Notes on "All I've Got To Do" (AIGTD)

  KEY   E Major
  
  METER 4/4
  
  FORM          Verse -> Verse -> Bridge -> Verse -> Bridge -> Verse/Outro
  (fadeout)
  

GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST

Style and Form

- This song retains a strongly exotic flavor from the combination of several factors: the pentatonic mode of the melody, the Major/minor byplay of the harmony, and the belly-dancer-like syncopation of the rhythm.

- We have yet another example here where the bridge is repeated but separated by only a single verse section; this time, I believe the reluctance to provide that additional verse is motivated by the slowness of the harmonic rhythm throughout the song.

- Two small but creative twists are applied to the otherwise straightforward short form: the strange opening that's not quite a full intro, and the manner in which the final verse, arranged as it is with a wordlessly hummed vocal, fades out in mid-section.

Melody

- The melodic material of the song is almost entirely from the pentatonic scale; think of it as the all "black note" scale starting on f#, but transposed here to the key of E. This spell is broken is for only a couple of d#'s in the verse (see the harmonization of the title phrase below), one of which is a juicy appoggiatura.

- Just as we recently observed in "I'll Get You", the melody of this song contains a higher than average quotient of appoggiaturas; this time let's leave the locating of them all as what used to quaintly be described as an exercise for the reader.

Harmony

- Most of the work here is done by three chords, I, IV, and vi (E, A, and c#), with a little help from their friends, ii and V (f# and B). In addition to the naturally occurring Major IV chord, we also have near the end of the verse an appearance of the borrowed minor iv chord, this one motivated by chromatic downward motion of an inner voice.

- There is no small amount of ambiguity as to whether the song is in E Major or its relative minor key of c#; a by-product of the way in which phrases of the verse start off on vi, and the virtual absence throughout the song of firm V->I chord 'cadences' which would have more clearly established E as the home key. This exploitation of the vi/I chords was something which Lennon and McCartney leaned on heavily during this period; see for other examples, "From Me To You", "She Loves You", and "It Won't Be Long".

- The opening chord is one of those sonorities that defies a neat textbook analysis. Spelled from the bottom up, it's E - C# - F - A; an augmented triad on C# suspended over an E in the bass. In practical terms, the note on the bottom gives John the cue note for his vocal, and the augmented triad above it works as an aurally acceptable albiet surprising surrogate IV-like antecedent to the c# chord which leads off the verse.

Arrangement

- John's single-tracked solo vocal is sensually accompanied by a brief bit of counterpoint from Paul in the verse, and by the chordal accompaniment of both Paul and George in the bridge.

- The vocal counterpoint of the verse starts off as plain parallel thirds, but then changes over to trademark-Beatles parallel 4ths by virtue of Paul briefly holding over one note (marked `*` in the transcription below) and then following the pentatonic scale downward the rest of the way:

     "All  I've got to  do    ...."

  Paul  G# F#   E   F# |F#    E    *  C#     B |C# B G#

  John  E  D#  C#   D# |D#    C#   B  G#     F#|G# F# E
  

- Paul plays double stops on his bass in the portion of the verse in which the c# and E chords alternate; the root notes of each chord are on the bottom and a common note between them, g#, appears on top.

- Syncopated emphasis on the eighth note between the second and third beats of the measure (on "two-AND") is a subtle leitmotif of the song. It is delivered primarily in the form of damped high-hat cymbal slashes from Ringo, but there are places, such as the second half of the bridge, where the bass and rhythm guitar maintain the pattern even while Ringo has switched for the moment to more evenly played eighth-note tapping.

SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH

Verse

- This verse is an asymmetrical eleven measures long. Its first phrase is a standard 4-measures but is followed by two more phrases of uneven length; first the two-measure title phrase, and then an unusual 5-measure phrase that is rhetorically elongated by the repetition of material in measures 7 - 8, on the words "call you on the phone, and you'll be running home". Note, by the way, how this point of expansiveness coincides with the location of where the hard syncopation is given a brief rest:

    |c#     |-      |E      |-      |
E:   vi              I

    |c#     |-      |f#     |       |
     vi              ii

    |a      |E      |-      |
     iv      I
  

- The home key of E is established harmonically only by indirect means; the verse opens with a chord that is not the I chord of the home key, and the V chord never appears until the end of the bridge.

