a beatles song in 3/4 ?
ermitano
I can only think of She's Leaving Home.
Well, there's snippets of music in 3/4 in songs like We Can Work It
Out and Strawberry Fields Forever or the waltz section in Being
For.. , but songs like I Me Mine ("a heavy waltz", according George)
or Baby's In Black are in 6/8 or maybe 12/8.
Well... Now I remember A Taste Of Honey, but, of course, that's a
cover.
paramucho
"Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", the song that was written just before
"She's Leaving Home", and which shares some melodic features, is
another along with "Long Long Long". Given the paucity of material we
probably shouldn't be that fussy about time signatures such as 6/8 or
12/8 and instead look for a real triple feel as against a duple feel
with triplets (e.g. "This Boy").
1964
"Baby's In Black"
1965
"You've Got To Hide Your Love Away"
"Norwegian Wood"
"We Can Work It Out" (bridge)
1966
"She Said, She Said" (bridge)
1967
"Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" (verse)
"She's Leaving Home"
"Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite" (instrumental)
("Magical Mystery Tour" (outro triplets))
1968
"Happiness Is A Warm Gun" ("I need a fix" section)
"Long Long Long"
1969
"Dig A Pony" (chorus at least)
"I Me Mine" (verse)
("Mean Mr Mustard" (one of the choruses))
"Dig It" (actually both 3/4 and 4/4)
"I Want You" (chorus, but very 12/8)
Ian
Marty
@news.tpg.com.au:
> 1968
> "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" ("I need a fix" section)
> "Long Long Long"
Not an official release until Anthology, but there is the quick change to
3/4 in "Not Guilty".
Marty
John Gutglueck
> On Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:18:55 -0700 (PDT), ermitano
>
Triple meter (whether simple or compound) is closely associated with
the ballad, and McCartney is supposed to have been the Beatles' great
balladeer, so it's remarkable that the list includes so few McCartney
compositions--even if we expand it to include songs with compound
triples such as Oh! Darling.
--
John
The Arranger
>
There's also the early version of "I'll Be Back," on the Anthology
discs. It had the same feeling as "Baby's in Black," and when they
went into 4/4 on a subsequent take, it had the feel of a racehorse
being let out of the gate.
The Arranger
ermitano
> On Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:18:55 -0700 (PDT), ermitano
>
> >Is there a Beatles song in 3/4 time signature?
>
> >I can only think of She's Leaving Home.
> >Well, there's snippets of music in 3/4 in songs like We Can Work It
> >Out and Strawberry Fields Forever or the waltz section in Being
> >For.. , but songs like I Me Mine ("a heavy waltz", according George)
> >or Baby's In Black are in 6/8 or maybe 12/8.
>
> >Well... Now I remember A Taste Of Honey, but, of course, that's a
> >cover.
>
> "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", the song that was written just before
> "She's Leaving Home", and which shares some melodic features, is
> another along with "Long Long Long". Given the paucity of material we
> probably shouldn't be that fussy about time signatures such as 6/8 or
> 12/8 and instead look for a real triple feel as against a duple feel
> with triplets (e.g. "This Boy").
>
> 1964
> "Baby's In Black"
sounds on /8 to me
>
> 1965
> "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away"
> "Norwegian Wood"
both /8
> "We Can Work It Out" (bridge)
>
> 1966
> "She Said, She Said" (bridge)
many changes of time signature
>
> 1967
> "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" (verse)
> "She's Leaving Home"
> "Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite" (instrumental)
that's right for me, all in 3/4
> ("Magical Mystery Tour" (outro triplets))
>
> 1968
> "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" ("I need a fix" section)
> "Long Long Long"
agree again
>
> 1969
> "Dig A Pony" (chorus at least)
> "I Me Mine" (verse)
sounds in /8
> ("Mean Mr Mustard" (one of the choruses))
agree
> "Dig It" (actually both 3/4 and 4/4)
very strange time signature..
> "I Want You" (chorus, but very 12/8)
>
> Ian
/8
in many songs in this list you can hear Ringo's drums played in a 6/8
or 12/8 feel, it's easy to hear the differences in those songs
comparing with A Taste Of Honey or Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite.
Well.. that's my opinion.
Dimitrios Paskoudniakis
"paramucho" <para...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:49e26193...@news.tpg.com.au...
