317: Help! Deconstructions

Summary

Something About the Beatles – Episode 317: Help! Deconstructions

Host: Robert Rodriguez
Guests: Walter Everett, Jack Petrocelli, Cameron Grider
Original Air Date: January 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode is a deep-dive deconstruction of the Beatles' Help! album, focusing on its musical innovations and songwriting craft. Host Robert Rodriguez is joined by music scholars and musicians Walter Everett, Jack Petrocelli, and Cameron Grider from RPM School, who break down select tracks—namely “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” “Another Girl,” and “Ticket to Ride.” Using music theory, history, and anecdotes, they reveal the sophistication of Beatles songwriting that even the band wasn’t academically trained to achieve but instinctively mastered.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Album's Place in Beatles Lore

• Help! and Beatles for Sale are described as "between the cracks" albums—“doesn’t get the attention of A Hard Day’s Night, Rubber Soul or Revolver… yet every Beatle album obviously has something great to recommend about it.” (Robert Rodriguez, 01:56)

• The panel highlights how Help! marks a transitional phase musically and technologically for the band, made while they were immersed in “heavy touring and filming schedules – 64 and 65.” (Robert Rodriguez, 01:56)

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2. Modulation and Chord Progression Innovations

a. “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”

• Jack Petrocelli praises Paul McCartney’s likely contribution to the bridge’s “modulation, different key”—“a tool that he started to do at this period… one of the more fascinating chord progressions.”

  “When you look up the songwriting of ‘You’re Gonna Lose That Girl’, it's obviously a Lennon [lyric]... but [McCartney] is finding a nice way to say in a ballad, ‘Sorry, friend, if you don't treat that girl right, I’m just gonna take her away from you.’” (Jack Petrocelli, 11:28)

• The bridge modulates from E to G using a “pivot chord”—with a common tone (A) smoothing the transition, referencing techniques dating back to classical music.

• Chromatic mediant modulation is explored:

  “We’re in F♯ minor…that note is an A, and that A exists in both F♯ minor and D. So that makes the transition smooth. When you have these common tones that exist within chords, that's how you can…pivot.” (Jack Petrocelli, 08:41–09:26)

• Walter Everett notes The Beatles had encountered this technique in “To Know [Her] is to Love [Her]” and it appears again in later work like “Something.” (10:31–11:19)

b. “Another Girl”

• Recorded just days before “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”—McCartney uses a similar trick: modulating from A via a common tone. “He was kind of using that formula beforehand…” (Jack Petrocelli, 17:21)

c. Modal Exploration

• Reference to earlier Beatles tracks like “If I Fell,” “Things We Said Today,” and “I’ll Be Back” illustrates their growing harmonic sophistication—manipulating key relationships and chord substitutions that evoke jazz and classical traditions.

d. Musicality Without Formal Training

• Petrocelli underscores the Beatles’ ear-based learning:

  “Even though those guys didn’t go to school, what they did is so noteworthy that it becomes an academic course.” (Jack Petrocelli, 06:25)

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3. Interplay of Musical Influences

• Call-and-response vocals and doo-wop progressions in “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” are likened to girl groups (e.g., The Supremes, The Marvelettes):

  “…sort of the girl group version of ‘She Loves You’…in ‘You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,’ if you watch the film Help!, when they’re in that fake studio, McCartney …starts wagging his finger.” (Walter Everett, 12:07)

• The Beatles’ skill for blending R&B, Motown, Stax, and classical influences creates their signature sound:

  “You take all these elements and you put them in the melting pot of the Beatles with their originality and it comes out…” (Jack Petrocelli, 13:15)

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4. Instrumentation, Arrangements, and Recording Techniques

a. The Rickenbacker and Instrument Swapping

• Extended discussion on when Paul started using his Rickenbacker bass, its debut in the studio, and how it contributed to the changing texture from Help! to Rubber Soul. (14:29–15:59)

• Misattributions and Beatles swapping instruments are acknowledged:

  “I’m never surprised to hear that Paul played a stringed instrument that I thought was another Beatle.” (Cameron Grider, 17:02)

b. “Ticket to Ride” Deconstruction

• Walter Everett gives a meticulous breakdown of the arrangement, focusing on:

  • Lennon’s songwriting origins (strumming tonic chord),

  • The long six-bar progression,

  • The “anticipation” in Lennon’s vocal melody—a dissonant note (E over B minor) resolved in the next chord:

    “He sings this E over the B minor chord...that E is not part of that chord...that E is dissonant...but anticipates the root of the following chord.” (Walter Everett, 28:15–28:41)

  • The innovative drum pattern—possibly inspired by a Tunisian rhythm McCartney heard while traveling. “It would make this an earlier non-Western influence on the Beatles than the sitar.” The drum pattern is explained as an example of hocket (interlocking rhythms). (Walter Everett, 32:47–34:22)

  • George’s 12-string ostinato matches Ringo’s part, using escape tones:

    “What George does is he listens to Ringo’s drum part…and he plays a note for every one of those hits…He invents this A major triad…except for that pitch, the B. That's not part of the chord...we call that an escape tone.” (Walter Everett, 36:24–37:49)

  • Paul’s bluesy Epiphone Casino solo, using bends and slides, adds “anguished” energy:

    “He plays basically a descending minor pentatonic blues.” (Walter Everett, 45:47)

  • Harrison’s “ticket chord” (G major 7, using a volume pedal), overlays with Ringo’s compressed cymbal crash, creating a wash rather than a sharp accent for “anguish.” (Walter Everett, 51:14)

c. Cumulative Sound Innovations

• Use of electric piano, volume pedals, and innovations in mixing and panning noted as marks of the Beatles’ restless experimentation, especially on Help!.

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5. Literary, Personal, and Lyric Analysis

• Exploring Lennon’s shift to a more introverted lyrical perspective on Help!—possibly connected to Dylan’s influence and even Lennon’s first LSD experience.

  “Certainly lyrically, what's happening with Help! is much more of an introverted perspective than a lot of what's come before, certainly to what comes after.” (Jack Petrocelli, 64:38)
  “I wonder if this was his initial reaction to LSD.” (Robert Rodriguez, 63:44)

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6. The RPM School Approach

• The guests share how they teach these deconstructions, offering participatory, practical lessons for musicians and non-musicians alike.

