Rick Rubin & Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney sits down for a rare in-depth one-on-one with Rick Rubin to discuss his groundbreaking work with The Beatles, the emblematic 70s arena-rock of Wings, and his 50 years and counting as a solo artist, in this six-episode series that explores music and creativity in a unique and revelatory manner. Join Paul and Rick for an intimate conversation about the musicianship, songwriting, ingenuity, influences, and personal relationships that informed the iconic songs that have served as the soundtracks of our lives.

Se det første klippet hvor Paul McCartney starter med sitatet "Our favorite composer was Bach, in Beatles" og fortsetter fram til inspirasjonen fra piccolotrompeten i Brandenburgkonsert nr 2 til å bruke ideen i Penny Lane. 

Se hele det legendariske intervjuet og podcasten til Rick Rubin med Paul McCartney i den andre videoen.

Paul McCartney har flere ganger nevnt at Johann Sebastian Bach var en av hans inspirasjonskilder da han komponerte Blackbird. Spesielt har han trukket frem at gitarspillet i sangen ble inspirert av en av Bachs mest kjente komposisjoner: Boureé i e-moll for lutt (BWV 996). Dette stykket er kjent for sin vakre kontrapunktiske struktur og tekniske finesse, og det har vært populært blant gitarister i århundrer. McCartney har sagt at han og George Harrison ofte brukte klassisk musikk, inkludert Bach, som en inspirasjonskilde for å utforske harmonier og gitarteknikker i Beatles' musikk.

Blackbird

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Bach & Beatles

Konteksten rundt Blackbird:

Sangen ble skrevet i 1968 og var en del av The White Album. McCartney har sagt at teksten til Blackbird var inspirert av borgerrettighetsbevegelsen i USA og er ment som en metafor for håp og frigjøring. Dette budskapet, kombinert med det delikate og Bach-inspirerte gitararrangementet, gir sangen en tidløs kvalitet.

Så selv om Blackbird er en enkel sang på overflaten, har den røtter i den komplekse og rike musikktradisjonen som Johann Sebastian Bach representerer. Dette viser hvordan klassisk musikk kan influere og berike populærmusikk på overraskende og kreative måter.

The influence from George Martin and Bach

In spite of his superior academic background, Martin always thought of himself as the intermediary between The Beatles' original ideas and their notation and performance. However, he played such a key role, that he was repeatedly named by music critics as the "fifth Beatle" — similar to Bach being called the "fifth evangelist" by the Swedish bishop Nathan Söderblom, in order to highlight Bach's importance for Christianity in the 20th century. For The Beatles' record production, Martin was their advisor, arranger, orchestrator and occasional pianist. More on this later.

In one way, Johann Sebastian Bach was the gold standard for George Martin. Whenever he wanted to pass a judgement upon a piece of music, it was often "like Bach" or "not like Bach." Thus, about the arrangement of "Yesterday" he said to Paul McCartney, "Bach certainly wouldn't have done that…." as Paul wanted to set his own mark (see below: Miles p. 206). It was certainly also no accident that in spite of his patchy knowledge of music history, he chose a (fictitious) scene from Bach's life, when he wanted to make a certain point.

Besides his own compositions (several film compositions, especially for James Bond movies), Martin also orchestrated works of Bach's in the style of Leopold Stokowski, who was, for example the arranger for Walt Disney's Fantasia. These works are now on Martin's CD Beatles to Bond to Bach. In addition to the above-named film music and orchestral arrangements of Beatles' songs, there are his arrangements of Bach's "Air" from his Suite №3 for orchestra and of his "Prelude №8 in E-Minor" from the Well-Tempered Clavier. The series of names in the title is definitely thought of as increasing in rank.

Traces of Bach

In the following songs, Bach's influence can be identified.

Yesterday

"Yesterday" (1965) is said to be "the most played song of all times."⁵⁵ Paul McCartney woke up one morning with the melody in his head as in a dream, turned to a piano beside his bed and found the succession of chords. Accompanying it with a string quartet — completely unheard of for a rock song till then — was George Martin's idea. He also wrote the basic arrangement.

