Friday, March 30, 2018

"Good Morning Good Morning"

The second thing I noticed when I listened to the 2 CD Anniversary Edition of Sgt. Pepper recently is the saxophone parts in "Good Morning Good Morning."  During most of the repeated "Good morning..." sections and throughout the "Ev'rybody knows there's nothing doing" and "People runnin' 'round; it's five o'clock" sections, the saxophones arpeggiate A major and D major chords.  Something like:


(I guessed on the key, and the rhythm of the eighth notes might not be strictly accurate.)

It seemed that arpeggiating the chords with saxophones like this was a relatively common feature of 1950s rock and roll, but I had to do some searching before I found any specific songs that do this.  Of the songs I found, the most well-known is probably Fats Domino's "Blue Monday" (which also seems to have inspired "Lady Madonna").  Like these sections of "Good Morning Good Morning," the saxophones in "Blue Monday" arpeggiate chords, playing the root, third, and fifth (although the root is played twice in succession and the rhythms of the two parts are different).

Of course, I'm not sure if the saxophones in "Good Morning Good Morning" are meant to be reminiscent of "Blue Monday" or even any song in particular, but they do have a certain similarity.