"Happy Families"

Yester-day, I was thinking about the lines "Look around at the things God created / Look around at the things He has made" in "Happy Families (with Edwin O'Garvey and His Showband)," and I realized that they exhibit the same sort of parallelism that's common in some parts of the Bible, especially the Psalms and Proverbs.  (For example, Proverbs 16:18:  "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.")  This borrowing of a Biblical style is appropriate for the quasi-religious tone of the song.

In "Happy Families (with Eddie 'Fingers' Garvey)," the couplet is slightly different but has the same feature:  "Look around at the things that God created / Look around at the things that He hath made."

"Happy Families (with Eddie 'Fingers' Garvey)"

I listened to Mighty Garvey! a few days ago, and yester-day, I had a number of realizations about some of the songs.

In "Happy Families (with Eddie 'Fingers' Garvey)," the repeated line "Just look around" in the backing vocals is sung to a phrase of all different pitches (I think it's C D Eb F), and this musical span matches the breadth of "look[ing] around."

"Happy Families (with Eddie 'Fingers' Garvey)"

In the first iteration of "Happy Families" (with Eddie "Fingers" Garvey), some of the "family"s in the repeated phrase "one big happy family," are sung with various melismas, giving a sense of size (for "big").