Ticket 76: The School Hymn Intro

Because all pop songs are modular - built from discrete sections like verses, choruses and bridges - it’s possible to create an intro from the end of a section which naturally proceeds your first section. For song starting with a chorus, the end of the pre-chorus can make a short and effective intro.

As used in Let It Be, Michelle and Merry Xmas Everybody (Slade).

One Minute Theory Lesson

In more traditional Anglican (Episcopalian) churches it’s standard practice for the organist to play the last few bars of a hymn’s verse (as most hymns are in AAA structure) as an introduction for the congregation. This practice carried over into other instances of community singing, like school assemblies and pub singalongs. Though somewhat overused this approach became commonplace because it was so effective, and the Beatles had no qualms about utilising it.

Beatles Application

Let It Be may be the closest thing to a secular hymn the Beatles ever wrote, so Paul was certainly justified in crafting an instrumental intro from the end of the verse as any organist worth his salt would. Unlike many hymns, Let It Be has a completely independent chorus but the last four bars of verse and chorus are practically identical [0:00, 0:32, 0:45].

Misery ends each verse with a refrain (“the world is treating me bad - misery”) which the Beatles sing in free time as an intro [0:02, 0:17] and they mine another end of verse on Another Girl [0:00, 0:21]. George’s songs got similar treatment twice in quick succession with intros being built from the verse-end guitar riffs of 1965’s If I Needed Someone [0:00, 0:19] and 1966’s I Want To Tell You [0:00, 0:32]. On the latter the band stretch the material, fading in on guitar then adding piano, drums and, finally, tambourine. The methodology is obvious when the band are harvesting instrumental hooks as they did here and in Michelle [0:00, 0:45] and In My Life [0:00, 0:46], but it’s easy to miss when they use such a tiny portion from the bridge of Hold Me Tight [0:00, 1:08] and You Won’t See Me’s chorus sounds very different shorn of vocals [0:00, 0:36]. This approach reaches it’s zenith with the intro of I Want to Hold Your Hand, which sounding like a specially written fanfare, when it is merely a vocal-less fragment of the bridge [0:00, 1:03].

Featured Guest Song: Wouldn't It Be Nice

The Beach Boys’ Wouldn't It Be Nice features one of the most intriguing intros in the history of pop. Two electric guitars one playing arpeggios, the second a counter melody both parts unremarkable save for being played very high up the neck. But after only three bars in the key of A major they immediately pivot, via a C major 6 chord, into the verse in the key of F major (0:06).

A | Bm7 | A | C6 | F ^[1]

Opening a pop song running under two and a half minutes with such a sudden and violent change of tonality seems inexplicable but for the whim of genius or madness. But a closer listen reveals these guitar parts are taken from the end of the bridge (1:22). The bridge introduces a fresh perspective via a key change into D major, a new groove and different instrumentation. It ends with F#m7 | Bm7 | F#m7 before using a suspiciously familiar C6 to pivot back to the key of F. The high guitar parts are right there, arpeggiating the upper part of the F#m7 chord - A C# E - but omitting the root which is handled by the bass and other instruments. In fact they’re playing right from the start of the bridge (1:23) over the Dmaj7 and Gmaj7 chords. So, from the vantage point of the bridge, we realise the intro was actually in D major all along. We assumed it was in A major because of the limited information provided by the A and Bm7 chords. Furthermore, the ‘A major’ is not just part of the F#m7 but the top of the Dmaj9 (D F# A C# E) that opens the section, just as the ‘Bm7’ is the top of Gmaj9 (G B D F# A).^[2] The major key of A and D differ by just one note - G# in the former, G natural in the latter. The intro has neither. So when we hear the notes that centres around an A major triad our brains assume that’s the key. It’s a splendid bit of misdirection.

Reader Application

• The first section of your song will almost certainly be the verse or the chorus. Go through your song and check which sections lead back to the first section (verses and choruses usually lead back to the verse. Pre-choruses, choruses and bridges usually lead back to the chorus, and if your song doesn’t have a pre-chorus the verse should too).
• Choose a section that naturally leads into your first section.
• Experiment with different lengths for your intro. Start with just the last two bars of the section, then four bars, then six or eight.
• Try the intro with and without vocals.
• If there’s a distinctive instrumental component or hook in the section consider using just that.

