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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10:37 Dear Prudence (pt.2) Sunny Scales And Scary Chords

Like most Beatles songs, Prudence keeps wandering out of key but generally you'd expect this sunny track would be major. Arguably, it's in the mixolydian mode (Ticket 51).

D major contains D E F# G A B C # and D, so you'd expect to hear D G and A major chords.
D mixolydian contains D E F# G A B C natural, and D, so you'd expect to hear D G and C major chords.

The C and A chords both appear in the song but the A is a lot less prominent. C is all over the 4 verses, both as D/C and C major but A only turns up in the bridge (D G/D A/D G/D) and the intro/outro (D6 C6/D D C/D G/D A/D C/D) where it's outnumbered by C.

The melody avoids picking sides by not using C, C# or G (Ticket 14) creating an 'in key' melody over out of key chords (Ticket 40).

Chords

But freshening things up with D mixolydian isn't enough for Lennon, who uses the chord progressions to spices things up by adding F major and Ab major (in the brilliant spooky end to the bridge at 2:01) to the A major/D and D major/Bb.

Let's pause there.

D major. Over. Bb.

Take a moment to play that sucker. It's NAYSTY! Bb D F# A. Then add Lennon singing an E during that chord (DEAR prudence). Oh the humanity! How can such a cluster from hell (D E F# over a Bb bass) work outside of a horror film soundtrack?

The Beatles rarely kept their chord progressions in key and Lennon was great at singing non-chord tones and making them work (the chorus of Help is a personal favourite) but here you have both. How did it work and stay so sweetly melodic?

First, the chords appear as arpeggios rather than strummed 'block chords' which softens the dissonance. Second the dissonance (Bb) occurs as part of a logical moving line (D C B Bb) as opposed to being suddenly hit over the head with a cluster. Similarly, the non-chord tone in the melody (E) drops to the root (D) and then the 5th (A) going from outside to solidly inside (Dear Pru-dence).

Another unconventional thing about the verse is how the bass ditches the R b7 6 b6 progression (D C b Bb) after the first go and replaces it with A C B Bb. Who came up with that? The first note in Lennon's guitar part is the open A string followed by 'both' D strings. So maybe Paul was just following the guitar (for once). But Paul also made exactly the same substitution on Lennon's Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds which has no similar guitar line. Maybe they're both geniuses.

Finally

Structure wise we're looking at an old school AABA (Ticket 26) with an intro and a first verse repeat (Ticket 67)

i A1 A2 B A3 A1 i

there's a nice contrast between the A and B sections (Ticket 5). A has a descending chord pattern and B ascends. Speaking of contrasts the final verse ends with some contrary motion (Ticket 12) with the lead guitar heading heavenwards (the sun is up) as the chords keep moving down. And preceding that is a lovely guitar counter melody.

The verse is full of clever development. Uncharacteristically we have two different melodic ideas (dear prudence and the sun is up) over the same chord sequence. The latter part is an example of static melody over moving chords (Ticket 48).

And I'm sure that piano is sped up.

Ticket 51: Use The Mixolydian Mode

The Mixolydian mode is a major scale with a b7th. In the key of A

A B C# D E F# G

Chords

Amaj Bm C#dim* Dmaj Em F#m G maj

A 'happy' scale but not as saccharine as the major scale (Ionian mode). The relative freshness of the scale often frees up songwriters to use just two or three chords to make their point.

*In practice the C#dim is often replaced by A/C#

Paperback Writer
Rain
She Said She Said
The Inner Light
Tomorrow Never Knows
Within You Without You

also

All Right Now (Free)
Best Of Both Worlds (Van Halen)
Celebration - Verse (Kool And The Gang)
Ever So Lonely (Monsoon)
Highway To Hell (AC/DC)
In The Light – intro (Led Zeppelin)
Summer Song (Joe Satriani)
Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

And much Indian and Country Rock music.

