"Bluebirds over the Mountain"

Like I wrote about with "Little Bird" yester-day, there's an alliterative "all alone" in "Bluebirds over the Mountain" ("If you see her all alone"), and since there's only one initial sound, there's an illustration of this singularity.

"Bluebirds over the Mountain"

When I listened to the Friends/20/20 reissue, I also noticed a small thing in "Bluebirds over the Mountain."  I'm not sure what the whole line is, but "land" in the phrase "ev'ryone in ev'ry land" is sung with a melisma (B A), musically giving a sense of the range of "ev'ry."

"Daybreak over the Ocean"

The last thing I noticed when I listened to That's Why God Made the Radio recently is that "Daybreak over the Ocean" is very similar to "Bluebirds over the Mountain" (written by Ersel Hickey) and that both have some resemblance to the folk song "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean."

For comparison's sake, here's a section from each.

The verse from "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean":

My Bonnie lies over the ocean
My Bonnie lies over the sea
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me

The chorus of "Bluebirds over the Mountain":

Bluebirds over the mountain
Seagulls over the sea
Bluebirds over the mountain
Bring my baby to me

The beginning of first section of "Daybreak over the Ocean" as they're rendered in the liner notes:

Daybreak over the ocean
Moonlight still on the sea
Will the waves gentle motion
Bring my babe my baby back to me

All of these mention something either "over the ocean" or "over the sea" (or both) and end with the command to "Bring my baby/my Bonnie (back) to me."  In both "Bluebirds over the Mountain" and "Daybreak over the Ocean," the structure of the first two lines is essentially the same: noun, preposition, article adjective, object of the preposition.  "Daybreak over the Ocean" just adds an adverb ("still") for the second line.  I feel it's also worth mentioning that Mike Love sings the lead vocals in both (and wrote "Daybreak over the Ocean").

Both "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean" and "Daybreak over the Ocean" also contain a whole section that's just variations on "Bring my baby/my Bonnie back to me."  In "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean," it's:

Bring back, bring back
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me
Bring back, bring back
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me

And in "Daybreak over the Ocean," it's:

Won't you bring back
Bring my baby back
Won't you bring back
Bring back my baby 

"Bluebirds over the Mountain"

I listened to the Friends/20/20 two-albums-re-issued-on-one-CD this morning because I'm not as familiar with either as I'd like to be (I think I've listened to this re-issue only a few times).  "Bluebirds over the Mountain" got stuck in my head, and because of that, I realized something about the title line.  The melody is such that "bluebirds" (sung to C# notes) really are "over the mountain" as far as musical pitch ("the mountain" is sung to the phrase B B A A).  Likewise, "seagulls" (sung to D notes) are "over the sea" ("the sea" is sung to the phrase C# C# B A B).