  “We have discussions like this...then you can come into class...and that's for musicians and we go over the parts...or you can go into Walt's 45 minutes and get this deeper dive with this analysis.” (Jack Petrocelli, 56:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On musical intuition vs. formal training:

  “The Beatles didn’t go to school for this...but you can look at music that goes back to Bach and even those composers that put in all their academic time and their hours, there were reasons why there was protocols and rules for music because it’s how your ear worked.”
  (Jack Petrocelli, 05:37)

• On chromatic mediant modulations in Beatles music:

  “When they covered ‘To Know Him is to Love Him’, that modulates to the chromatic mediant for the bridge. Same relationship. So that’s at least one part of their repertoire that had that module.”
  (Walter Everett, 10:31)

• On “Ticket to Ride” and musical foreshadowing:

  “The anticipation where a pitch does not belong in a chord...but is consonant in the next chord is what this song’s all about. I think I’m gonna be sad…she’s going away to that place, that B minor place, and it’s painful with that anticipation of her leaving.”
  (Walter Everett, 28:41–29:17)

• On evolving Beatles song structure:

  “With each record, there’s always a development...they really started to refine it. So whether that heard this sort of modulation, as you guys had pointed out in some of the previous tunes, you know, from demos, they started to find ways to incorporate it in their original.”
  (Jack Petrocelli, 24:32)

• On performance as learning:

  “The learning never ends, even for us, as we’ve been doing it so many years...we have just as much joy teaching it as people do learning it.”
  (Jack Petrocelli, 59:32)

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Significant Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|------------------------------| | 01:56 | Introduction & album context | | 04:02–11:19| Harmony & modulation in "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" / "Another Girl" | | 14:29–16:04| Rickenbacker, instrument swaps, and recording timeline | | 27:47–51:14| Deep breakdown of "Ticket to Ride": composition, arrangement, rhythms | | 55:36–56:47| Reflections on the teaching process and RPM School | | 63:08–64:38| Speculation on LSD's influence on "Help!" and Lennon’s state of mind |

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Section Summaries

Musical Analysis

In-depth explorations looked not just at what the Beatles played, but how they innovated using harmonic shifts ("chromatic mediant"), blues techniques, and sophisticated call-and-response and rhythmic ideas drawn from multiple traditions. The panel showed how Help! marked the moment where these ideas became more adventurous and self-aware.

Historical Context and Narrative

A running theme is how each Beatles album acts as its own sonic world, influenced by what was happening to the band personally, musically, and technologically—Help! bridging early exuberance and later complexity.

The Human Element

Panelists reflect on the genius of the Beatles’ instincts, the joy and perpetual learning they get from deconstructing the songs, and the value of educating others to play and understand this music in practice, not just theory.

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Final Thoughts

The episode is both accessible and sophisticated, offering Help! fans new ways to hear, play, and appreciate these songs. The Beatles, the panelists argue, are enduringly fresh not just because of catchy tunes, but because of ongoing musical curiosity—a quality this show seeks to pass on.

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For those interested in participating in further deconstructions or learning to play Beatles music with expert guidance, the RPM School’s upcoming class on Help! begins January 19, 2026 (see rpm-school.com).

Transcript

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[Jack Petrocelli]

It's a historically hideous season. It's our 100th ugly house. And if these walls could talk. Do you cry a lot? I do. Ugliest house in America. Season premiere Wednesday at 8 on HGTV.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah, I heard him. Boys.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Are you buzzing?

[Walter Everett]

No, thanks, I got the car.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

No, no, no, listen, I'll have to play it back. You'll have to do it again. I'll make a point of taking her away from what you do, the way you treat her. What else can I do? Is that you?

[Walter Everett]

No.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Well, don't look at me.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Hello and welcome to episode 317 of Something about the Beatles podcast. And this is a look at some of the musicality going on on the Help album. Help alongside Beatles for Sale is, I think one of these between the cracks albums, if you could say that about Beatles albums. All of them are great, obviously, but doesn't get the attention of even A Hard Day's Night or Rubber Soles certainly. Or Revolver certainly. Of the pre Pepper albums, these were ones made while they were in the midst of their heavy touring and filming schedules 64 and 65. And every Beatle album obviously has something great to recommend about it. But in this one in particular, the songs we focus on are the title track, Ticket to Ride, you're Gonna Lose that Girl, all these songs that were featured in the film the same name and just exploring some music theory with the guys from the RPM school, Jack Petrocelli, Walter Everett and Cameron Grider, who who have had on the show before a few times and who run the magical mystery camp going on in June 2026 once again in the Catskills. So everybody who's brokenhearted about the pause for the fest this year, well, you've got an alternative, so consider that. And they've got a new six week course starting on the help album. It commences January 19th, so you will want to, if you're at all interested in joining the class in whatever iteration, going to be guest speakers and Walter, Cameron and Jack leading across an array of discussions and one on one breakouts of music stuff. But anyway, I would suggest you check out rpm-school.com to find out all the details about that, which is imminent. Anyway, happy New Year to everybody. Not much more to say other than enjoy the discussion with Walter, Jack and Cameron.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Where was you buzzing, you naughty boy?

[Jack Petrocelli]

Well, as you know, we're getting into help for RPMs next semester and we just finished Rubber Soul in the fall and that was great with the anthology that just came out and some of the bootlegs that I haven't heard before. And then revisiting Rubber Soul and us taking that dive on that. Things always come up. There's always something fresh to look at in music. You know, as a musician and somebody that plays this music. A I'm still inspired to look at the songwriting process and just see how it's developed from album to album, look at the recording process, you know, how things change for that band and the engineer from record to record. You know, one of the things that we like to get into in class is we analyze the music. Walter as, you know, with his books. Beatles as musicians, you know, has always been an inspiration and continues to be an inspiration. It's certainly, you know, been a step for me of looking at Beatles music like I would classical music or pop music in general. Looking now at what's coming up for help. I wanted to talk about a couple tunes namely you're Gonna Lose that Girl and Another Girl. And seeing what I'm pretty much gonna credit McCartney even in you're gonna Lose that girl for the bridge, like modulation, different key. Because that's something that he started to do at this period a little bit on Hard Day's Night. Previously. One of the more fascinating chord progressions for me is the beginning of if I Fell. Like how they came up with that always is fast. Like, wow, how did they.

[Walter Everett]

Where.

[Jack Petrocelli]

How did they come up with that? You know, where and. And how it leads into the verses. And then McCartney's Things We Said today, you know, what he does with the bridge and how that song is in A minor but the bridge is in A major. And then he finds a way to get back A minor without using the dominant E major. He uses a B flat, which flat 2. In jazz that would be considered like some sort of tritone substitution again. When we talk about this stuff and we get into it, we all know the Beatles didn't go to school for this. The Beatles heard it. But that being said, you can look at music that goes back to Bach and even those composers that put in all their academic time and their hours, there were reasons why there was protocols and rules for music because it's how your ear worked, you know. So in the day, as they were studying counterpoint or they. They came up with methods to get from one section of a song or a piece of music to another. It was. Wasn't somebody sitting there just with a pencil and figuring out the math. It was kind of just based on how we hear things as human beings, especially in western music. Back to the Beatles. Even though those guys didn't go to school, what they did is so noteworthy that it becomes an academic course. And as a musician, as a songwriter, as a producer, I love looking at that stuff because it benefits me in so many ways. If I'm co writing with somebody, if I'm having to come up with an embellishment on a tune and so forth, you kind of get the idea. So we looking at help coming up. As I said, I'm just going to get into it. So you're going to lose that girl, right? It's in the key of E, but the bridge modulates to G. Usually when there's a modulation like that, how that works is there's going to be some sort of common tone within the transition chord or thereabouts. And for those that don't study music, it's not necessarily a big leap to understand it. But if I play the chords to the chorus to. You're going to lose that girl. You hear that, you know, whether you study music or not, you feel it, you understand, like, wow, where did we just go? And it's. It's one of the beautiful things about music. If you don't study anything else, it can just bring on a feeling without even the words, you know, just the music and the way that it goes. So what's happening there is we're in the key of E, which is a very standard chord progression in general, right? But E major 6, 2, 5, this 1625 you hear in a thousand Doo Wop songs. It's like one of the most common chord progressions that started to happen in pop music in the 50s or earlier, right? So you're gonna lose that girl, you're.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Gonna lose that girl. You're gonna lose. I'll make a point, right?

