I chose I'm a Loser because it's yet
another of these Beatles contrasting verse-chorus kinds of songs,
and now how many do we have in this song string that we can sort of put together.
We can go back
to She Loves You, Can't Buy Me Love and now I'm a Loser.
And so, again, remember that the characteristic of the Beatles' contrasting
verse chorus is it's like a regular contrasting verse chorus song.
It's got verse sections and chorus sections, but the music contrasts.
But you've got two different versions of a
chorus, the one you get at the very beginning.
And the one that you get in the interior of the tune in that's exactly what
happens with this one. I also selected in order to again
emphasize the intention of John Lennon I think to get more.
Self reflective in his song writing.
We talked about the influence of Dylan before the Beatles met Dylan
they were already fans of Dylan's music and were fans of his lyrics.
And, and you know, John Lennon had always been
kind of a word guy.
We talked a bit about his being fascinated
with the Bing Crosby song Please Please Me.
He was always fascinated with the Chuck Berry kind of playing
around with the lyrics, the way that Chuck Berry would do.
And so this idea of, of becoming more of a poet, in
his, in his song writing as I said in the last lecture.
Can often lend to the first instance of it is
often sort of turning it sort of inside and saying,
you know I'm sad, or I'm a loser, or things
didn't work out for me you know, woe is me.
It's a way of unburdening yourself.
Even people in the middle of tremendous, world-wide success can be unhappy.
I mean it's a familiar pattern that we see in celebrities all the time.
So just because John Lennon was on top of the world didn't
mean that he didn't have a whole a whole reservoir of, of unhappiness
that he could tap into.
Especially when you learn a little bit about some
of the circumstances of his life, his mother, his
father, although he was very, very well treated by
his Aunt Mimi when he was growing up in Liverpool.
So I'm a Loser really gives us a chance
to sort of see John in a more confessional mode.
I'm a Loser is I think the immediate precursor to help.
Help is the more famous song, but without,
Help is Help is the song that's the point of arrival.
I'm a Loser is the sort of song on the way to Help,
and so we can sort of see that song string beginning to fill out.
In many ways we talk about Help, we'll
talk about the ambiguous introduction of that one.
And in many ways Help also hooks up with If I Fell,
which also has the kind of ambiguous introduction that we talked about.
Help, the song Help,
also being a contrasting verse chorus too.
So we're beginning to see these
connections as individual songwriters begin to
return to some of the same problems they've, they've dealt with musically.
In songs already, and solving them
in slightly different ways with different combinations
of different elements that are starting to make their way into their artistry.
And it's the connection, seeing the growth, seeing the development, I
think, that's the important sort of through line in a lot
of this history.
If we look at eight days a week again this is a very sort of sunny Paul song.
And a little bit like you know a hard day's night.
that, I hope that the phrase a hard day's night doesn't really make much sense.
And eight days a week does not really make much sense either, but it's
fun, it's funny and so that becomes the the this sort of beginning of
the song.
This one, eight days a week, an AABA form with partial reprieve.
So if you follow it through after that faded introduction,
you'll get a verse, verse, bridge, verse, the first AABA form.
And then you'll get a bridge, and a verse.