"Beautiful Dreamer"

I'm behind in writing about this, but after I listened to the first disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2, I realized something about "Beautiful Dreamer."  The syllables of "anywhere" in the line "Since I met you, baby, that girl ain't a-anywhere" are all sung to different pitches (I think it's A E D the first time and - with a melisma - A E D E the second), musically giving a sense of breadth.

"Lend Me Your Comb"

I listened to the first disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 this morning and noticed something about "Lend Me Your Comb" (and in referencing the liner notes, I discovered that this is the same recording as that on Anthology 1).  The lines "Unless we come in / The way we went out" have opposite melodic arcs to portray those opposite directions.  "Unless we come in" generally ascends (G# A G# A B), and "The way we went out" generally descends (G# A G# F# E).

I also noticed that "home" in the line "We gotta go home" is sung to the tonic note (E), musically giving a sense of "home."

These features are also present in Carl Perkins' version, which - according to the liner notes - is what the Beatles based their version on.

"From Me to You"

Two days ago, I was thinking about "From Me to You" (actually, I was thinking about "From Us to You" - the slightly altered version from Live at the BBC), and I realized that it has a feature I've been noticing a lot lately.  In the lines "If there's anything that you want / If there's anything I can do," the syllables of the "anything"s are all sung to different pitches (E D C both times), musically giving a sense of the breadth of possibility.

There's a similar feature in the second verse, in the line "I got ev'rything that you want."  The syllables of "ev'rything" are also sung to different pitches (E D C again), musically giving a sense of breadth.

"I Just Don't Understand"

When I listened to the second disc of Live at the BBC yester-day, I also noticed a small thing in "I Just Don't Understand," specifically in the lines "Well, you know that I love you / More than anyone can."  The three syllables of "anyone" are all sung to different pitches (B A G), musically giving a sense of that breadth of possibility.

"All My Loving"

I listened to the second disc of Live at the BBC this morning and noticed a small feature in "All My Loving" (which is also in the studio version).  In one of the "all my loving"s in the coda (at ~1:53 in the studio version), the "all" is sung with a melisma (G# E F#, I think), musically giving a sense of that entirety.  The melisma is slightly different in the live versions (I think it's G# F# E in the BBC version, just G# E in the Live at the Hollywood Bowl version, and - oddly - G F Eb in the live version on Anthology 1), but it's clearly written as a feature of the song.

"Sun King"

When I listened to Abbey Road on the 50th anniversary of its release, I also realized something about the sound effects at the beginning of "Sun King."  (According to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions [p. 185, the entry for 5 August 1969], these were compiled by Paul.)

One of the sounds is chirping crickets, and I think this might be a subtle reference to Buddy Holly and the Crickets, who were an influence on the Beatles.  It's also worth mentioning that (although by accident) Holly's "I'm Gonna Love You Too" features the sound of a cricket at the very end.

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

I listened to Abbey Road yester-day because it was the 50th anniversary of its release, and I noticed a small thing about "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."  "Bad" in the recurring line "I want you so bad" is sung with a variety of melismas, musically giving a sense of degree.

"I Got a Woman"

I've been listening to Ray Charles lately, and to-day I noticed something in "I Got a Woman" that's also present in the live versions the Beatles did for the BBC.  "All day and night" in the first line of the bridge ("She's there to love me all day and night") is a merism.

"Getting Better"

"Getting Better" and "Within You Without You" were mentioned in a Jeopardy! clue yester-day (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the answer), so I listened to the album and - coincidentally - noticed something about "Getting Better."  In the line "It's getting better all the time," "time" is sung with a melisma (F E F).  I think this gives something of an impression of that "all," but I'm not sure if it's used in quite that sense.

"All My Loving"

I listened to the second disc of Live at the BBC yester-day and noticed a small thing in "All My Loving."  "Day" in the line "I'll write home ev'ry day" is sung with a melisma (C# G#), giving a sense of number, almost as if it's emphasizing that "ev'ry."

