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.

Best Sites #2 Sites: Beatles Interviews Org

Here's another great site I'd recommend BeatlesInterview.Org AKA Beatles Ultimate Experience.

It's a kind of searchable database of Beatles interviews (and photos) helpfully cross referenced by year, film and most helpfully by album.

For example here's what they had to say about last weeks song Hold Me Tight


JOHN 1980: "That was Paul's. Maybe I stuck some bits in there... I really don't remember. It was a pretty poor song and I was never really interested in it either way."


PAUL 1988: "I can't remember much about that one. Certain songs were just 'work' songs... you haven't got much of a memory of them. That's one of them. You just knew you had a song that would work, a good melody. 'Hold Me Tight' never really had that much of an effect on me. It was a bit Shirelles."


PAUL circa-1994: "'Hold Me Tight' was a failed attempt at a single which then became acceptable album filler."

Read more

  

Chapter 2.11 With The Beatles - Hold Me Tight

Knowing that the Beatles made an abortive attempt at recording this song for Please Please Me, then tried again for With The Beatles, it’s no surprise the results are fairly uninspiring.

Did you catch the title?

The most interesting songwriting aspect is in the lyrics.

We get the title at the beginning and near the end of the verse. The echoing BVs drive it home even more strongly.

Lyrical bookending

We also get the kind of lyrical bookending (Ticket 24) that I’m noticing in more and more Lennon & McCartney songs (From Me To You, All My Loving, I Want To Hold your Hand)

Alone (in the bridge) echoes The lonely one (v1)
And in verse 2 Loving you echoes making love 

Subliminal repeats? Rhyming ideas? Does anyone know what this sort of thing is called?

That chord

The minor 4 chord crops up at the end of the verse in a very doo-wop progression

F F7 Bb Bbm F
(I, I7, IV, iv, I) 

which is exactly the same as the one in Devil In Her Heart. The repeated tune (hold, hold, me tight, me tight, tonight, tonight, tonight etc..) over the changing chords is effective.

Fail

Where the song falls down is on the end of the verse and bridge. It meanders; losing it’s way harmonically, lyrically, and melodically. The ritard ending sums it up - for all the driving rock n roll riffing the song just runs out of steam.

 

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.