Discovery

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I listened to Discovery twice before writing this post, but I still don't have much to say about it.

"The Diary of Horace Wimp"

Like I've mentioned before, I'm more likely to see Beatles references in ELO songs because of the "pick up where 'I Am the Walrus' left off" quote, even if those references are actually just coincidences.  The list of days in "The Diary of Horace Wimp" might take something from the Beatles' "Lady Madonna" and possibly even Fats Domino's "Blue Monday," which seems to have inspired "Lady Madonna" (and has blue in the title!).

All three songs have a list of days.  "Blue Monday" has the weekdays and Sunday in the verses, and Saturday is in the bridge.  "Lady Madonna" has all of the days in the verses, although it omits Saturday.

"The Diary of Horace Wimp" goes a bit further and has a verse for each day (preceded by the name of the day through a vocoder).  Like "Lady Madonna," Saturday is omitted, probably because it's a syllable longer than the other days of the week, so it would present complications for the choral part at the end ("Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…").

"Midnight Blue"

An-other (very obvious) instance of Jeff Lynne's use of blue.  Also, the line "But what's the difference 'cause they say, 'What's in a name?'" seems to be a reference to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  In any case, it's a quote of Juliet's lines: "What's in a name?  That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet" (II.ii.43-44).

"On the Run"

At the very end, there are Buddy Holly-like hiccups on the words "around" and "away" ("Woman, I gotta move around / Woman, I gotta get away…").  I'm not certain if Holly was the inspiration here, but that is characteristic of his music.

"Don't Bring Me Down"

During the sections where the only line is "Don't bring me down" (I guess they're choruses?), each of the "down"s is broken into syllables via melismas, and the syllables have a downward trend as far as pitch goes.  So the "down"s are literally going down.

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I also noticed a few things that appear in multiple songs.

I might be making too much of this, but the "standin' (in/at)" that I noted in the Out of the Blue songs makes an appearance here too.  "Last Train to London" has "You were standin' there," and "Midnight Blue" has "I see you standin' there."

"Under(neath) the starry sky" is present in both "Confusion" and "Last Train to London."

"Darling" is a word that seems to be used a lot on the album too.  It's in "Shine a Little Love" and "Confusion" once each, and it starts each of the verses in "Wishing."

Out of the Blue

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Initial notes on Out of the Blue:

"Turn to Stone"

I've mentioned this before, but the phrase "turn to stone" is also present in "Showdown" - "Now my heart has turned to stone again."

There's also an instance of blue:  "In my blue world."

"Night in the City"

The guitar part that begins this song is nearly identical to the one that begins "Poker" from Face the Music.  The one in "Night in the City" is just raised by a fourth.

Two of the verses start with "Standin' at...," which reappears in "Jungle" ("I was standin' in the jungle…") and "Standin' in the Rain."  There’s also "I see you standin' there" in "Big Wheels," but that seems different.

"Jungle"

Near the beginning, there's a Tarzan-like call to help in establishing the scene.

Toward the end, there's an alarm clock, which might have something to do with the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," which also features the sound of an alarm clock.

"Mr. Blue Sky"

After the line "Runnin' down the avenue," there's some panting, which also seems to be in debt to "A Day in the Life," in which there's panting after the line "I noticed I was late."  There are four pants in each.

In that same verse in "Mr. Blue Sky," there are the lines "See how the sun shines brightly / In the city / On the streets where once was pity," which is a reference to some similar lines in "Night in the City" earlier on the album: "Night in the city / Madness and pity."

And, of course, there's the obvious mention of blue.

"Birmingham Blues"

Years ago, I noticed that some of the violin parts quote a phrase from George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (which - along with the "blues" in the title and lyrics - is an-other inclusion of the color).  However, I don't think they're in the same key here.  I listened to a recording I have of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Rhapsody in Blue, and while the phrases in "Birmingham Blues" start on B notes, those that I found in the Rhapsody (which aren't even on violin) start on D#s.

