Saturday, October 30, 2021

"Sci-Fi Woman"

In the line "Too soon to know if this should carry on" in the bridge of "Sci-Fi Woman," "on" is sung with a melisma (B A A), musically giving a sense of that continuation.

In the lines "I never really thought / There would be no more," "more" is sung with a melisma (F# A), so while it's negated, there's a sense of amount.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

"One More Time"

I noticed a number of things about "One More Time."

The end of the line "Hey baby, we're rolling on the road again" in the first verse has some kind of effect applied to it.  I'm not sure if it's technically delay or echo, but in any case, it gives a sense of the recurring of "again."  The same effect is at the end of the line "Hey baby, we're flyin' out across the world," giving a sense of breadth, and on the title line at ~2:46, giving a sense of that "more."

"Apart" in the lines "We gotta give it ev'rything we've got / 'Til the joint is fallin' apart" is sung with a melisma (C Eb D C), musically giving a sense of its meaning.

I don't know if this is coincidental or not, but the solo (at ~1:15) bears a striking resemblance in both intervals and rhythm to the vocal melody in the title song of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera ("In sleep, he sang to me...").  The two parts are something like this:

Saturday, October 16, 2021

"Losing You"

The words "all alone" in the line "And I'll be all alone, on my own" in "Losing You" start with the same initial sound, so there's a sense of that singularity.

Saturday, October 9, 2021

"Down Came the Rain"

In the chorus of "Down Came the Rain," "rain" in the titular phrase is sung with descending melismas (B A the first and third times, B A G the second), musically giving a sense of that "down."

Saturday, October 2, 2021

"All My Love"

In "All My Love," some of the titular phrases are sung with melismas, giving a sense of the entirety of that "all."  In the lead vocals, the "love" at the end of the bridge is sung to the notes G A Bb (and in the coda, it's sung to various other groups of notes), and at the end of each section, "all" in the backing vocals is sung to D notes an octave apart (this breadth also gives a sense of the entirety).  At the beginning of each verse, "all" in the lead vocals is also held for over a measure, and this too gives a sense of the entirety.

Coinciding with the lines "I see it all / The way we fall for one another's make believe" (that's how they're formatted in the liner notes), there's a descending phrase (I think it's a combination of synthesizer and strings:  E Eb D Db A), and this mirrors the "fall" in the lyrics, although it's used more metaphorically.