Tell Me Why

"Tell Me Why" is a really interesting song--it's rather sad and tense (the singer asks why his partner lied to him), but instead of being slow and solemn, it's a brave vocal assault. Its sound kind of mimics the way someone might confront their loved one when they're desperate for answers, getting right in their face. 

Though credited to Lennon/McCartney, John apparently wrote it himself. Paul later gave some insight into John's mindset during this period in his life. From Wikipedia: "I think a lot of these [Lennon's] songs like "Tell Me Why" may have been based in real experiences or affairs John was having, or arguments with Cynthia [Lennon’s wife] or whatever, but it never occurred to us until later to put that slant on it all." Lennon himself didn't mention that aspect; instead he simply likened the tune to "a black New York girl-group song". Music critic Ian MacDonald said that the structure of the song and doo-wop chord changes "creates an illusion of sincerity through its sheer attack." 

It's a song with attitude, but it's also meant to be suspenseful and a bit anxious. The questions, strong words that lend imagery to the song ("lied", "tears", "beg", "pleas", etc.), and the barrage of voices coming at us (John's singing was accompanied by the harmony vocals of both Paul and George) all keep us on edge and trying to figure out just what happened between the two characters. The lyrics can take on new meanings when you listen to them from different perspectives (e.g. the singer cheated on his partner; the partner cheated on the singer; the partner is/was pregnant; etc.). The fact that we as listeners can assume an omniscient role--we can know something the singer does not (or at least pretend to)--serves to further draw us into the drama... And who doesn't enjoy listening to other people's drama? ;)

That's about it for today... Tomorrow is the last song from the A-side, so I'll be watching the movie at some point thereafter and reviewing it here. :)

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Heard It Tally: 4

Songs Completed: 43

And I Love Her

"And I Love Her" is the next song on A Hard Day's Night. It was performed only once outside of Abbey Road Studios, on July 14, 1964 for an episode of the BBC radio show Top Gear (no relation to the TV show about cars). It reached #12 on the Billboard charts. According to Wikipedia, "this song was one of the first ballads with a title that starts in mid-sentence." 

BeatlesEBooks.com has some great quotes from Paul about his experience writing this song. He talks about the conception of the guys within The Beatles as stereotyped personalities; he says, "It's funny, the myth developed that I was the melodic, soft one and John was the hard, acerbic one.  There was some surface truth to that." McCartney was beyond doubt the balladeer of the group, penning most of the band's ballads and softer songs throughout the years. That's not to say he didn't break out of that stereotype--he did write "Helter Skelter" later on, as well as many others. 

Paul also mentioned in interviews how proud he was of his accomplishment with "And I Love Her". 

"It was the first ballad I impressed myself with," Paul explained in his book 'Many Years From Now.'  "It's got nice chords in it, 'Bright are the stars that shine, dark is the sky...'  I like the imagery of the stars and the sky.  It was a love song really.  The 'And' in the title was an important thing, 'And I Love Her', it came right out of left field, you were right up to speed the minute you heard it.... Having the title start in mid-sentence, I thought that was clever...it was a nice tune, that one.  I still like it."

I really liked this song. It's slow, with a kind of Latin feel to it (Ringo's bongo-playing and George's excellent guitar work definitely contribute to that). Overall, it's a perfect slow-dance song. :)

Despite the amount of love I'm in with this album, I'm almost eager to be done with the first side, because as soon as I am I'll get to watch the movie, and I'll post a review of it here. :) Something I'm looking forward to, for sure. 

Also, I know lately I've been doing a lot more history than opinion here, so I'm going to start trying to let my own voice show through more. When I first thought of doing this blog, I knew I wouldn't be able to write solely my opinions--that would be pretentious on my part and boring for you, and there would be no context for the people like myself who were hearing (and reading about) these songs for the first time. I think managing a balance is a little difficult, because I find myself writing the same things about every song ("I enjoyed it", "it's a fun song", etc.). I'll just have to bust out the creativity from now on... which shouldn't be too hard, since the songs are getting better as we go. :)

Alright, that's all for today! See you guys tomorrow. :)

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Heard It Tally: 4

Songs Completed: 42

I'm Happy Just to Dance with You

"I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" was written by Lennon/McCartney and given to Harrison to sing "at a time when he lacked the confidence to compose his own material. Years later, McCartney described it as a 'formula song', and Lennon said, 'I would never have sung it myself.'" It was a song that was meant to please the fans, not a work they were incredibly proud of or that they felt reflected their skills as songwriters and artists. However, George did an admirable job singing it, and the song contains some complicated and "hectic Bo Diddley rhythm and busy banjo style guitar".  