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The last few times I've listened to this album, I always felt that some of the songs use similar musical phrases, chord progressions, or other elements that help tie the songs together, but until I start learning the parts, I can't point to anything specific.

A New World Record

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I've been neglecting this again, but here are my initial notes on A New World Record.

"Telephone Line"

There's the line "Blue days, black nights," which is the title of a Buddy Holly song (although not one that he wrote).  I don't think I've really seen anything where ELO mentions Buddy Holly, but Jeff Lynne contributed a cover of "Words of Love" to a Buddy Holly tribute album, so I think there's something to the "blue days, black nights."

Of course, that phrase is also an-other way that Lynne can include the color blue.

"Rockaria!"

I've already written about the Beethoven reference.  There are also a few more references to 1950s songs, if my conjecture is correct.  The "Knocked me right back in the alley" from the first verse isn't too dissimilar from Little Richard's "Well, I saw Uncle John with bald head Sally / He saw Aunt Mary comin', and he ducked back in the alley" from "Long Tall Sally."  Additionally, "Rockaria!" has sections where the vocal melody has only one note, which is an-other feature of "Long Tall Sally."

The various "ready" sections (like the first verse's "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a-ready / Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm ready") seem to have some connection to "Ready Teddy," which was recorded by both Little Richard (whose version was apparently first) and Buddy Holly.

"Mission (A World Record)"

It's a minor point, but this also includes blue: "The planet Earth from way up there / Is beautiful and blue."

"So Fine"

I've mentioned this before too, but both "So Fine" and "Do Ya" contain the phrase "midnight sun" (as does "Whisper in the Night" from No Answer).

"Livin' Thing"

Because the G isn't included in "Livin'," I'm not sure how to spell one other section of the lyrics.  If it follows what "Livin'" establishes and also drops the G, it's "It's a givin' thing," but it could also just be a different verb form: "It's a given thing."

The phrase "rolling and riding and slipping and sliding" in the first verse - while exhibiting some interesting parallel alliteration and internal rhyme - also seems to be a Little Richard reference, specifically to his "Slippin' and Slidin'."

"Shangri-La"

There's an-other use of blue in the lines "She seemed to drift out on the rain / That came in somewhere softly from the blue."

The more interesting thing about this is the very obvious Beatle reference:  "My Shangri-La has gone away / Faded like the Beatles on 'Hey Jude.'"  While I've noticed a lot of possible Beatle references, I've been cautious about asserting them.  There's no denying this one though.

Face the Music

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Initial notes on Face the Music:

"Fire on High"

It's pretty obvious, but I'll mention it anyway: the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah is one of the sounds mixed into the track.

"Evil Woman"

The second verse starts with "There's a hole in my head where the rain comes in," which seems to be a reference to the Beatles' "Fixing a Hole" from Sgt. Pepper, specifically the first verse:

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go

"Fixing a Hole" doesn't specifically say that the hole is in the speaker/singer's head, but mentioning "my mind" seems to imply it.  I think the lines are too similar for this to be just a coincidence.  Both have "a hole" in the head "where the rain comes/gets in."

"Nightrider"

There’s a bit of parallelism between the first and second verses.  The first starts with "I remember…," and the second begins with "I recall…."  The full line is "I recall the situation clear," which exhibits a flat adverb ("clear" instead of "clearly").  I don't think this is for purposes of rhyme though, so maybe it's just because the full adverb would have been one syllable too many.

"Down Home Town"

The second verse starts with the line "The monkey business in this town," which might be a reference to Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business."  Even though that phrase is pretty common, ELO covered Berry's "Roll over Beethoven" and they mention him by name in "Rockaria!" so I have some confidence in that reference.

In the last "But it's no, no, no" section, the second "No, no, no" is preceded by "She loves you" in the backing vocals (which then also sing the "No, no, no" along with the lead vocals), so it's the opposite of the Beatles' "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" from "She Loves You."  The lyrics and the musical phrases to which they're both set are so similar (even using the same notes that the Beatles did! - D, E, G, G, F#, E) that I don't think this is just a coincidence.  It's clearly an homage of sorts.

