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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
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Across The Universe (3)

Parts 1 and 2 of this post discussed the verse lyric and music. Now
its time to look at the link mantra and chorus prayer.

The link mantra
I doubt the Jai Guru Deva mantra was part of Lennon's initial
inspiration, although it does follow quite naturally from the
bliss-like state of the verse.

Keyboard sketches of the mantra are heard on a home tape, combined
with fragments of Cry Baby Cry and I Am The Walrus. It's possible
that the melody used for Jai Guru Deva was first written without
this song or the text in mind at all. It is certainly a very
Lennonesque ornament, an expansive, elongated turn.

Lennon used link sections to get the spacing right in his song
architectures. You can, in fact, omit the mantra and still sing this
song. Lennon uses links early as It's Only Love ("Why am I so high...")
and as late as Imagine or Watching The Wheels.

Lennon may have added the mantra specifically with the A-side of the
single in mind which was planned for release during the Beatles'
journey to Rishikesh.

Musically, the link is a very simple three bar section. In C major:

        C       C       G               3

The link itself is divided into the two bar Jai Guru Deva and the
one bar Om. The first part is set by a part that Lennon experimented
with quite intensively -- perhaps long before he used the melodic
fragment for this song. The word OM is set by a single tone, as is
appropriate, with a long glissando up to the note.

Behind the mantra are these hard-to-identify click clack sounds. I
always think of sleigh bells for some balmy reason (perhaps its same
rhythm I hear behind on of Vivaldi's Four Seasons Winter pieces).

Lennon showed a fascination with words and grammar in a number of his
songs and written pieces. In this Lennon words are flowing out song
it interesting to note an explanation of the mantra that talks about
the magic of words.

 Many people have asked about the phrase, Jaya Gurudev Om, that
 John sings in Across the Universe. This is a prayer from the
 Sanskrit, one of the oldest recorded languages and the basis for
 the Hindu religion. The Hindus believe that words have mystical
 power and the Sanskrit mantras are words or phrases that have
 the ability to raise one's consciousness through their
 vibrations...[much more]
   [Anonymous -- I have lost the web site reference]

McCartney's reference to the song also speaks of the words.

 Across The Universe is one of John's great songs. It had special
 words.
    McCartney BMPM421

The Beatles created an unprecedented opportunity to introduce new
ideas to a hungry western audience. If an Australian band called the
Pig Face Choir sang Jai Deva Guru, only the rabbits would hear it.
If Lennon sang the phrase, millions would hear it and look further.
Its thirty years later and one of the most frequent questions in the
RMB is for the translation of the words of the mantra, which are given
in the newsgroup FAQ. The words translate roughly to hail to the
spiritual master.

George Harrison had long left his Indian mark on the Beatles music
(including this song). With this song, Patti Harrison's interest in
Transcendental Meditation spawned an influence on Lennon's lyrics.
It was a Strange Day In Western Pop Music when the two candidates for
a Beatles' B-side, Universe and The Inner Light, were based on
Sanskrit and Tao Te Ching teachings respectively. Peppertime was a
wonderfully crazy space.

The chorus prayer
Here's a recipe for a great chorus. First, write a great introduction
which finishes with a build-up to your as-yet unwritten chorus. Spend
a few days playing the introduction without attempting a chorus. Then
leave the song alone for a few days. When you come back to it, sing
the introduction and then keep going. The chorus should emerge from
the back of your head, and write itself.

This may be how the chorus of this song evolved (but we have better
evidence of this process taking place with Don't Let Me Down).

The Om in the Link mantra leaves the song poised ready for a chorus.
Usually we would expect the song to move from the dominant back to a
chord closer to the tonic, but Lennon stays on the dominant,
intensified by singing the seventh on the first world. 

When he repeats the phrase, he does so a step lower over a well
prepared Christian amen-close (five bars: C C G G G7 F C), providing
the point of gravity of the song. Lennon's chorus is a prayer. Another
Lennon prayer, Imagine, is not far removed from the music of this
chorus. He could have added an evangelizing wheezy harmonium to the
chorus and no-one would have noticed.

The chorus and outro are the only regular sections of the song. Both
are points of rest. In C major, the chorus is:

        G       G7      F       C
        G       G7      F       C

Lennon used a similiar chord sequence for the outro of Mother and
for the chorus of Here We Go Again, the unreleased collaboration
with Spector.

        6/4         2/4 6/4         5/8
        G       G7  F   C       C7  FC          Mother
        G       G       F       C       C       Here We Go Again
        G       G       F       C               Universe

Lennon often manages to get a new meaning out of the hackneyed V-IV
change, as he does here. Equally, he often avoids the standard
V-IV change, by substituting other chords, in his 12-bar influenced
pieces.

One lovely touch is the setting of the words my world, where he
drops a sixth (d-f, c-e). The interval of a sixth is unusual in his
work, but occurs here again in the introduction. Because is another
of his songs that combines leaps and drops of a sixth.

It is rather odd that the song is not called, Nothing's Gonna Change
My World, because it is usually the chorus which provides the name of
the song. Clearly, Lennon felt the verse tag, Across The Universe,
was the song's hook.

The irony is, of course, that after Universe, Lennon's world changed
almost completely. There is a tendency to interpret songs in the light
of what followed them, rather than in what preceded them. In this
alter-boy voice of this song Lennon portrays the perfection in
imperfection of his current life. Lennon's feeling blissful. Perhaps
it was by postulating stasis, that he arrived at the inescapable
conclusion, while in India, that he had to change as forseen by Nowhere
Man. He did not know that when writing and recording the song, although
his muse seems to have been better informed.

With the body of the song finished, Lennon could move his attention to
the intro and outro of the song, which I discuss in the last part of
this four part offering.

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