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Mr. Moonlight
Composer(s) : Roy Lee Johnson
Year : 1962
Chords/Tabs: Mr. Moonlight
Mr. Moonlight
KEY F# Major (yep, that's right!)
METER 4/4
FORM Intro -> Verse (initial) -> Verse (variant) -> Verse (half solo,
half vocal) -> Verse (variant) -> Outro (fadeout)
COMPOSER Johnson
INFLUENTIAL VERSION Dr. Feelgood (1962)
- Judging from the introductory vocal scream you'd be tempted to suppose
that John had a hankering to play the good Doctor that was as long-lived
as Paul's desire to be Little Richard. It turns out that this song was
not at all an "oldie" at the time the Beatles picked up on it and they
didn't even keep it in their repertoire for all that long!
- Seems like this is *the* Beatles cover which everyone loves to hate; it
must be something about the self-consciously campy vocal, lugubrious
Hammond organ, and generally queasy blend of dooh-whop and Latin
musical styles. But get beyond this if you can and discover a number
of compositional details which are more reminiscent of the Beatles'
own style than you'd ever expect from the surface.
- Some examples --
- The first section is based on a subtly different form from the rest
of them. The relatively long verses all sub-divide into two halves,
the second of which is always introduced by a rising scale played
solo by the bass guitar, and if you bother to check, the first half
of the first one is quite different (and eight measures longer than)
the all the rest.
- The harmonic rhythm is very slow and contains many cases where the
same chord is sustained for 2 or 4 measures or even longer, and the
overall result is that the poetic scanning of the phrases sound less
four-square than they actually are.
- The half instrumental solo and half vocal division of the middle
section is a favorite, granted not original with them, device of
the Beatles seen in such places as "From Me To You" and "A Hard Day's Night"."
- As with "Rock and Roll Music", the original version turns out to be
less extremely inflected than the Beatles cover of it. One of the
strangest variances is in the choice of key, the original having been
in G. I can't honestly figure what would have influenced the Boys to
do it in the *very* unusual key of F# Major, unless the half-step
difference was just sufficient to keep John from cracking on the
high notes. Still, I'd assume they must have fingered it in an
easier key like E or F and used some capos.
Ook op Beatles for Sale:
(c) 2024 Serge Girard
(c) Alan Aldrigde, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics