Good Morning Good Morning

"Good Morning Good Morning"
Song by the Beatles
from the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released 26 May 1967[1]
Recorded 8 and 16 February,
13, 28 and 29 March 1967,
EMI Studios, London
Genre
Length 2:41
2:35 (mono version)
Label Parlophone
Songwriter(s) Lennon–McCartney
Producer(s) George Martin

"Good Morning Good Morning" is a song written by John Lennon[4] (credited to Lennon–McCartney) and recorded by the Beatles, featured on their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Inspiration for the song came to Lennon from a television commercial for Kellogg's Corn Flakes.[4] Another reference to contemporary television was the lyric "It's time for tea and Meet the Wife", referring to the BBC sitcom.[5]

Recording

The basic track was recorded on 8 February 1967, with overdubs on 16 February (bass guitar and lead vocals), 13 March (brass section), 28 March (backing vocals and guitar solo), and 29 March (animal noises).[6] The guitar solo was played by Paul McCartney on a Fender Esquire.[6][7][8] At Lennon's request, George Martin brought in Sounds Incorporated to provide the song's prominent brass backing.[5]

Lennon asked engineer Geoff Emerick to arrange the animal noises heard at beginning (and end) of the song so that each animal heard was one capable of devouring (or frightening) the animal preceding it.[5][7] The final sound effect of a chicken clucking was so placed that it transforms into the guitar on the following track, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)". These animal noises were inspired by the coda of "Caroline, No" that ended The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, one of the main inspirations for this whole album.[9] They begin with the crow of a rooster, while the other animal sounds heard at the end of the song include birds, a cat, a dog, a cow, a horse, a sheep, a lion, an elephant, and a group of bloodhounds accompanying fox hunters on horseback with horns blasting, suggesting that a fox hunt was in progress.

The rapid 16th note bass drum fills were done on two bass drums according to The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn.[10] The length of the mono version of "Good Morning Good Morning" is 2:35, whereas the stereo version (due to a lengthier fade out of animal sounds) runs to 2:41.

For the Beatles' 2006 remix album Love, the horse sounds were mixed into "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"

Rhythm

The song is played at 117 beats per minute, has an unusual rhythmic feel and uses different time signatures. Beats are played in groups of 2, 3 and 4, and time signature changes frequently. Parts with 5
4 and 4
4 bars alternate, with 3
4 transitions.[11] Most of the song uses simple time, where the beats are divided into two, but the middle eight sections use compound time, where the beats are divided into triplets.

The song is divided into seven sections, two of which are repeated once and one twice, in a time-symmetric pattern A, B, C, B, C, B, A (disregarding the fade out of the last bar):

A: 4,4,4,4,4 (introduction: five bars, 20 beats)

B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)
C: 5,5,5,3,4,4,4,4,4,4 (contains refrain: ten bars, 42 beats)
B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)
C: 5,5,5,3,4,4,4,4,4,4 (contains refrain: ten bars, 42 beats)
B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)

A: 4,4,4,4,4,4 (end: six bars, 24 beats, with fade out bar)

This adds up to 64 bars with 260 beats, which at published 117 beats per minute would result in a length of 2:13,333… minutes.[12][13][14]

Cover versions

Personnel

Personnel per Ian MacDonald:[17]

The Beatles
Wind instruments
Production

Notes

  1. ↑ Everett 1999, p. 123. "In the United Kingdom Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band...was rush-released six days ahead of its official date, June 1."
  2. ↑ Unterberger, Richie (2009). "Good Morning, Good Morning". AllMusic. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  3. ↑ Elizabeth Thomson and David Gutman, "The Lennon companion: twenty-five years of comment", ISBN 0-306-81270-3, p.119.
  4. 1 2 Sheff 2000, p. 183.
  5. 1 2 3 Miles 1997, pp. 320–321.
  6. 1 2 Lewisohn 1988, pp. 95, 97, 105–106.
  7. 1 2 Emerick & Massey 2006, pp. 176–179.
  8. ↑ Dowlding 1989.
  9. ↑ Womack, Kenneth (2014). The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four. ABC-CLIO. p. 333. ISBN 978-0-313-39172-9.
  10. ↑ Lewisohn 1988.
  11. ↑ The Beatles – Complete Scores 1993, pp. 335–341.
  12. ↑ George Martin: Summer of Love. The Making of Sgt. Pepper. London, Macmillan, 1994, ISBN 0-333-60398-2. S. 73–75.
  13. ↑ Walter Everett: The Beatles as Musicians. Revolver through the Anthology. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-19-512941-0. S. 114–116.
  14. ↑ Dominic Pedler: The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. London, Omnibus Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7119-8167-1. S. 552 f.
  15. ↑ "Various - Sgt. Pepper... With A Little Help From His Friends (CD, Album) at Discogs". discogs.com. Discogs. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  16. ↑ "Release "Mojo Presents: Sgt. Pepper... With a Little Help From His Friends" by Various Artists - MusicBrainz". musicbrainz.org. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  17. ↑ MacDonald 2005, pp. 234–235.

References

  • Dowlding, William J. (1989). Beatlesongs. New York: Fireside Books. ISBN 0-671-68229-6. 
  • Emerick, Geoff; Massey, Howard (2006). Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 1-59240-179-1. 
  • Everett, Walter (1999). The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver Through the Anthology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512941-0. 
  • Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation (1993). The Beatles – Complete Scores. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard. ISBN 0-7935-1832-6. 
  • Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1. 
  • MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-84413-828-3. 
  • Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6. 
  • Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25464-4. 
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.