# Early Beatles Songs **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 19, 2013, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218 "2013-11-19T00:50:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/1 "2013-11-19T00:50:06Z")
Now and then, I’ve heard it said that the Beatles did something unusual without knowing it. Apparently, songs like “I Want to Hold Your Hand” has a verse that goes up when it should go down. I have a pretty good ear for music, and personally, WTF are people talking about? Music really has no rules! Even rules about beats per measure can be toyed with giving rise to some interesting sounds. (If music had rules, it’d get real boring real fast.) And as for wrong notes? The rule is there are no wrong notes; however, some notes sound better than others! So, what are people saying? Perhaps it just rubs the classical performers the wrong way, as bad as a Beatles haircut? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/2 "2013-11-19T00:57:32Z")
It just means that before 1963 the conventional musical vocabulary of pop songs was more limited, and the Beatles expanded it. It isn’t about rules or wrong notes, just that it was something new and fresh because it hadn’t been expected based on what had been done up until then. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/3 "2013-11-19T02:12:49Z")
Thanks, Johanna. Now, that makes sense to me! ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/4 "2013-11-19T02:21:04Z")
Speaking of early Beatles, here’s the promo video that goes along with the new BBC 2CD set. There’s more going on in this clip than meets the eye! [Words of Love](http://youtu.be/r5nARZKS-AY) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/5 "2013-11-19T03:27:57Z")
I remember hearing an interview with George Martin once where he told a story of how he unsuccessfully tried to talk the lads out of using a certain chord. IIRC it was the final vocal harmony at the end of “She Loves You”, which (again, IIRC), is John, Paul, and George together singing a major sixth. Martin tried to persuade them it sounded corny as a song coda, but they insisted on it. To them it seemed fresh and original. Of course, they were right. In an earlier musical era (swing?) it had been overused, so that musicians had come to think of it as corny,and had ceased to use it. It had been out of common use long enough that, to the Beatles themselves, and to their young audience, it _was_ fresh and original. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/6 "2013-11-19T04:01:14Z")
Sounds like people can’t handle the opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night 😉 What’s funny is that they started to get critical appreciation in the UK when one newspaper’s music critic (The Times??) cited their use of “Aolian Cadences” in one song (It Won’t Be Long - yeah YEAH yeah YEAH yeah YEAH!)… ---
**Author:** ![I-VI-ii-V](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c89c15/32.png) [@I-VI-ii-V](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I-VI-ii-V)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/7 "2013-11-19T05:30:03Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Sounds like people can’t handle the opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night 😉 **WordMan** , don’t know if you’ve heard [this](http://www.openculture.com/2011/12/guitarist_randy_bachman_demystifies_the_opening_chord_of_a_hard_days_night.html) already, but someone hipped me to it a few days ago. Another chapter in the “what are they playing…” saga. Listen to the end. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/8 "2013-11-19T09:11:17Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Sounds like people can’t handle the opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night 😉 They are descended from the people who couldn’t handle the opening chord of [Beethoven’s first symphony.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2qr3iYFIi4) Not a unique chord, but no one prior to 1801 ever thought of starting a symphony with it. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/9 "2013-11-19T12:25:20Z")
> [@I-VI-ii-V](#): > > **WordMan** , don’t know if you’ve heard [this](http://www.openculture.com/2011/12/guitarist_randy_bachman_demystifies_the_opening_chord_of_a_hard_days_night.html) already, but someone hipped me to it a few days ago. Another chapter in the “what are they playing…” saga. Listen to the end. I know that clip. Bachman is great telling that story. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/10 "2013-11-19T12:34:41Z")
The comments under the story are an amazing barrage of bullsh!t and wankery. Fun reading! ETA: Referring to the Bachman story. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/11 "2013-11-19T17:44:53Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > It just means that before 1963 the conventional musical vocabulary of pop songs was more limited, and the Beatles expanded it. It isn’t about rules or wrong notes, just that it was something new and fresh because it hadn’t been expected based on what had been done up until then. That may have been true about certain types of _rock_ music before the Beatles, but I don’t think it’s true about popular music in general. The better types of popular song in the '30s, '40s, '50s, etc. could be very harmonically complex. Maybe the Beatles expanded the range of what up to then was considered simple “kids” music. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/12 "2013-11-19T18:29:10Z")
I’ve been having lots of fun reading [All the Songs](http://www.amazon.com/All-Songs-Behind-Beatles-Release/dp/1579129528/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384885493&sr=1-1&keywords=All+the+songs++beatles), a song-by-song discussion of every recording session. I find the full album on YouTube (because I don’t have the original British versions only the insane mixed-up American ones) and each write-up takes about two minutes to read, the same as the length of the early songs. They quote as much stuff about the origins of the song as they can find. For “Yesterday,” e.g., Paul is quoted as saying: > [@](#): > > I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th - and that leads you through then [sic] to B to E minor, and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. They call the chord at the beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night” a D major 7th sus 4. Class can discuss. > [@](#): > > [It] came from the mixture of John and George’s guitars, Paul’s bass and George Martin’s piano. The quote from William Mann is there, too: > [@](#): > > Harmonic interest is typical of their quicker songs, too, and one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes… so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of “Not a Second Time” (the chord progression which ends Mahler’s Song of the Earth). There are far more technical books that go into this, and probably nothing special about this one except the circumstance that I’m currently reading it and it’s fresh in my head. It is aimed at knowledgeable fans with enough floss to make it work for tone-deaf hummers like me. It does make the point that the Beatles were always experimenting with sound and trying out new things with every session, even every take. They also did a lot more doubling of both voices and instruments than I realized, plus other stuff that George Martin added. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/13 "2013-11-19T18:36:01Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > Perhaps it just rubs the classical performers the wrong way, as bad as a Beatles haircut? 😕 [On the contrary.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgABcoRUwUA) ---
**Author:** ![alphamatix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/45deac/32.png) [@alphamatix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphamatix)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/14 "2013-11-19T19:41:38Z")
Just thought I’d mention that I bought a book for my kindle called [Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles](http://www.amazon.com/Songwriting-Secrets-Beatles-Dominic-Pedler-ebook/dp/B003NX6KSM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384889606&sr=1-1&keywords=songwriting+secrets+of+the+beatles). I only briefly started reading it and have been too busy to get back to it but the author contends in his intro that most of the group’s innovative songwriting occurred early in their career. We’re talking about songwriting, not studio sonics or formal affectations like the attempt to make a unified concept album like Pepper or the Abbey Road medley. As an aside, this book is probably better appreciated in hardcopy. There are charts and other illustrations that aren’t easy to read on a kindle. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/15 "2013-11-19T21:36:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > They quote as much stuff about the origins of the song as they can find. For “Yesterday,” e.g., Paul is quoted as saying: > > > [@](#): > > > > I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th - and that leads you through then [sic] to B to E minor, and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. Are you sure this is transcribed correctly? It’s driving me crazy: I can’t for the life of me figure out where that final E is supposed to fit in. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-beatles-songs/674218/16 "2013-11-19T21:58:33Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > Are you sure this is transcribed correctly? It’s driving me crazy: I can’t for the life of me figure out where that final E is supposed to fit in. 😕 It’s exactly what the book says. But since there’s one typo in the sentence there may be another.