EVER PRESENT PAST
PMCPP Analysis #16
KEY: C Major
RHYTHM USED: N/A
This is really me going off on a random Tangent. This'll be one of two songs from the Memory Almost Full album I'll do, I prefer picking on his Beatles stuff more than solo material. The reason this is being posted is mainly due to me finding this video of Paul showing us how to play this one, and it's almost laughable how easy he continues to tell us it is. I'll be doing a slightly different format this time around since it's more of a mini-analysis tangent than anything.
THE GUITAR: Wow. Well among all those chords on the acoustic you'll notice he's pretty much doing nothing but basic first position chords on that guitar. You know, that group of chords most college kids learn and play every "arrangement" they use with? That's all he's got here. Hell, he's not even playing the usual Barre version of F, he's got the 4 string easy-way-out version going there. Even better is that he actually skips a bunch of the song on guitar on the studio recording, it's just drum and bass.
The Electrics are a bit more innovative. And by "innovative" I mean "not overly cliche." And by "electrics" I mean his Casio. The Gibson is quite literally just banging away on a high G for the intro and that's it. It's basically Getting Better without the other notes making it sound good. The little D-F-C riff is pretty nifty, but he does his usual gambit of repeating it ad-nauseum until I can't bear to hear it anymore. It's also a lot more muddy on the actual recording than it is in the video. In fact, the video version is pretty much head and shoulders above the official recording, maybe he should re-release the single with that little abridged version he did.
Other than that all we have are those barre chords he finally does pull off on his Casio during the chorus, plus a couple of weird... seemingly random bursts of notes on the other electric spread neatly around the song.
Some of the sounds in guitar on the recording are way too scratchy to be considered a real guitar track, I think. It sounds like he's just slashing the strings with a pick on the frets themselves sometimes.
THE PERCUSSION: Ah, another installment of PMCPP, (the P is for percussion!) I love it!
Apparently he has gained no useful drumming skills since Back in the USSR. Seriously, what the hell man. He even acknowledges how simple the drum part is. He can't just launch into it like a good drummer either, he has to get a few warm up hits on the hi-hat before he starts Cliche Rock Beat #1. And all this with a fucking click track!
Also note that the best "twiddly bits" he could come up with was really two repeats of the 2 fills he used over and over again on Back in the USSR. That is to say he never actually switches the drum he's filling on. We have a little 4 note fill on the snare and an eight-on-the-floor bit with the toms. Gag me with a spoon.
The fact that someone in the comments mentioned that Paul was a better drummer than Ringo made me facepalm harder than any other face has ever palmed before.
The "twiddly bits" thing is still hilarious, though.
THE BASS: Paul himself admits that this is basically made of nothing but root notes here. In fact, he even admits that he was going to fly up higher on the bass for some interesting fills... but didn't! Fail.
Also, dig that... interesting thumb picking style he does. I've never seen such a style. :/
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: "It's in the key of C!" As if we couldn't have figured that out.
Also, "I de-I, de-I did?" Really?
HOW PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Well, it only got up to #10 on the Billboard charts, after all. ;)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
PMCPP Presents: Maybe I'm Amazed
MAYBE I'M AMAZED
PMCPP Analysis #15
Key: B-flat Major (With moments in A and D)
Rhythm: Both Ba-Dum and Chunk, with a minor interlude of melodic movement
Moving onto the solo songs a bit, since I fully intend to show that even after he left the Beatles his piano chops really haven't changed too much at all. This song was released well over ten years after Paulie started his piano playing and what does it show? Pretty much shows that he's figured out nothing but how to combine his two famous rhythms.
THE PIANO: Not the most horrifically stupid piano part in Rock music, but still, it's nothing we haven't seen before. The song starts off on a simple Ba-Dum rhythm on A Major, moving to a D and eventually to an interestingly not-in-the-key-oh-God-is-he-foreshadowing-a-key-change Dm chord. Now that he's sufficiently pulled you into thinking the song is in A Major, he abruptly (after a few slow arpeggios up the same 3 notes that made up that starting A chord) cuts out an accidental and switches to B-Flat major as the home key.
At the point of the key change he swaps out the Ba-Dumming for some old time comping on the chunk. Heavy play is given to the V-V chord - C, his favorite - as well as a particular avoidance of the Eb chord - with 2 whole accidentals in it - until one small appearance at the end of it all. (More talk about these key changes and whatnot will be had in the next section)
In the middle of the B-flat section is probably the only bit of interesting melodic movement song-wide. All the action stops and Paul does a flashy little run up the bass. "Flashy" is a euphamism for "cliche", but compared to the rest of the song it's pretty damn flashy. I'm sure you've also guessed by now that the run follows the usual Paul McCartney method of melodic movement.
Yeah, it's a 1 measure long run up seconds with nothing else going on on the piano at the time. Actually, the entire track stops when he does that run. Showing off his amazing running abilities?
