The Moody Blues' "House of Four Doors (Part 1)"

Yester-day I listened to the Moody Blues' In Search of the Lost Chord, and I discovered two things about "House of Four Doors (Part 1)."

I'm not sure to what degree, but it seems that the inscription on the last door bears some resemblance to the Gate of Hell in Dante's Inferno.  In "House of Four Doors (Part 1)," there are the lines "Enter in, all ye who seek to find within / As the plaque said on the last door."  It seems to be the opposite of "All hope abandon, ye who enter in!" (Canto III, line 9).

The other thing I noticed is the melody to which the middle section ("House of Four Doors / I could live there forever...") is sung.  When I first listened to this album two years ago, I wrote about a piano part later in this song that I thought took a phrase from George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.  This "House of Four Doors / I could live there forever..." section uses the same melody, and it has more of a resemblance to Gershwin's.  The piano part has just the three note diatonic ascent and octave fall, but the vocal melody - like the phrase in the Rhapsody in Blue - has a diatonic ascent after that octave fall.  While they're in different keys and the note values are different, the intervals are the same.  I still haven't been able to find the Rhapsody in Blue score (I've found a lot pieces that quote it but have been unable to look at the original notation to see how they all compare), but here's some notation I made for this particular section of "House of Four Doors (Part One)":

(click here for a larger image)

The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed

This morning I listened to the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed.  I'd noticed before that some of the orchestral sections quote some musical phrases from the songs that feature just the Moody Blues, but when I listened to the album this morning, I discovered that those orchestral sections also feature some phrases from the vocal parts.

At the very beginning of "Lunch Break: Peak Hour," a brass instrument plays the melody to which "Dawn is a feeling" is sung in "Dawn: Dawn Is a Feeling."

At about 4:28 in "The Afternoon: Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)/Time To Get Away" the strings play the melody to which "Tuesday afternoon" is sung earlier in the track, and at about 4:48, a woodwind (I think an oboe) plays the melody to which "I'm just beginning to see" is sung earlier in the track.

There might be some other instances of this, where the orchestral sections play phrases that are in the vocal melodies of other phrases, but these were the ones I noticed.

The Moody Blues' "The Story in Your Eyes"

I'm listening to the Moody Blues' Every Good Boy Deserves Favour for the first time (I got it for Christmas).  The only song I already know from the album is "The Story in Your Eyes."  I was thinking about it before I even started listening, and I realized something that should have been obvious from when I wrote about the song a few weeks ago.

In the final verse, there's some internal rhyme in the line "And it's certain that the curtain's gonna fall."  To some degree, the certainty is emphasized because of that internal rhyme, like the words' starting to resemble each other represents the inevitability of the end.

I'd noticed that internal rhyme last time, but it wasn't until to-day that I got thinking about why it's there.  Incidentally, there's a Glenn Miller song - "Wishing (Will Make It So)" - that does a similar thing with the same "certain"/"curtain" rhyme.

The Moody Blues' "I Know You're Out There Somewhere"

An-other thing I noticed while listening to the Moody Blues' 20th Century Masters compilation album is the backing vocals for the last verse of "I Know You're Out There Somewhere."  None of the other verses have separate backing vocals (those that are there merely double the lyrics of the lead vocals), and they're appearing for the last verse is significant because of what the lyrics describe.

The whole song up to that point is the singer/speaker trying to "find you somehow" and "return again to you."  Because the last verse has echoing sort of backing vocals ("echoing" in the sense that they repeat some of the lyrics from the "proper" verse), it seems to imply that the speaker/singer is getting close, which the lyrics themselves describe too:

Yes, I know it's gonna happen
I can feel you getting near
And soon we'll be returning to the fountain of our youth
And if you wake up wond'ring
In the darkness I'll be there
My arms will close around you and protect you with the truth

The backing vocals are:

Know it's gonna happen
Feel you getting near 

If you wake up wond'ring
You know I'll be there
Protect you with the truth

Where those first four lines echo the lead vocals, the last ("Protect you with the truth") is sung simultaneously, achieved a double-tracked effect.  There's a progression in the last verse from the echoing backing vocals to the meeting of the two vocal tracks in last line, just like the singer/speaker has been searching for the whole time and will finally "close [his arms] around you."

The Moody Blues' "The Story in Your Eyes"

This morning I listened to the 20th Century Masters compilation album of the Moody Blues.  I noticed an interesting melisma in the last verse of "The Story in Your Eyes."

When the final line is over
And it's certain that the curtain's gonna fall
I can hide inside your sweet, sweet love
Forevermore

The "more" of "Forevermore" has (I think) eight syllables instead of the usual one, so it provides a sense of continuation and eternity that, obviously, the "forevermore" itself means.

The Moody Blues' "House of Four Doors (Part 1)"

I just listened to the Moody Blues' In Search of the Lost Chord for the first time.  I'm not sure, but I think they quote part of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" in "House of Four Doors (Part 1)."  At around 3:15, a melody emerges from the rumbling.  As far as I can figure out, the notes are C# D E A.  What I think is a corresponding melody occurs in "Rhapsody in Blue" at around 11:30 in the version I have by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.  I'm pretty sure that it's G# A B and then E and B (an octave lower) simultaneously.  Simplified to representative notes of the scale, it's the third, the fourth, the fifth, and the tonic (plus the fifth in the case of "Rhapsody in Blue," if I have it correct).  These two sections are either in the same rhythm or a very similar rhythm, and after each, the melody continues to rise.

According to the Wikipedia page, each section in the song is supposed to represent an era of music, so perhaps it's a conscious nod to Gershwin.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E flat major ("Eroica")

I listened to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (“Eroica”) this morning, and I noticed that it ends the same way that it starts.  I think one of the ending notes is even the same note as the starting notes.  In any case, this made me think of the beginning and ending of the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed.  I haven’t verified this yet, but I’m pretty sure that the gong that ends the album also starts the album (although it’s reversed).

I’m not very knowledgeable about the genesis of Days of Future Passed, but I think originally, Decca had wanted to try some new recording technique with Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony before the Moody Blues were allowed to do their album.  Between that and the nature of the musical interludes (which can be symphonic at times), it would make sense that the opening and ending sounds were taken from Beethoven’s paradigm.  That’s purely conjecture though.  I don’t even know if Beethoven was the first to end something the same way he started it, and I wouldn’t be too confident in saying he was.

Still, regardless of who influenced whom and whether it was influence or coincidence, the same musical idea is employed here.  It’s just that Beethoven did it purely with notes and the Moody Blues did it by reversing the tape.