Formal structure of "Taxman":
          Intro (ind., verse)  0:00-0:09*
          Verse 1                      0:09-0:32*
          Verse 2                     0:32-0:55*
          Middle 8                  0:55-1:11*
          Solo                          1:11-1:25*
          End of Verse        1:25-1:35*
          Verse 3                   1:35-1:58*
          Verse 4                    1:58-2:30*
          Coda (ind., solo)  2:20-2:38*

Comments: Yet another 2-part intro, with first the count-off, then the back beat. This follows [6b] "A Taste Of Honey", [11] "Thank You Girl", [17] "Little Child", [14b] "Roll Over Beethoven", [24] "You Can't Do That", and [31b] "Matchbox", [37] "Baby's in Black", [38b] "Mr. Moonlight", [45] "I Feel Fine", [46e] "Honey Don't", [47] "Ticket to Ride", [62] "Run For Your Life", [63] "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", [65] "Day Tripper", and [66] "If I Needed Someone", [77] "Tomorrow Never Knows", and [79] "Love You To", [81] "Paperback Writer", and [82] "Rain", which employ similar 2-part introductions.

The coda, too, is in two parts: the lyrics "And you're working for no one but me" is entirely independent from the rest of the song (both melodically and chordally), then the guitar solo is heard again.

The Middle 8 is less "middle-8-like" than usual because it uses very similar chords to the verse. Often the middle 8, in order to establish a strong contrast to the verses will instead employ very different chords. In "Taxman", however, that is not the case: The middle 8 uses just two chords - D7 and C7 - of which D7 (the tonic chord) is used extensively in the verse, and C (comparable but not identical to C7) is used once in the verse as well. In other words, the middle 8 in "Taxman" is more similar to the verses than is typical in Beatles music.

McCartney's vicious solo replaces the first part of the verse. Solos often take the place of an additional verse, but in this case the solo replaces only the first part of the verse, with the end of the verse ("Cuz I'm the taxman ...") sung as usual. That same trick was used on [10] "From Me To You", [31] "A Hard Day's Night", [51] "The Night Before", [52] "You Like Me Too Much", and [67] "In My Life".

Lastly, verses 1-2 and 3-4 are contiguous. Many Beatles songs have put the first two verses consecutively ([1] "Love Me Do", [6] “I Saw Her Standing There”, [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", and [80] "Paperback Writer", and [82] "Doctor Robert"); but only 5 of these 42 have done the same thing with subsequent verses: [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), and [80] "Paperback Writer" (in which verses 1-2 are contiguous, as are verses 3-4). "Taxman", then, is just the 6th.

In the massive wake of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles performed as part of an international television broadcast on 25 June 1967. The idea was to coordinate communication satellites from 31 television networks across the globe, which would allow some 300 million viewers to watch the same program simultaneously. Using the title Our World, the broadcast would be filled with five-minute segments from each of the participating countries. England, quite naturally, selected the Beatles, and requested the debut of a new song. Paul volunteered “Hello Goodbye”, and John offered “All You Need Is Love”, the latter of which was chosen unanimously for the universality of its lyrics – appropriate for a worldwide TV broadcast. The music, too, is multi-cultural, with the introduction consisting of the French national anthem, and the coda a mash-up including Johann Sebastian Bach's F Major invention (representing Germany), Glenn Miller's “In the Mood” (representing the United States of America), and the folk tune “Greensleeves” (representing Britain).

Formal structure of "And Your Bird Can Sing":
          Intro (break) 0:00-0:08
          Verse 1             0:08-0:22
          Verse 2            0:22-0:36
          Middle 8         0:36-0:51
          Break              0:51-1:05
          Middle 8        1:05-1:20
          Verse 3          1:20-1:34
          Break               1:34-1:49
          Coda (break) 1:49-2:00

Comments: Both the intro and coda are based on the break (the part with the exuberant guitar duet). The only other Beatles recording to date to do so is [80] "Paperback Writer". (It is much more common for the intro and/or coda to be based on the verse instead.)

Verses 1 and 2 are contiguous (which is also found in [1] "Love Me Do", [6] “I Saw Her Standing There”, [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", and [82] "Doctor Robert").

