Two seconds of near-silence, then an unaccompanied voice: Birds flying high through the paired new dawn, new day, new life lines at 0:21–0:33, sung with no instruments anywhere. The section introduces the verse's image-plus-refrain contract and the title line's absence — the only thing the opening withholds is the band and the words feeling good.

After nearly forty seconds of a cappella singing, horns and drums break in exactly on And I'm feeling good (0:39), the track's single largest contrast. Verse 2 then reloads verse 1's exact shape — Fish in the sea, River running free, Blossom on the tree — inside the new arrangement, proving the verse works accompanied, and closes on a second title statement at 1:14.

A brief instrumental horn passage (about 1:16–1:22) follows the second title line. The voice returns at 1:22 with the third verse's shifted rhyme, you know what I mean, building to the lyric's turn: this old world is a new world and a bold world (1:41–1:44). The band then plays alone again, roughly 1:45–1:55, bridging toward the last verse.

Stars when you shine restarts the verse contract with fresh images, then It's a new dawn, it's a new day returns at 2:13 for the first time since 0:21 — the same refrain text, now widened to a new long life for me over the fullest ensemble yet.

No new lyric lines arrive. The voice stays in sustained vocalizing and exclamation across the band's peak while the ensemble runs its longest continuous stretch without a reset — the section's work is delay, since only the title line remains to deliver.

I'm feeling good lands at 2:40 as the final lyric, the band throws its closing hits around 2:48, and the ringing tail decays into silence by 2:53 — an ending on the last accent, with no outro.

One long withholding: an unaccompanied opening, two verses spent earning the arrangement, a peak that spends everything before the title's final return.