Tag: Beethoven

Today at Song Lyric Sunday, Jim has asked his readers
to choose a song by their favorite band; here is mine.

If you were here last Sunday and read my post, you might recall I wrote that this week and last week could end up being interchangeable … and that is the case. The band this week remains the same but the song has changed, although last week’s song could have worked very nicely for this week’s prompt. In fact, just about any of my favorite group’s songs from their vast catalog could have qualified for today’s prompt. I’m not picky.

It’s a well-known fact to everyone who knows me … and that includes you, the people who read my posts … that my favorite group is the Beatles. While my attraction to them during the British Invasion was more of a crazed teenybopper-ish, Beatlemania thing, my love and appreciation for their music has continued to grow throughout the years.

The Beatles have been referred to as a phenom and their music as groundbreaking. No other group has been able to come close to their sound, musicality, artistry, lyrical or harmonic skills. The Beatles are the total package and their music will still be playing long after you and I are gone.

Now, onto the Beatles song I have selected today … from the album Abbey Road, my pick is “Because”. The lyrics are deep, poetic and simply wonderful while the harmony is lush, often heartbreakingly beautiful. The unexpected chords and accidentals are so brilliant, I feel like saying “I saw what you did there and it was very special!”

Composed primarily by John Lennon, “Because” was the final track to be recorded for Abbey Road. The song was inspired by Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and features the Beatles’ distinctive three-part vocal harmonies.

The story surrounding the song’s creation has to do with John’s wife, Yoko Ono, who is a classically trained pianist. One day in 1969, she was playing “Moonlight Sonata” on the piano in their house and John asked if she could play the chords backwards (a little trick the Beatles were familiar with by playing tapes backwards). Yoko did as she was asked and John wrote “Because” around the backward chords.

The band gathered at Abbey Road Studio on Friday, August 1, 1969, to record the main backing track, which required 23 takes. George Martin played electric harpsichord, John Lennon played guitar, George Harrison utilized a Moog synthesizer, and Paul McCartney played bass. Ringo Starr kept time on cymbals, but they were only heard in the others’ headphones; no percussion appears on the final mix. The Beatles returned to play the vocal tracks three days later. These takes were then layered to sound like nine voices.

This approach took extensive rehearsal, and more than five hours of extremely focused recording to capture correctly. George Harrison and Paul McCartney both said it was their favorite track on Abbey Road. Engineer Geoff Emerick said, “They knew they were doing something special and they were determined to get it right.”

A remixed version of the song with the instrumentation removed (isolated vocals) so as to highlight the three-part harmony was released on 1996’s Anthology 3.

From Abbey Road, here is “Because” by the Beatles.

And from Anthology 3, here is the isolated vocals version of “Because”; those harmonies are sweet!

Lyrics

Ah, because the world is round, it turns me on
Because the world is round,
ah Because the wind is high, it blows my mind
Because the wind is high, ah Love is old, love is new
Love is all, love is you Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry
Because the sky is blue, ah, ah, ah, ah

Source: Musixmatch
Composers/Lyricists: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Because lyrics © Sony/ATV Tunes LLC, Universal Music Publishing Pty. Ltd.

Interest in Music

Big thanks to Jim Adams for hosting another great Song Lyric Sunday this week. Be sure to check out Jim’s site.

Thanks for stopping by. See you on the flip side. 😎

~ Nancy

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