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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
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Across The Universe (1)

Inspiration versus construction
Across The Universe is one the songs Lennon felt was inspired
rather than constructed. Unable to sleep after a domestic argument
with his spouse Cynthia, he got up and the lyric more or less wrote
itself. He relates the story in the 1980 Playboy interview:

 The words [of Universe] stand, luckily, by themselves. They
 were purely inspirational and were given to me as BOOM! I don't own
 it, you know; it came through like that [i.e. automatically]. I don't
 know where it came from, what meter it's in, and I've sat down
 and looked at it and said, Can I write another one with this
 meter? It's so interesting: Words are flying out like [sings]
 endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass,
 they slip away across the universe. Such an extraordinary meter
 and I can never repeat it.
   It's not a matter of craftsmanship; it wrote itself. It drove me
 out of bed. I didn't want to write it, I was just slightly irritable
 and I went downstairs and I couldn't get to sleep until I put it on
 paper, and then I went to sleep.
 {Question: Was it like a catharsis?}
 It's like being possessed; like a psychic or a medium. The
 thing has to go down. It won't let you sleep, so you have to get
 up, make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep.
 That's always in the middle of the bloody night, when you're half
 awake and tired and your critical facilities are turned off.
   Nowhere Man was the same thing. I'd spent five hours that
 morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good and I
 finally gave up and lay down. Then Nowhere Man came, words and
 music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down.
   The same thing with In My Life! I'd struggled for days and
 hours trying to write clever lyrics. Then I gave up and In My Life
 came to me. So letting it go is what the whole game is. You put
 your finger on it, it slips away, right? You know, you turn the
 lights on and the cockroaches slip away; you can never grasp them.
     Lennon DSL162

Lennon had little respect for his own ability to craft a song as a
composer, preferring those songs that the muse passed on to him
directly. However, Lennon does not say he did anymore than record the
lyric (put it on paper) that evening. The song was completed using
his power to construct. Hunter Davies reports than Lennon worked on
the song for weeks, making no apparent progress.

In the song, Lennon projects a state of bliss, in which both joy and
sorrow (the argument) are unified in the infinite (endless, limitless)
processes of the universe. Lennon ties this state to the Maharishi's
Transcendental Meditation (with the Jai Guru Deva mantra), and prays
that nothing will change it, in the chorus). Lennon's experience is
not unique, but his ability to powerfully express that state in a song
is quite profound.

(By the way, you can happily ignore my discussion of the song's
psychology, or substitute your own. The only really silly position is
to maintain that the song has no interpretation at all. Mine simply
serves as an example.)

The song has the structure below, where the Link is Jai Guru Deva
and the chorus is Nothing's gonna change my world:

        Intro
        Verse1 Link Chorus
        Verse2 Link Chorus
        Verse3 Link Chorus
        Outro

I will discuss the song in the following order: verses, link, chorus,
intro/outro. I use the Anthology version of Across The Universe as
the reference point of this article. I have set the musical examples
in C major, rather than D major. 

The inspired lines
Let me speculate on the evolution of the verse lyric.

Perhaps the trippy, visual image of the first line grew out of the
words of the argument with Cynthia. Note ATU stands for Across
The Universe.

A1      Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup,
        they slither while they pass, they slip away ATU

The water theme of rain, paper cup and slither continues into
the pools and waves in the second line, which describes his
blissful state -- the key mood of the song.

B2      Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open
        mind, possessing and caressing me

The third line changes tack, to the visual effect of a kaleidoscope
(and, I suspect, his own thick glasses):

C3      Images of broken light which dance before me like a million
        eyes that call me on and on ATU

While all three lines have the same da-de-da-de rhythm, A has 16 main
accents, B has 12 and C has 15.

The phrases are very long. Musically, they portray the threads of his
lyric, flowing out to the horizon. The melody he uses for Tomorrow
Never Knows achieves a similar affect (using a different device).
Both are remarkable examples of his ability to use melody, it its own
right, as a vehicle to suggest description.

Internal and external evidence suggest that Lennon went back to bed
after completing the first three lines. But, these inspired lines,
and particular the momentum created by the over-length phrases, would
drive the development of the rest of the song.

The constructed lines
Now I'll show why I think the remaining three verse lines were
constructed. Take the first line and the fourth line. The first line
is used as a template for the fourth line. You'll find the same basic
elements of speech, and the same number of accents:

A1      Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup,
        they slither while they pass, they slip away ATU
A4      Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
        they tumble blindly as they make their way ATU

Now look at the second and fifth lines. The second line is a template
for the fifth:

B2      Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open
        mind, possessing and caressing me
B5      Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing through my open
        ears, inciting and inviting me

And finally the third line is a template for the sixth:

C3      Images of broken light which dance before me like a million
        eyes that call me on and on ATU
C6      Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million
        suns and calls me on and on ATU

One might be able to explain the coincidence for one of these
templates, but not for all three: Lennon started with three good
lines and then constructed another three, giving him six good lines.
(I will shorten them in the examples from now on):

A1  Words are flying out... they slip away ATU
B2  Pools of sorrow, ...caressing me
C3  Images of broken light ... on and on ATU

A4  Thoughts meander like ... make their way ATU
B5  Sounds of laughter ... inviting me
C6  Limitless undying love ... on and on ATU

With the verse text determined, Lennon was now able to start, or
complete, the melody and chords of the verse. That's what I discuss in
the second part of this four part offering.

copyright (c) ian hammond 1998. all rights reserved.