2014, being the fiftieth anniversary of Beatlemania in the United States, is the ideal year to celebrate the band. I am thus very pleased to announce a lecture tour of Northeastern Illinois for this coming June, a promotional poster for which may be found below. Hope to see you there!
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Last night I started watching Dr. John Covach's free video lecture series on the Beatles through Coursera, which I highly recommend to anybody interested in the band. It is a survey history course - he does not go into much musical detail, and due to copyright restrictions can't even play any of the music - but it is very well researched and engaging to watch. Most Beatles scholars will already know most of the information, but I still learned a few things (I had never even heard of "schlager" before yesterday).
Bottom line: strongly recommended! Here's a link to join: https://www.coursera.org/course/beatles Every once in a while I encounter an odd quote that requires a bit of detective work to figure out, the latest of which is John Lennon's comments during an interview with David Sheff of Playboy in 1980 in which he called "Any Time At All" "an effort at writing 'It Won't Be Long' - same ilk: C to A minor, C to A minor - with me shouting" (Sheff, page 205). The reason this quote is puzzling is that while "It Won't Be Long" uses six C chords (twice per verse over a total of three verses), "Any Time At All" uses no C chords, and neither song uses a single a minor chord.
Hmmmmmm. So instead of posting a blog stating my own opinion as I originally intended, I'm asking for readers' opinions. Anybody out there reading this have any thoughts or insights? If so, please comment! CITATIONS Sheff, David, ed. The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Berkley Books, New York, NY, 1981. Several people have suggested I put together a listserv to keep people informed of my schedule without having to remember to check the website calendar. Taking that advice, I'm pleased to announce the launch of such a listerv, which will consist of emails on the 20th day of each month detailing all of my programs, presentations, lectures, and seminars for the subsequent month. The first such newsletter will be emailed on Thursday, February 20 (5 days from now) and provide information on all of my March bookings.
To subscribe, click here: http://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/listserv-registration.html The first George Harrison giveaway, "Sour Milk Sea" was recorded by Jackie Lomax in June 1968, and released on 26 August of the same year. This version of the song features Harrison playing rhythm guitar, Eric Clapton playing lead, and Nicky Hopkins on keyboards. Harrison also functioned as producer for the track. The Beatles themselves recorded a demo of "Sour Milk Sea" as part of the Escher Demos, suggesting consideration for inclusion on The White Album. Paul McCartney, having grown up with a father who played in a band, was partial to British brass band music. He wrote a brass-band-like film score with George Martin for "The Family Way" in 1966, and two years later composed "Thingumybob" as the theme song for the television series of the same name. The Black Dyke Mills Band recorded the tune on 30 June 1968, and released it as a single on 26 August 1968. The Beatles themselves never recorded "Thingumybob" in any form. Interesting, the B-side of "Thingumybob" was the same brass band's recording of "Yellow Submarine". Confusingly, the order appears to have been swapped by the US releases (pictures of which are above) - meaning that "Thingumybob" was the B-side and "Yellow Sub" the A-side on the US release. The original UK released, however, featured "Thingumybob" as the A-side and "Yellow Sub" as the B-side, as confirmed by Apple's own website:
http://www.jpgr.co.uk/col_apple4.html Formal structure of [186] "I Me Mine":
Intro (v) 0:00-0:06 186 bpm Verse 1 0:06-0:39 186 bpm Middle 8 0:39-0:57 124 bpm Verse 2 0:57-1:29 186 bpm Middle 8 1:29-1:47 124 bpm Verse 3 1:47-2:26 186 bpm Comments: "I Me Mine" is very much the product of Phil Spector's producing. Originally the tune was significantly shorter, concluding after the second verse. Spector edited the song, essentially copy/pasting the middle 8 and verse 2 from 0:39-1:29 to create the middle 8 and verse 3 (which is why the two middle 8s and verses 2 and 3 are 100% completely identical). Structurally speaking, what Spector's addition does is extend the song from a ternary A-B-A' structure into a 5-part rondo: A-B-A'-B-A'. And "I Me Mine" is just the second Beatles song to employ a rondo structure (which is more associated with classical styles than popular styles), behind [33] "I'll Be Back". Helping articulate the formal divisions is a metric modulation. The verses are all in a quick simple meter (around 186 bpm), but to transition to the middle 8s the subdivisions remain the same (372 per minute) while the macro-beat shifts to a compound meter that is 33% slower (around 124 bpm). Formal structure of [185] "Because":
