"What You're Doing"

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Last night, I wrote out the tab for the repeating guitar phrase in "What You're Doing" (I've forgotten it once; I don't want to forget it again), and I figured out the rest of the solo!  I had the first six or seven notes (in the wrong octave), but I'd gotten stuck after that.

Also, apparently the lead guitar parts are on twelve-string guitar, which I hadn't realized.  So I've corrected that too.

A few of the phrases near the end are incomplete.  I'm not sure if they're incomplete in the same way in the original, but I do think they are incomplete.

"Any Time at All"

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I listened to A Hard Day's Night this morning, and I noticed a few things that I've been oblivious to, even though I've been listening to the album weekly for months.  Mostly, the things I noticed were just piano parts I hadn't realized were there.  (They're in "Tell Me Why," where I think it just doubles the bass part, and in "When I Got Home."  A few months ago, I discovered that there's one in "Things We Said Today" too.)  I'm pretty sure the CD copy I have of the album is in mono, which makes it a bit more difficult to distinguish the individual parts.

The other thing I noticed was in "Any Time at All."  Almost the entirety of the verses have doubled-tracked vocals except for the beginning of the fourth line.  In the first verse, the "If you're feelin'" part is just a single voice, but there's a second for the "sorry and sad."  Way back in March, I noted that alliteration, but the double-tracked vocals there emphasize it, since there's a second pair (a pair of words beginning with S and a pair of vocals).

In the second verse, the "When you need a" has a single voice, and "shoulder to cry on" has two.  The single/double-tracked voice feature here is more interesting.  There's a single voice for the part of the line that indicates a lack ("When you need"), and a pair of voices for the part that offers assistance.

"No Reply"

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All I'd intended to do was write a post about how I listened to Beatles for Sale again a few days ago and discovered that after the hand-claps in the bridge, there are a few finger-snaps during the third verse.  They're sort of loosely structured which makes me think that they were just improvised while recording the hand-claps.  That's all I intended to do, but then - in verifying that I did actually hear finger-snaps - I ended up learning the piano part and then I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the rest of the rhythm guitar chords.  I don't have the rhythm right for the "I saw the light" part in the first verse; it wasn't until I got to the second verse that I realized you have to strum upwards during those parts to stay in time.

"What You're Doing"

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A while after I listened to Beatles for Sale two weeks ago, I remembered that years ago I'd learned the recurring guitar phrase in "What You're Doing."  I re-learned it recently and got a few more parts too.  I figured out most of the chords on my own, but I did refer to The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook and made a correction.  Also, I figured out a truly minuscule part of the piano part.  There's an A note to accompany the "me" in "It's me."  I doubled it at the octave, but I'm not sure if that's accurate.

My recording cuts out a bit early compared to the original (also, it starts later because there's no way I could have done the opening drum part).  The tag at the end is made up of the same elements from the verses, so I didn't think I really needed to include it.

"A Hard Day's Night"

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I thought I'd learned the twelve-string part at the end of "A Hard Day's Night" months ago and that I just couldn't play it right.  But last night I discovered that the A note I'd been trying (and failing) to play is actually supposed to be a G.  Discovering that made this much easier to play.  It made it able to play, actually.

"I'll Follow the Sun"

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I listened to Beatles for Sale to-day, and I decided to figure out the short guitar phrase in "I'll Follow the Sun."  I'm not sure it's really long enough to be considered a solo.  Anyway, there it is.

"Please Please Me"

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After I re-learned a guitar part in "Please Please Me," I learned the bass part for the verses too (mostly so I could post an audio example that was more than just a seven-note guitar phrase).

This is only about the first minute; I'm still stuck at the bridge.  The bass part during the verse after this is virtually the same, but I still have the end to figure out too.

"Please Please Me"

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This morning, I got to thinking about how "Please Please Me" has a guitar part doubled on harmonica (or a harmonica part doubled on guitar, whichever).  I knew I'd figured out it before, but I didn't remember it, so I had to figure it out again.  I would post an audio example, but doubling the guitar part with harmonica requires an E major harmonica, which I don't have (and the guitar part by itself wouldn't be too interesting).  So until either I get an E major harmonica or I learn an-other part to the song, this text post will have to suffice.  I made sure to write down the part, so I won't have to re-learn it a second time.

"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.

"Yellow Submarine"

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I forgot to write about something I noticed when I listened to Yellow Submarine a few days ago.  In "Yellow Submarine," there's the line "Every one of us has all we need."  I think it's meant to describe what the previous line states - the "life of ease" where everyone has enough.  But because the pronouns change from singular ("one") to plural ("we"), it actually describes an excess.  Each single person has the amount required by the whole group of people.

"Hey Bulldog"

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I listened to the Yellow Submarine album this morning, mostly to hear "Hey Bulldog" after seeing some footage of it from the new Beatles 1 Video Collection and not remembering the song that well.

This evening I thought I'd try figuring out the riff, and it was pretty easy.  I figured out most of the chords for the rest of the song too, but I figured them out on guitar, and I don't know if they're played differently on piano (with inversions and such), so I didn't include them.

"She Loves You"

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Back in August when I listened to Anthology 1, I finally understood a line in "She Loves You" that I'd previously been unable to comprehend.  It's the third line in the third verse:  "Pride can hurt you too."

At the time, I realized that because of the too/two homophone, this line could be either "Pride can hurt you too" (probably the more obvious meaning) or "Pride can hurt you two," as in "Pride can hurt the two people in this relationship."

To-day I happened to re-read my reminder to myself to get around to writing about this, and I realized that there's more to that line than I originally thought.  There is that too/two homophone, but the key to which meaning is meant lays in the "Pride" earlier in the line.  A prideful person would be more likely to perceive the "you" as the singular you where a less prideful person would understand it as the plural you.  A prideful person would think of their self alone where a less prideful person would think about other people and the relationship between them.

Between the ambiguous you and too/two, it's a really clever line that could be interpreted in different ways.