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The Beatles appraised

37K views 318 replies 49 participants last post by  SanAntone 
G
#1 · (Edited)
After so many decades have passed since this group was at the height of its powers and now that two of the members are deceased, the dust has settled. Their music is forever locked in history, unchanging and not dimmed by subsequent years. Still relevant, still excellent.

For me their greatest song was "Eleanor Rigby" (and you can hear Bernard Herrmann's "Psycho" influence right here, thanks to George Martin): it truly is a great song.



A documentary was made about the Beatles by Howard Goodall: he gives an excellent account of these missions and this is highly recommended:



This is also a favourite song of mine from the Beatles:



It makes you wonder whether without that song this one would have been written: absolutely bloody brilliant!!

 
#306 ·
Yes, they sounded refreshingly new.

I got this in an email;

Rarely in the Beatles is the bIII chord used together with the minor relatives ii, vi and iii. Instead, bIII is most often used together with I, IV, V and bVII. A simple but acceptable picture of "traditional harmony," which mainly uses the chords of F - C - G - D - A in the key of C, in other words I, IV, V and two chords in the G direction; while rock harmony in the same key will use the chords of Eb - Bb - F - C - G, that is, I, IV, V and two chords in the F direction.
The only place in the Beatles's music where these 5 chords and none other are used is the instrumental section of "Here Comes The Sun." In chord progressions like C - Eb - F - G ("Please Please Me"), C - Eb - F ("Sgt. Pepper") and C - Eb - Bb ("Everybody's Got Something To Hide, Except For Me And My Monkey"), a couple of these 5 chords are used. They seem to be combined any which way, as usually with the given that the tonic is used often enough, and in such places, that it really is made to feel the 'resolution'.
Even during the Beatles's heyday there were songs written using these 5 chords and none others. Two examples are Wilson Pickett "(In The) Midnight Hour" and Creedence Clearwater Revival "Proud Mary". Both songs use the progression ( in C major) Bb - G - F - Eb - C in their introductions. A later example, among many others, is "Middle Of The Road," The Pretenders in 1982.
This leads to interest of a newer kind of mode-like sound built on the five chords I - bIII - IV - V - bVII, and in many cases implying that other chords (except bVI) are not present in parts using these with the bIII chord being important, as I, IV, V and bVII are used in other ways too.
None of this would seem to help the casual listening experience, but it's part of the appreciation for students and especially performers who need to learn 'what's going on'. And of course this is just a sliver of what's going on and what's significant (either different, new, clever or violating convention).
What might someone who plays by ear expect in music by the Beatles and other, stylistically closely related music?
Regarding form: that the song has a verse, that most often will feel like "home," and that probably will be the first form part (after the intro, if there is one) to be heard. In relatively few cases, the first form part to be heard (after the intro) will be the chorus. Furthermore, a chorus and/or a bridge that have a contrasting function, often (in songs in major keys) beginning on one of the relative majors, and most probably occurring after two verses (bridge or chorus) or after two pairs of verse-chorus (bridge).
Regarding harmony: that songs in major are a lot more common than songs in minor; that there will be an easily discerned tonic, or a chord that feels like "home"; that chord progressions to a very large extent will be built on I, IV and V, and in lesser degree on their relative minors vi, ii and iii and the bVII and II chords. Chords other than these will either
The Harmonic Language of the Beatles
follow traditional functional harmony (i.e. chords in the dominant direction, plus the minor subdominant and its relative major) or imply a new "modality," using the major chords I, bIII, IV, V and bVII.
This means that the music of the Beatles and their contemporaries has its starting point in traditional functional harmony, but a functional harmony where the limits for what is allowed are slowly being expanded. Chords close to the tonic on the circle of fifths are combined totally freely; more chords in the subdominant direction appear in the music; and the II chord can be used in the traditional way, but also with a new freedom. In rock music, functional harmony has started a slow explosion, that continues to this day. In the 1990s, it is possible to compose using progressions like (in C major) C - F#m ("Fade Away" by the English group Blur, from their CD "The Great Escape," 1995) or C - A - F - C# - B ("In Bloom" by the American group Nirvana, from "Nevermind," 1991) as the foundation of a song, without being too extreme. The Beatles and their contemporaries very seldom used that kind of chord progressions.
In such latter-day cases it obviously gets more and more meaningless to think in terms of functional harmony: the explosion of functional harmony is completed.
 
#307 ·
. . . And . . . just like that, John releases what may have been his best, and certainly most popular, album, Imagine, on 9 September 1971

A month later two of the tracks from the album are released as a single:

1971.10.11- John Lennon - Imagine/It's So Hard

First off, this is the first single from John that actually had TWO of his songs on it, instead of only one (and a song from Yoko Ono as the B-Side).

Imagine, a simple tune with minimal instrumentation, and contemplative lyrics, became a bona fide hit for Lennon.

The B-Side, It's So Hard, is yet another example of John having a bit of fun using words and phrases that could have a sexual interpretation, as he and the Beatles had done for many years.

Only six weeks later John and Yoko release a Christmas single,

1971.12.01 - John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) / Listen, the Snow Is Falling

Well, yes, it's sort of a Christmas song, and simultaneously a protest song as well.

A dispute between music publisher Northern Songs and Lennon over publishing rights delayed the release of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" in the UK until 24 November 1972

Yoko's song Listen, the Listen. the Snow Is Falling was actually written by Yoko back in 1968.

So, here's my complaint with Yoko; her intonation throws her pitch far enough off that you can honestly call it singing off-key, even here, when she's using her 'soft' and gentle delivery. And the song isn't awful (it's not bad at all), but it's a difficult listen largely because of Yoko's vocal.




 
#312 ·
1971 finished without any more singles released by the ex-Beatles, but there were two more album releases.

The first was from Paul, released under his new band name, Wings, on 7 December 1971. The album was WILDLIFE, and it was received rather poorly. Where the critics panned the previous album, RAM, for being too polished, they panned this album for not being polished enough.

Denny Seiwell played drums on both albums, and Paul's wife, Linda contributed vocals to both. Linda also has co-songwriting credit on half the songs on RAM, and co-songwriting credit on all but one song on WILDLIFE. David Spinozza played guitar on a few songs, but couldn't finish the sessions, and a new guitarist Hugh McCracken was brought in. While RAM was credited to Paul & Linda McCartney, the musicians (the McCartneys and Seiwell) comprise 3/4 of his new band, Wings, on WILDLIFE. The band was complete with the addition of ex-Moody Blues member and multi-instrumentalist Denny Laine.

Paul took the criticisms of RAM to heart, and recorded the album as quickly as possible so it would sound "fresh". More than half the songs would be recorded in one take. The album peaked at #11 in the UK, and at #10 in the US.

Surprisingly, the 'band' included a reggae-stylized cover of Mickey & Sylvia's 1957 top 40 hit Love Is Strange, which WAS released as a promotional single, although a commercial single release was cancelled due to "poor album sales" (it only went Gold in the US).

The B-Side would likely have been a track called Breakfast Blues, which was played on WCBS-FM, where McCartney promoted Wings and Wild Life, on 15 December 1971. The track was later released as Great Cock and Seagull Race on the 2012 special edition of Ram. It was actually an outtake from the Ram sessions.


 
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