"A Hard Day's Night"

Shortly after writing about "A Hard Day's Night" at the end of May, I thought I realized something else about the song just in playing it over in my head.  When I listened to the second disc of Live at the BBC a couple days ago, I was reminded of this and was finally able to confirm it.

In the lines "I find the things that you do / Will make me feel alright" and the first "You know I feel alright" at the end, the "al-" of "alright" is sung with a melisma (Bb C), musically giving something of a sense of the completeness of the feeling.

"A Hard Day's Night"

A couple days ago, the Beatles' various social media accounts posted about Paul's singing the bridge of "A Hard Day's Night" because John couldn't reach those higher notes.

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“The only reason Paul sang on ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ was because I couldn’t reach the notes - ‘When I’m home, everything seems to be right. When I’m home…’ - which is what we’d do sometimes: one of us couldn’t reach a note but he wanted a different sound, so he’d get the other to do the harmony.” - John ➿ #TheBeatles #1960s ➿ Photo © Apple Corps Ltd.

A post shared by The Beatles (@thebeatles) on May 24, 2019 at 7:06am PDT

Just by reading the lyrics there ("When I'm home, ev'rything seems to be right..."), I realized a small feature:  the three syllables of "ev'rything" are sung to different notes (G F# E), musically giving something of a sense of breadth.

"A Hard Day's Night"

I was thinking about "I Want to Hold Your Hand" this morning, and I realized that one of the musical phrases is re-used in "A Hard Day's Night."  After every other line in the verses of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," there's this chromatic phrase in the bass part:

I think this is even doubled on guitar an octave higher.

This same phrase (just shifted up pitch-wise) is also in "A Hard Day's Night":

It's present only once in the studio version (at ~2:10, in between the lines "But when I get home to you / I find the things that you do"), but I think it's in every verse in the live versions on Live at the BBC and Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

1962-1966

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Because it's an even year, I'm attempting to listen to all of the music in my collection again.  I just listened to the Beatles' 1962-1966 and wrote about a few songs.  I'm going to add those to the queue, but for now, here are a few things I noticed that I didn't deem interesting enough for the Collection Audit project:

"I Want to Hold Your Hand"

This is actually something I noticed last August, but I never got around to transcribing the lyrics so I could accurately quote the lines.  In the bridge, there's "It's such a feeling that, my love / I can't hide."  The "my love" is sort of ambiguous; it could be in either the accusative case (as an object of the verb) and inverted or in the vocative case (someone to whom the speaker/singer is addressing himself).  So it could be either "It's such a feeling that I can't hide my love" or telling someone ("my love") that "It's such a feeling that I can't hide."

It's probably intended to be that second one (with "my love" as a vocative), but that inverted object is still valid, grammatically.

"All My Loving"

This would probably be more interesting as audio, but I discovered that there are actually three distinct vocal parts during the bridge:

All my lovin' I will send to you
All my lovin', darling, I'll be true

McCartney's singing the lead vocals, and Lennon and Harrison are singing the "ooh"s in the backing vocals.  I can't tell their voices apart here, but one sings an E note throughout, and the other sings a descending chromatic phrase: C#, C, B.

"A Hard Day's Night"

I just listened to this song every week for ten months, but it wasn't until now that I noticed the parallelism in the first verse:

It's been a hard day's night
And I've been workin' like a dog
It's been a hard day's night
I should be sleepin' like a log

specifically, the "been workin' like a dog" and "be sleepin' like a log."  There's a form of be, a verb (or, rather, verb form since "sleepin'" is actually a participle here), and then a simile.

"Drive My Car"

Each verse starts with an exchange between the speaker/singer and "that girl."

First verse:

Asked the girl what she wanted to be
She said, "Baby, can't you see?"

Second verse:

I told that girl that my prospects were good
And she said, "Baby, it's understood"

Third verse:

I told that girl I could start right away
And she said, "Listen, babe, I got something to say"

I don't really have anything else to say about that; I'd just never noticed that structure.

"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.

"A Hard Day's Night"

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When I listened to A Hard Day's Night to-day, the bass part for the title track seemed like it wouldn't be too hard to figure out.  I referenced the version on Live at the BBC too, although I'm not sure if that bass part matches the studio version exactly.

Even just in listening to it over the last few months, I noticed a little bass riff that occurs after "You know I work all day / To get you money to buy you things" (acting as an embellishment of the "things"?) and during the solo.  I think I have that figured out correctly, but - as with everything in this project - I might be wrong.

In order to play that riff, I have to play the preceding G note as an open string.  Before I figured that out though, I was playing the G note on the fifth fret of the D string.  In my recording, I sometimes go between the two, and because of the difference in the thickness of the strings, it sounds a bit weird at times.

A few years ago, I discovered this article/video/radio show clip that explains the opening crash.  According to that, the bass plays a D note at the beginning.  I haven't tried recreating it with the guitar parts, but I'll get around to it eventually.

"Any Time at All"

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Early in this project, I started wondering why Paul McCartney sings the second "Any time at all" in "Any Time at All."  It seemed incongruous because John Lennon sings the whole song except for those lines.

Listening to it this time though, I remembered something that I read in The Beatles Anthology (or at least I think it was in The Beatles Anthology).  I can't seem to find it again (and I don't really want to re-read large sections in an effort to find it), but it was John Lennon's explaining that Paul McCartney sings the "When I'm home" sections in "A Hard Day's Night" because he (McCartney) has a higher voice.  I'm pretty sure that the McCartney-sung "Any time at all" is even higher, so that switch might be just because of the register.

"Any Time at All"

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An-other thing I noticed while listening to A Hard Day's Night last week is that "Any Time at All" begins in the same sort of way as "A Hard Day's Night."  "A Hard Day's Night" is well-known for its dissonant beginning, and while "Any Time at All" begins with just drums, it has the same immediacy.  Interestingly, on the original vinyl, "A Hard Day's Night" started side one, and "Any Time at All" started side two.  I don't know how much influence (if any) the Beatles had on the sequencing of the album, but those two songs' beginning each of the sides helps make a more consistent album - each side starts with that suddenness.

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."