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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
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McCartney Swings

Here's a blitz rundown McCartney's use of Swing and Jazz idioms in his
Beatle years. Please don't take my speculation here more seriously
than I do.

For those who don't know what Swing is, think of Glenn Miller pieces
like In The Mood. Brassy Big Band things with lots of saxophones. If
you don't know Glenn Miller, then I don't know what to say!

Before The Beatles:
Paul was raised on Jazz, which is more directed at melodic line. His
time on trumpet would have strengthened that along with the
experiences with his dad's band. Not long after he joined the Beatles
he had them playing Jazz material. He wrote swing songs throughout the
Beatles era: Look at I'll Follow The Sun, Can't Buy Me Love or the
Revolver/Pepper period where almost every song of his was in 12/8. No
wonder Ella Fitzgerald sang his stuff.

Here's an excerpt from a recent interview with George Martin:

MARTIN: Do you know, when I first heard the Beatles, I was quite
certain that their songwriting ability had no salable future? Oh, yes!
And I still feel that way about those early songs: All they had,
really, was a slow and very dreary version of Please Please Me and
One After 909 -- that sort of thing.

LO: Well, One After 909 is kind of a toe-tapper.

MARTIN: (looking as if he's about to be sick) Oh, come on! If they'd
kept bringing me songs like that, I'd have taken up architecture.

LO: Well, when did you start to change your mind?

MARTIN: By the time they'd done From Me to You and, in particular,
She Loves You, I knew we were home and dry. But the turning point
was Can't Buy Me Love. That was something more sophisticated, you
know?

LO: No. What's "sophisticated" about that song? The chords? The
melody?

MARTIN: You're givin' me a hard time. I don't know how to explain what
makes a song sophisticated. But I know that song is, because, about
two years after the Beatles did it, I recorded it with Ella
Fitzgerald. Johnny Spence did a terrific Nelson Riddle-ish score and,
boy, it suited her. She loved it and she swung like mad. That shows
you the sophistication of the song. I mean, Ella Fitzgerald wouldn't
have loved One After 909. 


Martin has never accepted the core of Rock in its own right. He still
measures in terms of Gershwin, Fitzgerald and other heroes of the 40s
and 50s. 

Even in 1969 Martin was talking about John "letting it all hang out
with his rock songs" or similar. The divide was clear enough for
Lennon to insist on his material being on a separate side to the
McCartney/Martin material.

Any thoughts that Martin is anti-John are completely dispelled by the
dominance of Lennon's material on his own In My Life CD which
features an Ella-like arrangement of A Hard Day's Night for Goldy
Hawn. It's rock, not John. 


The sophistry in Can't Buy Me Love comes from Buddy Holly's
discovery that it was possible to write a 12-bar blues song that
sounded for all the world like a 16-bar European creation. I think
Lennon understood what McCartney had done because he came back with
his own A-side candidate built on the same formula: You Can't Do
That, even down to the breaks on the tag chorus.

Can't Buy Me Love was the first their swing single. In the outtake
McCartney sings pretty much in Ella's style (as he does in the
outtake of the A Day In The Life bridge).

Can't Buy Me Love was McCartney's first A-side. He tried the trick
again with She's A Woman, likewise in 12/8. Again, Lennon recognised
some connection because the fingerprint offbeat chop was something he
had first tried on Can't Buy Me Love.

Can't Buy Me Love and She's A Woman both have a Beatlemania chorus
that sounds like it was added later. In the case of She's A Woman,
it sounds somewhat out of place. Lennon was more successful, getting
the A-side with I Feel Fine.

Generally speaking, McCartney had problems producing Beatle material
in the 63-64 period. Many of his songs were given away to other
artists. It was in this period that he picked up I'll Follow The Sun
and recast in straight four, along with a new bridge.

1965/1966:
Rubber Soul has Paul's Michelle and John's Girl both in 12/8, but
neither of them could be called Swing, which is rarely gentle like a
summer's breeze as these songs are. 