"One Summer Dream"

This contains one of Jeff Lynne's many uses of the word blue:  "Blue mountains high."

Before I transcribed the lyrics (although my transcription is still incomplete and probably inaccurate in places), I hadn't noticed that the first lines of the first and third verses later combine into a new free-standing couplet.  "Deep waters flow out to the sea" starts the first verse, and "Oh, summer breeze flows endlessly" starts the third.  Later, they re-form into: "Deep waters flow out to the sea / Warm summer breeze flows endlessly."

The verses also contain the three states of matter (discounting plasma).  There's liquid in "Deep waters," solid (land) in "Blue mountains high," and air in "Warm summer breeze."

Eldorado

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I finally got around to listening to Eldorado and writing up more detailed versions of my past notes.  I also found some new things.

"Boy Blue"

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the lyrics to the early ELO songs (so my transcriptions are all over the place in terms of accuracy and completeness), but I think one of the lines in "Boy Blue" is "I've seen bald nights," which is probably a reference to Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain.  I listened to Night on Bald Mountain immediately after Eldorado, and while there do seem to be similarities in mood, I didn't find anything specific that links them.

"Poorboy (the Greenwood)"

This mentions "sweet Maid Marian" who comes from the Robin Hood stories, so there's a connection between this song and the earlier "Can't Get It out of My Head," specifically the line "Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot."  (Incidentally, Raleigh's Ivanhoe and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur are both on my to-read list, so once I get around to those, maybe I'll understand those allusions better.  I read Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood last summer, so that could stand re-reading at some point too.)

"Mister Kingdom"

This contains the line "Go to sleep, perchance to dream," which is a reference to and quote of Shakespeare's Hamlet - "To sleep - perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!" (III.i.73).

"Nobody's Child"

"Nobody's Child" exhibits anaphora:  every line in the verses starts with the vocative "Painted lady."  There's also some alliteration in the line "Painted lady, don't you do these dirty deeds."

"Eldorado"

There's a recurring section that goes something like:

And I will stay
I'll not be back
Eldorado
I will be free, yeah
Of the world
Eldorado

The last one of these, however, breaks off halfway through, so that it's just "And I will stay / I'll not be back / Eldorado."  That last section is left incomplete, as if the speaker/singer indeed hasn't come back.

"Eldorado Finale"

This is also present in "Eldorado Overture" but the lines aren't successive.  In both though, there are lines that mention "The unwoken fool" who is "High on a hill in Eldorado," which might be a reference to the Beatles' "The Fool on the Hill."

On the Third Day

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I'm going through the albums much more slowly than I'd anticipated, but anyway, On the Third Day (which, incidentally, I first heard a year ago to-day).

"New World Rising/Ocean Breakup Reprise"

Like I mentioned earlier, because of the "continue where 'I Am the Walrus' left off" quote, I'm more likely to see Beatle connections in things than otherwise.  In "New World Rising/Ocean Breakup Reprise" (I think during the "New World Rising" part), after "Hey good morning," there's a spoken "Morning!" sort of in the background.  It's the same type of thing that's present during the last verse of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine."  The lines "Every one of us has all we need / Sky of blue and sea of green / In our yellow submarine" are interspersed with the same words but spoken instead of sung.

"Showdown"

Some of the lyrical phrases in this re-appear in other ELO songs.  The "all over the world" in "And it's a-rainin' all over the world" is the titular line of "All over the World."  And "Now my heart has turned to stone again" seems to have some connection with "Turn to Stone" from Out of the Blue.

During the second "Rainin' all over the world" section, there are pizzicati in the string parts to portray the rain musically.  It's a fairly common technique, but I actually didn't notice it until recently.

