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NUMBER 77: "Because" (Lennon – October 1, 1969)
Abbey Road CD Version – Track 8 (2:50)
YouTube Video
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (sans footnotes/references) –
"Because" is a song written by John Lennon (credited to Lennon–McCartney) and recorded by the Beatles in 1969. It features a prominent three-part vocal harmony by Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison, overdubbed twice to make nine voices in all. It first appeared on Abbey Road (1969), immediately preceding the extended medley on side two of the record.
Composition
The song begins with a distinctive electric harpsichord intro played by producer George Martin. The harpsichord is joined by Lennon's guitar (mimicking the harpsichord line) played through a Leslie speaker. Then vocals and bass guitar enter.
"Because" was one of few Beatles recordings to feature a Moog synthesiser, played by George Harrison. It appears in what Alan Pollack refers to as the "mini-bridge”, and then again at the end of the song. The group were among the first in contemporary rock and roll to experiment with a Moog, though the instrument had been used before (notably by bands such as the Doors, Simon & Garfunkel and the Monkees, whose "Daily Nightly" was the first rock recording to feature the Moog).
According to Lennon, the song's close musical resemblance to Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" was no coincidence: "Yoko was playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' on the piano ... I said, 'Can you play those chords backwards?', and wrote 'Because' around them. The lyrics speak for themselves ... No imagery, no obscure references."
Musical structure
With regard to the controversy, Lennon initiated by citing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" as an inspiration, musicologist Walter Everett notes that "both arpeggiate triads and seventh chords in C# minor in the baritone range of a keyboard instrument at a slow tempo, move through the submediant to ♭II and approach vii dim 7/IV via a common tone." One similarity is that "Because", which also is in C#, opens with a ♭VI (A chord on ..."cause"), moves to a i chord (C#m on "wind") then the ♭VI7 (A7 on "high") before shifting to a ♭ii dim (D dim) on "love is old love is new" (IV-F#). The third measure of the "Moonlight Sonata" does have this ♭VI (A chord) to ♭II (D/F# chord) move, but Dominic Pedler notes that this is not an inspiration happening through reversal as Lennon suggested.
"Because" concludes with a vocal fade-out on D dim, which keeps listeners in suspense as they wait for the return to the home key of C#. Mellers states that: "causality is released and there is no before and no after: because that flat supertonic is a moment of revelation, it needs no resolution." The D dim chord (and its accompanying melodic F natural) lingers until they resolve into the opening Am chord of "You Never Give Me Your Money" so that the D dim in retrospect was operating as a vii dim 7 of Am.
The main recording session for "Because" was on 1 August 1969, with vocal overdubs on 4 August, and a double-tracked Moog synthesizer overdub by Harrison on 5 August. As a result, this was the last song on the album to be committed to tape, although there were still overdubs for other incomplete songs. This approach took extensive rehearsal, and more than five hours of extremely focused recording, to capture correctly. McCartney and Harrison both said it was their favorite track on Abbey Road. "They knew they were doing something special," said engineer Geoff Emerick, "and they were determined to get it right." Versions of the song, without instrumentation, can be found on 1997's Anthology 3 and 2006's Love. Both versions highlight the three part harmony by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, though the Love version is slowed down and includes overdubbed birdsong.
Personnel
John Lennon – triple-tracked lead harmony vocals (middle register), guitar
Paul McCartney – triple-tracked second harmony vocals (high register), bass
George Harrison – triple-tracked third harmony vocals (low register), Moog synthesiser
George Martin – electric spinet Baldwin harpsichord
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