Songs like Dream A Little Dream Of Me made Swing "respectable" when
the Californian hippy bands became popular (and mates with the
Beatles).

On Revolver Good Day Sunshine comes out of the Down By The
Riverside tradition but it's restrained in comparison to Got To Get
You Into My Life, which not only has the corny Swing brass, it
blares, as does Paul's tag chorus: "got to get you into my life".
The scat singing at the end of the song is the icing on the cake, and
something he repeats on Fixing A Hole. Ella's back.

Lennon's I'm Only Sleeping and Harrison's I Want To Tell You are
in 12/8, but neither of them really swing.


Peppertime:
For James Paul McCartney, Pepper was spelled S.W.I.N.G. Let's just
walk through the songs he was involved in.

Penny Lane is a better version of Good Day Sunshine, in 12/8.

Sgt Pepper - McCartney's verse swings. The chorus is a bit ambiguous
but the reprise is not: it's straight 4/4. The bridge does not swing,
which is another reason I think it may be Lennon's.

With A Little Help really does swing as every Police Brass Band
knows, although it's a little recitant at "I need somebody to love".

Getting Better swings gently, although I hear the last verse holding
back.

Fixing A Hole and When I'm 64 not only swing, they are in fact
Jazz songs, the latter being written at an early age along with I'll
Follow The Sun.

Listen to McCartney's belt out his swing bridge to A Day In The Life
in full Ella-kit during the rehearsal. 

Macca's only non-swing pieces on Pepper are She's Leaving Home, a
true waltz, and Lovely Rita. Lennon's only 12/8 piece, apart from
the shared credits on With A Little Help and Getting Better,
was Mr Kite, which was also co-written.

I sometimes think that one reason that McCartney wanted a different
persona for Pepper was so that he could finally get a license to
produce the kind of songs that were natural to him. It may have given
him the release he needed. It's certainly a turning point for him.

Lennon's own 12/8 single was All You Need Is Love, although the bars
of 3/4 four thwart most Big Bands from doing the song. Martin's score
to this track includes some crass swing brass in the chorus (which
always make me wince) and a clever quotation of Glenn Miller in the
outro (which always makes me grin). Martin's fills for Penny Lane are
only marginally better.

The swing material drops off in late 1967, but his big band songs keep
coming. Swinging Your Mother Should Know was an open shot at top hat
and tails. Lady Madonna, agressively in four, was straight-up Jazz,
with the right piano, brushs, brass and swingle singers.


1968/1969
The White Album shows him cured. Even Honey Pie is a tight 4/4. Ob
La Di, and later Maxwell are both in four and both were A-side
candidates. On the White Album I think we see a real effort by
McCartney to write rock material. U.S.S.R, Wild Honey Pie, Why
Don't We Do..., Birthday, Helter Skelter.

By 1969 he seems to have left the rat pack and joined Swingers
Anonomous. Where's the 12/8 material on Let It Be? Harrison's For You
Blue and subsequent Old Brown Shoe (which could swing). Lennon's
9/8 Dig A Pony, following Harrison's Long Long Long in that meter.

Oh Darling is definitely 12/8, but it's a rock 12/8: the band do not
syncopate. In the medley only Out Of College is in 12/8, but here
it's more barrelhouse than swing.


McCartney Schwings:
So, after this rambling incomplete probe, what do we have:

He grew up in a Jazz household and had Swing in his marrow. He
listened to and wrote 12/8 material as a kid. 

In 1964 he had some success with Swing, but it was short-lived.
In the 1963-1965 period he had problems filling his album quota with
quality material.

Revolver sees Swing back in fashion and Paul is not long waiting.
The Swing songs provide just enough more material for McCartney to
reach a critical mass as an album contributor.

Peppertime was his swing-a-rama high point and he seems to have got it
out of his system. 

In 1968 and 1969 he produces less 12/8 than his partners, and even that
material is more rock-based than Big Band Swing.

Later on he named his new band after the sytle: (s)WINGS.