Although not the released version, the Beatles did try a take of "I'll Be
Back" in 3/4.
paramucho
<recu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>There's also the early version of "I'll Be Back," on the Anthology
>discs. It had the same feeling as "Baby's in Black," and when they
>went into 4/4 on a subsequent take, it had the feel of a racehorse
>being let out of the gate.
The Anthology story seems to be that the song was written in 3/4 and
subsequently changed to 4/4 because they couldn't get it right.
However, listening to the take one gets the feeling that the song was
always in 4/4 and that someone had the bright idea of trying it out in
3/4 and that they stopped the take at around about the point where the
adaptation ran into problems.
Ian
The Arranger
> On Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:36:26 -0700 (PDT), The Arranger
>
Very well could be. The 'A' section just about works, but the bridges
are really sluggish.
The Arranger
The Nice Mean Man
> Is there aBeatlessong in3/4timesignature?
<snip>
we covered the same Goddamned subject 10 years ago. So SHUT IT.
paramucho
There's also the verse of "What's The New Mary Jane".
I sometimes think the unidentified piano waltz running through
"Revolution 9" is from a Beatle.
Ian
paramucho
<johngu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Triple meter (whether simple or compound) is closely associated with
>the ballad, and McCartney is supposed to have been the Beatles' great
>balladeer, so it's remarkable that the list includes so few McCartney
>compositions--even if we expand it to include songs with compound
>triples such as Oh! Darling.
"Junk" is another song which qualifies as a real waltz and I think it
was written in Paul's Beatle days and rejected by the other lads. A
Beatle had to think about what the other little Beatles would like or
not like.
An artist is also a product of his/her petty inhibitions. McCartney
might have had to actively supress his tendency to slip into good, old
fashioned Ella Fitzgerald swing. In the fifties the "waltz" was the
stuff of musical finales and Walt Disney. Perhaps McCartney actively
tried to avoid that mode. But we did get his fine "It's For You".
I'm not sure if the older characteristics of versification apply to
rock, but that's mostly because I know plenty of nothing about the
topic. I come across a lot on that subject when I'm studying
monophonic and some early polyphonic musics before, say, 1600. I tend
to skip the stuff on meters, accents, arsis/thesis and rhyhming
schemes, mostly because I've found, over time, that it has little
congruence to the musical material.
I had a "real poet" as a holiday house neighbor for a few years (at
the same spot on the coast where Mellers visited. I recall the poet
getting me to play him ABBEY ROAD when it came out so he could listen
to Lennon. Dylan he found to be flaccid, sluggish or torpid, I forget
the exact epitaph, but Lennon "was always intriguing", or something
like that.
It's probably because I spend more time studying Lennon than I do
McCartney that I see more connections from the former to former times.
Lennon's "Lucy In The Sky" has a good deal of the hemiola originally
attached to the sarabande/zarabanda. "Across The Universe" has
asymmetry between the musical and lyric phrasing (3*2 versus 2*3).
There are other links, but the rebooting of my Beatle memory banks is
not yet quite complete...
Ian
brilton
>
>
> It's probably because I spend more time studying Lennon than I do
> McCartney that I see more connections from the former to former times.
> Lennon's "Lucy In The Sky" has a good deal of the hemiola originally
> attached to the sarabande/zarabanda. "Across The Universe" has
> asymmetry between the musical and lyric phrasing (3*2 versus 2*3).
> There are other links, but the rebooting of my Beatle memory banks is
> not yet quite complete...
>
>
But do you seriously think though, Ian, that Lennon, were he alive
today, would read the above para(mucho)graph and relate to what you're
saying, let alone agree with it? the phrase "Aeolian cadences" comes to
mind (or "automatic piers").
And also, although I don't do "Hammond-speak" at all well, I take it to
mean with "Across The Universe" that you're talking about the odd number
of bars during the verses. I believe that these extra measures were
added during the recording process to give Lennon an opportunity to
breathe. Check out the earlier take on Anthology II, you can hear the
awkward way he's trying to fit all the words in and keep the regular
number of measures at the same time.
jason
"The Nice Mean Man" <hither...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:87cadbc6-19bc-4a8e...@o30g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
Please be nice, not mean.
paramucho
wrote:
>paramucho wrote:
>>
>> It's probably because I spend more time studying Lennon than I do
>> McCartney that I see more connections from the former to former times.
