The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones?

[Coolhandjjl]

I think they both have wished they were the other at times.

 

[mongo2]

Beatles/Stones...Opposite sides of the same coin.

 

[Coolhandjjl]

The Beatles were part of the "Mod" crowd.
The Stones were part of the "Rocker" crowd.
Very different bands.

In S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, one was eithet a Soc (pronounced sosh like in social) or a Greaser. What goes around comes around.....

 

[mellowinman]

The Beatles were part of the "Mod" crowd.
The Stones were part of the "Rocker" crowd.
Very different bands.

This is absolutely not true.

Interviewer: Are you a Mod or a Rocker?

Ringo: I'm a Mocker.

 

[zontar]

Interviewer: Are you a Mod or a Rocker?

Ringo: I'm a Mocker.

 

[Alkali Ike]

Well, if you are trying to dis me I get it, but Paul plays and sings a lot better than any of the Stones now in 2014, in my view. Hell, I thought Ringo looked and sounded great in the tribute earlier this year.

I respect the Stones music and like the Sticky Fingers album but I would choose the Beatles any day.

No, not dis'ing you. Just saying those old guys playing their old songs are just doing what their fans want. If I paid $300 to see McCartney and all he played is his latest album "New" I wouldn't be very happy.

If it's a choice of Beatles or Stones, one or the other, I'd go Beatles all the way, no hesitation. But I still like & respect the Stones.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

This is absolutely not true.

Interviewer: Are you a Mod or a Rocker?

Ringo: I'm a Mocker.

I recall that statement; however, they were classified by everyone as Mods.

 

[mellowinman]

I recall that statement; however, they were classified by everyone as Mods.

Everyone vs Ringo?

I'm sorry, Ringo wins every time.

 

[mcarp555]

I recall that statement; however, they were classified by everyone as Mods.

No they weren't; the Who were mods. The Beatles were Rock n' Roll, as were the Stones. Later, the Stones became 'Rock'.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

No they weren't; the Who were mods. The Beatles were Rock n' Roll, as were the Stones. Later, the Stones became 'Rock'.

I don't know how old you are, but I was in the U.S. Navy when both groups became popular. I followed them closely. I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. I didn't read about it, I lived it. The mod crowd identified with The Beatles and the rocker crowd identified with The Rolling Stones. And that's the way it was in 1963.

 

[mellowinman]

I don't know how old you are, but I was in the U.S. Navy when both groups became popular. I followed them closely. I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. I didn't read about it, I lived it. The mod crowd identified with The Beatles and the rocker crowd identified with The Rolling Stones. And that's the way it was in 1963.

Look, I am an expert on 1963. I was born that year, and if I watched either band, I certainly don't remember it.

 

[JLY]

With their influence on culture and fashion and their bringing psychedelic music into mainstream... They were innovators and ahead of their time in so many ways. I can see how they were considered Mods
But they certainly could rock when they wanted to!

 

[wolfkeller]

Stones were and always were rock and roll! Being a life long, die hard rocker the stones rule. Far as the Beatles, some cool, fun songs but no rocking, no attitude, no kicking ass. Their playing was very simplistic regardless of what everyone seems to think. Still, I don't knock the Beatles pop, I'm a rocker not my cup o jack

 

[mellowinman]

Stones were and always were rock and roll! Being a life long, die hard rocker the stones rule. Far as the Beatles, some cool, fun songs but no rocking, no attitude, no kicking ass. Their playing was very simplistic regardless of what everyone seems to think. Still, I don't knock the Beatles pop, I'm a rocker not my cup o jack

Regardless of what everyone seems to think?

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Intro

The tempo is relatively fast; I parse it as one measure per sugarplum fairy. In spite of it, though, the leisurely harmonic rhythm (with chords changing every two measures, on average) instills a moderately measured pace for the proceedings.

The bassline is predominantly a walking one, though Paul does a nice job of disguising it in places with the trick of jumping down a fourth and then filling it back up step-wise. On the acetate outtake he plays out the scale minus any adornment.

From a harmonically analytical perspective, I prefer to treat many measures in this song as a continuation of the chord in the previous measure combined with a passing note in the bassline. Yes, I know the "tab" of each measure is different, but we're not looking for the tabs per se in these studies.

The intro is a neat eight-measure long, and anticipates the music of the verse without completely stealing its thunder. You'll note that the chord progression only partly matches the verse, and the complete scalar bassline is not yet fully exposed. You might be surprised to note that the underlying chord progression is an old-cliché-friend of ours; none other than I -» vi -» IV -» V:

|G |b |e |- |C |- |- |- |
G: I v6/4- vi IV
of-vi

[Figure 117.2]

It would have been somehow neater to synchronize the downbeat of this intro with the final chord of the reprise. The slight delay of the downbeat until after the reprise's end is more "off-beat", both literally and figuratively.

Verse

All the verses start off with the same sixteen-measure (four-times-four, ABAC) classic floor plan. I'm willing to go as far as describing the harmonic motion as including a modulation to e minor:

|G |b |e |- |
G: I v6/4 vi

1 & 2 &
|C |- |a | D |
G: IV ii V

|G |b |e |- |
G: I v6/4 vi
e: i

|C |F |e | |
e: vi flat-II i

[Figure 117.3]

However, there are three (collect 'em all!) different variations in how the verses finish off this same sixteen-measure beginning. The first verse is unique in the way it cycles back for a repetition of the chord progression with the piquant F-Major chord before pivoting back to the home key:

"I saw the photograph ..." 2 &
|C |F |e |C D |
e: vi flat-II i
G: vi IV V

[Figure 117.4]

The second verse is shorter by two measures. Its harmonic pivot back to G is more passive than that of the first verse. Note how here there is no V chord at the very end:

"... House of Lords"
|C |- |
e: vi
G: IV

[Figure 117.5]

The third and fourth verses, both of which lead into the orchestral bridges, are similar to the second verse, but one extra measure is added. Here, to the extent that the bridge does not cycle back to the key of G, there is no modulation to speak of:

"... book. I'd love to||turn ..."
"... Hall. I'd love to||turn ..."
|C |- |- ||e ..... E
e: vi i -» I

[Figure 117.6]

The intro and first verse are scored for acoustic guitar, piano, bass, and maracas. The full drum kit is added in the second verse.

