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KEY E Major/c# minor -> F Major/d minor
METER 4/4
FORM Intro -> Verse -> Verse -> Bridge ->
Verse -> Verse (instrumental) -> Verse -> Outro (w/complete ending)
GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST
- With "And I Love Her" (AILH) we move still earlier in the songbook to the first of Macca's unabashed original love songs to be released, and an equally early example of a kind of Major/minor key harmonic twist that emerges as a much favored stylistic technique of their's over the long run.
- Indeed, the plaintive bittersweetness of AILH derives in large measure from it's tonal ambiguity; is it in a Major or minor key?
- The song continually flip-flops back and forth between a minor key (c#-minor) and its relative Major (E-Major). Another major point of interest (and source of ambiguity) in this song is that it makes a delicious modulation up one-half step at the beginning of the guitar break, but more on that later.
- The form is unusual: one bridge, only, with 2 verses preceding and 3 verses following; and the middle verse of the final three scored for guitar solo. The first three of the four verses set to words feature different lyrics in a verbal pattern of "I," "She," and "the stars." The final verse repeats the "stars" lyric.
- The alternate version released on _Anthology 1_ features the following major differences:
- The form does not contain the familiar intro, outro, or bridge.
- The string of 3 verses precedes the guitar solo.
- The backing track is the more standard electric guitar trio plus full drum set, making the whole thing feel much less gentle even though the tempo is very close to that of the official version.
- The introductory hook for lead guitar is not in evidence.
- **Technical Background Mode ON** Major and minor keys are said to be mutual "relatives" then they share the same key signature. (e.g., C major/a minor, F major/d minor etc.).
- Implicit in the sharing of a key signature is the fact that they share the same chords, although each chord has a different harmonic/grammatical meaning (i.e., crudely put, a different Roman numeral) depending on which mode you're in. For example, in the pair of keys C major/a minor, the d minor triad is common to both but it's the II chord of C and the IV chord of A.
- The ample selection of common chords in this situation makes it very easy to modulate between the two keys. Such chords are called "pivot" chords when they're used to effect a smooth modulation from one key to another. In terms of aural perception, one experiences such a chord initially in the old key, but within the following two chords, one retrospectively hears it as part of the new key; a kind of harmonic pun. **Technical Background Mode OFF**
- The verse tune is shot through with McCartneyesque appogiaturas and has the melodic contour of a sophisticated sine curve; the first three phrases reiterate an upward trajectory from mid range, with the final two phrases picking up at the top, travelling all the way down to a low point roughly symmetrical to the earlier peak, finally tying things up right back around the mid point. The bridge tune, by contrast, features a triadic pattern in fixed range.
- The six chords common between E Major and c# minor are the primary harmonic vocabulary: E, f#, g#, A, B, and c#.
- The conspicuously sparse backing track contains acoustic lead and rhythm guitars, electric bass, and in the percussion department nothing more than the gentle tapping of claves (small cylindrical wood blocks).
- Paul's lead vocal is double tracked throughout. There are no backing voices.
- Resting "on one" becomes a subtle motif for the song; both the opening guitar hook as well as every single one of the vocal phrases begins with a rest on the first or third beat of the measure.
- Other details in the arrangement:
- The intro/outro guitar hook appears only in verses 1 and 3.
- The delicate arpeggio figure that appears throughout verse 2 is delayed a couple measures from entering in verses 3 and 5.
- The bridge features prominent, slow strumming of rhythm guitar chords on the downbeat. The same gesture reappears for the final chord.
SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH
- The four-measure intro repeats the following progression of two chords. I think one hears it as a "weak" (i.e. non-dominant, not even Plagal) cadence toward the Major:
------------------------------- 2X ------------------------------
|f# |- |E |- |
E: ii I
- I won't dwell on it, but starting on a non-I chord in this context is itself ambiguous. Think about it: if you stop the song after the first chord, what key would you think you were in ?
- The guitar lands with the note C# on the downbeat of each chord change. In the case of f# minor, that note is part of the chord, but in the case of E Major, that C# turns the chord into an added 6th; strange shades of "She Loves You."
- The verse is an unusual 10 measures long and is built out of 5 short phrases in a pattern of AA'ABC:
|f# |c# |f# |c# |f# |c# |A |B |
E: ii IV V
c#: iv i iv i iv i VI
|E |- |
E: I
- Coming off of the intro we think we're in the key of E major, but as soon as the verse begins we find that the f#-minor chord moves to the c#-minor chord in a IV ->I ("Plagal") cadence; this is repeated three times and I think one gets the definite sensation of being grounded in the relative minor. And yet, in the last line of the verse we move from the c# minor chord to a straightforward IV -> V -> I cadence right back into E major again. All this goes down quite smoothly because of the pivots which are schematically shown above.
