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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
All rights reserved

Many Years From Now
In Many Years From Now McCartney has this to say about Michelle: 

   ... There's a very jazzy chord in it: Michelle, ma BELLE.
  That second chord. That was a chord we used twice in the Beatles:
  once to end George's solo on Till There Was You and again when
  I used it in this. It was a chord shown to us by Jim Gretty who
  worked behind the counter a Frank Hessy's where we used to buy
  our instruments on the never-never in Liverpool. So Jim Gretty
  showed us this one great ham-fisted jazz chord, bloody hell!
  George and I learned it off him.
    McCartney BMPM274

The second chord of Michelle does not occur on BELLE, but rather
between Michelle and ma. What was McCartney thinking then?

The second chord of Michelle is a Bb minor seventh on the recording.
That's not a great ham-fisted jazz chord, but a rather a very normal
chord for the Beatles. On McCartney's demo tape, he plays the song in
C major, with a second chord of F minor seventh.

Now, if we assume the chord he means in the Till There Was You solo
is the one just before the final tonic:

        g7      Gretty  F

Where Gretty is variously reported as below, with the bass plays an
f# followed by a c natural:

(a)     f# c  e bb d a    2 3 2 3 3 5   Jesse Gress/Wise Publications
(b)     f#   f# bb e a    2 x 4 3 5 5   Luttjeboer/Hal Leonard
(c)          f# bb e a    x x 4 3 5 5   The Beatles Complete Scores

We can assume that (b) and (c) come closest, and that chord is
certainly one great ham fisted jazz chord.

But, it's not the chord McCartney plays in Michelle (I transpose
Michelle C in the example below):

        f# bb e a       x x 4 3 5 5     "Till There Was You"
        f#  a e a       x x 4 2 5 5     "Michelle"

Of course, the actual very last chord of the Till There Was You solo
is Harrison running up a diminished seventh chord while Lennon plays
an F9 or similiar.

There is a diminished seventh chord in Michelle, but it is the
fourth chord of the song. And the Beatles certainly use it in lots of
other songs (Blue Jay Way lives off the chord).

So, what happened to the Gretty Chord in Michelle?

Any ideas out there in guitar heaven?

ian hammond
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"Tres bien ensemble"