution" and other "-tion" words in the rhyme scheme.

Also in the lyrics is policeman, abbreviated as "p'liceman," which is the same abbreviation as that in the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus."  There aren't many other ways to cut a syllable out of policeman, so that might just be coincidental, but - again - considering the whole "continue where 'I Am the Walrus' left off,"” there might be something to that.

I think one of the lines is "Ten thousand tons of waste dropped then ejected," which has a slight connection to some lines in "Kuiama" later on the album: "Now ten thousand miles / Is a long, long way."

"Roll over Beethoven"

I already mentioned this in a previous post, but ELO actually includes a quotation of the famous motif from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor (although half a step higher than Beethoven) near the beginning of their version of Chuck Berry's "Roll over Beethoven."

"Kuiama"

While trying to transcribe "Kuiama," I noticed anaphora in the bridge - one of the few sections that I actually did complete a transcription of (although there's always the possibility that I misheard something).  Four lines begin with "no more," and a fifth has it very close to the beginning:

No more silver rain will hedge your ground
And no more guns will sound
No more life be drowned
No more trenches where the soldiers lie
No more people die
Beneath that big black sky

"From the Sun to the World"

The opening piano part in "From the Sun to the World" bears some resemblance to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.  At some point, I'm going to write a separate post about it because 1) I need to write about it more in depth than here and 2) I need more time to look into some things and this post has been held back long enough.

"Mr. Radio"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---

A thing I forgot to mention in my post about No Answer is that the famous motif from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 seems to be hidden in "Mr. Radio."  At about 2:15, the cellos (and I think also the bass part of the piano) has a phrase that isn't too dissimilar.  While the intervals don't match Beethoven's ("Mr. Radio" has Ab to F and then F to D where Beethoven's motif is G to Eb and then F to D), the rhythm is roughly the same.  (I tried notating it, but I'm still not good at figuring out the rhythms for notation.)

Considering that ELO used that motif in other songs (near the beginning of "Roll over Beethoven" and after "I think she'd die for Beethoven" in "Rockaria!"), it wouldn't be too surprising if the similarity here were intentional.  And actually, in referencing "Roll over Beethoven" and "Rockaria!," I found that they didn't use the motif exactly as Beethoven wrote it anyway.  "Roll over Beethoven" has it half a step higher (G# E F# D#), and "Rockaria!," which has only two notes of the motif, has it as G and E, not G and Eb.  They all have roughly the same rhythm though.