4 Random Beatles Songs for a Sunday Afternoon
If I Needed Someone (1965)
Good Day Sunshine (1966)
Tell Me Why (1964)
I Got A Woman (1963)
If I Needed Someone
If I Needed Someone was released on
Rubber Soul in December 1965, but was removed from the Capitol Records version of the album in US. It wasn't released in the US until June 1966, when it appeared on the cobbled-together
Yesterday . . . and Today.
This 1965
George Harrison song features a jangly 12-string Rickenbacker electric guitar that imitates the sound used by
The Byrds on their version of
The Bells Of Rhymney, which was, in turn, inspired by Harrison's use of the 12-string Rickenbacker electric guitar on the 1964 album
A Hard Day's Night.
There's also a distinct Indian influence in the tonal structure of the song, the drone effect and Mixolydian mode during the verse.
In fact, if you're paying close attention you can hear another
Byrds influence during the instrumental break: Buried under the up-front 12-string and the thick 3-part harmony vocal bed is a distinct finger-pickin' banjo-ish lick, also a direct lift from
The Bells of Rhymney. It was likely on a track that had been "wiped", but can still be heard as it "bled" onto other tracks.
The song gave
Harrison his first chart hit (peaking at #20), but it was the version released by
the Hollies in December 1965.
And speaking of the vocal harmonies, that stunning 3-part parallel harmony singing may well have had a major influence on the 3-part harmony singing of the supergroup
Crosby, Stills & Nash. It's worth noting that
Crosby had been in the
Byrds, and
Nash in
The Hollies.
Good Day Sunshine
This 1966
Paul McCartney song features some subtle key and meter changes, and likely drew inspiration from
The Lovin' Spoonful (which Paul and George saw in concert earlier in the year), specifically the songs "
Daydream" and "
Do You Believe In Magic", and possibly
The Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon".
In fact, analysis of the chords by others has led to dissent as to what key the song is actually in. The chords used in the introduction (E throughout) and chorus (B, F♯, E and E7) suggest a key of B major, however, the B chord reveals itself to be the V of V of A once the verse is heard for the first time. Then again, there's an odd key change to D major occurs midway through the second verse, which becomes, instead, a piano solo.
And the meter changes in the choruses: Are they alternating 3/4 & 5/4 measures, or are they simply a syncopated 4/4?
There's also the innovative key change for the ending that involves the 3-part vocal harmonies in a gone-too-soon imitative canon.
And it all sounds so effortless.
Tell Me Why
Tell Me Why was included on the the 1964
A Hard Day's Night LP in both the UK and the US (as well as on
Something New in the US a month later). This again features those impressive 3-part harmony vocals that were one of the many elements of the Beatles' recognizable sound. It also features a less well-known knack of theirs of writing happy upbeat tunes with sad lyrics (and vice versa). It also echoes that sound they appropriated doing covers of R&B girl groups like the
Shirelles, the
Cookies,
Martha & The Vandellas, and others. There's also a piano part contributed by producer George Martin (as there was on Good Day Sunshine - that barrelhouse solo in the middle).
I Got A Woman
This one's a cover of
I Got A Woman by
Ray Charles, originally recorded and released in 1954, although the
Beatles' version sounds more like
Elvis Presley's 1956 cover of the song.
The Beatles recorded this one twice for BBC radio shows, once in 1963 for the
Pop Go The Beatles show, and again in 1964 for the
Saturday Club radio show, although these wouldn't be officially released until 1994 (on
Live At The BBC) and 2013 (
On Air - Live At The BBC Volume 2). It had been a regular song in their setlist prior to signing with EMI records in 1962.