Do any of you recall the early Beatles song that sounded the six notes of a guitar?

[Wade Hampton]

It came off one of their earliest albums, and it’s clearly not a memorable song or I’d remember which song it is!

The Beatles came out in the United States when I was in fourth grade, and I was still an avid fan of the Saturday morning cartoons. And within a year the cartoon version of the Beatles was broadcast on Saturday mornings.

I think that the show was so silly that even we knew it, but we watched it anyway, because there were Beatles songs every few minutes.

The song I’m trying to remember opened the program every week.

One interesting side bar to this is that when the decision was made to make “Yellow Submarine” in animation rather than live action, the same animation house that had made the schlocky Saturday morning TV cartoons was awarded the contract, in large part because:

1. They had hands-on experience animating the Beatles as individual characters;

and:

2. Having worked at the fast pace that TV animated have to be, they could get the “Yellow Submarine” work done faster than their competitors could.

Okay, enough of that. If any of you remember the song and the Saturday morning TV Beatles show, I’d be delighted if you could share that knowledge with us.

Thanks in advance.


Wade Hampton Miller

[pieterh]

I don’t know the show in question but do you mean raked chords? In which case the album Please Please Me has 3 which open with one: Misery, Do You Want To Know a Secret and A Taste Of Honey.

[Dogma]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWUGChdOIu8

[pieterh]

According to Wikipedia the opening tune was Can’t Buy Me Love (season 1), Help! (Season 2) and And Your Bird Can Sing (season 3).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(TV_series)

[Dru Edwards]

Cartoon Beatles? I didn't know that. I don't think I want to know that now .

[12barBill]

[FrankHudson]

Like Wade I remember the Beatles cartoon show. At the time I thought that six note slow pluck through all 6 guitar strings was a soundtrack addition, not a Beatles recording. I wouldn't have owned any of the albums at that time, but of course we were all hearing the singles on the radio, and I'm trusting my memory of what I knew back then as kid in thinking that.

But also like Wade, that motif is stuck in my head. Of course no mere home guitar player had an electronic tuner in those days (pitchpipes or tuning forks were the closest we had). I have poor pitch sense, and never developed that as well as an aspiring musician should have, but for some reason that set of intervals stuck in my head so that years later in the '70s when I started to try to play guitar I would know my guitar was out of tune when the intervals didn't sound like my memory of that Beatles cartoon motif.

[Silly Moustache]

As a Brit that was well into "pop" music before, during and after the Beatles, I'm fascinated by the very different perspective of the band in the USA vs the UK.

It would seem that the Beatles had a far greater influence on the USA than on the UK, not to say they didn't have an impact here.

They were highly thought of, and popular, but just one of the many of the bands that emerged and got recognition in the early '60s, and just one of the bands/acts in the Brina Epstein "stable, including Cilla Black, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas, The Big Three (my personal favourites),
The Fourmost (also my faves) The Paramounts, and that was just the acts from Liverpool. In London lots of others were emerging, not least the Rolling Stones and the others such as the Yardbirds, Downliners Sect, Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, Rod Stewart, John Baldry, Pink Floyd, Small Faces Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds,
and then the others from Manchester (John Mayall, Hollies in particular) and Birmingham.

The Beatles were an important part of the UK pop scene but by no means the only ones. and I'd say that the more R&B influenced London scene had a greater influence.

[godfreydaniel]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...United_Kingdom

[NormanKliman]

Oh, that is so cool! Thanks for posting that Bill Sims! When I first picked up the guitar as a child, I quickly realized that that bit was just the open strings played one by one (or maybe I saw someone play it). So, 20 years later, I remembered that and went looking for that Beatles song, and of course it wasn’t on any of their albums. I figured my memory was mistaken and the song was actually “I Feel Fine” or another in which the guitar figures prominently in the intro. And 30 years after that, I come across it on this forum! Talk about yer blast from the past...

Anyone else notice it’s capoed at the fifth fret?

[Brucebubs]

I remember seeing a big box of hard plastic Beatles wigs at the end of the aisle at the supermarket and no, I wasn't allowed to have one!

[The Growler]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Cartoon Beatles? I didn't know that. I don't think I want to know that now .

I'd never heard of this before either!

[alnico5]

Are you talkin' about the opening chord to "A Hard Day's Night"?

It sounds like E A E G D E to me. Em7sus4. (No 5th.)

[nightchef]

Originally Posted by alnico5

Are you talkin' about the opening chord to "A Hard Day's Night"?

It sounds like E A E G D E to me. Em7sus4. (No 5th.)

I hear nearly every note in a G Mixolydian scale in there, *except* E (and B). The Hal Leonard Beatles book, which is wrong occasionally but right a lot, parses it as a Gsus4 over D, with George playing D-G-C-G on the top four strings of the 12, and John playing a Gsus barre chord over a D in the bass. I’m pretty sure I’m hearing an F in there as well, which might be John playing G7sus4 with the F on the D string third fret. I’m also hearing the ghost of an A, but that might be overtones from the D in the 12-string and bass.

I still remember how excited I was to hear “And Your Bird Can Sing” busting out of our little black & white TV every Saturday morning. I suspect the cartoon was pretty awful, but to an 8-year-old it was magic.

[pieterh]

Originally Posted by nightchef

I hear nearly every note in a G Mixolydian scale in there, *except* E (and B). The Hal Leonard Beatles book, which is wrong occasionally but right a lot, parses it as a Gsus4 over D, with George playing D-G-C-G on the top four strings of the 12, and John playing a Gsus barre chord over a D in the bass. I’m pretty sure I’m hearing an F in there as well, which might be John playing G7sus4 with the F on the D string third fret. I’m also hearing the ghost of an A, but that might be overtones from the D in the 12-string and bass.

I still remember how excited I was to hear “And Your Bird Can Sing” busting out of our little black & white TV every Saturday morning. I suspect the cartoon was pretty awful, but to an 8-year-old it was magic.

There are 4 distinct parts in that opening chord; two guitar parts mentioned plus piano (George Martin) that plays its version of the chord, and the bass playing D.

https://youtu.be/2wbNaEXmyrw