The Black Dyke Mills Band, with Paul and Martha.

It seems a long time since we started this alphabet, so I suppose we are in the last couple of laps of the whole thing. But there is still a lot to discuss before we get to the end, and T is an especially interesting letter. I started, as I usually do, by looking at all the Beatles songs that begin with the letter T. And my favourite on first reading the list is “Ticket to Ride.” It is an exceptional and highly original composition and a beautifully arranged and produced Beatles record.

I distinctly remember when Paul wrote it. It is one of the songs I was lucky enough to hear the day it was completed. He played “Ticket to Ride” for me and sang me some examples of little guitar licks that he was planning on adding. And those twisty, bendy guitar phrases, which became Paul’s guitar part, create several of the very cool surprises contained in this arrangement and this record. George’s basic (and incredibly catchy) guitar pattern kicks things off with that great Rickenbacker twelve-string sound, Ringo’s opening fill (pretty much just a press roll) and his whole drum pattern are both brilliantly original—so that by the time we get to Paul’s surprise guitar licks it has been one exciting change after another. I remember him composing and practising them at home on his hollow-body Epiphone Casino and getting the bends just right. And finally, the totally unexpected double-time ending wraps it all up perfectly. Three minutes of extraordinary creativity and innovation. The Beatles’ recollections in interviews of exactly who invented which section do not necessarily coincide, but perhaps that is the point. At this stage, their musical genius was collective as well as individual, and so exactly who brought what to the table does not even really matter—it is the extraordinary and everlasting music that emerged at the end of the process that counts. “Ticket to Ride” is one of my favourite Beatles records, certainly my favourite T song.

I usually try not to play favourites, but looking at the T list, I find myself picking them instinctively. My second choice is the George Harrison song “Taxman.” George was lamenting the outrageous tax rates in Britain at the time, and it is true to say that “there’s one for you, nineteen for me” was in fact the top tax rate in Britain back then—referring to the fact that there were twenty shillings in a (pre-decimalization) pound, so this was a 95 percent tax on the top income bracket. It was no wonder that some people got a little bit depressed about it. George includes specific references to Mr. Wilson, who was Harold Wilson, the Labour Party prime minister, and Mr. Heath, who was Edward Heath, the Conservative Party leader, who would later become prime minister himself. They led opposing political parties, but they both believed in heavy taxation of people making lots of money. George was one of those people, and he didn’t like it.

So we move on to my number-three Beatles song beginning with T. This is one I apparently like more than the composer did. When John Lennon wrote “Tell Me Why,” he looked upon it as a bit of a throwaway. Perhaps it is autobiographical—I mean, maybe John and Cynthia were having a row or something, and it had to do with that. Or maybe he just wrote it as a generic song. Who knows? Anyway, John did not think much of it, but I like it. It ended up, of course, in A Hard Day’s Night as one of the “live” performances in that movie—actually they were lip-synching to a pre-recorded version.

“Tell Me Why” was recorded on February 27, 1964, in the same session as “And I Love Her” and “If I Fell.” Not a bad day’s work, one would have to say—three really good tracks in one session. Oddly enough, the version of “Tell Me Why” in the movie is a different vocal take than the one on the record, though I do not know why that decision was made. So when they were doing that “live” scene in A Hard Day’s Night, they were lip-synching to a different vocal take than the one they had chosen for the record. But it is a good moment in the movie, regardless of which take was used.

I could go on forever finding great T songs from the Beatles. There are plenty of them. But as long as we are addressing that letter, I would like to focus on something completely different: time signatures. I am going to try not to be too didactic and boring here, but I probably should explain what a time signature is. Music has both rhythm and melody; the melody part of any song consists of the notes one is playing or singing, and the rhythm aspect consists of when one plays or sings them and for how long each note is held. For convenience, it is customary to think of music in counted bars and giving those bars a time signature. The time signature is how many beats of whatever duration there are in that bar and how the defined notes fit into those beats, not to be confused with the tempo (how fast or slow those bars are to be counted and played), which is a separate consideration.

Now, most rock and roll songs are in 4/4 time. The first number means there are four beats in a bar. The second number means that these beats are quarter notes. The count is a simple one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. That’s your standard rock and roll beat. That’s 4/4, and it’s never better exemplified than by Chuck Berry, who wrote so many great 4/4 songs, and the Beatles recorded several of them. Beats 1 and 3 are called downbeats (1 is the downbeat of the whole bar), but the magic of the groove lies in the backbeats (2 and 4). As Chuck Berry says (when defining “rock and roll music”), “It’s got a backbeat you can’t lose it.”

Now, 4/4 is not the only possible time signature; there are multiple variations. It is just the most common one in rock and roll. In fact, I do find myself wondering if Chuck Berry ever wrote a song that was not in 4/4, straight rock and roll time.