[Jack Petrocelli]

So the common tone is going from we're in F sharp minor, have an F sharp minor. That note is an A, and that A exists in both F sharp minor and in D. So that makes the transition smooth. When you have these common tones that exist within chords, that's how you can call it a pivot chord. There's different names for this. I was actually talking with one of the students in RPM who's now taking a classical music, and the term came up chromatic median. Now, I have never heard that. I had to look it up. That's something that exists more in classical music.

[Walter Everett]

Right.

[Jack Petrocelli]

But it's based on having a common tone and then being able to modulate up. I'm talking intervals here a third from the key that you're in. And there's so many examples. Now, I was talking to Cameron earlier about this, and we were just shooting back and forth how this not only existed in classical music, but certainly in, like, Tin Pan Alley music, songs of like, Gershwin. It was just a tool that people use, and they. As a composer, as a serious composer, whatever your inspiration might be, when you compose music, you get to a point, you got to figure out how you're going to get from point A to point B, or you're going to try to think of, like, what tools do I have to make this more interesting? You know, so those guys and women that wrote from that period of time in American music or in British music, they figured it out by this way, but classical people did it as well. And I think McCartney, obviously, brilliant as he is and was at that time, probably heard it from his father's music, hearing those kind of songs that were happening. And it was. It was just clever. It's just clever songwriting.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So.

[Walter Everett]

Can I butt in?

[Jack Petrocelli]

Please do.

[Walter Everett]

Just to say that when they covered to know him is to love him, that modulates to the chromatic mediant for the bridge. Same relationship. And to know her is to love her as they sang it. So that's at least one part of their repertoire that had that module.

[Jack Petrocelli]

That's interesting.

[Walter Everett]

It was not common. It was.

[Jack Petrocelli]

So why do you think it took a couple years for them to employ it? I don't think it happens before. Help. I don't see it.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Isn't there one of the Decca edition originals, like Dreamers do that folks.

[Walter Everett]

Dreamers do has.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, that's right, Robert.

[Jack Petrocelli]

All right.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Well, that's cool.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah, it shows up on Revolver and Two of Us. Yeah, I think you're right. This is the first time McCartney wrote that module.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah. And then Cameron pointed out it happens in something.

[Walter Everett]

Of course. Yeah.

[Jack Petrocelli]

So again, it's a tool, right? It's just how these guys. You don't want to overuse it, but when you do use it, it's pretty special.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Very effective.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Very effective. So when you look up the songwriting of you're gonna lose that girl, it's obviously a Lenin. So, I mean, the lyrics are totally like Lennon, you know, if you don't treat that. He's finding a nice way to say in a ballad, like, sorry, friend, if you don't treat that girl right, I'm just gonna take her away from. I'm sure there's be other ways to say that. But he says it in this lovely ballad.

[Robert Rodriguez]

It's almost a se. She loves you in a way, like she loves you. Here's this third party getting between this couple. She loves you. You were not a good guy to her, but now she knows you're not as bad as she interpreted you when you hurt her feelings. But in you're gonna lose that girl if you don't make this right, I'm swooping in. That's one way I've kind of heard it.

[Walter Everett]

Sort of the. The girl group version of she loves you. Girl group with the doo wop progression. And in the advice songs like, you know, the Supremes were always marvelettes and please Mr. Postman, they're wagging their fingers. This is go to happen. And so in you're gonna lose that girl. If you watch the film Help, when they're in that fake studio, McCartney takes his hand off the base and starts wagging his finger.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yes.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah. So it's very much like a Supremes kind of Low and Mary Tell me what to do, right?

[Cameron Grider]

And it's got this call and response background vocals, too.

[Walter Everett]

Exactly.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Which they did quite a bit like on Help, right? You. You get it in Help on the song Help. Where else do you get it? I guess for you getting the musical.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Call and response in that George song on Psy 2, you like me too much. That's something they rarely did, but it always jumped out at me. It's like, wow, that's pretty cool. You've got guitar and keyboard sort of responding to each other and the way you normally hear vocals go back and forth.

[Jack Petrocelli]

So this school of Beatles, right? I mean, how those guys got their education by their influences and making it their own. It's interesting, right, because you could in the day have some sort of manual of like, okay, this is signature to Motown, the girl groups. This is what they. This is signature to Stacks. This Is signature to Chuck Berry, Little Richard. You know, you take all these elements and you put them in the melting pot of the Beatles with their originality, and it comes out like, right, as I said, we just finished Rubber Soul and we know that the Beatles for Revolver were thinking about going to Memphis, going to Stax to make that record. But really that seed got planted by Rubber Soul. That album is much more R and B stacks oriented than one would believe because it's so acoustic sound. But 12 bars, original drive my Car. That lick, you know, as we played in Magical Mystery Camp last year, came out of Otis's writing respect. So it's wonderful to see. And McCartney, I love it when you hear McCartney. You know, talks about nicking a song. You know, we were the biggest knickers around, as well as Keith Richards would say that, too. You know, you get inspired by something, whether it's Motown, whether it's anything else, and you make it your own.

[Robert Rodriguez]

And a big component of that in Rubber Soul and specifically Rubber Soul, is Paul's switch from the Hoffner to the Rickenbacher.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, but wasn't. I think Paul was using the Rickenbacker on Help too, I think. Didn't he get it at that time?

[Robert Rodriguez]

I think he got it here earlier. But I think Rickenbacker first makes his presence known in the studio. That's where he first start to see photos during the sessions.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, yeah.

[Walter Everett]

It was given to him on the US tour, I think, in 65.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Was it 65 or 64? Because we know that George got the 12 string in 64, which of course went straight into the Hard Days Night album.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Right.

[Walter Everett]

But I think Rickenbacker gave him the bass on the tour. Maybe I want to say Minneapolis.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cameron Grider]

I think you're right at 65 in the States. So. So it starts to appear in photos. And Rubber Soul is the kind of transition record. There's debate. Is this song the Rick or is it the Hoft? There's the photos of him on the Day of Michelle, which is not the song that you would think listening to. It has the Rickenbacker, but he had the Rickenbacker with that capo on the fifth on that day. And I don't think there are any other photos of him with. There are no photos of him with a Hoffner for Rubber Soul, as far as I know. And I haven't seen any others with the Rick even. There's not a lot of photos. Sesh 3.

