Blackbird With A Black Bird

Of course it's a Corvus brachyrhynchos rather than a Turdus merula but don't let that spoil it for you

 

Thanks to Jeffrey Burton on the BSA forum for the heads up

10:22 Happiness Is A Warm Gun (pt.1)

The Genesis and Structure of Lennon's Precursor to the Abbey Road Medley

This is probably John Lennon's most complex Beatles song, rivalled only by A Day In The Life and Strawberry Fields Forever, which are both complex for very different reasons.

Genesis

The original demo (recorded at George Harrison's house) has five sections one of which doesn't appear on the finished version. The White Album has four sections, two of which don't appear on the demo.

White Album                 Anthology 3 (Esher Demo)

She's Not A Girl             -
I Need A Fix                  I Need A Fix
-                                   Mother Superior
-                                   Yoko Ono Oh No
-                                   I Need A Fix
Mother Superior             Mother Superior
Happiness Is A...            -

The three distinct sections that make up the demo are all different songs that were pieced together (ticket 55). Though the weakest section was dropped (Yoko Ono, Oh No), two more sections were added between demo and studio sessions and were presumably written specifically for inclusion in this song. So there are four sections, but they're constructed from three separate 'parts'. With me so far?

In working this way Lennon was prefiguring the Abbey Road medley in his own miniature way, for, though he contributed fragments to 'The Long One', the latter was McCartney and Martin's baby and Lennon had little enthusiasm for it.

The song was fully formed by the time Lennon turned up at Abbey Road on Sep 23, 1968, which means the edits and revisions were mostly John's handiwork rather than a group effort (see below). But what the band undoubtedly contributed was nailing him down to specific time signatures and numbers of bars. Listen to the demo (above) to hear how (ahem) 'fluid' Lennon's timing is. Elastic doesn't begin to cover it. There are so many odd bars it's hard to know where beats have been removed (ticket 37) or added (ticket 52).

Though “95 takes” is often bandied about it actually took a mere 70 (!) to lay down the backing track (an edit of takes 53 and 65, probably spliced at 1:34). The remaining takes were spent overdubbing backing vocals, organ, piano, snare drum, tambourine, extra bass, barely audible tuba (!) and rerecording the lead vocals (you can hear a spill from a guide vocal at 2:21).

At the start of recording the title was Happiness Is A Warm Gun In Your Hand. It's unlikely that was the demo's title as that section hadn't been written yet!

Structure

Let's look at the song section by section.

Section 1: “She's not a girl who misses much”

John trims the fat (ticket 2) by having the intro consist of a single syllable “she's...”

What follows is the finger picking pattern John learned from Donovan in Rishikesh and used on Julia and Dear Prudence. Paul used it in a more primitive fashion on Blackbird. The guitar sounds heavy, almost slowed down in a similar way to the Rain backing track. The 2 chord pattern appears initially in the key of Em then switches to Am. The riff is in 4/4 albeit with a varying numbers of bars, and a single 2/4 bar appears during the words "donated to the...”

Lyrically this is, by far, longest section, there are no repeats and nothing in the 'first person'.

This section also features the work of one of the Beatles many uncredited co-writers (more on this here). Apple's publicist Derek Taylor* brainstormed lyrics on this section with Lennon and contributing the “lizard on a window pane” and “velvet hand” lines from personal recollections. Despite the bizarre stream of consciousness lyrics almost everything mentioned in this song has it 's basis in real life, or news reports. Donating what you've eaten “to the National Trust,” for example, is a euphemism for taking a dump outside.

Section 2: “I need a fix...”

Here we switch to 3/4 time and become modal. The centre is still A but the chord sequence (A7 - C - Am) veers between major and minor. The lyrics consist of two first person lines (one repeated). Lennon later (unconvincingly) denied “I need a fix cause I'm going down” referred to drugs.

Section 3: “Mother Superior jumped the gun...”

Here the chords (implied by the riffing) are Am C Am G. The time signature is either a 9/4 bar followed by a 10/4 bar (a clear Lennon extension – ticket 52) or a sequence of 6/8, 3/4 and 3/4 followed by 6/8, 3/4 and 4/4. Lyrically we have one line sung six times with melodic variations.

Section 4: “Happiness is a warm gun”


The chords switch from Am to the relative major key – C major. The progression is a stock doo wop pattern C, Am, F, G with an Fm (the m4 - ticket 8) preceding the false ending (ticket 47). The song boasts a second false ending as the track fades back in for a final drum hit.

Lennon took the title from a gun magazine, The American Rifleman, which he saw in Abbey Road studios.

