"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").