List all The Beatles Waltzes

I'm trying to think of all the tracks the Beatles recorded in 3/4 time and have come up with the following:

I'll Be Back (take 2 from Anthology)
This Boy (probably more 6/8 than 3/4)
A Taste Of Honey
Baby's In Black
Yes It Is (another 6/8?)
Norwegian Wood
Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite (middle part)
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (verses)
She's Leaving Home
Happiness Is A Warm Gun ("I need a fix.." part)
Long, Long, Long
Good Night
I Want You (She's So Heavy) the chorus/end riff
I Me Mine (verses)
Dig A Pony

Have I missed any?

 

Good list! I can't think of any to add. "Good Night" is in 4/4 time though. "This Boy", "Baby's In Black" and "Yes It Is" are written in 12/8 in my Compleat Beatles book.

 

Interesting that they're MOSTLY John songs.

 

The middle of the bridge of "We Can Work It Out," of course!

 

Grrr...short edit time. I wanted to add that "Norwegian Wood" is 12/8 too.

 

Who, if you checked out my thread on their Palais du Sport videos from YouTube, sort of 'waltzes' off during George's lead break in Baby's In Black.

Dale

 

I'll check it out.

 

You can also do a short waltz when John sings the title line in "Strawberry Fields Forever".

 

At about 04:07 here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rFgas5XnQ

Dale

 

"You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" would be the obvious one that you missed, Veech!

"We Can Work It Out" has a couple of sections in 3/4, most notably starting in the middle of the "fussing or fighting my friend line". Plus the song ends with two bars of 3/4. (EDIT: I notice MikeM also mentions this song).

Yes, these are in 6/8. I suppose some might even hear it as 12/8.

"A Taste of Honey" is in 3/4 except for the bridge, which is in 4/4.

 

"all you need is love", but just every-other measure

 

The opening lines of "Yer Blues" up to "Girl you know the reason why" is all in 3/4

My original sheet music (from 1967) shows the words "Strawberry Fields For" as being in 6/8. The "ever" is back to 4/4. Except for the penultimate one at the end of the song where the "ever" is 3/4. And the final one is back to 4/4.!!!

Technically the bridge in "We Can Work It Out" is still in 4/4 (and is shown as such in the first edition of the sheet music) but of course is sung in triplets. I recall a serious musicologist at the time commenting on the fact that "the Beatles seem to have independently invented 3/4 time" - meaning that they had incorporated triplets within a 4/4 section.

"Good Morning Good Morning" wanders in and out of 5/4 and 4/4 with occasional bars of 3/4.

"Happiness Is A Warm Gun" has sections in 3/8, 6/8, 8/8

Paul gets his turn at quirky time sigs in his bridge to "Day In The Life". It goes 4/8, 5/8, 6/4 in the space of 3 bars - then mainly stays in 4/4.

"Martha My Dear" has the occasional bar in 3/2 time

George's Indian songs such as "Within You Without You" and "The Inner Light" all feature bars in 5/4, 4/4 and I think some bars in 3/4.

I think the primary reason for those rapid time signature switches in the later era (1966 on) songs is their need to bend the music to match lyrics already written. Which tended to happen more in John's songs.

 

wow, my "Complete Scores" shows "Good Night" in 4/4 as well, but I just don't buy it. It feels so much like a waltz...

Now...... it's.. time...... to... say....... Good Night.......
1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 --- 1 -- 2 -- 3

Doesn't it???

 

D'oh!! Of course... YGTHYLA... good one!

The little bit in WCWIO definitely counts as well...

 

That's a great point, stretch the music to fit the lyrics. My "Complete Scores" shows "Yer Blues" in 12/8, but that's close enough to 3/4 to be included. But in that case, it really doesn't feel like a waltz at all.

 

One source of confusion: when the four beats in 4/4 are played as three triplets. (Sorry, I didn't see until later that this had already been mentioned.)

 

Brilliant stuff by the way, thanks for posting those. The AHDN/BIB clip has really good sound overall, all things considered.