[Robert Rodriguez]

If he got it in the summer of 65, the help songs were recorded mostly early in 65 because they were shooting the film. And the Rubber Soul sessions didn't start to, what, October. They had like, I think it was like a 30 day window to complete the whole of the Rubber Soul album.

[Walter Everett]

Right?

[Cameron Grider]

Yeah. More than they had for help, which was six days or something.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Oh, I don't know.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, because they started in February and that's when they. They tried out. It was funny. I was just reading that rereading the Ian McDonald thing where he was talking about the Beatles floating the notion of doing comedy song. And right on the heels of that is if you got trouble. It's like if that was their idea of a comedy song, I guess it succeeds on that level. If no other.

[Cameron Grider]

I don't know about this.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, and revolution in the head. And again, Ian McDonald's research has been called the question because he was the first one to suggest that Paul plays all the stringed instruments on Michelle, which is surely not true, but where he gets his stuff.

[Walter Everett]

But if.

[Robert Rodriguez]

If there was actual contemporaneous quote where the Beatles are saying, yeah, we're gonna start doing comedy songs from this point on. And it could have been facetious because that's how they were. But apparently there was a quote that he zeroed in on. It's like this is where they were thinking about it and here's the result of it. If you got trouble Wild.

[Cameron Grider]

Well, I'm never surprised to hear that Paul played a stringed instrument that I thought was another Beatle.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Oh, for sure.

[Cameron Grider]

I've been burned too many times, you know, thinking that we were just. Jack and I were just talking about how the solo the lead guitar on Help me Out Jack. Which tune was it also on Health? Another Girl, Another girl. All right, so, you know, there goes another Jack.

[Walter Everett]

Did you have more you wanted to do on that or.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Well, I started to think, was looking at you're gonna lose that girl. And then, you know, came across Another girl was recorded before. You're gonna lose that girl like five days before. And McCartney does the same thing in the bridge. He modulates to another key with a common tone. So it's like.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Oh, I've got another girl. Another girl.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Now, what's interesting about that is we're in the key of A and McCartney goes back and forth between the C sharp and then the C natural to make it really bluesy. And so the C natural, there's the common tone to get you right to C. And you're up a third, A minor third in that key. Right. So there it is again. So that's what I'm basing the bridge. Cartney writing the bridge for. You're gonna lose that girl. He was kind of using that formula beforehand, you know. But also, if you're gonna lose that girl, how they get back to the one chord is the same way on how they get back to the one chord. In things we said today, instead of using the 5 chord, they use the flat 2, right? Which is brilliant because, for example, right? So things we said today, right? So I'm just a lucky guy Love.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

To hear you say that Love is love and though we may be blind Love is here to stay and that's enough, right?

[Jack Petrocelli]

So It's A to 4, D to the 5 first, right?

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

So me, I'm just a lucky loved Love to hear you beast beast B.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Seventh to E. That's the five of five, which is very popular. To get back to A, though I may be blind Then we go to B7 instead of going to E. Love.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Is here to stay and that's enough.

[Jack Petrocelli]

I mean, how many times have we heard that song? And not knowing what that was before, knowing what that was. And that does something to your ins when you hear that. So McCartney does that again for the bridge of. You're going to lose that girl, right? So. We're in G. Make a point.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Taking her away from you. That's what you do. The way you treat her. C to F, what else can I do?

[Jack Petrocelli]

Or instead of the way you treat.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Her, what else can I do?

[Jack Petrocelli]

You know, that would be the 5 to E, which is so vanilla, Which I guess I would imagine as songwriters at that time, they were thinking along those lines too. It's. We got to find another way to resolve instead of just using the five. And when you study music, you come across different examples that would be substitutions for using the five chord. You know, whether it's A flat two, whether it's the five minor, whether it's flat seven. And this is stuff for me that I learned in pop music, but I also learned by studying classical music. And when we. We had mentioned this chromatic median. If we're going to analyze what's happening harmonically here on that scale, if we were in an academic class, we might be looking at that and coming up with examples. You know, that's a little heavy to talk about Beatles, but this is kind of how we break stuff down sometimes in our classes, which inspires me, and I really enjoy that. That's all I wanted to say. Pretty much just what's happening in those Tunes. I was looking for classical examples too that go over this sort of same idea. And I, you know, I came across names, but I didn't necessarily look at any musical examples that I would play. But does anything come to your mind, Walter, about how that's used? Any particular pieces?

[Walter Everett]

That modulation? A minor third for the second key area always happens in minor keys in classical rep. Right. From G minor to B flat. Not always, but that's where it's most at home. So it would be pretty unusual to find examples from the 18th and 19th century that start in G major and go to B flat. I'm not saying doesn't happen, probably later 18th century, but I don't know, Examples come right to me.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Well, when it's in A minor form, it really sounds more cinematic, you know, when you do that. Like if this is C minor. To E flat minor and you look.

[Walter Everett]

At the E flat major.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Oh, oh, from minor to major.

[Walter Everett]

Right.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Well, then that would be like a relative, relative major.

[Cameron Grider]

But there are cases, I think more commonly where you'll be in A major key and then quickly go to minor and then go like we were talking about this example from Marriage of Figaro. There's an aria where he's in F and then it quickly goes to F minor and then very abruptly from the dominant of F minor right. To the it A flat major. So there's this chromatic mediant relationship, that kind of slightly jarring relationship. And it's a little bit of a. In between those two case where.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah. In a dramatic situation like opera, you will find any kind of key relationship for sure. That's a great example.

[Cameron Grider]

Yeah, and that's, that's a great point about opera because there's a book about sonata form where they use the term for a quick shift from major to minor as a lights out effect. So in other words, it suddenly shifts. And this you do find cases of in Mozart and so on. Especially in opera where you're in major and suddenly you go to minor. Right. So it's like a sudden shift from happiness or buoyancy to darkness. The lights out effect. In dramatic terms, we call that lombra. Lombra, yeah, well, yeah, perfect.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Let it be low and brown.

[Cameron Grider]

So to me, this thing that we're talking about in these two Beatles songs is sort of a variant of that because you're going to a chord that exists in the minor key. Like if you're in the case of. You're gonna lose that girl. We're in E major, right. And we don't go To E minor. But we go to a chord that's in that repertoire that E minor has. Right. So it's kind of once removed. It's like a lights out effect. Once removed. It's moving to the palette of sounds that the minor key offers, but it's moving to a major chord in that palette. Right. So it's still bright sounding, but it has a kind of a. I don't know how to describe it. It's a bittersweet kind of a thing.

[Walter Everett]

Well, it's based on the lowered third scale degree of your original major key, the G major chord. So that's why it has a semblance of going to minor. Even though it's a major triad you're playing. You're taking two steps instead of one at a time. Right, right. You're skipping over that minor chord to get to something that's related.

