Beatles As Musicians: the Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul
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THE BEATLES AS MUSICIANS This page intentionally left blank THE BEATLES AS MUSICIANS 1The Quarry Men through Rubber Soul WALTER EVERETT 1 2001 1 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2001 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 : the Quarry Men through Rubber soul / Walter Everett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-514104-0; ISBN 0-19-514105-9 (pbk.) 1. Beatles. 2. Rock music—1951–1960 —Analysis, appreciation. 3. Rock music—1961–1970 —Analysis, appreciation. MT146 .E95 2001 782.42166'092'2— dc21 2001021263 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Barbara, John, and Tim This page intentionally left blank PREFACE What constitutes the sounds of a Beatles record, how did they get there, and what makes them so interesting to listen to? These are the ques- tions that get to the heart of the Beatles as musicians, and are therefore the mo- tivation for this book and its companion volume, The Beatles as Musicians: Re- volver through the Anthology. Together the two books are a chronologically ordered examination of the compositional, performing, and recording activi- ties of the most important force in twentieth-century popular music. Goals and Critical Stance The Beatles’ music is incredibly rich. Their melodic shapes, contrapuntal rela- tionships, harmonic functions, rhythmic articulations, formal designs, timbral colors, and textures draw from many different tonal languages and appear in countless recombinations to bring individual tonal meanings to their poetry. The purpose of this book is to examine and celebrate the details of such prac- tices from the music’s earliest incarnations through finished product, during the first half of the Beatles’ career as a group. I’ll chart the musical techniques and patterns that emerge at various points and adapt to changing needs as the Beatles’ styles and goals continuously evolve. I will pick up and put aside vari- ous methodological tools as the material demands. 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 avail- viii Preface able 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 mul- timedia sources, including the close consultation of uncounted audio record- ings of the Beatles’ compositional process, traced through tapes that are treated as the equivalents of compositional sketches and drafts. All available concert, broadcast, and demo recordings in both audio and video formats have been scoured for the broadest possible understanding of what the Beatles did musi- cally. The study of thousands of recordings by other entertainers whose music was covered by the Beatles, or existed contemporaneously with them, also con- tributes to the understanding created here of the Beatles and their musical con- text. 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’ choices of instruments, vocal production techniques, recording equipment, and studio procedures— the essence of their performance practice— are exposed here as in no other source. 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. The 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.1 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 Beatle song appeared that can be called in any way thorough. Yet 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 for the dynamic energy in “I Saw Her Standing There,” the poignant nostalgia in “Yesterday,” the organized confusion of “A Day In the Life,” or the exuberant joy in “Here Comes the Sun,” it is the musical structures themselves, more than the visual cues in performance or the loudness of the given amplification sys- tem, that call forth most of the audience’s intellectual, emotional, and physical responses.2 This book traverses the complete history of the Beatles’ composition, per- formance, and recording practices in the first half of their career. As it would be impossible to do justice to the Beatles’ work within a single book, I present the entire chronology in two volumes, divided between the end of 1965 and the beginning of 1966. The second volume, entitled The Beatles as Musicians: Re- volver through the Anthology, was published by Oxford in 1999. While the pres- ent book stops short of the group’s most experimental middle years, most read- Preface ix ers will be surprised to see just how early its members began consciously searching out new sounds, both stylistically and timbrally. Naturally, a full ap- preciation of their most transcendent late works is only possible with an un- derstanding of the core of their musicianship, formed with a backbone of skif- fle and early rock and roll and evolving through a mature melodic bass line, full use of the entire fingerboards of a full variety of six- and twelve-string electric, acoustic, and nylon-string guitars, the gradual mastery of styles on various keyboard instruments, an expressive mastery of electronic imaging, and a de- sire to express their musical ideas in the clearest, most direct possible way. Ringo’s drumming will at last be given the close attention it has always been due. Each chapter is presented in sections that alternate a chronological sum- mary of the musical events over a given period with a detailed track-by-track discussion of every song composed by a Beatle through the group’s duration. The musical detail, aspects of which are frequently related to similar patterns in other songs by the Beatles or by their peers, and which is occasionally sum- marized 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 com- positional inspiration, heavily documented from the most unimpeachable sources; its recording history, including the identification of every part and its performer and instrument; and its most salient musical features, presented in an analysis of the text that often features comparisons of the dominant musi- cal and poetic goals. Innovations are carefully noted as they appear, and some important compositions require several pages for full appreciation. The book’s various analytical approaches are suggested by the musical ma- terials themselves, and they cover as wide a range as do the Beatles’ eclectic in- terests. Therefore, as coverage of the Beatles’ evolving compositional interests proceeds chronologically, the Beatles’ least challenging harmonies, forms, col- ors and structures— twelve-bar blues forms, four-square phrases, simple gui- tar arrangements, diatonic and pentatonic components, live recording— are encountered first, and so analytical discussion begins with rudimentary mate- rials and ideas but builds progressively as the Beatles’ music begins to adopt more interesting and complex features— innovative forms and colors, irregu- lar phrase rhythms, chromatic ornaments and key shifts, multilayered and elec- tronically altered studio productions. At some times, harmony and voice lead- ing 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 advanced discussion, techniques are always based on the piece-specific characteristics of the works themselves. While this book is historically oriented and aims to be comprehensive in its way, it must remain light in its extramusical references, all of which have been extensively covered elsewhere. Except for the most important matters, facts of biography appear only to set the musical context. The interested reader will learn much more about the Beatles’ lives and careers in such document studies as those by Mark Lewisohn (particularly 1988) and Allen J. Wiener (especially x Preface regarding activities of the ex-Beatles). Many useful interviews and biographi- cal studies, several by those very close to the principals, and hundreds of valu- able audio and video sources will help the interested reader fill these gaps.