Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone"

Last week, I had a post about Noel Paul Stookey's "Wedding Song (There Is Love)," and in listening to a Peter, Paul, and Mary compilation album in order to transcribe that, I noticed something about their "Where Have All the Flowers Gone."

In every verse except for the last, there's at least one line that's sung by only one voice.  In every verse, the sixth line (usually with the "Gone to graveyards, ev'ry one" structure) is sung by only a single voice, and in a few, the recurring "Where have all the... gone" lines are sung by only a single voice too.  This shifting between three voices and one voice helps to musically represent the absence that the lyrics allude to.

In some - but not all - of the lines with the "Young girls have picked them, every one" structure, the "every" in "every one" is sung with three syllables rather than two.  This pronunciation emphasizes the complete absence.

That sort of syllabic extension is also present in "passing" and "ago" in the recurring lines "Long time passing" and "Long time ago."  Both are sung to three syllables instead of two, which further represents the length of time.