[Cameron Grider]

It's very interesting to me that this record is the first time that that happens in the Beatles. I did not realize that. And the fact that we're not just talking about this kind of phenomenon in general, but very specifically the progression that you pointed out, Jack in Toussaint. It's kind of wild.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Again, with each record, there's always a development. Hard Day's Night compared to where they just were at the previous year or six months. All those songs are brilliant. And however you look at end, I love her. What happens with that, how they start to develop their songwriting really shines. A and hard to, you know, so some of the things that I said or, you know, McCartney of common tones. Right. Because I'm going to get back to how common tones are so beneficial and how not only can they help you orchestrate a piece music or help you be a better soloist in music, but when you recognize, how can you use common tone? I'm finding like one of the best examples is, you know, if you break.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

My heart, I'll go, but I'll be back again.

[Jack Petrocelli]

McCartney's vocal, he sings an E throughout all of that on the top voice. And that E works throughout all those chords. That's his harmony over all those chords. The other guys are moving a little bit, but just having that pedal tone, you know, you start to understand counterpoint. You start to understand voice leading. And Walt, I know you spoke about this a lot in your books, Beatles as musicians, but you comment on that as well. For the transition in Another Girl, just how great example of counterpoint, what they're doing vocally to go from one key to another. So it's stuff that I Guess was always there for them. They started to pick it up through different influences, but I guess they really started to refine it. So whether that heard this sort of modulation, as you guys had pointed out in some of the previous tunes, you know, from demos, they started to find ways to incorporate it in their original.

[Cameron Grider]

Yeah, well, that song is a great example of just going straight from minor to major, from. From a minor to a major.

[Walter Everett]

Right?

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cameron Grider]

So it's like the reverse of the lights. It's I guess, the lights on effect.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cameron Grider]

And it's interesting that that comes in. What is that? Hard Day's Night.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Day's Night, Yeah.

[Cameron Grider]

So that effect they're using, and then by help now they're using this sort of once removed or slightly more subtle version of that Walt described so well as being. Using a key chord from the minor mode. I forget how you put it, but.

[Walter Everett]

He described it well in Hard day's night, that's McCartney really playing with different sorts of major minor relationships. Right. In I'll Be Back, it's a parallel major minor, Right? A major, a minor minor. Both areas having the same root, but elsewhere he plays with relative major and minor. And I Love her. You get a minor key related to a relative major key. Two different roots, but they're related that way. So. Yeah, he's a big fan of that for sure. Ticket to Ride, take one. That one. Okay, I know that's dropping in my.

[Cameron Grider]

Come on. Right, George.

[Jack Petrocelli]

She's got a ticket to ride.

[Walter Everett]

I've got a shtick on Ticket To Ride. Should we move to that now?

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, let it go.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah. What I wanted to do was speculate about the origin of all the different instrumental parts in the arrangement for Ticket, and then talk about how those parts interact. And it'll take a little bit of talk about harmony and melody to make that work. So. So, you know, we know a little, very little about Lennon's beginning to write the song. We know that he sang it to George Martin and Sam Moritz. And McCartney says that he and John spent a three hour session before going into the studio. But it's hard to figure how that happened because they met at Abbey Road, 2:30 on the Monday the 15th of February. McCartney returned from Tunisia sometime on the 14th. I don't know what time his plane landed, but it's hard to imagine him certainly on Monday morning driving out to Weybridge. He said they met in Weybridge, driving back to London for the session. Maybe they did meet on Sunday, but I don't know. Three hours Anyway, my guess is that Lennon just started with strumming. Strumming his guitar. I think I'm gon to be sad Think it's a day. I need Jack's falsetto Girl that's driving me mad is going away so he's on that tonic chord forever. When you play the record, you hear four bars of introduction. George for two bars, then the band comes in. Still two bars on that, a tonic chord. And then Lennon starts singing six more bars on that, then finally goes to a B minor chord. Just when she's. The idea of her going away, right? We leave home to go away, she goes away. She's not just going away. She's going away to a place that's. That's painful for Lennon. He sings this E. Over the B minor chord, going away. That E is not part of that chord. That E is dissonant. It's a fourth above the root B going away. You know, it's a painful sound, but. But the E that he sings anticipates the root of the following chord going away. And that's where it's consonant. So it's what we call an anticipation, where a pitch does not belong in a chord. It's dissonant, But. But it is consonant in the next chord. It's called anticipation. And that's what this song's all about, right? I think I'm gonna be sad I think it's today girl that's driving me mad is going away so she's going away to that place, that B minor place. And it's painful with that anticipation of her leaving, right? And that singing the fourth above a minor triad is actually a beatlism. Dominic Peddler writes about it in his book the Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Another great example is singing an E over a B minor chord. Now, that E at first is dissonant over the. Over the B minor 7 chord. And then they go to a G chord. It's not part of the G chord, but at least it's consonant with it. But then they hit that big dramatic E major chord. And again, E, the E that Lennon sings is at the root of that. So it's a thing in the Beatles ear, that E over a B minor chord, that dissonance, that painful dissonance. And it comes to play Ticket to Ride in a big way. So my idea is Lennon brought the song to the studio playing chords. Now, we know that McCartney had a big role in arranging the instrumentation. In fact, what Lennon said was Paul's big contribution was the way Ringo played The drums. And it's my speculation that Ringo's drum part came before George's famous ostinato on the 12 string, before anything else. I have a feeling that Paul, whether it was before the session or at the session, Paul had this Tunisian drum rhythm pattern in his ear that he wanted Ringo to play. And he wanted Ringo to emulate this polyrhythmic pattern he'd heard in Tunisian. And incidentally, that would make this an earlier non Western influence on the Beatles than the sitar, right? So the pattern, I call it polyrhythmic because there are three drums involved in Ringo's part that interact with each other with different rhythms in what we call a hocket situation. In a hocket, you have various forces that each part plays its own space on the beat or off the beat throughout the measure. And they don't hit. The different parts don't hit at the same time. They take turns in a repeated rhythmic pattern. It's a big part of funk. Or if you think of the Zombies, like Time of the Season, the ostinato very much a hockey. Anyway, the overall pattern that Ringo plays is bass, snare, bass, bass, snare, tom, bass, snare, bass, bass, snare, tom, bass, snare, bass, bass, snare.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Right?

