Track #8: “Fixing a Hole” Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Welcome to Track Chatter, where we choose a different song to discuss in depth. This entry is part of an ongoing series in which we reconsider songs by The Beatles. Can anything new be said about this band or its music? Have a look below and let us know what you think.

Aaron: Well, what can one say about the record that’s had everything said about it? Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in the early summer of 1967 (the “Summer of Love”), has been praised nearly continuously in the almost forty-five years since its release. It spent hundreds of weeks on both the UK and US album charts and was the first rock album to win the Best Album Grammy. Jimi Hendrix famously played cover versions of the title track in London clubs just days after its release (and with some of The Beatles in the audience). It’s been credited with fully entrenching the concept of the “album” – as a unity rather than a collection of singles – as well as with inventing (or perfecting) the concept album. It drove Brian Wilson mad. And while its position as the number one, no doubt, best album of all time has naturally waxed and waned with the ever-changing trends of rock music criticism and fandom, it has never fallen out of favor or ceased to be considered as anything other than a stellar rock and roll album. It may come as no surprise that Rolling Stone continues to proclaim it the greatest album of all time, but even the more discerning hipster types at Pitchfork awarded it a rare 10 out 10 in a recent reconsideration.

So, what indeed can one say? Well, it’s not quite true that Sgt. Pepper’s was the first “proper” album – an entity conceived as a whole piece rather than a collection of parts. Like nearly all artistic developments, the coming of the unified album happened over time – a very brief time in this case, to be sure. It’s well accepted that at least since Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours (1955), artists had been releasing albums based around unifying ideas and musical themes with a considered and purposeful sequencing of tracks. The Beatles themselves had been moving in this direction since Rubber Soul (and arguably since Help!), and the influence of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (1966) on Sgt. Pepper’s is well known. However, as was often the case with The Beatles, the album harnessed the fullness of their songwriting prowess, their experimental drive, their adeptness in the studio (still using four-track recording as EMI was unwilling to equip Abby Road studios with eight-track mixing decks until later in 1967), and lots of happy accidents to make something more than the sum of its parts. The result is thus, perhaps, the first album that really feels like an album in the modern sense. Songs bleed into one another. Varispeeding allowed them to modify pitches so that the beginnings and endings of songs could be more seamlessly blended. Automatic double tracking and George Martin’s (and his engineers’) incredibly facility with “bouncing” tracks meant that they could achieve an amazing depth of sound wherein multiple tracks from a variety of sources – band and non-band alike – could be clearly discerned by even the unpracticed ear. And for reasons that are often difficult to pinpoint, the album’s lyrics and themes resonated with the zeitgeist in ways that have rarely been achieved – before or since – by one forty minute rock album.

Whether Sgt. Pepper’s is the “best album of all time” is, however, a pretty subjective claim. There are so many matrices by which to measure such a distinction (sales? awards? influence? – and just how does one measure something as intangible as “influence”?), and so many different types of albums, that one’s preference for such a title will invariably come down to questions of taste. And there are certainly those who find Sgt. Pepper’s boring, uninspired, overplayed, hackneyed, or even simple. However, within the medium of rock music, the claim simply cannot be made that Sgt. Pepper’s is “bad.” From the opening sound effect of a mulling audience and the tuning of a first violin that breaks into one of the band’s most rocking numbers to the closing chord of their most celebrated song, the album sparkles with energy, creativity, and clear ideas executed with stellar musicianship and technological acuity. In short, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a fucking awesome album.

We struggled with the question of which track to choose and long considered tackling “A Day in the Life.” The album closer is generally considered the pinnacle of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting tandem as well as the crowning achievement of The Beatles/George Martin recording relationship. And as we had already broken our “lesser-known-tracks” rule with “Yesterday,” we thought, why not do so again. However, in the end we decided that, much like Sgt. Pepper’s itself, “A Day in the Life” has simply been discussed too much. Which track, if any, however, can be considered lesser known from this album? All the songs regularly feature on classic rock radio; they show up in movie soundtracks, on mix tapes (mix tapes?), and as cover versions by other bands. In the end, we decided to go with “Fixing a Hole,” in part because it’s one of the less assuming songs on an album full of mind blowers. Or is it? What do you think, Lew? Does “Fixing a Hole” hold its own with the other heavy hitters on Sgt. Pepper’s?

Lew: I feel like I'm always answering “yes” to the question you pose me in your intros, but I'm going to say it again. I do think that “Fixing A Hole” holds it own on Sgt. Pepper's. I don't think that it’s the crowning musical achievement that “A Day In The Life” is, but I would also say that a good deal of its strength as a composition lies exactly in its unassuming nature. Without digressing about “A Day In The Life” too much, I’ll just say that although it’s obviously a really fantastic song, regardless of arrangement, the production is a huge part of its impact. The acoustic guitar that bridges into the piano to introduce the first verse, the orchestral parts, the reverb on Lennon’s voice coming out of the bridge, and the overdubbed grand pianos on the last chord of the song (among other things) all serve to elevate the composition to something much more than a standard rock song. There’s a lot to listen to, pretty much all the time. By contrast, “Fixing A Hole” is not pointing toward the same goal – it's not as evidently uncomfortable with the restraints of what could be said in a three-plus minute song or more standard production, but the craftsmanship is superb (we’ll talk more about the music as the discussion progresses, I’m sure) and the lyrics do a great job of blending the particular and the universal, so to speak. I think it’s a quiet mind-blower, to borrow your term. It’s almost sneaky. What do you think of it?

Aaron: Before I answer that question, I’d also like to say a word or two about other tracks on the album. By mind-blower, I am, of course, referring to the album’s well-known highlights: “A Day in the Life” to be sure, but also the title track (and its reprise), “A Little Help from my Friends,” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” In addition to those hits, I’d probably throw in “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” and “Good Morning,” mainly because (in addition to being fascinating songs), their production quality really makes  them album showcases. And I’d also add Harrison’s “Within You Without You.” It’s a song that I didn’t like much as a child (it frightened me a bit, to be honest), but it’s the song where we see George starting to shed his long-held cynicism and really embrace the Eastern values and concepts that he’d been exploring for the previous few years. It’s also, maybe, the most sincere song on the entire album (Ian MacDonald calls it “central to the outlook of Sgt. Pepper”). “When I’m Sixty-Four” may be the album’s biggest throwaway number, yet it remains one of its best-known tracks. It’s not a mind-blower by any stretch of the term, but it is one of the most successful songs on the album. Finally, it’s worth mentioning “She’s Leaving Home,” which, as far as I can tell, was long considered the album’s second key track (after “A Day in the Life”). This mainly seems to have been because of its showcase as a Lennon/McCartney number, its production values, and its oddly ambiguous take on traditional values versus the new, freer thinking ideals of the baby boomers. It’s a beautiful song, but may be the one song, perhaps, that I find doesn’t really hold up well. I do like the song, but in today’s respect, it seems a bit maudlin in the way it so obviously comments on its era’s generation gap in a way that seems so innocent as almost to be hokey today.

“Fixing a Hole,” is a different kettle of fish from most of those songs. It features very little in the way of blatant studio trickery (aside from its brilliant multi-tracking), and its lyrics hint not towards the Lennonist absurdity of “Mr. Kite” or “Lucy,” nor towards the generational touchstones of “With a Little Help from my Friends,” “She’s Leaving Home,” or “Within You Without You.” In fact, it seems to be a song, on first listen, celebrating the mundane. And its form and musicality seems to support that (again, at first), with its odd harpsichord intro and then its fairly standard verse chorus verse format (and it hardly rocks out like the title track, “Good Morning,” or even “Lovely Rita” do). But I love that you describe it as “sneaky,” which I think is such an apt term for it. And I’d argue that sneakiness is anchored in what you call the song’s “blending of the particular and the universal.” Do you think you could say a bit more about what you mean by that?

