Between listening to A New World Record this morning and figuring out some chords for "Tightrope" this afternoon, I found a couple things to note.
"Down" in the line "I was headin' down" is sung with a descending melisma (A C), musically giving a sense of "headin' down."
Under the lines "They say some days you're gonna win / They say some days you're gonna lose" and "They say some days you gotta give / They say some days you gotta take," the chords keep changing between F major and G major, musically giving a sense of that alternating.
I found two things to note about the line "If you believe that's how it's gonna be, I better put you down." This "down" is also sung with a (generally) descending melisma for a musical sense of its meaning, although I'm unsure of the specific pitches. Underneath that "down," the chords change from F major to F minor, so that "down" is also musically represented in that drop from A to Ab.