Bridge

- This bridge creates the early impression of intending to perhaps stray far and long from the home key, but by the beginning of the second of its two 4-measure phrases, it clearly begins moving steadily back toward E. The B chord in measure 8 is the only appearance in the song of the V chord:

    |A          |-          |c#         |-          |
     IV                      vi

    |A          |E    c#    |A          |E    B     |
     IV          I    vi     VI          I    V
  

- There are two deft variations applied to the repeat of the bridge. Melodically, John modifies the phrase on the words "I'll be here" so that it creates a new high point. And formalistically, the last sub-phrase is repeated, lending a free-verse rhetorical feeling to the section rather similar to that felt in the second half of the verse.

Final Verse/Outro

- In context of the rest of their original songs recorded to this point in time, the humming and early fade of this section are both novel and unprecedented little experiments, particularly significant for the continued creative trend which they pressage.

A FINAL THOUGHT

- I'd also suggest that the hummed ending here is more than just a clever device for its own sake, but that it rather effectively drives home the underlying self-satisfied subtext of the lyrics; to the extent that some things in life, such as the comfortable equilibrium of a relationship between helpmates, defy completely adequate expression in words.

Regards,
Alan (awp@bitstream.com *OR* uunet!huxley!awp)

---
"You can be replaced, you know, chicky baby." 100191#36
---

Copyright (c) 1991 by Alan W. Pollack
All Rights Reserved

This article may be reproduced, retransmitted, redistributed and otherwise propagated at will, provided that this notice remains intact and in place.

Notes on "All My Loving" (AML)

Many people, Lewisohn among them, have described "All My Loving" (AML) as Paul's "best, most complex piece of songwriting yet" as of the time of its official recording in July '63. In spite of all praise however, the song seems to have forever been eclipsed in popularity by the other really big hits of the first American wave of Beatlemania, such as "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand"; not even AML's appearance as lead-off number on the first Sullivan show could prevent it from happening.

Perhaps this loss of status is attributable to AML's relative lack of drama or startling originality when compared to those other songs. Perhaps it's only the matter of never having been issued as a single.

Either way, it's a shame to have happened, because there's quite a lot to be admired in the song. A close look at its compositional details reveals it to be very much a typical song of the second album, "With The Beatles" (WTB).

Especially as concerns form and harmonic vocabulary, AML represents a notable advance in sophistication and technique over the first couple of singles and the original cuts on the "Please Please Me" album.

Form

The form is relatively compact, and the number of verse repetitions plus the complete ending make it seem deceptively familiar:

Verse -> Verse -> Refrain -> Bridge -> Verse -> Refrain -> Outro

In actuality, the appearance a refrain section here is quite noteworthy, especially in conjunction with the short bridge section for solo guitar.

Also special is the way in which the song opens in the midst of the action without an intro, or even a downbeat from which the singer can grab his opening cue note; somewhere on the studio tape I'll bet someone plays the note 'A' for Paul just before they start. Clearly, the Boys liked this trick sufficiently to reuse it from time to time; just browsing among the two dozen-odd songs we've looked at in this series, there's "She Loves You", "It Won't Be Long", "Any Time At All", "No Reply", and "You're Going To Lose That Girl". In AML (as in "No Reply"), the abruptness of the effect is enhanced by the first chord not being the tonic (i.e. I) chord of the home key.

Hooks, Bridges, and Refrains

At risk of oversimplification, I'll postulate the following correlation between the location of the hook in any given pop/rock song and the likelihood of whether a "bridge" versus a "refrain" section to be found within it:

1. If the hook is found in the verse section (typically in the first or last phrase of the verse), then the middle section of the song is a "bridge", by which I mean to describe a section whose primary purpose is to provide contrast or respite from the music of the verse section, typically implemented in part by harmonic movement away from or back towards the home key.

    

2. Otherwise, the hook will be found in a "refrain" section, and even though such refrains are typically to be found in the same formal location as the bridges referred to above, they differ in feel from bridges in that they are much the focal point of the song, the fulfillment of the verses, rather than a momentary interlude away from them. As such, refrains tend to showcase a catchy tune and are built from harmony which helps establish a sense of key.