[Walter Everett]

He's never hitting any of those three drums at the same time. And then to make it even more interesting, Ringo plays flams on the two most syncopated parts of that, on the second halves of the third and fourth bars. So a flam is where two sticks hit the drum at slightly different times. If you watch a video, you see Ringo plays the snare with two sticks, then he plays the snare again with two sticks, and then the tom with two sticks slightly, slightly apart. So it's really sort of bass, snare, bass, bass, bass, snare, bass, bass. So it's a really interesting drum part there. And if you isolate just the bass drum, drum, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom. It's a classic part of rock music, right? Hal Blaine there for the Ronettes, but that's just the bass drum, bump, bump, bump. But altogether you got bass, snare, bass, bass, snare sound, bass, bum, bum. Right? So that's very cool, I think. And against that, I don't know whether Paul or John had the idea, but Paul and John together just play a drone. Play an open string drone on that long a chord you just hear from John's Strat. I'll play it here. And Paul plays the same thing two octaves lower. I think they Got this idea from the Shadows. Move. Was their big breakout. The Shadows debuted on the new TV show oh Boy in September 1958, which took Hank Marvin instantly to British stardom. Right? Nobody in England had heard a British rock and roller like that. And there they are with Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch playing matching Strats and a precision bass with their bass player. So it was really big. And McCartney said, quote, I watched the Shadows back in Cliff Richard one night. I'd heard them play a very clever introduction to Move it on the record, but could never work out how they did it right as 16 year old, continuing the quote. Then I saw them do it on tv. I rushed out of the house straight away, got on my bike and raced up to John's with my guitar. I've got it. I shouted. And we all got down to learning it right away. So what happens in the Move it introduction? Well, first you have. Have Hank Marvin play this riff. And then Bruce Welch comes in. Just on the repeated power chord like that. And then while Welch is doing that, Marvin, you know, he's getting ready for his big solo and all he does is. Well, actually he does it here. That's. That's Hank Marvin's big, big role in Move It. And so, you know, the Beatles played that and loved it. And I think there's a very related thing. You know, I mentioned Hal Blaine in his work with the Ronettes. Obviously, the Beach Boys were very into what Phil Spector was doing. So. And don't worry, baby, you get the lead guitar with. That same rhythm. So that was a hit in the summer of 60 summer four. Thank you. So it's that syncopation that I think was in Lennon's and McCartney's ears. And so they just play that drone on the open string and. And then also those power chords that Bruce Welch has. What Lennon plays at the end of the transition to Tica to Rod is. Okay, let me isolate those parts first. I'll play from the basic track guitars at the end of the transition. The end of the transition there. But do you hear that going back into the ver. In the verse? You hear that? That. Don't worry, baby. It's under George's ostinato, obviously. Then to talk about the retransition itself, the bridge. What I want to talk about is how Ringo sets it off with a big crash and then you get nothing. You get stop time. Paul does his guitar solo and then Lennon comes in. Lennon and Harrison both come in with that power chord. The eighth note strums at the End. So I think we'll hear this. I think we'll hear Ringo's crash. And then I can't remember if Paul's guitar is on this, this stem or not, but we will hear the crash anyway. Okay, so let me move to George's part, right. With the 12 stage string. So this is what leads the song off. And what George does is he listens to Ringo's drum part. Bass, snare, bass, bass, dare Tom. Bass snare bass, bass snare, tom. And he plays a note for every one of those hits, Right? You can hear the bass, snare, bass, bass, snare, tom in there. He invents this A major triad. The three pitches of an A major chord. Except for that pitch, the B. That's not part of the chord. And it's struck with just a really strong axis and it's the most syncopated note in the pattern. And it's that non chord tone there. Now a non chord tone will typically move by step to a chord tone. So that B would usually come back down to A. Doesn't do that. Or it could step up to the C sharp, right. Instead it leaps up to the E, the fifth of the chord. We got a name for that. We call that an escape tone. When a non chord tone does not move by step to resolve into a chord tone, instead it leaps to a chord tone. We call that an escape tone. I think that's just such an appropriate emblem for the woman who jilts the singer on a very guilty syncopated 8th note there and holds it right. That B is held. She's leaving him to lament his ex's impending freedom. Right? So I think George finds the perfect emblem for that and that non chord tone, that. That being that second scale degree in A major major. It's very much like the. That second scale degree of F major that marks the hard day chord. Right. And also reminded me of another recent George part. What you're doing there, George is playing a riff that almost perfectly matches the drum part. And that syncopated pitch is a non chord tone. It's also the second scale degree, right? So you don't often think of what you're doing in Ticket to Ride next to each other. But of course it's the 12th string in both songs. I think there's some relationship there. Now I do want to get to Paul's solo. I'm going to swap guitars again. It's just a guitar orgy. Ticket To Ride is just nothing but a guitar orgy.

[Robert Rodriguez]

You bring up a point. I wanted to ask you about, which is the Lennon line about taking credit for inventing heavy metal Ticket to Ride and saying, one day we're going to remix this record and you'll hear everything that's on it.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah.

[Walter Everett]

It'S those power chords. It's. He's thinking, I'm okay, but you're right, it's more than that. It's just all the guitars. And if you crank up that song really loud, I think you'll feel it. You didn't often hear it as heavy metal coming off an AM transistor radio, but we have our ways.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Just made me wonder if he knew what heavy metal was.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah. I mean, you don't think of that in the same vein of, you know, Hendrix or Cream being proto heavy metal.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, it's sunshine metal.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that. I like that. I like that. Sunshine metal, sure. There's 80 varieties of metal. Why not?

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

I don't know why she's riding so high she gotta think twice she gotta do right by me before she gets to saying goodbye she gotta think twice you gotta do right by me. Yeah, I think I'm gonna be sad I think it's today the girl that's driving me mad it's going away.

[Walter Everett]

Okay. McCartney plays this overdub bluesy lick on his Casino. And it's often described as an anguished solo that he plays on this blistering hot epiphone Casino. He plays it in the Bridges. Retransition to the verse and. And in the outro. McCartney had played some solo guitar previously. He plays guitar on Follow the Sun. He liked to have an instrument handy, instrument strung for a left hander, handy in the studio to demonstrate something to Harrison to play or to add an occasional lead himself. And in December 64, in one of the clubs in London, he heard John Mayall and He also heard B.B. king that month play very live guitars. And he wanted a similar sound sound. So he went down to a guitar shop, Paul says, and I wanted something that fed back. The shopkeeper said, this epiphone will do it because it's semi acoustic, unquote. And of course, this is not long after I Feel Fine, right, where feedback became a real thing for the Beatles. So what McCartney does is he plays basically a descending minor pentatonic blues. Or he plays from the minor pentatonic scale, Right, that octave there, from E down to E, he plays those pitches, but not in that. In that descending order, but he adds a bend and a slide and a pre bend, all bluesy techniques. So you get that bend There, slide and then pre bend. So it's a really bluesy sound that he gets out of his Epiphone Casino on here. And then the last instrumental. Well, actually, not the last, but the last guitar technique is the shimmering volume pedal control chord on what I call the ticket chord. The ticket chord, that G major, seven chords that he plays over Ringo's crash. The volume control pedal allows you to articulate a chord, strum it or pick the string and then use the pedal to fade in and out at any tempo you choose. So you don't necessarily hear the initial strike, but you can fade into it or fade out. And a lot of people say, oh, it kind of sounds like a bowed violin, Right? So that's the volume tone control pedaling. And Harrison's used to that. It just comes up near the end of the verse. Ringo, crash, stop, time. Nobody else plays, not even Paul doing a solo. And George plays that ticket chord that is articulated there. This is an overdub he does on the Fender, by the way, on his Strat. The anguished moment where Lennon is singing. Three pitches that are not in the chord. You know, it's just a brilliant choice of melody. There's your chord. We'll add the major seventh to that. And again then Lennon sings an E, which is not part of the chord and is dissonant with the seventh. Lennon finishes singing with the most dis. Dissonant pitch he could. A tritone, the devil in music, right? The diabolus and musica, the augmented fourth above the bass there. So it's that moment of anguish that Harrison accents with his volume tone pedal control. Very subtle, but along with Ringo's crash, which the compressed also downplays the articulation, right? The. The compressed cymbal, you don't hear boom, you don't hear crash, you hear hush. You hear this wash of sound, just like maybe Harrison knew that's what it was going to sound like with a compressor, and he thought, oh, okay, well, I could do something with the guitar, because that was the last guitar addition to the song. So there's more with Ringo's tambourine, which provided a backbeat in the verses and shakes it in the bridge. And then at the end of the bridge, the retransition, he just like. Just rattles it like an alarm. And then Ringo comes in with the 30 seconds really fast, not a roll, but, you know, because you can hear all the individual hits, but it's a really fast blurt there before the return of the pedal, the open strings and the asano coming Back, plus hand claps. There's hand claps in there. And the tambourine works in a different rhythm than anything else. So it's really also part of the hocket. The tambourine hits on the fourth beat. Nothing else hits on the fourth beat. Very unusual set of pattern. So that's my take on. On the instrumental and a little bit on the vocal side of what goes on to make Ticket To Ride such an incredible, incredible, incredible piece of music.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Absolutely.