In short, Beatlemania was no longer fun for the Fab Four. It inhibited rather than propelled the band's development. "I never felt people came to hear our show," said Ringo in The Beatles Anthology. "I felt they came to see us. Because from the count on the first number the volume of screams would just drown everything out ... The realization was really kicking in that nobody was listening. And that was okay at the beginning, but even worse than that was we were playing so bad. I just felt we're playing really bad. Why I joined the Beatles was because they were the best band in Liverpool. I always wanted to play with good players - that's what it was all about. First and foremost, we were musicians." Paul concurred: "We were getting worse and worse as a band while all those people were screaming. It was lovely that they liked us, but we couldn't hear to play So the only place we could develop was in the studio."

Furthermore, touring was becoming dangerous. Lennon's comments about the Beatles being "more popular than Jesus" prompted massive protests in the American South, as did their performance in Japan's sacred Nippon Budokan Hall, followed by a disastrous tour in the Philipines. Quoting George, also from The Beatles Anthology: "They used us an an excuse to go mad - the world did - and then blamed it on us. And we were just in the middle of it, in a car or a hotel room. We couldn't really do much. We couldn't go out, we couldn't do anything. ... It felt dangerous because everybody was out of hand and out of line - even the cops were out of line. They were all just caught up in the mania. It was like they were in this big movie. We were the ones trapped in the middle of it while everyone else was going mad. We were actually the sanest people in the whole thing."

Additionally, the band's recording sophistication developed to the point where tracks like “I'm Only Sleeping” off Revolver were too technically complicated to attempt to reproduce live on stage. The strange sounds used in that song are a guitar solo played backwards. In the studio backwards guitar playing is very easy to do (you simply record your guitar, then play the tape in reverse), but how do you perform a guitar backwards in a live performance? Quite simply, it cannot be done.

Lastly, by 1966, all four band members were quite comfortable financially. That lack of monetary need no doubt also contributed to the decision to stop touring.

Thus, the combination of (1) touring no longer being enjoyable - and sometimes even dangerous, (2) a deteriorating level of performance quality, (3) an increased level of studio sophistication, and (4) the lack of financial need all greatly contributed to the Beatles decision to stop playing live shows. Following the conclusion of their August 1966 American tour, then, the Beatles retreated to the recording studio to begin the album that would ultimately become Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.


CITATIONS
Beatles. The Beatles Anthology. DVD. Apple Corps Limited, 2003.

Formal structure of "Doctor Robert":
         Intro (verse)  0:00-0:06
         Verse 1       0:06-0:32
         Verse 2      0:32-0:58
         Middle 8   0:58-1:10
         transition    1:10-1:13
         Verse 3      1:13-1:40
         Middle 8    1:40-1:52
         transition    1:52-1:55
         Coda (verse)  1:55-2:14

Comments: Verses 1 and 2 are contiguous (which is also found in [1] "Love Me Do", [6] “I Saw Her Standing There”, [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", and [80] "Paperback Writer").

This lecture will be premiered this evening, Wednesday, May 15, 2013, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at Cora J. Belden Library, 33 Church Street, Rocky Hill, CT.

"Strawberry Fields Forever" is quite well-known for its famous splice between Takes 7 and 26 (discussed at length in my 11 April 2013 blog), and the additional chorus that was edited in (as discussed in my 12 May 2013 blog), but there is yet another major edit that survived to the released recording, and it is that third edit that will be discussed in this post.

Quoting George Martin: "There is the end section of the orchestrated version of the song, where the rhythm is too loose to use. In spite of all our editing, I just could not get a unified take with complete synchronicity throughout. The obvious answer would have been to fade out the take before the beat goes haywire. But that would have meant discarding one of my favourite bits, which included some great trumpet and guitar playing, as well as the magical random mellotronic note-waterfall John had come up with. It was a section brimming with energy, and I was determined to keep it. We did the only thing possible - we faded the song right out just before the point where the rhythm goes to pieces, so the listener would think it was all over, then gradually faded it back up again, bringing back our glorious finale” (Martin, page 23-24). 

That is why the final edit of "Strawberry Fields Forever" fades out, then fades back in, before fading out once more.

That original recording (with its “too loose to use” rhythm), may be found in this YouTube video at 6:40.

And here is the finished product (with the fade out, fade back in, and then fade out again), heard around 3:28.

CITATIONS
Martin, George with William Pearson. With a Little Help from My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper. Little Brown and Company, Boston, MA, 1994.

