10:10 I'm So Tired (pt.2)

The Melismatic Madrigalistic Mystery Tour

Last time, I characterised I'm So Tired as a throwback to an earlier standard of writing for Lennon. One very clear blast from the past is the return of melisma, the technique of stretching one syllable over many notes. Melisma is all over early Beatles albums like a rash

Misery: “treating me ba----d”
All I've Got To Do: “Whenever I------”
Hold Me Tight: "It's you, you you----"
I Wanna Be Your Man: "Ma-an!"
and Not A Second Time - all over the place!

But it all but vanished from later work, the only real example that come to mind is Because “it turns me on------”.

Here though it really emphasises the drowsy subject matter, stretching out “I'm so-o-o-o tired” like one long yawn. The effect is even more pronounced when he slides down from a B to a G# on the second verse “I'm sooooo tired”

Madrigalism

In fact the whole song is great example of madrigalism (Ticket 49), the stretched out lazy rhythm of the vocals and the drop from the root chord to the (out of key) VII chord

I'm so (A) tired (G#7)

makes it sound as though he's sliding down the wall as he slips into unconsciousness.

Melody

There's a lot of originality in the melody too. Lennon stays off the root note, hardly ever coming to rest (geddit?) The melody starts very unusually on the 2nd degree of the scale (ticket 50), the 2nd verse slide (see above) misses the root note out altogether and John uses other non-chord tones (ticket 13) as well, mainly singing lots of B's over D chords (6th).

In fact the whole song avoids camping out on the root. At the end of the verse the melody lands on the root, but over a Dm chord (the legendary iv or minor 4 chord) and at the end of the chorus we get the root chord A major but Lennon stubbornly keeps singing an E (the 5th). Apart from a solitary incident of b3rd blue notes, (ticket 22) on “no no no” the melody is completely diatonic giving a great example of ticket 14 – write in key melody over out of key chords. (We'll look at those chords next week).

Lyrically, we have some parallel lyrics (ticket 24)

I wonder should I - get up/call you
my mind is – on the blink/set on you

and straight repetition (I'm so tired on line 1 and 2) which adds to the stickiness, but the jewel in the crown is the humorous rhyming of cigarette/stupid get*, which should be enough to earn Lennon the title of 'Scouse Cole Porter'. It's something that the Arctic Monkeys did well on their first two albums, most notably coupling 'Ford Mondeo' with 'have to say owt' on When The Sun Goes Down.

Lennon sings “my mind is set on you” which is a weird phrase, especially when you think that 19 years later George Harrison went on to cover Rudy Clark's 1962 song Got My Mind Set On You.

Coincidence or something more sinister?!?!?!**

*If you're wondering 'get' is the Liverpool pronunciation of the English word 'git' which is roughly equivalent to the American 'S.O.B'.

**It was a coincidence, obviously. And yes, Paul is still alive.

The Minor 4 Chord (pt.4)

From the m2 to the m4

(Read part one here)

This a very Lennon change – he used the exact same progression three times to great effect, most famously in

Nowhere Man

Em Making all his Gm Nowhere plans for D nobody
(and all the other lines that end the verses)

(ii, iv, I)

It also crops up in the verses of

Across The Universe

Po- Em -ssessing and ca- Gm -ressing me. D Jai…
In- Em -citing and in- Gm -viting me. D Limitless…

(ii, iv, I)

and With The Beatles track

All I’ve Got to Do

F#m Call you on the phone
& you’ll come running home
Yeah Am that’s all I E gotta do.

(ii, iv, I)


Other songs

The progression dates back to the first album where it made an appearance on Do You Want To Know A Secret, in the verse just after “Do you promise not to tell”

G#m Gm Woh F#m oh Am oh E Closer…

(iii, biii, ii, iv/bVI, I)

McCartney plays a C under the Am making it sound even more complex than it already is.

He covers his tracks in a similar way (on piano this time) on the intro to Honey Pie. Instead of playing Am - Cm - G (which would be Nowhere Man transposed) he plays Am/D - Cm – G.

Em She A6 was a Am/D working girl Cm north of England G way

(vi, II, ii/V, iv, I)

As well as appearing in the verse of You Won’t See Me the bridge has the following progression


Bm Time after Dm time you re- D dim fuse to even A listen

ii, iv, iv dim, I (key of A)

A final alteration comes from the chorus of She Loves You (also in the key of G) where, instead of approaching the iv (Cm) from the ‘in key’ Am he uses a major (A7).

