Song Analyses in chronological recording order. Account managed by arewetheoysters and ilovedig. - If you want to get ahold of us privately, we have an email! [email protected]
This blog is a collaboration between @ilovedig and @arewetheoysters. We're going through the entire catalogue of recorded songs by The Beatles (including a couple from the Quarrymen era) and analyzing them.
As best we can, this account will be in chronological order, but tags will help with sorting as well.
We'll pull together as much information as we can including quotes and lyrics, and give our opinions where we think they're interesting.
The info we put here will be up for interpretation.
Please reblog and add your own thoughts! The goal is for these posts to just be a place to discuss these songs.
If you don't want to reblog we also welcome asks. Just come share your opinions!
This one is interesting cause it’s named, meaning someone heard the lyrics “An Important Number” when reviewing the song. And while there are lyrics towards the end, we can’t pick out those specific ones at all.
The main lyrics seem to be “keep on” and “we’re going back” over and over again. While most songs from this tape we do have thoughts on lyrically, this one seems very much like the first jam of the day just warming up. There really isn’t any message behind these lyrics.
However there is one very interesting vocal thing. Paul or one of the others is mimicking a shaker with their voice. We don’t know of any other time the Beatles did that, so it’s very interesting to hear here.
As far as music, we notice that the guitar and bass are far louder than anything else, which is why we can’t actually hear what anyone is saying with any sort of clarity. We wonder if they were trying something new and put the recording equipment closer to Stu and George rather than Paul and John. With today’s knowledge we find this quite silly, of course the vocals would be too quiet to hear, but then, maybe they just didn’t know and wanted to find out what happened. Or, continuing with our theory that the Kirchherr tape was created for Stu to practice his bass from, it could have been closer to the bass so that was the loudest thing and the easiest to work off of.
This instrumental is one of Paul's earliest compositions, and a modified version was included on Anthology 1. It’s credited to Paul alone, so it predates any Lennon/McCartney agreement.
It's a short, pleasant, guitar piece. It’s impressive really that Paul could compose something like this at such a young age, and teach it to his band mates. We can make out a basic but mostly competent bass line (played by Stu), a rhythm guitar (presumably John) and two more guitars (Paul and George).
In a couple of places one of the 6 string guitars mimics a bass-guitar sound (e.g. around 24 seconds in). We debated whether this was George or Paul. Paul could be getting frustrated with Stu’s bass line, or have included the sound in his composition before he showed it to his friends. Or maybe George was already doing something we would see him do much later during the Get Back sessions: filling in the space where he felt a bass line was needed (see the discussion about the bass line for Two Of Us).
According to the Anthology liner notes:
Cayenne is an instrumental composed by Paul McCartney. A good number of the earliest titles written by either Lennon or McCartney, or both, were instrumentals, written in the late 1950s when tunes without a lyric were prevalent.
There’s a Spanish sound to it, and we’re curious what inspired that. It makes us think of Besame Mucho and Hot As Sun (released on McCartney, but written in ‘58 or ‘59).
The entry for Cayenne on the Beatles Bible compares it to The Shadows, but doesn’t specify a song, and we don’t see the connection (we looked through a dozen or so Shadows songs. We did learn that Cliff Richards is gay in the process, though. See this interview with Piers Morgan, and this article).
If you've been waiting for it, it's finally here. Our IDK transcription and analysis! Here's the song with lyrics on the video
We have used square brackets [ ] to indicate words and phrases we’re not certain about. When we have multiple possible interpretations, we put them in [ ] and separate them with /.
We use braces { } when we want to leave a note to the reader, such as {paul says random indecipherable things}.
Paul's lines are left justified, John's are right justified.
Full analysis under the cut!
This song is very famous within certain circles in Beatles fandom, and totally unknown to others. It comes from a recording the Beatles made in April or May 1960, on a borrowed tape recorder.
It's partly improvised, but likely based on existing lyrics that John and Paul had been working on. The quality of the recording is low, as you might expect, but Paul can clearly be heard repeating “Johnny Johnny” at various points. This has probably contributed to the song’s reputation as “proof of McLennon”.
