Thursday, June 21, 2018

"Love Conquers All"

I got behind in my posts, but here are some things I noticed about "Love Conquers All" when I listened to New World last week.

The last line of the first verse is "Feeling ev'ry moment's do or die," and the "do or die" part seems to come from Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," specifically:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
That's "do and die" rather than "do or die," but the phrase is similar.

The "fall" in the line " Each time you fall" in the chorus is sung with a descending melisma (E D B), musically giving a sense of that "fall[ing]."  In a later iteration of the chorus, "walls" in the line "Breaking down the walls" is sung with this same melisma, again giving a sense of downward movement.