The Music of the Beatles will track the musical development of the band, starting from the earliest days in Liverpool and Hamburg, moving through the excitement of Beatlemania, the rush of psychedelia, and the maturity of Abbey Road. While the focus will be on the music, we will also consider how recording techniques, the music business, the music of other artists, and the culture of the 1960s affected John, Paul, George, and Ringo as they created the Beatles repertory. There is probably no band or artist that has had more written about their music than the Beatles. There are many good books on the band's biography, several insider accounts offering glimpses behind the scenes, books that interpret the meaning of the songs, and even books that catalog dates and people regarding the band. This course will try to synthesize much of that information into an account of the Beatles' development as musicians and songwriters.
SCU - Norwegian Wood, In My Life, Michelle, I’m Looking Through You, If I Needed Someone
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From the course by University of Rochester
The Music of the Beatles
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From the lesson
Pop Maturity
Increased experimentation, still mostly within the context of the pop single. The increasingly important role of the recording studio and recording techniques and innovations. Help!, Rubber Soul, and singles from this period.
Meet the Instructors
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
Let's take a closer look at five of the songs from the Rubber Soul album.
Again, I want to start by saying that it's certainly the case
that I'm looking for the features that are more progressive in these songs.
Because I'm telling the story about how the Beatles are moving, as
I've said a number of times this week from craftsman to artist.
So, when you do that you run the risk of maybe emphasizing it
so much that you give people the
impression that that's all that's going on.
So I just want to remind you that while these progressive
features are going on that I'm highlighting, there's an awful lot
of kind of normative old craft kind of stuff hanging over
from what that group had been doing in 63 and 64.
So I'm really sort of picking out the things that really push
that, push in the direction of
where they're going, knowing where they're going.
So in many ways, it's a,
it's a bit of a skewed read in a certain kind of way.
Having said that maybe makes it a little less skewed, because you can judge for
yourself as you look through these tunes, listen to them and and watch them go by.
Let's talk first about Norwegian Wood, I've already said a
bit about this one of John's songs, this is a
fun one from a form point of view, because the
form is a kind of a large scale ABA form.
Now we've talked about
AABA, but we have yet seen a form that goes ABA.
And then it repeats all that again, ABA again.
So there's an intro, ABA, ABA, and then a coda.
To, to my knowledge, this is the only, this is the only tune like
this on these records these Beatle records that we're talking about in this course.
And, you know, it's not the only song that, that's a kind of a one-time form.
You know, we,
we talked about one a couple of weeks ago from an
early record, but the idea that this form goes exactly how
the tune needs to go and then isn't reproduced again and
again like for example, the Beatles' contrasting first chorus form is.
Says to me something about the change in attitude with regard to
the Beatles and their approach to their music, trying to say something new.
interestingly, for those of you who are who are have
got some musical training.
When you look at the verse sections of of this tune and the, the verse and
the chorus is, it's an interesting blend of,
of E Mixolydian and then Dorian and then Ioanian.
So, the, there's a kind of a modal mixture that occurs
in here that kind of blends three different modes together in
an interesting kind of way that doesn't really quite fit some
of the things The Beatles have done in the past, or,
or not very closely.
Of course, the big thing about this tune, the use of sitar.
George Harrison having sort of discovered the, the sitar
earlier in the year when they were filming Help.
Now, he's had some lessons and he's been working on it.
So they, they, they work out a version of the tune that uses the sitar.
In fact their are other versions you can hear them on the
Beatles anthology where there's a lot more sitar on their, on the track.
Apparently at one point it was going to be you know, very sitar
heavy but somebody said, eh, maybe we need to dial the sitar back just
a little bit, and so we have the one that everybody is used to.
Again the use of the acoustic guitar.
Which again, these are all sort of indicators of
authenticity kind of, folk music sincerity this kind of thing.
The lyrics are a song that really tells a
story about a guy who gets together with a girl.
He thinks that maybe,
they go to her apartment, he thinks that maybe
this is going to get kind romantic, romantic and sexual.
But in the end he wakes up and she's gone and nothing
ever happened overnight and so, in the end, he burns her apartment down.
Now, look, this is a pretty crazy reaction to you know a date that
didn't work out quite the right way and people are saying God this is misogynist.
Really is this the way you treat your women you know.
And so the whole time through she's, she's talking about her apartment and this
blond wood that she has through the
apartment which was very stylish at the time.
