"You Told Me"

When I listened to the super deluxe edition of Headquarters a couple months ago, I felt that there was something ambiguous in the line "All these things you said you said sincerely" in "You Told Me."  I finally sorted out what it is.

The major difference is whether the first "you said" is part of a relative clause or not.  Rephrased in different ways, the line could mean either "All these things, which you said, you said sincerely" or "All these things you claimed that you said sincerely" (uninverted:  "You claimed that you said all these things sincerely").  In the first, the narrator affirms that the things were said sincerely; in the second, he seems dubious of the sincerity.

"I'll Spend My Life with You"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "I'll Spend My Life with You," and I realized that the structure of the verses highlights the meaning of some of the lines.  The verses have an AABCCB rhyme scheme (although there's a slant rhyme between "alone" and "home" in the first verse), so every third line stands apart from the two that come before it, and this distinction mirrors the lyrics in various ways.

Here's the first verse:

People come, and people go

Movin' fast and movin' slow

I'm in a crowd, yet I'm all alone

The road is long, the road is rough

I do believe I've had enough

I'm gonna turn around, head for home

The first two lines rhyme, but the third doesn't continue this; just like being "alone," it stands apart from the other two.  Similarly, the fourth and fifth lines rhyme, but the sixth doesn't follow suit, and this diversion matches the "turn[ing] around" in the lyrics there.

There's an-other instance of this significant structure in the second half of the second verse:

I've played a game that couldn't last

And now some mem'ries from the past

Have turned my thoughts around a different way

The first two lines establish a pattern that the third breaks from, and this matches the meaning of "turn[ing] my thoughts around a different way."

"Salesman"

I listened to the deluxe edition of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. recently, and yester-day, I noticed a small feature in "Salesman."  I'm not completely sure of my transcription, but the second line of the second verse is something like "It's salesman, well, you real hard till every part is sold."  "Every" is sung with three syllables, and this provides a sense of number.

"Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)"

When I watched "Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)" a few months ago, one of the musical cues sounded familiar, but I couldn't identify it.  Yester-day, I watched an episode of The Addams Family ("Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family") in which the same piece was quoted.  I referenced the IMDb page for that episode and discovered that the piece is Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5.  In "Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)," it's background music as the Monkees are getting their tea leaves read.