Sunday, November 28, 2021

"I Me Mine"

I realized recently that there's a temporal merism at the beginning of "I Me Mine":  "All through the day... All through the night...."

Friday, November 12, 2021

"Run for Your Life"

I listened to Rubber Soul a couple days ago, after which I realized that the line "Let this be a sermon; I mean ev'rything I said" in "Run for Your Life" could be understood two ways.  I'd always taken "I mean ev'rything I said" as the narrator's explanation of what he means by "this."  "Let ev'rything I said be a sermon."  It could also be understood as an unrelated clause though, in which the narrator is simply affirming his statement.

Thursday, November 11, 2021

"Yer Blues"

When I listened to The Beatles a couple days ago, I also noticed a temporal merism in "Yer Blues":  "In the morning / Wanna die / In the evening / Wanna die."

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

"Birthday"

I listened to The Beatles yester-day and noticed what might be a bit of Buddy Holly's influence on "Birthday."  In the section starting at ~1:27, the piano seems to move between the musical foreground and the background via some sort of effect.  This is very similar to the drums in Holly's "Peggy Sue," which seem to move back and forth (particularly at the beginning) because of different amounts of reverb.

Thursday, November 4, 2021

"I Will"

I was thinking about "I Will" recently, and when I transcribed the lyrics, I found a handful of things to note.

There's an ambiguity in the first verse; one line could be written as "If you want me to, I will" or "If you want me too, I will."  The first rendering implies the verb from the previous line ("If you want me to [wait], I will"); the second deals with the reciprocity of the relationship.

The bridge exhibits anaphora:
Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we're apart
The repeated "Love you" at the beginning of each line illustrates both the degree and constancy of the narrator's affection.  Additionally, "whenever we're together" and "when we're apart" form a merism.

A second voice comes in during the bridge, and to some degree, this illustrates the entirety of "all" in the line "Love you with all my heart."

There's an added internal rhyme in the line "Your song will fill the air" in the third verse, and this gives something of a sense of that "fill[ing]."