Paul recalls:

I remember that on that session George explained to me how Bach would have voiced it in a choral voicing or a quartet voicing. And he'd say, "This would be the way Bach would do it," and he'd play it.⁵⁶ (…) And there was just one point in it where I said, "Could the cello now play a slightly bluesy thing, out of the genre, out of keeping with the rest of the voicing?" George said, "Bach wouldn't have done that, Paul, ha ha ha." I said, "Great!" That was what we often used to do, try and claim our one little moment. I mean, obviously it was my song, my chords, my everything really, but because the voicing now had become Bach's, I needed something of mine again to redress the balance. So I put a 7th in, which was unheard-of.

Blackbird

Paul:

The original inspiration was from a well-known piece by Bach, which I never know the title of, which George and I had learned to play at early age…. Part of its structure is a particular harmonic thing between the melody and the bass line which intrigued me. Bach was always one of our favorite composers; we felt we had a lot in common with him. For some reason we thought his music was very similar to ours and we latched on to him amazingly quickly. We also liked the stories of him being the church organist and whopping this stuff out weekly, which was rather similar to what we were doing. We were very pleased to hear that. I developed the melody on guitar based on the Bach piece and took it somewhere else, took it to another level, then I just fitted the words to it.

The Bach piece was the "Bourrée" from the Lute Suite in E minor (BWV 996). Paul does not say anything about the time reference of the song at this point; he did that later in various interviews. The song was written a week after the murder of Martin Luther King in Memphis in April 1968. The title "Blackbird" does not refer to the European blackbird (as in the usual British meaning of the word), but to black people in the US in general, who for decades were called blackbirds or crows. Paul devoted this song to their fight for civil rights, which had just suffered a heavy blow with the killing of Dr. King. At the end of the song on the album is an original recording of a European blackbird. There are various sources of information about its source: according to Barry Miles, the source is the EMI sound archive in London,⁶¹ but according to Steve Turner, Paul recorded it himself early one morning in the garden.

George Martin had no share in the connection to Bach in this play; the connection comes from Paul's memory. A relationship between the "Bourrée" and "Blackbird" is not obvious: the "Bourrée" is in minor, "Blackbird" in major. A melodic relationship between them is also not discernible. At most, the chromatically progressing bass in the second part of the "Bourrée" could have been a point of connection or inspiration: a similar bass movement is found in "Blackbird."

However, in an undated video-clip of the 80s Paul McCartney explains how he got from the Bach bourrée to Blackbird: He used to play with George Harrison the beginning of the bourrée as a showpiece but simplified one of the beginning passages. This simplification was a false quotation of Bach's original. He turned it into the major mode, and thus found the chordal progression at the beginning of Blackbird.

Penny Lane

In the second part of the song, in which Paul McCartney nostalgically celebrates his childhood and adolescence in Liverpool, a high trumpet sounds. Paul had wished for one in this piece after listening to Bach's 2nd Brandenburg Concerto broadcast in a BBC TV concert. Paul sang the tune he wanted, and George Martin wrote it down. The trumpet that was then used was not the regular Bach trumpet in D, but a B trumpet tuned one octave higher, a so-called "piccolo trumpet." It is extremely difficult to play: the changes in tone are mainly generated by the player's lips. "Paul had no idea how damned difficult it was to play, " remembered G. Martin. Paul's answer: "He's a piccolo-trumpeter…that's his job." Martin summed it up: "The result was unique, something that had never been done in rock music before, and it gave 'Penny Lane' a very distinct character."

In My Life

In this song — with memories from John's youth — the first draft lacked the usual instrumental middle section. The Beatles turned to George Martin for help. "We would say, 'Play like Bach,' or something, so he would put twelve bars in there."⁶⁶ Recording this song, "they left a gap for a solo; during a break Martin worked up a Bach-like melody and counterpoint" in the form of a two-part invention. In terms of style, the beginning of this passage reminds one of the fugue theme in Bach's Concerto for two Harpsichords (BWV 1061, third movement). Martin recorded the passage on the piano at half speed an octave lower. Brought up to normal speed, it sounded like a harpsichord, intensifying the similarity to Bach.

All You Need Is Love

For this late song by The Beatles, George Martin wrote a coda in which he composed different pieces over and under one another. At the beginning of the song he put the "Marseillaise", and in the coda he put the melody of "Greensleeves," Glenn Miller's "In the Mood," and Bach's Invention № 8 in F-Major for two voices — though set here for brass. The Beatles gave Martin here the freedom to write whatever he wished. "'Write absolutely anything you like, George,' they said. 'Put together any tunes you fancy, and just play it out like that. And Martin, because of his appreciation, chose, amongst others, a piece by Bach.