Without exception, the entire first crop of L&M originals up through the "Please Please Me" album fits into the #1 "bridge" category; in general, I believe a statistical study of the Beatles' output would reveal a long term trend in this direction. But what's most curious to note for the purpose of our current study is the sudden burst of interest in the #2 refrain style as evidenced from the songs of mid-late '63; in addition to our AML, you also have "She Loves You", "It Won't Be Long", "Little Child", and "I Wanna Be Your Man".

(Parenthetically, it's amusing to note how the songs of Dylan, given his folk roots, manifest the reverse trend. It has been pointed out that he had never written a song with a true bridge section until his "Blonde On Blonde" album, in songs like "I Want You" and "Just Like A Woman.")

But you'll remind me, won't you, that our current song doesn't quite fit into either of my categories because it has *both* the refrain and bridge. Indeed, I could (and probably should) have proposed the above categorization scheme in the context of analyzing a more strictly category #2 type song, such as almost any one of the others listed at the end of the previous paragraph.

For the momentary sake of a placing AML in one of two pigeonholes, let me suggest that in spirit, it belongs in the #2 category, and I'll accept the burden of explaining below the motivation for its hybrid inclusion of the bridge section.

Harmony and Rhythm

Though AML has virtually none of that Beatles-trademark sort of syncopation or uneven phrase lengths, it does still convey an infectuously unperturbed and self-confident vitality through the incessant fast motor triplets in the rhythm guitar part, as well as through its rapid harmonic rhythm.

In contrast with the earlier songs we've studied thus far, this one utilizes an unusually large number of different chords; we have the appearance of five out of the possible total seven chords diatonically available in the home key, plus a couple of other more adventurous ones as well. The two unusual chords are D Major (the flat VII) and an exotic augmented chord that is used in the bridge to smoothly mediate between c# minor and E Major.

Beyond the large harmonic vocabulary per se, the rate at which the chords change borders on the hyperactive. There is a different chord in virtually every measure of the piece, and in no case is any chord sustained for more than two measures in a row; contrast this back with what we saw last time in ISHST.

Verse

The verse is sixteen measures long and is divided into two musically parallel eight-measure phrases, the former of which is left harmonically open with its ending on the V chord, while the latter one is closed with its ending on the tonic:

      1                             5
    |f#    |B     |E     |c#    |A     |f#    |D     |B     ||
E:   ii     V      I      vi     IV     ii    flat VII V

     9                            13
     |f#   |B     |E     |c#    |A     |B     |E     |-     ||
     ii     V      I      vi     IV     V      I

There are a number of noteworthy details in both the music and the arrangement. Musically, we have the following:

- Each of the couplets boasts a lovely melodic arch in which the peak is asymmetrically placed (measures 3 and 11), making for an early climax and a liesurely winding down.

- The general pause in measure 16 is the only place in the song where total silence reigns for at least a single heartbeat. It provides both some welcome respite from the otherwise non-stop motion of the song, as well as a tactical resetting of the stage the start of the next verse.

- In place of what you might expect as the more traditional harmonic circle of fifths, the first phrase presents a chain of downward *third*-wise chord changes running from measures 3 - 8.

- The D Major chord in measure 7 demonstrates an unusual application of the so-called "flat VII" chord. Typically, we've seen such chords behave either as pseudo dominants (as in the I-VII-I progression at the beginning of "We Can Work It Out", or as a sort of "IV-of-IV", as seen in the second-half jam section of "Hey Jude.") Here in AML, this flat VII behaves like a connecting chord between the ii and V chords, the motivation for which appears to the ear as a result of the arpeggio outline of the root movement in the bass and the upward chromatic movement of an inner line from c#->d->d# over the course of measures 6 - 8. Though this use of the flat VII is definitely less widely found than the other two I listed, it is far from unprecedented, especially in the songs of the Beatles; you'd almost never make the free association without a hint because the two contexts are so different, but (now, dig this) the same flat VII gambit used here in AML appears all over again as one of the signature devices of no less familiar a song than "Help!"

