"You Still Believe in Me"

I've been slowly reading The Beach Boys (the band's only official book, from 2023), and lately, I've been reading about the songs on Pet Sounds.  Yester-day, I read the lyrics to "You Still Believe in Me" (on page 205, with a bit of "I Know There's an Answer" accidentally included).  I noticed that in the line "Ev'ry time we break up, you bring back your love to me," "ev'ry" is sung to notes of all different pitches (B E F#), providing something of a sense of entirety.

"Surf's Up"

I recently found a note from last month that I forgot to write about here.  In the Beach Boys' Instagram stories, I'd heard a clip of "Surf's Up," and I realized that in the first section (roughly until ~1:36), the bass plays mostly on the up-beats, perhaps in order to emphasize the "up" in the title phrase.  Here's the notation for the first verse (with the standard disclaimer that I may have something wrong):

Aside from the last two measures, the bass part in the second verse is the same.

"Funky Pretty"

Off and on over the last three months or so, I transcribed the lyrics from the liner notes of my edition of Holland into Google Documents for each of the songs so that they're easier to reference.  When I transcribed "Funky Pretty" this morning, I noticed a significant structural change in the third verse.

There are two vocal parts in the verses.  Each sings different lyrics, but they converge on the last word in each line, which is either the same or a perfect rhyme ("romance" and "romance," "glance" and "dance," and "dance" and "glance" in the first verse, "gold" and "gold," "old" and "bold," and "told" and "told" in the second).  This structure is broken in the third verse, though, where these simultaneously sung words are "ours" and "hours," "hours" and "stars," and "stars" and "powers."  This difference in the structure matches the theme of some of the lyrics in that verse:  "Her calendar is not like ours" and "The hieroglyphs mark changing hours."

"Help Me, Rhonda"

I was thinking about "Help Me, Rhonda" yester-day, and I realized that the line "She was gonna be my wife, and I was gonna be her man" contains a sort of chiasm (she | my || I | her).  This structure reflects the reciprocity that this relationship had before "she let another guy come between us."

While referencing the recording to verify the lyrics, I also noticed that "fine" in the line "Well, Rhonda, you look so fine" is sung with a melisma (C# B# A# in the lead vocals), giving a sense of degree (for "so").

These features are also present in the version on Today! ("Help Me, Ronda").

"I'll Bet He's Nice"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "I'll Bet He's Nice," specifically the first two lines ("I'll bet he's nice / I'll bet he's twice").  They're sung to the same melody and have almost the same accompaniment*, and I realized that this musical doubling matches that "twice."  (The full description spills over into the next line:  "twice / As nice as me.")

---

*As far as I can tell, the only difference is the right-panned synth phrase; the second time, it's G Ab Bb Ab instead of G Ab Bb G.

"Little Deuce Coupe"

A couple days ago, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of Little Deuce Coupe and All Summer Long, and later I realized that there's a somewhat significant contrast in "Little Deuce Coupe," specifically in the line "But she'll walk a Thunderbird like it's standin' still."  The narrator's affection towards his car is such that he's anthropomorphized it to some degree, using a feminine pronoun to refer to it throughout the song ("She's my little deuce coupe," "She'll do a hundred and forty...," "She's got a competition clutch...," and so on), but a competitor's Thunderbird is still just an object and is referred to with the neuter "it."

"When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)"

I was thinking about "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" a couple days ago, specifically about the recurring harpsichord phrase in the verses, which is something like:

The rhythm here seemed familiar to me, and eventually, I realized that it's the same as the rhythm of the guitar part in the first "verse" of "Shut Down, Part II," which is something like this:

While the melodies are different, the rhythm is the same, but I don't know whether this was an intentional re-use or just a coincidence.

"Let's Put Our Hearts Together"

In the line "Take your time; don't worry how you feel because you know we've got forever" in "Let's Put Our Hearts Together," "forever" is sung with a melisma (F# A# C# B A#) and lasts for nearly a full measure.  Both of these features lend a sense of duration.

"A Casual Look"

Yester-day, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of 15 Big Ones and Love You.  I noticed that, perhaps just coincidentally, some lines in "A Casual Look" are identical to some lines in "I'm So Young" (from Today!).  Here's the second verse of "A Casual Look":

A soldier boy when he proposed

She said no; his face just froze

You know she loved him

But was so young

Can't marry no one

Can't marry no one

And here's the first verse of "I'm So Young":

I have a girlfriend; she says I'm her only one

We wanna get married, but we're so young

So young

Can't marry no one

Both end with "So young / Can't marry no one."  Furthermore, as I've noted before, in both, "young" is sung with a melisma, providing a sense of degree (for "so").

According to the liner notes of the respective albums, "A Casual Look" was written by Ed Wells, and "I'm So Young" by William Tyus.

"South Bay Surfer"

Last night, I figured out the chords for "South Bay Surfer," and while doing so, I noticed a small feature.  In the lines "All the boys are rough and ready / To handle anything," "anything" is sung with a melisma (A C# C# B), giving a sense of breadth.  Most of the notes are sung to different pitches, and this also contributes to the effect.

"Little Deuce Coupe"

This morning, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD reissue of Beach Boys' Party! and Stack-o-Tracks.  For the first time, I noticed that near the end of the version of "Little Deuce Coupe" on Beach Boys' Party!, at ~3:02, Mike Love sings, "She comes on like a rose," which is the first line of "Poison Ivy" by the Coasters.

"Whistle In"

Yester-day, I realized that in "Whistle In," the "all" in the line "All day long" has a longer value than any other note and that (along with the melismas that I noted years ago) this provides a sense of duration.  I couldn't figure out all of the precise note values (which is why I don't have notation), but "all" is sung with a half note, and the other notes are quarter notes or shorter.