"Mama Says"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "Mama Says" and noticed some significant points just in the lyrics.

Most of the lines have the same structure, with "a lot" occurring at the end ("Eat a lot / Sleep a lot... Run a lot / Do a lot"), and this repetition (technically called epistrophe) matches the great quantity that the phrase itself indicates.  The song contains repetition on a broader scale, too, since the same verse recurs throughout, just with melodic differences.

In "Eat a lot," however, "a lot" could function as either a direct object ("eat an abundance") or an adverb ("eat frequently"), and this duality of possible meanings also hints at a large amount.  Similarly, with "Sleep a lot," "a lot" could indicate duration ("sleep for a long time") or frequency ("sleep often").

"Their Hearts Were Full of Spring"

I'm unsure of the specific pitches, but in the title line of "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring," "spring" is sung with various melismas, providing a sense of the abundance of being "full."  In the last instance of the line, "full" itself is also sung with a melisma, illustrating this plenty.

"Here Comes the Night"

As with "so sweet" in "Aren't You Glad," the repetition involved in the alliterative "so strong" in "Here Comes the Night" ("It's never ever felt so strong") lends some sense of degree.

"Aren't You Glad"

The repetition involved in the alliterative "so sweet" in "Aren't You Glad" ("You're so sweet") provides a slight sense of degree.

"Vegetables"

I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD combination of Smiley Smile and Wild Honey yester-day and noticed a handful of features.

In the line "If you brought a big, brown bag of them home" in "Vegetables," the repeated initial plosives in "big, brown bag" lend a slight sense of this large size, and since each occurs on a downbeat, there's an additional musical emphasis.

"Palisades Park"

I listened to 15 Big Ones (and Love You) last week because it was the fiftieth anniversary of its release (on 5 July 1976), and I noticed a couple points in "Palisades Park."  I wanted to compare the Beach Boys' version to the original by Freddy Cannon before writing about it, though, and it took me a while to track down my copy of Cannon's recording.

The lines "You never know how great a kiss can feel / Until you stop at the top of a Ferris wheel" contain the highest pitches in the lead vocal (Es), giving a sense of the height of "at the top."

Cannon's version is a half step higher (Ab major), so the pitches there are Fs, but the feeling is the same.  Unless I'm mistaken, the lyric is a bit different, though:  "You'll never know how great a kiss can feel / When you stop at the top of a Ferris wheel."

In the line "And around like a merry-go-round," "around" is sung with a melisma (D E D), giving a slight sense of this movement.  This articulation isn't in Cannon's version.