Not much furniture almost looked like it was
from a magazine saying isn't it beautiful Norwegian wood.
And at the end you know, the protagonist is essentially going
yeah, it's great wood, it burns real good, this kind of thing.
And so this, this sort of surprise ending shows,
well, aside from the fact that it's not, not the
proudest moment maybe in Beatles lyrics from that point of view.
But it shows a real attention to detail to trying to
do something with the lyrics that they haven't really quite done before.
And that's to kind of tell a story with
a tricky kind of ending in this kind of thing.
This is, this is ha, in many ways Norwegian Wood is the lyrics to
it are disputed by the guys inside the group because everybody thinks they came
up with that twist at the end.
They all want to take credit for lighting
the, lighting the Norwegian wood in the apartment.
Anyway, it shows a lot of the, of the the, the
characteristics of authenticity and the artist model that we've been following.
The second John Lennon song I want to talk about is In My Life.
I said a bit about this all, already in the previous video.
This from a form point of view is a
very interesting song because it's what I would call a
simple verse song, but the verse itself is actually very
complicated, sort of falling into kind of two large kind of sections.
But there's no chorus that really comes back.
There's a refrain at the end of the verse.
And so you just get this big, complicated verse
and then a repeat of the complicated verse, and then
a harpsichord solo through the first half of the
complicated verse, and then the second half of the complicated
verse and a tag.
So it really just sort of does that same big structure three times and then tags.
What I'm calling the harpsichord solo's not actually a harpsichord.
It's actually a piano that was recorded at half speed.
And the way these tape decks work is that when you can,
when you record something at half speed, if you play it an
octave lower and half as fast, when you speed it up it
will go up an octave to regular pitch and, you know, the tempo
will be where you want it to be.
And so you can play something that's particularly complicated half speed,
which a lot of musicians are happy to be able to do.
But play it an octave low on an instrument like a piano, and then speed it up and all
of a sudden it's absolutely perfect and you haven't
had to play it at that sort of breakneck speed.
The reason why the Beetles did this is not because George Martin couldn't play
the harpsichord part because they didn't have
a harpsichord part, harpsichord available to them.
So, by taking the piano and recording it slow and then
speeding up, they were able to give the timbre of the piano.
A kind of brittleness that makes it sound like harpsichord and a lot
of people really think of this as being a harpsichord in this piece.
Now for us, it's interesting that it's again,
referencing classical music, like the strings in Yesterday.
We're seeing classical music working it's way into Beatles music.
Michelle,
is as I said before kind of, Paul's continuation of Yesterday.
But now instead of going in the direction of the kind of chamber
strings he's gone in the direction of a kind of French pop style.
Apparently as one of the stories goes that gets
told about this song this was a kind of a
tune that Paul used to do at parties to kind
of you know, entertain people for the fun of it.
You know,
pretending that he was a Parisian pop singer, you
know, and kind of doing kind of nonsense French.
And he actually got the lyrics translated by a
friend of his wife who taught French in school.
And so she was able to take the lyrics and turn them into French and so that's the,
the, verse that you hear in French are essentially
the English lyrics translated into French but by somebody else.
The form of the tune
is one of these broken AABA forms.
We talked about that with regard to Nowhere Man.
I take it as an indication of the Beatles not being happy with just an AABA form.
So what you get in, in Michelle is a verse, a verse, a bridge, a
verse and then a bridge and a verse and then a bridge and a verse.
It starts with an intro and you can AABA, BA, BA and
then the coda or the ending at the very end of the thing.
And so,
there's broken AABA.
Something that you see, really, 65 into 66 there are a
number of instances of this this, this broken AABA that come up.
Again, a way of breaking out of what might be seen as their restraints the
constraints of the ABBA form, and the popular craft model.
One last thing I'd like to draw your attention to as you listen to the song,
listen to the background vocals.
It's almost like the harmony vocals in the background
are taking the place of the accordion in French music.
So as you listen to them singing
in the background, they're essentially sort of playing
the roll of the French accordion, while Paul does his his French pop singer thing.
The second Paul song I want to talk about is I'm Looking Through You.
Again, not a real likely candidate for songs
from these albums.
But I'm picking it because it, it shows a kind
of a through point for Paul as, as a composer.
The form itself, is conservative. It's an AABA form with a partial reprieve.
So it goes AABA, BA that part of is,
is, does not push in any sort of new direction.
You've got the acoustic guitar here and it's related to
I've Just Seen a Face from that point of view.
