"Hung up on a Dream"

Backdated, archival post

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The night after I wrote that post about baroque-influenced trills in "Butcher's Tale" and "Beechwood Park," I realized that I'd totally forgotten about the solo in "Hung up on a Dream," which is also pretty baroque.

There are two parts to the solo: the first is played by both guitar and mellotron and is one phrase that's then repeated an octave lower (I don't think the mellotron drops an octave though); the second section is more contrapuntal between guitar and mellotron.

The phrase in the first section of the solo starts with an extended (but moderately paced) trill between B and C.  In the second section, the guitar phrases start with the same sort of three-note trills that I mentioned earlier: E D E, C B C, C# B C#, F# G F#.

There's an-other extended-but-moderately-paced trill after the solo, during the lines "Until I woke up only finding everything was just a dream" and "That gave me peace and blew my mind / And now I'm hung up on a dream."  That's between B and A with a G thrown in at one point.  The melody of the lyrics follows it there too.

After I realized that I'd neglected that, I remembered that Rod Argent even talks about the baroque influence on "Beechwood Park" and "Hung up on a Dream" (specifically naming Bach) on the BBC Mastertapes program (at about 13:15).