Beathoven

Beathoven

Studying the Beatles

The Harrisong (5) 1966

Revolver
1966 was a watershed year for George Harrison when a canceled film project left time for an extended trip to India to study Indian music with Ravi Shankar. Without really trying, Harrison obtained his first album opener and established raga rock.

Taxman
A song that still sounds modern, because of a sparseness that the band did not match again until the fast version of Revolution. Harrison's first great song and one that earned him the coveted opening track on the album and all the attention the team usually gave to a major Lennon or McCartney track.

A great title, inspired by the 95% taxation rate that the Beatles paid (and Batman). The history books teach us that George was the one who asked Mr Epstein about the figures.

Compare the coughed and spluttered "one two three four" here to Paul's intro to their first album to see how hip the Beatles were in 1966. Harrison was super hip and his sardonic Taxman was just the first in a series of songs with understated humor, Piggies and Savoy Truffle coming later. Taxman is, of course, about the hip-pocket hippy (couldn't resist that).

Lennon helped finish the lyric. McCartney contributed the Indian solo. Starr provided one of those great drum parts that began exploding out of his Emericked-breast. Guitars and bass are simply awesome.

No other Harrison track had received this quality of production. The band and harmony are spot on (compare them to I Want To Tell You). A pity they couldn't keep the rapid patter "anyone gotta bitta money" (which is scored in BAM, showing just intricate the pattern is).

The big point to notice on this song is Harrison's lead vocal. This is what his voice sounded like when he got the same attention as Lennon or McCartney. Lennon has possibly, and justifiably, the worlds most popular larynx. However it is one that was aided by large doses of corrective tomato sauce and whirling leslies. This track shows how Harrison's voice came out when subjected to same cosmetic process.

Chord-wise the song is extremely lean, with Harrison exploiting the double-plagal pattern across the verse and bridge. A 13-bar verse/chorus permits Harrison to devise an AAB(S)AA scheme. The masterstroke in this song architecture is to finish with two verses. I find the effect quite magical. The surprising chord in the short coda (D-F-D) is another coup de theatre (and reminds me of the coda to The Night Before).

Harrison demonstrates his enviable ability to find a the perfect matching bridge for the verse; perhaps the most elusive task for the pop song writer. The bridge style is repeated in Old Brown Shoe. This is a good place to remember that George did not have a songwriting partner to help solve the bridge problem in desperate moments (except his mum on Piggies of course!).

The last Harrison song to take an improvised solo was Don't Bother Me. Here the solo is taken by McCartney who came up with just the right sound at the right time.

Yet another Harrison track that helped keep the Beatles respectable: their own Hendrix-track including the distinctive Foxy Lady flat tenth chord. However, it was recorded before Hendrix appeared and a year before Foxy Lady. So at the moment I'll put down the invention of this stylistic chord to Harrison (I imagine I may be corrected by others more knowledgeable).

Double tracked vocal with great harmonies. Harrison's voice is starting to be a better match for the sentiment of the song.
[Track one, 2.35]

Love You To
Love You To is as epochal and as revolutionary as Revolution 9. Forget all the other claims and the carping: George Harrison is father and protector of One Chord Raga Rock. Within two years he would produce Within You Without You, The Inner Light, Wonderwall (a film score written to "turn people on to Indian music") and take the Beatles (and us in the process) to India. A staggering achievement for a young man in his early twenties. Such is the insolent genius of youth. (Phew. I got a bit carried away there.)

Harrison takes a small Indian combo and produces rock. You think that's easy, then you give it a try.

The song begins with a typical Indian solo section and a great little sitar riff takes into the verse.

Behind a drone and a rhythm instrument the drums provide bass and the beat. The sitar provides fills and a running commentary. Harrison's vocal is double tracked, culminating in the cavernous echo as he sings "me-ee-...". The lick takes us into the chorus where a subtonic chord punctuates the fabric.

Did Harrison play the sitar? I've yet to see a definitive answer to that question. The sitar solo grows quite naturally out of the texture after the second chorus, leading to another verse and the final chorus. The closing solo sees the group speed up. Get out the joss sticks.

The little 3/4 lick is quite natural, presaging Lennon's 3/4 bridge to She Said. Remember, however, that Lennon might not have heard this track or noticed the 3/4 section if he did. But Harrison was first (again).

