Tuesday, August 15, 2023

"I'll Cry Instead"

I listened to A Hard Day's Night yester-day and noticed an interesting feature in "I'll Cry Instead."  The first line of the first verse ("I've got ev'ry reason on earth to be mad") has twelve syllables ("earth" is sung with two), and the first line of the third and fourth verses ("And when I do, you better hide all the girls") has eleven syllables, but the first line of the second verse ("I've got a chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet") has fourteen.  To some degree, this larger number of syllables mirrors the "bigger" size of that "chip on my shoulder."