"Laredo Tornado"

I listened to Eldorado yester-day and noticed a small thing about "Laredo Tornado."  The musical section beginning at ~2:27 is rather sparse, in terms of instruments and number of notes.  I think this is meant to illustrate musically the absence mentioned in the lyrics there:  "What can you do / When your dream world is gone / And your friends and lovers, too?"

"Do Ya"

This morning I listened to a live performance of ELO from 1976 and realized that the first two verses of "Do Ya" exhibit anaphora.  "I've seen" is repeated in the first verse:

Well, in this life I've seen ev'rything I can see, woman

I've seen lovers flyin' through the air hand in hand

I've seen babies dancing in the midnight sun

And I've seen dreams that came from the heavenly skies above

I've seen old men cryin' at their own grace sides

And I've seen pigs all sitting, watching picture slides

But I've never seen nothin' like you

And "I heard" in the second:

Well, I heard the crowd singin' out of tune

As they sat and sang "Auld Lang Syne" by the light of the moon

I heard the preachers bangin' on the drums

And I heard the police playin' with their guns

But I never heard nothin' like you

The repeated "I've seen" and "I heard" illustrate the amount and variety of the speaker/singer's experiences and emphasize the contrast between all of them and "you."

"Hold on Tight"

Yester-day, I was thinking about the French in the Beatles' "Michelle."  While not exact, the French lines are basically the same as some English lines in the song.  (I wrote a slightly more detailed post about it here.)  Then I realized that ELO did the same thing in "Hold on Tight" (although, as I explain here, the French isn't translated very accurately) and that this may be yet an-other instance of the Beatles' influence.

"Ticket to the Moon"

I was thinking about "Ticket to the Moon" this morning and discovered a small feature in the chorus:  almost all of the lines (which are all just "Ticket to the moon") are sung to ascending phrases (most are diatonic ascents from D to A).  This articulation gives a sense of the upward journey.

"Strange Magic"

I learned about half of the bass part in "Strange Magic" recently, and when I wrote it out in notation a few days ago, I discovered that the verses are seven measures long.  Usually, musical sections last an even-numbered amount of measures.  That the verses in "Strange Magic" last an odd-numbered amount is a musical element of that "strange[ness]."

"On the Run"

I'm not sure of the specific notes, but "away" in the line "But they just won't go away" in "On the Run" is sung with a melisma, so while it's negated, there's a sense of movement.  The "around"s and "away" in the coda ("Woman, I gotta move around / Woman, I gotta get away / Woman, I gotta move around") also have this, and - as I noted before - those vocal articulations seem to owe something to Buddy Holly.

"Midnight Blue"

In "Midnight Blue," there's a recurring synth phrase something like:

Almost in between the two sections of this phrase, there's a vocoder part singing, "Midnight blue."  It's conspicuously absent, however, during the synth phrase beginning at ~2:02.  This is right after the verse with the line "I count the words that I am never gonna say," so I think the vocoder is intentionally left out there in order to reflect that specific line.

I also noticed that the three syllables of "ev'rything" in the line "Ev'rything's midnight blue" are sung to different pitches (F D Bb), giving a sense of breadth.

"Sweet Is the Night"

In the line "Ev'rything is alright, alright" in "Sweet Is the Night," both "al-"s of those "alright"s are sung with a melisma (the articulations are different, but I can't figure out the specific notes), musically giving a sense of entirety.

"Summer and Lightning"

In the first section of:

Here it comes again
It's all around me
It must be magic
Yeah, yeah, yeah

in "Summer and Lightning," the vocal tracks are panned hard left and hard right.  This feature of the mix provides a sense of being surrounded and portrays the line "It's all around me."

"Steppin' Out"

In the line "I'm movin' on" in "Steppin' Out," the "on" is sung with a melisma (F# G# F#), musically giving a sense of movement, whether literal or metaphorical.

"Turn to Stone"

In "Turn to Stone," "more" in the line "The lights don't shine no more" in the backing vocals is sung with a glissando (I think it's E~C#~E), so while it's negated, there's a sense of continuation.

"Julie Don't Live Here"

In the repeated line "Julie don't live here anymore" in "Julie Don't Live Here," the "-more"s are sung with two different melismas (first D# C# and then C# D# C# B).  While it's negated, this articulation gives a sense of continuation.