Last night I learned (at least some of) the string parts at the beginning of
"Sweet Talkin' Woman." Some of the notes in the violin part either have
a trill or a lot of vibrato, and since I recorded my example using the
mellotron sounds on my keyboard, I couldn't replicate that aspect.
This ends a bit abruptly, but I think that's accurate. The original
recording seems to have a hard edit between this string section and the guitar
and bass.
When I listened to On the Third Day a couple months ago, I noticed a small feature in "Everyone's Born to Die" (included as a bonus track on the CD re-issue). In finally getting around to writing about it to-day, I found something else in the same line.
Months ago, I noticed that "down" in the line "Well, they'll all fall down" is sung with a descending melisma (E D C), musically giving a sense of the word's meaning. In finding the specific notes to-day so I could write about it, I also noticed that "all" is sung with a melisma (G F# E), musically giving a sense of entirety (the consonance of the repeated Ls in the line might indicate this too).
At the end of the choruses in "Showdown," "night" in the phrase "the longest night" is sung with various melismas, musically giving a sense of that length.
In the lines "Ev'rybody keep their blues away / Not for a day but evermore" in "New World Rising," the "evermore" is sung with a melisma (G F D B), musically giving a sense of duration.
In "Oh No Not Susan," "sighed" and "sigh" in the lines "And then she sighed" and "Look at her sigh" are both sung to a pair of notes with a slight descent (A G), giving something of a musical impression of a sigh.
Coinciding with the line "And then she laughed" in the second verse, the violins start playing tremolos, somewhat representing that laughing in a musical way.
I listened to On the Third Day a couple days ago and noticed some things.
In "Bluebird Is Dead," "life" in the line "Little darlin', all my life" is sung with a melisma (B A F#), musically giving a sense of the entirety of that "all."
Lately, I've been really into the synth part at the beginning of "Tightrope." I recently figured out about half of the violin part in the introduction, so I had enough to make it worth recording.
I had to make some instrumental substitutions. I don't really have access to a good synth sound (a Moog is near the top of my instrument wish list), so I used the B3 bass pedals setting on my keyboard. The string parts are both mellotron sounds (violin and cello). Some of the violin part is triplets, which are a bit difficult to play; I did my best.
I recorded this more from memory than anything else. I vaguely remembered this post from a couple years ago in which I mentioned that - while they're similar - the lower string part isn't exactly the same as the synth part. Had I lookt at that before I recorded my audio example, maybe I would have thought to reference the instrumental mix (a bonus track on the CD re-issue) for greater accuracy. I'm pretty confident of the synth part and what I have of the violin part though.
I figured out most of the chords for "Rockaria!" this evening (up until ~2:39), and when I was typing out the chords in the same document where I have my (still incomplete) transcription of the lyrics, I noticed a near quotation. Near the middle of the song, there's the phrase "you got nothin' to lose." This is very similar to "ain't got nothin' to lose" in Chuck Berry's "Roll over Beethoven" (or "I ain't got nothin' to lose" in ELO's cover).
By itself, the resemblance isn't very convincing, but Chuck Berry is mentioned by name later in "Rockaria!" ("the orchestra were playing all Chuck Berry's greatest tunes"), so the similarity is probably more than just coincidence.
When I listened to A New World Record yester-day, I also noticed a couple small things in "Telephone Line."
"Pick up" in the lines "I'd tell you ev'rything / If you'd pick up that telephone" is sung to an ascending pair of notes (albeit a small interval: E F#), musically giving a sense of "pick[ing] up."
"All" in the lines "Don't you realize the things we did, we did / Were all for real, not a dream" is also sung with a melisma (F# A, I think), musically giving a sense of that entirety.
Between listening to A New World Record this morning and figuring out some chords for "Tightrope" this afternoon, I found a couple things to note.
"Down" in the line "I was headin' down" is sung with a descending melisma (A C), musically giving a sense of "headin' down."
Under the lines "They say some days you're gonna win / They say some days you're gonna lose" and "They say some days you gotta give / They say some days you gotta take," the chords keep changing between F major and G major, musically giving a sense of that alternating.
I found two things to note about the line "If you believe that's how it's gonna be, I better put you down." This "down" is also sung with a (generally) descending melisma for a musical sense of its meaning, although I'm unsure of the specific pitches. Underneath that "down," the chords change from F major to F minor, so that "down" is also musically represented in that drop from A to Ab.
In December 2017, I learned the bass part and the rest of the chords for "Latitude 88 North." I think it was sometime in early summer when I finished writing out the notation for the bass part, and I intended to make a recording of it, but I kept forgetting or not having time. At least now it's winter, which is seasonally appropriate for the theme of the song.
Here's the notation of the bass part, with the guitar chords written in above the staff (as always, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong):
The electric guitar in my recording isn't meant to be entirely accurate. I'm pretty sure I have the solo right though; here it is in tablature (tildes [~] indicate glissandi):
I recorded the electric guitar part in one take, switching between pick-ups for the solo section, which I usually never do, and because of that, my timing is off a little bit.
Also, a bit of commentary: I don't remember when I noticed this, but coinciding with the line "Thirty-five below and fallin'" in the chorus, the bass line descends, musically giving a sense of the (metaphorically) "fallin'" temperature.