In terms of the arrangement:

- Though its not a particularly fussy vocal arrangement, they did take the trouble to double track Paul in the first two verses while saving a vocal duet in parallel thirds (for Paul, singing with himself again) in the final verse. As a further variation, we're given the nice contrast of Paul appearing *single* tracked in the refrain with George and John sustaining a backing harmony behind him on the phoneme "oooh".

- The bassline suggests a pereptual motion of its own, albeit a much slower one than found in the triplets of the guitar parts. You can't always make out the specific notes in the bass, but the use of a downward walking scale covering the nine notes all the way from F# down to low E more than an octave below is quite stunning, and to our delight, it recurs every verse, in measures 1 -3 and 9 - 11.

Refrain

This section is eight measures long and built out of two parallel iterations of the following 4-measure phrase:

   |c#          |C augmented  |E           |-           ||
    vi          ?? root ??     I

Note how the melodic material of this section is craftily taken in bits and pieces from that of the verse.

The most novel detail of the song is to be found in that augmented chord of the second measure. In the context of a song whose mood and vocabulary are otherwise so impeturbable, this slightly dissonant chord of obscure harmonic origin provides an effective, yet endlessly subtle touch of anxiety that belies the hero's apparent self assuredness.

In "theoretical" terms, such an augmented chord is said to not have a root at all, but is rather the incidental byproduct of melodic motion by an inner voice of the harmonic texture; in this case, from C# -> C natural -> B; what my jazz-trained friend calls a "line cliche." The fact that it is sustained for a full measure, essentially just as long as any other chord in the song, is what particularly draws your attention to it.

Not all augmented chords are necessarily as rootless as this one. For contrast, see the one at the end of the bridge of "From Me To You", which is arguably an inflection of the V chord; a G#5.

In spite of my proposed rules above regarding the paradigmatic tendency for refrain sections to clearly establish the home key, this one does it in only elliptical terms by relying on the weak vi-I progression; i.e., "weak" in comparison to the more traditional textbook cadences of V-I or IV-I perhaps, but a strong favorite of the Boys starting with "Misery" and going through "From Me To You", not to mention (again) "It Won't Be Long", "All I've Got To Do", and "Not A Second Time." I told you AML is rather archtypically second-album in style, didn't I ?

Bridge

In contrast to both verse and refrain sections, this little bridge is ironically the most diatonically stable and harmonically slow moving spot in the entire song, though it's worth noting that it *too* begins with a chord that is *not* I!

  |A    |-     |E    |-   ||f#   |B    |E    |-    ||
   IV          I            ii    V     I

Although there are no new chords used in this section, the specific choice of chord progression is new material strictly speaking. What Tony Barrow described as George's "intriguing" solo is in a style that is clearly not improvised. The latter is no slam on George, but rather a designation of the content of his solo as a "permanently composed" part of the arrangement. In other words, you expect to hear it the same way every time, and would likely be thrown or otherwise disappointed a tad to listen to some alternate version where it's different; and I dare you to find such a one, too!

Alright now, so why did they need a bridge as well as a refrain here ? Just to sharpen the question, consider that if it was to showcase the guitar solo, they just as easily could have done that, as is so common in other songs, by placing the solo over a musical repeat of either the refrain or the verse; so why the need for original material ?

My own pet theory is that there is something about the specific content of the refrain and its relationship to the verse section that creates a small compositional problem which this bridge comes along to fix. I can imagine it having been composed very late in the game only after they had been playing the song without it for a while, feeling inarticulately uncomfortable about something just not being right. I also base this theory on an intuitive feeling that it's hard to imagine the song with only the bridge and *no* refrain. Play this option through your head and see what I mean -- without the refrain, there's an insufficient presence of hook in the song, and though the bridge by itself provides some contrast to the verses, it's too short as is, and if you double its length, then I think its contrast with the verse is no longer sufficient.

But now run the opposite experiment -- play the song out as is but omit the bridge. My reaction is that the refrain does not sufficiently fulfill the functional requirements of true refrain-hood as outlined in my earlier proposal; while it certainly throws a big hook at us, it does not provide a strong sense of harmonic confirmation, nor does it provide much contrast of melody or texture, or harmonic pace from that of the verses.

The bridge for all its modest proportions provides everything that the refrain is lacking. The harmony neatly converges on the home key with simple chord choices, the vocal part is given a rest, and perhaps most subtle-yet-critical, the slowing of the harmonic rhythm, however slightly, provides some well needed breathing space.

