"You're So Good to Me"

I listened to Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) yester-day and noticed a small feature in "You're So Good to Me."  In the line "I know your eyes are not on the guys when we're apart," "apart" is sung with a melisma (B B A G A B).  Since the word is sung with this disjointed articulation, there's something of a sense of its meaning.

"Amusement Parks U.S.A."

I listened to The Very Best of the Coasters yester-day and re-discovered something that I think the Beach Boys borrowed for "Amusement Parks U.S.A."  Near the beginning of the Coasters' "Little Egypt," a carnival barker uses the phrase "just one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar."  In the middle of the Beach Boys' "Amusement Parks U.S.A." there's an almost identical phrase:  "It's only a dime, folks, one thin dime, just one tenth of a dollar."

The Beach Boys ran through the Coasters' "Riot in Cell Block No. 9" for the Beach Boys' Party! album (available on the Uncovered and Unplugged edition) and rewrote it as "Student Demonstration Time" for Surf's Up, so I'm assuming that they had some familiarity with other Coasters songs too.

"Heroes and Villains"

I listened to the first disc of The SMiLE Sessions Deluxe Edition box set this morning and noticed a small feature in "Heroes and Villains."  The phrase "head to toe" is a merism.

"Here Today"

In the line "Well, you know I hate to be a downer" in "Here Today," "downer" is sung to a pair of descending notes (B F#), giving something of a sense of its meaning.

In the line "Tomorrow it's here and gone so fast," "fast" is sung with a melisma (D B), giving a sense of degree (for "so").

"I'm Waiting for the Day"

In "I'm Waiting for the Day," "free" in the line "To set your broken heart free" is sung with a melisma (B A G#).  Since the word isn't constrained to a single syllable, there's a sense of its meaning.

"So" in the line "And that you still loved him so" is sung with this same melisma, but in this instance it gives a sense of degree.  (I'd noted this before, but I didn't include the specific pitches in that post, which was so badly written that I removed it.)

"Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)"

In "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)," "right" in the line "Being here with you feels so right" is sung with a melisma (C Bb A), musically giving a sense of degree (for "so").

"Wouldn't It Be Nice"

I listened to The Pet Sounds Sessions box set recently and noticed a handful of features.  "Wouldn't It Be Nice" contains an instance of polysyndeton, a rhetorical effect in which conjunctions are repeated:  "Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true."  Having "and" so many times isn't strictly necessary, but its repetition gives a sense of the earnestness of those actions.

Additionally, the musical rhythm of this line is such that "think," "wish," "hope," and "pray" all occur on downbeats, and this also provides emphasis.

"Don't Worry Baby"

I noticed two features in the line "Ev'rything will turn out alright" in "Don't Worry Baby."  The three syllables of "Ev'rything" are each sung to a different pitch (E# F# G#), musically giving a sense of breadth.  The "al-" of "alright" is sung with a melisma (I think it's D# E# D#), giving a sense of entirety.

"Hawaii"

In "Hawaii," "far and near" in the line "Surfer guys and girls will be comin' from far and near" is a merism.

"The Surfer Moon"

I noticed a couple significant melismas in "The Surfer Moon."  In the line "Brings the tide in, takes it all away," "away" is sung with a melisma (I think it's Eb Eb D Eb F G A F, but since there's a harmony part there, it's a bit difficult to tell) for a sense of movement or distance, and in the line "Promising to remain forevermore," "forevermore" is sung with a melisma (A# G# F# F# E#, I think) for a sense of duration.  (I'm pretty sure there's a key change for the bridge, which is why one of those sets of notes is in a flat key and the other is in a sharp key.)

While referencing the song again to find those specific pitches, I also noticed that the melody mirrors the directions in the line "Rising up, throwing down its golden light."  "Rising up" is sung to an ascending phrase (F# G# A#), and "throwing down" is sung to a descending phrase (C# B G#).

"Noble Surfer"

In "Noble Surfer," "night and day" in the line "Surfin' night and day, never twice in one spot" and "up and down" in the line "He takes his choice of honeys up and down the coast" are merisms.

