Notes on … every Beatles song

Between May 1989 and February 2000 the musicologist Alan W. Pollack wrote a close analysis of every song the Beatles released: its key, its form, its chords and the small surprises that make it work. This is all 200 of his notes, re-set for reading.

Colour by

The official canon, in order of first release: one square per song. Point at a square to see what it is.

New to music theory? Start with the first 28

Pollack’s first notes, starting with “We Can Work It Out”, double as a short course in the ideas the rest of the series relies on: harmonic rhythm, the V-of-V, cross relations, phrasing. Read them in order. The glossary fills in the terms.

Go album by album

Every single, EP and LP from “Love Me Do” to “Let It Be”, with each track linked to its note.

Find a song

Sort and filter every song in the canon by key, meter, year, album or recording date.

Follow the recording sessions

Tuomas Eerola’s chronology groups the songs into twelve recording projects, from September 1962 to January 1970.

The series in five parts

The chord charts play

Pollack’s ASCII chord charts are redrawn as bars of music. Press the play button beside any chart to hear the progression, with each bar lit up as it sounds. The original typewriter version is one click away.

      |e       |-       |
   G:  vi

      |A7      |-       |
       V-of-V

      |C       |-       |G       |-       |
       IV                I

The intro to “She Loves You” (figure 5.2)