10:59 Cry Baby Cry (pt.3) Music

Having looked at the lyrics and the drama behind the song let's finish with the music. Cry Baby Cry has a beautiful natural sounding melody that sits easily on top of some pretty unconventional chords. That's something Lennon excelled at. Here his use of OoKCs (Ticket 28) is not as showy as I Am The Walrus, but just as effective.

Walrus Tears

To start with the chorus melody: Lennon uses the G major blues scale (G A Bb B D E) which means the overall tonality could be viewed as G major or G mixolydian (Ticket 51). The ambiguity comes from the lack of 4ths and 7th – there is no C or C#, F or F# in the melody (Ticket 40). There are lots of F naturals in the harmony which weights the overall tonality towards G mixolydian (G A B C D E F G) but whichever way you land there are out of key notes in both melody and harmony. The harmony favours C natural (in F major, Am and C7) but include C# as well (A7).

The verses makes a switch from G major to the relative minor (Em) and melodically the G major blues scale (G A Bb B D E) becomes the E minor blues scale (E G A Bb B D). Same notes, different starting point (or more accurately a different centre).

This switch to the RELATIVE key is common in songwriting - Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne) switches from a 'happy' A major chorus to a 'sad' F#m chorus. Arguably it's not even a real key change since you're only shuffling the notes around, rather than altering them.

But the Beatles much preferred changing between PARALLEL keys (like A major to A minor) which retains the same centre but alters three notes around it. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1:07-1:28) is a prime example. (Lennon and McCartney's neglect of relative key changes probably explains why it's only now getting it's own ticket. Say hello to Ticket 75!).

Switching between B natural and Bb adds a piquant bluesy flavour (Ticket 22) which can be heard in the C7 chord*, the lead guitar fill (1:17) and the way melody 'sighs' and 'cries' (0:32 and (0:37) from Bb to A to G. This 'madrigalism' (Ticket 49) is also reflected in the “playing piano” line (at 0:20 – 0:28).

The final kicker in the discombobulation stakes is the way Lennon ends his lead vocal on a very unresolved A over an Em chord. Most songs end on the root note and tonic chord which here would mean a G over a G major chord. But Lennon unexpectedly substitutes an Em chord (giving us the legendary Aeolian Cadence - Ticket 10). And A is the 2nd in the key of G major and the 4th in relation to the Em chord. So whichever way you slice it, very unstable and unfinished. And cool.

Contrast

The key change isn't solely responsible for the contrast between verse and chorus. The verse harmony is built on the 'line cliché' of E Eb D Db C B within the chords

Em - Em maj7 - Em7 - Em6 - C7 - G

while the chorus uses simpler chords with much more root movement.

G Am F G Em A7 F G

The verse melody is constructed from a repeated motif with a narrow range (E-B) over moving chords (Ticket 48) whereas the chorus is more expansive and free.

Mama's Little Baby Loves Short'ning

One of the ways Lennon generates tremendous forward momentum throughout the song (apart from omitting any intro, outro or solo) is by cutting out extraneous bars and beats (Ticket 37 – The Lennon Edit). The chorus is four bars long but the first chorus omits the last two beats and the last line of lyrics.

Similarly the verse are truncated. Any other writer would have hung on to G major for a fourth bar just to 'square things up' (0:19). But Lennon's in too much of a rush – so three bars it is. And then he outdoes himself the second time (0:20) cutting the three bar pattern down to two and a half. After all, the verse ends on G major and the chorus starts on G major so why play it twice? Let's edit the edit!

Lennon does it again in the double chorus finale (2:07). The chorus starts and ends G major. So he removes the beginning of the final chorus. Or is it the end of the penultimate one? Who cares! Snip!

By the way, about that verse. Repeating a chord progression is the most normal thing in the world. But the Beatles hardly ever did it. Interesting that...

Arrangement Hall Of Fame

The recording abounds with subtle, yet brilliant, arrangement ideas. Little painterly flourishes like the few seconds of flashy harmonium soloing from George Martin (0:05) never to be heard again, the organ (0:41), Harrison's lead guitar fills in verse three (1:17, 1:26), the piano bassline that brings out the spookiness of the verse progression (1:40). Along with other sonic touches like the gnarly phasing on the acoustic guitar (0:01) and recordings of birds (1:13) all betray crafting. And Ringo is the master craftsman, taking a different approach on every single verse. Check out the great bass/drums groove on verse two (0:39).

So that's Cry Baby Cry completely wrapped up. But there's still one more thing to look at with the track. Can you guess what it is?


*C7 is the bVI7 chord in the key of E minor – a very bluesified choice.

