"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 

"The Private Life of Bill and Sue"

In the choruses "The Private Life of Bill and Sue," there's a catalogue of places:  "California to Mexico... Dallas, Texas to Monterey... Santa Barbara to Jersey Shore."  I'm not sure if this section of "The Private Life of Bill and Sue" is meant to be reminiscent of it, but the same technique is used in "Surfin' U.S.A." (and Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen," which "Surfin' U.S.A." is based on).  It's also used in "Kokomo," which I've written about before.

"Spring Vacation"

"Spring Vacation" has some pretty obvious allusions to old Beach Boys songs.  The first verse contains the line "We used to get around," referring to "I Get Around," and the chorus mentions "Good vibrations."

"Isn't It Time"

In the chorus of "Isn't It Time," there's the line "Every time I think of you" in which "every" is sung with three syllables rather than just two.  This gives a sense of enumeration, as if the speaker/singer is recounting the times one by one.

In the section after the second chorus, there's the line "We raise our glass to kindness," which is reminiscent of a line in "Auld Lang Syne."  In various versions, it's "We'll drink a cup of kindness yet" or "We'll take a cup of kindness yet."  This line in "Isn't It Time" is far from identical, but it's the same general idea.

"That's Why God Made the Radio"

I recently listened to That's Why God Made the Radio (I think for only the third time) and noticed a number of things, about which I'll have posts over the next couple days.  First, a small thing about the title track: the "afar" in the line "Capturing mem'ries from afar" has a harmony part in the backing vocals and is sung with a melisma (Bb A G F G, I think).  This articulation gives a musical sense of the distance that "afar" itself implies.

"Add Some Music to Your Day"

Yester-day I learned the chords for "Add Some Music to Your Day" and noticed something interesting about them.  For the first three verses, all of the chords are major chords, but the bridge starts with a C# minor.  After almost two whole minutes of major chords, that one minor chord completely changes the mood and (to some degree) provides a musical sense of the desolation and loneliness mentioned in the bridge ("Music... Is like a companion / For your lonely soul").

I feel it also worth mentioning that when I listened to the album a couple weeks ago, I realized I had part of my transcription wrong.  I'd thought a line in the third verse was "Your preacher adds it to his songs" (although I thought this didn't make much sense).  I realized recently that the line is actually "Your preacher adds it to his psalms" (rhyming with "calm" from the previous line).  Along with making a lot more sense, this is actually true.  In four of my hymnals, there are chant tones to which the Psalms can be sung.

"Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)"

I listened to the last disc of The Pet Sounds Sessions on Monday, and I discovered that my post about the melisma'd "sighs" in "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" was incomplete.  I neglected to notice that the following line has a similar feature.  The "eyes" in "And I can see so much in your eyes" is also sung with a melisma (Bb Ab Gb), so there's a musical sense of "so much" in the "eyes."

When I transcribed some of the song on Monday, I also discovered a couple things about the chorus.  In the first iteration, the last line is "Don't talk, take my hand, and let me hear your heart beat," but when the chorus is repeated, this becomes "Don't talk, take my hand, and listen to my heart beat."  There's a sort of parallelism between "let me hear your heart beat" and "listen to my heart beat."  Additionally, "heart beat" could be understood as two separate words (a noun with a verb) or a single word (a noun).

"This Whole World"

On Sunday I listened to Sunflower and noticed a small thing about "This Whole World." "Ev'rywhere" in the line "Lots of different people ev'rywhere" is sung with a melisma (D E F# E D C#, I think), giving a musical sense of breadth.

"Fun, Fun, Fun"

On Saturday, "Fun, Fun, Fun" popped into my head, and I realized something about the rhyme scheme.

Each verse has the rhyme scheme AAAB.  The first three lines all end with "now" too.  Here's the first verse:

Well, she got her daddy's car and she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library like she told her old man now
And with the radio blastin' goes cruisin' just as fast as she can now
And she'll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-bird away

That the fourth line doesn't rhyme with the first three and doesn't end in "now" could demonstrate breaking away from a set pattern (like a daily routine) and "hav[ing] fun, fun, fun."  Alternatively, because the fourth line doesn't rhyme with the preceding three, there's the notion of something in the structure having been taken away, just like the T-bird in the lyrics.

"Caroline, No"

An-other thing I noticed when I listened to the stack-o-vocals Pet Sounds tracks recently is the articulation of some words in "Caroline, No."  "Go" in the line "Where did your long hair go" and "away" in the line "Who took that look away" are both sung with melismas (A G F and D A G F respectively).  This gives a musical sense of movement or distance.

When I transcribed some of the lyrics to-day in order to write this post, I noticed something else.  The first verse has a rhyme scheme of AAAA:

Where did your long hair go
Where is the girl I used to know
How could you lose that happy glow
Oh, Caroline, no

But the other verses don't follow this.  In the other two verses, the first two lines rhyme, but the third breaks the pattern, and the content of the that third line is significant with regard to this structural change.  In the second verse, the rhyme scheme is broken with "You'd never change, but that's not true," and in the third with "Could we ever bring 'em back once they have gone."  The rhyme scheme has changed from the first verse and it's not brought back.

"Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)"

An-other thing I noticed when I listened to the stack-o-vocals Pet Sounds tracks a couple days ago is that "sighs" in the line "I can hear so much in your sighs" in "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" is sung with a melisma (C Bb A).  Because "sighs" is sung to three notes, there's a musical sense of the one word's having "so much" in it.

Additional note:  I learned the bass part for "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" two years ago, but - of course - I didn't write it down and forgot it.  On Friday night (when I wrote this post), I relearned it and made sure to write it down.  In my notation, I wrote the key as Eb minor (so the C# and G# notes I mentioned in my original post are actually Db and Ab notes), but I'm not very confident that that's right.  The song doesn't really resolve, and there are a slew of accidentals (the bass part has every pitch but G), both of which make it difficult to identify the key.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice"

When I listened to the stack-o-vocals version of "Wouldn't It Be Nice" yester-day, I noticed that "long" in the line "Then we wouldn't have to wait so long" is sung with a melisma (D C Bb), musically giving a sense of that length of time.  Similarly, "never-ending" in the line "I wish that ev'ry kiss was never-ending" is sung with an extra syllable (although only in the backing vocals), also giving a sense of elongated time (if not exactly "never-ending").