The Bridge goes into the key of D, but all the while his right hand is smacking block chords he finds a way to stop the pain by placing a pedal point throughout almost every chord in the section. So his hand stays on an octive D in the bass for the entire bridge, nothing special. After the D-pedalfest, the song repeats the sections and goes off into the sunset. Weeee
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: While I really can't trash on the number of chords he uses this time, I can trash the WAY he uses them.
There's quite a few chord types in this song, going through 3 different key signatures will do that. Strangely though he manages to use a chord that doesn't naturally appear in ANY of the 3 keys in this song, C Major. G major is used more often in the Bb section than it is in the D section, which confuses the hell out of me. He also, as I noted before, avoids using the Eb chord entierly in the Bb section until a small appearance in the end which finally proves it as a Bb section.
Without that Eb I could've easily made a case for this songs home key being C Major. G appears several times in a PAC-manner for the V-V C chord during the Bb sections, after all. And if you had a song that contained tons of C, F, and G chords with a Bb thrown in every so often, you would most likely treat it as a C song with flat-vii chords around it.
The A section of the song contains that D-minor chord as I had pointed out before, D-minor belonging nowhere NEAR A major, theoretically. The D section has the Pedal point which makes it much more simplistic than it would be over a kick-ass bassline.
The fact that the lyrics are a cliche blabfest about Paul being in love is nothing special either. :/
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Well honestly most people wouldn't realize half the shit I wrote in this one unless it was carefully pointed to them. Other than that it sounds like a normal Paul McCartney song. And people seem to like those.
PMCPP Analysis #15
Key: B-flat Major (With moments in A and D)
Rhythm: Both Ba-Dum and Chunk, with a minor interlude of melodic movement
Moving onto the solo songs a bit, since I fully intend to show that even after he left the Beatles his piano chops really haven't changed too much at all. This song was released well over ten years after Paulie started his piano playing and what does it show? Pretty much shows that he's figured out nothing but how to combine his two famous rhythms.
THE PIANO: Not the most horrifically stupid piano part in Rock music, but still, it's nothing we haven't seen before. The song starts off on a simple Ba-Dum rhythm on A Major, moving to a D and eventually to an interestingly not-in-the-key-oh-God-is-he-foreshadowing-a-key-change Dm chord. Now that he's sufficiently pulled you into thinking the song is in A Major, he abruptly (after a few slow arpeggios up the same 3 notes that made up that starting A chord) cuts out an accidental and switches to B-Flat major as the home key.
At the point of the key change he swaps out the Ba-Dumming for some old time comping on the chunk. Heavy play is given to the V-V chord - C, his favorite - as well as a particular avoidance of the Eb chord - with 2 whole accidentals in it - until one small appearance at the end of it all. (More talk about these key changes and whatnot will be had in the next section)
In the middle of the B-flat section is probably the only bit of interesting melodic movement song-wide. All the action stops and Paul does a flashy little run up the bass. "Flashy" is a euphamism for "cliche", but compared to the rest of the song it's pretty damn flashy. I'm sure you've also guessed by now that the run follows the usual Paul McCartney method of melodic movement.
Yeah, it's a 1 measure long run up seconds with nothing else going on on the piano at the time. Actually, the entire track stops when he does that run. Showing off his amazing running abilities?
The Bridge goes into the key of D, but all the while his right hand is smacking block chords he finds a way to stop the pain by placing a pedal point throughout almost every chord in the section. So his hand stays on an octive D in the bass for the entire bridge, nothing special. After the D-pedalfest, the song repeats the sections and goes off into the sunset. Weeee
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: While I really can't trash on the number of chords he uses this time, I can trash the WAY he uses them.
There's quite a few chord types in this song, going through 3 different key signatures will do that. Strangely though he manages to use a chord that doesn't naturally appear in ANY of the 3 keys in this song, C Major. G major is used more often in the Bb section than it is in the D section, which confuses the hell out of me. He also, as I noted before, avoids using the Eb chord entierly in the Bb section until a small appearance in the end which finally proves it as a Bb section.
Without that Eb I could've easily made a case for this songs home key being C Major. G appears several times in a PAC-manner for the V-V C chord during the Bb sections, after all. And if you had a song that contained tons of C, F, and G chords with a Bb thrown in every so often, you would most likely treat it as a C song with flat-vii chords around it.
The A section of the song contains that D-minor chord as I had pointed out before, D-minor belonging nowhere NEAR A major, theoretically. The D section has the Pedal point which makes it much more simplistic than it would be over a kick-ass bassline.
The fact that the lyrics are a cliche blabfest about Paul being in love is nothing special either. :/
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Well honestly most people wouldn't realize half the shit I wrote in this one unless it was carefully pointed to them. Other than that it sounds like a normal Paul McCartney song. And people seem to like those.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
UMFOTOB PRESENTS: Love You To
LOVE YOU TO
PMCPP Analysis #14K-
No, you know what? No. I can't bring myself to listen to that song enough to write even a paragraph on it. I'd sooner carve my eyes out with small yet potent hot poker chips. George and his sitar can go jump off a cliff for all I care.
Stupid freakin...
