"Back in the U.S.S.R."

This morning, I started copying the lyrics in the CD booklet from The Beatles into Google Documents so that I can access them more easily.  I was surprised to find that a line in "Back in the U.S.S.R." is formatted as "Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out."  I'd always understood it as "Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out," but seeing it typed made me realize that it can be understood three different ways:

"Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out" (where "ringing out" is a gerund and "balalaika" [singular] is a possessive noun)

"Let me hear your balalaikas' ringing out" (where "ringing out" is a gerund and "balalaikas" [plural] is a possessive noun)

"Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out" (where "ringing out" is a participle modifying "balalaikas," which is the direct object of "hear")

"Too Much Monkey Business"

Recently, I found a note I'd made about Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" that also applies to the Beatles' version (on Live at the BBC).  Lennon doesn't quite get the words right, but in Berry's original, the lines "Army bunk, army chow / Army clothes, army car" exhibit anaphora, and this repetition illustrates the uniformity or standardization of the military.

"So How Come (No One Loves Me)"

I was thinking about "So How Come (No One Loves Me)" this morning, and I realized that the shape of the melody illustrates a contrast.

The first verse of the Beatles' version is:

They say that ev'ryone

Wants someone

So how come no one

Wants me

There's a contrast even just in the words since "ev'ryone," "someone," and "no one" all rhyme with each other and leave "me" by itself, but this is illustrated in the melody too.  "Ev'ryone," "someone," and "no one" are all sung to higher pitches (B A B, B A G, and B A, respectively), but "me" is sung to a comparatively lower pitch (G).  Musically, then, there's a sense of "me" being apart and excluded.

"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"

Yester-day, I was thinking about Del Shannon's "Hats off to Larry."  The first line is "Once I had a pretty girl."  I realized that the first line of "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" is very similar:  "I once had a girl."  According to the liner notes of the Del Shannon compilation album I have, "In 1963 Shannon became the first American to record a cover version of a Beatles song.  He appeared with the group, then still unknown in America, at London's Royal Albert Hall in April of that year and was so impressed by them that he told John Lennon he would cover 'From Me to You' to publicise their cause back in the States."  "Hats off to Larry" is from 1961, so it precedes this event, but I don't know if the Beatles had any familiarity with it, so the similarity of these initial lines may be just coincidental.

"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.