In "Keep the Curtains Closed Today," "while" in the line "This is our first day for quite a while" is sung with a melisma (D C# A), musically giving a sense either of duration or of degree (for "quite").
"Away" in the line "The future always seems so far away" is sung with the same melisma. Here, it provides a sense of distance.
I also referenced the version on The Ghost of You and Me (slightly retitled to "Let's Keep the Curtains Closed Today") and discovered that it's a whole tone lower (G major rather than A major). These words are sung with melismas there too, but they're slightly different, notwithstanding the lower key. "While" is sung to the notes A G, and "away" is sung to the notes B A G.