Saturday, October 25, 2008
PMCPP PRESENTS: Lady Madonna
LADY MADONNA
PMCPP ANALYSIS #13
Key: A Major
Rhythm Used: Chunk with some octave jumping
OK, I'll admit it, I was on the fence with this one. This is one of those songs that almost sounds complicated enough to make it into PMSTDS, but eventually I leaned toward this side of the argument. It wasn't hard to do that since the only person I was arguing with was myself, but I can be quite the fighter sometimes. I'm going to move on before this gets even more creepy.
THE PIANO: This one, as I said, was a close call, and will probably be the most complicated thing you see in a PMCPP analysis. But no matter how nice it sounds, it still remains true that this is nothing more than somewhat complicated chunking. Actually, it's 100% chunk in the right hand, the only thing that had me going was the right.
The left hand here is doing absolutely nothing of note. It starts on an extended A chord and slowly moves downward into an equally long D chord. The pinky is remaining on a high A the whole time, so the biggest thing to worry about here is cramping your hand from leaving it on the same note for too long. Them cramps is a bitch, eh Paul? For the bridge the left hand sticks on a repeated 4-on-the-floor style smack on a Dm-G7-C-Am progression. (This starting to look ominously familiar? We'll get to that.) Eventually it finishes on more 3 note chords going C-Bm7-E. Amazingly, he finds a way to put the E chord in without any sharps by making it a sus2 chord instead of a Major.
The most difficult part to play in the song takes place in the right hand, but looking at it more closely shows that it's really not all that difficult of a stretch to play it, since all it requires is the amazing ability to keep your hands the same distance apart for about 200 measures. It is the barest bones style bass line possible to be called a boogie woogie bass line, but still somehow manages to get the title out of Alan Pollack. He shoots up a very bluesy A Major scale (READ: AN A MINOR SCALE) in repeated octaves, one finger at a time throughout the entire verse. Go grab a piano and see if there is any trouble with you, who cannot play piano just like Paul, to go up an A minor scale in octaves. A small jump occurs where he bridges the octaves with a C#-C between the A and D, fitting the only piano sharp into the verse. Other than that, though... straight up.
The bridge does absolutely nothing except now, instead of going UP octaves with no sharps in the bassline... WE'RE GOING DOWN OCTAVES WITH NO SHARPS IN THE BASSLINE! :O Sorry, lost my focus.
I mean, seriously, I can play this song. And I suck at piano, so that should tell you something.
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Yeeeah. I'm just going to start out with the obvious here with the chord structures. We have I and IV chords taking up everything in the verse but 2 notes, which are stuffed with the bVI and bVII chords. So 4 chords, 2 of them elementary and 2 of them not given any more credence than one quarter note among the fairly quick tempo. We'll get to the bridge in a second, because it requires it's own section for me to yell at. Pretty much every section of the song is a cliche and easy 8 measures long, which is actually surprising for the Beatles. Sure, most of the odd phrase length working was done by John, but even Paul had all sorts of ideas for that among his repertoire.
All right, so guess what we've all been waiting for? That's right, this song in A Major has a shift to C Major for the entire bridge. (HOY DOY!) And considering that there are 3 entire bridge sections in the song and he also sticks a C chord into the outro, this song is barely even in A anymore, it's just some horrid bastard love child between the two keys of A and C. Paul enjoyed Frankensteining with those two, didn't he?
That, and I have no idea how the lyrics make sense. So there's a woman who has 6 kids and she is busy? There's a stretch! Alan Pollack suggests that he does not list Saturday because that's the one day she takes off. I think Macca just ran out of ideas. "Well what else do kids do to annoy their mom or need to learn about life?" This is even funnier because he suggested she spent an entire day teaching a kid to tie his shoes. "Ms. Madonna? I think your children have problems."
HOW PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: OK, I'll be the first to admit this is one of my favorites of Paul's, shoddy piano work aside. Lennon himself said it was a nice piano lick, but he was probably just amazed at that point when Paul managed something that didn't sound like a musical coma. And if you want sharps in your A Major, I suppose you can't do much worse than the ACTUAL boogie-woogie bass line held by the Bass guitar.
That, plus the only competition for the single was obviously The Inner Light, so screw that. I'll take this over George's Indian shit any day.
PMCPP ANALYSIS #13
Key: A Major
Rhythm Used: Chunk with some octave jumping
OK, I'll admit it, I was on the fence with this one. This is one of those songs that almost sounds complicated enough to make it into PMSTDS, but eventually I leaned toward this side of the argument. It wasn't hard to do that since the only person I was arguing with was myself, but I can be quite the fighter sometimes. I'm going to move on before this gets even more creepy.
THE PIANO: This one, as I said, was a close call, and will probably be the most complicated thing you see in a PMCPP analysis. But no matter how nice it sounds, it still remains true that this is nothing more than somewhat complicated chunking. Actually, it's 100% chunk in the right hand, the only thing that had me going was the right.
