"Turn to Stone"

Last week I learned some parts for "Turn to Stone."  Here are the guitar phrases and some string parts for two iterations of the chorus (starting ~2:32).  I'm not sure of the accuracy of the very end of the last guitar phrase.

"Latitude 88 North"

The first two lines of each verse of "Latitude 88 North" are sung to a paucity of pitches.  The first line of each verse ("The ice man came to me tonight" [1], "Then I knew that you were gone" [2], and "Frozen shadows in doorways" [3]) are sung completely to B notes.  There's a bit more variety in the second lines, but each is sung to only two pitches.  "So very near but out of sight" (1) and "It came to me; I was alone" (2) are each sung to a string of C notes with a single G note at the end, and "They will linger there always" (3) is sung mainly to a string a C notes, rises to a single D note, and then ends with an-other C note.

While it's especially appropriate for "Frozen shadows..." articulating these lines with only one or two pitches each musically demonstrates the "frozen" conditions of Latitude 88 North.  It's as if even the music can no longer move.

"Mr. Blue Sky"

In the chorus of "Mr. Blue Sky," the "so long" in "Please tell us why / You had to hide away for so long" is sung with two glissandi: the "so" stretches from F to D, and the "long" from D to C."  The echoing "so long" in the backing vocals has a similar feature: the "so" has a glissando from C and A.  The breadth of pitches that these glissandi encompass gives a musical sense of just how long Mr. Blue Sky has hidden.

"Steppin' Out"

In the section of "Steppin' Out" where the line "I'm steppin' out; I'm steppin' out" is repeated, that second "out" is sung alternately with a glissando (B to G) and a melisma (alternating between B and C#, I think).  When "I'm steppin' out; I'm steppin' out" is sung through a vocoder, that second "out" is sung with a different melisma (G B D).  All of these give something of a sense of movement.

"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.

"Turn to Stone"

I listened to Out of the Blue this morning and found a number of things to write about (some more significant than others).  First, here's a small point about "Turn to Stone."  I'm still a bit skeptical of my own transcriptions, but I think the second line in the first verse is "And so the suns are way down low."  This line descends (F# F# E E D# D# C# A), so - if I have my transcription correct - there's a musical representation of that "way down low."

"Ain't It a Drag"

After listening to Alone in the Universe periodically over the last couple years, I noticed some things about the songs, but I haven't been very good at writing posts about them here.  From now on if I have any comments, I'm going to try to write a post corresponding to whatever song I'm trying to learn in a particular month (one of my 2018 musical projects is to learn at least one part for every song on Alone in the Universe, and since I have the edition with two bonus tracks, there's one song for each month).  Here are a couple things I noticed about "Ain't It a Drag."

In the line "Just when you think it's cool, the s--- hits the fan," there's some sort of effect applied to the vocal for "the fan," giving a sense of that proximity, not unlike the slightly robotic-sounding effect one gets when speaking into a moving fan.

In the first "Ain't it a drag, babe" in the choruses, the "drag" is sung with a glissando.  It starts on a C and descends, but I'm not sure what the terminal note is.  For what it's worth, the following "babe" is sung to an F.  In any case, "drag" moves smoothly through a multitude of pitches, so there's something of a musical portrayal of the word's meaning.