"In Spite of All the Danger"

Inexplicably, a post I wrote about "In Spite of All the Danger" on tumblr back in 2014 got some likes recently.  I'd completely forgotten about the point I made in the post, and I felt I should write an updated version of the post here.

I'd been listening to a two-disc compilation album of Gene Vincent and noticed that a phrase in the backing vocals in "Wear My Ring" seems to be the model (whether consciously or not) for a phrase in the backing vocals in "In Spite of All the Danger."

In "Wear My Ring" (in A major), the phrase appears at the end of the bridge (first at ~1:03):

In "In Spite of All the Danger" (in E major), the phrase appears about halfway through the verse (first at ~0:14):

There are no words in either, just "ah"s.

While the two songs are in different keys, the pitches in these two phrases are exactly the same and in the same order, and while the rhythms are a bit different, the two phrases fall in similar places within the measures.

The liner notes in the Anthology 1 album mention Vincent's influence ("the Beatles usually performed this ["Ain't She Sweet"] in the more mellow style of Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps' influential 1956 version"), and in the Anthology book, the Beatles mention meeting him in Germany (page 69).  I remember reading somewhere that "In Spite of All the Danger" bears some similarity to Elvis Presley's "Trying to Get to You" (and it does), but this backing vocal phrase seems to indicate Vincent's influence on the Beatles, too.

"Blackbird"

Last year, I watched this short video about "Blackbird" from a Dutch television station.

In it, McCartney explains that the guitar part was inspired by a Bach piece.  The notation of this piece is shown, but it's not actually identified.  Recently, I remembered this video and tracked down the Bach piece; it's the Bourrée from the Suite in E minor, BWV 996.

"Yer Blues"

I'm still slowly copying the lyrics in the liner notes booklet from The Beatles into my Google Documents for easier reference.  Recently, I copied the lyrics for "Yer Blues."  At about 1:37, Lennon sings, "Just like Dylan's Mr. Jones."  I hadn't understood the line until reading it in the liner notes, and now that I know what it is, I think it's a reference to Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man," in which every verse ends with some variation of the lines "Something is happening here, and you don't know what it is / Do you, Mr. Jones?"

"Not a Second Time"

I was thinking about "Not a Second Time" this morning and realized something:  in the line "And now you've changed your mind," "mind" is sung with a melisma (D B), musically giving a sense of that "chang[ing]."