It’s worth noting that Mike and Stu were definitely present (drumming can be heard clearly in the instrumental section around 4:00, bass is present from the start), and there’s no reason to believe George wasn't there. Hardly the ideal moment for declarations of undying love between two young men in an extremely homophobic society.
We have worked hard to produce a transcription of the lyrics. We’re by no means the first people to try this, but we have three important advantages in our favour:
We’re working from a much higher quality recording that most people
We found a bootleg that became available in 2007. All the other transcriptions we found were based on older bootlegs that were full of distortion, and lengthened.
We used an AI to separate the music from the vocals
We have a separate post about the limitations of this technology. It helped a lot, but we always went back to the full recording.
We worked together
Collaborating meant that we were able to challenge each other on our assumptions and come up with a better transcription than either of us could have done alone.
There are quite a few places where we couldn’t agree on one definite word or phrase. We’re hopeful that some of you will be able to help us reach stronger conclusions about some of those sections.
Thanks so much to @peaceloveandstarrs, @mclennonlgbt, and @inspiteallthedanger for reading through and commenting. It’s very much appreciated!
Fifth of never
At 2:23 we have transcribed “fifth of never”. This phrase may not be familiar to everyone. Judging by Google ngram viewer the phrase “twelfth of never” developed in the early fifties. Johnny Mathis recorded a song called The Twelfth of Never in 1956. By the late 60s we start to see “fifth of never”.
We’re pretty sure that John says “fifth” and not “twelfth”. It’s tantalising to think John might be the origin of this switch. He did, after all, have an audience of teen girls, and that demographic has always been a key driver of language innovation.
Analysis
When we first teased this post, we wrote:
Paul: We’re leaving
John: We’re leaving
Now that you’ve heard the song and read through our transcription, you probably understand why. Paul is saying John’s name A LOT. We were reminded of Yoko moaning John’s name on “The Wedding Album” and the like. Paul wants to leave Liverpool but only with John. It also worth noting that when John says “I’m gonna see my sisters too” it suggests they were going to Scotland, which dates this in May 1960 before they went on the tour with Johnny Gentle (wow there are a lot of Johnnys).
Paul is concerned about what they'll tell people (his father, his teachers?) and with letting people down.
For John, leaving is kinda his only focus. He just wants to get out of Liverpool. He doesn’t really care how. If it’s a tour, great, if it’s not, that’s fine too, he just wants to leave. At the time he was living with Stu and others at Gambier Terrace. So it’s interesting that even in that living arrangement he didn’t want to be in Liverpool anymore. Our hope is that this suggests he really did know how abusive Mimi was and it was a reaction to that. The most interesting thing from John is the way he talks about his mom is present tense. So maybe that played into it too.
There is a section (3:16) where John seems to be talking about his girlfriend (Cyn) cheating on him. Either he thinks she's cheating with a girl, or John is talking about a man's lips being pretty.
We think there is a third voice at 2:16 singing "leave" repeatedly, and we wonder if it could be Stu.
We’ve had many theories we came up with while transcribing the lyrics. One of the big ones is that John and Paul made some sort of pact to get away at the first chance and not come back. It suggests that the original plans of Hamburg and then Paris were to never return. We speculated that maybe Stu was involved in this pact and that’s why he settled down in Hamburg, cause that was the original plan. We have half a mind to think that Paul intentionally got himself deported because by that point he didn’t like the plan anymore. John tried to stay but with Paul gone and Stu off with Astrid, he just couldn’t make it work.
As for Paris, we do wonder why they came back when they did. We don’t think we have an answer to that and we probably never will.
So that’s “I Don’t Know.” It’s a song about a boy who just can’t stay in Liverpool anymore and another boy who will follow him anywhere. It’s full of miscommunication of these two boys who clearly weren’t on the same page at all, and it’s a really interesting look into what was most important to them in Spring of 1960.
We know this is going to be controversial, so please reblog or comment with your thoughts. Spread this! We spent two months getting this to the point that we were ready to share.
A short little thing this time! It has a twangy feel to it at first, which is reminiscent of early country music guitar playing (though I’m fairly sure they weren’t going for that feel… hey, things happen). They almost sound like banjos at the beginning! The bass line is fairly simple rhythmically, mostly serving as a tempo keeper since there aren’t any drums.
