"Ticket to Ride"

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About two weeks ago, I learned the little guitar lick after the bridge in "Ticket to Ride," and I re-learned the recurring twelve-string phrase (which I think I used to know but forgot).  I figured I should record it.  One more song for the year and all that.

To me, it sounds like the studio version is in between Ab major and A major, so I used the live version from Anthology 2 as the template for my recording.

My recording is a bit rough, and I didn't actually play that little lick very well, but it's good enough to be recognizable.  Initially, I'd assumed George Harrison played that lick (since he's the lead guitarist), but referencing the studio version, I found that the twelve-string part is panned right and that lick is panned left, so I think it's actually John Lennon playing it.

"Birthday"

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Last night I figured out some of the guitar parts for "Birthday" from The Beatles.  I think the bass part plays the same thing (just an octave or two lower), but I haven't really lookt into that yet.

I doubled-tracked what I recorded, which I'm not sure is entirely accurate, but I thought it sounded better.

"Help!"

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I happened to play through the bass part of "Help!" again to-day while looking at my notation, and I realized that I'd written a few notes in the wrong place (making them D notes instead of E notes), so I amended that and rescanned my notation:

"Help!"

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I saved this post as a draft last week and then forgot about it.

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After figuring out the bass part for "From Me to You," I revisited the bass part for "Help!"  In doing so, I discovered that they have the same rhythm for (most of) the verses.  The later verses of "From Me to You" have a different rhythm, and there are a couple measures in the verses of "Help!" that have a different rhythm too.

Because of that similarity in rhythm, notating the bass part for "Help!" seemed like it would be pretty easy.  While I was doing it, I discovered that (during the verse with the simpler arrangement) I had a few notes in the wrong octave in my recording from early January.  I've found that notating things often reveals errors in what I'd been playing because it forces me to scrutinize my own playing.

Back in January, I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords, but I found those needlessly complicated.  I think they try to incorporate other elements of the arrangement into the guitar chords, rather than just providing what chords are actually played in the song.  In any case, I wrote the chords above the staff roughly where they're played.

And, of course, there's the disclaimer that I might be wrong:

"The Word"

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Last night, along with a few other parts not sizable enough to bother with, I learned most of the bass and guitar parts for "The Word."  There's some variation in the bass part during the second verse, which I haven't figured out yet, so I just repeated the part from the first verse.  This is only the first two verses.

I doubled-tracked the guitar part, which I'm not sure is accurate.

"Eight Days a Week"

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A couple days ago, I learned a little bit of the bass part for "Eight Days a Week."  I had the introduction (which is just a string of D notes) and three arpeggiations during the verses.  I started recording it yester-day, but then I thought I should work on getting a bit more (which I why I posted the notation for "From Me to You" instead).

In addition to getting the whole bass part, I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords, and in doing that, I learned the opening and closing phrase on lead guitar.  The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook says that the opening and closing chords on rhythm guitar are played on the 10th, 12th, and 15th frets, but I was extremely skeptical of this because the rhythm guitar is acoustic and it's difficult to play that high on acoustic guitar.  It's not that hard on electric guitar though, so I discovered that those 10th, 12th, and 15th fret parts are actually the basis of the electric guitar part.

I'm not sure my electric guitar's intonation is right, so those high-fretted parts don't sound the greatest.  I'm not sure of the accuracy of the rest of the electric guitar part either, but at least most of it is indeed staccato chords.

Haply, because of the fade-in, you can't tell that the three instruments I recorded over the original track don't all start at the same time.

In filing my recording on my computer, I discovered something that probably should have been obvious a long time ago:  "Eight Days a Week" is the eighth track on Beatles for Sale.

"From Me to You"

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I'm also doing this same sort of project with the Zombies (I've actually been doing that longer and - honestly - it's more of a priority than this project is).  Earlier this year, I started posting chords and notation (and even tabs, occasionally) for Zombies songs, so I figured I might as well do that here too.

Like I mentioned yester-day, I wrote out the notation for the bass part for "From Me to You."  At the bottom, I added the harmonica part too.  As with all of my notation, there's the disclaimer that I might be wrong about this, but here it is:

"From Me to You"

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I don't even remember how long ago, but earlier this year, I learned most of the bass part for "From Me to You."  I don't think I had the bridges though.  Recently, I lookt into it again, and I think I have it all now.

I learned the harmonica part too, but since I'm not very good at harmonica yet, I didn't include that.  I did play it on guitar when the phrase is doubled on guitar though.

I even wrote out the notation for this, which I'll get around to posting at some point.  I finished it only just before I recorded this (because I wanted to get the rhythms at the end right).

Abbey Road

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I've been listening to Manfred Mann's first album (The Five Faces of Manfred Mann) a lot recently, and in looking up Mike Vickers, I discovered that he programed the Moog parts on the Beatles' Abbey Road album.  On his website, he writes that "I bought a Moog Series III synthesizer, one of the first to arrive in the UK, and used it a lot in the studios, including programming all the electronic sounds heard on the Beatles' 'Abbey Road'."  On the Beatles' website, I found this picture of George Harrison, Mike Vickers, and Paul McCartney with a Moog:

"I Saw Her Standing There"

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About two weeks ago, I said I would write a post about the bass figure in "I Saw Her Standing There" and how it compares with that in Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You."  This is that post.

