All Together Now
As I said in my first post, not every Beatles song I learn will be a masterpiece. “All Together Now” is proof of that. It’s not that it’s an actively bad song, but there’s not that much to it and it ends up being pretty silly.
Silliness, though, is kind of the point. “All Together Now” is from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack and Paul apparently wrote it to match the tone of the “Yellow Submarine” song and thus it has a kind of childlike feel to it. It appears during an animated segment of the film (see clip above) and then again at the very end after the live action Beatles wrap things up with some silliness of their own. I could describe it, but it’d be easier to just watch it:
Other than these brief appearances, “All Together Now” seems a song destined to remain in the more obscure reaches of the Beatles canon. It’s short and the lyrics appear to be somewhat random – they involve counting, the alphabet, and lists of colors, thus reinforcing the childish quality of the song.
But, here at Learning The Beatles from A-Z, I’m learning them all, no matter how inconsequential they may be. And, in the end, it was worth it.
As I said in my last post, it seems that every Beatles song I learn forces me to learn some new skill, and “All Together Now” was no exception. Overall, it was pretty easy – it only contains three chords (G, D7, and C) and has no fills or solos. What it does have is a weird rhythm that took a little (though only a little) bit of time to get a feel for. It’s a mix of quarter and eight notes with an occasional eighth note rest. The result is a kind of shuffly sounding beat. Once again, barre-chords, though my nemesis, proved their value, as it was very easy to insert the rests just by lifting the fingers of my left hand a bit to mute the strings.
This song was also the first to make use of a capo (well, the first in this blog, not the first song ever to use one). The primary guitar that you can hear on the recording doesn’t use one, but the second guitarist capos the fifth fret. As long as I’m playing by myself I’ll usually just play the part that doesn’t use the capo since it’s more distinctive, but, for completion’s sake, I did take that second guitar part for a spin or two.
This second guitar plays the open D, A, and G chords, which, due to the capo, turn into higher pitched versions of the G, D, and C chords that the other guitar is playing. Since these chords are open, they were easier to finger, but it was a little harder to get the rhythm since I couldn’t just mute them by lifting the fingers of my left hand. So, I got a little practice at muting strings with the palm of my right hand while actually wishing I was just using barre-chords!
Other than that, there isn’t that much to learn. The song does use a D7 chord, which I knew how to play since I’ve also been learning jazz guitar, but this is the first time I’ve encountered it outside of that context. Otherwise, this was by far the easiest song I’ve learned up to this point, which is good because there are some really difficult ones coming down the line soon.
But before I get to those more challenging ones, I have a couple more easy ones in the queue. Up next: “All You Need is Love.”
Lyrics – “All Together Now”
One, two, three, four
Can I have a little more?
five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten I love you.
A, B, C, D
Can I bring my friend to tea?
E, F, G, H, I, J, I love you.
Boom, bam, boom
Boom, bam, boom
Sail the ship,
Boom, bam, boom
Chop the tree
Boom, bam, boom
Skip the rope,
Boom, bam, boom
Look at me
All together now…. (x16)
Black, white, green, red
Can I take my friend to bed?
Pink, brown, yellow orange and blue I love you
All together now….(x16)
Sail the ship,
Boom, bam, boom
Chop the tree
Boom, bam, boom
Skip the rope,
Boom, bam, boom
Look at me
All together now….