Lew: When I mentioned “the blending of the particular and the universal” (with apologies to Hegel) in “Fixing A Hole,” what I was trying to get at was a kind of juxtaposition that the song has always suggested to me. On one hand, the narrator is describing, to borrow your wording, a mundane activity of home repair (“fixing a hole where the rain gets in”). At the same time, on the other side of that activity is whatever the leak in the narrator's roof has interrupted (“and stops my mind from wandering”); his wandering mind and all that is suggested by that phrase, which is arguably quite a lot. My sense, which could be limited to my own impressions, has always been that he’s alluding to some type of meditation and that there’s a cosmic element to it that supersedes what the narrator sees as the pettiness of other people (who don’t get in his door). To my mind, the entire song is about trying to create an insular, controllable environment and also a letting go of the pressures and obligations of society. It suggests all sorts of things, from Buddhism to an alienation from the community of other people and, ultimately, existentialism. So, for me, it’s very sneaky, because it appears unassuming, but in another way, can be seen as tackling some very difficult philosophical questions.

Aaron: Well said. I’ve always wondered just exactly “where” his mind was wandering. As a child I thought of it just as daydreaming and there have been times later in my life when I thought meditation or just getting high. I think it might be any of those. McCartney and the rest of the band were in the midst of their experimentation with LSD at the time and still smoking marijuana heavily, and they were also exploring mediation and other aspects of Eastern religions. And daydreaming plays a vital role in songwriting. So I’m not so sure McCartney would have seen the three situations (and others are possible) as being significantly different.

What’s interesting, and why I like your use of “sneaky,” is the way the song wants to create the space for all those activities – the space where he’ll go when his mind is wandering – which is also a space that, as you say, keeps the “silly people” from getting past his door. If we put the song within its cultural and historical context (Summer of Love, burgeoning hippie movement, drug culture, exploration of Eastern religion and other non-Western modes of thinking), then, on the one hand, it seems to be celebrating the moment. Give in to your inner thoughts, let your mind wander, the “turn on, tune in” bits of Leary’s mantra. On the other hand, the desire to keep out the rabble, or to keep out the silly people, or to keep out people in general seems pretty anti-social. It certainly doesn’t celebrate anything like a communal vibe. Now, the “silly people” might be interpreted as being representatives of “the man” or of consumer society, straight society. But from what I’ve read, McCartney got the idea for the lyric from the fans who used to loiter outside his house and Abby Road studio hoping for a glimpse of the band. So in that sense, the “silly people” are also, on one level, McCartney’s peers – at least generationally speaking. In that sense, the song celebrates a very literal interpretation of the “drop out” bit of Leary.

I don’t think the song is either pro- or anti- the spirit of ’67. I think it’s both at the same time (which is best expressed in the ambiguity of the “it really doesn’t matter if I’m wrong I’m right . . .” lyric) – and in that sense, I think it shares a lot with other songs on the album that look for something like “universal consciousness” in acts of the mundane or even non-special, with songs about meter maids, reading newspapers, growing up, and getting old. Aside from Harrison’s “Within You Without You,” and maybe “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” there’s not a song, really, that on its surface says “prepare to have your mind blown by how deep this thing is.” Even “A Day in the Life,” in all its grandeur, is about reading newspaper stories and spending the day at work. And yet, through their celebration of daily ritual, of the ordinary, these songs do tap into something more universal and (yeesh) cosmic. And “Fixing a Hole,” at least on the level of its lyrics, might do it as well as any of them. Any thoughts about the music – does it mirror or contribute to the sense of sneakiness in anyway? (And any thoughts about that opening keyboard bit?)

Lew: That is a great analysis of where “Fixing A Hole” is situated in relation to the cultural movement of the late 1960’s. For the most part, I’ll leave what you said to speak for itself; however, I will add that I think that you’re absolutely right to identify a large of the Sgt. Pepper’s project as an act of finding the universal within the mundane. I don’t know that The Beatles were the first to do that in pop music, but they certainly did it on a broader scale than it had been done up to that point. That is one of the things that makes Sgt. Pepper’s so important for me, and it’s the reason why I still think of it as possibly the most cohesive Beatles album. The finding of beauty or tragedy within mundane circumstances is something that I think largely appears for the first time in 20^th-century art, and Sgt. Pepper’s is as much a participant in that transformation as any of the literature or visual art of its time.  Also, needless to say, Sgt. Pepper’s set the stage for a number of English chamber pop albums that celebrated and dissected traditional English values and social conventions – I’m thinking of The Kinks’ The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society and The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle, but I don’t doubt that there are other strong examples.

Musically speaking, there are a few things about “Fixing a Hole” that I find quite sneaky – it’s probably the most harmonically complex song that we’ve discussed in this series. The harpsichord intro is an interesting touch - it strikes me as a sort of fanfare, which also establishes the tonal center of the song. I love the transition from the harpsichord to the verse, with Ringo clicking off the count before the vocal starts. What I really like about the song, which was fairly shocking to me at the time that I first learned it, is this chord progression under the verse, which starts on an F major chord (F, A, C), moves to C aug (C, E, Ab - the V or dominant chord in a slightly altered form) and uses that turnaround as a pivot to land on an F minor 7 (F, Ab, C, Eb), which moves to an F minor 6 (F, Ab, C, D), Bb major (Bb, D, F), F minor 7, and then back to Bb major to conclude the phrase. What’s most interesting about that, to me, is the way the chords are inverted during the verse to create a descending line – by placing the notes F, E, Eb, and D in the bass of the first four chords, it creates a chromatic movement from one chord to the next, which enables the listener to hear the key change from F major at the top of the phrase, to F minor shortly thereafter, as being completely natural and as something that your ear is pulled toward. And, of course, Paul’s great melody on top of that which treats it all like it’s no big thing, is very helpful for the listener as well. Needless to say, I find the whole thing highly sneaky, and generally brilliant.

Aaron: Wow, I never would have guessed that there was so much complexity at the heart of this song. As much as I’ve always liked it, it can come across almost as having been tossed off (which is part of its charm for me), but that seems to be belied by how much thought McCartney and Martin must have put into its composition and recording.  I like the way you describe how it “enables” the listener to hear the song in a particular way. I think the track’s recording works to that end as well. It doesn’t exhibit the production fireworks of some of the other Sgt. Pepper’s tracks, but attention was clearly paid not only to how the song was recorded in a general sense, but (or so it seems to me) how its recording emphasized certain characteristics of its composition. I particularly like the way Ringo’s drums are recorded (such a long way from the early albums) so as to catch his beat, which acts as the song’s steady hand, but which is also oddly lackadaisical (matching, perhaps unintentionally, the song’s content). I like the judicious use of double tracking on Paul’s vocal track, the way the “ooohs” come in for the second pass at the “really doesn’t matter if I’m wrong, I’m right” chorus. And while I don’t think anybody would argue that the solo is an example of Harrison’s best work, I love the sound of the solo, especially the way it bleeds in from McCartney’s shouts of “hey, hey, hey.”

