"Old and Wise"

An-other thing I noticed when I listened to Eye in the Sky yester-day is that the end of the line "And the sadness would be lifted from my eyes" in "Old and Wise" ascends, as if to portray that "lift[ing]" musically.  "Lifted from my eyes" is sung to the phrase Bb Bb C D Eb Eb ("my" is sung with a melisma).

"Step by Step"

This morning, I listened to Eye in the Sky and started thinking about the backing vocals in the choruses of "Step by Step."  Specifically, I was wondering about the intervals between the pitches (I think I may have wondered about this before, but I couldn't find any notes I'd written to myself about it).  This afternoon, I figured out the melodies, and I discovered that - for one of the voices, at least - those backing vocal phrases are all conjunct melodies.  Each pitch is either the same as the preceding pitch or ascends or descends by a second (whole steps and half steps), so the "step by step" in the lyrics is represented musically.

As always, there's the disclaimer that I might be wrong, but I think the melodies are something like this:

The lyrics are:

Step by step
Move a little closer to me
Step by step
One day at a time
Move, move, move
Move a little closer to me
Step by step

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

I learned some of the flute phrase at the beginning of "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" to-day, and I noticed that it has some similarity with a section of the bass part in "Nothing Left to Lose."  Here's the flute phrase (I think I have all but the last two measures):

(I'm not sure of the extent, but at least some of this is doubled on harpsichord.)

The majority of this phrase is just a diatonic descent that skips between octaves.  This same sort of feature is in a section of the bass part in "Nothing Left to Lose":

(Of course, there's the disclaimer for both of these that I might have the part wrong.)

The rhythms are quite different, but they're both diatonic descents that skip between two octaves.  To some degree, using this same technique in two songs gives The Turn of a Friendly Card album a bit of cohesion.  I feel it worth mentioning that "May Be a Price to Pay" and "The Gold Bug" are also musically related as are - of course - "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" and "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part Two)."

[For what it's worth, I've previously written about this section of the bass part in "Nothing Left to Lose" and its resemblance to one of Bach's orchestral suites.]