The guitar line at 1:24 is neat. It almost has a swaying type feel to it, for lack of a better description. Pretty cool effect. The bass line goes with it really well too, filling in the spaces in the melody. And I liked the technical picking line at 1:47. I’m a sucker for technically challenging lines, what can I say? The melody at 1:50 is cool too. I found the little motif stuck in my head for a few moments! I thought the bit at 2:32 was where the song was going to end; it had that “finale” sort of feel to it. But nah, it went on for a few more seconds. I kind of wish it had a more solid, “the end” type of feel to it instead of just dropping off like it did, but that’s what happens sometimes with improvisations (I’m guessing this was an improvisation). It was still a pretty enjoyable listen.
Our Note:
The bass playing on this track is better than on some others on the disc. Our current theory is that this is actually Paul playing, to show Stu how.
This recording is the second instrumental from the April/May 1960 home recording made at Forthlin Road (also known as the Kirchherr Tape). It's a little long, so be warned. Though, @peaceloveandstarrs did such a fantastic analysis, you'll want to listen to every second so you can follow along.
This seems to be an improvised blues instrumental. We can hear a steady bass, keeping a good rhythm (more evidence that Stu is unfairly maligned as a bass player). Our working theory is that Stu played the bass kind of how Ringo plays the drums, there to serve the song. We both think, had Stu actually tried, he could have become an incredible bassist. Stu was just talented, at everything, so even though he wasn't trying very hard, it's still more than just passable.
There are at least two other guitars, possibly three.
We had some discussion about who was playing lead guitar. We originally thought Paul, but this was 2 years after Paul flubbed the solo in Guitar Boogie, so the likelihood he'd take lead was low. It's therefore likely George. It's interesting hearing him mess with some chords higher up the neck. It shows the beginning of Geo's talent pretty well, we'd say.
But neither of us our instrumentalists, so we're gonna leave the rest of this analysis to someone who is.
@peaceloveandstarrs has been kind enough to write another guest post about this song:
This is definitely improvised going by how rambling the intro is and how it takes them about a minute or so to finally settle into a key signature. As with the last one I listened to, I wish the balance had been better, but again, I get that the technology at the time made sound quality less than great. There’s a lot of really neat lead guitar stuff, like the picking around 1:23 and then the bit around 1:32. I’m not a guitarist, but I know that any technical playing on any instrument takes a lot of skill and practice. So whoever was on lead on this, my kudos! (Not that that means anything 62 years later, ha!)
The bass is definitely keeping a steady tempo, which is what’s expected of a bass player when there’s no percussionist. Stu isn’t the best bass player, but he’s not as bad as people make him out to be. I love all of the chromatic runs from whoever’s playing them, like the one at 3:37. They’re such a good transition between different melodic ideas or the start of a new chord progression. The random bits of dissonance, like the one at around 5:02, are jarring now that the key’s been settled. But hey, it keeps the listener on their toes and attentive.
I love the moments where the whole thing really comes together and the individual lines fit together perfectly, such as around 5:40. And just when that settles in, you get another cool, technical line at around 5:56. Whoever is playing this (Paul? I can’t tell individual playing styles apart yet) made it sound easy. As an instrumentalist myself, technical runs always give me the most difficulty, so I can say pretty confidently that it wasn’t that easy. At least not right off the bat.
There’s a neat little groove at around 7:33 in one of the guitar lines. It’s simple, but the way it’s played (first note accented, slurred into the second part of the line) makes it have a kind of jazzy feel. I listened to that one a couple of times just because I liked it. And we get to more technical bits in the guitar line around 8:24 or so. It’s a repetitive line, but it’s so clean-sounding. Again, not easy to do. I have a hard time articulating quickly and making it sound that clean! (Granted I play clarinet, so I’m not sure if I can really compare it to a guitar…)
It sounds like Stu is trying to bring the chart to an end around 9:20 and the rest of the group didn’t get the memo! That’s a classic ending bass line, descending the scale to the tonic tone (so in this case, he landed on an F since the piece is in F… music theory classes coming in handy finally!) The last 40 seconds or so sounds like they’re trying to figure out how to end the chart. I sort of wish they’d all ended with Stu’s little descending line, but hey, the way they end it works too. Overall, it’s a nice little improvisation with lots of signs of developing talent, especially in whoever played lead guitar.
