What Goes Online (May 2017) - Everywhere Is Somewhere

Lennon: Penny Lane – the bank was there, and that was where the tram sheds were and people waiting and the inspector stood there, the fire engines were down there. It was just re-living childhood.
Rolling Stone: You really had a place where you grew up.

Lennon: Oh, yeah. Didn't you?
Rolling Stone: Well, Manhattan isn't Liverpool.

Lennon: Well, you could write about your local bus station.
Rolling Stone: In Manhattan?

Lennon: Sure, why not? Everywhere is somewhere.

John Lennon 1968 Rolling Stone interview

Podcasts

I've been enjoy a diverse bunch of Beatles audio recently

First and foremost the Fabcast guys talking to Mark Lewisohn about McCartney's collaboration with Elvis Costello was riveting. The style is a little strident in places, (think Howard Stern), but if you can get past those opinionated patches it's full of interesting stuff.

Beatles Anthology Revisited is like a greatly expanded audio version of the TV show. Apparently the whole thing runs to 28 hours - I'm still working through the Revolver episode. The downloads are hidden about halfway down this page and here's a Pitchfork article about the project.
(Thanks to John Morgan for the recommendation).

My search for outtakes and stems has turned up the now defunct Dave McPhillip's Podcast which you can still download from his podomatic page and reverb-drenched producer Anthony Robustelli has The Beatles Multi-track Meltdown a kind of radio show of board mixes and other oddities. Anthony also features artists like Steely Dan and David Bowie from time to time.

Books

I was fortunate to get my hands on a pre-release copy of Aaron Krerowicz's Beatlestudy Vol. 2 – a massive conCHORDdance – covering every single chord change in every single song in a myriad of ways. It's a mind-bending work of scholarship and it's out now. There's also a sister book on structures that looks just as crazily detailed. Info  - Buy in US  - Buy in UK.


Websites

The White Album Project looks like an interesting place to hang out. And Every Sound There Is - 'Guitar Stuff For Beatles Fans'? I'm in!


Posts

Aaron Krerowicz has a interesting article about harmony and Gary Ewer writes about making downward key changes (like Penny Lane) work


From Matt

I co-wrote a bizarre kid's song called A Little Spillage with the aptly named New Zealand lyricist Stephen Wordsmith which you can hear here and reposted the interview I did with the Creative Gibberish site here.


Parody/Tribute

Dan Amrich and Jude Kelley aka Palette-Swap Ninja have done something fairly extraordinary. Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans is basically the complete story of Star Wars Episode IV sung to the tune of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I don't mean the song, I mean the WHOLE ALBUM – in order. Kind of like watching Wizard Of Oz while listening to Dark Side Of The Moon except it makes complete sense even if you aren't stoned. Dan says “We’ve released song parodies before, but nothing this ambitious. Once we settled on merging A New Hope with Sgt. Pepper’s, we completely committed ourselves to turning these two sacred cows into the ultimate double cheeseburger.”

Watch the whole thing here or download the album here

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The Beatles At The London 2012 Olympics

In one form or another the Beatles made 8 appearances at the 2012 Olympics...

But here's one you may have missed...

And here's a nice little behind the scenes vid of Paul's performance

More Beatles related humour here 

10:3 Julia (pt.2) Chords

The more I study Beatles songs the more it seems that for John Lennon the centre of his songs are the chord progressions (or the way the melody fights against the chord progression) whereas McCartney's best melodies could sit happily over any number of chord progressions or none at all. I'll expand on this more next time but today let's look at Julia's chord progressions.

The first and fourth verses have an 8 bar structure

D Bm7 F#m F#m
D Bm7 F#m A

whereas all the other verses have 12 bars

D    Bm7  Am7  Am9
B7  B7     G9     Gm7
D    Bm7  F#m  A

only the first two bars and last four bars are identical.

Obviously having verse with totally different construction raises some questions about whether you can even call them both verses. I'll get into that when we look at structure.

