"I Me Mine"

I realized recently that there's a temporal merism at the beginning of "I Me Mine":  "All through the day... All through the night...."

"Run for Your Life"

I listened to Rubber Soul a couple days ago, after which I realized that the line "Let this be a sermon; I mean ev'rything I said" in "Run for Your Life" could be understood two ways.  I'd always taken "I mean ev'rything I said" as the narrator's explanation of what he means by "this."  "Let ev'rything I said be a sermon."  It could also be understood as an unrelated clause though, in which the narrator is simply affirming his statement.

"Yer Blues"

When I listened to The Beatles a couple days ago, I also noticed a temporal merism in "Yer Blues":  "In the morning / Wanna die / In the evening / Wanna die."

"Birthday"

I listened to The Beatles yester-day and noticed what might be a bit of Buddy Holly's influence on "Birthday."  In the section starting at ~1:27, the piano seems to move between the musical foreground and the background via some sort of effect.  This is very similar to the drums in Holly's "Peggy Sue," which seem to move back and forth (particularly at the beginning) because of different amounts of reverb.

"I Will"

I was thinking about "I Will" recently, and when I transcribed the lyrics, I found a handful of things to note.

There's an ambiguity in the first verse; one line could be written as "If you want me to, I will" or "If you want me too, I will."  The first rendering implies the verb from the previous line ("If you want me to [wait], I will"); the second deals with the reciprocity of the relationship.

The bridge exhibits anaphora:

Love you forever and forever

Love you with all my heart

Love you whenever we're together

Love you when we're apart

The repeated "Love you" at the beginning of each line illustrates both the degree and constancy of the narrator's affection.  Additionally, "whenever we're together" and "when we're apart" form a merism.

A second voice comes in during the bridge, and to some degree, this illustrates the entirety of "all" in the line "Love you with all my heart."

There's an added internal rhyme in the line "Your song will fill the air" in the third verse, and this gives something of a sense of that "fill[ing]."

"I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" and noticed a small feature in the lines "Just to dance with you / Is ev'rything I need."  The three syllables of "ev'rything" are each sung to a different pitch (C# B G#), so musically, there's a sense of breadth.

"If I Fell"

I listened to the second disc of On Air - Live at the BBC, Vol. 2 to-day and noticed a small feature in "If I Fell" that's also present in the studio version.  Throughout the song, Lennon and McCartney are singing alternatively in unison and in harmony.  At the end of the line "When she learns we are two," they break from unison singing to harmony (on "two," Lennon sings a C; McCartney an E).  This musical break mirrors the fracture in the lyric itself.  That Lennon's C is an accidental (the song is in D major) highlights this break.

"In Spite of All the Danger"

I listened to Anthology 1 yester-day and noticed a small feature in "In Spite of All the Danger."  Lennon starts singing each verse alone but is joined by McCartney at the end of the first line, so "In spite of all the" is sung by one voice and "danger" (or "heartache" in the second verse) by two.  This arrangement (with "danger" and "heartache" sung by two voices) provides a sense of that "all."

"Savoy Truffle"

As part of my blog about the Hohner Pianet, I made a video on how to play the Pianet part in "Savoy Truffle":

"What You're Doing"

I was thinking about "What You're Doing" this morning and noticed an interesting feature in the structure of the first two lines:  "Look what you're doin' / I'm feeling blue and lonely."  There's a mosaic rhyme between "doin'" and "blue and," so in terms of completing the rhyme, the word "lonely" is unnecessary.  Even in the structure, then, it's left by itself, and there's something of an impression of its meaning.

"Piggies"

Recently, I learned (or re-learned) some parts for "Piggies."  While there are some spots where all I know is one instrument part, I still felt I had enough to make it worth recording.  This is up until the bridge:

Along with electric bass, I used French harpsichord E and the Mellotron cello sound on my Nord Electro 5.  I'd learned just the beginning phrase of the harpsichord part in November 2017, but I never wrote it down.  I recently re-learned it and then got a bit more too.  I noticed what is probably a trivial feature in the second phrase (at ~0:21):

The last four notes of the first measure have the same intervals as the third phrase of "Westminster Quarters."

This is probably just coincidental, but I thought I'd point it out all the same.  (For what it's worth, Paul McCartney also quotes "Westminster Quarters" at the beginning of his "Let 'Em In.")

"The Fool on the Hill"

I listened to Magical Mystery Tour recently and then figured out the bass harmonica for a section of "The Fool on the Hill."  To this, I could add the recorder part, which I learned back in April 2017.  This is the second instance of this section; the first doesn't have a trill in the recorder part.  I double-tracked the recorder, although I don't know if that's the case in the original recording.  I don't have a bass harmonica, so instead I used the lower register of a Mellotron accordion sound.

