"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.

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

"From Me to You"

Two days ago, I was thinking about "From Me to You" (actually, I was thinking about "From Us to You" - the slightly altered version from Live at the BBC), and I realized that it has a feature I've been noticing a lot lately.  In the lines "If there's anything that you want / If there's anything I can do," the syllables of the "anything"s are all sung to different pitches (E D C both times), musically giving a sense of the breadth of possibility.

There's a similar feature in the second verse, in the line "I got ev'rything that you want."  The syllables of "ev'rything" are also sung to different pitches (E D C again), musically giving a sense of breadth.

"From Me to You"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I'm also doing this same sort of project with the Zombies (I've actually been doing that longer and - honestly - it's more of a priority than this project is).  Earlier this year, I started posting chords and notation (and even tabs, occasionally) for Zombies songs, so I figured I might as well do that here too.

Like I mentioned yester-day, I wrote out the notation for the bass part for "From Me to You."  At the bottom, I added the harmonica part too.  As with all of my notation, there's the disclaimer that I might be wrong about this, but here it is:

"From Me to You"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I don't even remember how long ago, but earlier this year, I learned most of the bass part for "From Me to You."  I don't think I had the bridges though.  Recently, I lookt into it again, and I think I have it all now.

I learned the harmonica part too, but since I'm not very good at harmonica yet, I didn't include that.  I did play it on guitar when the phrase is doubled on guitar though.

I even wrote out the notation for this, which I'll get around to posting at some point.  I finished it only just before I recorded this (because I wanted to get the rhythms at the end right).