I think the final point helps explain why new material is needed here; i.e., the guitar solo section would not be as effective if it had been placed over a repetition of either the refrain or verse because both those other sections are harmonically more active.

Outro

This coda is actually an extension of the second refrain and it squeezes a standard triple repeat of the final phrase of the lyrics into its eight measures which are built from a repeat of the following 4-measure phrase:

        |c#     |-      |E      |-      ||
         vi              I

Note the use again of the vi-I progression, and how, in the interest of what I often describe as an avoidance of foolish, rote consistency, the augmented gambit between vi and I is *not* used. Also note how the single use of vocal falsetto is saved here for the very end, as a small treat.

Kissing Cousins

Though I've kept saying throughout this article that AML is very much a typical song of the "With The Beatles" album in general, you probably noticed by now that "It Won't Be Long" in particular keeps showing up again and again. In fact, AML and IWBL share an uncanny number of features and details:

• the home key of E Major (granted, there are many others from this period)
• lyrics that deal with the theme of "absence and return"
• a vocal opening "in medias res"
• prominent use of the vi->I progression
• an augmented chord that is motivated by chromatic linear motion
• the use of a refrain *and* a bridge
• even a little solo for bass or low strings of the lead guitar

In an earlier pair of "Notes" on "She Said She Said" and "Good Day Sunshine" I noted a similar laundry list of uncanny parallels between those two songs, suggesting perhaps that the friendly competition between John and Paul may have manifested itself at times in their electing to write separate songs starting from a set of common, abstract constraints. Okay, so maybe it wasn't literally a contest, but I imagine them often trading ideas and comparing notes to the extent that this sort of compositional cross-pollenation would have been inevitable. Did you ever share private idiosyncratic phrases with a friend to the extreme where eventually, neither of you could remember which one of you coined the phrase in the first place ?

But moving beyond speculation, may I suggest in the case of IWBL and AML, that it is specifically when the common denominators between two songs are so numerous that, ironically, the temperamental *differences* between them (and perhaps their individual composers) become most apparent. Take for example here, the way the lyrics of these two songs deal with the theme of lovers separated yet anticipating the immediate future:

- In IWBL, John speaks of a painful separation he has endured when *she* left him, and he now in the present looks forward to a joyful reunion with her, while filled with what sounds like repentence for having caused her to leave in the first place.

- In contrast, AML is written entirely in the present and future tense; if you can pardon my blasphemy, you might say it's a love that has no past. Here, it is *he* who will be doing the leaving and we have no reason to suspect there is anything more than a personal responsibility to be somewhere else which motivates the separation; no hurt, no blame. He earnestly promises to be faithful and muses aloud about having to adjust his lovelife to the realm of fantasy for the duration, but beyond this, any hint of what he's really feeling inside is left to the imagination and the musical subtext, tinged as it is with that small hint of anxiety.

It's difficult to navigate such a contrast without taking sides or appearing to be making a judgment. IMHO, both songs are musically, artistically valid. Maintaining a personal preference for one over the other doesn't necessarily mean the other isn't worthwhile or that it isn't an appropriate favorite choice for someone else. The very least you can say is that both artists, over the long run, as long as they were being sincere and doing their best work, were amazingly consistent and true to their respective visions. In fact, if you want to find a real soulmate for AML, perhaps look to "Things We Said Today."

Regards,
Alan (awp@bitstream.com *OR* uunet!huxley!awp)

A Personal Postscript

I really do try to not overly waste bandwidth on dragging everything down to me own level ("it's immature, son"), but it's not without some pride that I present this 'Note' as a sort of Second Anniversary Edition of the series.

I posted my first r.m.b. 'Note' here precisely two years ago today, only after much equivocating and even then, with great trepedation; only my regular email correspondents know just how much. It's those same people too who know the depth of the impact on my life in general that doing this series has had. But I'll spare you the maudlin-yet-exciting autobiographical details and all that other David Copperfield sort of crap :-).

