11:16 Don't Let Me Down

Don't Let Me Down, another addition to the collection of Lennon monosyllabic cries for help directed at Yoko Ono (see also I Want You, She's So Heavy) is curiously effective. It boasts a melody almost exclusively major pentatonic, a grand total of 40 words and 4 chords. The verse and the chorus share a two-chord progression (F#m – E, or ii – I) which is essentially the same as Lennon's Sun King. The ii - I progression is just about the smallest harmonic distance you can move, oddly appropriate for the man once dubbed “probably the laziest person in England”. It's a wonder that Lennon managed to shape anything compelling from this. But he does.

Some of it is superficial (from a songwriting perspective). Harrison's lead guitar is exemplary, mixing in Hendrix/Mayfield style fills, using the chinese-sounding pentatonic and use of fourths. On the bridge he doubles McCartney's bassline in a long syncopated riff that sounds too painstaking to be part of Lennon's original blueprint for the song. Billy Preston also shines, matching George fill for fill.

Lennon's lyrics are slightly dumb, indulging, as he does, in wilfully bad English “She done me, she done me good”, but the passion of the chorus carries the song. That emotion plays out over a wide vocal range from a low C# in the verse, right up to a high A in the bridge (it's LOVE THAT lasts), though revisiting the heights he scaled in Twist And Shout is slightly too much for the Lennon larynx here.

So what, compositionally, is to account for the freshness on display here?

Firstly, the melody is almost entirely pentatonic (except for the previously mentioned high A). The non western vibe is enhanced by the simple ascending (nobody ev...) then descending (...er loved me like she...) walk through the scale at the beginning of the verse. The lack of syncopation adds to the feel making it sound all the more appropriate for a love letter to an Asian woman. But lest we get overwhelmed exotic sounds, landing on the warm, familiar ii (F#m) makes the song instantly sound sultry and soulful.

Secondly, every section begins with an anacrusis - a vocal pick up before the first beat of the section (see Ticket 39). This songwriting tool is most often used by singers who are confident vocally so it's no surprise that the Beatles used it often, from the sublime “hey JUDE” to the ridiculous, “let me take you down cos I'm going TO”. Here we have 'Don't let me DOWN' on the chorus, 'nobody ever loved me like she DOES' on the verse and 'I'm in love for the FIRST' on the bridge. As if to emphasis this phrasing even further the band drops out completely before every single section (Ticket 30).

The most original trick though is the 5/4 bar at the beginning of every verse. We've noted time and again Lennon's habit of cutting out any beat surplus to requirements (Ticket 37). Here we have just the opposite. It seems John has too many words and notes to fit in, so he simply makes the band wait till he's finished. A more conventional mind would have edited the verse to

Nobody loved me like she does...
And from the first time that she done me...

But Lennon was never conventional, and why should he be? In this he's a successor to John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan and hundreds of other early 20th century blues and folk singers, for whom meter was far more fluid affair. I used the same technique, for the same reason, in my song The Soundcheck Song). Maybe you should too.

We'll call this 'ticket' The Lennon Extension (Ticket 52).

Next time we'll tackle I've Got A Feeling...

   

12:37 Old Brown Shoe

I SAID SHOE!...oh, never mind...

I'm going to deviate from my normal M.O. and post on a couple of songs at the same time. I'll continue with Something soon but let's pause to examine George Harrison's curious footwear.

It's interesting that Old Brown Shoe was recorded directly before Something as they're kind of peas in a pod. Both songs break all kinds of rules but one pulls it off in breathtaking fashion. And the other one is Old Brown Shoe.

It's too much of a good thing. There are numerous tickets to write on display here but they combine to make a really bad song. All the right ingredients but instead of a cake you get an inedible frisbee of death.

It's not difficult to say why this song is so bad. It's just difficult to say why Harrison does a lot of the same things wrong in Something and gets such great results.

But here's a couple of examples.

Putting a foot wrong

Staying off the root (Ticket 6) is a great way to increase some freshness and movement into tired chord progressions. But here we only get the root chord (C) for the first 4 bars of a 16 bar verse. We end on the Am (The Aeolian cadence - Ticket 10). The chord he uses as a root is itself an unsettled 7th chord. The root doesn't appear at all in the bridge (the only other section of the song). We also (as always) have multiple out of key chords (Ticket 28) but hanging on them for several bars at a time increases the tonal uncertainty. The melody makes things even worse by being based largely on the minor pentatonic instead of following the chords (Ticket 22).

So instead of starting somewhere unfamiliar and then heading for home She Loves You (intro) or heading out the front door then taking a quick detour Here Comes The Sun (bridge) we just wander around lost with a sharp stone in our old brown shoe for the full 3 minutes.

The most glaring weirdness in this song is the loping off beat drum part. Ringo was a genius (yes I did call Ringo a genius – deal with it) at coming up with fresh and inventive parts, with or without Paul's input. But Ringo was away filming The Magic Christian. So Paul stepped up. But messing around with the beat as he does means we have lost not only the root, we've lost the 'one' too (no pun intended).

Contrast this track with weird metre/syncopated songs by Led Zeppelin. The weirder the riff, the more likely you are to find John Bonham playing a solid AC/DC approved 4 to the bar (e.g. The Ocean, Kashmir, Black Dog). Paul's not entirely to blame though. No drum beat could have saved this song.

