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.

The Coasters' "Little Egypt"

I already wrote a post about the Coasters compilation album I listened to this morning, but I found enough to say about "Little Egypt" that I felt I should make it a separate post.

At first, all I was going to say was that Leiber and Stoller use the phrase "one thin dime" again.  ("Just one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar, step right up, folks")  It also appears in "On Broadway."  ("One thin dime won't even shine your shoes.")

I actually don't know much about "On Broadway," but according to internet research, it was written by Leiber and Stoller along with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.  It's possible that Mann and Weil came up with the line while writing "On Broadway," and then Leiber and Stoller later used it in "Little Egypt."  I don't know how the chronology fits into this either.  ("Little Egypt" was released in April 1961.)

But because I'm transcribing the lyrics for the songs whose lyrics I comment on, I found some other interesting things:

There's some opposites in the line "They pulled the curtain up and when they turned a spotlight way down low."

There's a fair amount of alliteration in some lines:  "Little Egypt came out strutting, wearing nothing but a button and a bow," "She had a ruby on her tummy and a diamond big as Texas on her toe," and "When she did her special number on a zebra skin I thought she’d stop the show."

And, finally, there's some internal rhyme in a line in the last verse:  "She’s too busy mopping and a-takin’ care of shoppin’ at the store."

The Robins' "Riot in Cell Block #9"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of The Coasters, which also includes two songs by The Robins (an earlier group that evolved into the Coasters).  I found "Riot in Cell Block #9" interesting because of the connections it has to Ritchie Valens' "Framed," which I listened to a few days ago on a compilation album of Valens (I'm in the midst of the The Very Best of albums).  While listening to "Framed," I noticed some musical similarity between it and "Riot in Cell Block #9" - specifically that both songs are built around a riff that separates each line of the verses.  Both also have repetitious choruses and feature verses that - aside from the punctuating riff - are unaccompanied by any instruments (or mostly unaccompanied, there's slight percussion throughout the verses in "Framed").  So I noticed that they were similar, but I didn't think any more about it.

But then I listen to "Riot in Cell Block #9," and the first line is "On July the 2nd, 1953."  That was pretty good evidence for the two songs' being related since "Framed" contains the line "He says, 'Where were you on the night of July 1953?'"  Both songs are musically similar, refer to July 1953, and mention law enforcement in one form or an-other.

But then I looked up the publication data and discovered that both were written by Leiber and Stoller, so the two songs are irrefutably related.  They both seem to have the same setting, although the singer/speaker couldn't be the same in both.

Judy Collins' "Farewell to Tarwathie"

Yester-day when I listened to that Judy Collins album, I noticed a small detail in "Farewell to Tarwathie."  The song starts and ends with the same stanza (although the ending stanza has "we" where the opening one has "I"), and the first two lines of that stanza exhibit structural parallelism:

Farewell to Tarwathie, adieu Mormond Hill
And the dear land of Crimond, I bid you farewell

The first line shows this more than the second, but each section ("Farewell to Tarwathie," "Adieu Mormond Hill," and "The dear land of Crimond, I bid you farewell") says goodbye to a particular place, just using different ways of saying goodbye and - obviously - different places.

Judy Collins' "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)"

I just listened to a compilation album of Judy Collins.  While I'm more familiar with the Byrds' version of "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)," Judy Collins articulates some of the lines differently, which got me thinking about these lines:

A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

From hearing the Byrds' version, I'd always thought that these lines meant that there is a time when embracing is allowed and a time when it should be avoided, but because Collins articulates them differently (she emphasizes may), I realized that they could mean something else - that there's a time that you'll want to be a part of and a time that you won't want to be a part of.  In some ways, it's similar to the carpe diem idea.  There are some days where you'll want to seize the day and some days where you won't.

It's interesting how the articulation of the lyrics can draw out these different meanings.

Herman's Hermits' "Smile Please"

I just listened to the second disc of that Herman's Hermits compilation album.  I'd previously noticed a few interesting things in the lyrics of "Smile Please," but listening to it this time, I found more that ties the whole song together.

In (what I think is) the second verse, there's the line "Don’t be quite so negative, I’m positive they’ll turn out fine."  I'd noticed the internal rhyme with negative and positive and also how they're opposites, but it wasn't until now that I really understood the context.  The first verse explains how the singer/speaker and the girl he's addressing are in a photo booth.  So negative works in the pessimistic sense, but it also hints at the photographic sense.  (The next line is "The scene will soon develop if we stay in here a little time.")

