Wednesday, February 10, 2021

"Taxman"

I listened to the first disc of Anthology 2 yester-day and noticed a small feature in "Taxman" that's also present in the Revolver version (as the liner notes explain, the Anthology version is "not dissimilar to the master").  The second "walk" in the line "If you take a walk, walk" is sung with a melisma (I think it's F# G).  Not only does this give a sense of movement but because it's a conjunct interval, there's even a musical sense of taking a step.

Saturday, February 6, 2021

"No Reply"

In the lines "If I were you I'd realize that I / Love you more than any other guy" in "No Reply," "guy" is sung with a melisma (F E in Lennon's part; A G in McCartney's), giving a sense of the breadth of "any."

Friday, February 5, 2021

"You Know What to Do"

In the line "I watched you walkin' by, and you looked all alone" in "You Know What to Do," there's alliteration in "all alone."  Because there's only one initial sound, there's a representation of that singularity.  "Alone" is also sung with a melisma (C# C# B), giving a sense of degree.

"Day" in the line "Understand I'll stay with you ev'ry day" is sung with a melisma (C# B), giving a sense of frequency.  There's a similar feature with "way" (also sung with a C# B melisma) in the following line:  "Make you love me more in every way," but here "every" is sung with three syllables, which also gives a sense of amount.

Thursday, February 4, 2021

"I Wanna Be Your Man"

This morning, I listened to the second disc of Anthology 1 and noticed a few things.  There's something of a lyrical ambiguity in "I Wanna Be Your Man."  "Baby" in the line "Love you like no other, baby" is probably meant as a vocative because this is how it functions in other lines ("I wanna be your lover, baby" and "Tell me that you love me, baby"), but it could also be understood as the comparative element (with "other" functioning as a true adjective rather than as a substantive):  "Love you like no other baby."