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In which returning guest Gary Wenstrup and I continue our ranking conversation of faves, discussing A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles For Sale. Along the way, we analyze their vocals and blendings, as well as what personal experiences may inform the writing.
It could be argued that I’ll Be Back only has one bridge and goes to it only once. (On the show it was mentioned that there were three bridges.)
The sections of the song are, without names and with bar lengths in parentheses:
Am (6) | Am (6)
F#m (7)
Am (6) | Am (6)
Bm (10)
Am (6) | Am (6)
F#m (7)
Am (6) | Am (6) (Instrumental)
Indeed, there are two reasons to interpret the F#m section as a bridge. First, it comes after two renditions of the Am chord sequence. That is, we have the AAB of an AABA (or AABABA) song. Second, it goes to F#m, the relative minor of the key (A major), a cliché in creating a bridge in songs. This is the sound of a bridge. (Note: the Am sections end with an A major chord, so the F#m is the relative minor of that section.)
The problem with this interpretation is those A sections are only 6 bars long. That is pretty short for an A section. In this interpretation, the bridge comes in at 30 seconds. That’s pretty quick.
I think Lennon thought of the F#m section as merely the second half of the A section. Many of Lennon and McCartney’s AABA(BA) songs have two-part A sections, that is they contain a “change.” Quite often the second section just repeats the first or is only 4 bars and is a bit of a chorus. Here, instead of sounding like a mini-chorus (like in Please Please Me), it just happens to sound like a bridge.
I see this as an AABA song with two oddities. First, it doesn’t go to the second part when repeating the first A section. Instead, it skips it and goes to the bridge early. Second, it repeats the A section instead of closing the song with a BA. So instead of AABABA, we have AA’BAA’ (with the ticks [‘] being modified).
I thought I wrote here years ago that this should not be called a rondo (ABACABA). But I can’t see why not now. (I may not have noticed that the F#m section was not repeated the second time around when looking at the sheet music.)
A Hard Day’s Night is certainly tough to give just three medals to. My soft spot is for Tell Me Why. So great an album even And I Love Her and Can’t Buy Me Love were not even discussed, if I remember correctly. If I had to add a Paul song, which there are few here, it would be Things We Said Today. But I like the similarly minor key of I’ll Be Back better.
Matt, I’m guessing the songs you mentioned weren’t discussed because singles or the really popular songs are primarily being ignored. Thus “A Hard Day’s Night” was ignored.
I’ll Be Back, to me, was always put on the end of the UK album as a way of saying to the fans…don’t worry, thanks for listening to this album, it’s over, but don’t worry, we’ll be back…
Fun exercise. Not a Second Time is up there with anything in their catalog. With the Beatles is consistently in my top three Beatles albums (with the white album and Revolver). I wish they’d give With the Beatles and A Hard Day’s Night the remaster/boxset treatment.
I’m surprised that “All I’ve Got to Do” and “You Really Got a Hold on Me” weren’t selected by either of you. Aside from those two and “Anna,” all of my own picks were mentioned.
It usually amuses me when people say “Beatles for Sale” was a weak album. Well, Beatles ’65, which had 8 songs from that album, was the best selling non-soundtrack album of 1965 in the States & Beatles for Sale was the top in 1964 & top non-soundtrack in 1965 in the UK. So much for “a weak album”. They “were tired”.
Ok well give me a “tired album” with Rock n’ Roll Music sung by Lennon, I’ll Follow The Sun, Every Little Thing..jeepers, even Honey Don’t anytime thanks.
Fun show. I have a quibble about the interpretation of the lyrics in If I Fell. You both suggest that John (or his narrator) is concerned about hurting the feelings of his ex-lover. But if you look at the lyric, he’s clearly saying that he hopes that the new girlfriend sees he’d love to lover her AND that the old girlfriend will cry. He wants the old lover to be hurt the way she hurt him. It’s another example of the occasional vindictiveness in John that was referred to in other parts of the show. Even in a tender love song he could show that side. Just an observation from a fellow obsessive.