"I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"

I listened to a compilation album of the Shirelles earlier this week and noticed a similarity between "Foolish Little Girl" and "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party."  In one section of "Foolish Little Girl," the lyrics are "But I love him / I still love him," sung to this melody (with an-other vocal part in between the two phrases):

Lyrically, melodically, and rhythmically, there's a strong resemblance between this and the line "I still love her" in "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" (specifically Lennon's part, which is the lower of the two):

Of course, the only difference lyrically is the pronoun.  As far as melody, both phrases begin with a falling fifth, go back up (a fifth in "Foolish Little Girl" but only a fourth in "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"), and then ascend a whole step.  In terms of rhythm, both parts have long, drawn-out notes (especially compared to the surrounding vocal parts), and the last note has half the value of (most of) the others.

The Beatles were clearly familiar with the Shirelles (they covered "Baby It's You" and "Boys" on Please Please Me), so "Foolish Little Girl" may have had some influence on this part in "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," even if only subconsciously.

"Honey Pie"

While thinking about "Act Naturally" recently, the lines "Then I know that you will plainly see / The biggest fool that ever hit the big time" stuck out to me, and I realized that there's some resemblance between them and the line "Now she's hit the big time" in "Honey Pie."  The situations described in each song are similar (movie stars finding success), although the use of this specific phrase in both may just be coincidental.

"Act Naturally"

I was thinking about "Act Naturally" recently and realized that the end of the line "And beggin' down upon his bended knee" descends ("bended knee" is sung to the notes D B A) and that this gives a sense of that "down."  This feature is also present in Buck Owens' original.

"Revolution"

I listened to LOVE yester-day and noticed a small feature in "Revolution."  In the second instance of the line "We all wanna change the world," "world" is sung with a melisma (C# G# F#, I think).  Musically, this gives a sense of that "chang[ing]."

"You Won't See Me"

I was thinking about "You Won't See Me" yester-day and realized that "hard" in the lines "We have lost the time / That was so hard to find" is sung with a melisma (E D C#, I think) and that this gives a sense of degree (for "so").

"Good Day Sunshine"

I listened to Revolver this morning and noticed a couple features in "Good Day Sunshine."  After "We take a walk," there's a descending piano phrase (A G# G F#).  This phrase is step-wise chromatically, so there's something of a sense of the steps involved in "tak[ing] a walk."

The clause "She feels good" is a bit ambiguous.  This could be either a description of the girl's disposition (which the rest of the line ["she knows she's looking fine"] seems to suggest) or a comment by the narrator about her body.

"The Night Before"

I listened to Help! yester-day and noticed a small feature in "The Night Before."  In the line "Was I so unwise," "unwise" is sung with a melisma (F G F E D), musically giving a sense of degree (for "so").

"You Never Give Me Your Money"

This morning I was thinking about "You Never Give Me Your Money," specifically this section:

Out of college, money spent,

See no future, pay no rent,

All the money's gone, nowhere to go.

Any jobber got the sack,

Monday morning turning back,

Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go.

But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go!

Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go!

Nowhere to go!

(This is how it appears in The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook.)

Most of this exhibits asyndeton.  There are no conjunctions (aside from one "But"), just phrases and clauses crammed together.  This lack of any conjunctions mirrors the absences in the lyrics themselves:  "no future," "no rent," "the money's gone," "nowhere to go."

"Any Time at All"

I listened to A Hard Day's Night last week and noticed a couple things about the title line of "Any Time at All."  First Lennon sings the line, and then McCartney sings it, and then Lennon sings it again.  Because more than one voice sings this line, there's a sense of the breadth of possibility of "any."

The "all" is sung with a melisma (I think it's E D B in Lennon's part and A F# E in McCartney's).  This too gives a sense of the breadth of possibility (note, though, that since "all" is in the construction "at all," it functions adverbially).

"It Won't Be Long"

I listened to With the Beatles a couple days ago and noticed a small thing in "It Won't Be Long":  there's a temporal merism in the lines "Ev'ry night the tears come down from my eye / Ev'ry day I've done nothin' but cry."

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer"

I've written about this in a few other songs already, but yester-day I realized that "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" also has an instance of "all alone" ("Late nights all alone with a test tube"), and since the initial sound of these two words is the same, there's a sense of that singularity.

"I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"

I listened to Beatles for Sale last week, and this morning, I was thinking about "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," specifically the recurring line "I still love her."  Even just semantically, there's some emphasis placed on this line.  In the first instance, it provides some resolution to the preceding dependent clause ("Though tonight she's made me sad / I still love her").