We're reblogging this today because it belongs on the Kirchherr tape, and we want the posts to be in order.
The bass in this song is much more confident and steady than in instrumental no. 1. Our theory is that this is actually Paul, demonstrating to Stu (and possibly recording for him to learn from).
This is an original instrumental from the first Forthlin Road tape (also known as the Kirchherr tape) from April/May 1960. It's called instrumental #1 on Strong Before Our Birth.
There is a prominent, simple bass line, played by Stu. And two guitars, one strumming, one picking. We’re guessing the strum is John and the pick is George, but we don’t have a lot to base that on.
This is our first guest post! From @peaceloveandstarrs (an instrumentalist):
It starts out in a sort of random, rambling sort of way, like they're trying to figure out exactly what it is they wanna play, maybe settle on a key signature. But once they settle in, it gets a nice little groove.
The melody is simple, and the bass and rhythm lines are almost plodding along for the most part, keeping time which makes sense since there's no percussion at all. There are a few moments where they go into a triplet rhythm, which I'm going to guess is normal for this style. Not a blues player, the closest I’ve gotten is playing in a jazz band. Close but not quite.
The tempo changes keep it interesting. And George changes the melody as the song goes on, making it more technical, more complicated. Definitely a sign of his growing talent and future writing ability! Makes listening to the songs he would come to write as a Beatle and later his solo career that much more interesting, knowing where he started. I’m pretty sure this was recorded as an improvisation, if I remember correctly, so he was coming up with this melody on the spot. Such an admirable talent given I can’t improvise at all.
The ending is definitely the most interesting to me. I can tell they're trying to make an exciting finish, end it with a flourish, that kind of thing. The little pause right before the final push to the end is a tease, making you think they're done. But wait, there's more! Always fun.
Overall, it's a nice little track. I wish the balance had been better at times - sometimes the bass and rhythm lines overpowered the melody - but I'm gonna guess that's a product of the technology of the time. Again, pretty impressive to think that they did this on the spot, no prior rehearsal or writing.
We're reblogging this today because it belongs on the Kirchherr tape, and we want the posts to be in order.
Unlike what we previously thought, the Kirchherr tape came first, likely in May, not long before the Scotland tour with Johnny Gentle.
It is the first thing on the Kirchherr tape. And what's most interesting is that we've now realized the bass is extremely simplistic even more so than the rest of the tape, bordering on painful to listen to with many notes not even being on beat. This leads us to further delve into one of our newest theories:
Paul borrowed the recording device specifically to help Stu learn bass well enough for this tour. As we get through this tape you'll notice a variety of bass techniques suggesting Paul might be playing bass on some of the numbers.
The Braun Tape is the second of the Forthlin Road tapes. (We started with this tape because we were working from incorrect information about the tapes). It was recorded sometime in late 1960. The date for this tape is often given as June, sometimes as June/July, but we have reason to suspect it might have been August.
Like the Kirchherr tape, it was recorded at Forthlin Road at Paul's house, on borrowed equipment. It was given to Hans-Walther Braun, a friend of the Beatles from Hamburg.
Links to our posts about the songs on the Braun tape:
Hallelujah I Love Her So (Ray Charles Cover)
One After 909
Moovin' 'N' Groovin' (Duane Eddy Cover)
Ramrod (Duane Eddy Cover)
Instrumental #3
You'll Be Mine
Unknown song (Suicide fragment?)
Matchbox
I'll Always Be in Love With You (Written by Bud Green, Herman Ruby, Sam H. Stept)
The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise (Les Paul Cover)
This is one of the first songs John Lennon wrote, and comes from before he met Paul. It was released by the Fourmost in 1963, and on Anthology 1 in 1995 (that version is from the Decca audition).
This version is from that same day as the rest of the tracks we’ve shown you so far, likely in June/July/August 1960. And it’s not finished. The bridge lyrics change slightly by the time the song is recorded for Decca.
The song was given away to the Fourmost, but we will discuss that more when we get to the Decca version. For now, it’s still John’s first song ever written.
It’s worth noting that John and Paul both wrote songs with “Little Girl” in the title as their first attempts at songwriting and both were written before they knew each other, likely sometime in 1956 or early ‘57.
