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

I listened to The Turn of a Friendly Card yester-day to mark Eric Woolfson's eightieth birthday, and I noticed some significance in the structure of the lyrics in the title tracks (part one and part two), specifically in the lines "But the game never ends when your whole world depends / On the turn of a friendly card."  The sense is spread across the line break, so the listener is left waiting for the line "On the turn of a friendly card" to complement "depends" and finish the meaning.  To some degree, this structure (with the second line necessary to make sense of the first) matches the "depend[ency]" in the lyrics.

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

Recently, a clip from an interview with Sally Woolfson was posted on the Alan Parsons Project's social media accounts.  (Here are the links to Twitter and Instagram, and here are links to the first and second parts of the full interview [from 2020] on YouTube.)  "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" is used as background music in the clip, and while listening to it, I realized that in the lines "And not all the king's horses and all the king's men / Have prevented the fall of the unwise," the phrases "all the king's horses" and "all the king's men" are sung to notes of all different pitches (F E D C A and D C Bb A, respectively).  This provides a sense of the entirety and breadth of those "all"s.

"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.]

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

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When I listened to The Turn of a Friendly Card two days ago, I got to wondering about the "wheel in perpetual motion" that's mentioned in "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" and "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part Two)."

It's in the first verses of both songs.  Verse one of Part One:

There are unsmiling faces and bright plastic chains
And a wheel in perpetual motion
And they follow the races and pay out the gains
With no show of an outward emotion

Verse one of Part Two:

There are unsmiling faces in fetters and chains
On a wheel in perpetual motion
Who belong to all races and answer all names
With no show of an outward emotion

Since the whole album is about gambling and casinos, I thought at first that that "wheel in perpetual motion" was a roulette wheel.  But then I realized that it could also be the wheel of fortune.  I first learned about this in my Shakespeare class when we were going over tragedies.  The idea is that people are on a wheel that's turned by fortune, so at one point, someone might be on the top of the wheel and in good fortune, but then the wheel would turn, and he'd be somewhere else is worse fortune.

Judging by the context in "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part Two)," specifically the "faces in fetters and chains / On a wheel," the wheel of fortune makes more sense than a roulette wheel.  The song itself deals with luck and chance (fortune) more than roulette.  Cards are mentioned in the lines "your whole world depends / On the turn of a friendly card," and while I don't really know anything about roulette, I do know that cards aren't used.

Still, within just that line, the "wheel in perpetual motion" is an ambiguous image that could be a roulette wheel or the wheel of fortune.

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

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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.