Index
Home
Vorige
Long, Long, Long
Composer(s) : Harrison
Year : 1968
Chords/Tabs: Long, Long, Long
Notes on "Long, Long, Long" (LLL)
KEY F Major
METER 3/4
FORM Intro -> Refrain -> Verse -> Refrain -> Verse ->
Bridge -> Refrain ->Verse' -> Outro (w/complete ending)
GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST
Style and Form
- In this one of his relatively scattered turns at bat George gives us
an offbeat mixture of styles typical of the times: a three-way cross
between jazz waltz, folk song, and late 60s psychadelia. Roughly in
order of appearance you find a ternary meter, a couple of 9th chords,
an essentially acoustic backing track, form dominated by rote pairs of
refrains and verses, a sitar, and a non-sequitar outro.
- The song completes the third side of the White Album with a whimpering
gesture not much different from what
"Julia" does for side two.
From a surface glance, you might call this one George's own take on
"I'm So Tired;" low, low, low-key soliloquy of
lugubrious longing,
(watch it, Alan, you're overdoing it) produced in such a way that
you worry that the protagonist won't have the energy needed to perform
satisfactorily.
- A game of approach/avoidance is neatly played out in the harmony,
with every section starting off away from the home key and several
of them ending similarly away from it. It's as if the protagonist
is dealing with a hot potato of an emotion that he cannot acknowledge
except obliquely, and that he feels nervously in need of retreat the
minute he finds himself confronting it head on.
- Feelings of discouraged low energy are conveyed by the several phrases
that extend a lingering measure or more longer than they strictly need
to.
Melody and Harmony
- The tune covers a relatively broad range in spite of the fact that
much of the local motion of it is simply step-wise. The breadth is
accomplished primarily by virtue of placing the individual sections
of the tune in different segments of the overall range.
- The song is clearly in F Major throughout, but your sense of home key
is subtly challenged by the extent to which so many of the sections
avoid starting or ending on the I chord.
- The verse features a jazz-like stream of triads. A larger than
average number of 9th chords appear over the course of the track.
Arrangement
- The mix of styles is not limited to the arrangement, though it is
especially apparent in this area: simple strummed chords on acoustic
guitar, organ part mastered with an almost comically extreme amount
of flutter, the lead guitar riffs provided by sitar that I dare say
it intended to serve as a trippy guitar rather than anything explicity
"Indian," and the exploitation at the end of a reportedly accidental
sound effect caused by the resonant rattling of a wine bottle.
- The vocal track sounds like George double or triple tracked, singing
in some place with himself in two or three part harmony.
- The dynamic range goes to one extreme or the other, with the drums
and piano providing the reinforcement needed for the louder parts.
Keep an eye on the phrase endings of refrain and verse sections, as
well as the entirety of the bridge. The only place on the track where
percussion is used to quiet effect is the soft brush work of the
second refrain/verse pair.
SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH
Intro
- The otherwise minimalistic sounding six measure intro manages to
expose the sotto-voce atmosphere, the approach/avoidance strategy
with the chord progressions, and the signature sitar riff with
admirable efficiency:
|g |Bb (?) |g |F |C |- |
F: ii I V
Refrain
- The refrain is as aphoristic as the intro, with a single four measure
phrase followed by the sitar riff:
|Bb |a |g C |F |
F: IV ii V I
|Bb |F |
IV I
- A V chord is clearly implied by the bassline on the last beat of
measure 3; the D in the tune at that instance makes the C chord into
a V9.
- In spite of the V chord, the overall harmonic impression created
by the chord stream in the first phrase is the emotional free fall
often associated with total loss of hope.
- The G natural in the bassline on the downbeat of measure 5 somehow
does not completely prevent your hearing the chord as rooted on Bb.
Verse
- The verse is an unusual 13 measures long in an AA' pattern (6 + 7)
whose phrases are both unusually stretched out and unequal in length:
|C |- |g |- |F |C |
V ii I V
|g |- |F |C |- |- |- |
ii I V
- The second phrase starts rhetorically in the same "logical" place as
the 3rd measure of the first phrase, allowing the C Major chord
at the end of the first phrase to pivot as though it were also
the first measure of the second phrase.
Bridge
- The bridge provides a unique point of climax for the song in terms
of momentarily sweeping aside all torpor and giving the song some
shape and a sense of direction.
- The bridge is 15 measures long with an AA' couplet (6 + 9) whose
phrases, just like in those of the refrain, are stretched out and
avoid rote symmetry:
|Bb |F |C |g |- |- |
IV I V ii
|Bb |F |C |g |- |C |- |- |- |
IV I V ii V
- The harmony nicely underscores the rhetorical parallelism between
the phrases. The ii chord at the end of the first phrase begs for
resolution to V (all the more so because it is sustained for an
"extra" 3rd measure), but you're forced to go back and repeat yourself
from the start of the phrase in order to achieve your reward. Learn
a lesson about climax-building from the fact that the ii chord is
sustained for only *two* measures on the repeat!
- Again, the tune creates 9th chords on some of the C and g chords in
this section.
Outro
- The outro builds off the final verse section, abbreviating the
second phrase, repeating that shortened phrase two more times
(the old three-stikes-you're-out routine), followed by one last
repeat which lands with enigmatic finality on the V chord.
- Taking it from the start of the final verse, it parses this
way:
|C |- |g |- |F |C |
V ii I V
--------------- 3X --------------
|g |- |F |C |
ii I V
|rattling ...
|g |- |F |C |- |- |...
ii I V
- The song ends with an harmonic envelope full of strange effects on
top of the V chord; in addition to all the rattling there's off key
chanting in falsetto, and at the very end, the acoustic guitar playing
wisps of both I and ii chords, and just when you think the track is
completely finished, a final whack on the drums.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
- Quite independent of its intrinsic musical quality, the song
serves for me in its context as a letdown. Am I possibly alone
in this feeling?
- By textbook rules, "Long, Long, Long" would seem to be uncannily made
to order for its place in the album running order. With the exception
of track three's "Mother Nature's Son,"
this side of the White Album,
while not without variety, is still relentlessly some alternating
combination of fast, loud, hard, raucous, and/or strange. And even if
the need for a change of pace to the softer side had not already been
building up, along comes "Helter Skelter,"
the proverbial hard act to
follow if ever there was one, surely insisting on a dramatic response.
- And yet, back in that era in which you actually had to drag yourself
off the couch in order to turn the record over for side 4, I'm embarrased
to admit that some large percentage of the time, I would just as soon
likely skip this track and move straight on to
"Revolution 1."
- I suspect one of two factors is operative here. Either, contrary to
all conventional wisdom, contrast is in fact NOT AT ALL what is wanted
here; rather the opposite, a sustaining of the hard fast piece. Or
else, contrast per se may not out of line, but the particular extreme
to which this particular song goes may be a miscalculation; in baseball
terms, an underswing.
Regards,
Alan (awp@world.std.com)
---
"... it looks disgusting hanging there all pink and naked." 060798#151
---
Copyright (c) 1998 by Alan W. Pollack
All Rights Reserved
This article may be reproduced, retransmitted, redistributed and
otherwise propagated at will, provided that this notice remains
intact and in place.
Ook op The Beatles [White Album]:
(c) 2025 Serge Girard
(c) Alan Aldrigde, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics