"Be My Lover, Be My Friend"

Yester-day, I listened to Argent's performance at the Paris Theatre from 14 December 1972 and noticed that the line "You sounded so sweet" in "Be My Lover, Be My Friend" alliterates.  The repeated S provides a sense of degree, matching the adverb "so."

All Together Now

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I listened to Argent's All Together Now because (according to Russo's Collector's Guide) it was released to-day in 1972.  As usual, I worked on lyric transcription and noticed a few things.

There's some interesting elements in the chorus in "I Am the Dance of Ages":

Ride on the rising tide
Walk on the water
Spray with each burning day
I'm going high

There's alliteration ("Ride on the rising tide / Walk on the water"), assonance ("Ride on the rising tide / Walk on the water"), and internal rhyme ("Ride on the rising tide" "Spray with each burning day").

I think there's a small Bach reference in "Be My Lover, Be My Friend."  The song changes at about 4:01 and goes into an organ interlude.  At about 4:04, there's a trill between A and G - the same trill that starts Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (I looked up the notation).  I've written about Bach-influenced trills with the Odessey and Oracle material, but I think this is more of an intentional quotation than a mere influence.