Formal structure of "Rain":
          Intro            0:00-0:10 (2 parts)
          Verse 1       0:10-0:29
          Verse 2      0:29-0:49
          Middle 8   0:49-1:16
          Verse 3      1:16-1:36
          Middle 8   1:36-2:04
          Verse 4     2:04-2:35*
          Coda (verse)  2:35-3:00

Comments: Several Beatles authors and scholars have pointed out that when the Beatles are at their most experimental in one way, the are often simultaneously extremely traditional in others. "Rain" is a prime example: it is the first example of backwards vocals (heard in the coda) in Beatles music, but at the same time the formal structure is very clear and traditional.

The intro is in two parts again (like [6b] "A Taste Of Honey", [11] "Thank You Girl", [17] "Little Child", [14b] "Roll Over Beethoven", [24] "You Can't Do That", and [31b] "Matchbox", [37] "Baby's in Black", [38b] "Mr. Moonlight", [45] "I Feel Fine", [46e] "Honey Don't", [47] "Ticket to Ride", [62] "Run For Your Life", [63] "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", [65] "Day Tripper", and [66] "If I Needed Someone", [77] "Tomorrow Never Knows", and [79] "Love You To", and [81] "Paperback Writer") with the drums ushering in the back beat before the first verse begins.

Lastly, the end of the last verse transitions to coda and is therefore a little different than how the previous verses conclude.

In previous posts, I have discussed the famous splice exactly 60 seconds in to "Strawberry Fields Forever". But this splice isn't the only major edit in the song. Careful observation shows the addition of an extra chorus in the released version.

The first half of the released edit uses the introduction, first chorus, and first verse of Take 7, followed by a second chorus, during which the splice occurs. But Take 7 does not use a chorus immediately following the first verse. The first seven words of either the second or final chorus (they're practically identical so it makes no appreciable difference which of the two - but it is clearly one of the two) are inserted before the splice to Take 26.

This notion is much more easily understood visually than aurally, and for that reason I have included a graphic below (click to enlarge).

In this graphic, the blue rectangles shows what was used from Take 7, while the red shows what was used from Take 26. But notice that the chorus following verse 1 in the released version does not exist in Take 7 (where instead verse 2 follows verse 1). The blue parentheses, then, illustrate that missing link.

Formal structure of "Paperback Writer":
          Intro (break)         0:00-0:13*
               (vocal  0:00-0:06)
               (instr. 0:06-0:13)
          Verse 1                    0:13-0:31
          Verse 2                   0:31-0:49
          Break                       0:49-1:02
               (vocal  0:49-0:55)
               (instr.  0:55-1:02)
          Verse 3                   1:02-1:20
          Verse 4                  1:20-1:38*
          Break                      1:38-1:50
               (vocal  1:38-1:45)
               (instr.  1:45-1:51)
          Coda (break)        1:51-2:16

Comments: "Paperback Writer" is yet another Beatles tune which uses a 2-part introduction (along with [6b] "A Taste Of Honey", [11] "Thank You Girl", [17] "Little Child", [14b] "Roll Over Beethoven", [24] "You Can't Do That", and [31b] "Matchbox", [37] "Baby's in Black", [38b] "Mr. Moonlight", [45] "I Feel Fine", [46e] "Honey Don't", [47] "Ticket to Ride", [62] "Run For Your Life", [63] "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", [65] "Day Tripper", and [66] "If I Needed Someone", and [77] "Tomorrow Never Knows", and [79] "Love You To"). In this case, the 2 parts of the intro are (1) vocal polyphony, and (2) the rhythm section.

This 2-part pattern reappears throughout the song as breaks from the verses. In fact, the intro is almost identical to the subsequent breaks - the only difference is that the drums take a few beats longer to establish the beat in the intro than in the breaks.

To coda, too, is based on the break, though in this case it stretches out the title lyrics and eventually fades out (as opposed to using the two-part structure discussed above).

Lastly, "Paperback Writer" features contiguous verses, which itself is nothing terribly unusual ([1] "Love Me Do", [6] “I Saw Her Standing There”, [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", and [77] "Tomorrow Never Knows" and feature contiguous verses, too). What is unusual, though, is the fact that "Paperback Writer" is just the 5th of these 41 songs - the three previous examples being [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 and 2 are contiguous, as are verses 4 and 5), and [77] "Tomorrow Never Knows" (in which verses 1-3 are contiguous, as are verses 4-7) - to feature contiguous verses other than verse 1 and verse 2. In this case, verses 1-2 are contiguous, as are verses 3-4.