The second most popular time signature in music is 3/4. There are three beats in every bar, which means it goes one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. Of course, that sounds like a waltz because all waltzes are based on this signature. The Beatles wrote several songs in 3/4; “She’s Leaving Home” is a good example. Johann Strauss, of course, had a series of giant waltz hits in 3/4 time. I’m sure “The Blue Danube” would have been top of the dance charts forever, if they’d had them back then in Vienna—that is an eternal 3/4 hit if ever there was one. There are variations on the waltz time of 3/4; some songs are written in 6/8, six short beats (eighth notes) in every bar—“Baby’s in Black” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” are both normally transcribed in 6/8 or even in 12/8 (pretty much the same thing as two 6/8 bars at a time), as are “This Boy,” “Oh! Darling,” and “Norwegian Wood.” All these time signatures have the same waltzing flavour—in every case (as you dance), you can count along in 3 or 6 or 12, and they all work. Try to do so in 4, and you will fall over in no time!

The Beatles also sang quite a few 3/4 songs that they did not write. An interesting one is “A Taste of Honey.” It is very clearly a waltz in the verse (“I dream of your first kiss, and then…”), but when it gets to the bridge, something unexpected happens. You will notice that when Paul sings, “I will return, yes, I will return,” the song goes into 4/4 time and sounds really cool doing it. And then it goes back to 3/4 for the next verse. If you count along, you’ll notice that it starts very clearly in 3/4, and then suddenly it changes to 4/4. The Beatles used this very same trick in a song they wrote a couple of years later, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The verses are in 3/4 and the chorus is in 4/4.

I hope you don’t find all this stuff about time signatures too boring. But I confess that I find it musically and mathematically fascinating. And I should point out, by the way, that Western music has the simplest time signatures of all. When you get into Indian and Asian music, the time signatures can get far more intricate. There are all kinds of crazy fifteen-beat bars and weird stuff going on that is really hard to count and figure out, unless you were brought up listening to that kind of music. Perhaps that is why it was George Harrison who wrote the Beatles song with the most time signature changes and the most confusing ones, because he loved and understood Indian music. “Here Comes the Sun” keeps very odd time. It is usually written out with 2/4 bars, 3/8 bars, 5/8 bars, and they’re all kind of muddled up. If you try to count in a normal way, you’ll get really confused. But it is such a good song, and I think that this rhythmic confusion is part of its charm and brilliance. Indeed, it keeps your brain on its toes. The next time you listen to this innovative and remarkable song, see if you can figure out the time. It is harder than you think.

Talking about weird mixed time signatures, another Beatles song worth mentioning is “Good Morning Good Morning.” The “good morning, good morning” part, that’s all normal 4/4 time. But the verses (“Nothing to do to save his life”) are in 5/4 time, five beats per bar, and then the song returns to 4/4 and stays there through the bridge (“Everybody knows there’s nothing doing”) before jumping back to 5/4 for the next verse. It is really amazing what John did there.

I have two more examples of the Beatles’ excellent work in unusual time signatures. First is “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.” There are bars of 3/4 (our good old favourite waltz time), bars of 4/4, and bars of 2/4. The shifting time signatures make the song fun to listen to because you don’t quite know where the time is going, but it feels really good. Happiness is certainly a great time signature, even if “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” is a doubtful proposition.

I now come to one final interesting time signature that the Beatles used, and this one is probably the most famous: “All You Need Is Love.” One cannot help but notice that the chorus section is totally normal, in 4/4 time, as one can discover by singing or humming it. But when John gets to the verse (“There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done”), one gets this cool feeling that a beat is missing every now and then. There are bars of four beats alternating with bars of three beats, so the count is essentially in 7/4, strange but fascinating. And then when the song returns to the chorus, it moves straight ahead in 4/4, the iconic lyric of the title taking over in all its declaratory and dithyrambic joy.

This concludes Professor Peter Asher’s lecture on time signatures. I hope you find some of this stuff as interesting as I do.

The letter T also, of course, stands for quite a few significant musical instruments that the Beatles used and loved. One was the trumpet, and while the most excellent example of a great trumpet solo on a Beatles record is without doubt on “Penny Lane,” trumpets are also a significant part of every brass section or orchestra playing those brilliant George Martin arrangements. The horn sections on “Got to Get You into My Life,” “Martha My Dear,” “All You Need Is Love,” and more all rely heavily on the power, drama, and musical flexibility of the trumpet.

Another T instrument that found its way onto several Beatles songs is the tabla, a small Indian hand drum that is a key element in most Indian music. George Harrison was very fond of the tabla, which is the instrument responsible for maintaining the unfamiliar time signatures in Indian music that I mentioned before. Another interesting thing is that Geoff Emerick, the Beatles’ engineer, miked the tabla very close, the same way he miked Ringo’s drums, and the Indian musicians were astonished by the sound he got out of it because they were more accustomed to miking all the instruments at a normal distance. But, as Geoff knew, when you mike something really close you get a lot more low end and a lot more impact. The tabla is a key element in George’s song “Within You Without You,” and it was probably the most powerful recorded tabla anyone had ever heard up to that point.