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10:16 Martha My Dear (pt.4) Time and Key Signatures

As is sometimes the case with Beatles songs before you can mine them for songwriting tips you have to ask such (seemingly) obvious questions as “what key is this really in?” and “where is the one?” We had this issue with She Came In Through The Bathroom Window. This time I'll try to keep it quick and painless.

What time signature?

Easy. 4/4.

Hold on there hoss!

Once we get going it's 4/4. But the first musical phrase has 13 beats in it (it ends with remember me). So how does that divide up? The Beatles Complete Score has 3/4 2/4 4/4 4/4. Pollack counts it double speed and calls it 2/4 followed by 4/4's.

I think The clearest way to decipher it is to feel where the strongest accents are and call those the 'one' of each bar. The most likely suspects are

5/4 4/4 4/4
Martha my dear, though I spend my
days in conversation,
please remember
me

Or 4/4 5/4 4/4*
Martha my dear, though I
spend my days in conversation,
please remember
me

For me the second option feels right**. We're dealing with one rogue extra beat and, listening to the vocal line, it's the word “conver-sa-tion” that feels stretched out compared with the rest of the melody. Sing “spend my days in conversation, please” with the same rhythm on "-sation" as you have on the rest of the line (8th notes/semiquavers) and it converts seamlessly into good old 4/4. So you could say that Paul is using the Lennon Extension (Ticket 52) - adding an extra beat where he needs it to fit something in.

What Key?

More often than not the first chord is the root chord - but not here. Unlike Yesterday, where the 'seven drop' (ticket 60) takes you out of key in the 3rd bar of the song but brings you straight home in bar 4, here we never really get home to Eb major, because that isn't home.

Where we should be hearing Ab we have A natural quite prominently in the melody till we land on the F major chord on the word 'please'. Mentally pause there. Feels like home? Sure does. The first half of the verse is in F major and the only out of key note is the Eb we mistook for the root note. But it gets weirder. We DO get the Ab we need now in abundance in the next 4 bars as the chords alternate between Bb7 and Ab. But when we get to the final 'Martha My Dear' of the verse we are sitting peacefully on a Bb7 chord and a Bb melody note. We don't feel the need to resolve back to Eb even though all the notes fit in that key. That's because we are now in the Bb mixolydian mode (the 5th mode of Eb major). Once again it's all about what note and chord we feel settled on. If your ear isn't being pulled towards some other chord you're already 'home'.

What about the bridges? Well not to disappear down a rabbit hole of analysis (if I haven't already) we're back in F major in bridge one (hold you head up). Lots of A natural, no Eb at all. In bridge two there's the introduction of B natural within the G9 which could suggest we're in (wait for it!) D dorian mode. But, to my ear, these are notes that are merely spice up the key rather than change it. Not just because this only lasts four bars before we end up back in F major but because Paul 'ignores' the chord and doesn't use Bb or B natural in the melody at those points (ticket 14) whereas the earlier A natural note appears in the melody, chords and bassline.

For me the final proof about the song being largely in F major and Bb mixolydian is that when Paul lands 'home' on Eb major (after “for each other silly girl”) what should sound like a final chord sounds like the announcement of a key change (in the same way as the final chord in both sections of Penny Lane (meanwhile back) leads you into a new key.

Practically Speaking...

So if you've hung in with me thus far (and if so you have my admiration!) is there a practical songwriting lesson here?

How about this. Paul is doing something very clever (though instinctive) with key, time signature and a contrapuntal style of writing that was unusual. And he hits you with everything within a few bars! Many artists subconsciously 'psyche themselves' to include unusual stuff by bringing it in gradually. Don't do it. Grab your listener with the cool stuff right out of the gate (Ticket 61). Whether that's the mellotron on Strawberry Fields Forever, the talk box on Living On A Prayer or the drumless weird time signatures of Everything In It's Right Place or Pyramid Song by Radiohead.

* You could look at this as 4/4 3/4 2/4 4/4 but as 5/4 bars can be grouped 3+2 or 2+3 you can just think of it as a 5/4 bar counted 12312 or 123-45.

**Update courtesy of Rob Stevens the clapping on the instrumental verse (1:20-1:38) would suggest Paul thought of it as 4/4 4/4 5/4. Now I'm all conflicted!

10:4 Julia (pt. 3) Melody

Last time we saw that Julia is a seething mass of non-diatonic chords. So it's surprising to see that, apart from the key change in the bridge, there is only one out of key note in the melody - the Bb that occurs on the Calls ME section of the verse. This song is a good example of ticket 14 - 'write an key melody over out of key chords' – which gives you the interest of unusual chord progressions while avoiding the complexity of an atonal melody.