[Jack Petrocelli]

A couple things with that, Walt, is when you talk about how dissonant it is when Lennon is singing the fourth up from the B minor, how it's used in Ticket To Ride, how it's used in Help, you know, we get into just music is made of consonances and dissonance. It's like, how does the dissonance resolve, you know? And you find ways that are done in this music that are so rewarding. I love that. I'd be curious to know what that rhythm was from Tunisia and how it got broken down into this drum pattern. Pattern, right. It'd be interesting to hear whatever that was, because I'm sure it was nothing like what we're hearing. But it's just one of the things that we find, too, when we're making music. We might have an inspiration, whether it's from another country or from this country. And when you get done with it, you know, you wouldn't necessarily know that it came from that inspiration, what it went through, but it still inspired you to do that.

[Walter Everett]

Right, Right. I talked to two experts in North African draft drumming and explained the situation. I gave them a transcription of what Ringo plays, and they named some patterns that were close to what Ringo plays. I wrote about this and what goes on. I relayed those conversations. If you open up a search engine and look for Tunisian drum pattern, you'll hear there's a big hand drum about this big in diameter, played sort of like a tabla, in that there are different things you can do with the fingers and the palm. And you'll hear some patterns that are similar to Ringo's. What Ringo plays in Ticket. But I think you're right, Jack. I think something was lost in translation a little bit there. I've never heard exactly that pattern played in a Tunisian style.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah. I also love how you're able to take the lyric. You've done this a number of times. When you analyze a Beatles song, you look how the musical embellishment highlight the lyric content. And I know that sometimes that's really intentional and other times it's not from the composer's perspective, it just sort of happens, you know, it's interesting how that comes together in so many of the Beatles songs. And it's. I think it's just one of the magic things about making music and writing music. And also talking about the gear with the compressor, was Harrison aware of how that major seventh was going to sound or is that just. Again, you know, when we look at the compressors and the gear that the Beatles use with the Fairchild Childs on how those components really made a difference in the sound of their music.

[Walter Everett]

For one thing, the chord itself is really unusual. Not just the major. Major 7th chord on its own, the fact that it's based on the lowered seventh scale degree. There's only one other song I can think of that has a major seventh chord built on the lowered seventh scale degree and that. That moment from Smokey Robinson, which Post Date Ticket, I think it was recorded in late 65, if I'm not mistaken. But about the compression. Yeah. George heard this song by the Remo4 that was Liverpool group Colin Manley was the lead guitarist and he and George were friends. And in the summer of 64, Rima4 put out a song called on the Horizon and it had that violin bowed sound. Harrison asked, how did you do that? Was it something in the control room? And Colin Manley said, no, no, it's this pedal. You can use it to control the tone or you can use it to get sort of like a wah. Where you can use it to control. Control the volume. And Harrison got one and it appeared and yes, it is. And then wait. But those first three were all recorded within two days, so it was Harrison's new toy and he knew what that would sound like. Question is, did he know what Ringo's crash cymbal was going to sound like? Presser. Because that's the real inspired thing about the sound hand. It just comes out of nowhere.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, love it. Cameron, did you have anything to add? We've been talking up a storm here.

[Cameron Grider]

There's so much that I loved about that discussion. I mean, that could spin off into 10 other discussions. I. I really don't know where to start. I guess it's just starting with the picture that you paint of John sitting there writing the song and strumming that a chord. It makes me think of a quote that he had about another song from the same album from you got to hide your love Away. He said it's one of those ones that you sing a bit sadly to yourself. Here I stand, head in Hand. So it just feels like it's one of those kind of depressive starts to a song.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah. They may have come from the same place. Right.

[Cameron Grider]

But then the, and the way that you described the anticipation of the. The E chord over the B minor. I'll get it. Hold on. The B minor chord. There we go.

[Walter Everett]

You know, I mean, even of dissonance is.

[Cameron Grider]

Yeah.

[Walter Everett]

Incredible.

[Cameron Grider]

And the sense of anticipation. So I, I love that. You know, once again, I'll never hear that song the same way after hearing your analysis.

[Jack Petrocelli]

It always sounds so simple.

[Walter Everett]

Right.

[Jack Petrocelli]

And I think that's. That's also one of the beautiful things about this music. It is simple, but it has these complexities about it.

[Walter Everett]

Wow.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Never considered that at all. So, yeah, these are the kind of things that we get into. Robert, you know, for rpm, I. I hope that your listening audience, some of the people, the musicians and non musicians would consider signing up. It's going to be January 19th. It's for six weeks, it's 5:30pm Eastern time. The first 45 minutes called all Together now and it's where we have discussions like this. We talk about the music. And then the second 45 minutes you can come into a class, a Cameron's class or my class, and that's for musicians and we go over the parts, we provide resources for that, for people to participate in recording the music. And you could go into Walt's 45 minutes and continue getting this deeper dive and with this analysis in the music. And you're going to be a guest in February and we have Ken Womack as a guest as well. It's always a treat and it's really something nice to do for the winter, for the winter months. That's that.

