"My Back Pages"

I listened to The Byrds' Greatest Hits yester-day and noticed a small feature in "My Back Pages."  Most of each verse is sung by Roger McGuinn alone, but more voices join in for the final line "Ah, but I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."  In a way, these extra voices match the greater degree of the adverbial phrase "so much" and the comparative adjectives "older" and "younger."

I was thinking about the song again this morning and realized that the alliteration in the phrase "quite clear" in the fourth verse also provides a degree of emphasis.

"Old John Robertson"

I listened to the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour recently and discovered a similarity between "Penny Lane" and the Byrds' "Old John Robertson."  In "Penny Lane," there are the lines "On the corner is a banker with a motorcar / The little children laugh at him behind his back," and the same sort of situation is described in "Old John Robertson," albeit spread across different verses.  In the first verse (repeated as the fourth), there's the line "People ev'rywhere would laugh behind his back," and the second verse specifically mentions children laughing (I think the line is "Children laughing, playing didn't know his name," but I'm not sure).

The liner notes of the CD re-issue of The Notorious Byrd Brothers briefly comment on the musical influence that the Beatles had on the album, saying that it's "dated by a handful of period-production touches that place it squarely in the immediate post-Sgt. Pepper era of future-baroque studio whimsy," but this similarity between "Penny Lane" and "Old John Robertson" seems to indicate a lyrical or thematic influence, too.  The liner notes also explain that "Old John Robertson" is based on a real-life figure from Chris Hillman's childhood, and this is similar to how "Penny Lane" is based on a location from Paul McCartney's childhood.

"Candy"

In the line "Very profound" in "Candy," "profound" is held for more than a full measure, and this long duration gives a sense of degree (for "very").

"Old Blue"

I listened to Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde yester-day and noticed a couple small features.

In the repeated line "Blue chased a possum up a hollow limb" (with "hollow" sung more as "holler") in "Old Blue," the phrase "up a hollow limb" is usually sung to an ascending phrase (D E F# A B the first time and D E F# A D the third time), giving a sense of that "up."

"She Has a Way"

I noted some melismas in "She Has a Way" in my initial series of posts, but I found an-other one:  "Apart" in the line "The way she took me all apart" is sung with a melisma (B A B A), and this sort of disjointed articulation gives a sense of the word's meaning.

"Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe"

Parts of "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe" (roughly the second half of each verse) exhibit something that's at least close to the Bo Diddley beat.  I've been unable to find anything that defines it in precise musical terms, however, so I can't be very detailed about it.

"It's No Use"

In the clause "And she will be ev'rything" in "It's No Use," "ev'rything" is sung with a melisma (F# C# C# B A#), musically giving something of a sense of its meaning.

"I Knew I'd Want You"

In the lines "I'd like to love you / With all of my heart" in "I Knew I'd Want You," the phrase "all of my heart" is sung to notes of all different pitches (C B A G), giving a sense of the breadth of "all."

"You Won't Have to Cry"

I listened to Mr. Tambourine Man yester-day and noticed a handful of small features.

In the lines "Then, girl, you will see / That you won't have to cry / Anymore" in "You Won't Have to Cry," the "-more" of "Anymore" is sung with a melisma (E D#), giving a sense of its meaning.

Specific to the alternate version that's included as a bonus track on the CD, "strong" in the line "'Cause my love for you's too strong" is also sung with a melisma (in the harmony part:  B A), giving a sense of degree (for "too").

"Jack Tarr the Sailor"

I listened to Ballad of Easy Rider yester-day (because it was Roger McGuinn's birthday), and I noticed a small ambiguity in "Jack Tarr the Sailor."  "Poor" in the line "'There goes Jack Tarr that poor sailor; he must go to sea once more'" could have the sense of "lacking money" (because as Jack himself says in the previous verse "me money was all gone") or the sense of "to be pitied" (because going to sea is something to be avoided; in the first verse, Jack says, "But a man must be blind to make up his mind to go to sea once more," and his advice in the last verse is "get married, lads, and have all night in, and go to sea no more").

"Here without You"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "Here without You" and had a small realization about the lines "Girl, you're on my mind / Nearly all of the time," which are sung to phrases something like:

"All" is sung to a half note, and because this has a longer value (two beats) than any of the surrounding notes, there's something of a sense of the duration of "all of the time."

"Eight Miles High"

I was thinking about "Eight Miles High" this morning, and I realized that there are a couple musical features in the title line that mirror the phrase.

The words are sung to an ascending melody (E F# G), and this provides a musical sense of that height.  Together, the three words are sung to a total of eight beats (two half notes and one whole note), which obviously match the "eight" in the phrase.