Rybaczewski at BeatlesEBooks.com explains a bit more why Paul and John weren't interested in singing "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" themselves:

McCartney explains why:  "We wouldn't have actually wanted to sing it because it was a bit...The ones that pandered to the fans in truth were our least favorite songs but they were good.  They were good for the time."  Both Lennon and McCartney were progressing passed [sic] lyric writing specifically designed for teenage girl fans as they were before, such as "From Me To You," "Thank You Girl" and "P.S. I Love You."  But for the sake of cranking out another song needed for the movie, and to give George one to sing, they reverted back to this practice sometime in February of 1964 for one of the last times in their career. As for their opinion of the song, McCartney states:  "The nice thing about it was to actually pull a song off on a slim little premise like that.  A simple little idea.  It was songwriting practice."

Today's song was one of only two that Paul and John gave to George to sing; later on he would develop his own completely unique style, one that grew and changed over the years. At the time of the film, however, George was still struggling to find his own rhythm. BeatlesEBooks.com gives us a quote: "In a 1965 interview George confessed this about his songwriting: 'It will probably take me about three months before I finish one song.  I'm so lazy it's ridiculous.'" A sentiment that I can fully relate to. :P

Both Wikipedia and BeatlesEBooks.com mention that "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on a Sunday, the first time the guys had done so in their career, but not the last. Why this is remarkable is beyond me, but then again, I'm not fully entrenched in Beatles trivia (yet). :P 

Well, that's it for today... See you tomorrow!

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Heard It Tally: 4

Songs Completed: 41

If I Fell

I'd never heard the Beatles' version of this song, just Evan Rachel Wood's Across the Universe version, which was slowed down with much softer instrumentals (just a guitar and maybe violins as far as I can tell). The video on YouTube for "If I Fell" is pretty great; it's a clip from the movie (of course). My favorite quote happens in the beginning, when Ringo severely scolds someone for casually playing his drum set. George warns the guy who did it, "He's very fussy about his drums, you know. They loom large in his legend."

According to Wikipedia, "If I Fell" 

is notable for its unusual structure, which includes an unrepeated introductory section sung by Lennon, followed by sequential verse sections, each having a slightly expanded form, but with no obvious chorus or bridge section... The remainder of the song features a two-part harmony, sung by Lennon and McCartney together into a single microphone at their suggestion, with Lennon singing the lower harmony while McCartney sings the higher one.

An interesting fact from Wikipedia was that, "according to Robert Fontenont of About.com, this was Kurt Cobain's favourite Beatles song, and was played by Nirvana whenever there were technical problems at their concerts." I tried to find a video but there weren't any on YouTube of Cobain himself singing the song. Too bad. I'm sure it was an interesting experience for concert-goers to hear Cobain, the original grunge rocker, singing a Beatles song; it definitely makes me curious as to how he sang/arranged it, whether he was faithful to the original or if he inserted his own style. If anyone's heard it, feel free to comment on the similarities and/or differences. :)

Despite the song's rather somber nature (a man warning a woman not to hurt him the way his last lover did--not the usual love song fare), it was apparently a source of much amusement for the guys. They often sang it during their live shows. 

The group typically performed the song faster than the studio version, and Lennon and McCartney often sang it with barely suppressed laughter. On more than one occasion it was introduced as "If I Fell Over".

This cracks me up. :P It's easy to see in the video, despite the fact they're acting, the kind of teasing camaraderie they had together at this point. It'll be interesting and, I'm sure, bittersweet to see what happens to them over time. 

So that's all for today. See you tomorrow!

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Heard It Tally: 4

Songs Completed: 40

I Should Have Known Better

Today's song, "I Should Have Known Better", appeared in the film A Hard Day's Night (as do all the songs from the first side of this album, so I won't mention it every time). There's a clip on YouTube of that part of the movie, which is pretty fun to watch even if you don't know what the plot of the movie actually is. :) 

This song was written by John, and credited to him and Paul as usual. The influence Lennon cited for this particular tune was none other than Bob Dylan. A quote from the song's wiki page explains:

In January 1964, during a three-week engagement at the Olympia Theatre in Paris, the Beatles first became aware of American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan and, when having acquired a copy of his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, began playing it continuously. American journalist Al Aronowitz introduced them to Dylan when the Beatles visited New York in February 1964, and Dylan subsequently became a big influence on the group, especially Lennon, who even started wearing a copycat Huckleberry Finn cap. One consequence of this “infatuation” (as Ian MacDonald later described it) was the song "I Should Have Known Better". Paul McCartney said Dylan's songs were "great lyrically", and Lennon credited Dylan with inspiring him to write more meaningful lyrics.