According to David Scheff in “All We Are Saying:” [Lennon] drew on an old "Thirties or Forties song" that his mother sang to him. This would strongly suggest the song is about Julia. The interesting thing is this is the only song we know of that he wrote about her while she was alive. Mimi did not like her sister and kept John away from her, so it’s very possible when this song was written that that was still the case.
As for the recording itself, it’s interesting because Paul flubs the first line. We wonder if that’s because John recently changed the first line, or maybe, after a long day of recording all these songs, Paul was just tired and kind of disinterested, since it wasn’t his track.
Lyrics:
When I see you everyday {paul says walking by}
I say, "Mm mm hello little girl"
When you're passing on your way
I say, "Mm mm hello little girl"
I send you flowers but you don't care
You never seem to see me standing there
I often wonder what you're thinking of
Are you just foolin’ or it’s love love love
When I see you everyday
I say, "Mm mm hello little girl"
When you're passing on your way {there is another fumble, but it’s unclear who}
I say, "Mm mm hello little girl"
I send you flowers but you don't care
You never seem to see me standing there
I often wonder what you're thinking of
[ ] love love love
When I see you everyday
I say, "Mm mm hello little girl"
When you're passing on your way
I say, "Mm mm hello little hello little hello little girl"
It almost sounds like it starts off right in the middle instead of the beginning, which sort of jarred me at first. The bass is really heavy too, which is probably a technology thing. To me it feels like the bass is serving as the tempo keeper too, which is kind of cool. The lead guitar style at around 40 seconds or so is such a contrast to the bass and rhythm! It fits but in a way it doesn’t. It all comes back together at around a minute in with a very welcome change to the bass rhythm. I really liked the bass rhythm at around 1:21 and the fact that it was sort of a solo! Whoever plays there, Paul or Stu, well done!
There’s a lot of it that doesn’t quite mesh together in the beginning; this kind of makes me wonder if this was an improvisation like the other two songs I’ve analyzed so far. Like at 1:46, it sounds like George is making it up as he goes because at least to me, it doesn’t totally fit stylistically with the bass and rhythm lines. Same with his little solo at 2:30. It’s a bit confusing to hear the two sharp contrasts, but when it comes back together, it works really well.
I really liked the solo starting at around 3:35. It isn’t technically complicated, but it sounds really good over the bass and rhythm. They’ve settled into a nice little groove here about halfway through the song. I also appreciated the variations in the bass line, so again, well done to whoever played on this track.
Around 4:40 there’s a neat little melody, and the triplet figures in the guitar lines at 4:47 and again 4:52 are so cool! If this was improvised, they did a fantastic job at playing in sync with one another; there wasn’t a single note out of sync that I could hear! The second half is by far more musically interesting to me. There are a lot of neat rhythmic lines, like the bouncy little eighth note thing between 5:35 and 5:39. So cool! And more triplets around the 6 minute mark! I’m loving this. It’s such a fun song in the second half.
Another thing that made me go whoa was the rhythmic line starting at 6:56. That straight triplet line, in steady time? Go John! Starting in the last two minutes, there’s so much… and this is already an essay! The little up and down the scale line at 7:04 really got my attention. It’s so neat! And you can already see how talented these three are at their respective instruments and how they can compose together. Signs of future greatness!
The ending was a little odd, like they weren’t sure where or how to end it, which is typical of something that’s improvised on the spot. I got a little giggle at the spoken “that’s the end”... someone had to make the executive decision where to stop this thing! Overall, I enjoyed listening to this. Well done!
The voice at the end of this piece doesn't sound (to us) like any of John/Paul/George/Mike. What do you think, could this be Stu?
The phrase "that's the end" appears in the lyrics of Run For Your Life, and "the end" comes up in Paul's journal from That Paris Trip (see our profile photo), and in the lyrics of I'll Get You and of course The End.
Now this one has a very clear beginning. I love the lead guitar at 10 seconds in! It legitimately sounds like someone who’s been playing for decades and knows how to compose a solo. All I can say is whoa. The transition at 40 seconds was so cool too. Gosh. This one is already fantastic. Not sure when this was recorded, but they sound like a group that’s been playing together for many, many years. It just meshes together so well.
