The Beatles: Note By Note

Yesterday may be the most popular song The Beatles ever recorded, but it's surprising just how unusual its story really is. On this episode of our Beatles podcast, we are joined by Kenyon’s longtime friend and former songwriting partner Kyle Hopson. We look at the song as a piece of Beatles history and a case study in how songs actually come into the world.

What makes Yesterday feel so universal? How did it expand the boundaries of what a Beatles record could be? Did Paul actually rewrite an earlier song?

We cover:

-Paul McCartney’s dream, Scrambled Eggs, and the long development of the song
-John Lennon’s possible role in completing the song
-Billy J. Kramer, Chris Farlowe, Brian Epstein, and whether Yesterday was always destined to be a Beatles song
-Delia Derbyshire, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Ray Cathode, and Paul’s interest in an electronic arrangement
-George Martin, the string quartet, and the original handwritten score
-The recording session, detuned guitar, orchestral overdubs, and Paul’s solo performance
-George Martin Orchestra arrangement of Yesterday
-Possible connections to The Night Before, Georgia on My Mind, and Answer Me, My Love

Website: https://www.notebynoteseries.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/NoteByNoteSeries
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notebynoteseries
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In this Beatles lecture series, we are looking at I’ve Just Seen a Face, a song that captures the head-spinning rush of love at first sight. We examine how Paul combines deceptively simple musical and lyrical materials to create the song’s breathless and frenetic energy. Beneath the surface, its overlapping patterns continually pull against one another, while rising and falling gestures mirror the exhilaration of suddenly being swept off balance by another person.

Website: https://www.notebynoteseries.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/NoteByNoteSeries
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notebynoteseries
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Have you ever realized that another person will change your life forever? Author Ian Leslie joins us to talk about I’ve Just Seen a Face and his book, John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs. Together, we use Paul’s breathless love song to explore chance, recognition, conflict and the mixture happiness and sadness that can exist in a single moment.

Could this song tell us something about Paul in 1965 or maybe about what he saw in John Lennon years earlier?

We cover:

-Ian Leslie’s John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs
-This song's origins
-John and Paul’s creative and emotional relationship
-Love at first sight, fate, and chance
-The acoustic arrangement and rapid-fire vocal phrasing
-Take 3 from Anthology 4
-The opening of Rubber Soul
-A legendary recording session, Paul's Event Horizon

Check out Ian Leslie:
https://www.ian-leslie.com/

Website: https://www.notebynoteseries.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/NoteByNoteSeries
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notebynoteseries
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In this Beatles lecture series, we analyze Tell Me What You See. We look at the way the lyrics gradually reveal that this promise is actually an attempt of persuasion. Musically, we explore Paul’s melodic contours, the song’s recurring question-and-answer phrases, and how its simple harmony takes on a more modal character. We also compare blues-inflected and warmer pop sounds, and how the unusual instrumental middle section develops the song’s Latin-influenced character.

Website: https://www.notebynoteseries.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/NoteByNoteSeries
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notebynoteseries
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On this episode of our Beatles podcast, musician, singer, songwriter and obsessive album listener Caro Kelley joins us for Tell Me What You See. Caro has spent a lot of time not just listening to music, but rating and ranking it and she brings that perspective to a song that Paul McCartney himself dismissed as not particularly memorable. Would you call this a filler track?

For our storytime, we have a remarkable firsthand account of the Beatles actually working out the song in the studio with George Martin. Melody Maker journalist Ray Coleman was there as they rehearsed, argued over what was wrong, experimented with percussion, added the electric piano and tried to find a sound they admitted they couldn’t yet define.

Tell Me What You See opens up bigger questions about singing, intimacy, imagination and why a song can become more interesting the closer you get to it.

What we cover:
- Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s conflicting memories of who wrote “Tell Me What You See”
- John and Paul’s unusually loose rhythmic phrasing
- Ringo Starr’s drum break
- Paul McCartney’s Hohner Pianet C
- A British post-war religious motto
- A possible connection to Elvis Presley’s “Trying to Get to You”
- Ray Coleman’s February 1965 Melody Maker article
- George Martin’s orchestral version of “Tell Me What You See”

Follow Caro Kelley:
https://www.instagram.com/caro_kelley

Website: https://www.notebynoteseries.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/NoteByNoteSeries
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notebynoteseries
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.