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[Revolver]

I've been learning these two songs on bass, and I really love the chord changes on the songs.  I read a quote about the magic of the chord changes and they are right.  Despite their bubble gum image, these two songs were pretty sophisticated little pop songs.  Especially when compared with what was on the radio with it at the time.


On Hand, I absolutely love the B7 chord during the outro.  It gives a totally different flavor to the chorus, which you've already heard a few times by the time it comes around.  Actually, B7 is also the chord that I think John said "makes the song' during the verses, as well.

On She Loves You, I know it's rather cliched, but the G6 on that last chord is just great.

Both great songs and, when you look at their structure, far from the bubble gum songs that most Beatle haters would have you believe.

[Jonno]

You're damn right, Revolver. A lot of people these days seem to think The Beatles started off as a corny pop group, then got good later on. I think The Beatles were geniuses for the way they did really unusual things and made them sound natural. Part of it is how they hammered their chord changes home like they were playing a standard rock 'n' roll tune.

[Revolver]

Right on target!!!!

The Beatles were innovators from the very beginning.  The problem is that most people think that the early Stones, Who, Hendrix, ect... stuff was around the same time as the early Beatles stuff.  What they fail to realize is that the Beatles first songs and albums were 2 years (at least) earlier than the first big hits of these other bands.  Therefore, if the early Stones and Who sound a bit more "advanced" than the early Beatles (from a songwriting standpoint, they weren't, but people confuse volume and feedback with complexity), it is only because those later groups had the benefit of taking the best of what the Beatles had done and applying it to their own sound.

It is more fair to compare the early Beatles to their contemporaries.  Safe to say, there was nothing CLOSE to She Loves You or I Want To Hold Your Hand on the radio at that time.  Maybe, MAYBE some of the early Motown compares, but other than that, it was a wasteland.