Songwriting Analysis

Thanks for the link, Marcel. I'd never heard of the book (John
Stevens, "The Songs of John Lennon: The Beatles Years"). Judging
from the sample (the Ticket To Ride chapter), I'd agree that it looks
interesting (I think I'll buy it), but it's also a little odd.
Stevens seems to place inordinate importance on phrase length, which he
illustrates with strange and unilluminating diagrams (figures 4.3 and
4.5). Sparse as they are, these diagrams contain inaccuracies: the F#
in the second measure of 4.3 should apparently be E, and the E in the
fourth measure of 4.5 should apparently be F#. (There's another
mistake in the fourth measure of figure 4.9--this doesn't bode well
for accuracy of the book as a whole). Stevens' most provocative
claim in the chapter is that Ticket To Ride broke new ground with its
formal structure:

"Using his expanded view of the standard AABA form as a backdrop,
Lennon fashioned something quite new in 'Ticket to Ride.' Up until
now the A in the AABA form always represented the standard
verse/refrain. But in his effort to write a heavier rock song, Lennon
began to think of the A as a verse/chorus combination.
Rather than having a simple, single statement of the title line,
Lennon repeats the title three times. This repetition transforms the
part from a refrain (single statement) to a chorus (three
statements)." (page 111)

The argument here is that because the words "ticket to ride" are
repeated in the second half of the song's A section, that section
ends with a chorus rather than with a mere refrain (and that this is
somehow appropriate to a "heavier" rock song). I've never been
quite sure what, if anything, differentiates a chorus from a refrain,
but I wouldn't have suspected that the difference depended on whether
or not the title phrase is repeated. Seems to me that Ticket To
Ride's verse structure is not much different from that of, say,
Please Please Me, where, as in TTR, a refrain (recurring melody and
lyric) occupies the second half of the A section ("come on, come on .
. . like I please you"). That refrain is not a chorus, by
Stevens' definition, because it doesn't repeat the phrase "Please
please me"--though it apparently would be a chorus if the song were
retitled Come On. But even if we accept Stevens' definition of the
verse/chorus structure, I don't think we can accept his claim that
Ticket To Ride was the first song in which Lennon used it: he'd
written It Won't Be Long more than a year and a half earlier and She
Loves You (if that counts) earlier still. Both songs repeat the title
phrase in the second half of the A section.

rforman61...

I agree; I'd add that in this definition, the refrain is a line or two
and necessarily the last part of the verse, but I think you meant to
imply this too.

rforman61...

What you're calling the Ramp, in my mind I call the "release," and have
also seen referred to as the "pre-chorus," basically a linking section
that bridges the the verse and chorus and leads into the chorus.
Pretty common in millions of songs!

ian...

It is now, but I don't think it was then...

John Gutglueck...

Yeah, the pre-chorus has apparently become so well established a
feature of modern song that it can be recognized as such even when it
doesn't immediately precede a chorus. I was just listening to the
Decemberists' O Valencia!. Its pre-chorus (so labled in the album's
lyric sheet) appears as a kind of tease at the end of the first verse.
Instead of introducing the chorus it leads directly (and
anticlimactically) into the second verse. Appearing again at the end
of the second verse, it finally delivers the promised chorus (as it
will again in the third verse). Quite an effective way of building up
the listener's anticipation.

As for how much music theory the Beatles knew, that's a topic that
has generated some argument around here in the past. The answer
depends in part on what you consider music theory to be. The Beatles
could certainly name individual chords (though they could not, of
course, read standard music notation). At a higher level of
abstraction, I think they knew that a G7 chord, for instance, plays the
same role in the key of C major that a B7 chord plays in the key of E
major, though they did not use the term "dominant" (or any other
term, so far as I know) or the symbol "V7" to name that role. They
could surely recognize (and replicate in different keys) patterns they
heard in the songs they studied, but I doubt that they could describe
those patterns in general terms. Of course, the fact that the Beatles
didn't think in terms of traditional music theory when they wrote
songs doesn't mean that their songs can't (or shouldn't) be
analyzed in those terms.

Hey guys,

I was thinking of getting the book "The Songwriting Secrets of the
Beatles" by Dominic Pedler but wasn't sure if it'd be much good. Just
wondered if anyone here has it and if it's any good?

ian...

Dominic Pedler's book is thorough and rather huge. It concentrates on
the Beatles harmonic language and presents it in the sort of style you
see in guitar magazines.

That's the Amazon link. Are there any other good books focusing on the
Beatles' songwriting techniques available?

terra...

If you're a musical scholar (or even if you're not) a very dense and
extremely accurate rendering is given by Walter Everett (2 books, one from
62-Rubber Soul the other from Revolver-to 70).

R.A.G. Seely...

I'd include all these in a "must have" list of Beatles books. There are
others, of course ...

ian...

Walt Everett's books are invaluable for many reasons. In these volumes
he combines roman number and Schenkerarian analysis.

dahldude...

the Schenkerarian alone is an irremissible cogitation...

John Gutglueck...

Don't mean to complicate your decision, Marcel, but I recommend
Pedler's book very highly. I think you'll find it much more useful
than Everett's "Beatles As Musicians" volumes if, as you say,
you're specifically interested in understanding "songwriting
techniques."

Everett takes a song-by-song approach and generally tries to comment on
all the various aspects of a given song and its recording--lyrical,
philosophical, historical, and logistical, as well as melodic and
harmonic. His analysis is, in a word, multifaceted. As a result,
you'll find discussion of a song's early evolution, its lyrical
content, the circumstances under which it was written, the history of
its recording, and especially its instrumentation all interwoven with
(often very compressed) discussion of the song's melodic and harmonic
features. There are many brilliant melodic and harmonic insights
interspersed throughout the two volumes, but you'll have to tease
them out, and even then you probably won't end up with a clearly
articulated set of harmonic or melodic principles that you can bundle
up and carry around with you. The main focus of the BAM volumes is not
songwriting technique.

Pedler, on the other hand, takes a thematic approach, with chapters and
subchapters addressing general melodic/harmonic principles or specific
chord progressions. He's single-mindedly devoted to showing how all
kinds of basic (and some not so basic) harmonic principles and chord
progressions are adapted for use in lots of different songs, including
non-Beatles songs. Analyses of particular songs figure into the book
only as illustrations of some general technique. You'll come away
with a very good sense of how pop songs are structured and of what it
is that links many of them to one another. The book is very accessibly
written, very browsable, with lots of helpful diagrams, charts, and
musical quotations, and there are some neat appendices, including a
very lucid Beginner's Guide to Music Theory.

I should also mention that if you go with Everett, you're going to want
(need) to get the "The Beatles Complete Scores" as well, because
Everett makes constant use of section designations (e.g., "B+5",
meaning the fifth measure of section B) that are peculiar to those
scores.

You may be able to look at extracts from the books at Amazon.