"And I Love Her"

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Friday night, I finally learned the rest of the arpeggiations in "And I Love Her."  I'd been stuck on the last one, but I figured out that where the rhythm guitar plays an E major, that arpeggiated chord in the lead guitar is a C# minor.  Together, they make an E major 7th, which the rhythm guitar plays as a chord in the introduction.

Because I just learned those parts, I'm not very good at transitioning yet, so I missed a few notes in my recording.

"And I Love Her"

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I spent the last week or so figuring out the bass part to "And I Love Her."

There's a really interesting part transitioning from the second verse into the bridge (just before "A love like ours / Could never die").  At that point in the bass part, there's the same phrase that - on guitar - opens the song (B, E, D#, C#).  Without having learned the parts, I doubt I ever would have noticed that.

I'm still missing the arpeggiations in the guitar part, but I have learned two of them.  I'm still working on the others, but I think I'm pretty close.  Also, I might rush a note or two in the solo, and I think one or more of my instruments is slightly out-of-tune.

"And I Love Her"

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I haven't done too much on this project for the last month.  Basically, I've just been listening to A Hard Day's Night every week.  But I decided to figure out a few of the guitar parts for "And I Love Her."  I got the solo and the phrase at the beginning and end.  I'm still stuck on the arpeggiated parts, but - thanks to The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook - I do know the chords, so those shouldn't be too hard to figure out.  (Before I referenced the chords, I hadn't realized that the song changes key right before the solo.  The second half is a half-step higher than the first half.)  I think I figured out a phrase from the bass part too, but I didn't include that.

I don't have a nylon-strung classical guitar, which is what I think George Harrison used on this (that's what it looks like in the A Hard Day's Night movie at least).  It's on my list of instruments to get, but since I already have a regular acoustic guitar, 1) a nylon-strung guitar isn't too high on that list and 2) I just used that.

You can hear my wrist crack at the very end, which is why I'm not too keen on recording acoustic guitar, and it's sort of a rough audio example anyway, but good enough to give an idea of what I know.

A Hard Day's Night

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After I listened to A Hard Day's Night last week, I noticed some connection among "A Hard Day's Night," "Can't Buy Me Love," and "Tell Me Why."  Working on transcribing the lyrics yester-day helped in fleshing it out.

"A Hard Day's Night" and "Tell Me Why" present opposite outcomes of the same situation.  In "A Hard Day's Night," the speaker/singer says, "It's worth it just to hear you say / You're gonna give me everything / So why on Earth should I moan?"  There's gift-giving (or even just the promise of gift-giving), so there's no grumbling or animosity, unlike in "Tell Me Why":

Well, I gave you everything I had
But you left me sittin' on my own
Did you have to leave me oh so bad
All I do is hang my head and moan

Here, there's also giving "everything," but now there is cause to "moan" because the affection isn't reciprocated.

"Can't Buy Me Love" presents the same sort of idea ("I'll get you anything, my friend / If it makes you feel alright"), but it also complicates the idea with the titular line: "Money can't buy me love."

Taken together, it seems to present the view that giving "everything" can certainly help a romantic relationship, but it's not the essential element.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there's also "She gives me everything" in "And I Love Her."

"And I Love Her"

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I watched the A Hard Day's Night movie on Sunday when I started this project (so I already had some things to think about), but to-day was the first day of listening to the album.  Because I found so many things to write about, I think I'm going to separate things and just go by song.  This also gives me some time to research and compare a few things.

Of what I discovered listening to the album to-day, I think the most interesting is the comparison between "And I Love Her" and Buddy Holly's "Listen to Me," which Holly co-wrote with Norman Petty.

Some of the phrases in "And I Love Her" are right out of the chorus of "Listen to Me":

I told the stars you're my only love
I want to love you tenderly
Those same bright stars in Heaven above
Know now how sweet sweethearts can be

The "tenderly" shows up in the lines "She gives me everything / And tenderly."  "And I Love Her" also uses the "bright stars" image, coupled with "know[ing],"  and the same rhyme scheme as Holly's chorus (albeit with an extra line) in the last verse (which is repeated again at the end):

Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die
And I love her

So "And I Love Her" bears some lyrical resemblance to Holly's song, but - like "Listen to Me" - it also plays around with double-tracking the voices.

In "Listen to Me," Holly uses double-tracking (or, rather, a lack thereof) to emphasize certain lines.  Each of the verses is double-tracked, but one of the vocal tracks changes into a harmony during each "listen closely to me," which not only provides emphasis, but is also a sort of musical joke based on the word "listen."

McCartney's voice is double-tracked throughout "And I Love Her," except for the first two lines of that last verse ("Bright are the stars that shine / Dark is the night").  I should note that it's the verse that precedes the solo, not the repetition.

Because those lines aren't double-tracked, further emphasis is put on the lines that follow ("I know this love of mine / Will never die / And I love her") when the double-tracking resumes.  As in Holly's song, the double-tracking provides a sort of extra-textual highlighting that lends more weight to those convictions.