Golden Ticket: The Rising 5th (Ticket 32)

Here at long last is a full discussion of the rising 5th ticket in downloadable podcast form!

or download here.

Here's a full list of all the songs used in the podcast

Minor 

James Bond Theme from Dr No – intro – Monty Norman
Savoy Truffle - chorus - The Beatles
Besame Mucho (cover) – verse - The Beatles (Velázquez/Skylar)
Secret Agent Man – intro - Johnny Rivers
Blackberry Way – verse – The Move
The Mission - 1st verse and solo – Queensryche
Brian Wilson (Album Version) – coda - Barenaked Ladies
Love Me And Leave Me – intro - The Seahorses
White America – intro - Eminem
Chains – intro/verse - k.s. Rhoads
Hey Bulldog – chorus - The Beatles
The Fool On The Hill – end of chorus - The Beatles
Cry Me A River – verse – Arthur Hamilton
Hangar 18 - intro and verse - Megadeth
Glass Onion - instrumental break - The Beatles
Better For Me If I'd Never Been Born -end of chorus – Matt Blick
Ain't Misbehavin – mid 8 - Fats Waller

Major

I'll Be On My Way - intro – The Beatles
Don't Ever Change (cover) – intro/bridge - The Beatles (Goffin/King)

Take Good Care Of My Baby (cover) - intro – The Beatles (Goffin/King)

From Me To You – bridge into verse – The Beatles
Ask Me Why – bridge - The Beatles
All Or Nothing At All – mid 8 – Altman/Lawrence
Raining In My Heart – verse - Buddy Holly
The Rain Song – instrumental break - Led Zeppelin
Isolation – intro/verse - Plastic Ono Band
(Just Like) Starting Over – intro – John Lennon
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive – Bing Crosby And The Andrews Sisters
Because – intro, verse - Dave Clark Five
Kind of a Drag – intro/chorus - The Buckinghams
It's a Laugh – chorus - Hall & Oates
Old Before I Die - end of verse – Robbie Williams
It's All Been Done – pre chorus/bridge - Barenaked Ladies
Maybe This Time (from Cabaret) – verse – Kander/Ebb

Major and Minor

Losing My Mind (from Follies) verse/bridge – Stephen Sondheim
Mis-Shapes – Pulp

thanks to Nancy Rost, Cliff Middleton, Thomas Spademan, John Argentiero, Rick Amorphis, Rod 'Downburst' Johnson & The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles by Dominic Pedler

More tickets to write and golden ticket posts

Other versions -
UK The Songwriting Secrets ... (Kindle)
USA The Songwriting Secrets ... (Hardback)
USA The Songwriting Secrets... (Kindle)

11:11 Dig It and Maggie Mae

I made the point that many of the songs in Abbey Road's Long One medley aren't songs at all but song fragments but Dig It takes that to the extreme. A 12 minute semi improvised jam over the most unoriginal chord sequence known to man, only 50 seconds was worth salvaging.

It's not a song, it's a mildly amusing outtake that belongs on something like Anthology.

The Beatles hadn't released a cover since Act Naturally in 1965 and Maggie Mae was to be the last. A traditional folk song about a Liverpool prostitute sung in exaggerated scouse accents (Mary McCartney had always taught Paul to 'talk posh' and Lennon was brought up in a fiercely middle class household) it had enough charm to be a great track – if only the band could have made it through an entire take.

Chapter 2.4 With the Beatles - I'll Get You The Covers

So in the new faster moving more streamlined ‘I want to get through all the songs before 2014’ style here’s the first overview of chapter 2 of the Beatles catalogue.

She Loves You 

is a classic, which I’ve already covered in great detail here.

B-side 

I’ll Get You

is an aimless song with no real spark at all. 

Update 29/06/10 - I do like the minor 5 chord (Ticket 44) on "it's not like me to pre - tend" and some of the melody flows really nicely, but it's all too fragmented... 

It’s also a strong contender for the top 10 worst Beatles lyrics (watch out for that post!).

Onto the 6 cover versions.