When the verse moves into a different section (verse 4 or the bridge) we get 2 bars of D breathing space. This is essential as the verse is designed to loop back on itself. So when it doesn't we need extra time to finish singing the final 'Julia' (and breathe!).

The 10 bar bridge changes key first to C#m then, when the D arrives, C# phrygian mode.

C#m  C#m    D          D
Bm7  Bm6
F#m7 F#m6  F#mb6  F#m

The Bm6 helps to re-establish the original key (as does the F#m7 and F#mb6). In fact the F#m(b6) to F#m to D forms a quite effective weird little cadence.

Out Of Key

So looking at our progressions we have a multitude of out of key chords (ticket 28). There's the old Beatles favourite, the minor 4 (iv) - Gm7, and the much rarer minor 5 (v) - Am7 and Am9. That's tickets 8 & 44. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's the full list with the out-of-key notes they contain

Chord  Interval  Note

Am7      v7           c
Am9      v9           c
B7         VI7         d#
G9         IV9         f
Gm7      iv7          bb and f
C#m     VII          g#
Bm6      vi6          g#
F#m6    iii6          d#

If you do the math (alphabet?) you'll notice that in the course of the song Lennon uses all 12 notes!

The Lost Chord

As well as what's in there, what's missing is also interesting. The 3 chord trick I - IV - V is the mainstay of all pop writing yet Lennon doesn't play a straight G major (IV) anywhere in the song. He doesn't even use it's minor substitute Em (vi)! (Ticket 7).

We have an example of a 12 bar pattern that isn't a blues tune (Ticket 35) which is a lot harder to pull off than it might sound (Fool On The Hill is another nice example).

As well as classic Beatles chords we have classic progressions. The bridge ends with a pattern containing a descending chromatic line starting on the b7 of the scale (ticket 31)

b7 – 6  –  b6 – 5
e  –  d# –  d  – c#

placed within the F#m chord that line gives us

F#m7  F#m6  F#mb6  F#m

which is exactly the same progression that most famously occurred in Paul McCartney's song Eleanor Rigby.

Em7              Em6              Emb6                 Em
All the lonely people where do they all come from?

Lennon creates a little subconscious hook in the chord part by hinting at the F#m7 - F#m6 - F#mb6 - F#m pattern with the Bm7 to Bm6 progression that comes just before it. (Ticket 9 – use fragments of the existing melody/chord to create new parts)

A far stronger instrumental hook (ticket 3) is the way Lennon plays almost whole vocal melody on the top string. This may have either been because he created the vocal line by singing the guitar part or wanted to play what he was singing to support his vocals (it is a pretty odd melody).

Either process could be a good starting point for YOUR next song.

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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.

The Good, The Bad And The Educational Let It Be

The Good - I said Let It Be was basically a gospel hymn - back me up Carol Woods and Timothy Mitchum (from the Across the Universe film)

   

 The Bad - if Mother Mary looked like this, you'd never get back to sleep...

   

 And uber-parody pioneers Sesame Street

 

Loving The Beatles Is A Shared Experience

Here's a truly beautiful video from Why Music Matters. Be sure to check out their other videos on You Tube. The Phil Lynott one brought tears to my eyes...

Catch 22 Love Songs From Grant Woolard

This is really clever and it makes my head ache. You may like it.

Apparently the 22 songs Grant Woolard is singing all together are

In order of first appearance: 1) All You Need Is Love 2) Love Me Do 3) She Loves You 4) I Feel Fine 5) I Want To Hold Your Hand 6) Can't Buy Me Love 7) While My Guitar Gently Weeps 8) I Should Have Known Better 9) With a Little Help From My Friends 10) Lovely Rita 11) Eight Days a Week 12) Here, There and Everywhere 13) Yesterday 14) And I Love Her 15) For No One 16) All My Loving 17) From Me To You 18) I Will 19) This Boy 20) Across the Universe 21) P.S. I Love You 22) Girl

Beatles Novelty Fan Records

If you want any idea of how much of a media phenomenon the Beatles were, you could just look at the number of tribute records that appeared at the time. Here's two, All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle by English actress Dora Bryan and the second is the Phil Spector produced debut single Ringo I love You by Bonnie Jo Mason, better known as Cher.