For now, I hope for the strength and insight (not to mention the 'net' access) needed to continue the series indefinitely. And I also want to thank publicly both the inner circle of r.m.b. regulars, some of whom have become my electronically serious, permanent friends over time, as well as all the other folks who have from time to time dropped me just a line or two of kind words about the series. At this point, I wouldn't be doing all this without the help of you all, so Thanks!

---
"When was the last time you gave a girl a pink-edged daisy ? When did you last embarass a sheila wid your cool appraising stare ?" 053191#27
---

Copyright (c) 1991 by Alan W. Pollack
All Rights Reserved This article may be reproduced, retransmitted, redistributed and otherwise propagated at will, provided that this notice remains intact and in place.

Notes on "Little Child" (LC)

KEY	E Major

METER	4/4

FORM	Intro -> Verse -> Verse -> Bridge -> Verse -> Break ->
			Bridge -> Verse -> Outro (fadeout)

GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST

Style and Form

- The form of this song is a bit tricky. On strictly musical grounds, I believe one hears it in the way that I've parsed it above, as one of the standard and familiar formal models. However, the repeat pattern of the lyrics would seem to argue otherwise; that what I've labelled a "verse" is more of a "refrain" because the words are unvaried over four repeats of the section. Similarly, that what I've labelled as a "bridge" is more properly a "verse" because it is only in that section that the words *are* varied. This alternate pigeon-holing scheme though would yield an unusual formal structure indeed:

Intro -> Refrain -> Refrain -> Verse -> Refrain -> Break -> Verse -> Refrain -> Outro (fadeout)

Hence, I'll stay with my original analysis, though this formal ambiguity caused by the disposition of the lyrics is noteworthy. We ran into a similar dilemma on "It Won't Be Long" way back in article #10 of the series and the temporal proximity of these two songs makes me wonder if, on some level, John was consciously experimenting at the time in this way.

- Another quite uncommon feature in the form of this song is the appearance of an honest-to-goodness instrumental *break*, in strict 12-bar blues no less!

Harmony

- The key is decidedly E Major and the mood ravingly upbeat. However, the harmonic diet here is more low-budget than we've seen in a while, restricted to only four chords and very common ones at that. In order of appearance, there are the I, IV, V, and V-of-V; that's the Major chords built on E, A, B, and F#, respectively. Note how the lack of any minor, diminished, augmented or otherwise altered harmonies helps to project the uncomplicated emotional tone of the song.

- Unlike many of the other songs we've looked at, in which harmonic rhythm tends to follow a fairly regular pattern (e.g. chord changes in every measure, or every other measure), the harmonic rhythm in this song is a bit more flexibly varied to help articulate shape of the sections; the verses in particular.

Arrangement

- There's a lot of overdubbing on this otherwise simple track to the extreme that even the original British mix of it on _With The Beatles_ (WTB) has a Dave-Dexter-Jr.-like muddiness that becomes part of the experience of the song, whether or not you particularly like it aesthetically. Unlike the case of I'm afraid to think that there's no clean/dry version of this one even in the vaults of EMI.

- On the vocal parts, a double-tracked John is featured solo, with Paul joining him for little flashes of harmony. Instrumental overdubs feature Paul on piano and John on harmonica pretty much the whole way through.

SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH

	|E	|A	|E9	|-	|
E:	 I	 IV	 I

	|E	|-	|-   A  |E	||B	|A	|F#9	|B	||
E:	 I		     IV  I	  V	 IV	 V-of-V  V

- The first four-measure phrase itself subdivides rhetorically into a ready-steady-go group of three short "phrasettes" (to coin a term :-)), quite reminiscent of the "move over once, move over twice ..." snippet in "One After 909", and it is harmonically closed in shape. The second phrase nicely balances this out by subdividing more neatly right down the middle of its four measures, and by its harmonically open ending on the V chord.

- The second verse is a slight musical variant of the first one of the sort we've seen before in songs like "Ask Me Why", "There's A Place", and the slightly later "I Should Have Known Better". Here, the structural purpose of the change is to harmonically close up the ending of the second phrase:

	|E	|-	|-   A  |E	||B	|A	|F#9	 B  |E	    ||
E:	 I		     IV  I	  V	 IV	 V-of-V  V   I

Bridge

- The stylistic gesture of short phrases seen in the verses is perpetuated in this bridge as well, which is only six measures long, yet contains three phrases equal in length:

	|E	|B	||E	|-	||F#	|B	||
	 I	 V	  I		  V-of-V V

- The usage in this section of a poetic triplet nicely contrasts with, and provides some helpful relief from, the quatrains of the surrounding verses.