See also

Ticket 28: Use At Least One Out Of Key Chord
Ticket 40: Don't Use All Seven Notes Of The Scale
Ticket 63: Write With The 'Other' Scale
Ticket 68: Use the R b7 6 b6 Progression

See the full list of songwriting tips here - Tickets To Write

Ticket 63: Write With The 'Other' Scale

There's a very good chance that as a songwriter you favour either the major or minor scale in your writing. If you play punk, praise and worship or country it's probably major. If you play any form of metal it's probably minor. So this ticket is simple. Write a song in the 'other' scale.

The Beatles preferred major keys, but here's some of their minor songs

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite
Don't Bother Me
Eleanor Rigby
Glass Onion
I Me Mine
I'll Be Back
I Want You (She's So Heavy)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps

See also

Ticket 7: Avoid Using All Three Major Chords Early In The Song
Ticket 10: The Aeolian Cadence
Ticket 16: The Picardy Third
Ticket 40: Don't Use All Seven Notes Of The Scale
Ticket 45: Change Keys Between Sections
Ticket 46: False Picardy
Ticket 51: Use The Mixolydian Mode

See the full list of songwriting tips here - Tickets To Write

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.

11:16 Don't Let Me Down

Don't Let Me Down, another addition to the collection of Lennon monosyllabic cries for help directed at Yoko Ono (see also I Want You, She's So Heavy) is curiously effective. It boasts a melody almost exclusively major pentatonic, a grand total of 40 words and 4 chords. The verse and the chorus share a two-chord progression (F#m – E, or ii – I) which is essentially the same as Lennon's Sun King. The ii - I progression is just about the smallest harmonic distance you can move, oddly appropriate for the man once dubbed “probably the laziest person in England”. It's a wonder that Lennon managed to shape anything compelling from this. But he does.

Some of it is superficial (from a songwriting perspective). Harrison's lead guitar is exemplary, mixing in Hendrix/Mayfield style fills, using the chinese-sounding pentatonic and use of fourths. On the bridge he doubles McCartney's bassline in a long syncopated riff that sounds too painstaking to be part of Lennon's original blueprint for the song. Billy Preston also shines, matching George fill for fill.

Lennon's lyrics are slightly dumb, indulging, as he does, in wilfully bad English “She done me, she done me good”, but the passion of the chorus carries the song. That emotion plays out over a wide vocal range from a low C# in the verse, right up to a high A in the bridge (it's LOVE THAT lasts), though revisiting the heights he scaled in Twist And Shout is slightly too much for the Lennon larynx here.

So what, compositionally, is to account for the freshness on display here?

Firstly, the melody is almost entirely pentatonic (except for the previously mentioned high A). The non western vibe is enhanced by the simple ascending (nobody ev...) then descending (...er loved me like she...) walk through the scale at the beginning of the verse. The lack of syncopation adds to the feel making it sound all the more appropriate for a love letter to an Asian woman. But lest we get overwhelmed exotic sounds, landing on the warm, familiar ii (F#m) makes the song instantly sound sultry and soulful.

Secondly, every section begins with an anacrusis - a vocal pick up before the first beat of the section (see Ticket 39). This songwriting tool is most often used by singers who are confident vocally so it's no surprise that the Beatles used it often, from the sublime “hey JUDE” to the ridiculous, “let me take you down cos I'm going TO”. Here we have 'Don't let me DOWN' on the chorus, 'nobody ever loved me like she DOES' on the verse and 'I'm in love for the FIRST' on the bridge. As if to emphasis this phrasing even further the band drops out completely before every single section (Ticket 30).

The most original trick though is the 5/4 bar at the beginning of every verse. We've noted time and again Lennon's habit of cutting out any beat surplus to requirements (Ticket 37). Here we have just the opposite. It seems John has too many words and notes to fit in, so he simply makes the band wait till he's finished. A more conventional mind would have edited the verse to

Nobody loved me like she does...
And from the first time that she done me...

But Lennon was never conventional, and why should he be? In this he's a successor to John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan and hundreds of other early 20th century blues and folk singers, for whom meter was far more fluid affair. I used the same technique, for the same reason, in my song The Soundcheck Song). Maybe you should too.

We'll call this 'ticket' The Lennon Extension (Ticket 52).

Next time we'll tackle I've Got A Feeling...