Bridge

The bridge is twenty-four measures long and consists of the orchestra's free-form, glissando-like sweep from low E to the same pitch several octaves higher. It's quite a nitrous-oxide-like rush.

Remnants of the original backing track heard on the acetate outtake, with its four-in-the-bar rhythm and Mal Evan's counting aloud, can be heard almost all the way through this section on the finished track. In spite of this, there are cymbal crashes in the last few measures of the orchestra track which come seemingly at random to challenge your sense of meter. Try counting twenty-four-times-four in this section and see what what happens to you.

On both the acetate outtake and the finished track, Mal starts counting in the measure following the third verse as I outlined it above; i.e. on the word "turn". The outtake used for the first half of the version of this song presented on "Anthology" Volume 2, shows him starting the count off in the previous measure; huh?!

Middle Section

As with the "Reprise" segue at the beginning of the track, it would have been "neater" if the start of this middle section was synchronized with the downbeat of the bridge's twenty-fourth measure, as it does on the acetate.
On the finished version, again avoiding foolish neatness for its own sake, it appears as if the middle section is begun approximately one beat before the end of the bridge; either that, or the bridge is cleverly extended approximately a beat past the downbeat of measure twenty-four.
It's not easy to figure out which is the case because the challenging meter of the bridge's final measures mentioned above, is complicated by the alarm clock and a snippet of Paul counting "One" both of which are heard off the beat as the middle section begins. The one thing that is clear is that the intro of this middle section contains four measures of vamping on the E-Major chord, and on the final track, a couple of these measures pass by you before you quite reclaim your sense of where the downbeat has gone to.

The "song" portion of the middle section is melodically as jumpy as John's outer sections. It is nineteen measures long and contains an ABAB quatrain, each of whose phrases except the last one is an unusual, rhetorically motivated five measures long. Both the lyrics and sound effects here reinforce the "Good Morning ... but what a day" theme:

|E |- |- |D |- |
E: I flat-VII

|E |B |E |B |- |
I V I V

|E |- |- |D |- |
I flat-VII

|E |B |E |B |
I V I V

[Figure 117.7]

The orchestra portion of the middle section is twenty measures long and consists of two long parallel phrases whose harmonic rhythm is unvaryingly slow. This enhances the "dreamy" note upon which the middle section song abruptly terminates. The harmony of the section primarily shifts back toward G Major though the end of the first long phrase surely feels as if it is back in e minor.

|C |- |G |- |D |
G: IV I V

|- |A |- |e |- ||
V-of-V vi

|C |- |G |- |D |
IV I V

|- |A |- |e d |C D ||
V-of-V vi IV V

[Figure 117.8]


Final Verse

Only a single verse is used to balance out the weight of all that precedes it.

The tempo remains the same as it is throughout the track, though the more active drumming fools you into thinking that this section is somehow "faster" than the verses in the first half.

Outro

The repetition of the bridge is virtually a carbon copy, but its destination is very different, ending with the balance of one measure's worth of dramatic silence followed by that ready- made classical cliché of a final E-Major chord.

Coming as it does, at the end of the repeat of the bridge which the first time around had led into that cheery middle section in the same tempo, that final chord resounds with a frightful sense of bleak hitting-a-wall finality, further emphasized and exaggerated by the surprise element and the long fade-out to silence.

 

[Alkali Ike]

Often brilliantly superficially simplistic, but upon further analysis not really simplistic at all.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

Look, I am an expert on 1963. I was born that year, and if I watched either band, I certainly don't remember it.

I was born in 1943. In 1963 I was in the navy stationed in Newfoundland. We regularly flew into Prestwick, Scotland. The first time I heard The Beatles was on a radion in Glascow. I viewed the whole mods/rockers thing as a bit silly. I like both bands and felt the mods were more about cool clothes and where they bought them. As a previous poster said, mods were pop and rockers were rock and roll.

 

[Richland123]

Cream (Whoops, they are not a choice)!

I would pick The Beatles and I learned to appreciate them much more as I got older. I was 7 years old when they hit the U.S.

I was never a Rolling Stones fan and they only have a handful of songs I like at all.

On another personal opinion aspect. The Beatles had 3 really good singers and great harmonies. The Rolling Stones did not have any really good singers.

 

[mellowinman]

Next on Talkbass:

The Horseless Carriage vs the Horse.

 

[Richland123]

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[cdef]

An early point of comparison would be the American material both bands used to cover. To my ears, the Fabs rocked furiously on Chuck Berry tunes, especially with Lennon's intense vocals. McCartney could do a mean Little Richard as well. The Stones didn't have real good time, and Jagger's squeaky delivery was unconvincing. Same with the soul ballads - say, Arthur Alexander's Anna vs. You Better Move On. That's what it still sounds like to me, although I appreciate how the Stones managed to make a kind of virtue of their loose-jointed approach.

In the end, no contest. And with all they achieved, it's amazing to think The Beatles' recording career spanned about 7 years.