I haven't put anything up in a while and in responce to Vic's request for more from myself or Rodders here's a super easy Beatles White Album song penned by Paul McCartney.
It may not be the best of Beatles songs but I think it demonstrates how strong and inventive his Lyric writing was at the time and he was equaling Lennon for comedy content. read it and you can see that old west movie scene right in front of you in that local saloon.
You have to talk the intro: in an old cowboy style (easier for our US members probably) I'm not entirely sure I've got the chords correctly placed in the intro but it sounded ok when I ran through it. Fingers crossed there!! The verse chords are definitely ok.
I'm afraid you will have to listen to the CD for the strum pattern but its easy, I can assure you, to pick up. The Beatles struck the root note of each chord before they played them. They also finger picked the chords but strumming them still sounds ok. Also, Paul's instrumental break and outro: are the same chord sequence which can also be easily picked up.
This is a perfect acoustic song. Anyway here it is:
Intro: (talk lyrics over chords)
(Am)Now somewhere in the Black Hills of (D7)Dakota
(G)There lived a young boy named Rocky (C)Raccoon
(Am)And one day his woman ran off with another guy
(D7)Hit young Rocky in the eye, (G)Rocky didn't like that
(Am)He said “I'm gonna get that boyâ€
So one (D7)day he walked into town
(G)Booked himself a room at the the local (C)saloon
Verse 1: (sing lyrics over chords)
(Am)Rocky Raccoon checked (D7)into his room
(G)Only to find Gideon's (C)Bible
(Am)Rocky had come (D7)equipped with a gun
To (G)shoot off the legs of his (C)rival
His (Am)rival it seems, had (D7)broken his dreams
By (G)stealing the girl of his (C)fancy
Her (Am)name was Magill, and she (D7)called herself Lil
But (G)everyone knew her as (C)Nancy
Now (Am)she and her man, who (D7)called himself Dan
Were (G)in the the next room at the (C)hoedown
(Am)Rocky burst in, and (D7)grinning a grin
He said (G)"Danny boy, this is a (C)showdown!â€
But (Am)Daniel was hot, he (D7)drew first and shot
And (G)Rocky collapsed in the (C)corner
Instrumental Break:
Same chord sequence of (Am) (D7) (G) (C)
And sing:
Da-n-da da da-n-da da da... etc etc
Verse 2:
Now the (Am)doctor came in, (D7)stinking of gin
And (G)proceeded to lie on the the (C)table
He said (Am)"Rocky you've met your matchâ€
And Rocky (D7)said “Doc, it's only a scratch
And (G)I'll soon be better, I'll be better Doc
As soon as I'm (C)ableâ€
Now (Am)Rocky Raccoon, he fell (D7)back in his room
(G)Only to find Gideon's (C)bible
(Am)Gideon checked out, and he (D7)left it no doubt
To (G)help with good Rocky's (C)revival.
Outro:
Same chord sequence as instrumental break (Am) (D7) (G) (C)
And sing:
Oh yeah, yeah
Da-n-da da da-n-da da da... etc etc
The guitar is all right John but you'll never make a living out of it! (John Lennon's Aunt Mimi)
Nice :!: i'll give it a try
how strange, the same four chords as My Girl posted earlier! Just shows how you can make such different songs with the same base.
This is sort of the same thing. Am7 - D7 - G7 and C(7?) with a decending base line.
----3-3-3----3-3-3----3-3-3---2-2-2---1-1-1---1-1-1--
----1-1-1----1-1-1----1-1-1---1-1-1---0-0-0---0-0-0--
----2-2-2----2-2-2----2-2-2---2-2-2---0-0-0---0-0-0--
--------------------------0--------0------------------------
---------0--------0-----------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------3-------3-------
-----0-0-0---0-0-0----
-----1-1-1---1-1-1----
-----0-0-0---0-0-0---- REPEAT
-------------------------
----3--------2----------
-------------------------
For beginners you can play Am7 like this and it will sound fine.
