"Yellow Submarine"

I've been reading a book of four Shakespeare plays (Four Great Comedies by William Shakespeare, published by Washington Square Press), and in the introduction to The Tempest, part of Prospero's speech in Act Five, Scene One is quoted.  One line in particular caught my attention:  "And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault" (V.i.43).  The same sort of description is also in "Yellow Submarine," just with the order reversed:  "Sky of blue and sea of green."

In the McCartney: A Life in Lyrics podcast about "Let It Be," Paul McCartney and Paul Muldoon comment on Shakespeare's influence:

Muldoon:  For all Paul McCartney knew, the words "let it be" had come from his subconscious or as a message from beyond the grave, but after the song was released, he realized that he may have encountered these words long before he wrote the lyrics, back when he was a schoolboy at the Liverpool Institute for Boys.  There, in the English class of Paul's favorite and most formative teacher, Alan Durband, the students read Shakespeare's Hamlet for the first time.

McCartney:  So in those days, I had to learn speeches off by heart, so I can still do a bit of "To be or not to be" or "That this too too solid flesh,"* and it'd been pointed out to me recently that, um, Hamlet, when he's poisoned, he actually says, "Let it be"... Act Five, Scene Two.  ...  He says, "Let be" the first time, and then the second time, he says, "Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death, / Is strict in his arrest) O, I could tell you - / But let it be, Horatio."**

McCartney seems pretty convinced that Shakespeare's "Let it be" influenced his own "Let It Be," but there's really a stronger resemblance between "And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault" and "Sky of blue and sea of green" than there is between the two "Let it be"s.  These lines in The Tempest and "Yellow Submarine" both provide a colorful maritime description, but the contexts in which the two instances of "Let it be" appear are quite different.

---

*McCartney also recites this in the movie A Hard Day's Night.  I referenced two different editions of the play (Shakespeare: Four Great Tragedies from Signet Classics and The Folger Library General Reader's Shakespeare: Hamlet), but they don't agree on the line numbers.  It's either I.ii.129 or I.ii.135.  As the Signet Classics book notes, there's also a textual issue here:  "Q2 [The Second Quarto] has sallied, here modernized to sullied, which makes sense and is therefore given; but the Folio reading, solid, which fits better with melt, is quite possibly correct."

**Again, there's a discrepancy of line numbers between my editions, either V.ii.337-339 or V.ii.357-359.  The vocative "Horatio" actually goes with the next clause, "Horatio, I am dead."

"Your Mother Should Know"

I was thinking about "Your Mother Should Know" recently, and I realized that the clauses "Let's all get up" and "Lift up your hearts" are sung to ascending melodies (spanning an octave:  E A C E), musically giving a sense of the meanings (although the second is more metaphorical).

"Till There Was You"

I listened to With the Beatles yester-day and noticed a small feature in "Till There Was You."  In the line "There was love all around," the phrase "all around" is sung to notes of all different pitches (A Bb C), giving a sense of that breadth.

"Doctor Robert"

"Day or night" in the line "Day or night, he'll be there any time at all, Doctor Robert" in "Doctor Robert" is a temporal merism.

To some degree, the structure of the song even evinces the statement "he'll be there any time at all" since the name "Doctor Robert" (or occasionally "Bob Robert") appears multiple times throughout each verse (at the end of both of the first two lines, in the middle of the verse, and at the end), suggesting a sort of ubiquity.

"Eleanor Rigby"

The repeated line "I look at all the lonely people" in "Eleanor Rigby" is sung to a phrase something like:

Admittedly, I'm not super confident about the last two notes in each part.

The phrase "all the lonely people" is sung to pitches spanning more than an octave (A down to G and F# down to E), and this breadth provides a musical sense of that "all."  That there's a second vocal part here (in contrast to the single vocal in the verses) also gives a sense of that multitude.

"Taxman"

I listened to Revolver yester-day and noticed a few small features.  Even before I started listening to the album, I realized that the inclusion of the "one two three four" count-off in "Taxman" has a sort of double meaning in light of the subject of the song:  the musicians are counting the beats, but the taxman is counting money.

"Penny Lane"

Lately, I've been listening to the McCartney: A Life in Lyrics podcast.  Yester-day, I listened to the episode on "Penny Lane" and noticed a small feature in the song:  the line "It's a clean machine" exhibits internal rhyme, and this provides a sense of that orderliness.

"Yer Blues"

A few years ago, I noted a temporal merism (morning and evening) in the lines "In the morning wanna die / In the evening wanna die" in "Yer Blues" (that's how they're formatted in the liner notes).  I was thinking about the song again this morning, and I realized that the repeated "wanna die" at the end of the lines is an instance of epistrophe and that, furthermore, since there are two rhetorical devices here, their effect is compounded, resulting in a greater emphasis.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

I was thinking about "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" yester-day, specifically how the choruses (the repeated title line) are sung in a higher register than the verses, and I realized that to some degree, this higher register provides a sense of being up "in the sky."

"Blackbird"

Yester-day, I finished reading the introduction to 1964: Eyes of the Storm.  Near the end, there's a quotation from "Blackbird," and I noticed an ambiguity in the line "You were only waiting for this moment to arise."  I don't know the proper grammatical terms necessary to explain this ambiguity precisely, but the main difference is whether it's "you" that's arising (where the arrival of "this moment" is a sort of prerequisite) or it's "this moment" that's arising (where "this moment to arise" is the direct object of the verb "waiting for").  Comparison with the later line "You were only waiting for this moment to be free," which has the same structure, suggests the former, but I think the latter is also grammatically viable.

"From Me to You"

I've been reading Paul McCartney's 1964: Eyes of the Storm, although I'm still only in the introduction.  Yester-day, I read a part that quoted the bridge in "From Me to You":

I got arms that long to hold you

And keep you by my side

I got lips that long to kiss you

And keep you satisfied, ooh

(That's my transcription.)

I think that reading this rather than hearing it made me realize that it's somewhat similar to Buddy Holly's "You've Got Love" (credited to Johnny Wilson, Roy Orbison, and Norman Petty).  Much of Holly's song is just a list of body parts, including arms and lips, and what they can do:  "You got two lips that look so fine," "You got two arms that you could use / To make me lose my blues," and "You got two eyes so you can see / Your love was meant for me."

The narrator in Holly's song is talking to his lover where the narrator in the Beatles' song is talking about himself, but the structure is the same:  "You/I got [body part] that...."

While the Beatles have listed Holly as an influence and there's definitely a similarity here, I'm not certain that this is an instance of the Beatles' drawing from his song.

---

I also wrote about a similarity between "You've Got Love" and "Every Little Thing," although I think that's more coincidental.

"Within You Without You"

I was thinking about "Within You Without You" yester-day, specifically the melody to which the first line is sung.  It's something like:

The lyric here is "We were talking about the space between us all."  The beginning and ending of the phrase are conjunct, but there are larger intervals (mostly fourths) in the middle, as if to illustrate that "space."

"Drive My Car"

I was thinking about "Drive My Car" this morning, and I realized that under the line "But you can do something in between," the drums start lending some emphasis to the off-beats, something like:

This change in the rhythm is especially conspicuous since the cowbell, which had been playing on each downbeat, drops out.

I may be making too much of this, but this emphasis on the off-beats sort of complements the "in between" in the lyric above.