Lastly the lyrics are really poor. Harrison sometimes displayed a really cynical shoddiness when it came to lyrics and that's what we have here.

There are some interesting lines - right is only half of what's wrong, but I'm stepping out this old brown shoe? What does that mean? 'Out OF'? Has he moved in with the old woman who lived in a shoe? Or 'out IN'? What happened to his other shoe? And don't get me started on being in the queue for her sweet top lip. What's wrong with her bottom lip? Does she even have one?

The song is crammed full of lines that are not only vague, stupid or nonsensical but also really clunky and awkward sounding. The former is a minor infraction in pop music. The latter is unforgivable.

won't be the same now, when I'm with you
Not worry what they or you say
pick me up from where some try to drag me down
To miss that love is something I'd hate

This song hurts my feet.

The guitar solo is brilliant though...

Chapter 2.13 With The Beatles - This Boy

I guess one of the advantages of having your own blog is that you can be totally biased, irrational and just plain opinionated and you can get away with it. So I think This Boy is a great song, but I understand if you disagree!

It is a totally stock doo-wop song that ticks all the boxes of a very simple genre. So why do I like it?

Logic, harmony & a strong bridge

Lyrically the ‘This Boy/That Boy’ device is nice and (unusually for the Beatles) the internal logic of the lyrics actually holds up all the way through the song.

The three-part vocal harmony makes the chord progressions sound far clever than they really are. Often someone is singing a major 7th over a straight major or minor chord. Nice.

The bridge. For once rather than being the weak link in an otherwise good song (e.g. Do You Want To Know A Secret, P.S. I Love You) it’s absolutely the high point. The tune rises with each new chord creating a feeling of rising tension which finds it’s release with the band stopping and Lennon’s impassioned “cry – i – i – i” leading perfectly back into a subdued verse (a dynamic shift which they achieved via editing).

So that’s it. It’s a dumb little song but it moves me. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

And that wraps up chapter 2. Next we’re going to shake things up a little bit. Stay tuned.

Thank You Girl (for the) Misery

Two Lennon & McCartney songs that don’t really hold any interest for songwriters:

Misery was written on a tour bus with the intention of getting Helen Shapiro to record it. Unlikely fare for a singer know for the jaunty “walking back to happiness.”

It’s hard to believe that a ‘paint by numbers’ effort like Thank You, Girl was ever in the running to be a single. The only notable thing is the bridge’s recycling of the Please Please Me verse melody.

Ask Me Why

Ask Me Why is a B - side and album track. There’s some interesting chord stuff going on in this song.

The verse starts after a (2 beat pick up) on the iii chord (G#m) and the song itself also finishes there rather than the root (E).

Whereas many songs are based around the I, IV, V chords here the V (B) isn’t heard till the end of the verse & the IV (A) doesn’t make an appearance till 0:50 - about a third of the way through (the song is 2:28). What you do get is lots of non-diatonic chords III (G#7), I+ (Eaug), iv (Am), II (F#).

The chord change from vi (C#m) to iv (Am) to I (E) is particularly nice (0:18).

Melody wise, the best part is that the lead-in melody to the tag


“Ask me why, I’ll say I love you” 


is the same as the lead into the verse


“I love you, ‘cause you tell me things…”
 
but the verse drops to a ii (F#m) chord and the tag rise to a IV (A).This is a nice little example of the Beatle ‘same but different’ approach.Once again this contributes to the overall sense of catchiness of a song.

Sadly the tag’s brilliant left turn doesn’t lead us anywhere interesting, the lyrics are poor & the overall structure is very odd – not an entirely bad thing, but they just don’t pull it off. A bunch of good ideas, rather than a great song.

Tickets To Write

T6 - try staying off the root for a change (especially as the first chord).

or

T7  - Try not to use all three major chords (I, IV, V) early in the song.

T8 - use the minor iv – either after a vi (as they do here) or after a IV (as they do in other songs – I’m sure I’ll find some!!!) then go back “to where you once belonged” – The root (I) chord.

T9  -  this is a close relation to T4 (creating new parts in a song out of existing parts) only a micro scale. Try creating new bits of melody out of the tune you've already got.

1:2 P.S. I Love You

This song has a truly great verse, a very nice flowing melody, wistful in a ‘Danny Boy’ kind of way with good match of mood, music and lyrics.

Our first ever ‘Ticket to write’ (T1) is the verse ending. Rather than landing on the I or 'root' chord (D major) on P.S I Love You  they delay it by playing the bVI (Bb) rising to the bVII (C) before finally arriving at the I (D) a ballsy 2 bars later.

P.S. I love you (Bb)

you, you (C) you (D)

Though the song is in the key of D major both Bb and C are borrowed from the parallel minor scale (Dm).

The harmonising of the first word in each bar is also a nice touch.

So why isn’t this a great song?

The bridge.

They pull out all the stops totally re-harmonising it in the intro (nice touch) (Ticket 4) and adding gospel style vocal ad-libs in the second, but as far as the bridge goes, we’re polishing turds here. The tune is monotonous melodically and rhythmically, the chords progression a dull IV (G) I (D) and the lyrics…

In a song called PS I Love You,

he wants her to remember

(as he sends his love to her)

that he’ll always be in love with her.

When I say “Re” you say “Dundant.”