In the verses of "I'm Talking about You," there's just the same measure repeated over and over (played a total of eight times):

During the choruses, there's the same phrase, but it's also raised a fourth (so it begins on an F) and then raised an-other whole step (so it's a fifth higher than the initial phrase and begins on a G).  I wrote out the whole notation last month; it can be found here.

McCartney uses this same phrase.  There're eight eighth notes where the first two are the tonic note, the second pair is the note a third above the tonic and then the tonic, the third pair is a note a fifth above the tonic and then the tonic, and the fourth pair is the note a fourth above the tonic and then the note a half-step below that (a third above the tonic).  Where Berry's figure is based on the C note throughout the verse, McCartney changes a lot, raising or lowering the figure, but keeping those same intervals.  Here's the first verse of "I Saw Her Standing There" (the second and fourth are identical, and the third has only a minor difference):

There are two measures based on an E, one on an A, back to E for three measures, down to B for two, a section of four measures of quarter notes that's unrelated to Berry's figure, then back to that figure based on E for one measure, down to B for an-other, and then up to E again.

The same figure is also in the bridge (although based only an A and B notes), but I won't get into that.  All of that is probably a prolix description anyway.  The point, though, is that the figures are the same, just in different keys ("I'm Talking about You" is in C major; "I Saw Her Standing There" is in E major).  I also think it's interesting that while the figure is raised or lowered, the foundational notes for the phrase are the tonic, subdominant, and dominant notes (C, F, and G in C major; E, A, and B in E major).

Here's Berry's figure again:

And McCartney's from the initial measure of "I Saw Her Standing There":

"Not a Second Time"

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After I listened to With the Beatles recently, I also figured out the piano solo in "Not a Second Time."  I figured out a couple guitar chords near the beginning too (not included in the recording), and between those and the piano solo, I'm pretty sure it's in either E minor or G major.  I should probably just check the book of chords for Beatles songs I have….

"Money (That's What I Want)"

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An-other part I figured out after listening to With the Beatles a few days ago is the piano figure in "Money (That's What I Want)."  Yester-day I discovered that it's doubled on guitar, and I also figured out the rhythm guitar chords.  I'm pretty sure the piano part is doubled at the octave, but I'm not sure I have the right octaves.

The same section is just repeated over and over again in the song; I played a little less than the first two instances.

"I Wanna Be Your Man"

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A couple days ago, I listened to With the Beatles and figured out a couple parts.  This is the organ and guitar phrase in "I Wanna Be Your Man."  It's just three chromatic phrases (two of which are the same), so I'm not sure it was really worth recording.

However, I did discover that this is Hammond organ, where I'd always thought it was electric piano.

"Devil in Her Heart"

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Collection Audit:

Earlier to-day I listened to the Beatles' With the Beatles, and I noticed something about "Devil in Her Heart" that should have been glaringly obvious.  The "apart" in the recurring line "She's gonna tear your heart apart" is sung with a melisma (I think it's A A B G A, but I'm not sure).  Breaking up "apart" into multiple syllables and various pitches both emphasizes and demonstrates the "tear[ing]."

"I Saw Her Standing There"

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Like I mentioned at the end of this post, I figured out how to play (most of) the bass part for "I Saw Her Standing There" after I read that Paul McCartney based the musical figure on that in Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You."  I'm still having some problems with the rhythm during the guitar solo, so this is the bass part up until that point.  At some point, I'm going to notate what I know of this (I already notated Berry's "I'm Talking about You," so it should be pretty easy), and I'll write a post about the figures (which - indeed - are the same).

They're in different keys though.  "I'm Talking about You" is in C major, and "I Saw Her Standing There" is in E major.  The Beatles recorded a cover of "I'm Talking about You" on the BBC (it's on the second Live at the BBC album), and they changed the key from C major to E major, so the figures in their cover and in "I Saw Her Standing There" match exactly.

"I Saw Her Standing There"

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Last month, I was thinking about Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie," and I realized that it has a few similarities with the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There."

Just from what I remembered, I knew that the two songs both mention a seventeen-year-old girl standing around.  "Little Queenie" has "There she is again, standin' over by the record machine" and "She's too cute to be a minute over seventeen."  "I Saw Her Standing There" has "Well, she was just seventeen" and the titular "So how could I dance with another, ooh / When I saw her standin' there?"

When I compared the lyrics, I also found lines that talk about the girls' looks.  "Little Queenie" looks like "a model on the cover of a magazine," and the girl in "I Saw Her Standing There" looks "way beyond compare."

The entirety of "Little Queenie" has the speaker/singer admiring the girl and merely thinking about asking her to dance, where those same elements comprise only the first stanza of "I Saw Her Standing There."  The Beatles' singer/speaker actually takes his chance, and the third and fourth verses describe how they "danced through the night."  To some degree, it's like the Beatles wrote what happens next.

I don't know if the Beatles were familiar with "Little Queenie," but Chuck Berry is certainly an acknowledged influence, and the Beatles recorded at least half a dozen of his other songs (only two are on their records ["Roll over Beethoven" on With the Beatles and "Rock and Roll Music" on Beatles for Sale], but there are a lot more on the Live at the BBC albums).  My argument for this specific influence is just conjecture, but I do think "Little Queenie" was floating around in Lennon and McCartney's heads (even if subconsciously) while they were writing "I Saw Her Standing There."

