"Take a Load off Your Feet"

Last week, I figured out the chords for "Take a Load off Your Feet" and noticed some significance in the progression under the line "One, then the other, too" at the end of the third verse.  I'm pretty sure the chords there are B major | F# major | B major (although I think the recording is slightly out of tune).

There are only two chords here, and to some degree, this number matches the "one" and "the other" in the lyrics, especially since "one" (above B major) and "other" (above F# major) both occur on the same beat as the chord change.

The tonality is more significant, though.  It seems that alternating between the root and fifth of a given chord is a common technique to portray footsteps musically (like the guitar in Fats Domino's "Walking to New Orleans" and the bass in the Beatles' "Don't Pass Me By," specifically for the lines "I listen for your footsteps comin' up the drive / Listen for your footsteps, but they don't arrive").  The chords here take this notion further; instead of just the root and fifth of a single chord, they're the tonic (I) and dominant (V) of the song's key, so there's a broader sense of these footsteps.

"Wind Chimes"

I recently listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of Smiley Smile and Wild Honey and noticed in "Wind Chimes" what might be a reference to the Christmas song "Silver Bells."  In the section starting at ~1:32, the phrase "ting-a-ling" is repeated a number of times.  In Mike's part, it's sung to an ascending group of notes (F# G A).  In the chorus of "Silver Bells," the similar phrase "ring-a-ling" occurs, sung to the same intervals (in Bing Crosby's version, the notes are A Bb C).

"Ding Dang"

Yester-day, I read Roger McGuinn's account in The Beach Boys (p. 337) of his writing "Ding Dang" with Brian Wilson.  He quotes part of the song, and I realized that there's some significance in the melodic shape of the line "I treat her so fine, but she treats me so badly," which is something like this:

Although it's only slight, the first half ("I treat her so fine") ascends (Bb to C), but the second half ("but she treats me so badly") descends (C to A).  These opposite musical directions highlight the contrast in the lyrics (especially since the verbal structure of each half is so similar).  Additionally, the descent for "she treats me so badly" even matches the narrator's disappointment.

"From There to Back Again"

Yester-day was the anniversary of the release of That's Why God Made the Radio, so I listened to the album again, and I noticed a small feature in "From There to Back Again."  In the line "We had a lot to live; we gave it all," "all" is sung with a melisma (G F), giving a slight sense of this entirety.