As promised last time – here's the lyrical nuts and bolts.
The song boasts a truck load of parallel lyrics (Ticket 24)
Here come/he come
he got/got to be
He shoot/shoot me (latter is barely audible in the intro)
he one (several times)/one and one and one is three
hair/feet down to/below his knee
I know you/you know me
Got to be good looking/a joker
holy roller/roller-coaster
as well as the overarching he come/he got/he shoot/he say/he one phrasing
The lyrics have a particular voice and freshness because of Lennon's slangy pigeon english style
he come instead of he comes,
he got not he has,
he one rather than he's one.
The rhyme scheme is odd too, whichever way you slice the lines (see above). It's ABCCC with the last C being the chorus (hey! let's make that Ticket 38). This might make the song seem a little unstructured but Lennon keeps it together by making all the C's rhyme across every single verse - knee/please/me/free/disease/see.
The whole song is a goldmine of alliteration and assonance. Two examples -
Hold you in his armchair, you can feel his disease
H – Hold, His, His
EE - FEEL his disEASE
I – IN HIS, HIS DISease
Got to be good-looking cause he's so hard to see -
G – Got, Good,
EE – BE, HE's, SEE,
S – he'S, So, See,
U – gOOd, lOOking
Next time – we look at the melody.
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