(Of course, only after I wrote all of that, I skimmed the Wikipedia article for "I Saw Her Standing There," and it seems to cast some doubt on what I've written.  However, there is a quote from McCartney about how he used the bass part from Berry's "I'm Talking about You," so there is some of Berry's influence.  Because I know the bass part for "I'm Talking about You" [I even notated it a couple weeks ago], it was pretty easy to figure out the bass part for "I Saw Her Standing There.")

"Misery"

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A couple days ago, I was thinking about the piano part in "Misery" (in referencing the recording, I discovered that there's a rolled F major chord at the beginning, which I hadn't noticed before).  I realized that there are some musical/lyrical connections with the piano parts in the bridges.

After the line "I'll remember all the little things we've done" (it's the same in both iterations of the bridge), there's a diatonic descent in C major from the G above middle C to the G below middle C and then up a whole-step to an A.  (I think it might be doubled an octave higher too.)  That whole phrase seems to represent "all the little things."

The next two lines in the bridge are different in each instance, but the musical representation for each is the same.  First, there's "Can't she see she'll always be the only one / Only one," and second there's "She'll remember, and she'll miss her only one / Lonely one."  After each of those "one"s, there's a single G note as a representation of that singularity.

"Twist and Shout"

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A couple days ago I listened to the Tremeloes' version of "Twist and Shout" and thought I could easily figure out the guitar part in the middle of the Beatles' version (which has the same structure).  I ended up getting (I think all of) the guitar parts.  I'm not sure I have the final chord right though.  I was actually surprised at how simple these chords are; they're just tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant.

I'd always thought that the Isley Brothers' version was the original, but apparently not.  For what it's worth, the Isley Brothers' version is in F major (which, based on the other songs I know by them, seems to be their favorite key); the Tremeloes' is in C major; and the Beatles' is in D major, which makes the guitar part in the middle (it's a horn part in the Isleys' version) easy to play.

In my recording, I skipt the first verse entirely because it would have been pretty much the same as the second.

"She Said She Said"

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Yester-day I also learned part of the fuzz guitar in "She Said She Said."  I'm definitely missing some parts though.  What I have is just the introductory phrase and some (I don't even think all of) the parts during the first two verses.

"And Your Bird Can Sing"

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I felt like figuring out a part last night, and - while it wasn't the first thing I tried to figure out - I got almost all of the fuzz guitar part in "And Your Bird Can Sing."  I think I have the guitar chords too, although I'm a bit unsure of one.  I'm pretty sure there aren't any guitar chords during the bridges, and that's the only section of the fuzz guitar that I didn't figure out, so there are some gaps in this.  Still, I'm surprised I figured out as much as I did.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

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Collection Audit:

Yester-day I listened to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and I noticed an interesting thing about the bass part in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."  During the "Newspaper taxis appear on the shore..." section, the bass part is almost entirely quarter notes (and a pair of eighth notes), so the single half note (second measure of the second line) sticks out: 

 

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(A few comments on this notation.  First, I did it myself, so there's the standard disclaimer that I might have something wrong.  Second, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is partially in 3/4 and partially in 4/4, and at the end of this section, there's a transition from 3/4 time to 4/4 time, so it might be that the last measure should be in 4/4 instead of 3/4.) 

That half note corresponds to "take" in the line "Waiting to take you away," so musically there's a pause to reflect the taxis' standing by.

From my Collection Audit project

Like I mentioned there, parts of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are in 3/4 and parts are in 4/4.  I have a majority of the bass parts for the 3/4 sections, but I have nothing for the 4/4 sections yet.  I'm going to try to write out the 3/4 parts in notation, but I don't know if I'll get around to recording anything.

"Girl"

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Two days ago, I listened to Rubber Soul, and yester-day I figured out two of the guitar parts in "Girl."  The note values for this are entirely quarter notes and eighth notes, so I even wrote out the notation.

Shea Stadium

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[source]

This showed up in my Twitter timeline (see source for the specific tweet).  I'm sure this is just a still from film, but there's a coincidental foreshadowing of the Abbey Road album cover here.

"Anna (Go to Him)"

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I listened to Please Please Me this morning for my Collection Audit project, and the one guitar phrase in "Anna (Go to Him)" sounded pretty easy, so I figured it out.  It's actually even easier than I thought it'd be.  There's more to the part than this, but at least I have this much.

"The Ballad of John and Yoko"

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When I listened to Past Masters, Volume Two yester-day, the bass part for "The Ballad of John and Yoko" sounded easy to figure out.  And once I had that, I was pretty sure I knew the chords too (which The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook confirmed).

This was never my favorite Beatles song, and after learning how to play it (and paying attention to the lyrics), I actually sort of dislike it.  It's just John Lennon complaining about his life in a way that seems to trivialize religion.  I think it's even worse than his comment about the Beatles' being "More popular than Jesus."

Musically, it's not much better.  The chord progression is a standard I IV V (which stays on an E major for eight whole measures), and the bass plays almost the same figure under each chord, just raised a certain number of steps so that the lowest note is the root of whatever chord it's played beneath.