>> Lennon's "Lucy In The Sky" has a good deal of the hemiola originally
>> attached to the sarabande/zarabanda. "Across The Universe" has
>> asymmetry between the musical and lyric phrasing (3*2 versus 2*3).
>> There are other links, but the rebooting of my Beatle memory banks is
>> not yet quite complete...
>
>But do you seriously think though, Ian, that Lennon, were he alive
>today, would read the above para(mucho)graph and relate to what you're
>saying, let alone agree with it? the phrase "Aeolian cadences" comes to
>mind (or "automatic piers").
I wouldn't expect Lennon to read the technical descriptions of his
music, but that doesn't make my life meaningless.
>And also, although I don't do "Hammond-speak" at all well, I take it to
>mean with "Across The Universe" that you're talking about the odd number
>of bars during the verses. I believe that these extra measures were
>added during the recording process to give Lennon an opportunity to
>breathe. Check out the earlier take on Anthology II, you can hear the
>awkward way he's trying to fit all the words in and keep the regular
>number of measures at the same time.
I'm aware of the extra single beat breathing spaces introduced into
the first and fourth phrases as the recording session progressed. Most
other folk would have put in a 2/4 bar, but not our Johnny. But that's
not what I'm referring to.
I think Lennon began by writing three very long lines:
1. Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup
A. they slither while they pass they slip away across the universe
2. Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind
B. possessing and caressing me
3. Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
C. That call me on and on across the universe
In the next stage I think he wrote three more lines, duplicating the
structure above:
1. Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup
A. they slither while they pass they slip away across the universe
4. Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
A. they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
2. Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind
B. possessing and caressing me
5. Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open ears
B. exciting and inviting me
3. Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
C. That call me on and on across the universe
6. Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns
C. it calls me on and on across the universe
These new lines formed his second group of three lines:
4. Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
A. they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
5. Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open ears
B. exciting and inviting me
6. Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns
C. it calls me on and on across the universe
When it came time to work out the form of the material Lennon took his
two groups of three lines each treated them instead as three groups of
two lines each:
Verse 1
1. Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup
A. they slither while they pass they slip away across the universe
2. Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind
B. possessing and caressing me
Jai guru deva om....
Verse 2
3. Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
C. That call me on and on across the universe
4. Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
A. they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
Jai guru deva om...
Verse 3
5. Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open ears
B. exciting and inviting me
6. Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns
C. it calls me on and on across the universe
Jai guru deva om...
Thus, Lennon's lyric grouping is ABC ABC where the musical grouping is
AB CA BC. That's the asymmetry I referred to.
Ian
The Nice Mean Man
> "The Nice Mean Man" <hitherand...@aol.com> wrote in messagenews:87cadbc6-19bc-4a8e...@o30g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 11, 5:18 am, ermitano <umauas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Is there aBeatlessong in3/4timesignature?
>
> <snip>
>
> we covered the same Goddamned subject 10 years ago. So SHUT IT.
>
>
> Please be nice, not mean.
What do you think I'm TRYING to do....??
TNMM
ermitano
> On Apr 11, 5:18 am, ermitano <umauas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Is there aBeatlessong in3/4timesignature?
>
> <snip>
>
> we covered the same Goddamned subject 10 years ago. So SHUT IT.
>
sure you tried with yoko too
brilton
> On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 10:48:26 GMT, brilton <not...@notlirb.yacht.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>> paramucho wrote:
>>
>>> It's probably because I spend more time studying Lennon than I do
>>> McCartney that I see more connections from the former to former times.
>>> Lennon's "Lucy In The Sky" has a good deal of the hemiola originally
>>> attached to the sarabande/zarabanda. "Across The Universe" has
>>> asymmetry between the musical and lyric phrasing (3*2 versus 2*3).
>>> There are other links, but the rebooting of my Beatle memory banks is
>>> not yet quite complete...
>>>
>> But do you seriously think though, Ian, that Lennon, were he alive
>> today, would read the above para(mucho)graph and relate to what you're
>> saying, let alone agree with it? the phrase "Aeolian cadences" comes to
>> mind (or "automatic piers").
>>
>
> I wouldn't expect Lennon to read the technical descriptions of his
> music, but that doesn't make my life meaningless.
>
Are you implying somehow that micro-analysing his songs gives your life
meaning?