"Dreaming of 4000"

One of the verses starts with "Here, there, everywhere," and even though this is a common phrase, I can't help but think that there's some connection between this and the Beatles' "Here, There, and Everywhere" (incidentally both "Here, There, and Everywhere" and "Yellow Submarine" were on the Beatles' Revolver album).

"In the Hall of the Mountain King"

This is ELO's version of a piece by Edvard Grieg.  It's the fourth movement of his first Peer Gynt Suite, Op. 46.  Additionally, though, at the beginning ELO includes a bit of the first movement - "Morning Mood."

"From the Sun to the World"

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After writing about "From the Sun to the World," I figured I should post an audio example of what I know.  I figured out some more of the introductory piano part (so that I can play at least one whole part in it), but it doesn't bear any more resemblance to the Moonlight Sonata.

The tempo varies a bit because I use the original tracks as templates when I make my own recordings and I don't always match them that well.  Also because I'm not that good of a keyboard player.

"From the Sun to the World"

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I finally (FINALLY!) got around to looking into "From the Sun to the World" to look at the resemblance between it and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, which almost two months ago I said I was going to do.

I looked up the Moonlight Sonata on Wikipedia, and I learned how to play (rather poorly) the first three measures:

The beginning of "From the Sun to the World" resembles this only slightly.  As far as I've figured it out, it also has octaves in the left hand and arpeggiated chords in the right.  (Although there's also a second part, which was probably overdubbed, that has descending arpeggiations of the same chords, using different inversions after each group of three notes.)

The octaves in "Moonlight Sonata" descend diatonically (C#, B, A) before going to F# and then ascending to G#.  The octaves in "From the Sun to the World" are much simpler.  For the first two chords, it's A.  Then it drops to E before returning to A.

The first three measures of the Moonlight Sonata arpeggiate C# minor, A major, and D major, and the arpeggiated chords in "From the Sun to the World" don't really resemble these at all.  I'm fairly certain that it's A minor, D minor, E major, A minor.

So, as far as the parts, there's some resemblance, but there isn't much in common note-wise.

ELO II

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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"

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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.

"10538 Overture"

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I wasn't planning on figuring out any parts yet, but…

I was thinking about the arpeggios at the beginning of "10538 Overture," and I thought I'd figured them out in my head.  I hadn't, but I was close enough that it didn't take too long to get to this, which I'm fairly confident about.  Some of the notes sound a bit weird because I had to play the same note on different strings for different arpeggios.  Otherwise, my fingers would have to be four frets and five strings apart.

I also did the French horn part (the quotation from Also Sprach Zarathustra), but it's the fake French horn setting on my keyboard.  I know a few of the cello parts, but the fake cello doesn't sound convincing, so I didn't include them.  I don't have an actual cello (and don't know how to play one), which could become a pretty big concern.

No Answer

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I listened to No Answer yester-day to review some things before writing a post about it.  I have things to say about only three of the songs though.

"10538 Overture"

As far as I can tell, the French horn part in this (at least I think it's a French horn) has the same motif as that in Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra - C, G, and then an-other C an octave higher than the first one.

It might just be a coincidence, but some of the cello parts near the end contain a phrase from "Frère Jacques" - the part that corresponds to "Frère Jacques" in the lyrics - C D E C.

Lyrically, there's some resemblance between "10538 Overture" and the Beatles' "A Day in the Life."  Roughly, both are about a man's death related through the news.  "A Day in the Life" starts out with "I read the news today, oh boy" where "10538 Overture" has "Did you hear the news that came across the air today?," and where "A Day in the Life" has "He blew his mind out in a car," "10538 Overture" mentions that "Someone has been found on the rocks down in the bay."

"Nellie Takes Her Bow"

In the middle section, there's a quotation and then variations on "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."

"Whisper in the Night"

This is the first of at least three ELO songs that contain the phrase "midnight sun."  Here, it's in the line "Face the midnight sun."  It's also in "So Fine" ("We'll find the land of the midnight sun") and "Do Ya" ("I've seen babies dancin' in the midnight sun") - both from A New World Record.