----0-0-0
----1-1-1
----0-0-0
----2-2-2
---0------
-----------
I like the decending base line - you can really hear it the song. Make sure you hit the open "A" sting before you go back into Am7. BJ
Sorry to resurrect this, but after playing this at an open mike tonight I realized how delightfully simple this song is. There are just a few details left. I'll just post what I have to start:
Am7 D7sus4 D7
E-|-----3--3--3-----3--3--3--|-----3--3--3-------2--2--2--|
B-|-----1--1--1-----1--1--1--|-----1--1--1-------1--1--1--|
G-|-----2--2--2-----2--2--2--|-----2--2--2-------2--2--2--|
D-|--------------------------|--0-------------0-----------|
A-|--0-----------0-----------|----------------------------|
E-|--------------------------|----------------------------|
G7 C C/B
E-|-----1--1--1------1--1--1--|-----3--3--3------3--3--3--|
B-|-----0--0--0------0--0--0--|-----1--1--1------1--1--1--|
G-|-----0--0--0------0--0--0--|-----0--0--0------0--0--0--|
D-|---------------------------|---------------------------|
A-|---------------------------|--3------------2-----------|
E-|--3------------3-----------|---------------------------|
The bass notes are all that are fixed rhythmically. McCartney throws in some shuffles pretty frequently. Also, he really pounds the bass notes, especially those 'G's, to the point where they rattle and the pitch goes a little weird. All this sloppiness adds to the kind of bar-room cowboy story feel of the song (the folky harmonica fills, honky tonk piano interludes, and the extremely rudimentary rhythm section in the original help as well, of course).
As for singing, if you want to sound like McCartney, the note to start your talking-singing on in the beginning is A. You can get the note from either the open A string you hit on the big beats or from the lowest string in the Am7 chord you strum on the off beats those first four bars.
From here on out is my analysis, and not especially helpful to playing the song, but if, like me, you like trying to figure out why certain songs sound so good, read on and tell me what you think.
Yes, the descending bass line is key, but what makes this mind blowingly simple chord progression sufficient to sustain an entire song is the combination of a descending bass line and a descending treble line. In my mind, it is essential that the Am7 and C voicings have the C on top. That way, as we move from Am7 to G we have this deliciously slow descent of a whole step. And when we get to C, the G on top makes the transition back to Am7 so smooth you barely notice it's there.
That's the beauty of this chord progression (and this voicing). The voice leading makes the pieces transition into each other so well, it makes you lose sense of the fact that the song consists of 4 bars repeated 18 times. Of those 18 times, 11 have an essentially identical vocal melody, and another 4 (the da-da-da parts) have another vocal melody. The only vocal melody that's not repeated to death is that for the intro, which is mostly talking!
To summarize:
2 four-bar melodic patterns
1 four-bar harmonic pattern
Sing a selection of the upper two over the bottom one 15 times, and you have (but for the harmonically identical intro) one of the greatest little miniature pieces the Beatles ever produced.
A note on context. This song was recorded a few months after the release of Dylan's album John Wesley Harding, which was a kind of country rock album with stripped down instrumentation (mostly guitar, drums, bass, harmonica) very similar to that of Rocky Raccoon. It was filled with simple 3 or 4 chord cowboy-type ballads, often with mysterious biblical allusions or connotations. The whimsical idea of a person named Gideon having checked out of the saloon and left his bible behind, as well as the bizarre scene of a drunken doctor preparing to examine a patient by lying in the patient's place on the table are both, in my mind, certainly homages to/allusions to/parodies of Dylan's unique lyrical style.
Dylan and the Beatles had this wonderful little cross-pollenation thing going on. He introduced them to marijuana, for one thing, shaping the sound (and certainly the album art) of Rubber Soul. Dylan recorded "Fourth Time Around," a kind of bizarre rip-off of "Norwegian Wood" on Blonde on Blonde, whose aggressive, brash sounds and sublimely cutting lyrical put-downs can be found on a number of tracks on revolver. Alan Pollack (who has written extensive musicological analyses of all of the Beatles songs: http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.shtml ) has also suggested a kinship between "I Want You" and "Got To Get You Into My Life" which I very much believe, although it seems a bit of a stretch.
I'm starting to ramble, but let me know what you think of my little mini-analysis. Bottom line is: McCartney does Dylan, hilarity and incredible music ensues. And watch that descending treble line.
~Sam
Also, check out James Blunt's hilariously bad solo acoustic cover:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KkijrCmGi4
Wow.
~Sam