Extended Playlist

End of verse and/or chorus (with vocals)

1969 Let It Be - The Beatles [0:00, 0:32, 0:45]

End of verse (with vocals)

1963 Misery - The Beatles [0:02, 0:17]

1965 Another Girl - The Beatles [0:00, 0:21]

End of verse (without vocals)

1965 If I Needed Someone - The Beatles [0:00, 0:19]

1966 I Want To Tell You - The Beatles [0:00, 0:32]

1985 Between The Wars – Billy Bragg [0:00, 0:40]

End of chorus (with vocals)

1969 Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday - Stevie Wonder [0:00, 0:28]

End of chorus (without vocals)

1965 You Won’t See Me - The Beatles [0:00, 0:36]

1965 In My Life - The Beatles [0:00, 0:46]

1973 Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade [0:00, 0:49]

1993 Truganini - Midnight Oil [0:07, 2:02]

End of bridge (with vocals)

1963 Hold Me Tight - The Beatles [0:00, 1:08]

End of bridge (without vocals)

1963 Ask Me Why - The Beatles [0:00, 1:11]

1964 I Want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles [0:00, 1:03]

1965 Michelle - The Beatles [0:00, 0:45]

1966 Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys [0:00, 1:22]

1983 Let’s Dance - David Bowie [0:00, 1:21 single, 1:38 LP]

Further Study

Ticket 2: Put Your Song On A Diet

Ticket 4: Recycle Your Os

Ticket 53: Write A 'Jazz-Style Intro' Verse

Ticket 61: Introduce Your Song's Most Unique Feature Early

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(Writers: You may quote this article but please clearly credit me as author and include a link back to MattBlick.com or BeatlesSongwriting.com. If you are planning to quote a large portion please contact me first).

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[1] The aggregation of both guitar parts suggest an overall progression of A F#m | Bm D | A F#m | C6 | F .

[2] On the bonus track Wouldn’t It Be Nice - Instrumental Stereo Mix on the Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary Edition you can clearly hear both guitar parts playing over the Dmaj7 and Gmaj7 starting at 1:23 as well as a bum note at 1:27 uncorrected (though barely audible) in the final mix.

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10:38 Back In The USSR (pt 1) Weird Al McCartney

Back In The USSR was the reason Ringo quit the Beatles, the only track to feature all three remaining members on bass AND drums and a sort of multilayered parody, channeling both on Chuck Berry and the band that plagiarised him – the Beach Boys.

Parody In Arrangement

Taking his initial inspiration from the UK government ad campaign “I'm Backing Britain” McCartney developed a fictional 1st person narrative (Ticket 70) - a Russian singing about how cool life is in an oppressive communist regime set to a rip-roaring US-style track. An uncharacteristically edgy, but unique angle (see Ticket 42).

I wrote that as a kind of Beach Boys parody. And 'Back in the USA' was a Chuck Berry song, so it kinda took off from there

It's tongue in cheek...'Georgia's always on my mind', there's all sorts of little jokes in it...We added Beach Boys style harmonies

The Beach Boys elements (which Mike Love claims credit for) manifest in the bridge and the all-American vocab like “gee”. There is a nod to “Beach Boys style harmonies” but it's caricature rather than careful pastiche – a Mike Love approved bass part, a single high wordless descant and the main melody. No dense Wilson richness, though the Beatles were certainly capable of that).

Parody In Lyrical Structure

Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man, I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the USSR

Verse one is a really strong opening and sets the scene wonderfully with the positive feelings towards Russia being developed in the second verse (Gee it's good to be back home). But it's instructive to look at how McCartney developed the song in direct relation to the template Back In The USA. Because a great parody is not merely 'one song to the tune of another' poking fun at something, but in the hands of a true artist (like Weird Al) uses the lyrical shape and development to inform the lampoon (Ticket 71).

Back In The USA

Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today
We touched ground on an international runway
Jet propelled back home
From over the seas to the U.S.A.

Back In The USSR

Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man, I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the USSR

Notice how Paul copies the first verse by opening with the plane landing

We touched ground on an international runway/Flew in from Miami Beach

expressing his emotional state

I feel so good today/Man, I had a dreadful flight

and naming his home in the last line.

From over the seas to the U.S.A./I'm back in the USSR.

The bridge meanwhile emulates Berry's (place) name-checking

Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my mind

New York, Los Angeles, oh, how I yearned for you
Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge...
From the coast of California to the shores of Delaware Bay

This was something of a Berry trope as he also did it on Sweet Little Sixteen

They're really rockin' in Boston, in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Deep in the heart of Texas and round the 'Frisco Bay
All over St. Louis and down in New Orleans
All the cats wanna dance with Sweet Little Sixteen

which is the track which Brian Wilson 'rewrote' as Surfin' U.S.A.

