Notes on "Lovely Rita" (LR)

KEY	E Major (with an ending in a minor?!)
METER	4/4
FORM	Intro -> Verse -> Bridge -> Verse -> Verse (piano solo) ->
			Bridge -> Verse -> Outro (w/complete ending)

GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST

Style and Form

- Talk about your changes of pace; by track 10, can you remember even if you try hard (ah, ah ... no peeking), when was the last time you heard something even approximating explicitly "rock"-like music on this album? Especially following the likes of WYWY and WISF (not to mention BFTBOMK, SLH, et al), this tongue-in-cheek tale of work-a-day floating lust on the curbside is very much welcome by the time it now appears.

- It's got an unusual form -- we haven't seen one this difficult to call since, perhaps, IWBL. The issue here isn't so much one of where to parse the section boundaries as much as it is one of how to characterize the sections *labels*. What I decided to call the "Verse" can arguably be labelled as a Refrain, except that the words are different each time except for the opening line. Similarly, I've called labelled the intervening section as a "bridge" because of its wandering harmonic character; again, the words change each time. Yet, some peopl might be more comfortable labelling *it* as a Verse, as long as you call the other section a Refrain. Beyond a point, it's a matter of semantics more than anything else. One thing's for sure: I think the ordering of the sections still comes out the same.

Melody and Harmony

- There's a large quotient of chord root movement by 5ths and 4ths which is very much at the heart of what gives the song its strong transitive sense of kinetic, physical action being expended. We even have the familiar "Hey Jude" progression in prominent evidence!

- The bridge section uses the so-called non-diatonic circle of fifths to stretch the harmonic plane almost to the point of breaking before it gives up and abruptly returns to the home key, creating those very much Beatlesque chromatic false relations in its wake. Tech Support note: the "diatonic" circle of fifths using only chords that are indigenous to the home key so that it cycles right back to I in the space of 7 chords:

	I->IV->VII half-dim.->iii->vi->ii->V->I
E:	E  A   d#              g#  c#  f#  B  E

	E  A  D  G  C  F  Bb Eb  Ab  Db  Gb/F#  B  E

Arrangement

- The arrangement is surrealistically traditional, and in keeping with the tone established for the rest of the album, it features and almost wall-to-wall overlay of special effects. I'll spare you one of my slavish detailed trackings for today, but I encourage you to keep your ears open for examples of the following:

1. - The main vocal treated with a kind of ADT that makes it sound "peculiarly" *single* rather than "normally" double tracked.

2. - Stray spoken comments on the backing track; is it a matter of hidden messages, sloppy work habits, or a desire to contrive a sense of informal live performance?

3. - An electronically altered if not completely synthesized "kazoo."

4. - Backing vocals of an ethereally far-away pristine sweetness.

5. - Heavy breathing the likes of which would have been equally at home on "Day Tripper" as it is here.

SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH

Intro

- Parsing it in fast tempo, the outro weighs in as an eight-measure section in which the same phrase is repeated twice:

	------------------------------ 2X -------------------------------
	|B	|-	|A	|-	|E	|-	|B	|-	|
E:	 V		 IV		 I		 V

- The texture is steadily thickened by staggered entrances. At the very opening you can actually savor the strumming of the acoustic guitar before Paul's lead vocal, drums, and backing vocals are added in sequence.

- The harmonic shape of this section is convergent on the home key.

Verse

- The verse is eight measures and is built of two four-measure phrases:

	|E	|D   A	|E	|B	|c#	|F#	|B	|-	|
	 I  flat-VII IV  I	 V	 vi	 V-of-V  V

- In contrast to the intro, both phrases here converge toward V. The predominance of root movement by fourth of fifth is manifested in the first phrase by the Hey Jude progression, and in the second phrase by the interpolation of the secondary dominant chord.

- The verse which precedes the piano solo is prolonged by what one of my teaches, George Rochberg, would call an "harmonic envelope" of the V chord; don't let all those 9/11/13 passing dissonances fool you into thinking it's anything other than that.

Bridge

- The bridge is the most radical of the sections here, introducing uneven phrases as well as the non-diatonic cycle of fifths trick. You'd expect this bridge to be 16 measures long, instead of the 14 that it actually is. The sung phrases are essentially an identical AA couplet, but the two measures of "This Boy" cliche are included only the second time around.

	|E	|A   	|D	|G	|E   	|B	|
	 I	 IV    flat-VII flat-III I	 V
	|E	|A   	|D	|G	|E   	|B	|E   c#	|f#  B	|
	 I	 IV    flat-VII flat-III I	 V	 I   vi  ii  V

- Those final couple measures at the end of each sung phrase here are the only place in the song where the rhythmic emphasis moves from being exclusively on the syncopated 3rd beat of every measure to fall, albeit temporarily, with equal four-square empahasis on 1 and 3.

- Also no the marrcas being carefully saved for the *second* phrase in each bridge.

Piano Solo

- I strongly suspect that this solo is not only played by George Martin but also recycles the "In My Life" trick of recording it played an octave lower at half speed in order to sound in normal range but at close to humanly impossible speed on playback.

- Only this time the finishing scale flourish is also upside down :-)

Outro

- The outro takes up a surprising almost one-third of the duration of the piece.

- It starts off with a reprise of the two-phrase intro, scored with increasing complexity in the vocal parts.

- Then, in a rather unprecedented move, it shifts into an extended 20-odd measure long improvised vamp, the jazzy harmonic content of which is easily boiled down to yet another harmonic envelope; this one a i->iv->i cadence in the key of a minor.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

- Rather a non-sequitor of an ending. And in the meanwhile, the Boys in the backroom are having a grand old time making funny noises and saying rude things with the sound turned way up for a change.

(Alan later changed his mind, and wrote an extended commentary on the outro at the beginning of the Good Morning, Good Morning note)

Regards,
Alan ([email protected])
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"... the little white boook."  					042396#115
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                Copyright (c) 1996 by Alan W. Pollack
                          All Rights Reserved

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