"A Hard Day's Night"

Shortly after writing about "A Hard Day's Night" at the end of May, I thought I realized something else about the song just in playing it over in my head.  When I listened to the second disc of Live at the BBC a couple days ago, I was reminded of this and was finally able to confirm it.

In the lines "I find the things that you do / Will make me feel alright" and the first "You know I feel alright" at the end, the "al-" of "alright" is sung with a melisma (Bb C), musically giving something of a sense of the completeness of the feeling.

"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)"

I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC yester-day and noticed a few small things in "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)," specifically about the first two lines of second verse:

I'm gonna love you more and more ev'ry day
I'm gonna love you more and more ev'ry way

The second "more" in each line is sung with a melisma (G E), musically giving a sense of amount.

Similarly, "way" in the second line is sung with a melisma (F D), musically giving a sense of the variety of "ev'ry."

"In My Life"

Twice recently I heard a little bit of "In My Life," and I realized that "life" in the lines "There are places I remember / All my life though some have changed" is sung with a melisma (B C# B A), musically giving a sense of that "all."

"Misery"

I listened to the first disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 yester-day and noticed a small thing about "Misery" (which is also present in the studio version).  "More" in the line "I won't see her no more" is sung with a melisma (A C).  Because it's sung to more than one pitch, there's something of a sense of the word's meaning (although it's negated).

"A Hard Day's Night"

A couple days ago, the Beatles' various social media accounts posted about Paul's singing the bridge of "A Hard Day's Night" because John couldn't reach those higher notes.

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“The only reason Paul sang on ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ was because I couldn’t reach the notes - ‘When I’m home, everything seems to be right. When I’m home…’ - which is what we’d do sometimes: one of us couldn’t reach a note but he wanted a different sound, so he’d get the other to do the harmony.” - John ➿ #TheBeatles #1960s ➿ Photo © Apple Corps Ltd.

A post shared by The Beatles (@thebeatles) on May 24, 2019 at 7:06am PDT

Just by reading the lyrics there ("When I'm home, ev'rything seems to be right..."), I realized a small feature:  the three syllables of "ev'rything" are sung to different notes (G F# E), musically giving something of a sense of breadth.

"Blue Jay Way"

This morning I was thinking about something I noticed in "Blue Jay Way" about a year ago but which I never wrote about (I was reminded of it because I recently found a similar feature in Badfinger's "Suitcase," which George Harrison produced).  The specific technical explanation is beyond my skill level, but I think some change in the meter or in the syllabic stress causes the repeated "Don't be long" at the end to morph into "Don't belong."

"Tell Me What You See"

I got a pair of claves for Christmas, and yester-day, I finally got around to updating my recording of "Tell Me What You See."

Since the last time I recorded this, I figured out that turning on the velocity filter on my Nord Electro 5D makes the Hohner Pianet sample sound a bit better.  While recording this, I actually discovered a few notes I'd missed last time:  at the end of the first two phrases, there's a B, and at the very end, there's a G in the bass register.

The parts sound a little bit out of sync for the first twelve seconds or so, but this is better than my last version.

"Carol"

Yester-day, I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC and noticed a couple things about "Carol," specifically about the line "Well, I've a-gotta learn to dance if it takes me all night and day."

First, "day" is sung with a melisma (B A), musically giving something of a sense of duration (for "all").  Second, "night and day" is a merism.

I referenced Chuck Berry's original and found that the Beatles changed the lyrics slightly (from Berry's "I'm gonna learn to dance if it takes me all night and day") and that they added the melisma to "day."

"I'll Get You"

I listened to the second disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 this morning and noticed a small thing in "I'll Get You" (which is also in the studio version).  The first line of the second verse is "I think about you night and day," and "night and day" is an example of a rhetorical device called a merism in which two points of a range are named as a way to refer to the entirety.  While the description here is "night and day," the sense is really "all the time."

"Crying, Waiting, Hoping"

The last thing I noticed when I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC a few days ago is that "long" in the line "Tears keep a-fallin' all night long" in "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" is sung with a melisma (A C#, I think), which musically gives a sense of duration.