The left hand here is doing absolutely nothing of note. It starts on an extended A chord and slowly moves downward into an equally long D chord. The pinky is remaining on a high A the whole time, so the biggest thing to worry about here is cramping your hand from leaving it on the same note for too long. Them cramps is a bitch, eh Paul? For the bridge the left hand sticks on a repeated 4-on-the-floor style smack on a Dm-G7-C-Am progression. (This starting to look ominously familiar? We'll get to that.) Eventually it finishes on more 3 note chords going C-Bm7-E. Amazingly, he finds a way to put the E chord in without any sharps by making it a sus2 chord instead of a Major.
The most difficult part to play in the song takes place in the right hand, but looking at it more closely shows that it's really not all that difficult of a stretch to play it, since all it requires is the amazing ability to keep your hands the same distance apart for about 200 measures. It is the barest bones style bass line possible to be called a boogie woogie bass line, but still somehow manages to get the title out of Alan Pollack. He shoots up a very bluesy A Major scale (READ: AN A MINOR SCALE) in repeated octaves, one finger at a time throughout the entire verse. Go grab a piano and see if there is any trouble with you, who cannot play piano just like Paul, to go up an A minor scale in octaves. A small jump occurs where he bridges the octaves with a C#-C between the A and D, fitting the only piano sharp into the verse. Other than that, though... straight up.
The bridge does absolutely nothing except now, instead of going UP octaves with no sharps in the bassline... WE'RE GOING DOWN OCTAVES WITH NO SHARPS IN THE BASSLINE! :O Sorry, lost my focus.
I mean, seriously, I can play this song. And I suck at piano, so that should tell you something.
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Yeeeah. I'm just going to start out with the obvious here with the chord structures. We have I and IV chords taking up everything in the verse but 2 notes, which are stuffed with the bVI and bVII chords. So 4 chords, 2 of them elementary and 2 of them not given any more credence than one quarter note among the fairly quick tempo. We'll get to the bridge in a second, because it requires it's own section for me to yell at. Pretty much every section of the song is a cliche and easy 8 measures long, which is actually surprising for the Beatles. Sure, most of the odd phrase length working was done by John, but even Paul had all sorts of ideas for that among his repertoire.
All right, so guess what we've all been waiting for? That's right, this song in A Major has a shift to C Major for the entire bridge. (HOY DOY!) And considering that there are 3 entire bridge sections in the song and he also sticks a C chord into the outro, this song is barely even in A anymore, it's just some horrid bastard love child between the two keys of A and C. Paul enjoyed Frankensteining with those two, didn't he?
That, and I have no idea how the lyrics make sense. So there's a woman who has 6 kids and she is busy? There's a stretch! Alan Pollack suggests that he does not list Saturday because that's the one day she takes off. I think Macca just ran out of ideas. "Well what else do kids do to annoy their mom or need to learn about life?" This is even funnier because he suggested she spent an entire day teaching a kid to tie his shoes. "Ms. Madonna? I think your children have problems."
HOW PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: OK, I'll be the first to admit this is one of my favorites of Paul's, shoddy piano work aside. Lennon himself said it was a nice piano lick, but he was probably just amazed at that point when Paul managed something that didn't sound like a musical coma. And if you want sharps in your A Major, I suppose you can't do much worse than the ACTUAL boogie-woogie bass line held by the Bass guitar.
That, plus the only competition for the single was obviously The Inner Light, so screw that. I'll take this over George's Indian shit any day.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
PMCPP PRESENTS: Your Mother Should Know
YOUR MOTHER SHOULD KNOW
PMCPP ANALYSIS #12
Key: A Minor
Rhythm Used: Chunk
This may very well be Paulies worst song ever. Seriously, the man couldn't even come up with real lyrics, and it's in a bare bones chord progression with an easy key signature. This one may be painful, especially since I tend to listen to the songs in question as I write these. Pardon any spelling errors, I will be typing really fast.
THE PIANO: This really isn't going to be a shock by this point of the series, but this piano part could be performed by a monkey with Alzheimer's in his sleep. Several times throughout the part he simply changes chords by keeping the same 3 notes in the right hand while going down bass note whole notes with his left. A good example is in the very first 2 measures of the verse as he shifts from Am to FMaj7 with one simple finger movement. Ingenious ability to lazy up his piano playing, I say!
Also unshocking is the fact that the entire song he does not at all deviate from his 3 note chunking with Whole notes in the bass, minus a few measures where he moves in parallel thirds up in seconds between the bass and treble, nothing special. There is also one point where he shifts into whole notes in the treble with quarters in the bass. (This is where you insert the facepalm.jpg)
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Simply beginning with the key signature of A minor you can probably see where I'm going here. 6 total chords are used in various form, all of them in streams of bass notes that make the song as easy to stick together as possible. The song is dominated by Am, C, G and FMaj7, basically making this entire song a piece in A minor trying as desperately hard to get to C Major (the old standard) as possible. It never really succeeds, due to various chords like E and A major that get stuck in as passing chords. The E chord, by the way, is not nearly as exotic as you might think, it's just a result of a temporary shift to harmonic minor from the regular natural minor the rest of the song is rooted in.
