"The Eagle Will Rise Again"

Back in March, I figured out the ascending, arpeggiated keyboard part in "The Eagle Will Rise Again" (I'm still not exactly sure what instrument it's played on, but I think it's virginal).  I've been slowly writing out the notation for it (doing it piecemeal), and I recently remembered that (back in June) I figured out the high violin part in the fourth verse.  I haven't been recording examples unless I know at least two parts, and here I've had two parts for "The Eagle Will Rise Again" for a few months.

My recording is the third verse (just the keyboard part) and the fourth verse (the keyboard part and the violin part).  The closest I could get to virginal was the harpsichord setting on my keyboard, and I used the violin setting for the violin part, which is why I don't have the glissandi between some notes.

Pyramid

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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After I figured out the bass part for "Beaujolais" last night, I discovered that the only album I hadn't either written about or figured out a part from was Pyramid, so I listened to it this morning and came up with a few things to write about (and this afternoon, I figured out a few parts, which I'll post in the next few days).

"The Eagle Will Rise Again"

In the first part of the song, each phrase (apparently on the virginal, according to the credits on the APP website) is ascending.  So while the lyrics include a few references to falling ("I could easily fall from grace," "they fall from your open hand," and, metaphorically "They [words] fall upon the ears of those who don't know the way"), those ascending musical phrases seem to provide assurance that "the eagle will learn to fly" and "the eagle will rise again."

"One More River"

I was surprised I hadn't previously noticed that this includes the phrase "it's the time of the season."  I'm not sure if this is really the case, but I'd be happy if that were a reference to the Zombies' "Time of the Season," which includes the same phrase ("It's the time of the season for loving").  A few seconds after the first occurrence of that phrase, there's an exhalation, which is similar to an effect in the Zombies' song.

Colin Blunstone - the Zombies' lead singer - provided lead vocals on "The Eagle Will Rise Again" (the track immediately preceding "One More River") and backing vocals on "Shadow of a Lonely Man" (the last track on the album), so I'm assuming that Woolfson and Parsons were at least somewhat familiar with the Zombies.  I think there's a recent interview with Blunstone where he says something about Parsons' being a tape-op when they recorded "Time of the Season" at Abbey Road.