Wednesday, January 7, 2026

"Eight Miles High"

I listened to The Byrds' Greatest Hits a couple days ago and realized that all of the words in the line "Plain, gray town known for its sound" in "Eight Miles High" are monosyllabic.  In a way, this simplicity of diction matches the meaning of "plain."

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

"Jack Tarr the Sailor"

I listened to Ballad of Easy Rider yester-day and found in "Jack Tarr the Sailor" the same sort of construction that I noticed in "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in the fall:  the lines "And as I roamed the streets of Bath, the whores, they all would roar, / 'There goes Jack Tarr that poor sailor; he must go to sea once more'" contains a pleonasm, and while this redundant "they" isn't necessary grammatically, it does provide a sense of amount (for "all").