I was in 4th grade, and even girls my age were swooning.

I heard it a thousand times a day.

Was “Day Tripper” on the flip side?

Was the flip side of the original Capitol 45.

to the Beatles. I especially react this way to the earlier songs, loved them all but those caused me to enter into something I had never experienced. I was just barely 10 years old when this came out. I had always loved listening to the radio and sang along with all the songs in the 50's and early 60's but when this came out I lost my mind. I was not aware of why or what was going on in the entire country for a while. When the term Beatlemania was coined my friends and I were totally into this band, my father was moaning and groaning about it and we were lost forever. I hear this and it just makes me so happy, it was like I had joined the world with that. LOL, nostalgia is a real mixed bag isn't it! THANK YOU! All the Trump crap just left my mind for a while.

... those people who talk about how they "love" the later Beatles but don't like the early songs leave me scratching my head. Some can be downright snobbish and condescending about it, too. They must not have been there.

-- Mal

The early stuff was much like all that was popular already, they just had that sound that was different and to this day as a professional musician I cannot even tell you what it was. Like all of us, it was probably the combination of personalities that gelled together but it is certainly hard to know. I love it all but maybe those who are much younger just can't get the early years. Whatever, there are music snobs all over. I play classical and I hear all the time from my friends and some of my own family that they are the real musicians because I only play what was written and the, the jazzers create. Playing with 120 different people and making it work is certainly not be less creative, just different. Ah well. I love so many groups and singers that are considered well beneath many of my friends that I have quit caring and just am glad I am able to love more of it than they are.

It was a good time to be young wasn't it? At least for a while.

songs.

Before The Beatles came along, a pop song was usually just two minutes long, with a simple melody, simple lyrics, and the same, unchanged rhythm for the whole song.

A rhythmic break, as when "I Want To Hold Your Hand" slows down suddenly and proceeds: 'And when I touch you I feel happy inside', was either rarely or never encountered in a pop song before then.

Today we don't even notice it; it's just part and parcel of songs by The Beatles and most other popular groups since.

But at the time, it was jarringly groundbreaking.

I never thought to analyze the reason, it was just there.

The "bridge" or "middle eight," as it was called (even when it was not eight bars in length), was a typical feature of pop songs even before the Beatles. I'm running a series of Leiber and Stoller tunes through my head, and they all have bridges... King and Goffin, likewise. Some songs were structured as you say, some featured instrumental breaks (usually sax or guitar solos), and others followed traditional A-A-B-A song form. Lennon and McCartney typically followed song-form. According to this article: http://www.songstuff.com/song-writing/article/aaba-song-form/ , song form dominated pop until the Beatles began to use other forms in their music, post their Invasion.

If one cares to spend an hour with a music professor, here's a link to a pretty good discussion of what made the Boys so hot:

He mentions that, right from the start, they began using innovative chord structures and far more chords than the basic three used in rock and roll heretofore.

In an early article for Mersey Beat, Bob Wooler mused about why the Beatles had taken over the Liverpool music scene (even before they began cutting records). He suggested that it was because they had gotten back to the driving, rocking roots of the music, which in England had become downright tame. Mutatis mutandis, I think this could apply in the USA in early 1964, as driving rock and roll was not dominant on the charts then, nor had been for some time, replaced by softer pop, balladeers, Girl Groups, instrumentals... Rock and Roll had been "going downhill since Buddy Holly died," as the character says in "American Graffiti" (and Don McLean lamented in "American Pie." ) Then the Beatles arrived and punched everybody in the face with some particularly tasty rockers (is there a more perfect rock and roll song than "Please Please Me?"

Not a complete model, certainly, but it might provide some food for thought.

And, if you want to really dive in, here's a link to Alan Pollack's dissections of every song in the Beatles oevre, http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.shtml

-- Mal

Those can have the same rhythm as the main part of the song, just a different chord progression and lyrics that differ from the main verse/chorus set.

I was talking about a complete break in the rhythm. And I pointed out that it existed before The Beatles came on the scene, but that it was characteristic of their songwriting structure.

... that change-up is a characteristic element of Lennon-McCartney tunes, isn't it? I think it must be because both of them loved keeping people off-balance.

-- Mal

Most of us were still feeling shock, depression, even fear. The sheer joy, innocence and simplicity of that song was a tonic; we could even smile again.

Thank you John, Paul, George and Ringo. We loved you back.

another thing I did not think about.

It was sheer joy wasn't it? It was a wave of crazy too. I was too young but as much as I hate to admit it, if I had been old enough to attend a concert I would have been a screaming freak as well. We were in Kansas City less than a week after they performed there. We were walking around downtown, it was still pretty burlesque then, and we went by the hotel they stayed in. Oh I remember it so well. Taking a deep breath thinking "they breathed the same air" and my dad smacking me on the back because he knew what I was doing and thought I was a fool. Oh the days of youthful excitement and those who love to smack you out of it! "They will never last, they will be gone by summer." *snicker*

Possibly the best, not that it's subject to objective measure.

-- Mal

He even wrote a book about it:

http://neveradullmoment1971.com/

I don't know if I agree or disagree, but Hepworth presents a lot of information to chew on about 1971. Joe Bob says, "Check it out."

The Kennedy Assassination was just 2 months previous.

And now every TV set in America was watching teenage pandemonium on Ed Sullivan.

Something had to mend our hearts.

(and they rocked it)

The Singing Nun didn't mend our hearts?

(and we sang that song in elementary French class)

I still think it's a bouncy tune. I wonder how many think the movie was the end of the story and not the tragic real life story.

Those four lads were innovative geniuses! Have loved them from the 1st time I heard this song, and that love increased with every new track they created!

Thanks for posting Floyd!