Abbey Road

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I've been listening to Manfred Mann's first album (The Five Faces of Manfred Mann) a lot recently, and in looking up Mike Vickers, I discovered that he programed the Moog parts on the Beatles' Abbey Road album.  On his website, he writes that "I bought a Moog Series III synthesizer, one of the first to arrive in the UK, and used it a lot in the studios, including programming all the electronic sounds heard on the Beatles' 'Abbey Road'."  On the Beatles' website, I found this picture of George Harrison, Mike Vickers, and Paul McCartney with a Moog:

"I Saw Her Standing There"

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About two weeks ago, I said I would write a post about the bass figure in "I Saw Her Standing There" and how it compares with that in Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You."  This is that post.

In the verses of "I'm Talking about You," there's just the same measure repeated over and over (played a total of eight times):

During the choruses, there's the same phrase, but it's also raised a fourth (so it begins on an F) and then raised an-other whole step (so it's a fifth higher than the initial phrase and begins on a G).  I wrote out the whole notation last month; it can be found here.

McCartney uses this same phrase.  There're eight eighth notes where the first two are the tonic note, the second pair is the note a third above the tonic and then the tonic, the third pair is a note a fifth above the tonic and then the tonic, and the fourth pair is the note a fourth above the tonic and then the note a half-step below that (a third above the tonic).  Where Berry's figure is based on the C note throughout the verse, McCartney changes a lot, raising or lowering the figure, but keeping those same intervals.  Here's the first verse of "I Saw Her Standing There" (the second and fourth are identical, and the third has only a minor difference):

There are two measures based on an E, one on an A, back to E for three measures, down to B for two, a section of four measures of quarter notes that's unrelated to Berry's figure, then back to that figure based on E for one measure, down to B for an-other, and then up to E again.

The same figure is also in the bridge (although based only an A and B notes), but I won't get into that.  All of that is probably a prolix description anyway.  The point, though, is that the figures are the same, just in different keys ("I'm Talking about You" is in C major; "I Saw Her Standing There" is in E major).  I also think it's interesting that while the figure is raised or lowered, the foundational notes for the phrase are the tonic, subdominant, and dominant notes (C, F, and G in C major; E, A, and B in E major).

Here's Berry's figure again:

And McCartney's from the initial measure of "I Saw Her Standing There":

"Not a Second Time"

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After I listened to With the Beatles recently, I also figured out the piano solo in "Not a Second Time."  I figured out a couple guitar chords near the beginning too (not included in the recording), and between those and the piano solo, I'm pretty sure it's in either E minor or G major.  I should probably just check the book of chords for Beatles songs I have….

"Money (That's What I Want)"

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An-other part I figured out after listening to With the Beatles a few days ago is the piano figure in "Money (That's What I Want)."  Yester-day I discovered that it's doubled on guitar, and I also figured out the rhythm guitar chords.  I'm pretty sure the piano part is doubled at the octave, but I'm not sure I have the right octaves.

The same section is just repeated over and over again in the song; I played a little less than the first two instances.

"I Wanna Be Your Man"

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A couple days ago, I listened to With the Beatles and figured out a couple parts.  This is the organ and guitar phrase in "I Wanna Be Your Man."  It's just three chromatic phrases (two of which are the same), so I'm not sure it was really worth recording.

However, I did discover that this is Hammond organ, where I'd always thought it was electric piano.

"Devil in Her Heart"

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Collection Audit:

Earlier to-day I listened to the Beatles' With the Beatles, and I noticed something about "Devil in Her Heart" that should have been glaringly obvious.  The "apart" in the recurring line "She's gonna tear your heart apart" is sung with a melisma (I think it's A A B G A, but I'm not sure).  Breaking up "apart" into multiple syllables and various pitches both emphasizes and demonstrates the "tear[ing]."

"I Saw Her Standing There"

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Like I mentioned at the end of this post, I figured out how to play (most of) the bass part for "I Saw Her Standing There" after I read that Paul McCartney based the musical figure on that in Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You."  I'm still having some problems with the rhythm during the guitar solo, so this is the bass part up until that point.  At some point, I'm going to notate what I know of this (I already notated Berry's "I'm Talking about You," so it should be pretty easy), and I'll write a post about the figures (which - indeed - are the same).