[Robert Rodriguez]

And having been to the magical mystery camp for the first time this summer, summer, I was really amazed to see the results of your school, of what you guys do. Seeing live in action, your student up there on the stage just beaming, making music and showing the results of what they learned with you guys as sort of facilitators. You know, they had the love for the Beatles anyway. They had the curiosity and the drive to want to try my hand at this myself. And then getting up there on stage and performing as ensembles, it was. Was just a really joyful, fun thing and I was really glad to see it because as you've said, I've guested in your classes from time to time and it's usually just me spieling and people asking questions or whatever. But to see what actually comes after that, you guys working with these people, to give them tangible tools, to then take this theory and apply it themselves. It's a really cool thing. So I'm really glad you guys do do this. If you're any kind of Beatle fan that has any kind of musical aspiration, this is the place to be. I cannot conceive of better people to lead people on this journey, whether it's the history, the context, what goes on in the studio, and then actual what's happening on the instruments that make these songs. We know we love them, we know how they make us feel, but when you deconstruct it, there's so much more going on. And like Cameron says, I will never hear the song Ticket to Ride again the same way after hearing Walt walk through what is actually going on.

[Cameron Grider]

Thank you, Robert. Yeah, the analysis part of it is super fun, of course, and the working with people to make music is so satisfying and fun. And in the course of the online classes, the virtual band, as we call it. The result, the payoff, is these recordings, some of which we've played snippets of on your show in the past. So that's great.

[Robert Rodriguez]

It was cool to witness it.

[Jack Petrocelli]

The learning never ends, even for us, as we've been doing it for so many years. Playing it, studying, writing about it. It's incredible. It'll just keep continu. So we have just as much joy teaching it as people do learning it.

[Robert Rodriguez]

This was just a surface scratching, really, because when I think of the Help album, it's like every Beatle album, through a certain point, had a different sound to it, right? Hard as Night, defined by the 12 string Rickenbacher. When I think of Help, I think about the electric piano you hear throughout that, which we didn't even talk about today. That's a whole other path to go down. It's just an interesting thing that, as you guys are describing in musical theory terms, the little innovations they were applying to their music to keep it fresh, to keep it surprising, to keep it interesting to themselves. And then other things, the volume pedal, the swells on guitar that they were contributing to this material. But then there's the electric piano. You're seeing John seated on stage as they're going out on tour in the summer of 65. That became another tool in their arsenal for that year. Not to be repeated really, after that so much. But they're constantly trying on Dante, repurposing.

[Walter Everett]

To their end that owner Pianet the piano, the electric piano. They cart that to the BBC studio to play the night before the Beatles Invite you to take a ticket to ride that BBC show.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah. Their last BBC musical performance.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, yeah. So with Help you think about the things that we've been talking about, what you just brought up, it's the first time, I think, that they had an outside musician who comes in in to play on. You got to hide your love away Right. Besides Andy White, y just always something new. I think George Martin was implying a new way to record and mix the Beatles as well as at that time, the way that he was panning or the way he was combining instruments on certain tracks.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Sounds like a Jerry Hammock discussion.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Totally.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Every record has something. And so I've been listening to Help and I've been reminded of, wow, this is. Was a soundtrack album. You know, in the States, we only got half of the material. When you listen to all the material, you hear the growth as songwriters, you hear their growth as musicians. You know, sonically, what's going on, it's pretty great. 65 was a big year for the Beatles. When you think about Help, Rubber Soul and then, of course, what came out in the States with Beatles six in 65. Do we also get Beatles story that?

[Robert Rodriguez]

64.

[Jack Petrocelli]

64.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Okay.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Rodriguez]

But we got the early Beatles and Beatles 6 and then Help and then Rubber Soul Estates.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Plus the Christmas record, what I just listened to yesterday on my drive back from the gig. So much fun. So, yeah, thanks again. Thanks for having us. Thanks for all of the support, the input. A lot of fun.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Absolutely. Just as a PS to this discussion, this is Help is the album that gave the world, at least in uk, not so much in America. America yesterday, this total game changer of a Beatle recording that I talked about when I did the thing in New Jersey at the everything fab four thing.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I'll be putting that into a YouTube video that I'll put online. But it's a whole other path of discovery and discussion that you think you know this, but it's one of these things that here it is in the uk, they sort of bury it inside to follow it. With Dizzy Miss Lizzie, like a call back to their club days, it's like they didn't know what to do. And you had this odd juxtaposition of the future and the past. But it is absolutely this thing that I think made a seismic impact, particularly on John in his songwriting for Rubber Soul. So there is that.

[Walter Everett]

Yeah.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Well, then, you know, talk about influences. I mean, Dylan's influence on John for Help. Right?

[Robert Rodriguez]

For sure. And I wonder too, I've Been thinking about this recently. He had been dosed by the dentist at the end of March of 65. And I wondered if there was a correlation between his first acid trip and HELP as he's talking about. It's almost a description of acid therapy as it existed under the. The tutelage of Timothy Leary, where you've got the person with you to guide you through the trip. He's like, calling out for somebody, help me get through this. This crisis I'm having. I need somebody. I do appreciate you being round and.

[Unidentified Casual Speaker]

Open up the doors.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I don't know if this is me shotgunning an idea, but the thought had occurred to me, and it's like, I wonder. I wonder if this was his initial reaction to lsd.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Wait, are you saying Help was written after his first take?

[Robert Rodriguez]

Walt might remember the. The recording date, but they're.

[Walter Everett]

They're kind of 14th, I think. Help.

[Robert Rodriguez]

April. Okay, there you go. So it's. It's a fortnight after the acid trip.

[Walter Everett]

But Mark Lewison says he's been really working hard to try to track down when they got dose. And he thinks it was in the summer of 65. So I think that date. I don't know where. Where did you hear March, Robert?

[Robert Rodriguez]

John had said it was during a weekend off from shooting Help, and we know when Help was shot, so. And it would have been well over by summer, if you want to take John's word for it. And God knows his memory is a fallible instrument of recollection, so who knows?

[Jack Petrocelli]

I love that. Well, you know, one of the things that Lewison. We had Lewison on for Rubber Soul, and he. He was very polite in accepting our invitation, but however, he said, guys, I'm. I'm so busy working on the book that I really don't know. I don't have anything prepared. And we said, we'll just start talking and you just. You'll be fine. He's like, fine. But he really was focusing on the Beatles as individuals outside of the band. Like, that was his take. And I could only assume the reason being is that where he was at in his writing, why that was on his mind. And LSD definitely came up within our discussion. I never heard that quote from Lenin. Doesn't surprise me. But certainly lyrically, what's happening with Help is much more of an introverted perspective than a lot of what's come before, certainly to what comes after. So, wow, that's fresh. To my mind, if that is the case, if they actually were dosed, having a time off while they were shooting help. That's insane.

[Cameron Grider]

So, yeah, yeah, we'll have to talk about that when you come.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Let's continue the discussion.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Table that for further research.

[Jack Petrocelli]

Yeah, right.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Something about the Beatles, created and hosted by Robert Rodriguez, including executive producer Rick Way, title song performed by the Corgis. Something about the Beatles is an evergreen podcast.

[Walter Everett]

And still the same as they was before they was.