Common Tones in the Beatles’s “Help”
In my previous post, I talked a bit about the Beatles tune “With A Little Help From My Friends,” and I would like to follow up on that post with a look at yet another song by the Fab Four, their early hit from 1965 entitled “Help.” The constructions of these two songs actually share some interesting similarities, which I hope to show in this post.
The structure of the song “Help” is very straightforward. The song has only two main parts: a verse and a chorus. The song alternates between verse and chorus three times, and that’s pretty much the basic form of the tune. The third verse characteristically has the instrumentation stripped down to add some variety and a break. But otherwise, the song is basically just these two short sections.
Let’s begin by taking a listen to the verse:
| Beatles: “Help” (verse) |
The chord progression in the verse is fairly simple. It begins on A, moves through C# minor, then F# minor, and has a quick G to D to A turnaround at the end (i.e. I, iii, vi, [bVII, IV, I]). The important thing to notice, however, is how those first three chords are tied together. The key note in the melody is a C#, and this C# acts as a common tone between the A, C# minor, and F# minor chords. The vocal line basically just sticks to that C# while it acts as a third, root, and then fifth of the underlying harmonies respectively. In other words, that single note in the melody is a sort of focal hinge off of which the three chords are all able to hang.
Now let’s listen to the chorus, the only other major section of the song:
| Beatles: “Help” (chorus) |
I was having a discussion with a fellow music theory friend a few nights ago, and he brought up this chorus in our talk. He pointed out that the chorus begins on a B minor chord, but yet the first note of the melody in this chorus is a repeated E note in the vocal part. The E against the B minor harmony should, theoretically, be a fairly noticeable dissonance, but it doesn’t necessarily sound all that dissonant. What is it about this chorus, then, that makes some people not really notice what would traditionally be labeled as a dissonance?
My theory friend explained it this way: the melody, which goes E-E-E-E-E-D-C#-B-D-C#-B (and repeats that two more times), sounds like it is clearly in A major; the harmonies, which are B minor, then G major, then E major before the final tonic (ii, bVII, V, I) are also clearly in A major. Therefore, the chorus is basically just a bunch of stuff in A major, not necessarily coordinated but simply happening at the same time.
Maybe I’ve glossed over some finer points in his explanation or perhaps even entirely misrepresented it. In any event, I’d like to explain the chorus another way and also tie it more closely to the verse. The melodic part in the chorus repeats the same phrase three times over changing harmonies. Thus, the melody is a sort of ostinato over the chord changes. Instead of thinking about the chords being the members against which dissonance is reckoned, however, I would like to suggest that the melody is the central focus in this chorus. The first chord, B minor, has some dissonant properties against the melody, which help to move the B minor forward to the G major and eventually to the final E major chord. Actually, the this vocal line really seems to derive from a phrase that sounds natural over a dominant chord of E major and emphasizes the root (E), seventh (D), and fifth (B) of the dominant.
The B minor and G major chords, therefore, are simply extending and prolonging the eventual goal of the dominant chord, E major. The way this happens is through a similar technique as was seen in the verse. The goal note of B in the melody of the chorus now acts as the harmonic hinge. B is the root of B minor, third of G major, and fifth of E major. The chorus thus hangs off this B note in the melody in the same way the verse hangs off the C# note in the melody. These “common tones” are what glue the harmonies together and also tie the verse and chorus together, creating an organicism between the two parts of the form.
As you may remember, organicism is something I discussed in my previous post, too. I would also like to point out another similarity between “Help” and “With A Little Help From My Friends.” In both cases, the set of chords in the chorus is the same set of chords as the verse but just transposed down a step. For example, in “With A Little Help From My Friends,” the verse chords are {E, B, F# minor} and the chorus chords are {D, A, and E}, which is a diatonic tranposition down of a whole step. In “Help,” the common-tone chords in the verse are {A, C# minor, F# minor}. Transpose the set of chords down a diatonic step and you end up with the group of chords in the chorus: {G, B minor, E major}. The order of the chords is rearranged, of course, to make things a little more interesting.
I wonder if it’s only coincidence that the verses and choruses in these songs have similar relationships between the harmonies used in each section. Are there other songs you can think of that share this quality? I do think in the song “Help” we can see a general move of the melodic line from the C# in the verse, through a B in the chorus, and then potentially a final A at the end of the chorus (a Schenkarian reading, perhaps, but I wouldn’t necessarily argue for a Schenkerian analysis of the song). How do you hear the dissonance in the chorus?