Paul sort of sitting at the acoustic
guitar, singing along.
So there's that kind of folk authenticity going on.
But now, the metaphors in the verses are more systematic.
Not fully systematic, but a little bit more systematic.
So we've got a AABA form here, right?
So we've got three times when the A comes back.
We're not going to worry so much about the lyrics in the B section.
In the first verse, he uses the metaphor of vision.
In the second verse, he uses the metaphor of sound.
So, if this were a Coursera class on
songwriting, of which there is one by the way.
We might say well, if you've have done a
verse on vision and you've have done a verse on
sound, you should try to find another verse that
hooks into the metaphors you've been using in the senses.
I mentioned that a little bit earlier when I was talking
about I've Just Seen a Face but, Paul doesn't do that.
Instead of going with something like feeling, right, touch,
I'm, here's, I'm feeling whatever, I'm feeling something, you know.
Instead, he goes with thought
and talking about Thinking of Me.
And so the metaphors don't, don't, are not absolutely consistent in a text
book kind of way, but you can see what he's working with, right?
He starts with vision, he goes to sound, he goes to thought, all ways of kind
of working the lyrics out so there's a kind of a coherence inside of a song.
That really is trying to get away from the
teenage romance, I love you, she loves me let's
hold hands kind of thing.
The last song I want to talk about in this closeup is the George Harrison song, and
the first George Harrison song we'll look at
in any detail and that's If I Needed Someone.
What we can see happening in early George Harrison songs is maybe George being
one step behind the other Beatles in terms of his use of form and materials.
He's really still at this point still trying to master the craft
of writing a pop song.
While John Lennon and Paul McCartney have done
that and are pushing off in other directions.
George is, is really just trying to master the craft here.
And so we get a song that's in AABA form with a full reprise.
So it goes AABA AABA there's an intro and a coda at either end.
But it's a masterful use of AABA form and a fantastically crafted pop song.
It's especially
noteworthy for it's use of the electric 12 string guitar.
And remember we talked about important the electric
12 string guitar was in A Hard Day's Night.
We told the whole story about how it's used throughout that album.
Was used in the movie and how The Birds and Roger McGuinn and all those
guys sort of saw George using Reichenbacher
electric 12 string and had to have one.
Now what he's doing, is he's capoing the guitar at the seventh fret.
Which means he's got that little thing that wraps
around the guitar neck to capo it off, he
capos it off and then plays kind of open chords.
That is, chords that have strings ringing that you don't hold down with your
fingers, and you get this real sort of chimey, jingly, jangley, kind of sound.
And a great little sort of 12 string guitar lick that goes all the
way through the tune that really makes this a fantastic pop tune in its right.
I would argue that if, If I Needed Someone had
been done in this way by another group who weren't
called The Beatles in 1965, early 1966, it might
well have been a hit in it's own right.
The only thing this tune had going against it is it was on
an album with a bunch of songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
But I can guarantee you there are a lot of groups that would have been
happy to have had this as the top song in their repertoire at about this time.
So, so from here on out I think we can start thinking about George Harrison
being a songwriter who is really if, if not keeping complete
pace with John and Paul, he's not too far behind them.
By the time we get to Abby Road some people would
say that the best songs on the record are George Harrison's songs.
We'll see what you think when we get there.
So as we get to the end of this
week, let's just review what we've said about 1965.
Of course, The Beatles' success continues
throughout 1965.
In the first half of the year, we see
the continued success of Beatles For Sale, which as
you remember, was released in December of 1964, so
that That washes over into the beginning of 1965.
We get a couple of hit singles in the spring of 1965.
The Help movie debuts in the summer of 1965.
There's the movie, the film singles
are released along with that. And then we get Rubber Soul at the end of
the year December of 1965 with Nowhere Man spilling over into early 1966.
As I've said throughout this week The
Beatles move increasingly toward the artist model.
The lyrics become more serious as we've seen.
The forms become more varied, although the AABA form
does not disappear and still played an important role.
New instruments are beginning to be used.
We're talking about flutes, strings, sitar this kind of thing.
Harpsichord or faux harpsichord, whatever that was and styles outside of rock
begin to be employed, the French folk song, Indian music classical music.
We'll begin to see more and more of that we'll continue to
see more and more of that as we work our way forward.
So next week we'll have a look at
Revolver, Sargent Pepper, and Magical Mystery Tour.
We'll be on our way to the full blown
artist model and psychedelia, so buckle your seat belts.
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