The Beatles Emulative Period

For our listening assignment this week we compare 2 songs from the Beatles’ emulative phase with two songs from their experimental phase. The differences between the songs from these two periods are very striking. The recordings, “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Love Me Do” can be considered audio snap shots of those performances, while “I am the Walrus” and “Tomorrow never knows” are produced using studio enhancements. “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Love Me Do” are quite similar in that they each follow the AABA form, have looser texture, and use the simple instrumentation of acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar and drums. The lyrics for each of these songs are simple with “Love Me Do” being extraordinarily spare. “Can’t buy me love” discusses having material resources but it doesn’t buy what the writer wants. For its instrumentation, “Love Me Do” varies from “Can’t Buy Me Love” with the addition of a bluesy harmonica making the song’s harmony memorable. When compared to the later experimental Beatles’ songs, the harmony of “Can’t Buy Me Love” is also incredibly catchy and
For “Tomorrow Never Knows”, the instrumentation is rhythm guitar, bass guitar, drums, sitar, taped loops and tambura. I love the use of the Indian instruments because they add to the droning quality and other odd elements and create a heavy, dense texture forming a wall of instrumentation. This effect creates a foggy, dream-like, or drug-induced feeling that ties in with the lyrics about quieting the mind for reflection and meditation. I cannot discern if the producers used synthesizers, but the electronic aspect of backwards taped loops dubbed into the song create some unusual sounds. Much of the song incorporates music played backward including the guitar solo. The song structure is simple verse