In my recording, I have only a verse, the bridge, and then an-other verse.

"Komm gib mir deine Hand"

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Last night I listened to Past Masters, Volume One.  (While drafting this post, I realized that for years I'd been completely ignorant of the pun in the titles of those albums.  There's "Masters" in the sense of "masters of their craft," but there's also "Masters" in the recording sense, like "master tapes.")  I was especially interested in "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" (the German version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand").  I'd noticed before that there are some significant differences between the German lyrics and the original English lyrics, so I thought I'd write about them.

I'm going to go section by section: first, my transcription the original English lyrics; then my transcription of the German lyrics; and then my translation (and some commentary) of those German lyrics.

First verse (English):

Oh, yeah, I'll tell you something
I think you'll understand
When I say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

First verse (German):

Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir
Du nimmst mir den Verstand
Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand

First verse (German translation):

Oh, come, come to me
You take my senses away
Oh, but come, come to me
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand

Despite nearly a decade of studying German (I'm only four days short of ten years), I'm still not always sure how to translate doch.  Sometimes - as in the first "Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir" - I think it's just used as a filler word.  In the second "Oh, komm doch, komm zu mir" though, it does have the sense of "however" or "nevertheless" that my German-English dictionary gives me.  It's like, "Even though you take away my senses, come to me anyway."

I think it's interesting that both second lines (the original English and the German version) have some form of understanding, but where the English has the girl understanding what the speaker/singer is about to say, the German version has the speaker/singer rendered insensible because of the girl.  She takes away his understanding.

I should mention that I took some liberties with that line.  More literally, it's "You take [from] me the understanding."

Second verse (English):

Oh, please say to me
You'll let me be your man
And please say to me
You'll let me hold your hand
You'll let me hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

Second verse (German):

Oh, du bist so schön
Schön wie ein Diamant
Ich will mit dir gehen
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand
Komm, gib mir deine Hand

Second verse (German translation):

Oh, you are so beautiful
Beautiful like a diamond
I want to go with you
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand
Come, give me your hand

I'm actually a bit unsure of my transcription of the English lyrics for this verse.  What I heard as a second "You'll let me hold your hand" is given as "Now let me hold your hand" in The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook.  Listening closely, it seems that John and Paul aren't singing the same thing there, but I can't make out who's singing what or what the other lyric is.

There are different shades of meaning of the line "Schön wie ein Diamant," depending on whether you read the preceding line break (and repetition of "schön") as a division of the sentiment.  Retaining the thread from the previous line, "Du bist so schön wie ein Diamant" is translated as "You are as beautiful as a diamond."  ("So… wie" is translated as "As… as.")  If you read the line break as a split, "so" is just a plain adverb, rendering the line as "You are so beautiful," and "wie" is translated as "like," for the less-complimentary "Beautiful like a diamond."

Bridge (English):

And when I touch you, I feel happy inside
It's such a feeling that, my love
I can't hide
I can't hide
I can't hide

Bridge (German):

In deinen Armen bin ich glücklich und froh
Das war noch nie bei einer anderen
Einmal so
Einmal so
Einmal so

Bridge (German translation):

In your arms am I happy and glad
It was never with another
Once like that
Once like that
Once like that

When I listened to the song, I thought it was "bei einer anderen," and while I'm confident in my translation ("with an other"), I don't think I have the German endings right.  Bei is a preposition that takes dative case, and while einer is the singular feminine dative form of a, there's a problem with anderen.  The "-en" ending in dative case indicates plural.  So this would be "with an others," which doesn't make any sense.

I hadn't realized this before undertaking this exercise, but both versions emphasize things through repetition here.  The original English lyrics illustrate the singer/speaker's complete inability to hide his feeling (he has to say three times that he can't hide it), and through the repetition of "[never] once like that" in the German lyrics, the speaker/singer seems to demonstrate his dissatisfaction with his previous relationship in contrast to this one.

In the English lyrics, the third and fourth verses are (with some differences) the same as the first.  In the German lyrics, the third verse is exactly the same as the first, and the fourth verse is exactly the same as the second.

In the liner notes to Past Masters, Volume One, Mark Lewisohn says that after "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" and "Sie Liebt Dich" (the German version of "She Loves You"), "The Beatles ensured they never again recorded in anything other than their mother tongue."  It's pedantic, but I have to point out that this isn't true.  Offhand, I can mention that there's French in "Michelle" and Spanish in "Sun King."  Lewisohn might mean that they never recorded an-other song completely in an-other language, but that's not what he says.

"Baby It's You"

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Last night I decided to figure out the celeste part on Please Please Me (I'll admit that I had to look up what song it was used on; it's "Baby It's You").  After that, I got the chords too.  In what I recorded, I skipt the first verse entirely because I thought it'd be boring to listen to just chords.  So it starts with the second verse, and then there's the celeste part, which is (nearly) doubled on guitar (although the guitar is an octave or two lower).  There are three notes in the celeste part that aren't in the guitar part.

