Reply To: A Laptop Like You: An Appreciation of the Lyrics
My token examples of “change in meaning” are the similar structures of “Overhead” and “So Far So Good.”
In the former, “overhead / over head” comes at the end of the first line of all three verses, with a different meaning each time (“overhead” financially / “overhead”, uh, aeronautically? / “over head” acrobatically).
In the (vastly underrated) latter, the first line of all three verses starts with “too/to” and ends in “better” — “today’s the day it gets better,” “too late to make it all better,” “too bad, we could’ve done better”; that’s combined with the shift in usage of “so far, so good” (“so far” I’m going away / “so far” we’ve made it up to this point / how’ve I been? “So far, so good”).
See also “just as long as she is just as long as me.”