Grapthar's Song of the Day: The Beatles 'Glass Onion'

grapthar (74)in #music • 5 years ago

The Beatles - Glass Onion

I figured it's been a while

since I did a Beatles tune, so today feels like the right time. Obviously, The Beatles are a major band in rock history, if not the single most important band of the last century. They were formed in 1960, and after a few changes in members, eventually cemented the lineup we know today, with Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon wrote most of the songs in the first half of the band's life, though over the years, Harrison began contributing more (and some of their greatest), along with the occasional Ringo song.

Listen to Glass Onion by The Beatles here.

This song is from the band's

self titled 1968 album, generally referred to as "The White Album", due to its blank white cover with just the group's name. This album was less of a group effort, and is mostly made up of songs written and arranged by the individual members on their own; they were in a bit of a rocky patch here, though I think overall the album still worked incredibly well. This song is super interesting harmonically: we begin in Aminor, and move from our i chord down to F7, which gives it more of a crunch than the regular Vi chord. However, the third time around, the Aminor moves down to a Gmin, then back and forth between that and Cmaj, implying a modulation into Fmajor. Finally, they move from F7 to D7 a few times, before resolving back to Aminor. Simple, but super original and effective.