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Greatest melody genius of all time
In the classical music world, Mozart is considered the greatest composer of melody of all time, and in modern rock/pop times, Paul McCartney is heralded the greatest rock/pop songwriter of all time, often compared to the genius of Mozart for melody. It would be interesting to do a musical analysis to see who is the greater melody genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney wrote over 500 songs according to Wikipedia (549 to be exact as of Aug 2020). In comparison Mozart composed over 600 works.
Here There Everywhere has one of the most amazing melodies and is one of Paul McCartney’s favourite Beatles song he wrote, and also one of John Lennon’s favourite Paul McCartney song.
The Revolver anthem ‘Here There and Everywhere’ is a song that has ubiquitous appeal even for the cantankerous John Lennon, who said of the song: “This was a great one of his,” before adding: “That’s Paul’s song completely, I believe. And one of my favourite songs of the Beatles.”
McCartney himself later remarked that it “was the only song that John ever complimented me on.” And he deserved the compliment too. Inspired by ‘God Only Knows’, McCartney’s favourite song of all time, the song is achingly beautiful. “It’s actually just the introduction that’s influenced. John and I used to be interested in what the old fashioned writers used to call the verse, which we nowadays would call the intro – this whole preamble to a song, and I wanted to have one of those on the front of ‘Here, There and Everywhere.’ John and I were quite into those from the old-fashioned songs that used to have them, and in putting that [sings ‘To lead a better life’] on the front of ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ we were doing harmonies, and the inspiration for that was the Beach Boys.”
Adding: “We had that in our minds during the introduction to ‘Here, There and Everywhere.’ I don’t think anyone, unless I told them, would even notice, but we’d often do that, get something off an artist or artists that you really liked and have them in your mind while you were recording things, to give you the inspiration and give you the direction – nearly always, it ended up sounding more like us than them anyway.” – Far Out magazine, UKBy far, my favourite version of this song:
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72 Replies
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Here is one of Mozart’s most moving pieces, his Piano Sonata No 14, 2nd movement.
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Here are 10 of the greatest melodies of all time from history, that are household melodies that most here should easily recognize. I think Paul McCartney would fit in somewhere between Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. I think his melodies he created with the Beatles, and on his own are right up there with these.
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Hi Jung,
my answer to your question, who is the greater melody genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Paul McCartney is: both. Although I have to admit that I clearly prefer Paul McCartney. But perhaps his music would not have existed in this form without the works of Mozart. Who knows. How about a symbiosis of both worlds? Rock and Classic. You don’t have to like the following piece, but it’s an interesting adaptation anyway.
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Hi Jurgen, that is awesome! Thanks. I think if Mozart had access to instruments of today like the drum kit and electric guitar, his Requiem might just sound like this. This has a Queen Bohemian Rhapsody ring to it with the operatic rock vocals. The choir did a great job with the vocals just like in the Requiem, but the rock beat and guitars instill a new fresh dimension. It’s similar to how MLT transformed the classical Walking In The Air to their amazing rock version.
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Thinking of melody genius and beautiful, enchanting sounds, classical composers or rock musicians are usually mentioned. In my opinion, one branch that leads a rather shadowy existence is that of film composers. Many of them are reduced to individual titles. But if you take a look at their entire oeuvre, you quickly realize that some of them are true geniuses with an almost inexhaustible repertoire.
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Juergen, your comment about film composers reminded me of this potent example of how important a film’s musical score can be for setting the tone of a scene:
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Yeah David, great emotions. Ideally a film and the accompanying music enter into a symbiosis and the two are forever inseparably linked. A melody genius masterpiece. Like this song, even though it wasn’t originally written for the movie.
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David, Jurgen
Love the discussion about movie scores. When I first heard MLTs “Jump Ship” last year, it felt like a perfect song to serve as a movie soundtrack/score as well, like some of those great sound tracks for 007 movies. It expresses such wonderful mysterious and awe inspiring emotions.
That Hans Zimmer score of Interstellar is so moving, raises goose bumps. What an epic musical experience.
When it comes to great movies and their underlying scores, it’s much like real life where we experience life and things that happen through our feelings and emotions at the time, that is all internal and from a third person perspective it would look like David’s video of the Star Wars throne scene, the real world is very bland and quiet, but the feelings/emotions happen internally. In a movie, the score expresses those emotions and the drama.
I think Lisa described what music can do in the context of movie scores very well in her though provoking essay on what is music:
It transports feelings, thoughts, a state of mind, sometimes lyrics and ideas, memories, even physical sensations through nothing than some soundwaves hitting your eardrums. If you think about that for a while it becomes so mind-boggling that you can’t help but think music is some sort of weird unexplainable witch craft :-).
But next to watching a really captivating movie (which without music would still be dull as hell ) it’s probably the closest thing we have to travelling in time or space without physically moving.In this interview with the great music score composer John Williams, he talks about how music can organize sound with instruments creating shapes and things that will exchange emotions. He also goes onto say the drama in Beethoven’s music has been an endless source of inspiration for film scores.
