A different sort of hybrid

As with "Modern Art", I've opted to hybridize the starkly contrasting Escapade and Escapade 2 versions of "Look and See" for the Chronicles of a Dead End version.  Unlike that one, though, this is more of a case of maximizing the strengths of both previous versions, rather than minimizing weaknesses, even if there are also plenty of those!  After all, it brings me quite a bit of relief to note that, having now prepared the arrangements for all 7 songs, I'll probably never have to listen to anything from Escapade or Escapade 2 ever again in my life.

The hybrid approach is crystallized in the intro.  Here, I've opted for the Escapade approach of 10 bars of lush, symphonic layered synthesizers before the piano enters, rather than having the piano there from the start as in the Escapade 2 version.  However, the melody is played using the exact same Jupiter-santur tone as in the latter, the difference being that I'm actually playing it this time, instead of feeding this not-particularly-difficult line into the Jupiter-80's "MIDI IN" port.

Beyond that, the basic idea behind the arrangement is a kind of progressive scaling down, starting out with almost operatic fervour and gradually diminishing, with the final verse (the "present" part, if you like) being just a very hushed vocal and a sparse piano part.  I can't, off the top of my head, actually think of any other rock or pop song that reverses the usual dynamics in this way!  The parallel that most readily springs to my mind is a classical one: the heartbreakingly beautiful chorus "The Shepherds' Farewell to the Holy Family" from Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ.

The final verse is marked pppp.

In the vocals department, I went for all the theatrical intensity I could muster for the "main" (i.e. "past") part of the song, and also used heavier reverb than usual to emphasize that this is essentially a flashback.  Ultimately how I'll mix this is far from certain, though, as not only are there bass and drums to come, but I've opted for some acoustic guitar to fill out the texture as well.  This seemed to me to match the singer-songwriter elements of this track, which is ironic in view of the fact that (again, like "Modern Art") there's no guitar at all in either previous version.