The subtonic of "If I Needed Someone" reappears, probably as a dub and almost identical in use to that used on Tomorrow Never Knows. It sounds Indian. Whether anyone in India uses such an effect is not known to me.

Lyrically we're back to Laconica Morosa: "I'll make love to you if you want me too", or "love me while you can, before I'm a dead old man". "They'll fill you in with all the sin you'll see" was not his strongest line. Melodically Harrison alternates a chanted verse with a closing Indian ornament.

My guess for the elusive title: "Love You To [Death, before I'm a dead old man]. So far, no-one else has agreed with me on this one and I'm not expecting much improvement.
[Fourth track. 2.55]

I Want To Tell You
The band track is driven the drums with McCartney's playing right-hand piano chords and Lennon on tambourine. Harrison plays one of the Beatles' best riffs before and after each section. McCartney dubbed the Motown bassline on later. What this adds up to, during the band track recording, is pretty much a solo performance by Starr with the others doing fills, since there is no bass or rhythm guitar to assist him maintain the groove. One instrument and drums, with optional bass, became a model for Pepper band tracks.

In the verse, there is a chord change, from A to B, that occurs mid-bar ("don't know why"). I think it's the only such occurrence in the Beatles' work. That change makes sense if you consider the vocals to have started a half a bar after the band starts the verse. Doing that also makes more sense out of the vocal phrasing. What this adds up to is a half-bar delta between the harmony and melody. It's very tightly constructed, but that A to B change gives it away.

Harrison begins the verse with a climb from A to E, falling a fifth to A. Perhaps that was the clue that Lennon needed to solve his dilemma with the opening of She Said She Said. In any case, the two phrases are similar.

Mid verse McCartney plays the distinctive chord of E major with an added F. Harrison points out that he invented the chord for this song. The chunky color of the piano reappears in the bridge of Long Long Long.

The opening phrase ("I want to tell") pretty much matchs the tune of the verse close ("I've got time") .

The bridge is fascinating. Chordwise it consists of two four bar phrases (b b- A B, b b- A A) which pickup that surprising B chord from the verse and plays it as a minor, diminished and major chords. Vocally, the phrasing is 3+2+3 or 3+3+2, layered on top of the 4+4 chord pattern.

The song has a completely standard pop format of AABABA with intro and coda. The coda combines the riff with the verse close "I've got time" (which might have been a better title).

Now, I've gone into all this detail simply to point out one thing: this is the kind of song we began to expect of John Lennon about a year later, and especially on the White Album. The techniques of overlaying and overlapping, and in general of increasing the sense of time and space with musical smoke and mirrors begins, however, right here.

Harrison said that I Want To Tell You is about the avalanche of thoughts that are so hard to write down or say or transmit".

"all those words they seem to slip away"
"It's only me, it's not my mind"
"That is confusing things..."

This is the theme Lennon picks up for Strawberry Fields Forever. Now, Harrison's Only A Northern Song sounds a little like Strawberry Fields but in fact shares chord patterns with I Want To Tell You.
[Track 12. 2.25]

Harrison Retires Again
Harrison's achievements in 1965 and 1966 were considerable. After establishing his own identity on Rubber Soul, he won the opening slot on Revolver, invented Raga Rock and began investigating more complex musical and lyric spaces with I Want To Tell You.

One might expect that, given this success, he would be encouraged to advance these skills in his chosen profession on the following album. Instead our unwilling hero does the unthinkable and retires yet again, for the third time:

"That's it. I'm no longer a Beatle", said George after their last concert. He meant it.

Harrison, who had long had his "doubts" about the value of Pop Music was now openly disdainful. It is an attitude he has retained, despite the many contradictions on the subject inherent in his life.

Harrison self-imposed another abstinence on songwriting as well, only writing for Sgt Pepper under duress. This was, in retrospect, a little bit silly. On Revolver he had caught up with Lennon and McCartney, and in some departments he had moved ahead.

Lennon said George was lucky to be around such skilled songsmiths as himself and Paul. Perhaps, to the contrary, we should congratulate Harrison for not being intimidated by their success or by a producer who could not build up any enthusiasm for Harrison's material even after he had produced an album opener such as Taxman.