All You Need Is Love

General Points of Interest

Style and Form

In terms of release dates, this song followed remarkably close on the heels of “Sgt. Pepper”. Its genesis and original debut are matters of recording and broadcast history, the details of which I urge you to seek elsewhere to the extent that they are relatively tangential to our own perspective on the music, per se. I could easily argue, by the same token, that the song cannot be considered in isolation of the broadcast’s production values and effect; but maybe I’m just being perverse, a wiseguy, or both :-)

I do strongly recommend that you exert yourself to hear a good quality, complete version of the actual broadcast of the 25th June 1967, and as much of the video clips of it that have shown up in various documentaries over the years. Media-wise, this track is designed with sort of the reverse experiential strategy used in “A Day In The Life”. There, the blind mystery of the audio-only medium adds an important element of surprise. Here, without the video clues, I dare say that some of the complexity and point of the proceedings is lost. The string players with their clunky earphones, the group also wearing earphones while sitting on high stools, and the crowd of all our friends sitting on the floor in their colorful “costumes” are somehow part of the message that is lost on vinyl; Professor McLuhan should have been impressed.

The form contains the unusual twist of opening with three consecutive verses. I prefer to parse this at the high level with the first verse being more a part of the intro than of the body of the song; note how this first verse does not present the tune of the song, but rather establishes the “love, love, love” chorus part which serves as vocal wallpaper for the rest of the verses which follow. And, yes, I know; for the later verses the pattern is changed to a melisma on a single utterance of The Word.

The music is cast in a variation of the campy, anthem-ic march style used before on the likes of “Yellow Submarine”, though in this case, the number of diverse montage elements used is more complex than before, and the limping meter used in the verses prevents the “march” from sounding too obvious.

The words, too, contain more interest than initially meets the eye. You not only have the clever retrograde of the title phrase (“love is all you need”), but also some rather off-handedly delivered philosophical observations on the ironic tension between the attempts you make to self-direct life’s course and the way you learn from experience to accept the influence of so-called destiny. Yes, the lyrics are more to the point than my characterization of them.

Melody and Harmony

The tune is dominated by a handful of simple motifs: a downward scale fragment reminiscent of “Three Blind Mice” that juicy appoggiatura on the word “easy” in the verse, a fanfare-like hammering on a single note for the title phrase in the refrain, followed by an upward chromatic scale fragment that fancifully imitates the downward fragment offered by the brass band obbligato.

The most unifying motif is one in the bassline that rises at the end of each phrase (dotted quarter notes D → E → G), and by no accident, I’m positive, this very phrase matches identically the “intentionally misquoted” fragment of the “Marseillaise” used in the intro. From the 1812 Overture to Casablanca, the French nationalistic anthem is a ready-made cliché that is correctly quoted enough of the time that I say what the Beatles did here can be no accident. Even Robert Schumann gets it right in his lied about the “Two Grenadiers”.

The harmony of the song shares with “A Day In The Life” that wistful wilting away from G Major to e minor.

Arrangement

The backing track is thickly made up of layers upon layers: the Beatles’ own rhythm track and guitar solo; the “Yellow Submarine”-like brass marching band; an electric piano and harpsichord; and that string section scored in a style that is like a strange cross between Mantovani / “101-Strings”-like schmaltz and the pseudo-surreality of “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

The vocal arrangement is comparatively straightforward, with the so-called wallpaper from the backing vocals in the verses, John’s lead vocal, additional backing vocal assistance from the others in the refrain, and those inevitable booster call-outs from Paul.

Section-by-Section Walkthrough

Intro

The intro is three measures long and opens up the proceedings with that non-sequitur of an instrumental misquote of the “Marseillaise”, dressed up to sound vaguely Baroque in style because of the trills in the last measure:

   |G     D     |G           |C  a      D |
G:  I     V      I            IV ii     V

# All You Need Is Love, intro: the "Marseillaise" quote (figure 118.1)
key G

system
chords | G{I} D{V} | G{I} | C{IV} a{ii} D{V} |

Verse

The overall harmonic motion of this verse vacillates back and forth between I and V. I’ve taken the trouble to “analyze” the intervening chords, but Heinrich Schenker and his disciples would shame me with their preference that we focus here on the melodic motion of the two outer voices in parallel tenths.