So, the inspiration was mutual--we know Dylan was fond of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and it's clear the two groups respected one another.

From the title, I was kind of expecting a different story during the song--I assumed it was a more bitter breakup song. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised when instead I heard a sweet love song. I liked this song, and my enjoyment of it was definitely increased by watching the video clip from the movie. It's so interesting to watch the guys performing, whether for a live performance or one of their films. :)

That's it for today... Later everybody!

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Heard It Tally: 4

Songs Completed: 39

A Hard Day's Night

Today we're beginning the album A Hard Day's Night, released on July 10th, 1964 as the soundtrack to The Beatles' first film of the same name. (I'm currently waiting for the movie to come out on Netflix, so when it does I'll do a review of it. If it takes too long I'll just see if it's at the library lol.) Wikipedia says that "the album and film are said to portray the classic image of the Beatles, as it was released at the height of Beatlemania." It's the first Beatles album to feature solely original material; most of the songs were written primarily by Lennon.

The name of the album came about in an odd way. It was something Ringo Starr said one day, what John (in the 1980 Playboy interview) called, "you know, one of those malapropisms. A Ringo-ism, where he said it not to be funny... just said it." Ringo himself, in an interview with DJ Dave Hull in 1964, said about his creation: 

We went to do a job, and we'd worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and I said, 'It's been a hard day... and I looked around and saw it was dark so I said, '...night!' So we came to 'A Hard Day's Night.'

(Ringo's so quirky--he reminds me of Virginia, the mom from "Raising Hope", who always mispronounces things, so words like "hereditary" become "heredimatary".) At any rate, Ringo's quote first inspired the film, and then the song, which seems backward but isn't really. :)

As for the song, "A Hard Day's Night" is the first song on the album. It was an important step in their continued success in America: "Featuring a prominent and unique opening chord, the song's success demonstrated that The Beatles were not a one-hit wonder in the United States." 

There is a great deal of fuss made over the opening chord of this song (you can listen to it here). In fact, there's a whole section on the song's wiki page about it, beginning with quotes like, "'A Hard Day's Night' is immediately identifiable before the vocals even begin, thanks to George Harrison's unmistakable Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string guitar's 'mighty opening chord'." There's lots of discussion and debate over what chord(s) it is, precisely, as well as other aspects of it. Definitely worth having a look-see if you're really into the technical side of music.

I love this song--it's just the thing to perk you up after a long day (or night) of work. :) So, that's it for today... See you later!

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Heard It Tally: 4

Songs Completed: 38

I Want to Hold Your Hand

Classic song today. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (released on The Beatles' Long Tall Sally) marked the true beginning of Beatlemania--when this single hit the States, thousands of teenage girls fell in love simultaneously--and also provided a way in for other artists wishing to hop the pond, sparking the British invasion. It holds a quite respectable #16 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it appears on a myriad of lists--songs that changed the world, songs that shaped rock and roll, all-time best songs ever made ever, etc. The song was number one in the American charts for seven weeks; it was eventually replaced by "She Loves You". (It's probably less of a blow when your song gets replaced at the top by another one of your songs. :P )

It's pretty much universally accepted as a Beatles classic these days, but back then, there were some humbugs around. Below is a wiki quote detailing different reactions to the song.

The song was greeted by raving fans on both sides of the Atlantic but was dismissed by some critics as nothing more than another fad song that would not hold up to the test of time. Cynthia Lowery of the Associated Press expressed her exasperation with Beatlemania by saying of the Beatles: "Heaven knows we've heard them enough. It has been impossible to get a radio weather bulletin or time signal without running into 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'."

It reminds me of the popular T-shirt adage, often attributed to Dee Snider: "If it's too loud, you're too old." Clearly the youngsters were infatuated, and the mood was infectious. Even Bob Dylan caught the fever:

Bob Dylan was impressed by the Beatles' innovation, saying, "They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid." For a time Dylan thought the Beatles were singing "I get high" instead of "I can't hide". He was surprised when he met them and found out that none of them had actually smoked marijuana.

Honest mistake, I'm sure. :P 

My own impression of the song is extremely positive--it's one of those songs you either take to instantly, or immediately despise, so there's not much in between. I also love the romantic, slowed-down cover by T.V. Carpio in Across the Universe in all its anti-heteronormative glory.

This has been a great end to a crappy day. The Beatles always know how to cheer me up. :) I'll see you guys tomorrow!

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Heard It Tally: 3

Songs Completed: 37