Next time we'll get some tips for how to combine your random song fragments into a complete song, then take a closer look at all the rhythmic weirdness going on it this song, before concluding with what (if anything) ties together such a patchwork quilt of a song.

*Uncredited, he may have been, but he did get a namecheck in John's Give Peace A Chance

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper,
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna

10:2 Julia (pt.1) Introduction

Julia is another high watermark in John Lennon's songwriting with the Beatles. It is a masterclass in matching the mood of the music with the lyrical message and terrific example of how to write compelling, beguiling song even though you're breaking all the rules.

John wears a coat in India, Donovan hogs the guitar, Mike Love prepares to explore the Amazon

Written in Rishikesh, India it was recorded 3 days before the final mixing sessions of White Album. An entirely solo Lennon performance (with McCartney coaching him from the control room) it took a mere 3 takes to get the basic track down.

John used the same fingerpicking pattern throughout that he employed on Dear Prudence and the intro of Happiness Is A Warm Gun and which Paul used for Blackbird (though Paul's version is more of a sloppy half-strum). Both Beatles had recently learned this pattern in India from Donovan and/or Gypsy Dave. It's impressive to note that even at this late stage of their career they were still learning and incorporating new concepts into their compositions.

Donovan gives John a guitar lesson?

The track is ethereal and weirdly catatonic. The opening monotonal melody, the never changing picking pattern and the oddly stretched-out first syllable in the title all contribute. But beginning and ending each verse with the word Julia, starting on high A and finishing by descending to the lower D, always falling and appearing at the top again, always overlapping with itself like endless ocean waves is a crucial component in establishing the hypnotic, dreamlike mood.

The lyrics also play their part, effectively conveying the unreachableness of would-be mistress Yoko (John was with his wife in India) and his deceased mother Julia.

'Julia' is calling, but never touches him, her smile is as intangible as the wind (though 'windy smile' also conjures up a baby that needs burping!). She is 'sleeping sand' and a 'silent cloud', her smile and her eyes are calling him rather than any particular spoken message. She is always distant - most of the song is sung about her, rather than sung 'to' her. In contrast the singer can't stop 'speaking his mind', 'singing a song of love' even if 'half of what he says is meaningless'.

There is much more to this song than can be packed into a single post but here's some of the key points I'll be hitting in future posts. Get listening to Julia and see if you can spot where I'm heading.

• Consistency of lyrical imagery
• Out of key chords and their relationship to the melody
• Creative ways to compensate for lack of rhymes
• Using jazz song structures in folk/pop music
• A favourite Beatles chord progression (borrowed from Eleanor Rigby?)

The Minor 4 Chord (pt.2)

From the 4 (IV) to the minor 4 (iv)

Last time we had an introduction to the minor 4 chord (iv), now lets take a look at where the Beatles use it in their own songs. First a couple in the key of A


In My Life – verse I, V, IV, iv, I

There are A places E I remember all my D life Dm though A some have changed


You Won’t See Me – verse I, I7, IV, iv, I

A we have A7 lost the D time that Dm was hard to A find


I Call Your Name is in the key of E and the end of the verse goes II, IV, iv, I

I never F#7 weep at night A I Am call your name E7


When I’m Sixty Four is in C – verse I, I7, IV, iv, I,

C If I ‘d been out till quarter to three C7 would you lock the F door
Will you still Fm need me C will you still…

(Though they sound nothing like each other the sequence in When I'm Sixty Four is exactly the same as You Won’t See Me)


Hello Goodbye is also in C – Chorus IV, iv, I

I don’t know F why you say good - Fm/Ab – bye I say hel—C – lo

(Notice the iv here is in the first inversion, with the Ab in the bass rather than the F. It’s still the minor 4 though).


Lastly Blackbird is in G – verse IV, iv, I

All you C life Cm G/B you were only waiting for this moment


(Almost all McCartney songs! Hmmm….)

There are a few other songs that hint at this change – the chord pops up in Dear Prudence’s main guitar pattern, as a passing chord in Her Majesty (thought it may be a mistake) and on the ‘unreleased’ What’s The New Mary Jane?

They used it. So can You!

This progression has cropped up a lot post-Beatles too. Oasis used it (surprised? – me neither) in Don’t Look Back In Anger

F so I start a revo Fm lution in my C head
Cos you F said the brains I Fm had went to my C head


And Green Day’s - Wake Me Up When September Ends is another example.

C wake me up Cm when September G ends


Next time we’ll look at songs where the Beatles use the minor 4 (iv) alongside the minor 6 (vi).

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 

Join the mailing list to get the free, exclusive, Beatles Songwriting Academy podcast!

70+ Songwriting Tips From The Beatles
The Be-Atletudes
About Beatles Songwriting Academy
Music by Matt Blick