 

Sure does to me. I'd play it as a waltz.

 

Little insight into the transcriptions....

The original ones in 1963-1970 were all done by an in-house copyist at Dick James Music in London. His name was Geoff Muston. It was an old craft. Known in British music publishing circles as "doing the dots"

Geoff was a Tin Pan Alley old-timer - so he was accustomed to songs being just in 4/4 or 3/4. Maybe the occasional bars in 6/4.

Those other time sigs that started to pop up in Beatles songs were more usual in jazz or contemporary classical than in pop music. Same thing applied to chords. He was familiar with the usual major and minor chords.

But as the Beatles music became more sophisticated and complex - chords with 9ths, 11ths and 13ths. Time sigs ranging from 5/4 to 3/8 to 7/8 etc etc - he became rather baffled.

He did the best he could. But the dissonant chords and sudden brief time shifts were alien to someone raised on Tin Pan Alley songs. Sometimes he assumed that they had simply made a mistake in their recordings!

Anyway - he would trascribe as best as possible. Frequently making minor errors and occasionally "tidying up" the sheet music to make it be more "normal"!

So that's how they were first transcribed.

In 1969 Dick James sold Northern Songs to Lew Grade's ATV. Who sold it to an Australian tycoon Robert Holmes A'Court - who sold it to Michael Jackson - with Sony's money. I doubt if any of those companies cared enough to examine the original transcriptions to see if they were correct or if they needed revisions.

I have not purchased any Beatles music folios in recent years - so I don't know if the original transcriptions have ever been "re-mastered" so to speak. ie freshly transcribed from scratch.

If they haven't been - they really ought to be. But I doubt that anyone at Sony Music would think it worthwhile...

Has anyone noticed some of the many errors in the sheet music?

 

I don't buy piano/vocal/guitar arrangements on principle.

Even The Complete Scores has errors, though.

 

I have been made aware that there are errors in the COMPLETE SCORES book, but good grief, it tries to lay out everything played, every instrument and voice, in every Beatles recording. It's a massive job. I'm not good enough at reading sheet music to test the theory, although what little I've done seems to be accurate. btw, thanks for the insight into "doing the dots".. very interesting.

 

When you play 4/4 in triplets you are effectively playing in 12/8. I think this is how many people are hearing "Good Night". Certainly John had no problem whatsover in dividing 4/4 time up into triplets! I'm sure that John was influenced by 50s songs in 6/8 (and 12/8) like "Blueberry Hill". It's certainly possibly to regard 12/8 as equivalent to 4/4 because it is effectively "4 groups of 3" - I think intuitively John learned to be able to break songs up on this basis, so that he was able to be extremely free with meter.

"Happiness Is A Warm Gun" is absolutely insane in this respect - there are passages in this song where each consecutive bar is in a different time signature - and these include 3/8, 8/8, 1/8, 5/8, 6/16... Somehow it all flows.

maxbialystock is right in that transcribers probably couldn't really make head nor tail of this. "Good Day Sunshine" is not all 4/4 - the chorus effectively alternates 3/4 and 5/4, but I doubt it's ever been written down that way (makes a lot more sense if it is written in 3/4 and 5/4 though). The acoustic guitar arpeggio in "Here Comes The Sun" also alternates 3/4 and 5/4 - and you'll note that Ringo is not playing 4/4 when he has to accompany that part later in the song...

 

"TO know her is to love her" from Live at the BBC is I believe 6/8

 

Where are the triplets in "Good Night" though? You know, I now truly think that "Good Night" may have worked better if it had indeed been recorded as a waltz! It sort of plods along in 4/4 but the 3/4 bounce would have made it more interesting, IMO.

This thread is great.

 

In his earlier post, Veech delineated, without using the term, the triplets:

wow, my "Complete Scores" shows "Good Night" in 4/4 as well, but I just don't buy it. It feels so much like a waltz...

Now...... it's.. time...... to... say....... Good Night.......
1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 --- 1 -- 2 -- 3

Doesn't it???
__________________Veech