“I’ll Never Make it Alone”: The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” in Its Contexts

ABSTRACT

This essay uses a the line in the title, quoted from “Oh! Darling,” a song on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album, as a prompt to catalog and analyze the song’s sources and inspirations in earlier 12/8 meter rhythm and blues songs. The author then traces its emergence from previous Beatles songs in 12/8, and its differences and similarities to earlier compositions that involve anger and crying. Last, it shows how the song occupies a pivotal position in Abbey Road’s journey through the multifarious forms of love.

KEYWORDS:

• The beatles
• Abbey road
• songs in 12/8 meter
• intermusicality
• crying
• love songs

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Transcribers do not always agree about notation. Some of these songs are transcribed in 4/4 with a triplet feel or in 6/8. For the purposes of this paper, as long as a song feels like 12/8, it qualifies.

2. Led Zeppelin was sued by Willie Dixon for using “You Shook Me” without crediting him and by Anne Bredon for their uncredited use of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” (Till 162). Chester Burnett (Howlin’ Wolf) also sued the band for failing to list him as the writer of “Killing Floor” (used in “The Lemon Song”), and they were forced to change the credits for “Whole Lotta Love” after Dixon sued (Till 164). Although there was not much love exchanged, Dixon did win a whole lotta money from the suit, which he used to start a nonprofit called The Blues Heaven Foundation, devoted to remunerating blues artists and their heirs for income lost due to such copyright violations. See also Till’s remarks on “How Many More Times” (163).

3. Ian MacDonald (among others, 136) alleges that the guitar riff on “I Feel Fine” was copped from Parker’s song (which is, as Till points out, itself based on Dizzy Gillespie’s “Manteca” [160]). In Part 1 of John Lennon’s Jukebox (at 13:50), Lennon acknowledges that the band “used [Parker’s riff] in various forms.” (This video is no longer available on YouTube.) But they also adapted it freely: “Watch Your Step” uses a standard blues progression, but the Beatles’ song employs an altered form, and Parker’s tune has no bridge; the songs are also in different keys (E for Parker’s; G for the Beatles’). A YouTube video posted by Mohammed Shariff (“Beatles vs. Bobby Parker”) plays the lick from Parker’s tune side-by-side with that of “I Feel Fine.” My conclusion: they are similar but not identical enough to sustain a charge of plagiarism.

4. This would not have been the only theft in their catalog. As MacDonald notes, “Come Together” purloins a lyric from Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me.” Sued by Berry’s publishers, Lennon agreed to record two of Berry’s tunes on his Rock ‘n’ Roll album (358).

5. This is an ethical but not a legal gray area, because chord progressions cannot be copyrighted. For a discussion of the legal decisions that established this convention, see Osteen 95–103.

6. Even so, McCartney claimed that he would have sung it much more easily five years earlier (Alan Parsons, qtd in Guesdon/Margotin 567).

7. The difficulty of the vocal part may be one reason that, according to at least one well-informed source, McCartney has never performed “Oh! Darling” in public.

8. The specific model is Robinson’s “I’ve Been Good to You,” which uses the same circular I-vi-ii7-V7 harmonic progression (albeit in A-flat).

9. Aaron Krerowicz transcribes it in 6/8 (41) and McCartney says it is in 3/4 (Miles 175). My sheet music, transcribed by Todd Lowry (64–67), notates the song in 12/8, albeit with an additional 6/8 measure on “black” (65).

10. “Yes It Is” also uses a vi7/ii7/V7 cadence on the bridge. Lennon dismissed it as a failed attempt to rewrite “This Boy” (Golson 165).

11. The decision to devote side two of the original recording to a suite—apparently a joint decision by McCartney and producer George Martin (Everett 269–70)—obviously affected the programming order of side one. Given that Martin determined the order of the tracks on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (see Martin 148–50), it seems likely that he played a major role in programming Abbey Road as well. Whoever made the decision, it was wise to insert “Oh! Darling” between the two novelty tracks.

12. Inglis also points out that such songs are rare in the group’s catalog, comprising only 10% of their original output between 1966 and 1970 (54).

13. However, Pam and Mustard dwell in the land of E and “Here Comes the Sun” rises in A.

14. According to Inglis’s categories, “Golden Slumbers” is centered on Storge, which he defines as love “built around friendship and caring” (46).