- Compared to a song like "I'll Get You", there's a virtual absence in this song of melodic appoggiaturas. However, in measure 5 of this bridge, above F# chord, there's a stunner of a d# in the melody on the downbeat.

Break

- It's a rare early Beatles song indeed that has such a break section as this one, both completely instrumental and not based on one of the preceding sections of the song.

- The last two chords of this otherwise pure 12-bar blues passage are modified to include the IV -> V-of-V -> V progression which by this point of the song strongly resonates with the end of the verse sections, and this tweak helps to unify the break section with its surroundings.

- John's wailing solo is quite nicely done and as a little bonus he even throws in some slow triplets right at the climactic penultimate measure as though just to let us know for sure it's a "John song"; as if this fact were not already clear as an azure sky or an unmuddied lake. My only complaint here is the uncharacteristic roughness with which both the beginning and end of this overdub were edited in.

Outro

- We have a very standard looping into the fadeout based on the final two measures of the verse with some clever handling of the duet vocals as they alternate in pattern on the "oh yeahs".

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

- This song is the fifth one in a row on the first side of WTB in the key of E. Though a comparison of the album's running order to a Baroque dance suite is perhaps a jesting overstatement, there *is* a certain amount of classic sensibility reflected in the way those five Beatles originals are sequenced to provide a balanced and varied alternation of mood and tempo.

- That said, LC is probably the weakest of those five songs; following on the heels of "Don't Bother Me" it's a case of 'from the ridiculous to the sublime', or shall we say it the other way around ? :-) On casual acquaintance, it's easy to dislike LC for what are, by today's standards, its condescendingly wise-guy/sexist lyrics. Even a closer look at the music itself might make you think of it as a potboiling throwback to the first album because of the small number of chords, the facile melody, and simple phrasing.

- And yet, if you can get beyond your own hyper-serious reactions (heys, Alan, speak for yourself), I believe you start hearing this song actually as one feel-good rocker of no small "sincerity." In time, the words eventually warm up to strike you as the quite realistic braggadocio of a cool dude on the make. And what you at first reacted to as "rudeness" in that cool appraising stare of his is nothing other than his active compensatory factor, more or less.

Regards,
Alan (awp@bitstream.com *OR* uunet!huxley!awp)


---
"I bet you're a great swimmer. My turn ? Bingo!"
                                                              	   102191#38
---

                Copyright (c) 1991 by Alan W. Pollack
                          All Rights Reserved

       This article may be reproduced, retransmitted, redistributed and
       otherwise propagated at will, provided that this notice remains
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Notes on "I Wanna Be Your Man" (IWBYM)

KEY  E Major

METER        4/4

FORM Verse -> Refrain -> Verse -> Refrain -> Break -> Verse ->
                        Refrain -> Outro (fadeout)

GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST

Style and Form

- This song is ravingly bluesy in a stylized but facile, simplistic way, representing a certain kind of triumph of style per se over content. If you're charitably disposed, you'll say that the heavy attention paid to external mannerism and evocation of mood more than adequately compensates for the otherwise minimalistic amount and quality of material used throughout. In any event, the song would seem to demonstrate just how it is that a pop song *can*, under some circumstances, be be written on the fly in what I'd wager must have been less than a single afternoon.

- In context of the other contemporaneous L&M originals of the period, this one is formalistically notable for its bridge-like refrain, and the improvisatory instrumental break.

Harmony

- Very few chords are used at all, with the verse section being a jam session on virtually just one chord. A few additional chords appear in the refrain though they are all garden variety in nature.

Arrangement

- Ringo, of course, gets to sing the lead vocal and he's accompanied by John and Paul in the refrain. The rest of the texture is quite fluffed up, perhaps even overdone a bit, with double tracking, overdubbed Hammond organ, and a lot of screaming.

- We have the case here where non-official versions of the song, perserved as they are in unreleased recordings of BBC radio broadcasts and live concerts, present a revised arrangement which omits the organ but is in all other respects more effective. I'll single out such specific improvements as we come to them in our walkthrough below.

SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH

Verse

- You can hardly call it an intro by itself, but the hot little guitar lick that precedes the opening downbeat helps immediately set the wild and crazy mood of what is to come. Several live versions include four full measures of introductory vamping on E before Ringo's vocal entry.

- The overall section is seventeen measures long and divides up into two eight-measure couplets, plus one additional measure to give a little breathing space for the long pickup into the refrain. This last measure is not strictly "required" in the scheme of things, and its presence does indeed create a slightly awkward metrical asymmetry. My guess is that they decided to include it as the lesser of two evils because if you try this section out without that seventeenth measure, the title phrase which commences the refrain gets garbled in a scramble to squeeze it into measure sixteen.

- Only the I chord (E) is used in this section, though there is a brief hint of the V chord (B) in the second half of measures 8 and 15; this chord change is much more clearly articulated in the live versions.

- The bluesy melody with its emphasis on f# and the flat-seventh (d) lends some indirect harmonic embellishment of that lone E chord.

Refrain

- This refrain is eight measures long and built out of four little 2-measure phrases each of which declaims the title phrase of the lyrics:

riff:     f#-f-e|d#       e-d#-d|c#       f#-f-e|d#
        |F#     |B      |E      |C#     |f#     |B      |E      |-      |
E:       V-of-V  V       I       V-of-ii ii      V       I
                                         **

        [** that f# minor chord just *might* be F# Major but I find
         the recording too muddy to tell for sure.]

- The shift in this section to a distinctly non-bluesy style with those cornball chromatic-scale guitar riffs is the primary source of formal contrast.

- On a more subtle level, the introduction in this section of a number of different chords with a concommitant amount of harmonic rhythm also contrasts with the monotony of the verses. Though this refrain doesn't actually stray at all from the home key, the large number of intensely functional chord changes (with root movements lying along the circle of fifths) make it sound as though it's very much on the harmonic prowl.

Break

- The break is twelve bars long and like the verse, it jams on just a single chord. The heavy blues style returns with what seems like a high water mark amount of shouts and grunting.

- The guitar solo here consists of sound-bite-like short 'licks'. There is very little of the sort of melodic continuity or dramatic sense of direction seen in the solos of either "I Saw Her Standing There" or even "Little Child".

- The live versions turn this section very clearly into a 12-bar blues frame and feature more overall shape to the guitar solo.

Outro

- The outro brings a return of the texture heard in the Break, only this time there is an adaptation of the vocal parts of the refrain superimposed over the backing track.

- A small flash of the IV chord (A) during the fadeout hints at the *real* blues jam session that might have gone on in the studio after the faders had been lowered all the way; see the unreleased Take 7 of "She's A Woman" for an example of what I'm thinking of.

- The live versions of our song in fact replicate the 12-bar blues form seen in the Break and thus take the song to an alternate complete ending.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

- Tony Barrow, whose liner notes on the first couple albums are surprisingly accurate most of the time in spite of their unabashed PR-perspective, gets caught in, not one, but *two* lies regarding this song: #1 -- saying the song was written "specially" for Ringo rather than the Rolling Stones, and #2 -- that it is John on the Hammond organ, not (as Lewisohn reports) George Martin.

- There are a number of well known Dylan-Beatles connections out there, but one of the more obscure and unusual examples must be Zimmy's unreleased track from a late '65 session done with the proto-Band; a song entitled "I Wanna Be Your Lover", in the refrain of which he humorously sends up our own "I Wanna Be Your Man". The existence of such a parody forces me to acknowledge, almost against my will as it were, that our song *must* have had, in spite of whatever its limitations, a sufficient presence as a ready-made pop-culture icon in order to draw such distinguished imitation, even if only in jest. But I guess that's what I meant to begin with, with my own wisecrack about the triumph of style per se over content.

Regards,
Alan (awp@bitstream.com *OR* uunet!huxley!awp)

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"I don't wanna be her's, ... I wanna be your's!" 112491#40
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Copyright (c) 1991 by Alan W. Pollack All Rights Reserved This article may be reproduced, retransmitted, redistributed and otherwise propagated at will, provided that this notice remains intact and in place.