The song’s position on the album is also a great example of how well-sequenced Sgt. Pepper’s is – to my eary, musically, the harpsichord sort of prefigures the harp of “She’s Leaving Home” (when I was younger, I often mistook the two songs based on that harpsichord intro), and how the bass line is echoed in (to my non-technical ears) the bass of “Mr. Kite” – at least stylistically, if not harmonically.

So I guess what’s becoming increasingly fascinating to me about “Fixing a Hole” is how a song that I always sort of thought of as one of the album’s “lesser” tracks – a song that I might even have described as being a bit out of place – is really a subtle touchstone for the entire album in the way it sets up, comments on, prefigures and echoes various lyrical and musical themes (this would include the theme of transition, which is alluded to in the final line – “I’ve taken the time for a number of things that weren’t important yesterday” – transition being one of the album’s major concerns). But perhaps that’s reading too much into it.

Lew: I like the solo quite a lot. Admittedly, it's not quite at the level of his work for “Something” or “Let It Be” in terms of musical content, but I love what it adds sonically. It’s a concise little interlude that adds a slight feeling of chaos to the song, maybe in some way underpinning the tension between mundanity and escapism that the narrator is describing.

I think your term “touchstone” is a good one. It's not far-fetched to say that “Fixing A Hole,” along with “A Day In The Life” presents one of the clearest distillations of what they seem to be trying get at on Sgt. Pepper’s. I've always been a little torn about the idea of it as a concept album, because it doesn’t present (or attempt to present, as the case may be) a linear narrative in the same way as The Wall or Tommy, but in the light of the discussion we’ve been having, it actually strikes me as more of a genuine concept - an attempt to communicate a particular point of view via music, rather than a haphazard rock opera. In that respect, I think you’re right on when you note that the line “I've taken the time for a number of things that weren't important yesterday,” hits on something fundamental about the concept that’s at stake throughout the album, and, to my mind, it really is getting at a tension between the traditional aspects of daily life and the aspiration to find something more genuine, which is also very much at play in “It’s Getting Better,” “She's Leaving Home,” “Within You Without You” and so on.

Aaron: Exactly – so it’s not a “concept” album in the sense that it tells a story (shouldn’t that really be a “story album?”) or in the way it pushes a particular line of thought or philosophy (I guess those are generally called “loose concept albums”). However, the concept we’ve outlined here does seem to be one of the thicker, more noticeably strands tying the album together (again, I’d say, noticeable in part due to the excellent sequencing. So it seems like we’ve essentially decided that Sgt. Pepper’s – long mistakenly labeled the “first concept” album, then indisputably regarded as NOT a concept album – maybe just is a concept album after all. And all based on a conversation about what is arguably the least celebrated track on the album. Excellent work. I’d say that’s a good day’s work and so a good place to leave off. Of course we’d love to hear our readers’ thoughts on this or any other question we’ve raised about Sgt. Pepper’s, and any others that we haven’t raised as well.

Coming Next: With George Martin’s help, John constructs an enduring psychedelic rock classic.

Track #7: “She Said She Said” Revolver (1966)

Welcome to Track Chatter, where we choose a different song to discuss in depth. This entry is part of an ongoing series in which we reconsider songs by The Beatles. Can anything new be said about this band or its music? Have a look below and let us know what you think.

Aaron: Lucky number 7. Revolver, released in the UK in August of 1966, is The Beatles’ seventh album. It is also the final album to be released in different versions for the UK and US markets – in this case, the difference being that “And Your Bird Can Sing,” “Doctor Robert,” and “I’m Only Sleeping,” which appeared on Revolver in the UK, had already been released in the US as tracks on Yesterday and Today earlier that summer. No additional tracks were added to the US version of Revolver, so it was simply three tracks shorter than the UK version.

Before moving on to a discussion of the album and this entry’s track, I think it’s worth pointing out that The Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me, had been released in March of 1963. Thus, in just over three years, the band released seven albums – seven albums that include, whatever one’s opinion of the band or its music, some of the most memorable and well-known popular music ever recorded: a fairly amazing feat by any standard. It’s difficult to imagine any pop artist today working at such a fever pitch.

Revolver, much like its predecessor, has become one of the albums that it’s safe for almost anybody to like – fan and non-fan alike. The songwriting and musical arrangements show a noticeable amount of maturity over their earlier, “bubble gum” phase. At the same time, their studio experimentation has not yet progressed to the point of what some see as the indulgence of later efforts. In short, both Rubber Soul and Revolver see a band that has found a way to balance all its many talents in the service of forward-thinking, immaculately produced, driving pop classics. Revolver includes such tracks as “Eleanor Rigby,” one of their strongest lyrical expressions, the infectious, joyous pop of “And Your Bird Can Sing,” the silliness of “Yellow Submarine” (which, silliness aside, is one of the catchiest pop songs ever written – just try to get it out of your head now . . . “we all live in a . . .”), and the psychedelic experimentation of “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

The track we’ll be discussing for this entry is “She Said She Said,” a Lennon/McCartney number that is, in effect, so much a Lennon number that it is one of the very few Beatles’ tracks on which McCartney makes no appearance at all – in addition to his lead guitar duties, George Harrison plays bass. It’s a song that deftly represents much of what makes Revolver such a strong album – excellent musicianship (anybody who can still say Ringo’s not a good drummer after listening to “She Said She Said” just isn’t listening), expressionistic lyrical experimentation, gorgeous production sheen, and hints of psychedelia. It’s a track on which, as Ian MacDonald argues, Lennon is at the summit of his creativity.



I thought it might be interesting to kick off the discussion by returning to some questions we raised early in the series about relevance and listenability. What do you think, Lew, could “She Said She Said” find a place in the contemporary pop landscape? Is there any pop or rock today that owes it a debt?

Lew: I think “She Said She Said” would be regarded as a brilliant pop song if it were released today. In our discussion of “You Won’t See Me,” we talked about the “Beatles sound” that gets used to describe certain songs, and I think that, in some respects, “She Said She Said” is an even better example. Although there are definitely some exceptions, a good number of songs that are copping a Beatlesque sound often include some allusion to psychedelia. Now, needless to say, psychedelic music doesn't start and end with The Beatles (although the perception that it does is probably a source of irritation for non-fans) – a quick overview of the Nuggets collection gives ample evidence of that. Nevertheless, “She Said She Said” is a great example of a song that is able to successfully flirt with elements of psychedelia (as you noted) without being subsumed by it. I actually prefer “expressionist” or “surrealist” as descriptors, but that's beside the point. The subject matter is obscure, even arguably abstract – although it’s relating a specific conversation, it also seems to be hinting at some kind of existential crisis brought on by the experience. I would say that even hinting at something abstract/theoretical was fairly uncommon in rock music at the time that Revolver was released. So, to answer your question about whether or not there is pop or rock in the current landscape that owes a song like “She Said She Said” a debt, I would answer yes with no hesitation. Bands like XTC (and their alter ego The Dukes of Stratosphear) owed a substantial debt to the Beatles, and there are a number of one-off songs in which bands invoke the general sound that's happening on “She Said She Said” to some extent (Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” Oasis’s “Champagne Supernova,” The Raconteurs’ “Intimate Secretary” and so on) but in a larger sense, I think that you can make an argument that “She Said She Said” is an early, and highly influential example of abstraction in rock music, and as such, influential in ways that are less immediate than the obvious power pop homages. How do you feel about that idea?

