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The Harrisong
Songs
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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
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Rubber Soul
Rubber Soul reveals the distinctive song styles Harrison retained and developed. Although Harrison's pieces fit well into each album's texture, his songs are now quite identifiably his own. This may explain why he makes no reference to his two HELP! songs in his book I Me Mine where he provides a short note and the lyrics to all his other originals.
The Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night, had brought Patti Boyd into George's life, resulting in the love songs on Help! (they are conspicuously absent on this album). While filming Help! he came in contact with the source of his spiritual love, the music of India. We don't hear that on his songs until Revolver, but he supplies an early taste of the sitar on Lennon's Norwegian Wood. But he's cooking it.
Think For Yourself
The song "must be about 'somebody'" but George couldn't recall who, suggesting it may have been the Government. Laconica Morosa is back: "think for yourself 'cos I won't be there with you" but with an added pedagogic angle "try thinking more if just for your own sake".
Musically, this is faster, more upbeat George than we've heard. The melody has more punch than his previous songs, particularly in the chorus.
Like You Like Me Too Much, the G major song starts on A minor, this time exploring the flat side of the key (v, bIII).
The chorus has something in common with Lennon's Run For Your Life and McCartney's Drive My Car, adding to a shared personality on Rubber Soul (later picked up by Old Brown Shoe). Harrison's chorus features parallel open fifths in the harmony parts (a few years before Lennon's use on Cold Turkey).
McCartney's fuzz bass colors the song throughout. The distinctive triplet that leads into the verse is reused as verse and chorus fills. Harrison's opening verse phrase and the entire chorus are much more emphatic then any of his other material thus far making this is his first up tempo number.
The structure of the song is up-to-date with Lennon, using three repeated verse-chorus sections. A three-fold close interrupts the expected cadence with C major, letting Harrison finish on one his distinctive C-G close, with four beats on G. Listen to Savoy Truffle for this again. Notice how the fuzz bass drops the triplets in the coda.
George lets his Liverpool accent shine through yonks before the others get the idea. I'm still trying to make up my mind on the opaque / sake rhyme.
The song contains Bb and Eb chords which are rather rare in his songs suggesting that the piece may have been composed a tone higher, in A major where these chords would have been C and F.
Track five. Only 2.15, but again sounds longer.
If I Needed Someone
Harrison's regular function was to import new sounds into the group, be it a new guitar setting, half of India, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston or the Moog. On Rubber Soul he begins to make his own songs more interesting in this way.
Tracks such as If I Needed Someone helped keep the Beatles respectable with their superstar peers in a quickly changing rock universe riddled with jealousies and envies of every imaginable shape and color.
One of the few Harrison songs to be played with a capo, it is based around the same standard guitar figure he heard on the Byrd's version of the Pete Seeger song Bells Of Rhymney.
If I
Needed Someone To Love is like a million
other songs writtenaround the D chord. If you
move your little finger you get variouslittle
melodies (and sometimes you get various
maladies). That guitar line, or variations on it,
is found in many a song and it amazes me that
people still find new permutations of the same
notes.
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The Beatles rhythm section enters just like the Byrds'
song which also closes with a held harmony leading to
guitar hammer-on to finish. A bit of an in-joke here.
Harrison sent a message via Derek Taylor to get them to
listen for it.
Verse and chorus are doused in high harmony where we have
the Beatles imitating the Byrds imitating the Beatles.
Well, that's what I used to think until I recently
studied the Byrds material that preceded Revolver.
In fact, they have nothing like the distinctive parallel
triplet harmony we hear here which the Beatles first used
on the refrain of I Feel Fine.
The bridge leads towards those of I Want To Tell
You, Only A Northern Song and
others.
Harrison's Rubber Soul e-guitar tracks also
point the way to the Beatles' sound on their next album Revolver.
The missing link on this track is Ringo Starr's
pre-Emerick drumming style. This song lands points the
way to Revolver's subtonic songs. The
I-bVII-I-bVII-I pattern over a tonic bass is seen in Love
You To, Got To Get You Into My Life
and Tomorrow Never Knows.
As with this song, many Harrisongs just stop without
preparation, an anti-western tendency which denies the climax.
Blues' songs have a similar habit of just stopping,
without preparation. Harrison's songs will often have a
coda, but there's sometimes not a clear indication that
the song is about to close. In this case it's partly due
to the I-bVII-I pattern, does not produce a strong close.
Interestingly all the Subtonic songs on Revolver
use a fade-out to finish.
"Carve your number on my wall and maybe you will get
a call from me. If I needed someone". Both the tense
and the message are mixed. We're not far removed from the
Laconica Morosa of Don't Bother Me
and Love You To. But at least he admits
the possibility of warmth here. This dichotomy would grow
and blossom as Harrison wrestled with the sacred and
secular over the next few years.
Track 13. 2.20.
You Know What To Do
This sketch emerged on Anthology. A little bit Buddy
Holly, a little bit C&W, it's a catchy tune. You'll
note that neither the verse or the bridge complete
but are rather left hanging. This became prevalent in
Peppertime.
The little bridge shows him exploring slightly different
shades of the same basic chord, something he uses again
in I Want To Tell You.
In the last verse he changes the opening bit of the verse
melody slightly, suggesting that he wasn't quite sure
which way to take it.
A simple love song for a change.
Titles, Text and Tune
The Quiet One was renowned for his reluctance to title a
song. If I Needed Someone, You
Like Me Too Much and I Need You
are simply bland, indicating that the lyrics to his songs
happened as a side-effect while he concentrated
on the music.
This observation may help explain a similarity in his
tunes that reaches its zenith in this song. Harrison had
the habit of following an eighth note with a string of
syncopated quarter notes. Here are examples:
| Help! | Tell-ing me there'll be no next time if I just don't... | ||
| Rubber Soul |
Need-ed some one to love you're the
one that I'd be... The good things that we can have if we close our |
||
| Revolver | Let me tell you how it will be You don't get time to hang a sign on me Head is filled with things to say |
||
| Pepper | May think the chords are going on When I look in to your eyes your |
Only A Northern Song is the last of this
two year habit spanning almost four albums. The first
song not to have this tendency at all was Within
You Without You, which was largely unsyncopated.
Blue Jay Way and The Inner Light
reveal a new awareness of melody. Blue Jay Way
has chordal patterns in the verse. Of course, the major
strength of The Inner Light is it's
exquisite melody.