Table Of ContentTHE BEATLES AS MUSICIAN
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THE BEATLES
AS MUSICIANS
Revolver through the Anthology
WALTER EVERETT
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
1999
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Everett, Walter, 1954-
The Beatles as musicians : Revolver through
the Anthology / Walter Everett.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-509553-7; 0-19-512941-5 (pbk.)
1. Beatles. 2. Rock music—1961-1970—Analysis, appreciation.
I. Title.
MT146.E94 1999
782.42166'092'2 — dc21 98-23704
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Barbara, John, and Tim
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PREFACE
Poetry and Music
The Beatles' lyrics have been discussed for better than thirty years. We know
that it need not be a stream-of-consciousness lexicon from Lennon or a detailed
character study from McCartney to be a Beatles composition rich in singular
words and meanings; each of more than 750 different word roots is heard in
only a single Beatles song. For example, the knowledgeable Beatles listener will
know in which particular song each of these words appears: "sympathize,"
"cows," "scarlet," "butterflies," "opaque," "lemonade," "darning," "poppies,"
"fuse," "turnstile," "handkerchief," "hogshead," "illusion," "bootlace," "snow-
peaked," "velvet," "glimmering," "disease," "limousine," and "bellyfull."1 Simi-
larly, we know that the rich vocabulary expresses a wide variety of themes in a
multitude of poetic styles and systems.
The Beatles' accompanying music has not enjoyed the same amount of at-
tention, even though it is as rich as their lyrics. Their melodic shapes, contra-
puntal relationships, harmonic functions, rhythmic articulations, formal de-
signs, colors, and textures draw from many different tonal languages and
appear in countless recombinations to bring individual tonal meanings to their
poetry. For instance, the progression lll-IV-V appears in many Beatles songs,
with differing meanings determined by varied contexts. In "Please Please Me,"
this progression, G-A-B, convenient because of the parallel chord fingerings
on the guitar, adds a bluesy pentatonic demand to an otherwise politely dia-
tonic song in a major key. In "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," the same pro-
viii Preface
gression is expanded for a deep excursion into another world when ill (B ) be-
comes a key unto itself, an intermediate chord is added between IV and V, and
V is sustained for a full measure. In the bizarre "I Am the Walrus," the same
progression, there C-D-E, is momentarily given a nearly atonal syntax, tak-
ing from its context a whole-tone quality. It is the uncanny ear of the Beatles
that allows these three chords, III-IV-V, to assume such a variety of individ-
ual meanings across their career.
Goals and Critical Stance
The purpose of this book is to examine and celebrate the musical practices and
structures in the Beatles' performance and composition from the music's earli-
est incarnations through finished product, during the second half of their ca-
reer as a group, charting the musical techniques and patterns that emerge at
various points and adapt to changing needs as the Beatles' styles and goals con-
tinuously evolve. We shall pick up and put aside various methodological tools
as the material demands, and this material consists not only of the "canon"—
the Beatles' LPs, singles, and CDs recorded in London and officially released by
EMI—but of every available document of a Beatle's musical activity during the
period covered. This book results from the study of many thousands of audio,
video, print, and multimedia sources, including the close consultation of un-
counted audio recordings of the Beatles' compositional process, traced through
tapes that are heard and treated as the equivalents of compositional sketches
and drafts. The reader will find particularly useful both the thoroughness with
which every known recording is contextualized both historically and musically,
and the fact that aspects of the Beatles' instruments, vocal production tech-
niques, recording equipment, and studio procedures—the essence of their per-
formance practice—are exposed here as in no other source. "Bootleg" drafts
are discussed and documented in all thoroughness considered necessary, so as
to portray the compositional genesis of a song and its arrangement and to per-
mit the reader to seek copies of specific sources.
It may seem incongruous, or at least unusual, to approach a body of popu-
lar music that was composed and performed by young men who did not read
musical notation (and was intently followed by millions with no musical in-
doctrination whatsoever) with analytical methods that only a musician with
some degree of training could appreciate. Two years' study of college-level
music theory would be essential to following much of this book's theoretical
discussion, and some of the points raised are more advanced still. An appended
table of chord functions (describing the most characteristic functions of all
chords mentioned in this book) and the glossary (with its succinct definitions
to some fifty-five terms used in this book) should help the less initiated stay on
course.2 Of the thousands of books and articles related to the Beatles, only a
small proportion deals seriously with their music, and only a few rare writers
have done so from a perspective molded by formal musical study; seldom has an
analysis of a Beatles song appeared that can be called in any way thorough. Yet
Preface ix
this book suggests that there are many musical reasons worthy of considered
speculation that place the Beatles' work among the most listened-to music of
all time. The fact is that even though these recording artists and their millions
of listeners are rarely if ever consciously aware of the structural reasons be-
hind the dynamic energy in "I Saw Her Standing There," the poignant nostal-
gia in "Yesterday" the organized confusion of "A Day in the Life," or the exu
berant joy in "Here Comes the Sun," it is the musical structures themselves,
more so than the visual cues in performance or the loudness of the given
amplification system, that call forth most of the audience's intellectual, emo-
tional, and physical responses.3
This book traverses the complete history of the Beatles' composition, perfor-
mance, and recording practices in the second half of their career. As it would
be virtually impossible to do justice to the Beatles' work within a single book,
the author intends to present this chronology in two volumes, divided between
the end of 1965 and the beginning of 1966. The point of division pays homage
to the stylistic innovations of Revolver (1966) and thus groups together here the
Beatles' most experimental and final works, and it also happens to fall exactly
at the midpoint of the telling of the story. Each chapter is devoted to the projects
of one year and is presented in sections that alternate a chronological summary
of the musical events over a given period, with a detailed track-by-track discus-
sion of every song composed by a Beatle through the group's duration. The mu-
sical detail, aspects of which are frequently related to similar patterns in other
songs by the Beatles or by their peers, and which is occasionally summarized for
a global perspective on the group's musical interests, remains the book's central
concern, while the accompanying historical information should be viewed as a
contextual backdrop. The approach to each song covers its compositional inspi-
ration, heavily documented from the most unimpeachable sources; its record-
ing history, including the identification of every part, its performer and instru-
ment; and its most salient musical features, presented in an analysis of the text
that often features comparisons of the dominant musical and poetic goals. In-
novations are carefully noted as they appear, and some important compositions
require several pages for full appreciation. Some later songs that introduce noth-
ing new of note, on the other hand, are given short shrift.
The book's various analytical approaches are suggested by the musical
materials themselves, and they cover as wide a range as do the Beatles' eclec-
tic interests. The early Beatles' least challenging harmonies, forms, colors,
and structures—twelve-bar blues forms, four-square phrases, simple guitar
arrangements, diatonic and pentatonic components, live recording—were
replaced in the later phases of their career by more interesting and complex
features—innovative forms and colors, irregular phrase rhythms, chromatic
ornaments and key shifts, multilayered and electronically altered studio pro-
ductions. At some times, harmony and voice leading are the main focus; at
others the interplay of rhythm and meter is center stage; and at still others
the recording process itself is primary. But from the simplest to the most ad-
vanced discussion, techniques are always based on the piece-specific charac-
teristics of the works themselves.
Description:Given the phenomenal fame and commercial success that the Beatles knew for the entire course of their familiar career, their music per se has received surprisingly little detailed attention. Not all of their cultural influence can be traced to long hair and flashy clothing; the Beatles had numerous