 

Beatles Cover Story - May Contain Turkeys

The wonderful radio show/podcast Coverville celebrates Thanksgiving with a double length Beatles covers episode and wouldn't you know it the 7th one is up. I haven't had time to listen to it, but there's normally a good blend of weird, terrible and fantastic covers.

Download the snappily titled 7th annual thanksgiving double-shot Beatles cover story right now!

And if you've got another six hours to kill here's all the previous episodes.

No 6 - Shawn Colvin, Tyler Hilton, Tommy Emmanuel, Temptations and many more

No 5 - Souxie & the Banshees, Ozzy Osbourne, Nancy Sinatra and many more

No 4 - Jamie Cullen, Bernadette Peters & Johnny Cash & McCartney covering Harrison and many more

No 3 - Dar Williams, The Bees, Bela Fleck, Godhead and many more

No 2 - Paul Weller, Chemical Brothers, Da Vinci’s Notebook and many more

No 1 - Aimee Mann & Michael Penn, Vanessa Mae, Jeff Beck, John Entwhistle & Jools Holland and more

Harry And Paul As The Beatles

Back by popular demand - well I like 'em! More brilliantly observed comedy from Harry & Paul ("Your necktie's a little awry!").

George "Drugs make you go potty and start liking Indian things"

What If The Beatles Had Never Split Up!

Anything for the weekend Sir?
Yeah, I'll have a lawnmower please...

A classic comedy sketch from Harry Enfield & Paul Whitehouse.

Mike Gerber saw it first

You might also like this missing Let It Be song

12:5 Instant Lennon - Because (pt.5)

I’m finding lyrical parallels (T24) all over the Beatles catalogue but Because is the mother load. The whole song is based on just two such parallels.

Each and every verse is constructed like so...

Because the ____ is ____ it ____ (produces a particular feeling)

The Bridge

Love is ____ Love is ____ Love is ____ Love is ____

My turn

What about -

Because the milk is sour it makes me ill?
Because the bus is full it makes me late?
Love is fat, love is thin. Love is her, love is him?

It’s the Lennon random lyric generator!

Take it for a spin and share your efforts in the comments section!

Read more posts about Because here 

Another post? It Won't Be Long/All My Loving

Lennon on iPlayer

I don't know if it's any good, but you can watch Christopher 'Dr Who' Eccleston in the BBC biopic Lennon Naked AND a special 30 minute Lennon: Top Of The Pops compilation, but only in the UK and only until 30th July.

The Guardian called it "a brilliant performance, in a brilliant film"

Did you see it? Your verdict?

Coverville, George Harrison & the Legend of the Templeton Twins

There's an interesting podcast called Coverville that feature covers of famous songs by other famous (and not famous) bands. The episode on George Harrison (555) has a nice mix of Beatles and solo stuff (check out Show Of Hands doing If I Needed Someone) but nothing could have prepared me for the psuedo 1920's version of Something by (are you ready for this?) 

The Templeton Twins 

backed by Teddy Turner & his Bunsen Burners. 

What struck me (apart from the hilarious poker faced arrangement) was how easily the song translated into a jazz crooner vehicle with so little reharmonisation.

 But the plot thickens. The album Trill It Like It Was is long out of print (in fact I'm not sure it's ever appeared on CD) so I did a little research. It turns out The Twins are better known as Van Halen producer Ted Templeman!!!

Check out the podcast or find out more about the album.

Here's one other Beatles Templeton/man cover I managed to track down.

Rare Let It Be Deleted Scenes!

It's a common experience for songwriters to think that they're doing something original, only to find the Beatles got there first. I thought the subject matter I tackled in The Eglon Song was fairly unique. Turns out I was wrong, as this recently discovered Let It Be outtake proves...

Actually this is a clip from the Peter Serafinowicz Show.

Peter will be playing Paul McCartney in the remake of Yellow Submarine. [Update no he won't. The film has been shelved].