The note values for this line are much longer than anywhere else in the song, and this contrast provides a musical emphasis to mirror the emphasis that's in the meaning alone.  I think the vocal parts are something like this:

While referencing the song, I also noticed that "go" in the line "I don't want to spoil the party so I'll go" is sung with a melisma (I think Lennon sings it to the notes D C B but McCartney just holds a G below this), giving a sense of movement.

"Taxman"

I listened to the first disc of Anthology 2 yester-day and noticed a small feature in "Taxman" that's also present in the Revolver version (as the liner notes explain, the Anthology version is "not dissimilar to the master").  The second "walk" in the line "If you take a walk, walk" is sung with a melisma (I think it's F# G).  Not only does this give a sense of movement but because it's a conjunct interval, there's even a musical sense of taking a step.

"No Reply"

In the lines "If I were you I'd realize that I / Love you more than any other guy" in "No Reply," "guy" is sung with a melisma (F E in Lennon's part; A G in McCartney's), giving a sense of the breadth of "any."

"You Know What to Do"

In the line "I watched you walkin' by, and you looked all alone" in "You Know What to Do," there's alliteration in "all alone."  Because there's only one initial sound, there's a representation of that singularity.  "Alone" is also sung with a melisma (C# C# B), giving a sense of degree.

"Day" in the line "Understand I'll stay with you ev'ry day" is sung with a melisma (C# B), giving a sense of frequency.  There's a similar feature with "way" (also sung with a C# B melisma) in the following line:  "Make you love me more in every way," but here "every" is sung with three syllables, which also gives a sense of amount.

"I Wanna Be Your Man"

This morning, I listened to the second disc of Anthology 1 and noticed a few things.  There's something of a lyrical ambiguity in "I Wanna Be Your Man."  "Baby" in the line "Love you like no other, baby" is probably meant as a vocative because this is how it functions in other lines ("I wanna be your lover, baby" and "Tell me that you love me, baby"), but it could also be understood as the comparative element (with "other" functioning as a true adjective rather than as a substantive):  "Love you like no other baby."

"Day Tripper" and "Lady Madonna"

Two days ago, I remembered something that I noticed about a year ago:  the guitar figures in "Day Tripper" and "Lady Madonna" have a certain similarity, not so much in terms of rhythm, but in the intervals.  It might be easier to illustrate this with tabs than with notation.

The guitar phrase in "Day Tripper" starts like:

D|---------2-0---4---0-2-|

A|-------2-----2---2-----|

E|-0-3-4-----------------|

And that in "Lady Madonna":

G|-----------------2-|

D|---------0-0-2~4---|

A|-0-0-3-4-----------|

Both figures start with the tonic note, followed by the minor third and then the major third.  In the tabs above, this appears as |-0-3-4-|.

"Baby It's You"

I listened to Please Please Me this morning and noticed a couple small features in "Baby It's You," both in the line "Don't leave me all alone."  "All alone" alliterates, and since there's only one initial sound, there's a representation of that singularity.  "Alone" is also sung with a melisma (D E D E, I think), musically giving a sense of degree (for "all").

In the Shirelles' version, the line is simply "Don't leave me alone."

"Sun King"

I listened to Abbey Road this morning and noticed a small feature in "Sun King."  In the lines "Ev'rybody's laughing / Ev'rybody's happy," the four syllables of "Ev'rybody's" are all sung to different pitches (D C B A both times).  Musically, this gives a sense of the entirety of "ev'rybody."

Writing about "Sun King" also gives me the opportunity to note something that I didn't think merited its own post:  near the beginning of take 20 (included on the 50th anniversary edition of the album), John Lennon sings the first few notes of the melody from the Shadows' "Man of Mystery."

The White Album

This is more of a tangential issue, but I'm writing about it anyway.  Two days ago, I read the entry for "album" in Merriam-Webster's dictionary.  The etymology notes that it comes from albus, the Latin word for "white."  The first definition explains that originally an album was "a book with blank pages used for making a collection (as of autographs, stamps, or photographs)."  Although since the sense of "album" later changed to include "one more more recordings (as on tape or disc) produced as a single unit," going by the original etymology, "The White Album" is a redundant moniker.

Beatles for Sale

Yester-day, I learned the solo in "What You're Doing" (I'd forgotten that I learned it before, but I never wrote it down; compared to my old recording, what I have now is more accurate, anyway).  In the first half, I think there's a glissando'd double stop:  A+C# slid down to G+B.  Provided I have the parts figured out correctly, this same figure (played an octave higher) is also in the choruses in "Every Little Thing."

The songs are in different keys ("What You're Doing" is in D major, and "Every Little Thing" is in A major), but using this same figure in both gives some cohesion to Beatles for Sale.