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A very minimalist interpretation of a well-known Mozart piece that develops its own charm:
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I remember when MLT shared their Here, There, and Everywhere cover with us. I was fairly new to the club and eagerly compiling a list of old songs that I’d like to see them take a shot at. As soon as this one appeared, before even clicking on it I thought, “Of course! This is the song they were born to do!” And it’s still one of my very favorite MLT covers.
Funny, after reading the Paul quote about old-fashioned intros I tried to come up with some examples, and the first one that entered my head was Bad to Me, performed by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas but written by Lennon/McCartney. Clearly that’s not what he meant by old-fashioned, but now that I think about it, that song does seem sort of like a proto HT&E.
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Hi Jung,
Mozart’s Piano Sonata No 14, 2nd movement is hauntingly familiar. Has it been used in any soundtracks? I find it very relaxing. I like the ebb and flow of it. I think it is actually slowing down my heart rate.
JP
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Hi JP, I’m glad you like it. I’m not aware of it’s appearance in a movie or show, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s 2nd or 3rd hand influence in music over the ages may have made it’s way into another piece of music you heard. It is indeed hauntingly beautiful that captivates every time I hear it.
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When I was a teenager I had Paul McCartney’s “Wings Greatest Hits” album, and I couldn’t get over how every single song was so wonderful. I wore that cassette right out over the years, and could understand when other great artists like Bob Dylan rave about Paul’s genius endless well spring of amazing melodies one after the other. The Mozart of our times.
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Paul’s melodies just get in your soul, and doesn’t leave. It’s truly magic.
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I can’t help but believe Paul McCartney and Mozart’ inspiration for melody tapped into the same source, in another divine plane.
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In 1968 I think Paul McCartney nailed it, with his statement!
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“Here is an interesting excerpt on an article about the Beatles and their take on music theory and how classical influenced them.
“None of The Beatles had a background in classical music. It was not played in their homes and whatever they were taught at school went through one ear and out the other. Nor were they interested in formally learning instruments that would require at least some knowledge of musical theory.
Paul liked to mess around on the piano from an early age but would do so by experimentation and improvisation. Ditto for John and his first instrument, the harmonica. George did buy a guitar chord book but was preoccupied with forcing his fingers to produce clear sounds from the finger shapes it suggested. Ringo only had his toy drum to tap on his hospital bed.
Though they clearly understood and applied key concepts like time signatures they generally did not use the established technical terms to describe them. Even the musically curious McCartney resolutely refused to learn how to read or write music.”
George did, however, learn one classical ‘party-piece’ in his early teens, which he taught to Paul. Neither boy the title but they had the vague idea that it was by Bach. They would later learn that it was Bourrée from the E Minor Lute Suite — and that they had been playing it inaccurately.
A decade later the Bourree would directly inspire one of Paul McCartney’s most famous compositions.
George Martin saw that what became YESTERDAY would be limited by a conventional rock group arrangement. When he offered to write a string part, McCartney was uneasy and initially resisted the suggestion. When he did agree he tried to ensure that the song did not stray out of its rock and roll lane (‘No vibrato, George. I don’t want to sound like Mantovani!’).
Realsiing this would be unnatural for a modern string player, Martin asked McCartney to help supervise the arrangement, knowing that this would demonstrate the issue.
‘As a result of which,{McCartney} added the cello phrase in bar 4 of the middle eight (1.25–27) and the first violin’s held high A in the final verse.’ Macdonald
YESTERDAY was the first song The Beatles recorded without their standard line-up — only McCartney performs alongside the string players.
Perhaps even more importantly, the song revealed new compositional possibilities. Ian Macdonald descrbes this as George Martin’s disclosure to them of a hitherto unsuspected world of classical music colour.’
Expansion
A year later this would be taken a stage further with ELEANOR RIGBY. Here it was Paul conceived of the string part, instructing Martin that he wanted a ‘stabbing’ sound, perhaps influenced by Bernard Hermann’s scoring of the the notorious shower scene in Psycho
With increasing boldness, Beatles records began plucking elements from the classical world George Martin’s piano solo on IN MY LIFE, for example, is clearly modelled on Bach. Piccolo trumpet appears PENNY LANE after McCartney saw it being used (by the same musician) in a TV broadcast of the Brandenburg Concerto.
Nor did they confine their plundering to the established canon. The influence of experimental composers like Cage and Berio looms large in A DAY IN THE LIFE, while samples of Schumann, Beethoven and the Sibelius Seventh are stuffed into Revolution 9.
Recently, McCartney has suggested that being unschooled in musical theory had a positive creative impact. Put simply, they broke the established rules because they were unaware of them. Occasionally this could lead dangerously close to cacophony — Revolution 9, for example is not for everyone. But it was Leonard Bernstein was already observing in 1966, crude musicianship proved no barrier to astonishing creativity.”
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In an effort to keep the article quote concise, left out a paragraph. The Bach “Bouree” reference would later appear in Paul’s composition of Blackbird.
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Bourree would directly inspire one of Paul McCartney’s most famous compositions.
Bouree
Blackbird
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Jung, et al,
Loads of interesting information and music. Thanks.
Let me contribute this.
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Tom, what amazing musicianship. Thanks for sharing that.
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Ian Anderson is brilliant! A beautiful piece indeed.
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