Another neat lead guitar line starting at 1:35 or so. Not quite as showy as the opening line, but it’s still fun. Same with the one at around 1:55. I love how much this one features the guitar and how well the parts are balanced. It makes it much easier to listen to than some of the others I’ve listened to that sounded muddy… thanks early recording technology! The guitar at 3:18 was impressive too. There’s so much confidence in the playing style, I absolutely love it. I know how it feels to be performing and know you’re rocking it. It feels incredible. Anyway.
4:13 feels like a key change or a style change. It goes into a minor key for a few moments, a more intense style versus the laid back feel from the beginning of the piece. Something changed, and it’s attention grabbing. I love how they did that, added a sudden change to keep the listener interested in what they’re playing. Then it goes back to the same style as before. I love it, and I love the little technical guitar line at 5:10. It’s not incredibly showy, but it still sounds like the kind of thing I’ve always liked playing. And the player makes it sound so easy! As a performer, goals.
I love the melodic line at around 6:07. It shows skill, but it’s not a line that’s “show-offy” or overly complicated. And it came to a nice ending, like they knew how and where they wanted to end it. And someone was clearly happy with how it went, going by the “yeah” at the last second! I enjoyed listening to this. They’re coming together as a group, and it’s showing. Well done.
This is a very short piece of music with Paul singing "ba da da" over it. It seems to have been recorded over the beginning of Matchbox. It's approximately the same length as the missing part from the beginning of that song, and it appears directly before it on the Strong Before Our Birth bootleg. It's possible that someone hit record accidentally, as there doesn't seem to be any other attempt to record this song on the available tapes.
We have no proof, but we believe it could be a fragment of a song Paul had already written before he met John, called Suicide. A fragment of that song appeared on McCartney, and a longer version appeared on the extended release of that album from 2011.
Suicide also appeared on the One Hand Clapping documentary, in which we believe Paul may have mentioned a connection to his mother, but we haven't been able to find a link to that.
It's worth noting that this fragment is on guitar, and suicide has always been a piano song, so that might be a point against. Or it might just be because they weren't in the room with the piano.
Do you have any other ideas what this song could be? Or reasons it could be suicide?
We have gone back through all our existing posts and replaced the audio links with the version from Strong Before Our Birth (the higher quality bootleg). We’ve modified our transcriptions of the lyrics to show what we now believe they say. We’ve also added additional notes to most of the posts.
We’ll be back to adding new song analyses very soon, thanks for your patience!
We recently made a big discovery that is going to have a huge impact on the early stages of this project, and require us to go back and make some changes to existing posts.
We found a detailed page on German Wikipedia about the Forthlin Road tapes! We were gratified to find that some of our discoveries are backed up by our German friend (such as who’s version they’re covering).
It turns out we’ve been putting the tapes in the wrong order. The Kirchherr tape came first in April, then the Braun tape in June or July. That makes sense since the Kirchherr tape seems to have slightly worse audio quality. We’ll be adding lists of all the songs to the welcome post, and we’ll amend the order then, so no harm done.
But the most important thing we discovered is a 2007 bootleg of the Kirchherr/Braun tapes called Strong Before Our Birth. The bootlegs we were working from previously had been modified and distorted, but this bootleg is the only one without any distortion or modifications after the fact. Lo and behold that means it has *much* clearer audio. It’s actually pleasant to listen to! (that’s not a joke, we’re dead serious.)
We don’t know why someone decided to modify and distort the early tapes. As a Beatles fan that seems like that would defeat the purpose. We’ll use everyone’s favorite song as the example:
I Don’t Know (Oh Johnny Johnny) is actually 5:32. It is not 5:51. And oh yes, this makes a HUGE difference. A lot less of the song is slurred (though there are still some stylized moments or things the recorder didn’t pick up.) And many lyrics we were struggling to hear are now plain as day.
So over the next handful of days we’re gonna be doing major editing. Bear with us, we’ll let you know when to go back through all the posts and rereblog or whatever.
Other than lyrical changes, we will also be changing the audio from YouTube to files from our computers specifically from that bootleg. Cause in 99% of cases, what’s on YT is just wrong.
So please be patient with us while we recalibrate, it may be a few days before we get out a new post.
