"Send It"

I forgot about this (more than once, even), but the reason I've been thinking about Balance of Power recently is that way back on 6 July I realized that the "way up above" in the line "The sun still shines way up above" at the beginning of "Send It" ascends (C# C# E F#, I think), musically representing that "up above."

In looking at the song now, I realized something else.  Each of the verses ends with the lines "If you see my dream / Send it back home to me."  The "me" is sung to an A note, and the chord progression there moves to an A major.  The song itself it in A major, so there's both the tonic note (A) and the tonic chord (A major) to represent that "home" musically.

"Heaven Only Knows"

Because I had been thinking about "Is It Alright" a couple days ago, I was thinking about the Balance of Power album yester-day and realized that some phrases in the vocal melody in "Heaven Only Knows" bear some resemblance to the vocal melody in the Beatles' "You Won't See Me."

The melody for the verses of "Heaven Only Knows" is something like:

(I used the first verse as a reference, but I'm missing some nuances.)

And the first half of the melody for the verses of "You Won't See Me" is something like:

(I guessed on the keys for both.)

The melodies are fairly similar, but the more recognizable resemblance is one of rhythm.  In simple terms, both songs have three syllables, some rests, two syllables, some rests, and then either a second line or the rest of the first line:

I don't know if Jeff Lynne intended the melody of "Heaven Only Knows" to be similar to that of "You Won't See Me," but there are a number of other Beatle references in the ELO catalogue, and the two melodies certainly are alike.  It seems to be at least a subconscious borrowing.

I also noticed that "change" in the line "But I think that it's about to change" is sung with a glissando (E to D, I think), which musically represents that shift.

"Is It Alright"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "Is It Alright" and realized something about the title line, specifically those in this section:

Is it alright
Now that you got what you want
And is it alright
Now that you're back where you belong

The "al-" part of the "alright"s is sung with a glissando from G to C, and the encompassing nature of this musical span helps to portray the "all."

"Waterfall"

I recently discovered that - after much practice - I can now play both hands of the piano part at the beginning of "Waterfall" simultaneously (although I'm unsure of specific chord voicings), which I couldn't do back when I learned that part.

A couple days ago (the 20th), I was thinking about the song and realized that the "waterfall" in that section descends to illustrate the "-fall" part musically.  The whole line "It's like a waterfall" is sung to a descending phrase (F# F# E D C# B).

"All My Life"

I figured out some parts for "All My Life" to-day, so now I can be more specific in writing about some features I noticed.

The two "All my life"s in the backing vocals in the choruses are sung to phrases that span large intervals (sixths) and include large note values (three whole notes each).  Between those features and the fact that "life" is sung with a melisma both times, there's a musical sense of the encompassing nature of "all."  Here's the notation for the first "All my life":

The second "All my life" has a peculiar rhythm at the beginning that I can't seem to suss out (so the dotted half note at the end of this first phrase might be wrong), but aside from that, it's fairly similar.

The other thing I noticed (and confirmed to-day) is that the guitar solo (~2:07) starts with a recurring phrase from the guitar solos in Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed," just adjusted for key and with some changes in tempo.  The phrase in "All My Life" also doubles a note.

In "All My Life," the guitar solo begins with:

E|---5-7-5-7~9-9-7-5-----| 

B|-7-----------------7-5-|

The recurring phrase in "Maybe I'm Amazed" is:

E|---1-3-1-3~5-3-1----- 
B|-3---------------3-1-

These phrases seem too similar for this resemblance to have been coincidental.  Because Jeff Lynne workt with Paul McCartney (although long after "Maybe I'm Amazed"), I think this might be an intentional similarity.