Sunday, February 13, 2005

Elephant Love Medley - Moulin Rouge Soundtrack

Knowing that this song combines snippets from many popular songs makes analyzing it different than if one didn't know this fact. Overall, I think it flows pretty well for the number of different songs it includes. The lyrics are woven together well. I think the lyrics are what really tie the song together. Sometimes the melodies and/or transitions don't quite fit, but the lyrics always make sense. As for form, the song is obviously not going to be consistant because of the range of songs included. A great quality of this song is that the lyrics and line of the music go together very well (ex- when the piece progresses to the 'Up Where We Belong' section, there is a huge crescendo and change in register). Toward the end of the song there's a section from "I Will Always Love You." This is especially notable because in the full Whitney Houston song these lyrics appear throughout but here it's only at this one point, and it feels very final and concluding. I think it's because the tempo drops a considerable amount and more percussion is added. Overall, I'd say this song is mostly about the lyrics, but the way the songs are laced together have huge impact the feel of the piece. Even though there's not a clear way to label the form other than with the word 'medley,' structural phenomena seem to shape the piece.

2 comments:

Scott said...

There is a specific name for this type of form: mosaic. Like the artwork, which creates a big picture from the placing of little pieces of glass next to each other, music in a mosaic form creates a larger whole from recognizable smaller units. These smaller units are always quotations.

rpinop said...

hi, i`m not speek english very well... but i`m try.
i need to know what are the name of the song at the medley "elephant love song..." I hope you help me.

thanks a lot.