The internal rhyme of negative and positive also has a precedent in the first verse: "We’re sitting in this cubicle, it’s beautiful to get you alone."  It's more of a slant rhyme (cubicle and beautiful), but it still works in the song because there's also the line "Things are getting better all the time."  So it's as if the rhyme itself is improving (from slant to perfect) along with the situation (or at least the assertion that the situation is improving).

Herman's Hermits' "Show Me Girl"

I just listened to the first disc of a compilation album of Herman's Hermits.  Even before I listened to it, I got thinking about the lyrics to "Show Me Girl."

Just from what I remembered, I thought the first line is interesting:  "A one-way love can hang you up awful bad."  Specifically the phrase "awful bad."  It seems like it should be "awfully badly," but while both words in "awful bad" look like adjectives, they function as adverbs.  They're actually flat adverbs, which Merriam-Webster has an informative video about.  I just thought it was interesting that they're both flat adverbs for the sake of syllable count in the line and - in the instance of "bad" - so that it will rhyme with "the only kind of love I had" at the end of the next line.

But a more interesting thing about the song is the backing vocals in the third verse:

Oh, I’d love to love you, you know I think you’re out of sight
(I’d love to love you, but you’re out of sight)
But first I’ve got to be sure you’re gonna treat me right
(You’re gonna treat me right)

Taken individually, the main lyrics are "Oh, I’d love to love you, you know I think you’re out of sight / But first I’ve got to be sure you’re gonna treat me right," and the backing vocals are "I’d love to love you, but you’re out of sight / You’re gonna treat me right."  The primary concern of each set of lyrics is different.  The main lyrics are concerned with the potential lover's treating him right (incidentally an-other flat adverb), where the backing vocals seem to be concerned that a difference between the singer/speaker and the potential lover will keep them apart and that he is lower than she is according to some hierarchy that isn't fully explained.  (Appearance is the most obvious if "out of sight" is taken somewhat literally, with the emphasis on the visual nature.)  And the line "you're gonna treat me right" as it is in the backing vocals seems to be an idealization of the relationship, whether it's an actual relationship or just an imagined one.  At the end of the line, there's a descending melisma on "right," which sounds a bit like a sigh and makes it sound more like an idealized fantasy.

The Who's "I'm a Boy"

Yester-day, I listened to a compilation album of the Who.  "I'm a Boy" got stuck in my head, and I got thinking about the names of two of the girls mentioned in the song, Felicity and Sally-Joy.  Both of their names indicate the well-being that the speaker/singer doesn't have.  Felicity means happiness, and Sally-Joy's name obviously contains joy.

Also, in transcribing the lyrics (which I've decided to do to all of the songs I write about here, provided I'm commenting on the lyrics), I discovered that the first word of each line of the second verse starts with P:

Put your frock on, Jean-Marie
Pluck your hair, Felicity
Paint your nails, little Sally-Joy
Put this wig on, little boy

(It might technically be the third verse, if "My name is Bill, and I'm a headcase..." is an-other verse, but I think that's a bridge.  I might be wrong; I'm bad at structural terminology.)

I think the words that start with P are too far away for it to be alliteration (at least in a strict sense), but it still indicates how the boy is forced into conforming with the girls.

OK Go's "Bye Bye Baby" (demo version)

This morning I listened to OK Go's Twelve Days of OK Go (which you can still get for free here).  I listened to a few of these songs when they were coming out (they were posted one-per-day during late 2012), but about half of them I still hadn't listened to yet.

I noticed something interesting in "Bye Bye Baby" - the demo version.  I should note that I've not heard the actual, "proper" version, so I don't know how/if the demo is different from that version.  (This was the even first time I listened to this version.)  In any case, the demo version contains the lines "So take me to winter / As if it was discontent I’d see," which seems to be a reference to the first lines of Shakespeare's Richard III:  "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York" (I.i.1-2).

However, I'm not exactly sure why that Shakespeare reference is there.

M. Ward's "You Still Believe in Me"

I just listened to M. Ward's Transistor Radio.  I don't think I've listened to this that much, and last time I listened to it, I almost certainly wasn't as familiar with the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album as I am now.  Because otherwise, I would have noticed that M. Ward's "You Still Believe in Me" is, in some ways, an instrumental cover of the Beach Boys' "You Still Believe in Me" from Pet Sounds.  Mostly, it's a repetition of the opening piano figure, but M. Ward also includes the melody from the verse.  He changes some notes here and there, so it sounds a bit different, but it's still recognizable.