When I listened to The SMiLE Sessions box set last month, I noticed a couple things about the way some vocals are articulated. I wanted to wait to write about these until I'd listened to the whole box set, but then I never got around to doing it.
I noticed two small things about "Heroes and Villains." The line "Once at night, cotillion squared the fight, and she was right in the rain of the bullets that eventually brought her down" is sung to a descending melody, starting at F# and descending diatonically (in C# major) for more than an octave to D#. This descent seems to represent that bringing "down" in a musical way.
In the cantina section, "margaritas keep the spirit high" is sung to an ascending phrase (B# C# C# D# D# E# E# G# G#), so there's something of a musical representation of that "high."