After I figured all of that out, I decided to see how the Shirelles' version compares.  The Beatles' version is in G major, and the Shirelles' is in Bb major, but otherwise the chords are the same (although they're not strummed on guitar in the Shirelles' version; in fact, I don't know if any instrument plays chords; they might just be implied).  What's doubled on celeste and guitar in the Beatles' version is played on organ in the Shirelles' version, and the melodies are more-or-less the same.  The major difference is that the Beatles repeat one section (the melody to which the "Sha la la la la" before the verses is sung), where it occurs only once in the solo in the Shirelles' version.

What I can't fathom, though, is why the Beatles didn't include the counterpoint that's in the solo in the Shirelles' version, especially if their solo is doubled on guitar and celeste.  You'd think it'd be easier to play a melody and a counterpoint on two instruments (which the Beatles don't do) than play a melody and a counterpoint on one instrument (like it is in the Shirelles' version).  George Harrison could have played the same guitar part with George Martin playing the counterpoint part on celeste (or even some other instrument).  Because I haven't figured out that counterpoint part yet (I'm not even sure if it's technically counterpoint), I haven't been able to record my own version where the guitar plays the main melody and the celeste plays the counterpoint, so I don't know how it sounds with that instrumentation, but it still seems like a missed opportunity.

Revolver

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Collection Audit:

Apparently, 5 August was the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' Revolver, so I skipped ahead in my listening (I'm currently in the midst of the albums that start with N) to listen to it on its release date.  I hadn't listened to it for over two years, and I found a lot of things to write about. 

"I'm Only Sleeping" 

The phrase "float upstream" is sung to an ascending phrase (Bb, Db, Gb), so there's a musical/lyrical mirroring there.  This might seem like a small point, but I'll get back to it. 

"Love You To" 

The first two verses end with a melisma'd "me" (the lines are "You don't get time to hang a sign on me" and "But what you've got means such a lot to me").  I'm not sure if this was intentional on George Harrison's part, but it recalls the melisma'd and line-ending "me" in "What You're Doing" from Beatles for Sale ("And should you need a love that's true / It's me").

"Here, There, and Everywhere" 

The line "Running my hands through her hair" sounded familiar to me, and it wasn't too long before I placed it.  There's an identical line near the end of Colin Blunstone's "She Loves the Way They Love Her" (on One Year).  Both Blunstone and his former Zombies band mate Rod Argent (who wrote "She Loves the Way They Love Her") have listed the Beatles as an influence, and between that and both songs' rhyming "hair" with "there" ("There / Running my hands through her hair" in "Here, There, and Everywhere" and "Running my hands through her hair / And knowing she'll always be there" in "She Loves the Way They Love Her"), I think this is more than just a coincidence.  At best, it might be an instance of subconscious influence. 

"And Your Bird Can Sing"

I was either only dimly aware of this or had forgotten, but it was very obvious to me as I listened to "And Your Bird Can Sing" this time that the line "You say you've seen seven wonders" is a reference to the Seven Wonders of the World.

"For No One" 

I don't know how to play "For No One" (yet), so this isn't as precise as it could be, but I don't think the song resolves at the end.  There isn't a sense of completion, which (somewhat literally) underscores the disconnected feeling in lines such as "You stay home / She goes out" and "And in her eyes, you see nothing."

"I Want to Tell You" 

I was working on transcribing this song as I listened to it, so the pleonasm in the line "All those words they seem to slip away" was especially evident.  Instead of the more fluid and more grammatically correct "All those words seem to slip away," there's a redundant "they" in the line.  The song itself is about problems in communicating, so that pleonastic "they" actually emphasizes that sentiment.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" 

The phrase "float downstream" is sung to a descending phrase (E, C, G), so there's a musical/lyrical mirroring there.  Furthermore, there's a parallelism between the descending "float downstream" here and the ascending "float upstream" in "I'm Only Sleeping."  So while it's a rather simple feature, it's used to a greater effect because there's that parallelism.

I noticed some things about Revolver when I listened to it for my Collection Audit project a couple days ago.

"Too Much Monkey Business"

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Two weeks ago, I listened to Live on the BBC, and I'm still thinking about the Beatles' cover of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business."  I keep thinking about it because John Lennon sings the line as "Too much monkey business for me to imbibe again."  Along with Berry's original, I have a couple other versions of "Too Much Monkey Business" (The Kinks covered it on The Kinks, and I have a live version by the Yardbirds).  In each of those versions, the line is "Too much monkey business for me to be involved in."  Misheard (and then mis-sung) lyrics in covers is something I find fascinating, and I think this is one of the more interesting examples.

"Come Together"

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Yester-day I listened to the Beatles' LOVE album, and I thought the bass part in "Come Together" sounded like it would be pretty easy to figure out.  I think I have most of it, but there are still a few embellishments that I have to work on.  This is just the first minute or so.

I usually play bass with a pick, but this didn't sound right played with one.  It felt a bit too blatant, I guess, so I just used my thumb.  Playing bass with the index and middle fingers feels and looks really weird to me.

"Two of Us"

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For my Collection Audit project, I listened to Let It Be yester-day.  I'd tried figuring out "Two of Us" once before without any luck, but I thought I'd try it again, and I think I have the acoustic guitar parts now (although it wasn't until I recorded this that I really realized the guitar that's panned right has a part that isn't just chords; it's only three notes though, so it was pretty easy to figure out too).

