Love Me Do vs P. S. I Love You

Cafe Society
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Here’s the wonderful Allan Pollack’s thoughts on Love Me Do…
…and on P.S. I Love You.

You’ll appreciate Pollack more if you know a little about the nuts and bolts of music (dominant sevenths; slow triplets; modulations; chromatic descending melodies; open fifth harmonies; flat-three chords; dotted rhythms; middle eights…), but even if you don’t, he’s still fun to read.

(I emailed Dr. Pollack to encourage him to have a crack at “Now and Then,” and he graciously replied that he would indeed.)

That moody, surprising flat-VI chord in “P.S.” makes the song for me. (That, and how it was perfect fodder for the recent parody thread of Mean Mister Mustard’s “vote for favorite song that starts with the letter __” seried of threads.)

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Picked Love Me Do because it is a more interesting song all around than P.S. but this once again reminds me that the Beatles earlier stuff consists of some pretty unimpressive offerings. In my opinion Rubber Soul represents the dividing line where the Beatles became a great band worthy of legendary status.

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Yeah, I was going to mention that it has one of the earlier/earliest recorded instances of “the Mario Progression”, or what I’ve always just thought of as the “victory” progression, but that’s just how I have that bVI-bVII-I internalized.

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I think of it as “Billy Shears.” :slight_smile:
(Pollack’s essay on With a Little Help… pointed out that this is also in the song’s OUTRO! “Oh, you never noticed?”)