"Please Let Me Wonder"

I figured out the organ part in the instrumental section of "Please Let Me Wonder" nearly ten years ago (4 October 2016).  Yester-day, I heard a clip of the song, started thinking about the part again, and then figured out how to notate it.  As always, there's the disclaimer that I may have something wrong:

"Time to Get Alone" [Alternate Early Version]

I recently listened to 1967: Sunshine tomorrow and had a few realizations about the alternate early version of "Time to Get Alone."

In the line "It's so quiet, we can hear for a country mile" (which isn't in the version on 20/20), the phrase "country mile" is sung to notes of all different pitches (F A C), giving a sense of this breadth.  The rather large interval (a fifth) also contributes to the sense of distance.

The instrumental section (also absent from the 20/20 version) seems to borrow a musical figure from the SMiLE sessions.  What I think is trombone plays something like this (the eighth notes are played more loosely than indicated):

(If I'm not mistaken, the song is in D major, but this whole section drops to C major.)

Excepting the A in the sixth measure, the intervals in the last four measures match those in the glockenspiel part in "Look (Song for Children)," which is something like this (again with the eighth notes played more loosely than indicated):

While the meters of the two songs are different, the rhythms of the two figures are also roughly the same:  a pair of eighth notes followed by a note with a longer value to fill out the remainder of the measure.

"Dance, Dance, Dance"

Yester-day, I listened to a compilation album of Chuck Berry (in the 20th Century Masters series) and noticed that the situation in his "School Days" is also portrayed in the Beach Boys' "Dance, Dance, Dance."  After listing a bunch of school-related problems, the narrator in "School Days" describes a release:

Drop the coin right into the slot

You gotta hear something that's really hot

With the one you love, you're makin' romance

All day long, you've been wantin' to dance

Feelin' the music from head to toe

Round and round and round you go

"Dance, Dance, Dance" merely condenses this, even using some of the same vocabulary:

After six hours of school, I had enough for the day
I hit the radio dial and turn it up all the way

I gotta dance right on the spot
The beat's really hot

Dance, dance, dance, yeah

When I feel put down, I try to shake it off quick
With my chick by my side, the radio does the trick

Chuck Berry is an acknowledged influence on the Beach Boys, so it seems likely that this similarity was intentional.

When I transcribed some of the lyrics of "Dance, Dance, Dance," I also noticed that "hot" is sung with a melisma (E F E D, I think), giving a sense of degree (for the modifying "really").

"Everyone's in Love with You"

A couple weeks ago, I figured out the bass part in "Everyone's in Love with You" and noticed a number of ways in which it emphasizes the lyrics.

In the verses, the bass plays something like this:

(Note that the end of the third verse differs a bit as the song transitions into the coda.)

Under the title line (which occurs at the beginning of every verse), the bass begins by playing notes of all different pitches (G F# E), providing a hint of the entirety of "ev'ryone."  In the third verse, this slight breadth gives a sense of the totality of "all" in the line "They all can see your love shine through" (the fifth and sixth measures).

"Still" in the line "Still ev'ryone's in love with you" (the third line of the first verse) could mean "nevertheless" or indicate an ongoing state.  The constancy of the latter option is illustrated by the bass's repetition of the same phrase that it played under the similar line "Ev'ryone's in love with you."

The bass highlights the contrast in the lines "Ev'ryone's in love with you / But you can't fall in love with anyone" (the first two lines of the song) by going in opposite directions:  descending under "Ev'ryone's in love with you," but ascending (albeit slightly) under "But you can't fall in love with anyone."  This ascent even demonstrates the meaning of "can't fall" (if somewhat more literally).

Under the line "Though most just barely glimpse a part of you" in the second verse (measures three and four), the bass plays only two pitches spanning a small interval (a whole step), and this narrow scope matches the limitation mentioned in the lyrics.

"God Only Knows"

I heard a clip of "God Only Knows" this morning and realized that the alliteration of "so sure" in the line "I'll make you so sure about it" lends a slight sense of this degree.

"Surfers Rule"

I listened to The Very Best of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons yester-day and was finally able to investigate and confirm something I'd suspected about "Surfers Rule" after listening to Surfer Girl in July last year.

In the coda, over the repeated line "Four Seasons, you'd better believe it," Brian sings a wordless falsetto part, something like this:

This is taken almost directly from the Four Seasons' "Walk Like a Man."  At the beginning, Frankie Valli sings his own falsetto part, something like this:

(With some small variation, these phrases also appear in the middle of the song and again in the coda.)

There's a slight difference in the rhythm in the second measure, but the intervals are exactly the same (in the top line, at least).

"Riot in Cell Block No. 9"

A couple days ago, I was thinking about songs that deal with prison and realized that to some degree, the regularity of a recurring rhyme scheme represents the constraining nature of a prison itself.  This is true of the Beach Boys' version of "Riot in Cell Block No. 9" (recorded during the sessions for Beach Boys' Party!).  Although the lyrics recount a riot, the verses have a uniform poetic structure (AABB), demonstrating a sort of captivity.  The narrator is bound by this form.  Of course, the last verse departs from this (with just AA), but - as I wrote last month - this shortening also illustrates a type of constraint.

"Walk on By"

During my nightly keyboard practice yester-day, I happened to play an E minor chord with an electric piano sound, was reminded of the "Walk on By" section of the Carpenters' Bacharach/David Medley (which starts with this chord), and discovered a feature in it that's also in the Beach Boys' version:  the phrase "walkin' down the street" in the line "If you see me walkin' down the street" is sung to a conjunct melody (F Eb Db Eb F), giving a sense of the steps involved in this walking.

"Airplane"

In the line "I can see ev'rything below" in "Airplane," the three syllables of "ev'rything" are sung to different pitches (B A G), lending a sense of this entirety.

"Just Once in My Life"

A few years ago, I noted that under the line "I've given up on schemes 'cause ev'ry one fell through" in "Just Once in My Life," the synth bass plays a chromatically descending phrase (Eb D Db):

At the time, I wrote that this descent matches the "falling through," even if the music takes it a bit more literally.

When I listened to the song again recently, I realized that in a very small way, the breadth of this chromaticism also matches the entirety of "ev'ry one."

"Blueberry Hill"

Yester-day, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of 15 Big Ones and Love You (because I've been reading about Love You in The Beach Boys lately), and I noticed a few features.

In the lines "But all of those vows you made / Were never to be" in "Blueberry Hill," the phrase "all of those vows" is sung to notes of all different pitches (E# F# G# A#), giving a sense of the entirety of "all."  That this E# is an accidental (the song is in B major) lends a further sense of breadth.

When I was thinking about the song later, I also realized that there's some significance in the placement of one of the line breaks in the second verse:

The moon stood still

On blueberry hill

It lingered until

My dream came true

The semantic sense is spread across the line break between "It lingered until" and "My dream came true."  The second line is necessary to complete the meaning, and in a way, the pause that comes before it matches this "linger[ing]."

"Drive-In"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "Drive-In," specifically the line "A big, buttered popcorn and a extra large coke."  To some degree, the abundance of plosive sounds in the phrase "big, buttered popcorn" indicates this large size.