The lyrical content of this song is the idea of "write one verse and then repeat it 30 times" that he also utilized in Why Don't We Do it in the Road?. The difference here of course is that WDWDIITR is not supposed to be serious. This one is so damn serious it's hilarious to listen to. Macca obviously decided that since he couldn't come up with anything new, he'd just SCAT to one of the verses, which almost makes it worse. If it could get worse, I don't wanna know.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: This is the epitome of a stupid song on the Magical Mystery Tour album. Macca really just sort of phoned in sick on that album and made his songs even worse. (Remember All Together Now?) So I won't totally fault him for this one. Totally anyway.
PMCPP ANALYSIS #12
Key: A Minor
Rhythm Used: Chunk
This may very well be Paulies worst song ever. Seriously, the man couldn't even come up with real lyrics, and it's in a bare bones chord progression with an easy key signature. This one may be painful, especially since I tend to listen to the songs in question as I write these. Pardon any spelling errors, I will be typing really fast.
THE PIANO: This really isn't going to be a shock by this point of the series, but this piano part could be performed by a monkey with Alzheimer's in his sleep. Several times throughout the part he simply changes chords by keeping the same 3 notes in the right hand while going down bass note whole notes with his left. A good example is in the very first 2 measures of the verse as he shifts from Am to FMaj7 with one simple finger movement. Ingenious ability to lazy up his piano playing, I say!
Also unshocking is the fact that the entire song he does not at all deviate from his 3 note chunking with Whole notes in the bass, minus a few measures where he moves in parallel thirds up in seconds between the bass and treble, nothing special. There is also one point where he shifts into whole notes in the treble with quarters in the bass. (This is where you insert the facepalm.jpg)
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Simply beginning with the key signature of A minor you can probably see where I'm going here. 6 total chords are used in various form, all of them in streams of bass notes that make the song as easy to stick together as possible. The song is dominated by Am, C, G and FMaj7, basically making this entire song a piece in A minor trying as desperately hard to get to C Major (the old standard) as possible. It never really succeeds, due to various chords like E and A major that get stuck in as passing chords. The E chord, by the way, is not nearly as exotic as you might think, it's just a result of a temporary shift to harmonic minor from the regular natural minor the rest of the song is rooted in.
The lyrical content of this song is the idea of "write one verse and then repeat it 30 times" that he also utilized in Why Don't We Do it in the Road?. The difference here of course is that WDWDIITR is not supposed to be serious. This one is so damn serious it's hilarious to listen to. Macca obviously decided that since he couldn't come up with anything new, he'd just SCAT to one of the verses, which almost makes it worse. If it could get worse, I don't wanna know.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: This is the epitome of a stupid song on the Magical Mystery Tour album. Macca really just sort of phoned in sick on that album and made his songs even worse. (Remember All Together Now?) So I won't totally fault him for this one. Totally anyway.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The problem!
The reason I have not updated much recently is because my brother stole my Beatles songbook. I haven't been able to read various voicings and things to finish up some of the analysis I'm working on. (The End and Lady Madonna are both being worked on right now, along with the first PMSTDS analysis.)
Nobody reads this anymore, do they?
Nobody reads this anymore, do they?
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
PMCPP PRESENTS: Back In The USSR
BACK IN THE USSR
PMCPP Analysis #11
Key: A Major
Rhythm Used: Chunk
We're back in the PMCPP! Welcome to a wonderful installment of PMCPP where the last P stands for both Piano and Percussion! (Thanks for the term, Dakota. Heh.) As we all know, Paul played both his keys and Ringo's set for this one, so we may be in for a long tedious ride. Although I suppose you deserve it for having to wait a month between me writing these. Whoops.
THE PIANO: As you'd probably expect by now, this piano part is nothing new to us. 3 or 4 note chunks in root position, mostly in eighth notes throughout the song. On rare occasion, he does do a bit of a 16th note trill with his chords, but nothing besides the note value changes there.
The piano actually starts up straight after the jet noise intro and the vamping on the V chord. It's not hard to hear at all, it's quite high in the mix. And that loud banging he's doing on it would probably be audible even if the fader was mostly turned off - it'd only be loud crunching noises at that point, but my point still stands. DYNAMICS, MACCA DO YOU SPEAK IT.
Every verse contains the same basic pianic (that's totally a word, shut up) structure with the piano blasting those eighth notes endlessly throughout. Never does the piano stop, but as the verses get later on in the song, he does occasional bursts of those trills I was talking about earlier. There seems to be no rhyme or reasoning for when he does them, but whatever. The refrains contain no difference.
The bridges see him switch to a different method of SYNCOPATED chunking on off beats. Even when different jazzy additions are made to the underlying chord, his piano stays pretty much the same throughout, not that we'd expect anything else from him. Adding dominant 7ths to the chord requires all that work, after all.
THE PERCUSSION: Being a drummer myself, listening to this makes my poor ears bleed. As you probably know, all 3 of the non-Ringo Beatles played drums on this one, and Paul's version was considered "best." (lol let's see who gets that pun) All I have to say is that George and John must've played some of the worst drumming in the history of the universe to do worse than what Paul came up with.
