Music Analysis Essays

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Music Analysis and Research Blues music combines jazz, rock-n-roll, and blues together. It characterizes a lot of soul and deep feelings. In this research, “You Can’t Do That,” which is the song performed by the Beatles, will be brought as an example, which is accessible for listening on YouTube under the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUIcEGH1ICE, or search under the name “The Beatles – You Can’t Do That” on YouTube. In term of history and composition, “You Can’t Do That” was written by Lennon-McCartney and recorded on both the 25th of February and the 22nd of May in 1964, with George Martin as a producer and Norman Smith as an engineer (beatlesbible.com). This song was first released in the United Kingdom and the United States as the B-side of their sixth British single “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
In this song, John Lennon performed as a vocalist and a lead guitarist. Paul McCartney performed as a backing vocalist who also played bass and cowbell. George Harrison was also a backing vocalist and twelve-string rhythm guitarist, while Ringo Starr played drums and a conga. This song is one of Lennon-McCartney’s semi-autobiographical songs, which shows the jealousy and the possessiveness he felt towards women at the time (beatlesbible.com). The genre of “You can’t do that” is rock, and the song roots in a twelve-bar blues form. According to Richie Unterberger states in allmusic.com, “The song had no shortage of dynamite hooks, particularly the insistent stuttering beats at the end of each verse and bridge, the thrilling soulful responsive harmonies that answer Lennon's lead vocal, and the dramatic rising harmony vocals that accompany Lennon on the bridge” (Unterberger). In my own word, “You Can’t Do That” has a clear melody and a clear twelve-bar blues form. The texture of the music might be homophonic texture with the moderate speed or tempo. The quality of the sound or timbre seems to be bright although the lyrical meaning of the song displays the jealousy of the guy but the melody and rhythm sound joyful and fun. The succession of the musical tones and the rhythms mostly go continuously and smoothly except for the pause in the middle of the dominant phrase. In term of the lyrical content, the meaning of the lyrics is about a relationship between a guy and a girl. The guy does not want the girl to talk to other guys so he repeatedly warns her that if she talks to other guys again, he will break up with her. He also talked about how embarrassing it would be if other people saw her doing that. The guy actually loves her, so he is jealous when she talks or interacts with other guys. According to the form of this song, it is categorized as aa’b form. Considering the lyric, the twelve-bar form can be specified as the following example pieces of lyric,
Verse 1
(a) Tonic: “I got something to say that might cause you pain” (I---------I--------I---------I)
(a’) Subdominant: “If I catch you talking to that boy again, I'm gonna let you down. And leave you flat” (I---------IV------I---------I)
(b) Dominant:
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