You'd catch 'em surfin' at Del Mar, Ventura County line
Santa Cruz and Trestle, Australia's Narrabeen
All over Manhattan and down Doheny Way
Everybody's gone surfin' - Surfin' U.S.A.

Which brings us full circle!

Almost.

Ringo never played Back In The USSR with the Beatles, but he did perform it with these guys...

More on Weird Al's songwriting here and here
Lennon With Chuck Berry
McCartney quotes are mostly from Many Years From Now via Beatles Bible and Beatles Songwriting And Recording Database For more on the Berry/Beach Boys plagiarism see Wikipedia

Under The Influence: Brian Wilson

Lennon and McCartney are fantastic. They turn out so much good material. They're very melodic – they rely on melody and harmony rather than beat. They will simplify to it's skeletal form and arrangement where I would be impelled to make it more complex. Like Norwegian Wood, with it's one voice and a sitar. I would have orchestrated it – put in background voices – done a thousand thing. But the fact that the Beatles can do things with such simplicity is what makes them so good.

We recognised that the Beatles had cut Rubber Soul, and I really wasn't quite ready for it's unity – it felt like it all belonged together. [The American version of] Rubber Soul was like a folk album by the Beatles that somehow went together like no album ever made before, and I was very impressed. I had to go [into the studio] and experiment with sounds. I really felt challenged to do it – and I followed through with it [on Pet Sounds].

Brian Wilson in Charles L. Granata: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times (p. 71-2)

The Beach Boys covered I Should Have Known Better, Tell Me Why and You've Got To Hide Your Love Away on the 'Beach Boy's Party' album.

Why wasn't Brian Wilson as successful as Lennon & McCartney?
Read more Under the influence posts

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Why Wasn't Brian Wilson As Successful As Lennon and McCartney?

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No other band is more frequently mentioned as the Beatles songwriting equals as the Beach Boys (the Rolling Stones debate rages over who was edgier, cooler or more 'authentic'). Beatles Songwriting Academy focuses not just on how we can write great songs like the Beatles but how can we be great writers? One way to tackle that is to look at someone who had the biggest chance of matching their genius and yet sadly failed. Having just finished I Just Wasn't Made For These Times: Brian Wilson and the Making Of Pet Sounds. I present my findings here.

Similar and Different

Broadly speaking the Beach Boys were rawer and less well formed at the start of their recording career. Mike was 20, Al and Brian were 19, Dennis was 17 and Carl was under the legal limit for just about everything at 15. The band were signed just before the Beatles but unlike The Beatles, who had endured a punishing apprenticeship in performance in Hamburg and the North of England, they had no live experience whatsoever. Neither band had a massive amount of songwriting experience prior to being signed (despite the self generated hype that Lennon & McCartney had already written 100 songs). But from the outset The Beach Boys were more prolific, (releasing three albums per year to The Beatles two) but with less quality (the classic album Shut Down, Vol. 2 features two covers, one fake argument and a drum solo!) and more original tunes (The first two Beatles albums have six covers a piece).

However, where the Beatles were a totally self contained songwriting unit with three world class writers, from the earliest times Brian Wilson collaborated mostly with outside writers (usually lyricists). In fact the first album without outside help (other than a Christmas album) was Wild Honey, the band's 13th studio album. Even the legendary Pet Sounds album was co-written almost entirely with Tony Asher, an advertising copywriter with no songwriting experience. Previous collaborators included radio DJ, Roger Christian, which perhaps shows that Brian, like Lennon and McCartney, didn't hold lyrics in too high a regard.

One thing Brian and his English nemeses had in common was that they stopped touring prior to creating their groundbreaking work. In Brian's case the band continued to tour without him while he concentrated on writing and recording. Is touring the enemy of songwriting? (discuss).


Why wasn't he as successful?

However you compare the bands' early pop single/teen sensation form and however you rate Pet Smile vs. Sgt. Rubber Revolver it's beyond argument that Brian's explosive originality was cut short while The Beatles went from strength to strength and continued to release many quality songs well into their solo careers. Why did Brian crash and burn in such a spectacular fashion?

1) Without Equals

There's a phrase in Christianese 'unequally yoked' that borrows the imagery of a team of oxen plowing together. They have to be a similar size and strength or they won't be able to work together effectively without strain. Dennis Wilson himself admits “There wasn't one person in the group who could come close to Brian's talent” (p.13).

The Beatles were largely equals. 40 years on, try posting “Lennon (or McCartney, or Harrison) was the real songwriting genius in the Beatles” then sit back and watch the debate rage. But no one argues over who was the genius in the Beach Boys. (Here's a fun thing. Try typing "Mike Love is a ..." into google). Even as a band, George and Ringo were totally capable of fulfilling the vision of every song (not withstanding Paul's periodic descents into controlfreakery). In contrast Pet Sounds was almost completely a Wilson solo album. The Beach Boys played on one track, and sang on only 13 of the 36 minutes, much of it backing vocals. One of the stand out tracks, 'Caroline No' was even released as a Wilson solo single.

2) Lack Of Support

Being first among equals isn't a problem in itself. Think of the many visionaries who have thrived in bands and out of them. Springsteen, Waits, Sting, Dylan, Bjork, Van Morrison, Kate Bush. What destroyed Brian's usefulness was that those around him gave him little or no support when they failed to catch his vision but still considered themselves his equals.

On hearing Pet Sounds for the first time, band mate Al Jardine said “[We were] dismayed – and that would probably be an understatement” (p.166). Record label producer (and armchair psychotherapist?) Nik Venet said “I thought Brian was screwing up. He was no longer looking to make records, he was looking for attention from the business. He was trying to torment his father with songs his father couldn't relate to, and melody structures his father couldn't understand" (p. 186). Mike Love quotes Capitol Engineer Karl Engemann as saying “even though he like Pet Sounds a lot, he asked if we couldn't make more records like the old stuff” (p.186). The label as a whole showed a similar lack of vision when they killed the album's chances of charting higher by rush releasing Best Of The Beach Boys a mere two months after Pet Sounds.

Wilson biographer David Leaf sums Brian's predicament up pithily

“When you're on the edge, you need to know that if you jump, somebody will catch you. And sadly, despite all he had accomplished as an artist, he just didn't have that kind of support in his life”   (p.208).

Ringo many years after the Beatles split summed them up as “just four guys who loved each other”. Pre-acrimonious split they displayed such a unity of purpose that the Stones dubbed them a 'four-headed monster'. In Parlophone/EMI they had a label that wouldn't have dared to tell them what to release, so long as they released something. In George Martin they had a producer who recognised their talent and was prepared to let them experiment even if he didn't quite get it. And in Brian Epstein they had a manager who, for all his failings, genuinely loved them (and in more than a physical sense). This never seems to have been Brian Wilson's story. The Beach Boys manager was Brian's abusive father and failed songwriter Murry Wilson.

3) Unable To Cross Over

If Brian didn't get enough support from the band for his pioneering work, the American public seemed pretty clueless too. From the outset the Beatles managed to cross boundaries of age and class. Even before Lennon and McCartney really hit their groundbreaking stride highbrow music critics were fawning over their 'aeolian cadences'. McCartney won 11 Ivor Novello (songwriting) awards before he was 25. They were embraced by everyone from small children to the royal family, from the gutter press to the BBC and endlessly discussed by religious and psychological pundits. By contrast The Beach Boys seemed to be teen sensations, unable to grow up. In many of Wilson's songs (like Wouldn't It Be Nice) the singer is a kid looking forward to being an adult. When I'm Sixty Four has a similar point of view but with a much older head on it's shoulders. The Beatles started as street wise young adults and grew up quickly.

4) Poor Visuals

Beatles album covers were trend-setting and iconic, the B&W With The Beatles, The wonky Rubber Soul, Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper forever changed the way album covers were perceived. How many Beach Boys covers can you remember?

Mike Love says “[Paul McCartney] mentioned that we ought to take more care with our album covers. Paul was the mastermind behind the Sgt. Pepper album cover, which was detailed and brilliant. Ours...was a photo taken at the San Diego Zoo.” (p.183). And what are 'Pet Sounds'? Tony Asher says “I thought it was a goofy name for an album – I thought it trivialized what we had accomplished” (p.182).

The Beatles made music video an art form. Even within trainwrecks like Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour there are stone cold classics videos like the roof top performance and I Am The Walrus. If you've ever watched the promos contained on the Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary Edition you'll see excruciatingly amateurish home movies that make the average YouTube video seem like Spielberg.

5) Low Tolerance For Drugs

Brian couldn't take his drugs. Which is a big statement when you're contrasting him with someone who called a board meeting to announce he was Jesus Christ in the middle of an acid-induced meltdown. But where Lennon merely went on to making a lousy album with Yoko before leveling out, Wilson didn't bounce back. Ever. Once again, there was no one who was really there to support him.


So how can you maximize your potential as a songwriter? Get a good graphic designer and stay away from drugs...? That would help. But above all, a songwriter needs people around him/her who recognise and support their gift.

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