I referenced Buddy Holly's original, but it doesn't contain this feature.  Evidently, it's something the Beatles added.

"Soldier of Love"

An-other thing I noticed when I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC a few days ago is in "Soldier of Love."  The "so" in the lines "Use your arms to squeeze and / Please 'cause I'm the one who loves you so" is sung with a melisma (C# E), musically giving a sense of degree.

When I referenced the song again in order to find those specific notes and write this post, I noticed that "more" in the line "Baby, I don't wanna fight no more" is also sung with the same melisma, but here there's a (negated) sense of extension or continuation.

"I Got a Woman"

I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC yester-day and noticed a few small points.

In the verse at the very end of "I Got a Woman," both "way" and "town" in the line "Way 'cross town" are sung with melismas (C# C# and D# C# B respectively).  Since both of these are drawn out, there's a musical sense of that distance.

This feature is also present in the version on On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2.

I referenced the versions by Ray Charles (who wrote the song) and Elvis Presley.  The Beatles' version follows Elvis' version (in E major rather than Charles' A major, with the last verse at a slower tempo, and with "Way 'cross town" in place of Charles' "Way over town" [although Elvis does go back to "Way over town" for the last verse]), but Elvis' version doesn't have these melismas (not at the end at least; he does occasionally sing "town" to the notes A B).

"Good Morning Good Morning"

Last year, I wrote a post about a section of the saxophone part in "Good Morning Good Morning" and how it seems to have been inspired by 1950s rock and roll songs.  Even at the time, I was a bit unsure of the accuracy of the rhythms in my notation.  Yester-day, I was thinking about this part again, and I realized that it's a dotted rhythm.  Where I had:

it's actually more like:

What I have still might not be exactly right, but it's certainly a lot closer.

"Glad All Over"

I listened to the second disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 yester-day and noticed a small feature in "Glad All Over," specifically in the line "My temperature's low; fever is high."  "My temperature's low" is sung almost entirely to C# notes (I think "low" is sung with a descending glissando from C# to A), and "fever is high" is sung to a group of ascending notes (C# C# D E, I think).  The first half of the melody for this phrase descends, and the second half ascends, musically giving a sense of the "low" and "high" in the lyrics.

This is also present in the version on Live at the BBC and in Carl Perkins' original (although Perkins' is a half-step lower, and this particular line might have some slight differences in articulation).

"For You Blue"

I listened to Let It Be on 30 January and Let It Be... Naked on 31 January because according to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, some of the Let It Be songs were recorded on those two days fifty years ago.  I noticed something about "For You Blue," but I had to do some research before I wrote about it.

About a minute in, George Harrison says, "Bop, cat, bop."  I think this might be a bit of Gene Vincent's influence.  Leading into an instrumental section in Vincent's "Bluejean Bop," he shouts to his band, "Bop, Blue Caps, bop."  Harrison's "Bop, cat, bop" - spoken during an instrumental section - isn't too dissimilar.  In the Anthology book, Harrison even mentions "Bluejean Bop" specifically (p. 49).

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions and the Anthology 3 liner notes mention that the Beatles played through three Vincent songs ("Ain't She Sweet," "Who Slapped John?" and "Be-Bop-A-Lula") during the Abbey Road sessions (on 24 July 1969) but that "For You Blue" was recorded before this (on 25 January 1969).  Anthology 3, however, also explains that "the version on the album Let It Be featured a lead vocal re-recorded by George on 8 January 1970."  It's possible, then, that running through those Gene Vincent songs in July 1969 recalled "Bluejean Bop" and eventually resulted in the "Bop, cat, bop" in "For You Blue."

"The Hippy Hippy Shake"

When I listened to On Air - Live at the BBC Volume 2 recently, I noticed that some of the "shake"s in "The Hippy Hippy Shake" (specifically the one after the line "Do the hippy hippy shake shake with all of your might") are sung with a melisma (G E).  Since the note changes, there's a musical sense of that "shak[ing]."

I think this is also present in the version on Live at the BBC, but it's more subtle.

