"We Can Work It Out"

I recently heard "We Can Work It Out," and I realized that there's a time signature change in the bridge.  It's mostly 4/4, but it changes to 3/4 for "fighting, my friend" and again at "ask you once again."  At first I just thought, "Oh, there's an-other Beatles song that mixes time signatures."  I learned years ago that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" does this (the verses are in 3/4 and the choruses in 4/4), and I recently discovered that the end of "Mean Mr. Mustard" changes time signatures too.

I got thinking about this later though, and I realized that this change in time signature is significant with regard to the lyrics.  The first couplet of the bridge is "Life is very short, and there's no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend."  In that change from 4/4 to 3/4, there's one fewer beat in a measure, so there's a musical representation of the brevity that's mentioned in the previous line.

"Mean Mr. Mustard"

I recently figured out and notated the bass part for "Mean Mr. Mustard."  I don't really have much to say about it, but I'd like to draw attention to how - apparently without reason - it changes from 4/4 to 3/4 at the end.  I hadn't noticed that until I notated it.

I think there's a drum bit at the beginning, so the song actually starts with an up-beat, but I didn't include that in my notation; I just started it when the bass starts.  As always, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong (especially the notes in the last measure, which were a bit difficult to distinguish because the track break between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam" falls in between those last two measures).

"You Never Give Me Your Money"

Yester-day I learned the vocal melody for the first two verses of "You Never Give Me Your Money," and in doing so I discovered something interesting.

I might be a bit off on the rests, but the melody is something like this:

The song is in A minor (at least this section is), but there's a G# accidental.  In the lyrics, this corresponds to "you" in the line "And in the middle of negotiations you break down" in the first verse and "I" in the line "And in the middle of investigation I break down" in the second verse.  The note's being an accidental sort of musically represents the "break[ing] down" of both "you" and "I."

"It Won't Be Long"

A couple days ago, I learned some of the guitar phrases in "It Won't Be Long."  I was thinking about the song again this morning, and I realized something about this section:

Since you left me
I'm so alone
Now you're comin'
You're comin' on home
I'll be good like I know I should
You're comin' home
You're comin' home

I'm not sure I have the line breaks in the right places there.  The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook renders this section as:

Since you left me I'm so alone,
Now you're coming, you're coming on home,
I'll be good like I know I should,
You're coming home, you're coming home.

I went more by where John Lennon takes breaths when he sings it (The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook evidently considers some of those caesurae).  Either way it's formatted, what I realized still stands:  there's internal rhyme in the line "I'll be good like I know I should," which - to some degree - illustrates the perfection of character that the narrator says he'll attain.

"Within You Without You"

When I listened to Sgt. Pepper a couple days ago, the phrase "the people who gain the world and lose their soul" in "Within You Without You" stuck out to me.  Because the song seems to have some Eastern influences (certainly in the music), I'm not sure if this is coincidental or not, but that line is very similar to Mark 8:36:  "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

After I listened to Sgt. Pepper yester-day (because it was the 50th anniversary of its release), I figured out the first keyboard section in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."  I did some research and learned that the specific instrument is a Lowrey organ, which has different accompaniment settings.  This explains why at one point I thought it was a harpsichord.  In my recording, I doubled organ and harpsichord, so the specific sound probably isn't very accurate, but I'm pretty sure the notes are (most of them, at least).

After I learned that keyboard part, I learned the bass part for that first section, only to discover that I'd already learned and even notated it last year.  I think it was around the same time I wrote about the song in September.

"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"

When I woke up to-day, I was thinking about part of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" (although I don't think I've listened to The Beatles for well over a year).  It occurred to me that the "down"s in the lines "I need a fix 'cause I'm goin' down" are sung with melismas and that the series of notes to which they're sung descend.  Both times, the "down" is sung to the phrase D C A, so there's a musical representation of the "goin' down."

"Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby"

A few times over the past month or two, I've been paying special attention to the vocal on "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" while listening to Beatles for Sale.  According to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, the vocal is treated with STEED (single tape echo and echo delay), so it's a bit difficult to be sure, but I think that the vocal is doubled-tracked for all of the "Ev'rybody's tryin' to be my baby" lines.  If that's the case, it's something of a representation of the "ev'rybody" since it's not just one voice singing there, but two.

"Strawberry Fields Forever"

At the end of last month, I learned the mellotron part at the beginning of "Strawberry Fields Forever."  I had to use the version on Anthology 2 because the final version is either sped up or slowed down (I don't remember which), meaning that the pitches are out-of-tune compared to standard tuning.

I made a video for this one because that's easier than writing down what I played.  My framing isn't very good, and my fingering could probably be better too, but I think I have the right notes, which is the important thing.

I haven't been recording songs unless I know at least two parts, but I'm making an exception in this case.  Keyboard parts seem to be in their own category.

"All My Loving"

Last night, I learned the bass part for the first two verses and the first chorus of "All My Loving."  The bass part in the third verse isn't the same, and the second chorus transitions into an ending tag so that's not the same either.

I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords but only after I had a go at figuring them out myself.  Mostly, I just lookt at the book to confirm what I already had (although I disregarded the B7 the book has in favor of a regular B major).

Re-Establishment

About two years ago, I started a project in which the goal was to learn every part to every song by the Beatles.  I don't think I ever thought I would actually achieve this (and I still don't), but I thought it a worthy objective all the same.

I started this project on tumblr, but recently I've started to feel dissatisfied with it.  I felt I should have a cleaner, more professional-looking platform.  (I found some aspects of tumblr's interface less than ideal too.)  Initially, I went with tumblr only because I could directly post audio files of my own recordings of the songs, as a way to demonstrate that I had in fact learned the parts I said I had.  But I can achieve the same thing just with embedded YouTube videos.

So essentially, I'm jumping ship.  I'm going to continue doing everything I would normally do for this project, just on Blogger rather than on tumblr.  I'll be going back and copying my old posts over to this blog, so I'll have the complete archive, but it'll take a while to transfer everything.

"One after 909"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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A couple days ago, I learned the bass part for the verses of the Let It Be version of "One after 909."  I decided that it's not really worth it to record anything unless I know at least two simultaneous parts, so I won't be posting a version, but I did notate as much as I know.

I referenced the recordings of "One after 909" on Anthology 1, and I discovered something interesting.  In the bridge in the first partial take in track 25, Paul McCartney starts to play the same bass figure that he took from Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You" and used in "I Saw Her Standing There" (which I wrote about back in November).

In "Talking about You," the figure is:

In "I Saw Her Standing There":

And in "One after 909":

The only difference is the key.  I should note that all three songs play this figure raised to different pitches too.  At the beginning of the bridge in "One after 909," it's actually played a fourth higher because it's underneath an E major chord, so it's exactly the same as what's played for the majority of the verses of "I Saw Her Standing There."

The "complete" take of "One after 909" on Anthology 1 (which the liner notes explain is an edit of takes 4 and 5) doesn't have this feature.  Apparently, McCartney elected to play a simpler bass part because he didn't have a pick with him.  This figure isn't present in the version on Let It Be either.

For what it's worth, here's some chronology:

11 February 1963 - "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded

5 March 1963 - "One after 909" [takes on Anthology 1] recorded

16 March 1963 - The Beatles' cover of Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You" (in E major, rather than the original's C major) broadcast live on the radio show Saturday Club.