The Turtles' "She's My Girl"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of the Turtles (Happy Together: The Very Best of the Turtles).  I used to listen to this a lot seven or eight years ago, so I'm fairly familiar with the songs already.  I'd noticed before that one part of "She's My Girl" sounded different, but it wasn't until listening to it this morning that I realized why it sounds different.

The song is in 4/4 time, but at about 1:23, it switched to 3/4 for the "She's my girl; took her away last night" section.  The 3/4 section lasts only briefly before the song switches back to 4/4 time at about 1:38.  To some degree, that brief 3/4 section illustrates the transcendence of the singer/speaker's relationship with his girl (it's different from everything else) or perhaps even her incomparability, which - like the 3/4 section - can be comprehended only fleetingly.

The Turtles' "Elenore" and "You Showed Me"

I also listened to Happy Together: The Very Best of the Turtles this morning.  Along with a bunch of instruments that I hadn't noticed on a lot of the tracks before, I found either a theremin or a tannerin on both "Elenore" and "You Showed Me."  This started me thinking about the time period that these songs were released in.  Just recently (last night, in fact) I read about the tannerin used on Brian Wilson's "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" from the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, which was the first time one was used in a song.  It seems the Turtles weren't too far behind.  Pet Sounds was released in May 1966, and these two Turtles songs were released in 1968 ("Elenore" in September and "You Showed Me" in December).