11:13 Part Two Of Us

Last time we had a quick overview of the lyrics arrangement but the main interest in Two Of Us is the odd things happening to the rhythm and meter.

Firstly the verse melody has an interesting shape. Melodies often have structure that repeats at the beginning - AAB (Can't Buy Me Love – verse) or ever other part ABAB (the verses of Help, We Can Work It Out) or ABAC (verse Here Comes The Sun). But Two Of Us melody repeats in the middle, and then adds an extra part on the end the second time around.

ABBC
ABBCD

A Two of us
B riding nowhere
B spending someone's
C hard earned pay

A You and me
B sunday driving
B not arriving
C on our way
D back home

This gives the song a catchy stuck record/hiccup feel.

We get more repetition in the chorus melody with an AAB structure

A We're on our way home
A We're on our way home
B We're going home

Chords

Interesting as that is, the chords are where it's all happening for me.

We have a verse in G and (mostly) 4/4 but the chorus is (mostly) 3 / 4 and the bridge returns to 4/4 but is (mostly) in Bb major. So that's a time change (Ticket 15) AND a key change (Ticket 45) between section.

More than just simple time changes though, the verse and chorus time signatures keep switching in a way I've come to call the 'Lennon edit' (Ticket 37) where you basically cut any extra beat or bar that has no vocals (the end of every line of verse on All You Need Is Love is the prime example). I'm not saying there was originally something there that was cut, simply that Lennon often was impatient to get to the next line and had no desire to wait for the next 'correct' moment.

So in the verse we have

(4/4) G, G, (2/4) G, (4/4) C C/B, Am7
(4/4) G, G, (2/4) G, (4/4) C C/B, Am7, G

and the chorus is

(3/4) G, D, G, D, G, (2/4) C (4/4) G 

After quite a boring transition where everything stops, leaving the drums to build up on their own, we slam into the new key. The bridge then goes from Bb major (Bb Dm Gm) to C major (Am) back to G major (via the D major chord that acts as a V chord). You could argue that the key of C major is really A minor, but as both the chord and melody at “farther than the” repeat almost exactly a tone higher for “road that stretches” it sounds like the key is rising.

Two minor but cool points of interest are the chords following the words

(C) on (C/B) our (Am7) way back (G) home

which is ticket 36 and the stop to emphasis the key word 'home' at the end of the chorus (Ticket 30).

Next time we'll untangle the mystery of the Get Back track.

    

11:12 Two of Us

Two of Us was still called On Our Way Home when it was recorded which, though it may not be a better title, is in a more prominent place melody-wise. The song seems like a return to the early Beatles style with dual-lead vocal and all acoustic guitars. There's a 3 note guitar intro that's very hooky (Ticket 3) coupled with a false ending (Ticket 47) and even a whistling coda. The song motors along nicely, though it does slow down over the duration.

McCartney demonstrate his trademark lyrical vagueness in this song. Are the 'two of us' Lennon and McCartney or Paul and Linda? Most likely a mutated combination of both.

Technically the lyrics run the gamut of good, bad and ugly. The internal rhyme of hard earned pay/on our way back home is clever and moves the song along. The mildly nonsensical sending postcards / writing letters on my wall could be a play on words (letters of the alphabet vs written epistles) but two of us...standing solo? And just like The Long And Winding Road, Paul sets up a rhyme scheme only to abandon it when the going gets tough.

pay-way/driving-arriving
wall-way/matches-latches
sun-way/paper-nowhere (with bonus 'nearly rhyme' raincoats-solo)

The real songwriting gold though, is in the odd time changes coupled with the melodic cells and we'll look at those next time.

    

The Best Of Let It Be pt.6 (Two Of Us, Dig A Pony)

Two of Us 

LIB – A studio recording made the day after the famous rooftop gig.

LIBN - A light remix of the original version. The vocals are clearer and vocals sit better together.

A3 - A really rough rehearsal recorded on 24 January 1969 at Apple Studios, notable only for McCartney saying "take it Phil!" a reference to Phil Everly whose vocal harmony style Lennon and McCartney are emulating.


Not much in it – but better vocal sound means another win for the remixers.

Dig a Pony

LIB – The version from the rooftop concert on 30 January 1969 featuring Billy Preston. There's a false start, Lennon Ringo blows his nose and the song concludes with light applause and Lennon complaining about his hands being cold. The song's intro and outro was removed by Spector because “The tuning [presumably Lennon's vocals] is particularly bad in the beginning.”

LIBN - A light remix of the original version. The false start and closing dialogue are cut and the intro/outro are not replaced. The piano is a little more audible.

A3 - Another lackluster run through recorded on 22 January 1969 at Apple Studios. It seem like Ringo hasn't settled on a part, the tempo is slower, the bass is too loud and there's no organ. The original intro removed from both LIB albums is heard here.

The two LIB version are hardly distinguishable – but I'll take Billy Preston playing piano over John Lennon Ringo Starr unpacking his trunk.

Best Version

Two Of Us - LIBN
Dig A Pony - LIBN

  

Laibach To Where You Once Belonged

Here's an industrial Eastern European spin on a soppy acoustic love song. It's the scariest McCartney song since Ebony & Ivory. Macca never sounded so threatening. Love it or hate it? (I like!)

The band is Laibach [ˈlaɪbax] "a Slovenian avant-garde music group strongly associated with industrial, martial, and neo-classical musical styles". So now you know!