The Hot

Motown songs Money (That’s What I Want) and You Really Got A Hold On Me and Broadway show tune Till There Was You are all classics & though the first two may not yield much we can steal, songwriting wise, the latter is fascinating. It sounds like something McCartney could have written himself a few years later, all clever melodic cleverness and twee lyrics. Definitely one to pick over at a later date.

The Not

Chuck Berry’s was the Beatles most covered artist (after Elvis) but Roll Over Beethoven is pretty unremarkable, as is Please Mr Postman. Whereas Harrison’s soloing on Till There Was You sounds effortlessly classy, his cack handed attempt at the Roll Over Beethoven intro makes an average song cringeworthy.

Devil In Her Heart is a totally stock doo wop effort notable mainly for the occurrence of the 4, m4, 1 chord change that the Beatles used so often in their own songs.

Overall the Beatles are covering some better crafted songs than they tackled on Please Please Me.

Next time we’ll look at the original tunes.

Part Two: I Wanna Be Your Man, Little Child

Part Three: All My Loving, It Won't Be Long 

         

The Please Please Me Cover Versions

What stands out from the collection of covers on Please Please Me is how little motivation the Beatles got from their cotemporaries to be great writers. In 1962 Bacharach and the other tin Pan Alley/Brill Building composers were writing little more than standard doo-wop numbers like Baby, It’s You, Motown’s ‘golden period’(’64-’69) was still a few years off, Dylan was knocking out folk covers and Brian Wilson was just a three chord surf bum. Songs like Anna (Go To Him) and Chains give no inspiration to rise above the most basic level.

The other thing apparent is what a hard rocking live band they must have been. Boys and Twist And Shout have an energy and drive that is remarkable.

Ronald still hadn't plucked up the courage to tell Clay he wasn't a natural born Isley Brother...

The Isley Brothers' song Twist And Shout is probably the best known Beatle cover and rightly so. Tight as an Emo’s jeans, raw, raucous and recorded live in one take (as was Ringo's feature Boys). The song is notable also for the iconic ending, the ascending chromatic triplets finishing with a ringing D9 chord on the 3rd beat of the bar.

Tickets To Write

Ticket 18 - We've already noted the Beatles habit of finishing on a single ringing chord. The preceeding ascending (chromatic) triplets also appear elsewhere so I'm calling them Ticket 20. A cool end but taken all together such a well known Beatlesism that it might be hard for anyone else to get away with using it.

(And the ending IS a Beatles creation - the Isley Brothers' single fades out).

1:7 A Taste Of Honey

First, a word of explanation. If this is a supposed to be a blog about the Beatles as songwriters, why am I including cover versions? Our first cover version is a good example of why. Though A Taste Of Honey is the worst cover on Please Please Me, oddly enough it’s very significant in the development of Beatles songwriting. This cover of a Lenny Welch disc, originally a film title song, is an embarrassingly earnest folk-dirge. But it has three things that the Beatles later ‘borrowed’ for their songs.

It’s the first ‘officially released’ Beatles song with a time signature change (from 3/4 to 4/4).

It ends on the F# major chord (the ‘picardy’ third) even though the song is in F# minor (Dorian mode actually). This switch from minor to major crops up again in several Lennon/McCartney songs including I’ll Be Back.

Lastly the verse’s opening chord sequence which is spelled (taking the dorian tonality into account)

iim(F#m), iimM7(F#mM7), iim7(F#m7), V(B).

is exactly the same chord sequence found in Harrison’s ‘Something’ in the section starting

“I don’t want to lose her now.”

The reason this is such a memorable hook is that the chords contain a descending chromatic line

F# (in the F#m)

F natural (in F#mM7)

E (in F#m7)

and

D# (in B major).

F# to F to E to D#. No wonder it sounds so sssshhhmoove…..

McCartney also used a similar chromatic motion in Michelle though the chord progression is slightly different.

Tickets To Write

T15 Use a time signature change between sections (e.g. verse in ¾, chorus in 4/4).

T16 In a minor key song try finishing on the major chord as a surprise ending.

T17 Spice up your chords by putting in a chromatic counter melody within them. You could even try nicking this exact chord sequence. George Harrison got away with it!