So although we have an F# in the melody it never occurs at the same time as the F natural within the chord progression (as part of the Gm7 and G9 chords). It's the same for the C# and C, D# and D and B and Bb. The only point where the harmony alters the melody is the aforementioned Bb which is supported by the Bb within the Gm7 chord.

That same point in the song also contains a nice instance of contrary motion (ticket 12). The chords drop from G9 to Gm7 (B falling to Bb, and A falling to the already present F) but the melody rises from A to Bb.This combination of an out of key note, contrary motion, and interruption the 3 note rhythm makes this reoccurring phrase (calls me/touch me) really stand out.

The melody through out really has a sense of ebbing and flowing, perfect for a song with so much water imagery (we'll look at that in a future post).


Take Me To The Bridge


When we get to the bridge we have a true key change (like the bridge of I Want To Hold Your Hand or the chorus of Penny Lane) rather than remaining in the same key but using one or two out of key chords (like With A Little Help From My Friends). Here we head from D major to C#m minor and then C# phrygian.

The three scales involved in the song are as follows

D major – D E F# G A B C# D C#
minor – C# D# E F# G# A B C# C#
phrygian - C# D E F# G# A B C#

Bizarrely, the chord that establishes the C# phrygian tonality is D major. Why aren't we back in D major at this point? Because the melody is repeatedly using a G# note.

In fact the melody in the shimmering, glimmering part of the bridge has a distinctly japanese flavour, a subtle touch, appropriate for a love song to Yoko Ono. If we take D as the root note and select only the notes that actually appear in those 4 bars we get

D F# G# A B
R 3    #4  5  6

which is a lydian pentatonic scale but not the lydian pentatonic

Write Like Lennon

Creating a melody from chord tones is one of the simplest way to write. Just choose each melody note from the chord that supports it. So over a D major you could sing a D (the root), an F# (the third), or an A (the fifth). Extend the chord to a D9 and you could also pick the C (b7th) or E (9th). Many of Paul McCartney's melodies seem to function somewhat independently from the chord progression but John Lennon seemed to write from the chords, creating tension either by using chord movement to against monotonal melodies (the verses of I Am The Walrus and Help!) or by deliberate clashes between melody and harmony such as the repeated E sung over a Bm in Help's chorus or the I just had to laugh line in A Day In The Life where, instead of singing over a G chord as in the previous lines, Lennon introduces and F major chord which scrapes against the B natural in the melody to wonderful effect.

What has this got to do with Julia?

Lennon's melody as we've already seen is almost entirely chord tones. And yet it has none of the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star banality because his focus once again is on the chord progression rather than the melody. Once you have a chord progression this oddly compelling, almost any melody you can construct will be interesting.

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Can't get enough Beatles-style songs about mysterious women? Check out Sadie's Sister, my collaboration with Stuart Kidd – free to download here.

12:41 The Bridge of Something - Slight Return (Something pt.8)

Phew! Eight posts on one song! That's gotta be some kind of Beatles Songwriting Academy record. But this is the last post that I'm going to do on Something in it's own right. I promise. I mentioned way back when that the bridge might have originally been in the same key as the verse.

Wonder what that sounded like?

Roll the film!

Next up: A guest post - I know how you love those!

Lots of other posts on Something

   

Baby You Can Drive My Truck

No posts this week as I've been so busy doing gigs with students and posting series on how David Allen's GTD (Getting Things Done) personal management system can help you with songwriting. Oh and songwriting of course.

Here's something to get your heads round while I get my head round Something. Dominic Pedler, author of brilliant Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles (which I'll be trying to read in the half term holidays) penned a brilliant article on the truck drivers key change. Where is it? On a web site solely devoted to suddenly upward key changes. It's niche world out there.

One interesting observation is how sparingly the Beatles used it - four times in 186 songs. Whereas Whitney Houston seems to use at least one in every song she records... here's a sample

Penny Lane


The charge:
A blatant truck driver's modulation as the penultimate chorus in A major is repeated, verbatim, a whole step up, in the key of B.


The defence:
If you look at in isolation, then yes, your honour, guilty as charged. Look at the song as a whole, however, and you'll see that it is not a truck driver's shift at all, but an inspired twist which creates structural unity in one of Macca's finest compositions.


Up until this closing gambit, what we have is a chorus in a key a whole step below that of the verse. It's a brilliant twin-key scheme that serves famously to delineate McCartney's detailed observations in the verse key of B, with the euphoric sing-along celebrations in the chorus key of A...faced with the problem of how to end this type of structure Macca opts for a truck driver's shift into second gear – but notice that, ingeniously, his target is not some contrived new harmony, rather the tonic that originally started the song!


Read the rest of the article here