          4               3            4               3
  Chords: |G      D       |e           |G      D       |e           |
Bassline: |G      F#      |E       D  E|G      F#      |E       D  E|
       G:  I      V6/3     vi     (V)   I      V6/3     vi     (V)

          4               4               4            3
          |a      e       |D       e      |D           |G       D   |
          |A      G       |F#      E      |D       C   |B   C D D  E|
           ii     vi6/3    V       vi      V      4/2   I6/3    V

# All You Need Is Love, verse (figure 118.2)
# Pollack counts the bars out above the chart (4 3 4 3 / 4 4 4 3); the 3-beat bars are marked <3>.
# The Bassline moves in parallel tenths with the tune, as the essay says. "(V)" under the bass D in
# bars 2 and 4 is a passing V over the e chord; "4/2" under the C in bar 7 makes the held D a V 4/2.
#? Last bar: Pollack types five bass notes (B C D D E) in three beats; equal shares are used, but on
#? the record this is probably the dotted D-E-G rising motif the essay describes. Check the rhythm.
key G

system
chords              | G{I} D{V6/3} | <3> e{vi} | G{I} D{V6/3} | <3> e{vi} |
bass "Bassline"     | G2 F#2 | <3> E2 D2{(V)} E2 | G2 F#2 | <3> E2 D2{(V)} E2 |

system
chords              | a{ii} e{vi6/3} | D{V} e{vi} | D{V} -{4/2} | <3> G{I6/3} D{V} |
bass "Bassline"     | A2 G2 | F#2 E2 | D2 C2 | <3> B1 C2 D2 D2 E2 |

The phrasing of this verse is four-square even if the measure lengths are not. The pattern is AAA′B (4 * 2) or if you wish, I can call it AAB ((2 * 2) + 4). The interpolation of the 3/4 meter follows a pattern, though not a slavishly predictable one.

Refrain

In contrast to the verse, our refrain here is almost (but not quite) completely four-square; being eight measures in length (4 + 4) with only the final measure limping in 3/4 time-signature.

   4               4              4              4
   |G      a       |D             |G      a      |D             |
G:  I      ii7/11   V              I      ii7/11  V

   4               4              4              3
   |G      B       |e             |C      D      |I             |
    I      V-of-vi  vi             IV     V

# All You Need Is Love, refrain (figure 118.3)
# Eight bars, counted 4 4 4 4 / 4 4 4 3 above the typed chart; the last bar is 3 beats.
# Pollack types "I" in the chord row of the last bar (no roman numeral under it): read as G, the I.
key G

system
chords              | G{I} a{ii7/11} | D{V} | G{I} a{ii7/11} | D{V} |

system
chords              | G{I} B{V-of-vi} | e{vi} | C{IV} D{V} | <3> G{I} |

The chord in the second half of measures 1 and 3 is contains one of the characterizing harmonies of the track. Regardless of how I’ve analyzed it, the fingerprint-like signs to note there is the Major second between A and G in the backing vocals combined with D in the tune.

Outro

The repeat of the final refrain combined with the extended outro lends quite a bit of formalistic weight to the ending of this track; the combination of sections filling out about 1:40 of a track whose total length is just about 3:52. The delay of any noticeable amount of fade-out until just the last thirty seconds or so only adds to this weight.

The outro finally shifts entirely to 4/4 to provide a subtly different wallpaper pattern for the fade-out, though that rhythmically dotted D → E → G bassline motif persists all the way to the sweet end.

“Montage” is, indeed, the correct term for the stream-of-consciousness pastiche of musical tidbits used in this outro, though somehow it doesn’t seem to do the music justice; such is terminology.

The Bach trumpet duet is from the opening of the “Two Part Invention in F Major” (not from the “Second Brandenburg” as Lewisohn reports), transposed to key of our song and played in its tempo. Not so for “Greensleeves” which appears in that tonally cubistic style one associates with Charles Ives. “In The Mood” is played in the correct key but not quite in tempo or at least not in meter.

Paul’s ostinato breaks down for a precious moment about thirty seconds from the end; just before John’s blurts out his “Yesterday” non-sequitur.

Some Final Thoughts

To my ears, their quote from “She Loves You” goes beyond the merely clever literary association of the lyrics to become the more profound musical equivalent of the wax models on the cover of “Sgt. Pepper”.