"The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)"

Backdated, archival post

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I haven't done much on this project recently, so I decided to start listening to the albums regularly in order to become more familiar with them, which will hopefully make learning the parts easier.

I started with The Turn of a Friendly Card because I had something I've wanted to confirm about the title track since mid-November.  Helpfully, all of the lyrics are available on the APP website.

There are melismas accompanying the lyrics "On the turn of a friendly card" in "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)."  The whole clause is "When your whole world depends / On the turn of a friendly card."  So the melismas (on "turn," "friendly," and "card") help to emphasize the capriciousness inherent in the situation.

In looking at the lyrics, I also found something interesting about this verse:

There's a sign in the desert that lies to the west
Where you can't tell the night from the sunrise
And not all the king's horses and all the king's men
Have prevented the fall of the unwise

The meter of the lines stresses the "un-" in "unwise," as if to further drive home the lack of wisdom.