June 5th, 2007 at 7:23 am
No doubt there is a mathematical structure to music. But really; Lennon would have said “Huh”? to all that dissection. Writers write what they feel and hear; they don’t calculate.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:28 am
But newmac, what is it that writers feel and hear? Without attempting to answer why certain pieces of music are more successful than others, music theory is just reduced to a system of labels that do not give us any meaningful information.
I think if you follow through my discussion of the chorus in “Help” closely, you’ll find that I am actually showing how simple the structure is. The musical terms may appear complicated to someone not versed in music theory, but they represent simple concepts that any musician can inherently learn and feel without knowing the terminology.
Lennon assuredly may not have consciously constructed this song using the description I have provided. However, Lennon at this point in his life obviously had a highly trained ear, i.e. a refined sense of “feeling” and “hearing.” I am thus arguing that unconsciously, through probably trial and error as well as experience, Lennon can be seen using simple yet elegant musical devices in this song.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 am
I doubt he’d have said, “Huh?” unless it was followed by “Interesting… I didn’t think of that…”
Theory’s goal isn’t necessarily to divine the writer’s compositional processes - it also helps us understand what exactly we’re listening to. The main question here isn’t “Is this why he wrote what he wrote?” but “Is this why we hear it like we hear it?”
Also, I doubt you could really say that writers don’t “calculate” - good songs rarely just pop fully formed out of the guitar. Good songwriting is a continual process of reinventing and reimagining (for a good example, check out Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and then find the YHF demos that are floating around the interweb, and see how much the songs evolved…)
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Chip, you bring up the classic “chicken and egg” of music theory: are we explaining how someone wrote something or how we hear it. Let me extend that by saying that perhaps I am interested in answering neither issue, but rather figuring out how I can use something that was successful in someone else’s song in my own song. I guess that breaks down to the “how we hear it” category maybe.
There is a good quote from Paul McCartney in the 1995 documentary that I am going to steal here. This quote shows, I think, that the Beatles were, in fact, doing a fair amount of calculation (as well as feeling of course):
McCartney: “We were just trying to improve all the time, and we’d listen to something that somebody else had done, and we’d just try and beat it a bit. We’d try and beat what we were doing. And, I mean, by the time we got to something like ‘From Me to You,’ it was nice ’cause the - I remember being very pleased with the chord in the middle, which was different from what [plays piano]. Going to that minor chord there was like, ‘Ooh, you know this is something we haven’t done before.’”
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I realize this thread is old, but I just ran across this site in Irene Jackson’s column in the Muse’s Muse newsletter, and a well written and interesting site it is, too. My take on the “Help” chorus is that the E note doesn’t sound dissonant because the harmonies are just a series of well disguised V chords: E9(no3) (E,B,D,F#); E7b9(no3) (E,B,D,G); and E(7) (E,B,E,G#) (7th with the inclusion of the D in the melody, the second most important note). The bass note leading belies this more complex analysis. Just my take on it.
GR
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Oops, the second of the previous chords should have been E7#9 (E,B,D,Fx).
September 4th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Gene,
That’s a very interesting take you have (kind of jazz-inspired perhaps). I think I agree with you on one level, but I also disagree with you on another.
Your method takes kind of a post-tonal pitch-class-collection approach to the chords. You are correct that - were we to just put all those notes from each chord into a bag - we could rearrange them to get the chords you’ve labeled. But is that how the Beatles conceived of the song, and more importantly, is that how those chords are actually perceived? It’s hard to argue definitively one way or another without more proof. I would agree that all of these chords are extending the dominant harmony in some way; that’s where I’m on your same page.
However, I’m not sure that we hear chords as bags of pitch-classes (in spite of post-tonal theory), especially when other musical factors exist that give strong evidence otherwise. For one, the bass line is really strongly thumping out “root-fifth” on each chord. We can try to turn off our associations with the bass line, but the bass is not just another voice-leading member; the bass is a big deal: it’s one if not “the” major factor in how our ears reckon harmonies I would say.
Moreover, if you listen closely, you can hear the acoustic guitar in the right channel strumming pretty straightforward chords - Bm, G, E. If you play along with a guitar, it works. Also, you’ve cleverly dropped the third from your first two chords (no3) which, while correct with regard to your labels, kind of argues against any sort of recognizable triad. It’s one thing to have a sus4 (no3), but to have a #9 (no3) kind of redefines how chords are categorized. Why aren’t all major chords #9 (no3)? There are a lot of ways to label chords, but some I think are more true to our hearing.