"Surfin'"

"From the early mornin' to the middle of the night" in "Surfin'" is a merism.

"County Fair"

In "County Fair," the description "most specialist" ("the most specialist girl I knew") is a pleonasm.  Adding "-ist" to the end of an adjective and putting "most" in front of it are both ways to form the superlative, but doing both isn't necessary.  That both are here indicates an extreme degree.

"Surfin' Safari"

I recently listened to the first three Beach Boys albums (and Shut Down Volume 2 because it's paired with Surfer Girl on the CD re-issue), and I noticed a bunch of minor points to note.

In "Surfin' Safari," the line "From Hawaii to the shores of Peru" (describing how surfing is "gettin' bigger ev'ry day") is a merism.

"Our Car Club"

I was thinking about "Our Car Club" this morning and realized a small feature about it:  the line "We got a Deuce Coupe, a Stingray, a rail job, and an XKE" is a rhetorical catalogue whose function is to illustrate the "class and style" of the car club via the variety of cars included in it.

"Long Promised Road"

In the line "Throw off all the shackles that are binding me down" in "Long Promised Road," "down" is sung with various descending melismas, giving a sense of the word's meaning.  In the backing vocals, the word is repeated at progressively lower pitches (F Eb D C), providing the same sense of meaning in a different manner.

"Cool, Cool Water"

In "Cool, Cool Water," there's the line "From the mountains on down to the sea" (this is specific to the Sunflower version; this section isn't in the SMiLE Sessions versions).  I'm not sure if this line is meant to describe the journey that water makes or whether it identifies the variety of locations in which "Cool water keeps on coolin' me."  If it's the second reading, though, "From the mountains on down to the sea" is a merism.

"All I Wanna Do"

I noted before that in the line "You can be sure that in my heart and soul I love you in every way" in "All I Wanna Do," "every" is sung with three syllables to give a sense of number.  When I listened to Sunflower yester-day, I noticed that "way" is sung with a melisma (E D), giving a sense of amount.

"Tears in the Morning"

I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of Sunflower/Surf's Up because to-day's the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Sunflower (and yester-day was the forty-ninth anniversary of the release of Surf's Up), and I noticed a few things.

This is just a small point, but in "Tears in the Morning," "Day and night" in the lines "Day and night, feel my light, it's gonna stand till / My heart believes in what you chose" is a merism.

"Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale): Radio King Dom"

This is an-other small point, but I found two merisms in the "Radio King Dom" section of "Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale)."

The children looked everywhere, high and low, checking to see if they could find that transistor radio.  They couldn't find it.  They couldn't find it.  They looked upstairs and downstairs, all through the castle.

Mentioning the opposite extremes ("high and low" and "upstairs and downstairs") gives a sense of the breadth of the search.

"Leaving This Town"

A little over a month ago, I listened to Holland and noticed a small feature in "Leaving This Town."  In the line "Should I stay or go," "go" is sung with a melisma (B C B B A, I think), musically giving a sense of movement.

"Surfin'"

I was thinking about "Surfin'" this morning and realized that the line "Surfin' is the only life, the only way for me" is sung to only two pitches.  "Surfin' is the only life, the" is sung entirely to Eb notes, and "only way for me" is sung entirely to Db notes.  For each half of this line, then, the singularity of pitch musically represents the exclusivity of "only."

"Wendy"

Yester-day, I figured out the organ solo in "Wendy."  I got a few chords here and there, and while I didn't get a complete section of the chord progression, I figured out enough to notice a small feature.  Under the third line in each verse, the chords move from D minor to G major.  The song is in F major, so the B note in that G major is an accidental.  Musically, this provides a feeling of foreignness that matches the sentiment in the lines "I never thought a guy could cry," "I can't picture you with him," and "The farthest thing from my mind."

"Be with Me"

Some of the "free"s in "Be with Me" (in the sections starting at ~0:59 and ~1:57 and in the coda) are sung with various melismas.  Musically, this gives a sense of the word's meaning since it's not constrained to a single pitch.

