A couple days ago, I listened to the first disc of the Beatles' Live on the BBC and noticed that in their version of "You Really Got a Hold on Me" [sic], "always" in the line "Seems that I'm always thinkin' of you" is sung with a melisma, musically giving a sense of the duration of "always." (This is also in their studio version.)
To-day I checkt Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' original and the Zombies' version and discovered that they both have this feature too. Smokey Robinson sings "always" to the notes A A G, and while they changed the key to A major, the Beatles follow this (F# F# E). The Zombies' version is a bit different though; like the Beatles, they changed the key to A major, but it sounds like Colin Blunstone sings "always" to the notes F# F# C#. There might be a B in there (F# F# B C#), but I might just be hearing a bit of Rod Argent's harmony part.