Aaron: I’m ready to go along with your terminology (“expressionist,” “abstract”) without totally abandoning the “pyschedelia” term, if only because it’s useful and it does ground the group in the era (hopefully without burying them there). I’ll come back to that in just a minute. First, I thought it might be worth dwelling on the song’s sound for just a moment longer. Part of what makes the track such a fine example of its era’s experimentation, I think, is its drone. “She Said She Said” isn’t the first song – Beatles or otherwise – to include such a drone (which seems to have been influenced by their obvious appreciation of Indian music). I think, for The Beatles, it first crops up in “Ticket To Ride” from Help!. In both songs, the drone comes in large part from the bass. However, as we’ve pointed out, Paul doesn’t play bass on “She Said She Said” – it’s George. And I think that’s important because, as we discussed with “You Won’t See Me,” by this stage in the band’s career, Paul’s bass playing was undergoing some noticeable changes in terms of the highly melodic, sometimes walking bass lines he was employing. He was good enough in the studio (great, actually) that had he played on “She Said She Said,” he likely would have modified his style enough to serve the song. But I wonder how much his presence might have affected the result, perhaps altering that drone to a certain extent.

Even with the drone, I agree with you that “psychedelia” as a term needs refining – it’s too broad and covers too many different media to have any precise meaning on its own. And as I said, I particularly like your terms “expressionist” and “abstract” – particularly in the way they describe the lyrical content on this song. I think most people probably know about the song’s genesis – the acid trip in LA, Peter Fonda bumming everybody out with his talk of having once died as a child, and so on – but its precisely Lennon’s ability to make that experience abstract by avoiding any type of exposition. It might seem – on its face – that a song composed almost entirely of “dialogue” would be very concrete. But by making the lyrics free of setting, scene, even, really, character, Lennon upends a lot of the songwriting trends that had been emerging in pop over the previous years. So the song does become expressive of its mood or feeling, rather than a story about an event or a girl. I think it’s the combination of that expressionistic approach to lyrics combined with the music – the drone, but also the swirling lead guitar parts (which sound like sitars), Ringo’s incredible, sort of rolling drums which both reinforce the lead guitars and also provide a kind of counterpoint to them, and the time signature change for the bridge – which add up to a great psychedelic pop song.

Lew: I think your discussion of the drone quality in “She Said She Said” is right on the money. I’m curious about what might have happened if Paul had played bass on this song, too. Although Paul is one of my favorite bass players, I don’t think he would have necessarily embraced that droning quality in the same way that George did – especially from a rhythmic perspective. Having said that, I think that pretty much everything about the song’s performance and recording contributes to that feeling. The lead guitar parts are perfect, from the actual playing (which is pretty drone-y in spots) to the sound of the guitar. It’s a great use of the overdriven sound that was available to them at the time. I also want to mention Ringo’s playing – it’s a great example of a Ringo moment that sounds quite different from the straighter, more restrained playing that I think people expect from him. Again, I think that’s more of a case of perception than reality – we’ve talked about a few of Ringo’s parts, and it’s clear that they’re rarely boring. Here, as in “Every Little Thing,” Ringo is taking a very compositional approach to his drum part, while largely ignoring the option to play a “rock” beat - the fills that he builds into his part set up the transitions really well, and also seem to get at the rhythmic core of the sections - finding a sort of “clave,” I guess - in ways that a more regular beat would never do. The time signature change at the bridge is pretty minor - from a straight 4/4 to a triplet feel, but it changes the feel enough to make the verse feel fresh again when it comes back around.

I also really like what you said about the abstraction and lack of exposition in the lyrics. I’d never really thought of it that way, but it almost gives me a fresh appreciation for the song. I think the Peter Fonda story sometimes overshadows the song itself, which is really a disservice to the song and the listener. In some respects, it might be better if they’d never told anyone where it came from.

Aaron: Ha! I think even if The Beatles had never mentioned the story, it would have got out. As much as I admire Peter Fonda, he’s never been shy about self-aggrandizement and myth building. I think he knows how annoying he was that day, but he still gets so much joy out of having inspired a Beatles’ song that he’ll never tire of talking about it to anybody who will listen.

In any case, about Paul’s bass playing – it’s hard to say what he would have done with this track. I don’t know exactly why he wasn’t around; all I can find is reference to a studio tiff and his storming out. What the tiff had to do with, I’ve no clue. However, a few things are worth keeping in mind, one of which is that by this point the band was in the midst of a period of Paul really taking over in terms a lot of creative direction decisions. Because John was in the early days of a two-year acid bender that would leave him somewhat tapped for long-term energy, it was really Paul (and George Martin) who was responsible for a lot of the overarching creative decision making from Revolver through Magical Mystery Tour. So I have a feeling that had he wanted to push for a more bouncy bass part, he would have got his way. Having said that, however, it’s also worth noting that Paul’s playing on the verses of “Ticket To Ride,” which is much more drone-y than what George brings to “She Said She Said,” is a major element in that song as a key early departure for the band. So who knows what he might have brought to “She Said . . .” had he been the one to perform on it.

When it comes to Ringo’s drumming, what more can I say (besides, nice call on the modified clave – had never thought to put it that way). The more I listen to these and other tracks for this project, the more I find it confusing – unfathomable, even – that he’s got a reputation for being a mediocre or even bad (or, worst of all, boring!) drummer. His ability to play straight 4/4 (which is almost never completely straight, the way he accents the hi-hat, or swings the beat) and then switch almost seamlessly to what you call a “more compositional approach” is not only impressive, on some tracks – including “She Said She Said” – it’s damned exhilarating! And not only is he a very good drummer, I’m not even sure if it would be a stretch to argue that Ringo’s drumming is as distinctive and vital an element to the band’s sound and development as any other single aspect apart, perhaps, from the vocals.

Lew: “Ticket to Ride” is definitely a weird one. If I didn’t know better, I would suspect that Paul didn’t play bass on it at all. It doesn’t really have any of his usual flair for bridging between chords, mirroring the vocal melody, etc. That said, I think that one of the things that allows for a “dronier” bass part in “Ticket to Ride” is that there’s only one chord happening for the almost the entire verse. “She Said She Said” doesn’t offer that same kind of space, so the drone feel is definitely more of an overall effect.

As to what degree of importance Ringo’s playing has to the sound of The Beatles, I’d agree that it’s huge and vastly understated by most people. At the risk of stating the obvious, I think it’s the case in most bands that while people tend to focus on the vocalist or guitar player, the drummer is really the engine that drives the core of the band’s sound. If that’s not the case, you probably have a bad drummer. That perspective isn’t often applied to The Beatles – I’m not sure if that has to do with Ringo’s public persona or maybe the lack of clarity to hear what he’s really doing on some of the recordings - although it’s as true for them as any other band. If you played “She Said She Said” through with a straight 4/4 beat (which you could even maintain through the 12/8 section if you wanted), the song would have a completely different sound.

Aaron: Just a little factoid before we go: not only does Paul play bass on “Ticket To Ride,” he also plays lead guitar, just as George plays both on “She Said She Said” (I think it’s one of the first songs on which Paul played lead).

With that, I think we’ll leave off and see what are readers have to say. What do you think . . . could you imagine hearing “She Said She Said” on the radio today? Where would it slot in the with the Gagas and the Kanyes and the Death Cabs and the Coldplays? And, as usual, we would love to hear any thoughts you might have on this track or any of the other topics we’ve brought up.

Coming Next: Paul gets an idea in his head on THE BEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME!!!

Track #6: “You Won't See Me” Rubber Soul (1965)

Welcome to Track Chatter, where we choose a different song to discuss in depth. This entry is part of an ongoing series in which we reconsider songs by The Beatles. Can anything new be said about this band or its music? Have a look below and let us know what you think.