I use the original tracks as templates when I record my own versions (I just play on top of them), and the talking at the beginning made it hard to sync this perfectly, so I don't have the tempo right at the beginning.  I don't have the strumming rhythm right either (it's not even consistent between the two guitar tracks I recorded), but I usually don't pay much attention to that.  This isn't the whole song, but I have at least one instance of each part (the song is just verses and bridges).

After I recorded this, I realized that every "home" in the lyrics is sung on top of a G major chord.  The song is in G major, so the G major chord is the musical "home" to which the song returns too, just like in the lyrics.  Only one of the "home"s is sung to a G note though: the one in the line "On our way back home."  The others are sung to B notes.

The bridge is in a different key (I'm not sure if it's technically Bb major or G minor, but those two keys have all of the same notes), which - to some degree - helps portray the distance of the nostalgia mentioned in the lyric ("memories / Longer than the road that stretches out ahead").

"Dizzy Miss Lizzy"

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I listened to Help! yester-day for my Collection Audit project, and later I tried figuring out some parts.  The guitar riff in "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" is only three pitches, so it was really easy to figure out.  The bass part is fairly simple, but it's a bit difficult to play part of it at this speed.

This is only the introduction and the first verse (and of that, just the guitar and bass), but it's strophic, so these parts are just repeated.

"Michelle"

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About two months ago, M. Ward was on KEXP and did a mostly instrumental cover of the Beatles' "Michelle."  I got thinking about the guitar part awhile afterwards and thought it sounded pretty easy to figure out.  I finally got around to doing that last night.

"Please Mister Postman"

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I happened to hear the Carpenters' version of "Please Mr. Postman" to-day and noticed that there's a melisma on "so" in the line "I've been standin' here waitin', mister postman, so patiently," apparently to indicate the length of time the speaker/singer has waited.  I just checkt the Beatles' version ("Please Mister Postman") on With the Beatles, and it has the same feature.  (It's probably also in the Marvelettes' original, but I don't have that in my collection.)

"I'm a Loser"

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This afternoon, I read Proverbs 16 and happened across a phrase that sounded familiar.  In "I'm a Loser," there's the line "And so it's true, pride comes before a fall," and Proverbs 16:18 is "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

I'm not sure if Lennon meant to quote Proverbs there or if that verse from Proverbs just became a common saying and that common saying is what Lennon referenced.  Either way, that line in "I'm a Loser" seems to have its origin in Proverbs.

"Komm gib mir deine Hand"

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Yester-day I got the Past Masters, Volume One CD.  I haven't listened to it yet (although I have heard it before), but I realized something about "Komm, gib mir deine Hand" - the German version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand."  I haven't lookt into the German lyrics yet, but even just the title provides a very different tone.  "Komm, gib mir deine Hand" is "Come, Give Me Your Hand."  The verbs there are imperatives, so there's an insistence that isn't present in "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (where "hold" - as an infinitive - isn't even conjugated).

"Don't Pass Me By"

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As might have been obvious from my last post, I learned the piano part from "Don't Pass Me By."

"Don't Pass Me By"

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Collection Audit:

I'm listening to The Beatles' eponymous album, and the bass part for "Don't Pass Me By" caught my ear.  It's more elaborate than just the root and the fifth of whatever chord it's played beneath, but the root and the fifth are the most prominent notes.  It provides an alternating figure that seems to portray the footsteps that are mentioned in the first verse:

I listen for your footsteps comin' up the drive
Listen for your footsteps, but they don't arrive

I also noticed that there's a bit of a pause within the last line of the first two verses, so there's a separation between "I don't hear it" and "does it mean you don't love me anymore?" and between "I don't see you" and "does it mean you don't love me anymore?"  That pause emphasizes the not hearing and not seeing that are in the lyrics themselves.

An-other post from my Collection Audit project that's relevant here too.

I don't know if it's indicative of an influence or just a coincidence, but this same feature of the root and the fifth resembling footsteps is also present in Fats Domino's "Walking to New Orleans" (although that's with palm-muted guitar rather than bass), which - like "Don't Pass Me By" - also has a chord progression that consists only of the tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant (in Db major where "Don't Pass Me By" is in C major).  Apparently, "Lady Madonna" was a pastiche of Domino's style, so the Beatles might have been familiar with "Walking to New Orleans" too.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

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For my Collection Audit project, I'm listening to The Beatles.  I noticed a grammatical intricacy in the lyrics of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" although it doesn't affect the meaning at all.  When it's heard, there's no difference, but when written out, one line could be either "I look at the world, and I notice it's turning" or "I look at the world, and I notice its turning."  Either way, the singer/speaker notices the turning of the world, but grammatically, it could be an indirect statement (I notice [that] it's turning) or a possessive adjective (its) modifying a gerund (turning).

"Ticket to Ride"

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Collection Audit:

I'm listening to the Beatles' The Beatles 1 and working on my transcriptions of their songs for my Beatle-specific project.  I noticed something about the chorus of "Ticket to Ride."  Two of the four lines are "She oughta think twice; she oughta do right by me."  It's very similar to the last line of each verse (and also the title) of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," except that where Dylan says not to think twice, the Beatles say "she oughta think twice."  The "think twice" and "(al)right" are the two similar elements. 