"Lucille"

I listened to the first disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 yester-day and noticed a few small things.

In "Lucille," the "go" in the line "Well, you know I love you baby; I'll never let you go" is sung with a melisma (Eb C).  Musically, this gives an impression of movement, although the word has a slightly different sense in this context.

I referenced the version of "Lucille" on the first Live at the BBC and discovered that this feature is present there too, but when I referenced Little Richard's original, I found that it doesn't even contain this line.  It's not in the Everly Brothers' version either (which presenter Brian Matthew specifically mentions in his introduction to the song on Live at the BBC).  The Beatles seem to have changed Little Richard's "Lucille, baby, satisfy my heart" into "Lucille, baby, satisfy my soul," and then fashioned their own line ("Well, you know I love you baby; I'll never let you go") to form something of a rhyme with "soul."

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer"

Lately, I've been working on figuring out the bass part in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer."  So far, I have the first two verses.  I'd figured out the Moog part in the second verse back in November 2017, so now I have enough to make a recording worth it.  I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the piano part; I'm not sure that what I have is entirely accurate (because I didn't play anything in the bass register), but it fills out the sound, at least.

This is just the second verse:

I don't yet have a Moog (it's near the top of my list of instruments to get, but it'll still be a long time before I can afford one), but I did the best I could to get close to that sound.  I used a square wave sample on my Nord Electro 5, and I turned on the velocity filter and tried to play softly to get a mellower sound.  It's a bit uneven, but it's the best I could do.

"Martha My Dear"

Last month, I learned some of the brass parts in "Martha My Dear."  I think what I have is tuba (doubled on trombone) and trumpet.  I can play trombone, but I'm not in practice and this part is beyond my skill level anyway, so I used the mellotron brass sound.

I learned the sections from ~0:38 to ~0:59 and from ~1:39 to ~2:01.  They're only slightly different.  For my recording, I used the second iteration:

There's a second trumpet that plays a high F, but it lasts for so long that the mellotron tape runs out before the note should stop, so I didn't include that in my recording.

"The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"

Over the last two years, I learned enough parts in "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" to make it worth recording.  In February 2017, I learned the bass part and the mellotron trombone part at the end, and last September, I learned the organ part.  In reading Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, I discovered that what I thought were guitar tremolos are actually played with a mandolin sound on mellotron (Chris Thomas, who played both mellotron parts, describes this on page 160).  I believe this simply doubles the organ part, albeit an octave lower.  I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords.

My recording is just a section of the song, roughly 1:23 to 2:30.

I used the mellotron samples available on the Nord website (played on my Electro 5D).  There are two trombone sounds available, and I used the Mk I sound.  Flipping back and forth between my recording and the original, it sounds exactly the same (although I think I played the part with too much legato; I should have broken up the phrases a little).

"It's All Too Much"

According to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Yellow Submarine was released on 17 January 1969.  I listened to the album on the fiftieth anniversary of its release and remembered two small features I'd noticed in "It's All Too Much" back when I listened to the album in September.

The "much" at the end of each chorus ("For us to take, it's all too much," "So take a piece but not too much," "And what I do is all too much") is sung with a melisma (B A B).  Because there's an extra syllable, there's a sense of the excess of "too much."

The "free" in the lines "Send me on a silver sun / Where I know that I'm free" is also sung with a melisma (B A D B).  Here, the extra syllables give a sense of that freedom; the word isn't limited to the single syllable it has when spoken.

In looking at the song again in order to write this post, I noticed something else: one of the verses begins with the line "Floating down the stream of time," which bears some resemblance to part of the line "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream" in "Tomorrow Never Knows."

"Matchbox"

The other thing I noticed when I listened to the second disc of Live at the BBC is in "Matchbox."  The "go" in the last "I ain't got no matches, but I sure got a long way to go" is sung with a melisma (C A), musically giving a sense of movement.  This is also in the Beatles' studio version and in Carl Perkins' original.

"Nothin' Shakin' (But the Leaves on the Trees)"

I listened to the second disc of Live at the BBC yester-day and noticed a couple small things.

