"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.