In talking about instruments and the Beatles, it becomes increasingly clear that their musical curiosity was never confined to guitars and drums alone. One of Paul McCartney’s great interests was in brass bands, which is not surprising for someone who grew up in Liverpool. In the north of England, there is a tradition of old-school brass bands, using some of the same instruments as American marching bands but with less percussion and less boisterous arrangements. Each factory and mill used to have its own brass band, and major competitions were held—the grand final often being held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. It was a major event. These competitions still take place, but many of the sponsoring factories are gone, and some of the bands with them. There is a movie called Brassed Off, starring Ewan McGregor, which provides an excellent sense of that wonderful music, that culture, and the sadness of its inevitable decay in the face of economic decline, Thatcherism, and other political and social changes—but the music and the best of the bands continue to survive.

In 1968, just as Apple Records was starting, Paul was asked to write and record a theme tune for a television show called Thingumybob, and he had the excellent idea that it should be a brass band piece. So, he wrote an instrumental and named it after the TV show, thus bringing it into our T world for discussion. My colleagues and I set about looking for the best brass band in the land, and when we studied the results of the recent brass band competitions, the clear winner was the Black Dyke Mills Band, sponsored by the factory of John Foster & Son in Yorkshire. We arranged a recording session at a local hall where the band had recorded before, and we all drove up there. When I say “all,” it was Paul McCartney; myself; the brilliant and legendary Derek Taylor, who was the head of press for the Beatles organization; Tony Bramwell, another key Apple employee; a reporter called Alan Smith; and Paul’s dog, Martha. The session went extremely well—the band more than lived up to their winning reputation and were very excited to be working closely with Paul as he produced the session with his usual expertise and charm, and I did whatever I could to help. He recorded “Thingumybob,” the song he had written specifically for the band, and he also recorded them playing a brass band version of “Yellow Submarine” as a B-side, which is also well worth hearing.

We were very happy with the way the session went, and we headed back to London full of excitement. It was on that return journey that a series of events took place which have been written about quite a bit and have become almost legendary in a weird way. We were driving back, and we decided to take a detour off the M1 motorway, which had been the first full-length motorway built in England. We were all hungry, and I studied the map in search of a location for lunch. I chose this village called Harrold, spelled with two R’s, because I liked the idea of a village that had a person’s name.

We drove to Harrold to see what we could find, but when our driver inquired at a couple of pubs there, he learned that none were serving food. Finally, we were driving down the street (in this big black Rolls-Royce limousine, looking just a little bit obvious), and we saw a man cutting his hedge. We stopped and asked him for some advice, and he actually invited us into his home. He was quite curious about us, and once he realized he was inviting a Beatle plus entourage into his home, his fascination and incredulity naturally grew. I won’t bother you with the whole long story, but suffice to say we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and the whole of the evening in the village of Harrold, in a couple of people’s houses and a couple of pubs. At one point, Paul sat at a pub piano playing “Hey Jude,” which he had just written, and which no one had heard before, along with various other Beatles songs. Some other villagers came over, and a grand time was had by all. It was an extraordinary night. And of course it was the end to an extraordinary day, which had begun with our recording of “Thingumybob” with the Black Dyke Mills Band. For a more extensive and detailed version of this story, I highly recommend the account in Derek Taylor’s brilliant book As Time Goes By—an account made all the more vivid and impressive by the fact that Derek had taken a modest dose of LSD as the day began.

While we are on the subject of lesser-known compositions, there are very few Lennon-McCartney songs that were actual flops, but one of them was “Tip of My Tongue,” which John and Paul wrote for Tommy Quickly, a T song for a T artist. If you can find it, you’ll see that it’s not bad at all, but it has to be said it was not a hit.

But enough obscurity. Let’s end this chapter by talking about a couple of great Beatles songs that begin with the letter T. Let us end, in other words, as we began.

First up is “Tell Me What You See.” It is a terrific song. Paul sings and plays bass and electric piano. John plays tambourine as well as playing the guitar and singing. George plays a guiro, which is a part of the Latin percussion family—a lozenge-shaped hollow wooden tube which has a series of grooves in the surface. One plays it by scraping that surface with a thin stick. Ringo is playing the drums and also the claves, another Latin American instrument, a pair of short wooden sticks that one taps together. In Cuban music (itself extremely important and influential in so many other genres of music), the pattern played by the claves (itself known as “the clave”) can define the rhythmic foundation of an entire piece—in pop music the instrument is more often used as decoration and to provide rhythmic variation by filling some of the empty spots in the basic 4/4 pattern—just as Ringo does so expertly on “Tell Me What You See.”

Some of the song’s lyrics are reminiscent of a religious motto that had hung on the wall of John Lennon’s childhood home, the one he shared with his aunt Mimi. “However black the clouds may be, in time they’ll pass away. Have faith and trust and you will see God’s light make bright your day,” which bears a substantial resemblance to the lyrics of that song. John collected brilliant influences from wherever he was, whatever he heard, whatever he read, and added them into his writing, as so many great writers do.

Let us close our chapter with a nod to another of my favourite T songs, “Things We Said Today.” One of the remarkable things about this track is that it starts off in a minor key (“You say you will love me”), but when we get to the bridge, it suddenly shifts into a major key (“Me, I’m just the lucky kind”), which makes for a really happy moment. I love that—a simultaneous and joyous change both lyrically and musically.