Lew: The Beatles’ sixth album, Rubber Soul, is a standout, even among a body of work as strong as that of the Beatles. Released in December of 1965, the album is one of the most striking examples of the progression that The Beatles made between Please Please Me, and their later, more experimental work. If Beatles For Sale represented the beginning of The Beatles’ move away from straightforward pop, Rubber Soul can be seen as a full realization of that move. While The Beatles have yet to move into the full-scale psychedelia of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s, they have certainly abandoned overt reference to many of the more traditional pop influences to which they were indebted early on, both compositionally and sonically. Among other notable innovations, Rubber Soul is generally thought to contain the first instance of a rock band incorporating sitar into an arrangement (on “Norwegian Wood”).

While the notion of selecting “lesser known” tracks becomes increasingly problematic on albums as well-loved as Rubber Soul, we’ve decided to adhere to it as closely as possible. We’ll be talking about the track “You Won’t See Me,” which is credited to Lennon/McCartney, but generally acknowledged to be a Paul song. At the time that Rubber Soul was released, “You Won’t See Me” was the longest track that The Beatles had recorded, clocking in at the epic length of 3:22!



Aaron, I’m curious about how you hear this song, in terms of its place in The Beatles body of work. Do you think this song would have sounded out of place on an earlier album?

Aaron: I guess Rubber Soul brings us to a place of interesting confluence in The Beatles’ career – they’re getting tired of touring (I think they’ve got one big tour left in them), their compositional strategies are developing (as you mention), and studio conditions are improving. Furthermore, their access to space at Abbey Road studios has become a rock band’s dream – it was around this time that the band were given free, unlimited access to the studio. Rubber Soul was still something of a rushed project, as they only had about three months to write and record it in time for a Christmas push, but it was their first album recorded as an album, over one block of sessions, and not as a song here or there between tours and other appearances.

“You Won’t See Me” has never been one of my favorite Beatles’ tunes, but there’s no question it’s easily recognizable as “different” from their earlier output. The production alone marks it as a departure – the mix is so nice and clean, with each separate part both discernable and yet well-integrated in the overall mix (you can hear the bass drum!). The double-tracked vocals, the high-hat fills – the sound of all this marks it as what I’ve often thought of as a sort of second-wave of rock recording. The older Beatles stuff sort of comes at the tale end of the first wave – two-track and primitive four-track recording, basic arrangements, a narrow range of instrumentation, etc. I don’t at all mean to say the sound of early rock was bad, only different. By the mid-sixties, however, all that was changing. I think we’ve done a pretty good job throughout this series of tracing The Beatles’ role at the forefront of that innovation, and “You Won’t See Me” is a fine example – I guess that’s what I mean by a confluence: it wasn’t only the band that was going through a metamorphosis by this point, but both the concept of what a pop song could be and the methods by which it was produced. Looking back on this response, I realize I’ve taken the long way around of avoiding talking about the song itself – so I’ll throw it back to you for that, Lew. What about “You Won’t See Me” appeals to you?

Lew: I guess there are a few ways that I could answer that question, but the thing that I think is probably most significant about the song is that it, along with some other songs on Rubber Soul, seems to be an early example of what I think people mean when they say that something sounds “Beatlesque.” The chord progression in "You Won't See Me" is much simpler than what they had been commonly using in their earlier material, and the song in general seems to contain fewer allusions to the rock music that preceded it (much less jazz). To go back to some of the things that we were talking about in our early discussions, "You Won't See Me" seems like less of an amalgamation of earlier styles that they're recontextualizing. In some ways, that makes it debatably more deliberate sounding.

At the same time, they're able to do more with vocal arrangements by this point than they had previously, and the backup part at the end of the bridge ("no I wouldn't, no I wouldn't") is a great example of the more "psychedelic" direction that they'd be headed in. The backing vocal part isn't clearly defined at first listen, and its effect is to create a wash of sound – momentary chaos, one might say – that then resolves back into a statement of the verse melody. It's very effective in that respect.

Aaron: You’re certainly right about the vocal arrangement, which builds to such a finely layered mix of voices that I’d hardly paid much attention to it before. Also on listening again, I’ve realized how the bass really leads the song, and it’s a very melodic bass line (headphones really help bring things out in the mono mix). The bass line is a force here, so clean and seeming to wander all around the melody, while the piano and rhythm guitar almost seem to be comping it in a big-band jazz sort of way.

Which brings me to your description of this song as “Beatlesque,” which I think is probably accurate. It would be great if you could describe, a bit, what that actually means in terms of chord selection and so on. But returning to an issue that’s been coming up more recently, one thing I find interesting is how this song represents some of the changing dynamics of the group and what that means for their sound. Let’s say the term “Beatlesque” can be said to have three phases – the early career “She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah” vibe, the mid-career blending of more advanced harmonies, folk forays, and early psychedelia of Rubber Soul and Revolver, and the late career, post-Pepper breaking apart of one discernible sound into more distinct, overlapping sounds of the individual songwriters (please let me know if this classification doesn’t work for you). A lot of things are going on in that transition – Paul is becoming a master of melody and harmony, so that he can write a beautiful sounding song almost effortlessly. He’s also becoming more demanding of himself and the band in the studio. John is starting to care less about those things, but is pushing experimentation (along with Paul and the others) and also pushing both the personal and political aspects of his lyrics. Superficially, it could be argued that Paul is becoming more concerned with how the music sounds whereas John is becoming more concerned with what it says (again, aware of the superficial nature of this contention). And George is becoming a more expansive songwriter in his own right. At the same time, the band is just becoming tighter and tighter, better at their individual instruments and also better at playing with and off each other.

“You Won’t See Me” crystallizes that mid-era sound, which comes from each of the boys playing their specific part to perfection, however diminished - John only sings on the song and doesn’t play any instruments, George plays a simple rhythm with no solo, and aside from the harmony vocals, it’s really only Paul and Ringo who bust out here. Yet it all works together to make one of those effortless McCartney numbers that I mentioned. Which, I guess, leads back to what you said about the song being less a recontextualization and more an example of The Beatles coming into their own as creators and producers of their own sound. Listened to in that context, the song becomes a lot more interesting to me.

Lew: Right off the bat, I want to say that I agree about the bass line. “You Won't See Me” provides a great example of Paul's bass playing, and a lesson in exactly how underrated he is as a bass player. In this instance, he does a great job of hitting chord tones in a very melodic way, and also does some nice chromatic movement to navigate the chords in the pre-chorus (“it’s been so long, girl, since you've been gone,” etc). Possibly even more importantly, he maintains a rhythmic motif that permeates the entire song – it’s so present during the verses and chorus that anytime he deviates from the rhythmic feel, it has the effect of really changing the vibe of the song for that space of time. A particularly effective aspect is his almost always landing on the “and” of 2 in the measure. In any case, the bass line is busy enough that the piano and guitar parts being almost completely confined to playing on 2 & 4 works completely.

The question about specifically what musical moves constitute the “Beatlesque” sound is an interesting one. In a lot of respects, the texture of the vocal arrangement is a big part of it. Having said that, I think that it’s a certain tension that comes from using a fairly obvious group of chords, but making a lot of those chords dominant 7ths (in places where a dominant chord usually wouldn’t be used), and also occasionally including a chord that’s very effective, but deviates from the key signature that has been established up to that point. A great example in “You Won't See Me” happens in the pre-chorus (if you can call it that) under the lines “we have lost the time that was so hard to find.” Under the word “time,” they play a D major chord, but switch to a D minor by “was.” That, to my mind, really captures the Beatlesque sound, and it’s something that you see popping up at all stages of their career, even as the more cosmetic elements of their music were experiencing dramatic changes.

