From Me to You - Songs, Stats, and Snapchats

Did you hear that George Martin, the legendary Beatles producer, the Fifth Beatle, died this week at the age of 90? In honor of him, I have two Beatles-related stories. The first is a tale of his influence on a couple of songs.

From Me To You
When the Beatles turned up at EMI’s studios on Abbey Road to record their third single, on March 5, 1963, they brought “From Me to You,” a short song that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had started writing less than a week earlier. Mr. Martin pondered the possibilities through the first four takes, and then proposed a solution for the song’s two biggest problems, its brevity and lack of variety. After two verses, a bridge and a repeat of the first verse, the Beatles would play the verse yet again, this time with the first two lines as a short instrumental break, punctuated with the phrases “from me” (after the first line) and “to you” (after the second), before singing the final two lines. To fill out the break, Mr. Martin had Lennon play the song’s melody on the harmonica, shadowed by Mr. McCartney on the bass. For the introduction, Mr. Martin experimented with a string of overdubs. In one, Lennon played the tune on the harmonica. In another, the group hummed it. They also sang it, twice using the syllables “da-da-da, da-da, dun dun da,” and once with a falsetto floating across the top. In the end, Mr. Martin chose a combination of the harmonica and the sung line (sans falsetto), which establishes the song’s bright character immediately.

In My Life
Mr. Martin began adding keyboard parts to the Beatles’ recordings virtually from the start, a notable early example being the ringing celesta line on “Baby It’s You.” But the finest such contribution was his solo on “In My Life,” an autobiographical meditation by Lennon, on “Rubber Soul.” When the Beatles recorded the song, on Oct. 18, 1965, they left an instrumental verse open, to be filled with a solo, the nature of which was yet to be agreed upon. By Oct. 22, the group agreed to turn the solo over to Mr. Martin, who decided to give it a Bachian twist, writing a part that had the character and ornamentation of a Two-Part Invention. On his first pass, he used a Hammond organ but didn’t care for the result. A piano worked better, but Mr. Martin, a functional but not virtuosic pianist, was unable to fully channel his inner Glenn Gould. So he played the master tape at half-speed, recording his part slowly and precisely. When the tape was played at full speed, the piano line was not only suitably crisp, but the speed change gave the instrument an unusual character — somewhere between that of a piano and a harpsichord, but not quite either.

A second Beatles-related story is an article ranking the 11 studio Beatles albums from worst to best. How would you rank them? This author suggests that Beatles For Sale is the weakest, in part because 6 of the 14 songs were covers. Next comes With The Beatles, another album with 6 cover songs. Falling in the middle is A Hard Day's Night, and the reason is because it still reflects their early sound before they expanded their style and songwriting prowess. Of course, #1 is ... something that you will have to check out the article to see if you agree.

OK, last Beatles story for today. I was listening to the Rubber Soul album as I wrote this and I heard the lyrics to Run For Your Life. I looked them up because the song begins with the phrase "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man." Wow, that sounds way too scary for women, right. It turns out John Lennon was inspired by an Elvis song, 'Baby, Let's Play House'. That entire phrase was lifted from that song. It is still quite a jarring image, but now I understand why he used the phrase.

I don't know if sales statistics influenced that last author's attention, but stats certainly influenced me when I created this Clarity of Vision comic.

OK, I said there were two Beatles-related stories, and then I added a third, but I just came across a fourth. Paul McCartney has announced his dates and locations for a new tour. You might want to see if he is coming to your town, or you might just want to marvel that people still pay to hear him sing songs way too high for his 73-year-old voice. I still like him, but most of his songs just don't sound that good anymore. Let me rephrase that: his voice just is not strong enough to carry most of his material the way it used to.

I think I have mentioned this dude before, but there is a Japanese artist who creates his work in Microsoft Excel. Check out the waterfall below. It is all done using the shapes in the tool.

Bad Pun Dog is still hanging around.

Chalk art is still a thing.

Some Snapchat users know their geometry.

Clever graffiti at a gas station.

I have one of the systems in one of my projects being launched today, so I need to go get some stuff ready. Another goes live tomorrow, so it'll be a busy couple of days. I'll still make time for you, though.