The rhythm he uses is the old standard "I've been a drummer in a rock band for about 2 days and this is the easiest thing to play so I'll do it for every song" drum riff. For those of you unfamiliar with it, just hit the hi-hat on every eighth note with bass drum on 1&3 and snare on 2&4. There you have it, the entire song. However, Paul even manages to screw THAT up.
Listening closely to the song you may notice that near the beginning Paul is draggin' like an old monkey's balls. He eventually catches up, but not before missing the snare drum twice. Paul, the snare drum is like a foot across at least, how the hell can you miss it so much? Seriously, the first time I ever played the drum set in my life I did better than this. And I was playing JAZZ for Christ's sake!
The drum fills he uses are elementary and all similar. Find one instance in the song where he doesn't just do "and 2 and a 3 e and a 4 e and one" or "and 2 and 3 and 4" as his fill. (So far the only instance I could find was around the end where I think he missed the tom on one of the hits) Even worse is the fact that in the whole song his fills take place on the snare or on the topmost tom. No floor tom excepting the intro is used, and he doesn't even use more than one crash cymbal! Jeez, did Ringo take half his set with him when he walked out? I KNOW he has at least 2 toms and cymbals. Variety is the spice of life, Paul! TAKE NOTES.
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: All right, this one is easy. The chords used here are the old standard rock set of I IV V and flat-III. Nothing else is ever used, and the V chord only winds up being seen during the intro and the very tail end of the bridge. Basically he spends 3/4 of the song doing the same progression between I-IV-flatIII-IV-I. Nice and symmetrical, but also eventually a bit boring.
The guitar riff that punctuates most of the song isn't all that difficult of a riff, going in downward chromatics in the various 3 chords you've already seen. Thankfully it does provide some semblance of movement in the otherwise fairly melodically static song. Even the vocal part doesn't move around much outside a small range.
I'd also like to point out that this is yet another example of Paul sticking C chords (the flat-III) into stuff written in A. It's like he needs a fix of C every time he writes in A, just to get himself comfortable. I'm just glad he didn't do a full blown key change this time.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Uh... the awesome jet noises? The blatant Beach Boy references? I don't know. I guess it's just some KICK ASS ROCK 'N ROLL AMIRITE?
All right, so this wasn't my best analysis, but I'm getting into the swing of things again, dammit!
PMCPP Analysis #11
Key: A Major
Rhythm Used: Chunk
We're back in the PMCPP! Welcome to a wonderful installment of PMCPP where the last P stands for both Piano and Percussion! (Thanks for the term, Dakota. Heh.) As we all know, Paul played both his keys and Ringo's set for this one, so we may be in for a long tedious ride. Although I suppose you deserve it for having to wait a month between me writing these. Whoops.
THE PIANO: As you'd probably expect by now, this piano part is nothing new to us. 3 or 4 note chunks in root position, mostly in eighth notes throughout the song. On rare occasion, he does do a bit of a 16th note trill with his chords, but nothing besides the note value changes there.
The piano actually starts up straight after the jet noise intro and the vamping on the V chord. It's not hard to hear at all, it's quite high in the mix. And that loud banging he's doing on it would probably be audible even if the fader was mostly turned off - it'd only be loud crunching noises at that point, but my point still stands. DYNAMICS, MACCA DO YOU SPEAK IT.
Every verse contains the same basic pianic (that's totally a word, shut up) structure with the piano blasting those eighth notes endlessly throughout. Never does the piano stop, but as the verses get later on in the song, he does occasional bursts of those trills I was talking about earlier. There seems to be no rhyme or reasoning for when he does them, but whatever. The refrains contain no difference.
The bridges see him switch to a different method of SYNCOPATED chunking on off beats. Even when different jazzy additions are made to the underlying chord, his piano stays pretty much the same throughout, not that we'd expect anything else from him. Adding dominant 7ths to the chord requires all that work, after all.
THE PERCUSSION: Being a drummer myself, listening to this makes my poor ears bleed. As you probably know, all 3 of the non-Ringo Beatles played drums on this one, and Paul's version was considered "best." (lol let's see who gets that pun) All I have to say is that George and John must've played some of the worst drumming in the history of the universe to do worse than what Paul came up with.
The rhythm he uses is the old standard "I've been a drummer in a rock band for about 2 days and this is the easiest thing to play so I'll do it for every song" drum riff. For those of you unfamiliar with it, just hit the hi-hat on every eighth note with bass drum on 1&3 and snare on 2&4. There you have it, the entire song. However, Paul even manages to screw THAT up.
Listening closely to the song you may notice that near the beginning Paul is draggin' like an old monkey's balls. He eventually catches up, but not before missing the snare drum twice. Paul, the snare drum is like a foot across at least, how the hell can you miss it so much? Seriously, the first time I ever played the drum set in my life I did better than this. And I was playing JAZZ for Christ's sake!