She Em loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
She A7 loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
With a Cm love like that
You D7 know you should be G glad

(vi, II, iv, V, I)

Try using this chord pattern in your songwriting. here's the progression in some common keys (the last chord is the root). Keep 'em in your songwriting tool box...

Em - Gm - D

Bm - Dm - A

F#m - Am - E

Dm - Fm - C

Am - Cm - G

1: Introduction
2: Major 4 to minor 4
3: Minor 6 to minor 4
4: Minor 2 to minor 4
5: 1 to minor 4 

Chapter 2.8 With The Beatles - All I've Got To Do (again)

Having looked at the chords last time let’s finish up on this With The Beatles classic with a...

Melody masterclass

The notes in the pick up to the verse and the bridge are the same - an E major arpeggio leading to a C#.


Whenever I (E G# B C#)

and the same goes for me (E E G# B B C#)

Same tune leading to a different chord in a different section. They did exactly the same trick on Ask Me Why. 

The verse melody keeps starting on the second of the chord it’s over then resolving to the root. This helps pull you along.

All I gotta do-oo (2^nd to root)

Is call you (2^nd to root) on the phone

And you’ll come (2^nd to root) running home,

Yeah, that’s all I gotta do (2^nd to root).

The last line (Yeah, that’s all I gotta do) sings an F# over the Am (making it a 6^th). This combination is a very warm and comforting sound matching the lyrics perfectly.

Contrasting sections

Notice the contrast in verse and bridge melody wise

Verse - long notes, melisma (syllables stretched over several notes), wide range, little repetition

Bridge – short and repetitive. For example, the same 3 note tunes on

Whenever/you want me/whenever

and

I’ll be there/Yes I will/gotta call


In fact the bridge has little more than three notes in, where the verse roams freely over a full octave.

Go do it!

If you've written one section and are struggling for where to go next, trying to contrast is a great way to start.

Read part one

You might also like All Together Now (book review)

2:7 All I've Got to Do (pt.1)

Another classic song from With The Beatles. There’s lots that bears further study but for now just a few headings.

What about that opening chord?! E11 aug! (Fretted, low to high 076575). I’ve never come across that one in 26 years of playing! For some reason it reminds me of the Nat ‘King’ Cole track ‘When I Fall In Love.’

 

Weird opening chord not withstanding this is another song that doesn’t start on the root chord (Ticket 6). The verse kicks in with a C#m – E (vi I) progression exactly the same as It Won’t Be Long.

But that’s nothing. This song manages to avoid using the second strongest chord - the 5 (V) which in this key is B. It’s very rare for any major key song to do that. Interesting.

They use the minor4 (iv) chord, which we’ve been looking at in detail, but from a m2 (ii) which we’ve not covered yet.

F#m Call you on the phone
& you’ll come running home
Yeah Am that’s all I E gotta do.

 

In the next post we’ll look at the melody.

You might like Dissecting The Beatles

The Band Who...Needed No Introduction

So here I am working my way through With The Beatles and I’m blown away all over again by the Beatles' economy when it comes to intros. Here’s a survey of what happens before the vocals come in.

2 songs have no intro whatsoever

It Won’t Be Long – (song starts with chorus vocals)
All My Loving - (song starts with verse vocals)

6 more tracks have only a single note before the vocals enter

She Loves You – ½ bar drum fill (0.5 sec)
I’ll Get You – one bass note
Please Mr Postman* – single hi-hat
All I’ve Got To Do – single free time guitar chord
Not A Second Time – single piano bass note
I Wanna Be Your Man – single guitar string bend

The rest have intros ranging between 1 and 17 seconds. 

5 of these (including the 3 longest) are cover versions*.

Hold Me Tight – band intro (1 sec)
Don’t Bother Me – guitar solo (4 sec)
Little Child – harmonica solo (6 sec)
I Want To Hold Your Hand – band intro (6 sec)
Devil In Her Heart* – guitar solo (6 sec)
Till There Was You* – guitar solo (7 sec)
This Boy – band intro (9 sec)
You Really Got A Hold On Me* – band intro (14 sec)
Money (That’s What I Want)* – band Intro (15 sec)
Roll Over Beethoven* – guitar solo (17 sec)

Author Jay Frank devotes a whole chapter in his FuturehitDNA book to explaining why intros got progressively longer after the 60s (longer intros suited radio ident jingles) and peaked in the early 90s when the rise of mp3s and the 'skip' function in streaming once again began to reward shorter intros.