"I Must Move"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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For whatever reason, I was thinking about "I Must Move" this morning, and I realized something interesting about the first lines of the verses.  There's alliteration in the first line of the first two verses ("You've known me no more than just a few days" and "No, I won't stop, won't stay, and you must know in truth"), but it's lacking in the first line of the third verse ("Take a good look at yourself and at me").

(There is assonance in "good look," which is similar to alliteration, but it's a different technique.)

That lack of alliteration seems to reflect how the speaker/singer is trying to extract himself from this situation.  It's also illustrated in re-stating the preposition:  it's "at yourself and at me" not "at yourself and me."  The syllable count probably has something to do with that too, but it shows that there's a distance between "yourself" and "me."