Intro (v) 0:00-0:31 Verse 1 0:31-1:00 Verse 2 1:00-1:31 Middle 8 1:31-1:43 Verse 3 1:43-2:12 Coda (v) 2:12-2:45 Comments: Very unusual for this very late period of Beatles recordings, the formal structure of "Because" is remarkably simple and straight-forward. It does place the first two verses contiguously (as did [1] "Love Me Do", [7] "Do You Want to Know a Secret", [8] "Misery", [9b] "Anna (Go To Him)", [9c] "Boys", [9d] "Chains", [9f] Twist and Shout, [10] "From Me To You", [13e] "Till There Was You", [17] "Little Child", [19] "Not a Second Time", [23] "Can't Buy Me Love", [25] "And I Love Her", [26] "I Should Have Known Better", [28] "If I Fell'', [29] "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You", [31] "A Hard Day's Night", [31b] "Matchbox", [32] "I'll Cry Instead", [35] "Things We Said Today", [40] "I Don't Want To Spoil the Party", [41] "What You're Doing", [42] "No Reply", [43] "Eight Days a Week", [44] "She's a Woman", [44b] "Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey", [46d] "Words of Love", [47] "Ticket to Ride", [49] "I Need You", [50] "Yes It Is", [51] "The Night Before", [52] "You Like Me Too Much", [54] "Tell Me What You See", 56b] "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", [56c] "Bad Boy", [57] "I've Just Seen a Face", [59] "Yesterday", [66] "If I Needed Someone", [68] "We Can Work it Out", [71] "Michelle", [77] "Tomorrow Never Knows", [80] "Paperback Writer", [82] "Doctor Robert", [84] "Taxman", [88] "Yellow Submarine", [89] "I Want To Tell You", [92] "She Said She Said", [95] "Penny Lane", [96] "A Day in the Life", [99] "Fixing a Hole", [100] "Only a Northern Song", [101] "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite", [105] "Within You Without You", [111] "All Together Now", [114] "All You Need Is Love", [116] "I Am the Walrus", [122] "Lady Madonna", [126] "Don't Pass Me By", [128] "Blackbird", [129] "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey", [135] "Sexy Sadie", [138] "Mother Nature's Son", [139] "Yer Blues", [140] "Rocky Raccoon", [143] "Dear Prudence", [144] "Glass Onion", [145] "I Will", [149] "Honey Pie", [152] "Long Long Long", [163] "For You Blue", [166] "One After 909", [172] “Oh! Darling”, and [172] "Octopus's Garden"). I got nuthin else... Formal structure of [184] "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window":
Trans. 0:00-0:08 Verse 1 0:08-0:29 Middle 8 0:29-0:52 Verse 2 0:52-1:12 Verse 3 1:12-1:33 Middle 8 1:33-1:58 Comments: Unlike [183] "Polythene Pam", which actually does fit the conventional mold for a Beatles song, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" is quite a departure from that mold. Beatles songs often place verses 1 and 2 contiguously. Much less common is placing verses other than 1 and 2 contiguously. In fact, "Polythene Pam" is just the 15th to do so, behind [19] "Not a Second Time" (in which verses 1 and 2 are contiguous, as are verses 3 and 4), [31b] "Matchbox" (in which the first three and last two verses are contiguous), [56b] "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (in which verses 1-2 are contiguous, as are verses 4-5), [77] "Tomorrow Never Knows" (in which verses 1-3 are contiguous, as are verses 4-7), [80] "Paperback Writer" (in which verses 1-2 are contiguous, as are verses 3-4), [84] "Taxman" (in which verses 1-2 are contiguous, as are verses 3-4), [95] "Penny Lane" (in which verses 1-2 are contiguous, as are verses 4-5), [96] "A Day in the Life" (in which verses 1-3 are contiguous), [129] "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" (in which all three verses are contiguous), [135] "Sexy Sadie" (in which verses 1 and 2 are contiguous, as are verses 3 and 4), [140] "Rocky Raccoon" (in which verses 1-5 are contiguous, as are verses 6-7), [143] "Dear Prudence" (in which verses 1 and 2 are contiguous, as are verses 3 and 4), [157] "Dig a Pony" (in which verses 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 are contiguous), and [163] "For You Blue" (in which verses 1 and 2 are contiguous, as are 3 and 4). Of these 15 songs, "Polythene Pam" is the only one to place verses 2 and 3 contiguously. Obviously as part of the Abbey Road Medley, a traditional structure is not needed, and this allows the band to play with new and unusual formal designs. And "Bathroom Window" is certainly a good example. Formal structure of [182] "Mean Mr. Mustard":
Anacrusis 0:00-0:02 Verse 1 0:02-0:35 Verse 2 0:35-0:59 quadruple meter End of verse/trans 0:59-1:06 triple meter Comments: "Mean Mr. Mustard" consists of two verses, most of which are identical except for different lyrics, but the endings of which are very different. The first verse retains a quadruple meter throughout, but the second changes into triple meter at the very end. |
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