"Mother Nature's Son"

Yester-day, the Paul McCartney Lyrics Twitter account tweeted a line from "Mother Nature's Son":  "Sit beside a mountain stream; see her waters rise."  This made me realize that the ascending phrase immediately following this line (E G# B E', played on guitar and doubled by a brass instrument) musically illustrates that "ris[ing]."

"All My Loving"

Yester-day, I learned a bit more of the bass part in "All My Loving," specifically the section during the guitar solo:

The top two lines (especially the first two measures) bear some resemblance to the boogie woogie bass part that seems to have been pretty common in 1950s rock and roll:  arpeggiating chords using the root, third, fifth, sixth, and flatted seventh.  Here, though, McCartney plays the octave instead of the flatted seventh and then reverses the order (octave, sixth, fifth, third, root) for the next arpeggiation.

"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...."

"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.

"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."

"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.

"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]."

"I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" and noticed a small feature in the lines "Just to dance with you / Is ev'rything I need."  The three syllables of "ev'rything" are each sung to a different pitch (C# B G#), so musically, there's a sense of breadth.

"If I Fell"

I listened to the second disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Vol. 2 to-day and noticed a small feature in "If I Fell" that's also present in the studio version.  Throughout the song, Lennon and McCartney are singing alternatively in unison and in harmony.  At the end of the line "When she learns we are two," they break from unison singing to harmony (on "two," Lennon sings a C; McCartney an E).  This musical break mirrors the fracture in the lyric itself.  That Lennon's C is an accidental (the song is in D major) highlights this break.

"In Spite of All the Danger"

I listened to Anthology 1 yester-day and noticed a small feature in "In Spite of All the Danger."  Lennon starts singing each verse alone but is joined by McCartney at the end of the first line, so "In spite of all the" is sung by one voice and "danger" (or "heartache" in the second verse) by two.  This arrangement (with "danger" and "heartache" sung by two voices) provides a sense of that "all."

"Savoy Truffle"

As part of my blog about the Hohner Pianet, I made a video on how to play the Pianet part in "Savoy Truffle":

"What You're Doing"

I was thinking about "What You're Doing" this morning and noticed an interesting feature in the structure of the first two lines:  "Look what you're doin' / I'm feeling blue and lonely."  There's a mosaic rhyme between "doin'" and "blue and," so in terms of completing the rhyme, the word "lonely" is unnecessary.  Even in the structure, then, it's left by itself, and there's something of an impression of its meaning.