The Association's "Requiem for the Masses"

A couple weeks ago, I got a box set of the Association's first five albums.  Even before I listened to them, I started thinking about "Requiem for the Masses" (which - of the thirteen songs on the compilation The Association's Greatest Hits! - is my favorite song by them).  Between thinking about it and then listening to The Association's Greatest Hits! again, I found three things to write about.

The first two things I noticed are in this section:

Mama, mama, forget your pies
Have faith they won't get cold
And turn your eyes to the blood-shot sky
Your flag is flying full
At half mast
For the matadors
Who turned their backs
To please the crowd
And all fell before the bull

After "Your flag is flying full," the lines have half as many syllables, corresponding to the moiety of the flag flying "At half mast" in the next line.  The first four lines have between six and nine syllables, but then the syllable count drops to anywhere between three and five before the final line of seven syllables (although "And" has a melisma when this section is repeated, making that line eight syllables).

I also found some connections between the melody and the lyrics of that last line.  If my counting is right, the "all" lasts for a whole measure, indicating the multitude of matadors who fell.  The phrase "all fell before" descends (E D# C# B), musically illustrating their falling.  "The bull" is sung to C# notes, so even musically, it's higher than the matadors, who "fell before the bull" to a B note.

The last thing I noticed is an implication of the contrast between

Red was the color of his blood flowing thin
Pallid white was the color of his lifeless skin
Blue was the color of the morning sky

and

Black and white were the figures that recorded him
Black and white was the newsprint he was mentioned in
Black and white was the question that so bothered him

Obviously the major difference between these two is that the first has various colors where the second has only "black and white," but what I realized is that this contrast illustrates the change in the matador.  Although he's dying in the first section, he is still alive, and the variety of colors represents the potentiality of his life.  In the second section, where he's dead, the repeated "black and white" illustrates the immutability of death.  The matador has no more agency, so where before there were changing colors, now there's only the repeated "black and white."

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This is the second post I've written about "Requiem for the Masses."  Here's one I wrote three years ago.