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Old 03-14-24, 05:17 PM   #1395
vienna
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...I posted the above clip because I happened upon this interesting clip about the song...





I find the reference to McCartney calling the sheet music (probably written out by the Beatles' produce George Martin) "the dots" interesting; none of the Beatles could read or write sheet music, depending on Martin or some other person to write out the scores for any accompanying session musician they might be using; it is truly remarkable how much great music and how many great song were produced by musicians who were unable to express their compositions in written for, something that is often seen, by the musical establishment, as a prime standard by which to judge musical excellence; and, yet, the list of songwriters whose compositions have been acclaimed as masterpieces of the songwriters art and who can't read written music is long and impressive; just a few: Dylan, Prince, all the Beatles, Jagger/Richards, Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Taylor Swift, Dave Brubeck, and, surprisingly, Irving Berlin (not only could he not read music. he also could only play the piano in one key, F#), who is perhaps best known, among all his other great works, as the composer of God Bless America...

McCartney once dabbled into the realm of classical music, composing the Liverpool Oratorio, with the assistance of a trained arranger to write out the score for Macca; the arranger said in an interview he offered to teach Paul how to read and write scores, but, after a brief initial period, Paul stopped the arranger from teaching him, giving as a reason that he feared, if he did learn formal notation and its strictures, he would lose the ability to freely and uninfluenced seek out music that was 'outside the norm box'; considering how so much of McCartney's song output cleaves to sort of conventional songwriting styles and genres, he may have wanted to stay much further away from the "dots"...

The seismic shift The Beatles caused in popular music, changing it from a very record company/Tin Pan Alley top down approach to a more 'from the streets' genesis is cleverly encapsulated in this clip from the film Across The Universe; the scene is from the opening sequence where the more American 'factory made' style of pop music is juxtaposed against the rawer 'kids are alright' power of the coming invasion...







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