"I Can Hear Music"

I listened to Friends/20/20 yester-day and noticed a couple things.  In the line "Maybe that's why when we're all alone" in "I Can Hear Music," "alone" is sung with a melisma (F# A B A), musically giving a sense of degree (for "all").  I referenced the version by the Ronettes, and while the rhythm is a bit different, this melisma is present there too.

"Amusement Parks U.S.A."

Last night, I learned the bass part for "Amusement Parks U.S.A." and noticed a small feature in the song.  Underneath "day" in the last "Let's take your car and mess around at the park all day" (at ~2:13), the bass (and I think also the guitar) has a chromatic phrase from F down to B.  Musically, this gives a sense of entirety for that "all day."

"California Girls"

Yester-day, the Beach Boys tweeted about "California Girls," which either reminded me of something I'd neglected to write about or made me fully realize something I had been dimly aware of:  the first verse is an example of a rhetorical catalogue:  "east coast girls... southern girls... midwest farmers' daughters... And the northern girls."  Its function here is to illustrate the wide variety.

"She Knows Me Too Well"

Two days ago, I learned the bass part for "She Knows Me Too Well," and yester-day I refined a few notes in the chorus that I had wrong initially.  I'm pretty sure the song is in B major, but there are some A naturals (accidentals in B major) that musically highlight various sentiments in the lyrics that are sung above them.

The A naturals occur in the second half of every other line in the verses.  In the first verse, in the line "Sometimes I have a weird way of showin' my love," they're under "showin' my love," musically illustrating that oddness.  In the line "I treat her so mean, I don't deserve what I have," they're under "deserve what I have," illustrating that incongruity.

In the second verse, in the line "I get so jealous of the other guy," the A naturals are under "other guy," musically illustrating the foreignness of "other."  In the line "When I look at other girls, it must kill her inside," they're under "kill her inside," musically illustrating that pain.

"Friends"

I recently learned the bass register of the clavinet part in "Friends," and in doing so, I discovered an interesting feature in the song.

The melody to which "We've been friends now for so many years" is sung contains only the pitches D, E, and F#; the melody to which "We've been together through the good times and the tears" is sung contains only the pitches Eb, F, and G.  I'm not sure whether this is technically a key change (the song is [mostly] in D major) or just a slew of accidentals, but in any case, the foreign tonalities musically indicate the breadth of experiences that have occurred in this friendship.

"Anna Lee, the Healer"

Yester-day, I bought Wake the World: The Friends Sessions, one of the digital-only albums of session outtakes and alternate versions.  I listened to it a second time this morning and noticed a small feature in "Anna Lee, the Healer."  The lines "From the Himalayan mountainside up in Rishikesh / To a California beach house facin' towards the sea" contain a merism - a rhetorical device that gives a sense of breadth by naming two specific points along a range.

"Time to Get Alone"

I listened to Friends/20/20 this evening because I saw that to-day is the anniversary of 20/20's release (in 1969), and I noticed a couple things in the bridge of "Time to Get Alone."

There's some sort of effect applied to the vocals singing "deep and wide" at the end of the line "Lookin' down through the valleys so deep and wide," giving a sense of voices echoing through a "deep and wide" valley.

In the last "Aren't you glad we finally got away," the "away" is sung with a melisma (G A Eb D), musically giving a sense either of movement or distance.  I think the Eb is even an accidental, which heightens the sense of distance.

"Be with Me"

When I listened to Friends/20/20 yester-day, I also noticed a small thing in "Be with Me."  In the lines "Ev'rything we will see / Ev'rything we will be," the three syllables of those "ev'rything"s are all sung to different pitches (C D Eb and Eb F G), musically giving a sense of breadth.

Friends

I listened to Friends/20/20 this evening and then figured out the repeated banjo phrase in the coda of "Little Bird."  It sounded familiar, and I discovered that - raised a half-step and with one pitch repeated - it's the same as the first vocal line in "Meant for You" (the rhythms are different, though).  The banjo phrase in "Little Bird" is E F G G A G; the first vocal phrase in "Meant for You" (the lyric is "As I sit and close my eyes") is F Gb Ab Ab Ab Bb Ab.  This similarity gives a bit of cohesion to the album.