Aaron: That’s a great technical breakdown of “Beatlesque” as a descriptor, both of their music and the music they influenced. When you put it in musical terms like that (which I’d never be able to do), it makes it much clearer to me how the existence of a Beatlesque sound can permeate their entire career. If they were interested in such chord experiments and key deviations from their early days, it would make sense that, as they improved as a band and then as a studio unit, and then began to break apart, their exploration of such sonic possibilities would expand and improve as well. It will definitely be worth revisiting as we enter the middle portion of their career when they were, arguably, at their most Beatlesque. But before we wind down, do you think it might be worth looking back to a couple other specific examples from earlier in their career in which they were investigating and pushing such sonic divergences? Just for a little context?

Lew: It's definitely worthwhile to look at an older Beatles track to get a look at the genesis of the Beatlesque sound. I thought of “I Feel Fine” first, and it’s an intriguing one, not least because of the feedback at the beginning (which I think you may have mentioned recently). It’s also a great example of the way The Beatles were able to push typical melodies in new directions by playing a straight I IV V chord progression as dominant 7ths across the board. In the line “I’m in love with her and I feel fine,” the word “her” is a minor third from the tonic (G major in this case) – typically, you’d expect the vocal to hit the major 3rd there (B), but instead the vocal sings a Bb, which is included in the C7 (C, E, G, Bb) that’s happening underneath the vocal at the time. Ordinarily, that C chord would not have contained a Bb. It’s hard to say where that comes from – whether they just played 7th chords underneath everything because those were the chords that they knew, or whether they heard the melodies that way and arranged the chords to match. Anyway, it's a great example of the slightly skewed simplicity of the Beatles' sound.

Aaron: “Slightly skewed” is a fine way to put it. One thing I’m really getting out of this series is a greater appreciation of how that skewed sensibility was not only integral to the band’s success, but also seems to have been an organic part of their development. The question of how much of it was “natural” and how much “planned,” still lingers, I guess, and it’s something we’ll take up (along with a further exploration just what “Beatlesque” means) in our next entry. Until then, I’d love to hear what our readers think about “You Won’t See Me” or any of the other points we’ve raised.

Coming Next: We extend our discussion of the Beatlesque sound as Peter Fonda freaks out John Lennon and the band moves fully into their mature phase on Revolver.

“Yesterday” Help! (1965)

Welcome to Track Chatter, where we choose a different song to discuss in depth. This entry is part of an ongoing series in which we reconsider songs by The Beatles. Can anything new be said about this band or its music? Have a look below and let us know what you think.

Aaron: Recently in the comments, we touched a bit on the different release history of The Beatles albums vis a vis the UK and the US. Many of us who grew up in the US – pre-compact disc, anyway – were used to a set of albums that were different from their UK counterparts – similar, but something like phantom copies in the way they replicated the UK releases, but modified them. Sometimes this resulted in albums with completely different titles – of the first four albums we’ve discussed here at Track Chatter, only the US A Hard Day’s Night shares a title with its UK counterpart, although the two albums share only seven tracks. Capitol would continue to release different versions in North America up through and including 1966’s Revolver and in that year would release one more, US-only album, Yesterday and Today, which included tracks from the UK (but not US) versions of Help!, Rubber Soul, and the aforementioned Revolver.

Perhaps the biggest discrepancy comes on the album up for discussion this week, Help!. The UK version included twelve original Beatles songs (including two George Harrison numbers), and two covers – “Act Naturally” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” The Capitol release included only seven of those tracks, plus five instrumentals from the soundtrack to the film (which always made the album seem a bit boring to me as a kid). So for some readers, this entry’s track discussion might seem startling at first, as we’ll be talking about “Yesterday,” originally released in August 1965 as the penultimate track on side two of the UK version of Help!.

Can anything be said about “Yesterday” that hasn’t already been said – by fans, critics, or the many many artists who’ve interpreted it via cover version (over 1,600)? In some ways, “Yesterday” is an example both of what makes The Beatles such an interesting band as well as what so many of the band’s detractors hate about them. Perhaps we can shed some light on why that might be.

And while “Yesterday” might seem at first to be outside the purview of this project – it can hardly be described as a “lesser-known” track – its near ubiquity in a way makes it ripe for discussion: it’s a song that everybody knows, so few people rarely listen to. Or maybe not.



What do you think, Lew: is “Yesterday” even worth talking about?

Lew: It is worth talking about, for sure. It's a song that can be looked at in several ways, I think. To start, I completely agree with your statement that its ubiquity locates it in sort of a blind spot. It's one of those cultural icons that's simply accepted as being present, and consequently, rarely considered in and of itself. In a lot of respects, you could probably call it a “traditional” at this point. It's a more extreme example, but one rarely hears anyone talking about "Amazing Grace" as a song with strengths or weaknesses (although I think it's pretty cool) - it serves a certain cultural function, and that role supersedes any question about its quality. I also think that the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” is pretty appropriate here. One can only hear so many lounge versions of a song without starting to judge it on its use in that context. There's a lot more to say, but why don't you weigh in for a second? Do you think “Yesterday” is worth discussing?

Aaron: In a lot of ways, yes. I think it’s one of those songs that Beatles detractors point to as an example of the schmaltzy side of the band (even if less so than some later Paul compositions). Hand-in-hand with John’s “druggy” songs and the factors relating to overexposure that we’ve already touched on somewhat, this schmaltziness seems to be “proof” to some that the Beatles are overrated or coasting on reputation. But the more I listen to the song, the more I realize that couldn’t be further from the truth.

But before I get to breaking the track itself down, there are a few things worth mentioning. First, I’ve never really noticed this before, but do you think it might be fair to say that Help! is where we really begin to see the emergence of “John” songs and “Paul” songs? We’ve discussed briefly the end of their “head-to-head” writing sessions. I realize that, with a few exceptions, they would continue to contribute to each other’s songs throughout the life of the band, but do we see on Help! the beginning of more individually voiced songs? For instance, last entry we talked about how “Every Little Thing” sounds like a Lennon song (in part because of his role singing it) even though it was written mainly by McCartney. Could we imagine Lennon singing “Yesterday”? Or McCartney singing “Hide Your Love Away”? I know that the band didn’t think so. Apparently, they considered “Yesterday” to be almost a McCartney solo song, so much so that they vetoed its release as a single in the UK (it was released as a single in the US, where it went to number one; it was released as a UK single in 1976, making it to number eight). They seemed to think “Yesterday” didn’t have the Beatles “sound.”

What’s interesting to me now, however, is that “Yesterday” comes from the same album as “Hide Your Love Away” and the many similarities between the two. Both songs are showcases for their individual writer – although on “Yesterday” Paul is the only Beatle to perform, whereas on “Hide Your Love Away,” the entire band appears. Both songs feature outside instrumentation (the orchestra of “Yesterday,” the flute of “Hide Your Love Away”). Both songs feature very pure distillations of that combination of simple and raw songwriting that we’ve discussed, with nearly unadorned or distracting musical arrangements. And both songs are about the singer dealing with the aftermath of a painful breakup. In fact, “Yesterday” even features the line “now I need a place to hide away.”