Apparently, "Ticket to Ride" is more of a John Lennon song than a Paul McCartney song, and since he mentioned that "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" from Help! (the same album that "Ticket to Ride" appears on) is from his "Dylan period," it seems a bit more likely that "Ticket to Ride" had some of that Dylan influence too.

"Old Brown Shoe"

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Collection Audit:

This morning I listened to the second disc of the Beatles' Anthology 3, and I noticed a small thing about "Old Brown Shoe."  (It's in the single version too, but it's clearer in the version on Anthology 3.)  The melody of the vocal part descends at the end of the line "You know you pick me up from worse and try to drag me down," so you get the impression of the "drag[ging] down."

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"

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Collection Audit:

An-other thing I noticed while listening to the Beatles' Anthology 2 is the time change in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (it's in the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band version too).  After the line "And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz," the song changes from 4/4 time to 3/4 time - the time signature that waltzes are in.

"And Your Bird Can Sing"

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Collection Audit:

I just listened to the second disc of the Beatles' Anthology 2.  I noticed a small thing about "And Your Bird Can Sing" (and I also checked the final version on Revolver to verify that it's there too).  There's a downward vocal melisma on the "down" in the lines "When your prized possessions / Start to weigh you down."  Like the melisma on "heavy" that I discovered in "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" earlier this month, this melisma gives a sense of the weight; it's as if the word itself is bent.

"Hello Goodbye"

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Yester-day I listened to almost all of the Anthology albums (I didn't get to the second disc of Anthology 3 until this morning).  I wrote about a few things for my Collection Audit project, and I have them in the queue, but I also discovered that I was wrong about that penultimate note in the guitar part in "Hello Goodbye."  So I've corrected that.  If I'm understanding the liner notes correctly, the version on Anthology 2 has the same backing track as the Magical Mystery Tour version, just different overdubs, and because it doesn't have strings and is mixed a bit differently, that guitar part is easier to hear.

"I've Just Seen a Face"

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I was thinking about "I've Just Seen a Face" this morning, and - even though I haven't listened to it for almost two years - I remembered that the "falling" in "I think I'm falling" has a falling melody.  There's a melisma, so it's three syllables instead of two, and it's sung to the phrase F#, E, D.

"I Want You (She's So Heavy)"

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Collection Audit:

I'm listening to the Beatles' Abbey Road.  It's not that great of a point, but I noticed that the "heavy"s in "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" have melismas at the end, so it's as if they're bending under the weight that lyric describes.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

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Collection Audit:

I just wrote about this in "Penny Lane," but I found an-other instance of an instrument doubling a vocal part in a Beatles song.  This time, it's guitar during the second half of the first two verses of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" ("Cellophane flowers of yellow and green…" and "Newspaper taxis appear on the shore…"). 

Additionally, there's a vocal and guitar glissando on the "away" in "Waiting to take you away," suggesting the distance to which you'll be taken.

"Hello Goodbye"

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When I listened to 1967-1970 about a week ago, I thought that the guitar part in "Hello Goodbye" sounded pretty easy to figure out.  Last night I figured it out, and I discovered that the first phrase is just a C major scale.  I'm suspicious that I have the second-to-last note wrong though, and there are parts at the very end that I don't have yet.

I hadn't realized this until I figured out that guitar part, but in the second verse, it's replaced with the "Hello goodbye hello goodbye" backing vocals that have the same notes.

"Penny Lane"

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Collection Audit:

Last year, I realized that because of the ping-ponging of influence and rivalry between the Beatles and the Beach Boys, the clarinet that doubles the vocals in part of the Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four" was probably inspired by the Beach Boys' "I'm Waiting for the Day," which has a similar effect, although different sources credit different instruments, ranging from viola to oboe to English horn.  I just started listening to the Beatles' 1967-1970, and I discovered that the Beatles did the same thing at the end of "Penny Lane" too, although there I think it's a flute or a piccolo. 

Because "Penny Lane" was released before "When I'm Sixty-Four," I'd assumed that it was recorded first, but according to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, "When I'm Sixty-Four" was recorded first (on 6 December 1966) and "Penny Lane" later (on 29 December 1966).  Still, because they were recorded so close together, it would make sense that if McCartney took that idea from Brian Wilson for part of "When I'm Sixty-Four," he would have had the same thing in mind when he did it on "Penny Lane" too.

"Nowhere Man"

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Collection Audit:

This is probably an-other thing I wouldn't have noticed were I not transcribing the lyrics to Beatles songs.  The middle line of the second verse of "Nowhere Man" is "Knows not where he's going to."  The "Knows not" is sort of inverted from what would normal be rendered as something like "[He does] not know where he's going to."  But that inversion - and the slight mental delay it takes to process it - seems to indicate the confusion and aimlessness of the Nowhere Man himself.

"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"

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Collection Audit:

Last year, I re-read The Beatles Anthology, and I made a note of page 158, where John Lennon says that "'You've Got to Hide Your Love Away' is my Dylan period.'"  I'd thought I noticed a resemblance between the chords of "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," but I never got around to investigating that.  Listening to it now though, I discovered a lyrical similarity.  "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" has the line "Gather 'round, all you clowns" where Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" starts with "Come gather 'round, people, wherever you roam" (incidentally, I think Dylan took that line from Woody Guthrie).  Unless Lennon hadn't mentioned "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" in his "Dylan period," I would just think that resemblance a similarity (if I would have remarked it at all), but because he did mention it, I think that phrase is a bit of Dylan's influence.