The drum fills he uses are elementary and all similar. Find one instance in the song where he doesn't just do "and 2 and a 3 e and a 4 e and one" or "and 2 and 3 and 4" as his fill. (So far the only instance I could find was around the end where I think he missed the tom on one of the hits) Even worse is the fact that in the whole song his fills take place on the snare or on the topmost tom. No floor tom excepting the intro is used, and he doesn't even use more than one crash cymbal! Jeez, did Ringo take half his set with him when he walked out? I KNOW he has at least 2 toms and cymbals. Variety is the spice of life, Paul! TAKE NOTES.
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: All right, this one is easy. The chords used here are the old standard rock set of I IV V and flat-III. Nothing else is ever used, and the V chord only winds up being seen during the intro and the very tail end of the bridge. Basically he spends 3/4 of the song doing the same progression between I-IV-flatIII-IV-I. Nice and symmetrical, but also eventually a bit boring.
The guitar riff that punctuates most of the song isn't all that difficult of a riff, going in downward chromatics in the various 3 chords you've already seen. Thankfully it does provide some semblance of movement in the otherwise fairly melodically static song. Even the vocal part doesn't move around much outside a small range.
I'd also like to point out that this is yet another example of Paul sticking C chords (the flat-III) into stuff written in A. It's like he needs a fix of C every time he writes in A, just to get himself comfortable. I'm just glad he didn't do a full blown key change this time.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Uh... the awesome jet noises? The blatant Beach Boy references? I don't know. I guess it's just some KICK ASS ROCK 'N ROLL AMIRITE?
All right, so this wasn't my best analysis, but I'm getting into the swing of things again, dammit!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
PMCPP PRESENTS: Love Me Do
LOVE ME DO
PMCPP Analysis #10
KEY: G Major
RHYTHM USED: Again, no.
All right, so I'm totally getting off on a tangent with these non-piano songs, but when I found out that Paul wrote Love Me Do, I couldn't resist covering it, piano or not. So let's get this over with so I can cover something that actually includes a god-damn piano.
THE GUITAR: I do think this deserves special mentioning, the guitar part. Straight quarter note strums (with a very rare eigth note thrown in) on 2 different chords for most of the song? That's seriously about as easy a guitar part as you can get. No riffs? Not even any rhythmic fun with it? Come on, even for the first song by this band it's not up to par with most starter songs. Hell, a 8 year old could write songs more playable than this.
All right, I'm done, on to the laziness!
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Basic repeating of what you already know is in evidence here, such as the easy home key of G and the usage of just I IV and V chords. It's the WAY they are utilized that sucks ass especially here.
Most of the song is spent on I and IV in an unholy lovefest of happily switching between those 2 chords every measure without fail. The ONLY exception to this rule is during the bridges. A V chord shows up twice per bridge, giving it a grand total of 4 measures of appearance in the whole song. Considering the verse section appears in some form 6 different times in the song, I'd say it's in the vaaaaaaaast minority of harmonics here. Anyone else catching glimpses of All Together Now here?
I don't really think I have to bring the lyrics into this, since it's fairly obvious how skimpy they are. There are a grand total of 16 different words used in the song. Considering that every other freakin' word is "love", that's made even more pathetic sounding. I suppose I should give kudos to them for making such little material somehow spread out evenly over a 2 minute lag-fest.
Also of note is the fact that originally the harmonica part wasn't in the song after Macca wrote it. Lennon came up with it. (thanks for pointing out my previous error, spookierthanu!) What's this mean? Originally, this song was even MORE generic and without merit without that harmonica part. And what was Lennon supposed to do before he got the harmonica part? Another guitar part? I don't think so Tim.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Give him a break, it was one of his first songs. Although I must say it does give a nice glimpse into the future of lazy songwriting for Mr. McCartney, I'll give him a pass this time.
Just once though.
- UZ
PMCPP Analysis #10
KEY: G Major
RHYTHM USED: Again, no.
All right, so I'm totally getting off on a tangent with these non-piano songs, but when I found out that Paul wrote Love Me Do, I couldn't resist covering it, piano or not. So let's get this over with so I can cover something that actually includes a god-damn piano.
THE GUITAR: I do think this deserves special mentioning, the guitar part. Straight quarter note strums (with a very rare eigth note thrown in) on 2 different chords for most of the song? That's seriously about as easy a guitar part as you can get. No riffs? Not even any rhythmic fun with it? Come on, even for the first song by this band it's not up to par with most starter songs. Hell, a 8 year old could write songs more playable than this.
All right, I'm done, on to the laziness!
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Basic repeating of what you already know is in evidence here, such as the easy home key of G and the usage of just I IV and V chords. It's the WAY they are utilized that sucks ass especially here.
Most of the song is spent on I and IV in an unholy lovefest of happily switching between those 2 chords every measure without fail. The ONLY exception to this rule is during the bridges. A V chord shows up twice per bridge, giving it a grand total of 4 measures of appearance in the whole song. Considering the verse section appears in some form 6 different times in the song, I'd say it's in the vaaaaaaaast minority of harmonics here. Anyone else catching glimpses of All Together Now here?
I don't really think I have to bring the lyrics into this, since it's fairly obvious how skimpy they are. There are a grand total of 16 different words used in the song. Considering that every other freakin' word is "love", that's made even more pathetic sounding. I suppose I should give kudos to them for making such little material somehow spread out evenly over a 2 minute lag-fest.