Now, I love “Hide Your Love Away.” It’s been one of my favorite songs of all time – Beatles or no – since I can remember. But I wonder if it doesn’t get props for being a better song because it’s a Lennon track, or perhaps because “Yesterday” is, as we’ve said, “overdone.” So I’d like to get into talking about the lyrics and music of “Yesterday,” to see if it does stand up, if it is a good song. So, take it away in one of those directions, Lew, unless you’d also like to add some “meta” to the conversation before we get down to the nitty gritty.

Lew: Well, you've definitely presented some food for thought here. I was initially a little wary about drawing comparisons between “Hide Your Love Away” and “Yesterday.” That's probably more about me than anything else - I generally avoid that kind of comparison because it seems kind of “reductive” (for lack of a better word). But, having thought it through, I agree that you're on the money when you identify them as sharing a lot of common ground, lyrically. Both songs are written from the perspective of someone who's in the aftermath of a romantic tragedy, and they're both great at describing that experience for different reasons.

In “Yesterday,” the lyric places the event chronologically (today), and refers to an earlier, more carefree time (yesterday). That may seem fairly self-evident, but I think that it's important to point out, because I have the feeling that it's a common experience when you're experiencing a crisis. Speaking for myself, I know that there's always a tendency for me to delineate between the now (in which a terrible event is happening), and before (when things were good, and I didn't know/appreciate it). The narrator of “Yesterday” captures this experience pretty clearly, and it may be (although this is pure hypothesis) that commonality that has made the song so popular. Of course, it's a catchy tune, as well.

To extend the comparison to “Hide Your Love Away” a bit, I think it's important to note some differences, in addition to the similarities. "Yesterday" seems to be written from a perspective of isolation, while “Hide Your Love Away” is very clearly placed in a social perspective; from the title, to the constant references to people that are looking at the narrator. It has aspects of paranoia, in addition to the obvious resignation and heartbreak. “Yesterday” doesn't seem to have any kind of self-awareness - it's only expressing the heartbreak.

I completely agree that with Help!, we're starting to songs that can be much more clearly defined as “John” and “Paul” songs. I wonder if you could say that, once they stopped writing the more overt pop songs, they started moving away from each other. It seems like they were able to write together very seamlessly while they were borrowing cliches, but that maybe once they started trying to raise the quality of their creative output, their respective identities became too pronounced to maintain the same kind of partnership.

Aaron: Yeah, “reductive” probably is the right word. And the two songs certainly have as many differences as they have commonalities. It’s the difference in their reception I find so odd, when there are so many clear similarities. Maybe it’s also a case of “Yesterday” just being too popular, which tends to make things unlikeable for a certain segment of fandom (myself, on occasion, included).

So what about “Yesterday” on its own? I agree with you that it captures an experience very clearly. The more I listen to it, the more I think it’s pretty much crystal clear. Paul is getting very economical at this point – an aspect of his songwriting that gets overlooked sometimes (perhaps because he’s so un-economical at times). I don’t want to misuse musical terms, so please correct me, but is it right to say the song doesn’t really have a chorus. Something more like a verse and a bridge (how would you characterize the “why she had to go” part?). In any case, there are very few actual lyrics in the song, and there’s a fair amount of repetition. I generally despise the use of “poetic” to describe pop music, but there’s an element of truth in using that description for this song. Not in any flowery or overtly metaphorical sense, but in the way the lyrics – simple as they are – have multiple meanings that can lead thoughts in different directions at the same time. Just one example might be, “I’m not half the man I used to be.” I don’t really know exactly what he means by that. Is it a very literal “my other half (i.e. my partner) is now gone”? Is it something more metaphorical, as in half of some essence of whatever it was that made him a man is gone. Is it about his missing confidence, self-possession, etc? Or is it the simple lover’s lament that life really sucks without her? It’s somehow a combination of those sentiments (and more, probably), and I could see how it might come across as overtly weepy to some listeners. But even more interesting to me is how it comes after the dramatic, “Suddenly” – that’s where the clarity of it comes in for me. The whole song is really about that “suddenly” moment – the difference between yesterday and today is only a few hours, after all. And it’s not only “suddenly she’s gone” (it’s partly that), or “suddenly I’m sad and confused” (partly that, too), but “suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be.” In some ways it’s not nearly as clever as “here I stand, head in hand, turn my face to the wall” (which makes visual much the same feeling, I guess, so gets props for the whole “show don’t tell” thing); but while not being as clever, it’s much more confessional and raw. I don’t mean to get back to the reductive comparison, because both lines are effective for me. But I can definitely see why those lines (and the songs) would appeal differently to different listeners.

I could go on about how the lyrics to “Yesterday” work for me, but I’m curious to hear your take on them (before, I hope, we get to some talk about the music).

Lew: Well, I'd agree that the lyrics are economical, and probably brilliant in their economy. The way the verses are structured so that the first word of the verse also concludes the verse is a smart bit of writing. I'd agree that the verse that begins with the word “suddenly” is probably the most clarifying moment in the song, and the best writing. I think the line "yesterday came suddenly" is a truly inspired moment. This verse is really pivotal to the song, both musically and lyrically. Lyrically, it leads to the “I'm not half the man I used to be,” which, as you pointed out, is a line that carries more than one interpretation and probably conveys the most essential statement of the narrator's condition in the song. Musically, Paul singing the word "suddenly" arrives at the same time as the string section, which I think lends weight to the vocal part. It's a very well-conceived arrangement, in the way that the abrupt arrival of strings mirrors the word being sung by the vocalist.

I think the perception that the song is overly sentimental, or “weepy” as you say, is misplaced. I'll grant that it's morose, but I think the music manages to avoid a lot of the potential pitfalls that go with this type of song. For one thing, as recorded here, it's only slightly over two minutes long. I'm inclined to call that understated, since he really could have expanded certain things, or even repeated sections to make it longer. Secondly, as a corollary to the song's length, I can't help noticing that the tempo isn't as slow as I want to think it is. If you listen to the way he articulates the guitar part, it's anything but dirge-like. Finally, I wanted to mention Paul's vocal, which I also find to be quite understated. In my mind, I tend to hear the song as very slow, and with a slightly overdone vocal take, but the truth is, he doesn't use vibrato once in the entire vocal! Even the held notes are sustained plainly, and I think it's that lack of affectation (mirroring the lyric) that really saves the song for me.

I guess I've jumped straight from the lyrics to talking about the music with no warning. I'm sure you have some things to say about that, as well, so let's get into it.

Aaron: Hey, I really like that observation about how the first utterance of “suddenly” comes just as the strings kick in. It’s one of those glaringly obvious aspects of the song that I’ve just never really paid attention to – again, probably a byproduct of too many listens. Also agree that “yesterday came suddenly” is an inspired line.

As a brief sidetrack before taking up the music, I’d just like to land again on the subject of the band’s approach to recording because I think it relates to what you wrote about Paul’s approach to singing the song. Their later experiments with recording are well known (and seemingly equally well loved/hated), but, as we’ve already touched on somewhat in this series, they were taking novel approaches to studio work from the very beginning. We’ve talked about double-tracked vocals, playing with volume levels, “supporting the song,” and I think a lot of that comes into play with “Yesterday,” and demonstrates the technical mastery they had developed by this point in their career as a band. The decision alone not to have any of the other band members play on the track (which seems to have many origin stories) is one notable moment. But there’s an approach to the singing that I want to check with you because I don’t know if it’s just the version I have, or listening to it on my MacBook, or the actual recording. In the first bridge, are the vocals double-tracked only on the lines “I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday?” I think so. But on the second bridge, those lines are not double-tracked. However, on the first, double-tracked bridge, Paul sings the concluding syllable, “-day,” as one sustained note while the violins descend four steps; whereas on the final utterance (the single-tracked), his voice descends through the four steps while the violins hold the first note. Sorry if my musical terminology is not up to scratch, but is that about how you’d describe it? It’s such a simple decision – combining the band’s knowledge of recording and music (and probably with a heavy dollop of a George Martin contribution) – but it provides such texture to the song. I think everybody probably thinks that Paul goes down those four steps on both passes, but the difference, though subtle, I think adds to the emotional richness of the song’s texture.