"Can't Buy Me Love"

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Near the end of last year, I thought I'd attempt the solo from "Can't Buy Me Love."  I never got around to it, but listening to 1962-1966 a few days ago made it really obvious that my suspicion that it was double-tracked (with a few differences) was correct (because that version is in stereo).  I figured this out the same night I figured out the bass part to "Help!"

"I Am the Walrus"

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For my Collection Audit project, I'm listening to a compilation album of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and I found something that might have influenced "I Am the Walrus."  In both "I Am the Walrus" and the Miracles' "Ooh Baby Baby," there's a similarly-delivered line that's just "I'm crying."  I'll admit that it's a pretty common lyric, but the delivery is quite similar, not only in how it's sung (with a sort of melisma on "crying"), but both have a bass note on the first syllable of "crying."

The Beatles had at least a passing familiarity with the Miracles, since they covered their "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" on With the Beatles (and also performed it live, as evidence by the Live on the BBC album and Anthology 1).

"Help!"

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Collection Audit:

This is pretty obvious, but I'd never noticed some of the elements that emphasize the "down-ness" in the line "Help me if you can, I'm feelin' down" in the Beatles' "Help!"  The "down" itself has a melisma where the later syllables are lower than the first, so the word itself is falling down, and after that line, there's a descending phrase in the guitar part.

"Help!"

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Two days ago, I noticed the descending guitar phrase in "Help!" that emphasizes the "feelin' down."  (The post I wrote about that [and a melisma] is still in the queue.)  Last night, I decided to figure out that part.  That's pretty much all of the lead guitar that I got, but I figured out all of the bass part.  I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords, although I might not have the rhythm strictly accurate.

"I Feel Fine"

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Collection Audit:

Because I'm doing a separate project where I'm looking into the Beatles' music, I'm working on my transcriptions of the songs as I listen to them.  I'd already completed "I Feel Fine," but in following along in the lyrics, I noticed the backing vocals during the bridges:

I'm so glad that she's my little girl
She's so glad; she's tellin' all the world

The backing vocals double the "I'm so glad" and "She's so glad," but for the rest of the line, they're just "ooh"s.  There's a bit of parallelism between those two sections in the lyrics, but having the backing vocals double those nearly-identical parts helps to further the feeling of completeness that the relationship has and that the lyrics already describe.

1967-1970

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I also listened to 1967-1970 to-day and found a few things.  I stopt transcribing after "The Fool on the Hill" because my hands were starting to hurt from typing so quickly; otherwise, I might have found more.

"Strawberry Fields Forever"

There's an ambiguous word in the first line: "Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to."  It could be either "to" or "too."  The "to" makes sense with the next line ("Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to / Strawberry Fields"), but the "too" makes sense with the "Let me take you."  The "Let me take you" with "I'm going too" implies that the speaker/singer and whomever he's addressing will go there together.

"A Day in the Life"

I have nothing to add to this, but there's some parallelism between "Found my way downstairs and drank a cup" and "Found my way upstairs and had a smoke."

1962-1966

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Because it's an even year, I'm attempting to listen to all of the music in my collection again.  I just listened to the Beatles' 1962-1966 and wrote about a few songs.  I'm going to add those to the queue, but for now, here are a few things I noticed that I didn't deem interesting enough for the Collection Audit project:

"I Want to Hold Your Hand"

This is actually something I noticed last August, but I never got around to transcribing the lyrics so I could accurately quote the lines.  In the bridge, there's "It's such a feeling that, my love / I can't hide."  The "my love" is sort of ambiguous; it could be in either the accusative case (as an object of the verb) and inverted or in the vocative case (someone to whom the speaker/singer is addressing himself).  So it could be either "It's such a feeling that I can't hide my love" or telling someone ("my love") that "It's such a feeling that I can't hide."

It's probably intended to be that second one (with "my love" as a vocative), but that inverted object is still valid, grammatically.

"All My Loving"

This would probably be more interesting as audio, but I discovered that there are actually three distinct vocal parts during the bridge:

All my lovin' I will send to you
All my lovin', darling, I'll be true

McCartney's singing the lead vocals, and Lennon and Harrison are singing the "ooh"s in the backing vocals.  I can't tell their voices apart here, but one sings an E note throughout, and the other sings a descending chromatic phrase: C#, C, B.

"A Hard Day's Night"

I just listened to this song every week for ten months, but it wasn't until now that I noticed the parallelism in the first verse:

It's been a hard day's night
And I've been workin' like a dog
It's been a hard day's night
I should be sleepin' like a log

specifically, the "been workin' like a dog" and "be sleepin' like a log."  There's a form of be, a verb (or, rather, verb form since "sleepin'" is actually a participle here), and then a simile.

"Drive My Car"

Each verse starts with an exchange between the speaker/singer and "that girl."

First verse:

Asked the girl what she wanted to be
She said, "Baby, can't you see?"

Second verse:

I told that girl that my prospects were good
And she said, "Baby, it's understood"

Third verse:

I told that girl I could start right away
And she said, "Listen, babe, I got something to say"

I don't really have anything else to say about that; I'd just never noticed that structure.