Showing posts with label Silver Bells. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silver Bells. Show all posts

Friday, October 24, 2014

She & Him's "Silver Bells"

This morning I listened to She & Him's A Very She & Him Christmas.  (I'm not one of those overly-enthusiastic-for-holidays people; I'm going alphabetically and just happen to be in the Vs.  Although, coincidentally, the album was released to-day three years ago.)

In any case, I found some interesting structural things in "Silver Bells," which I don't think is limited to just She & Him's version.  In the first line of each stanza, there's a repeated word that appears in similar phrases - sidewalks in the first stanza ("City sidewalks, busy sidewalks") and lights in the second ("City street lights, even stop lights").  And then in the third line, there's the same structure, but instead of the same word, there's a pair of words that rhyme (or almost rhyme) - "Children laughing, people passing" in the first stanza and "Hear the snow crunch, see the kids bunch" in the third.

Additionally, the last lines of both stanzas are sort of similar in structure ("And on every street corner you’ll hear" and "And above all the bustle you’ll hear"), specifically with regard to every and all.  Both lines have to lead into the chorus ("Silver bells / Silver bells..."), so it's not too surprising that they're similar, but it's not something I'd paid attention to earlier.