- The bridge is a four-square 8 measures long with a phrasing pattern of ABBC:
|c# |B |c# |g# |c# |g# |B |- |
E: vi V vi iii vi iii V
- Both verse and bridge have similar patterns of harmonic rhythm; steady throughout but with the final chord sustained for two measures.
- The contour of the chord progression in this bridge closely echoes that of the verse; down a step, back up, down a fourth, etc. I don't believe that the composer actually sits there and conceptualizes this, but I also don't believe it's a random coincidence, and it does provide a source of subliminal unity. The harmonic shape converges on the V chord of the Major key, but the direction is unsettled up until that point; with the c# chord of the relative minor filling three of the eight measures, and the music threatening even to modulate to the unusual key of g#.
- The transition from this bridge to the verse that follows provides yet another harmonic tease with the V chord denied an immediate resolution to E Major, with the next verse leading off, as usual, with its Plagal cadence in the key of the relative minor.
- Instead of a repeat of the bridge, we get a verse-worth's of guitar solo. But not so fast -- in the instant in which the guitar solo commences, the music neatly modulates up one half step; if the original key pair was E/c#, we're now in F/d; from the world of 4 sharps to one of one flat.
- While such upshifts for later verses have been a staple of the 2-minute love song since the fifties, this one is unusual because the first chord in the new key is its IV chord. It's a real attention grabber because it contains no notes in common with the previous key. In this specific case, we're talking about a g minor chord (g-b-flat-d) plunked down in a neighborhood of 4 sharps! A sort of triple cross relation.
- Once we get a few bars further and the new tonal plane is established it's no big deal in retrospect; you'd have to listen to the song several times in a loop to necessarily notice that you've ended up higher. Nonetheless, the moment of impact of that g triad is special. If I got away with calling the WCWIO refrain a time warp, then this one is the harmonic equivalent.
- There is one final verse following the solo in which everything is as before except that the music is transposed a half tone higher, followed by an outro very similar to the introduction with one critical difference:
|g |- |F |- |g |- |D *Major*|- |
F: ii I ii
d: iv I#3
- The song ends ironically on the Major "flavor" of the relative minor; I would half expect the sheet music to contain a smiley emoticon at the end. This gambit has been around since the Baroque period in which it was considered dissonant to end on a minor chord so many pieces in minor keys ended in those days in this manner -- the fancy term for this is the Piccardy Third, no kidding.)
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
- So What's *the* Answer ? Which relative key is the song in; Major or minor ? Consider the evidence:
- The intro is in the Major.
- The verse is in the minor for more than half its length yet always shifts to the Major at the end.
- The bridge equivocates at first, then comes around to the Major, only to go right into another verse with its predmominant minor opening.
- There is only one bridge section, but there are 5 verses including the guitar solo.
- IMHO, the upshift modulation is irrelevant to the Major/Minor question and was added in to relieve what otherwise would have been a tedium of too many verses in a row without break.
- The outro, while ending on the root of the Minor, is nonetheless a Major chord.
- On the one hand, if you tally the total number of measures appearing in minor-versus-Major keys, then minor wins out. On the other hand, the Major key is clearly established repeatedly by the strong IV-V-I cadences, whereas the V chord of the minor key appears nowhere at all.
- If you insist on my making a binary decision, I'd hesitantly give it to the minor key "on points" (like a boxing match), but it's kind of moot; I myself gave it to the minor key on those same points when I first wrote this article 10 years ago!
- Don't be fooled or confused. It's the ambiguity per se here that is germane.
- Uncannily, the opening song of Robert Schumann's (1810 - 1856) _Dichterliebe_ (Poet's Love) has a VERY similar tonal design to AILH.
- Schumann's song is called "Im Wunderschoenen Monat Mai" (In the wonderfully-beautiful month of May ..). Schumann's song also creates an overall feeling of being in the relative minor key, even though there is NO FULL CADENCE ever made to the minor key (its V is always left hanging), and his verse section immediately moves to a full cadence in the relative Major. Instead of a Piccardy 3rd ending, Schumann ends the song on V7 of the relative minor; a ballsey move for mid-19th century.
- Anyway, if it's good enough for Robert Schumann ...
Regards,
Alan ([email protected])
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"They tried to fob you off on this musical charlatan,
but *I* gave him the test." 030600#3.2
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Revision History
061489 3.0 Original release
022700 3.1 Expand, revise, and adapt to series template
030600 3.2 Reverse yet again the Major/minor "decision on points," and
add comment re: Schumann Dichterliebe
Copyright (c) 2000 by Alan W. Pollack
All Rights Reserved
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