"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]."