I think maybe you’re overcomplicating the analysis at the expense of the compositional insight. However, I think you’ve taken an amazingly original approach to explaining how this whole section sounds like it’s basically in/on the dominant. My underlying point was to argue against my friend who was saying the melody and harmonies were not coordinated. So, in fact, you’ve given me yet another way to look at the song that comes down against my friend’s theory. Thank you!
Cheers,
Trevor dC
September 4th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Hi Trevor,
Thanks for your response. I’m a music director at a Catholic church and a long-time performing keyboardist/vocalist, and I find these types of discussions very interesting. Your site is quite impressive—along with your accomplishments—and I’ll try to contribute more. I’m wondering, though, what the copyright ramifications are of posting short audio excerpts like you do. I’ve wanted to do this occasionally, myself, but have been reluctant to do so. Maybe you can enlighten me.
Yes, it’s clear that the Beatles didn’t think in terms of my analysis, and I’ll admit the E7#9 is a stretch, since the #9 chord is usually defined by the dissonance between the 3rd and 9th. I’ve used the extended chord analysis only because it gives a clearer picture than the Chord/Bass Note paradigm, especially when the actual bass note differs from the model. However, you’ll have to admit that in pop music today chords frequently aren’t defined by the lower triad, especially the V chord. Examples (in the key of A) are: Bm/E, Bm7/E, and D/E among others; nary a third is to be found though the chord functions intrinsically and exclusively as a dominant chord.
By that standard—though I don’t believe it wasn’t all that common in the mid-sixties—I immediately hear V chord when I hear the repeated E melody against the Bm chord. Now here’s the stretch: you could, of course, think of the G triad as bVII, but why do it since the exact same melodic phrase is again being pounded out, the chord differs by only one note a half-step higher, and the third chord is the traditional dominant triad? It would be incorrect to call the chord an Em7, I think, because the major 3rd is not really being replaced but rather omitted and superseded. If you play an E note either above or below and along with the chromatic line F#, G, G#, the concept is clearly audible.
I believe this is one example among many of the Beatles anticipating a device that was to become commonplace a few years later. George Martin at times must have sat in the studio incredulous and stupefied by what he was hearing!
GR
September 6th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Gene,
You make good points. The D/E chord (in the key of A), for example, is such a classic and recognizable sound. It always reminds me of Carole King or other piano-based songwriters. I basically think of it as a sus4/sus9 chord with a 7. In pop notation, though, it’s more efficient to just write D/E than Esus4/sus9-7. It’s a problem with pop notation in general: it does not really ascribe function to the chord, it just tells you how to play the chord. That’s fine for a performer, but does it really impart any theoretical insight?
I’m getting off topic, though. I think your examples of the Bm/E and Bm7/E are good points regarding chords “without thirds”, but my point is that those chords you posit are all over a bass of E, or at least should be. Counterpoint theory and our best theory of tonal music (as described by Schenker) all express just how important that bass part is in our hearing of chordal function. So I think a Bm/E chord is much, much different than an E/Bm chord or whatever you would label the situation in this Beatles song. If the bass note through this whole section had been an E, then OK, I would buy it. But once again, I think it’s dangerous to take a completely pitch-class approach and ignore the voicings in this style of music. I mean, I really hear that G as a G chord.
I think perhaps I should simplify my original argument. Instead of viewing the note “B” as the focal point through the chorus, it might be more accurate and theoretically correct to view the note “D” as the melodic hinge. That “E” sung over the Bm chord is really just an unprepared suspension (i.e. appoggiatura) to the note “D” that is sung at the end of the verse. The “E” gets embellished a bit with some lower notes but eventually resolves when he sings “Down.” In other words: “HELP me if you can I’m feeling DOWN-ow-own”, where the words in capital letters reflect the location of the structural notes. The E-D appoggiatura works for both the Bm and G chords. Once the E7 chord comes around at the end, the E-D melodic motion is reinterpreted to something more harmonically consonant.
So, to conclude, I don’t think there is any disjunctness or “divorce” between the melody and harmony (as some other folks may have implied). In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The melody and harmony are working very closely together to produce a very characteristic and explainable tonal phenomenon.
Cheers,
Trevor de Clercq