"Because" is a song written by

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

(credited to

Lennon–McCartney Lennon–McCartney was the songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is the best-known and most successful musical collaboration ever by records sold, with the ...

) and recorded by the English rock band

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

. It was released on their 1969 album ''

Abbey Road ''Abbey Road'' is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It is the last album the group started recording, although '' Let It Be'' was the last album completed before the band's break-up in April 1970. It was mostly ...

'', immediately preceding the extended

medley Medley or Medleys may refer to: Sports *Medley swimming, races requiring multiple swimming styles * Medley relay races at track meets Music * Medley (music), multiple pieces strung together People * Medley (surname), list of people with this n ...

on side two of the record. It features a prominent three-part vocal harmony by Lennon,

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

and

George Harrison George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...

, recorded three times to make nine voices in all.

Composition

The song begins with a distinctive electric harpsichord intro played by producer

George Martin Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the " Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the ...

. The harpsichord is joined by Lennon's guitar (mimicking the harpsichord line) played through a

Leslie speaker The Leslie speaker is a combined amplifier and loudspeaker that projects the signal from an electric or electronic instrument and modifies the sound by rotating a baffle chamber ("drum") in front of the loudspeakers. A similar effect is provided ...

. Then vocals and bass guitar enter. "Because" was one of few Beatles recordings to feature a Moog synthesiser, played by George Harrison. It appears in what

Alan Pollack Alan Pollack (born 1964 in New Jersey) is an American artist whose work has appeared in role-playing games. Works Alan Pollack produced interior illustrations for many ''Dungeons & Dragons'' books and ''Dragon'' magazine since 1994, and did th ...

refers to as the "mini-bridge", and then again at the end of the song. According to Lennon, the song's close musical resemblance to the first movement of

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

's ''

Moonlight Sonata The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, marked ''Quasi una fantasia'', Op. 27, No. 2, is a piano sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was completed in 1801 and dedicated in 1802 to his pupil Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The popular name ''M ...

'' was no coincidence: " Yoko was playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' on the piano... I said, 'Can you play those chords backwards?', and wrote 'Because' around them. The lyrics speak for themselves... No imagery, no obscure references."

Musical structure

With regard to citing Beethoven's "

", musicologist Walter Everett notes that "both arpeggiate triads and seventh chords in

C minor C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E major and its parallel major is C major. The C natural minor scale is: : Cha ...

in the

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the ...

range of a keyboard instrument at a slow tempo, move through the

submediant In music, the submediant is the sixth degree () of a diatonic scale. The submediant ("lower mediant") is named thus because it is halfway between tonic and subdominant ("lower dominant") or because its position below the tonic is symmetrical to ...

to II and approach

vii VII or vii may refer to: the Roman numeral 7 Art and entertainment * The Vii, a video game console * vii, leading-tone triad, see diminished triad * ''VII'' (Blitzen Trapper album) * ''VII'' (Just-Ice album) * ''VII'' (Teyana Taylor album) * ...

dim⁷/IV via a common tone." But while acknowledging the unusual shared harmonies, Dominic Pedler notes that the relationship is not the result of reversing the order of the chords as Lennon suggested. "Because" concludes with a vocal fade-out on D dim, which keeps listeners in suspense as they wait for the return to the home key of C minor. Mellers states that: "causality is released and there is no before and no after: ''because'' that flat supertonic is a moment of revelation, it needs no resolution." The Ddim chord (and its accompanying melodic F) lingers until they resolve into the opening Am⁷ chord of "

You Never Give Me Your Money "You Never Give Me Your Money" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was written by Paul McCartney (and credited to Lennon–McCartney) and documented the financial and personal difficulties facing the band. The song is the fir ...

Recording

George Martin notes that on "Because": The main recording session for "Because" was on 1 August 1969, with vocal

overdub Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more av ...

s on 4 August, and a double-tracked Moog synthesiser overdub by Harrison on 5 August. As a result, this was the last song on the album to be committed to tape, although there were still overdubs for other incomplete songs. This approach took extensive rehearsal, and more than five hours of extremely focused recording, to capture correctly. McCartney and Harrison both said it was their favourite track on ''Abbey Road''. "They knew they were doing something special," said engineer

Geoff Emerick Geoffrey Ernest Emerick (5 December 1945 – 2 October 2018) was an English sound engineer and record producer who worked with the Beatles on their albums ''Revolver'' (1966), ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967) and ''Abbey Road'' ...

, "and they were determined to get it right." A remixed version of the song, with the instrumentation removed so as to highlight the three-part harmony by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, was released on 1996's ''

Anthology 3 ''Anthology 3'' is a compilation album by the Beatles, released on 29 October 1996 by Apple Records as part of ''The Beatles Anthology'' series. The album includes rarities and alternative tracks from the final three years of the band's c ...

'' and as an

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

on 2006's ''

Love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

''. In 2016, the ''Anthology 3'' mix became the first recording by the Beatles to appear in a film trailer when it was featured in the trailer for

Luc Besson Luc Paul Maurice Besson (; born 18 March 1959) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed or produced the films ''Subway'' (1985), '' The Big Blue'' (1988), and '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990). Besson is associated with the ' ...

's film '' Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets''.

Personnel

Personnel per

Ian MacDonald Ian MacCormick (known by the pseudonym Ian MacDonald; 3 October 1948 – 20 August 2003) was a British music critic and author, best known for both '' Revolution in the Head'', his critical history of the Beatles which borrowed techniques from ...

: *

– triple-tracked harmony vocals (middle register), guitar *

– triple-tracked harmony vocals (high register), bass *

– triple-tracked harmony vocals (low register), Moog synthesiser *

– electric harpsichord

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Because (The Beatles Song) The Beatles songs 1969 songs Song recordings produced by George Martin Songs written by Lennon–McCartney Alice Cooper songs Elliott Smith songs Negativland songs George Clinton (funk musician) songs Songs published by Northern Songs