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.

Blessed Are The Prolific (pt. 2) - Write For Multiple Outlets

(Read part one here)

A second secret to the Lennon & McCartney’s prolific output was that The Beatles had lots of different avenues for their songs on something of a sliding scale of quality, starting with the songs they wrote for themselves.

Singles

Every three months, or so, they would try to write the next single. Their practice, unlike today, was not to write an album’s worth of material and then pick the best tracks for a second life as a single - the two were completely separate. It’s interesting to see the number of times a song in progress would be earmarked as a single before it was even finished. That seems remarkable in this day and age.

Albums

Second they wrote album tracks. Every 6 months they had to come up with a new album. Not that album songs were second rate material. Many tracks went on to be hits singles in the US or elsewhere, or when covered by other artists.

Ringo Songs

Third they wrote songs for Ringo (and George in the early days) to sing. These sometimes were the average songs (McCartney calls them work songs, more graft and craft than inspiration) but often they were specifically written (What Goes On, With A Little Help From My Friends). Ringo’s songs had to have a limited range and be possible to drum and sing at the same time.

Cover Songs

Fourth they wrote songs for other artists. Lots of em. Some were failed Beatles songs (Like Dreamers Do, That Means A Lot) many specially written (I Wanna Be Your Man & Come And Get It, for The Rolling Stones & Badfinger respectively). Some were good songs that didn’t fit the Beatles style.

Incredible as it now may seem Paul tried to give away Yesterday to Marianne Faithfull judging it a stylistic bridge too far for a ‘beat group’.

I Think We're Gonna Need A Bigger Box...

Which leads me to another unintended benefit of writing so broadly. The Beatles had the freedom to write anything they wanted knowing that if they came up with anything beyond the pale they could always give it to another recording artist (Catcall – Chris Barber). But when you spend time writing outside the box what you find is that your own box gets bigger.

If you could write for anyone who is totally out of your genre who would it be? Try writing the next single for Beyonce, Susan Boyle or Bonnie Raitt just for fun. You might find that it’s your biggest hit. 


Blessed are they who let the Beatles teach them how to write songs - read more Be-atletudes here

 

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.

The Band Who...Were Men Of Few Words

Talk about Primitive.

I thought Love Me Do was remarkable for only having 19 different words in the whole song.

I Wanna Be Your Man has only 18!

They are

I, me 

you, your 

love, lover

baby 

be 

can 

let 

like 

man 

no 

other 

tell 

that 

understand 

wanna

Other contenders are Magical Mystery Tour with 36 words, Don't Let Me Down with 40 and Little Child with a positively verbose 46. But the outright winner is I Want You (She's So Heavy) which has 13 (6 of which are in the title).

Calm down Shakespeare!

Chapter 2.5 With The Beatles - I Wanna Be Your Man, Little Child!

Continuing the more streamlined ‘get through all the songs before 2014’ style here’s the next instalment of chapter 2 of the Beatles catalogue. 

Two originals, that are very primitive in a Love Me Do kind of way.

I Wanna Be Your Man was apparently written in a matter of minutes for the Rolling Stones to cover. The Stones did record it, but the writing process had more impact than the song - seeing Lennon & McCartney in action was what inspired Jagger & Richards to give songwriting a shot themselves.
A week after giving the song to the Stones, Lennon & McCartney gave it to Ringo to sing on With The Beatles.

It ‘s an workman-like Bo Diddley style mixolydian blues. The IV/V (D/E) chord on the end of the verse chorus “I wanna be your maaa – aaan” is nice.

Also fresh outta the cave (man) is Little Child. Another harmonica sprinkled beat song with one of the few fade outs on an early Beatles track.

Both tracks are more groove than song, well done but not very substantial.