Also of note is the fact that originally the harmonica part wasn't in the song after Macca wrote it. Lennon came up with it. (thanks for pointing out my previous error, spookierthanu!) What's this mean? Originally, this song was even MORE generic and without merit without that harmonica part. And what was Lennon supposed to do before he got the harmonica part? Another guitar part? I don't think so Tim.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Give him a break, it was one of his first songs. Although I must say it does give a nice glimpse into the future of lazy songwriting for Mr. McCartney, I'll give him a pass this time.
Just once though.
- UZ
Friday, July 4, 2008
You may have noticed
I'm not doing those Wednesday updates anymore. I just suck at scheduling myself for anything, plus I'm doing writing for Blogcritics now, meaning I have to write for more than just this.
You can still expect one or two of these a week, though. You just won't know which ones. :O
You can still expect one or two of these a week, though. You just won't know which ones. :O
Thursday, July 3, 2008
PMCPP PRESENTS: All Together Now
ALL TOGETHER NOW
PMCPP Analysis #9 (number 9... number 9... number 9...)
KEY: G Major
RHYTHM USED: Uh... None, really.
Whoo, we're back! This song is a fine example of Paul simply being a total doofus in his songwriting. Seriously, people bought an album with this song on it and didn't notice how bad it was? I guess maybe George's stupid sitar songs might've confused them... but come on.
THE P-: OK, never mind on that one. Let's just have fun with the laziness, shall we?
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Oh, jezz. Where to begin?
What?
The lyrics?
All riiiight. Anyway, the lyrical content in this song leaves a lot more than just SOMETHING to be desired. It sounds like it was written by a 7 year old who had just recieved a rhyming dictionary. Or perhaps by a retarded 40 year old who recieved the dictionary. It's really just a matter of intellect here. Congratulations to Paul, by the way, for figuring out the alphabet by the time he was in his 20's.
Also he can't pronounce ORANGE. Owange indeed. I don't know what this has to do with the songwriting, I just figured I'd point it out.
The key here is in our old standard G Major, unsurprising for the content of the song overall. Actually, I'm shocked Paul didn't TOTALLY devolve into childhood and just stick with C Major. I guess he was going for something DARING here. Daring for Paul, anyway.
The strumming pattern on the guitar is your basic open chords of G, C and D in an all straight eigth notes sort of fashion. Normally even Paul sticks a V-V or iv or even flat-VII chord into most of his songs, but nothing fancy here. I IV and IV reign supreme in this one, with a sort of Love-me-doesque usage of almost exclusively I and IV chords for most of the song. (V only appears on "I love you" and "Look at me" lyric-wise. It's also used once for the final cadance when the song speeds up near the end.) Love Me Do is also in the same key as this one. Hm.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Seriously, nobody is quite sure. Perhaps they were trying to divulge into the wide demographic of 7 year olds? Actually, if I was going to ask someone to write a song with 7 year olds in mind, I guess Paul would be the one, eh?
- UZ
PMCPP Analysis #9 (number 9... number 9... number 9...)
KEY: G Major
RHYTHM USED: Uh... None, really.
Whoo, we're back! This song is a fine example of Paul simply being a total doofus in his songwriting. Seriously, people bought an album with this song on it and didn't notice how bad it was? I guess maybe George's stupid sitar songs might've confused them... but come on.
THE P-: OK, never mind on that one. Let's just have fun with the laziness, shall we?
LAZINESS IN SONGWRITING: Oh, jezz. Where to begin?
What?
The lyrics?
All riiiight. Anyway, the lyrical content in this song leaves a lot more than just SOMETHING to be desired. It sounds like it was written by a 7 year old who had just recieved a rhyming dictionary. Or perhaps by a retarded 40 year old who recieved the dictionary. It's really just a matter of intellect here. Congratulations to Paul, by the way, for figuring out the alphabet by the time he was in his 20's.
Also he can't pronounce ORANGE. Owange indeed. I don't know what this has to do with the songwriting, I just figured I'd point it out.
The key here is in our old standard G Major, unsurprising for the content of the song overall. Actually, I'm shocked Paul didn't TOTALLY devolve into childhood and just stick with C Major. I guess he was going for something DARING here. Daring for Paul, anyway.
The strumming pattern on the guitar is your basic open chords of G, C and D in an all straight eigth notes sort of fashion. Normally even Paul sticks a V-V or iv or even flat-VII chord into most of his songs, but nothing fancy here. I IV and IV reign supreme in this one, with a sort of Love-me-doesque usage of almost exclusively I and IV chords for most of the song. (V only appears on "I love you" and "Look at me" lyric-wise. It's also used once for the final cadance when the song speeds up near the end.) Love Me Do is also in the same key as this one. Hm.
WHY PAUL GOT AWAY WITH IT: Seriously, nobody is quite sure. Perhaps they were trying to divulge into the wide demographic of 7 year olds? Actually, if I was going to ask someone to write a song with 7 year olds in mind, I guess Paul would be the one, eh?
- UZ
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