"I Am a Pilgrim"

I wrote about a number of Biblical allusions in "I Am a Pilgrim" in my initial series of posts, but when I listened to Sweetheart of the Rodeo yester-day, I remembered an-other passage that may be related.  The first two lines of the song are "I am a pilgrim and a stranger / Travelin' through this wearisome land," and these bear some resemblance to what Moses says in Exodus 2:22:  "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land."

"Nothing Was Delivered"

Yester-day, I found an old note I'd made about the version of "Nothing Was Delivered" that's on Bob Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes (incidentally, the album was released to-day in 1975).  I also had a handful of previous notes on the song, and when I referenced the Byrds' version, I discovered that all of the features I'd noticed are present there, too.

"Leave" in the line "The sooner you can leave" and "go" in the line "The sooner you can go" are both sung with a melisma (A G), giving a sense of movement.

"Rest" in the line "Take care of yourself; get plenty of rest" is sung with a melisma (A G in one vocal part and D B in the harmony), giving a sense of amount (for "plenty").

"Lies" in the line "Yes, for telling all those lies" is also sung with a melisma (A B), giving a sense of amount (for "all").  While Dylan sings this with a melisma, too, his articulation is different.

"John Riley"

Halfway through the line "He picked her up all in his arms" in "John Riley" (in the pause after "He picked her up"), there's an ascending phrase in the string part, musically illustrating this "picked... up."  (I think the most prominent violin plays just a whole step, though:  A to B.)

"I See You"

In the line "Under there, behind your hair, ev'rywhere" in "I See You," the three syllables of "ev'rywhere" are each sung to a different pitch (A G E), giving a sense of this breadth.

"Mr. Spaceman"

I recently got a vinyl copy of Fifth Dimension and listened to it a couple days ago.  I'd previously noticed some odd structures in the third verse of "Mr. Spaceman," but while listening to it this time, I realized that they may be significant.

Each line in the first two verses can stand by itself, but in the third verse, the meanings seem to extend beyond the line breaks.  Poetically and musically, it's structured as:

Woke up this morning; I was feelin' quite weird

Had flies in my beard; my toothpaste was smeared

Over my window; they'd written my name

Said, "So long, we'll see you again"

but, as I understand it at least, some of the semantic breaks don't follow the line breaks:

My toothpaste was smeared over my window

They'd written my name, said, "So long, we'll see you again"

"My toothpaste was smeared" seems incomplete without "over my window" to specify where it was smeared.  That the line "Over my window they'd written my name" would otherwise be inverted seems to confirm my reading.

This sort of discrepancy between the structure and the meaning, with the line breaks falling in strange places, matches the narrator's "feelin' quite weird."

Additionally, it occurred to me that there's some resemblance between "Mr. Spaceman" and Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."  The titles are obviously similar, and the chorus of each has lines that start with "Hey, Mr. Spaceman/Tambourine Man."  Although the two songs are in different keys, the entirety of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the verses of "Mr. Spaceman" have the same chords:  G major, A major, and D major, sometimes even appearing in the same order and for only one measure each.

"I Come and Stand at Every Door"

I was thinking about "I Come and Stand at Every Door" yester-day and had a small realization about the title line.  The phrase "ev'ry door" is sung to notes of all different pitches (B D# C#), giving a sense of number.

"Satisfied Mind"

I also noticed a small feature in "Satisfied Mind" when I listened to Turn! Turn! Turn! recently:  in the line "How many times have you heard someone say," "times" is sung with a melisma (C# B), giving a sense of the amount of "how many."

"The World Turns All Around Her"

I listened to Turn! Turn! Turn! recently.  I think I'd been dimly aware of this before, but I realized that part of the drum pattern in the bridge of "The World Turns All Around Her" (roughly every other pair of measures, starting with the second pair) seems to be based on that in the Beatles' "What You're Doing," particularly the introduction (which is only drums for the first four measures).

The two parts are something like this, where the bottom line is the bass drum and the top line is the snare:

(I should note that I am not a drummer, so I don't know how to notate the parts properly or even if I have these correctly identified.)

There's also a cymbal crash on the first beat of the first bar of these measures in "The World Turns All Around Here" (and on the first beat of the second bar in the third instance, at ~1:24), but the corresponding pattern in the Beatles' song doesn't have any cymbals.

There are minor differences, but the two parts are so similar that it seems more than just coincidence.

"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."