They're in different keys though.  "I'm Talking about You" is in C major, and "I Saw Her Standing There" is in E major.  The Beatles recorded a cover of "I'm Talking about You" on the BBC (it's on the second Live at the BBC album), and they changed the key from C major to E major, so the figures in their cover and in "I Saw Her Standing There" match exactly.

"I Saw Her Standing There"

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Last month, I was thinking about Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie," and I realized that it has a few similarities with the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There."

Just from what I remembered, I knew that the two songs both mention a seventeen-year-old girl standing around.  "Little Queenie" has "There she is again, standin' over by the record machine" and "She's too cute to be a minute over seventeen."  "I Saw Her Standing There" has "Well, she was just seventeen" and the titular "So how could I dance with another, ooh / When I saw her standin' there?"

When I compared the lyrics, I also found lines that talk about the girls' looks.  "Little Queenie" looks like "a model on the cover of a magazine," and the girl in "I Saw Her Standing There" looks "way beyond compare."

The entirety of "Little Queenie" has the speaker/singer admiring the girl and merely thinking about asking her to dance, where those same elements comprise only the first stanza of "I Saw Her Standing There."  The Beatles' singer/speaker actually takes his chance, and the third and fourth verses describe how they "danced through the night."  To some degree, it's like the Beatles wrote what happens next.

I don't know if the Beatles were familiar with "Little Queenie," but Chuck Berry is certainly an acknowledged influence, and the Beatles recorded at least half a dozen of his other songs (only two are on their records ["Roll over Beethoven" on With the Beatles and "Rock and Roll Music" on Beatles for Sale], but there are a lot more on the Live at the BBC albums).  My argument for this specific influence is just conjecture, but I do think "Little Queenie" was floating around in Lennon and McCartney's heads (even if subconsciously) while they were writing "I Saw Her Standing There."

(Of course, only after I wrote all of that, I skimmed the Wikipedia article for "I Saw Her Standing There," and it seems to cast some doubt on what I've written.  However, there is a quote from McCartney about how he used the bass part from Berry's "I'm Talking about You," so there is some of Berry's influence.  Because I know the bass part for "I'm Talking about You" [I even notated it a couple weeks ago], it was pretty easy to figure out the bass part for "I Saw Her Standing There.")

"Misery"

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A couple days ago, I was thinking about the piano part in "Misery" (in referencing the recording, I discovered that there's a rolled F major chord at the beginning, which I hadn't noticed before).  I realized that there are some musical/lyrical connections with the piano parts in the bridges.

After the line "I'll remember all the little things we've done" (it's the same in both iterations of the bridge), there's a diatonic descent in C major from the G above middle C to the G below middle C and then up a whole-step to an A.  (I think it might be doubled an octave higher too.)  That whole phrase seems to represent "all the little things."

The next two lines in the bridge are different in each instance, but the musical representation for each is the same.  First, there's "Can't she see she'll always be the only one / Only one," and second there's "She'll remember, and she'll miss her only one / Lonely one."  After each of those "one"s, there's a single G note as a representation of that singularity.

"Twist and Shout"

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A couple days ago I listened to the Tremeloes' version of "Twist and Shout" and thought I could easily figure out the guitar part in the middle of the Beatles' version (which has the same structure).  I ended up getting (I think all of) the guitar parts.  I'm not sure I have the final chord right though.  I was actually surprised at how simple these chords are; they're just tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant.

I'd always thought that the Isley Brothers' version was the original, but apparently not.  For what it's worth, the Isley Brothers' version is in F major (which, based on the other songs I know by them, seems to be their favorite key); the Tremeloes' is in C major; and the Beatles' is in D major, which makes the guitar part in the middle (it's a horn part in the Isleys' version) easy to play.

In my recording, I skipt the first verse entirely because it would have been pretty much the same as the second.

"She Said She Said"

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Yester-day I also learned part of the fuzz guitar in "She Said She Said."  I'm definitely missing some parts though.  What I have is just the introductory phrase and some (I don't even think all of) the parts during the first two verses.

"And Your Bird Can Sing"

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I felt like figuring out a part last night, and - while it wasn't the first thing I tried to figure out - I got almost all of the fuzz guitar part in "And Your Bird Can Sing."  I think I have the guitar chords too, although I'm a bit unsure of one.  I'm pretty sure there aren't any guitar chords during the bridges, and that's the only section of the fuzz guitar that I didn't figure out, so there are some gaps in this.  Still, I'm surprised I figured out as much as I did.