I’d love to hear more about the music; any other thoughts on the relationship between the three parts: vocals, guitar, string quartet?

Lew: You’re absolutely correct about the way the vocals are double-tracked. Again, it’s something that I had never really paid much attention to until we started talking about the song recently. I actually think it’s quite interesting that the vocals are double-tracked the first time through the bridge, and not the second. This is definitely one of those instances where it’s hard to know how much analysis is appropriate, because it’s either a very deliberate decision, and in that case an odd one, or something completely arbitrary that only took place because they ran out of time in the studio, or something like that. Personally, I would have double-tracked it both times. Leaving that aside, I love the way he sustains the one note at the end of the first bridge. I think that the sound of him holding that one note against the descending figure that the strings are playing adds a cool polyphonic dimension to the way that statement is concluded. I know I mentioned this already, but I’m still amazed that there isn't even a trace of vibrato on that note. It’s definitely unusual - some people might even say it makes his vocal technique sound unstudied - but as I said before, I really think it enhances the song because there’s so little artifice about it.

About the relationship between voice, guitar and string; it’s a really interesting arrangement for me. Paul’s voice is the focal point, but the guitar part really provides the rhythmic foundation for the song. It’s an odd part in some respects - I like the way he voices the chords, but the rhythmic figure is pretty stiff. That’s not a knock on Paul’s guitar playing; I'm sure he could have played something more syncopated, so the rigidity is obviously deliberate. Maybe he played it that way at George Martin’s suggestion? I'm not sure, but I can't help wondering what it would have sounded like if one of the guitar players in the band had played the part. Or, it might just be me. Did you notice the stiffness that I'm referencing here?

Aaron: I wonder if there’s a difference between “stiff” and “rigid.” I definitely know what you mean, though. It sounds almost metronomic in its steadiness. And yet, like you said, it seems deliberate as well, which I think is likely because it provides a steadiness to the song that the vocals and quartet can then play off. I know that Paul could be something of a melodic bass player, but he was a bass player nevertheless. I wonder how much that figured into his guitar playing here. On the other hand, I think it’s pretty well documented that “Yesterday” was written on piano. Do you know if there are any existing versions out there of Paul playing it on piano? It would be interesting to hear if that changed his rhythmic approach to the song.

In any case, one thing that this write-up has really shed a light on for me is how unadorned this song actually is. Yes, the quartet gives it a polished, “serious” sheen that makes it seem very “pretty.” However, I wonder how much our contemporary take on the quarter has been affected by the forty odd years of rock bands trying to go “serious” by adding strings. Whereas with “Yesterday” it might have been more a question of texture (as you mention) than one of “polish” or adornment. Just a hunch, and I’m sure somebody out there might have a more definitive take on it than I can give here (I swear I’m going to get the Ian MacDonald book soon!). But the point is, with his singing style (as you so well describe) and the simple guitar and the relatively low-key string accompaniment, the song is much more an exercise in restraint than it’s always seemed to be in my mind. Listening to it again for this project has made that so clear.

Lew: That's a good point about the piano. Actually, now that you’ve said that, I’m hearing the guitar part a little differently. Before, I was hearing it as a very stiff strumming pattern, but in the context that you’ve presented, I have the idea that his intention was to adapt the left/right hand relationship from his original piano part to the guitar. That makes more sense to me.

Following the minor revelation above, I was thinking, “why didn't he just play piano on it, in that case?” But, I think that gets to what you were saying about the unadorned quality of “Yesterday's” arrangement and production. A piano would have sounded much “bigger” and, coupled with the strings, might have given more of a genuine orchestral vibe, whereas the slighter sound of the acoustic guitar seems to help in retaining a general lack of pretentiousness. I think that might be the difference between the way strings are used in “Yesterday” vs. the way rock bands have used them since, as you say, “Yesterday” uses them as a textural addition, and seems to do so with a fair degree of intentionality. By contrast, a lot of bands using strings don't seem to know what they want - they layer on strings, horns, tympani and whatever else because, again as you implied, they're really looking to borrow some kind of authenticity or musical gravitas by using instruments that belong to “high music,” as it were. Not everyone can write “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but most people seem to think they can.

Aaron: Ha, Indeed! In fact, a song like “Bohemian Rhapsody” has probably had as much an influence on rock’s pretensions to seriousness as one like “Yesterday” because it is so BIG and has that operatic quality (in a good way) that I think sometimes gets misapplied to McCartney’s music (in a bad way). But the point is well made, specifically what you say about the relationship between the guitar and the strings in “Yesterday.” At the risk of getting a bit repetitive on this point, I think that knowledge, that in-studio savvy, is an important part of the Beatles’ legacy: while some of their songs might not seem “relevant” in today’s cultural context, their approach to song craft and recording – that combination of lyrics, musicianship, experimentation, and studio precision – that so defines their best work is incredibly relevant and vital today. I think you could argue that a band like Radiohead, even, as far as their sound is from the Beatles, is very directly a descendent of the Beatles in the way they consciously craft their songs. Perhaps that’s a stretch, but I don’t really think so.

But getting back to “Yesterday” and its relevance. I wanted to slip in an anecdote before signing off. A few years back I received a mix-CD (from our good buddy Dan D.) that included some live acoustic performances by Jeff Tweedy. Most of the performances (I believe) come from a show he did at Lounge Ax in Chicago – so, like, hipster central. He starts playing “Yesterday,” and the performance and the crowd reaction provide a really fascinating insight into the song’s reception these days. Tweedy plays it completely straight – no guitar flourishes, no funny voices, no sense of irony or cynicism at all. As he begins and sings the first line, there are audible bursts of laughter. A couple guys close to the recording mic actually start giggling derisively. Tweedy keeps plugging along. And the crowd starts to quiet down. A few people start singing along, and by the final bridge, what sounds like the whole crowd is singing along with obvious enthusiasm. It’s a great performance, to be sure. But it’s also a great example of how well the song works, how good the song is, if it’s listened to as the song it is, not some artifact of a long-lost era, or an example of some mythological faux-sentimentality on the part of Paul McCartney.

That’s my take, anyway. Any final thoughts on your part, Lew? It’s a big song – anything that needs saying before we turn it over to our readers?

Lew: I don't have much to add, although I think your observation that Radiohead owes a lot of its experimental approach to the legacy of the Beatles is spot on. I don't think it's at all far-fetched to compare Radiohead's development since Pablo Honey to the Beatles development from Please Please Me onward.

I'd like to hear that Jeff Tweedy performance.

I'll close my remarks on Yesterday by saying how surprised and pleased I am that it turned out to be such a fertile topic of conversation. For anyone who hasn't really given the song a serious listen (or five) in a few years, I definitely recommend further investigation.

Coming Next: We do our best to return to the (semi-) obscure with a track from the Beatles’ sixth UK release, Rubber Soul.