Sunday, March 24, 2019

"Surfer Girl"

The other thing I noticed when I listened to Beach Boys' Party!/Stack-o-Tracks a couple days ago is in "Surfer Girl."  Even though Stack-o-Tracks has just the instrumental parts, I realized something about the vocals, specifically the bridge:
We could ride the surf together
While our love would grow
In my woody, I would take you
Ev'rywhere I go
Both "grow" and "go" are sung with melismas (A B F# and F# E F, respectively).  For "grow," the extension of the melisma gives a musical sense of the word's meaning, and for "go," the melisma gives a musical sense of movement.

In writing this post, I also discovered that there's a key change coincident with that "go" (D major to Eb major, I think).  This too provides a musical sense of movement.

Using the isolated backing track, I tried figuring out the chord progression, and while I was unsuccessful, I did notice one feature: there's a major-to-minor modulation (G major to G minor) underneath the end of the line "Made my heart come all undone."  Musically, this change portrays that feeling.