In "Nothin' Shakin' (But the Leaves on the Trees)," the "away" in the line "She locked my heart and threw away the keys" is sung with a melisma (E D C), which musically gives something of a sense of the distance the keys were thrown.

"Johnny B. Goode"

The last thing I noticed when I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC a couple days ago is that in "Johnny B. Goode," the phrase "sun goes down" in the lines "Many people comin' from miles around / To hear you play your music till the sun goes down" descends (D C# A, I think), musically giving a sense of the sunset.

Looking at my old notes, I discovered that I noticed this about Berry's original back in May 2018.  An-other note I made (in June 2016) about his original that's also applicable to the Beatles' version is that one line could be transcribed as either "He could play his guitar just like a ring in a bell" or "He could play his guitar just like a-ringin' a bell."  The first implies that guitar playing is an inherent natural ability that Johnny B. Goode has; the other implies that he could play guitar with extreme ease.

"You Really Got a Hold on Me"

An-other thing I noticed when I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC a couple days ago is that "always" in the line "Seems that I'm always thinkin' of you" in "You Really Got a Hold on Me" is sung with a melisma (F# F# E), musically giving a sense of the duration of "always."  This is also present in the Beatles' studio version and in Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' original "You've Really Got a Hold on Me."

"Some Other Guy"

An-other thing I noticed when I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC yester-day is that in the introduction of "Some Other Guy," the guitar plays the melody of the backing vocals from Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It."  As I discovered a couple years ago, the Beatles also did this in the last verse of "Long Tall Sally," but this version of "Some Other Guy" (recorded 19 June 1963, transmitted 23 June 1963) predates that.

The first Live at the BBC album also includes a version of "Long Tall Sally" (recorded 16 July 1963, transmitted 13 August 1963), but of the five recordings of the song that have been released, it's the only one that doesn't have this feature.  All the others do:

• Long Tall Sally EP version (recorded 1 March 1964)
• Anthology 1 live version (recorded 19 April 1964)
• On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 live radio version (recorded 14 July 1964, transmitted 16 July 1964)
• Live at the Hollywood Bowl version (either 23 or 27 August 1964)

Evidently, this feature was added to "Long Tall Sally" sometime between July 1963 and March 1964.  Using it in "Some Other Guy" seems to be something of a trial version.

"Sure to Fall (In Love with You)"

One of my 2019 musical projects is to listen to one of the Beatles' Live at the BBC albums every month (alternating between the first and second volumes every month and listening to the first disc on the 10th and the second disc on the 20th).  This morning I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC and noticed a couple things about which I'll have posts over the next few days.

To-day, I have just a small point about "Sure to Fall (In Love with You)."  The "go" in the line "Darling, don't ever let me go" in the bridge is sung with a melisma (F# E).  While it's negated and used in a more metaphorical sense (more "don't let me leave" than "I'm going to the record store"), this articulation gives a sense of movement.

"Free as a Bird"

Two days ago, I was thinking about "Free as a Bird," and I realized a small thing about the chorus, specifically about the second "free as a bird":

Free as a bird
It's the next best thing to be
Free as a bird

The "free" is sung with a melisma (A C), which gives a sense of the word's meaning.  It's not restricted to the single syllable it has when spoken.  Additionally, because it's sung with an ascending interval, there's even something of a sense of a bird's flight.

When I drafted this post last night, I realized that the "so free"s at the end of the bridges have something of the same effect.  Both McCartney and Harrison sing "so" with a melisma (F# G F# E, I think), which gives a sense of degree.  McCartney also sings "free" with a melisma (A E F# C# E, I think), which has the same sense of freedom as the melisma'd "free" in the chorus.

"Golden Slumbers"

This morning I started reading entries about the recording of "Golden Slumbers" in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions [early July 1969].  Just in thinking about the song, I realized a small feature:  "you rise" in the line "Smiles awake you when you rise" is sung to an ascending interval (a sixth: G to E), which musically gives a sense of that "ris[ing]."