Notes on "Another Girl" (AG)

KEY A Major

METER 4/4

FORM Intro -> Verse -> Verse -> Bridge -> Verse -> Bridge -> Verse -> Outro

GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST

Style and Form

- If you make the effort to get beyond the pedestrian lyrics and the by-today's-standards embarrassing visual background given this song in the _Help!_ film (Paul out on a beach holding a woman sideways and 'playing' her like some kind of anthropomorphic bass guitar -- or do I misremember it ?), you find here a song that is a veritable cross-section of the tricks and trademarks of the Beatles to this point of their career.

- We also find in this song yet another example of John's cross-influence on Paul. Though the influence in this case is not as obvious on the surface of things as it is in the case of, say, "Paperback Writer" and "Rain", the parallels between "Another Girl" and "You're Going To Lose That Girl" (YGTLTG) are as striking as they are surprising, once they've been pointed out to you. - The form sounds subtly more unusual than it actually is because of the extremely refrain-like final phrase of the verse section. The last time we had seen this effect, way back in this series YGTLTG and "It Won't Be Long" (IWBL), it had thrown us off guard quite a bit. Once you parse this phrase as part of the verse proper, the form suddenly reveals itself as one of the standard forms, with two-verses, two-bridges, and only one verse intervening. The use of such a pseudo-refrain, though, especially when it also appears as the song's introductory section, does have a unique the power to, if not outright confuse, make a formalistically fluid impression.

Melody and Harmony

- The melody makes prominent thematic use of downward chromatic scale fragments and a certain amount of noodling around the same few notes in a constricted pitch range; *both* Beatles trademarks.

- Although the song is hardly a 12-bar blues ditty in terms of chords, tune, or phrasing, the melodical stress on the flat 3rd (C natural) and flat 7th (G natural) scale degrees projects bluesy feel overall.

- The verses rely entirely on I, IV, V, and the flat-VII deployed simply as a neighboring chord between two instances of I. The bridge, though, features an unusual (in context of the Beatles) full-blown modulation to the key of C Major whose relationship to the home key is that of "relative Major of the parallel minor"; the latter being one of this songs principal and unmistakable connections with YGTLTG.

- The emphasis on the melodic flat 3rd is sufficiently stronger than average here to create a Major/minor ambiguity regarding the mode of the home key that is somewhat reminiscent of "I'll Be Back." The effect is especially noticeable where the music returns to A Major at the end of the bridge, and makes you wonder in retrospect if, in the verses, it really was only the melody and not the chords too performed in the minor mode; what do the chord books say there ? Is the first chord A Major or minor ?

Arrangement

- Paul is double tracked on the lead vocal with the familiar italicizing effect of the backing voices joining him on the recurring title phrase.

- George supplies notable guitar fills, the frequency and raucousness of which both increase over the course of the song.

SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH

Intro

- The song opens vocally with absolutely no instrumental cue, yet another affinity with John's YGTLTG and IWBL.

- The intro turns out to anticipate the final phrase of the verse section. It's a phrase whose length comes out to be closer to five than four measures; at the very least, it ends on the downbeat of the fifth measure. A side effect of this peculiarity is that the phrase tends to suggest an ellision or overlap with the beginning of whatever follows it whenever it appears:

|Verse --> |A |D |A |D |A ... A: I IV I IV I

Verse

- The sixteen measure verse has a phrasing pattern of AABC and sounds almost like a non-traditional 12-bar form plus short refrain:

------------------------------- 2X ------------------------------ |A |G |A |D | I flat-VII I IV |D |- |- |E | IV V |A |D |A |D | I IV I IV

- The IV chord which gets sustained through four measures that *don't* exactly coincide with where the phrase divisions lie provides a good example of how harmonic rhythm can be used to strong, albeit subliminal effect.

Bridge

- This eight-measure section sounds as though entered as an ellided, directed extension of the 'refrain':

|C |G |C |G |C |E |A |E | I V I V I a:III V I V (surprise!)

- The music briefly modulates to the key of C Major before it pivots back to A. The pivot in this case relies on tricking you into expecting a return to a minor with the A Major chord then coming as a surprise twist.

- The pivot *into* the modulation is interesting; forcing you, as a listener to hear the final D chord in the preceding verse punning itself as both IV in the home key as well as V-of-V in the new key, the latter not being resolved until two measures into the bridge.

- As is so often the case, the bridge provides melodic contrast with the verses in the way that the erstwhile noodling within a small range is reaplaced here by an extended arch shape which supplies at its zenith the unique melodic high point of the piece.

Outro

- The outro is a simple extension of the verse ending with the the title phrase repeated a canonical three times.

- The trailing guitar lick at the very end is a novel touch that helps unify the song overall from the way in which it carries forward both the motif of the ubiquitous guitar fills and the blusey undercurrent.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

- This song may be far from what you'd call one of Paul's career highlights but you've got to admire his craftmanship here even if the material itself is less than entirely distinguished.

- You may want to quibble with Paul from time to time over whether or not you think he exerts a sufficiently discriminating filter on the supply of new ideas and directions which pop into his head. But in terms his facility in the developing of such ideas and his seemingly casual and second-nature mastery of technique, you can only be amazed; maybe :-)


Regards,
Alan (awp@bitstream.com *OR* uunet!huxley!awp)


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"Give 'em a pull."						122292#72
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                Copyright (c) 1992 by Alan W. Pollack
                          All Rights Reserved

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Ook op Help!:

Chords	Notes On
Help!	Help!
The Night Before	The Night Before
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away	You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
I Need You	I Need You
Another Girl	Another Girl
You're Gonna Lose That Girl	You're Gonna Lose That Girl
Ticket to Ride	Ticket to Ride
Act Naturally	Act Naturally
It's Only Love	It's Only Love
You Like Me Too Much	You Like Me Too Much
Tell Me What You See	Tell Me What You See
I've Just Seen a Face	I've Just Seen a Face
Yesterday	Yesterday
Dizzy Miss Lizzy	Dizzy Miss Lizzy