Music Monday: I Call Your Name
This song has been buzzing around my head recently for no particular reason so I figured I would do a Music Monday on it and get it out of my system. Some people pay for therapy; I write blog posts.
“I Call Your Name” is one of those more obscure Beatles songs. Obscure is not a term often used of Beatles’ songs, but there are some in their repertoire that you have to be at least a few tiers down from the tip of the Beatles’ iceberg to know about. And trust me, that Beatles iceberg is deep and the abyss is wide and uncomfortably welcoming. But I digress…
The song was written mostly by John Lennon back before the Beatles were a thing, and he gave it to Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas to record in 1963 (after the Beatles were a thing and a big enough thing that people wanted to record their songs). They put it on the B-Side of their single “Bad to Me,” a song also written mainly by John, though probably a bit more commercial-sounding than “I Call Your Name.” However, John thought the song deserved better than a B-Side, and he didn’t much like Billy J.’s arrangement of it, so the Beatles recorded it.
The plan was to include the song in the upcoming Beatles movie, “A Hard Day’s Night.” However, the song was nixed from the project supposedly because the movie’s director, Richard Lester, thought it too similar to a song they recorded a few days previously, “You Can’t Do That.” The latter song also ended up not being included in the movie, but it did appear on side 2 of the UK “A Hard Day’s Night” album. Side 2 of the US version has the movie instrumental score so neither song would have appeared anyway. As for “I Call Your Name,” it was released in the UK about a month before the “A Hard Day’s Night” soundtrack album on an E.P. called “Long Tall Sally.” In the US, it was released as a track on “The Beatles’ Second Album,” which came out a few months before the “Long Tall Sally” E.P. in the UK. Interestingly, the US album also contains “You Can’t Do That.”
In the UK, “I Call Your Name” kind of faded into obscurity until 1981 when EMI, their record company, re-released all the Beatles’ E.P.s in a nice presentation box. (I was given this box set as a Christmas or birthday gift sometime around 1981 or 1982–that was where I first heard the song.) It was elevated further out of the dark recesses of forgotten Beatles tunes in 1988 when it was included in the “Past Masters” collection of non-album singles, B-Sides, and odd tracks.
So, why has this song been in my head recently? I really don’t know. Maybe I heard a snatch of it on YouTube or something and it hung around. Whatever the reason, the song has some unusual features that are worth discussing.
While the Beatles wrote and performed their fair share of straight-forward songs (three-chord tunes, or basic 12-bar blues progressions, for example), they were experimenting with harmony well before “Sgt. Pepper” and what some would call their “weird” or “experimental” period. Listen to “P.S. I Love You,” their first B-Side in 1962, or “If I Fell” from “A Hard Day’s Night” for proof of this. “I Call Your Name,” while sounding like standard-fair 60s pop, has a fair few twists and turns.
The first thing to notice is the chord progression. It’s in E major and uses a lot of 7ths (“dominant sevenths” for the pedants among you). Not particularly unusual. But it goes from E7 to C#7 (oh… that’s unexpected!), then to F#7, then to B7, and back to E7. At the end of the verse, while you might have expected the F#7-B7-E again, you actually get an F#7-Am-E. Do I see a raised eyebrow? Indeed. Lennon’s being clever!
The bridge section twists things about a little, starting with an A7 but then going to a C#m. John then takes us to an F#7, and then to… no, not an Am, but a C7 to the B7. He certainly could have used the F#7-Am-B7 trick again, but he chose to use Am’s relative major to change things up again–and also he probably thought the C sounded better here than the Am.
A subtle oddity I noticed that may have passed John by is the fact that he creates a deliberate dissonance between the vocal line and the underlying harmonic structure in the second line of the verse. Here it is written out:
What’s odd about that? Well, those first few words are sung over a C#7. The second note in the C# triad is an F. That eighth note on “to” is an E. In other words, he’s singing the tune as if the chord was a C#m while quite clearly playing a C# major. Very rock-n-roll!
Finally, we have the instrumental break which switches to cut time. This may have been the Beatles’ earliest attempt to play ska, which would be quite revolutionary for 1964. In any case, the apparent doubling of the tempo with John’s rhythm guitar emphasising the up-stroke on the second and fourth beat creates the kind of disjointed effect they would be better known for three years later. Ringo, to his credit, carries the beat flawlessly through the transitions in and out of this section. Why do this? Perhaps it felt appropriate for a break-up song to have a broken break in the middle? Or perhaps they just wanted to change it up a bit. My guess is the latter. Maybe John gave a reason and it’s documented in a book I haven’t read yet…?
The fade out is a simple A to E, nothing really weird there. But at the end of a minor musical two minute roller coaster, the listener may be ready for something a bit more solid.
If you’ve never heard the song before, here it is (audio only):
If you’d like to play along at home, here’s a pdf of the lead sheet. This is just the verse and bridge. George plays an interesting little riff under the bridge section (perhaps the first appearance of his 12 string Rickenbacker) that looks like this:
And the introduction looks something like this:
Do you have thoughts to share about this song? What’s your favorite lesser-known Beatles song? Let’s discuss in the comments!
