The Beatles, Getting Better - A Classical Musician’s First Listen and Analysis / Excerpts

[@johndef5075]

The older I get the more surreal the Beatles seem. Too perfect❤

[@John_Locke_108]

The optimism of Paul, "it's getting better all the time", combined with John's pessimism, "It can't get much worse".

[@eileenrich6449]

Love how you let the teacher in you take over and pull Vlad into the experience.😀

[@victorluiz2099]

I really love your take on Beatles music. Not only because you are a classical musician, but mainly because of your musical sensitivity. Lyrics, musical arrangements and all things that claim music. I really appreciate it so much. Young and very intuitive. Thanks.

[@jfziemba]

I thought Vlad was going to shout as he was leaving the harp, "I've got blisters on me fingers!"

[@Jaxy451]

Love this song. It appears to be a genuine Lennon McCartney collaboration.

[@Justus-d8q]

You're exactly right all the time I think. ❤ beautiful analysis.

[@lejoe48]

This piece has progressed in my appreciation over the years, and I now put it on the same level as Lucy in the Sky and other major favorites of mine. It is magical and lively.

[@stevefaure415]

Wonderful! I appreciate the deep understanding of music you have along with the ability to express it in a way that is not strictly musical at all.

[@richardfehlmann4593]

❤ I love this reaction. Although this song is certainly not a favourite of mine, it's very interesting to hear about the harmonic static in this song. So much fun to take Vlad along 😂 I love his T - Shirt 👌😍 This song is a part of the concert that this album represents. It plays a good link to hold the album together. I love the comparison with the course of a dinner. Nicely said. Well done 👍🏻😊 I'm looking forward to the next reaction 🤞😃

[@2trainsrunning]

So that's ostinato.. thanks again, Amy! Love the 'palate cleanser' analogy - - this album's a feast! Looking forward to dessert, and maybe a smoke afterwards.. Note, that buzz on the break is a tamboura (not a sitar) - used to great effect on Tomorrow Never Knows the year before, and on Within You Without You a little later in the Pepper program.

[@PaulBrown-kg3qw]

You are now reaching the level of an exemplar, you understand, feel and explain with such clarity.

[@stevewest4994]

A lot of people nowadays only consider songs individually, whereas you quite rightly interpret this song in its context on the album. At the time we would put on Sgt. Pepper and listen to the whole album, end-to-end. That is how it was intended to be listened to.

[@TheMarkEH]

Always thoughtful and insightful.

[@mikemclenison8200]

Love all your Beatles analysis!

[@robertweinstock4936]

I love that you listened to the whole album. When we bought these albums, we listened to the whole album. I would love to see you listen to more albums. Examples: Procal Harum- “A Salty Dog”. The Who-“Tommy”. The Greatful Dead- “Working Man’s Dead”. (You really should listen to the Dead. Thanks for your insights.

[@stlmopoet]

I love this reaction! Even if I only hear snippets of the song, I know it by heart so it doesn’t matter. I can certainly listen to the song on its own!

[@michelmorioux6869]

I really appreciate the song sound you got

[@Inverse_to_Chaos]

Even the simpler tracks on this album were clearly given greater production value than what the previous albums had. Once again, the harmonies scream at the audience over the relatively grounded components driving the harmonies. Well done, Vlad! I’ll be ready to hear more of your rehearsals in the future. 👍🏼

[@garycameron8167]

In terms of the lyrics, the best - funniest - aspect is Paul singing "...a little better all the time," and John (of course) responding with "It couldn't get much worse."

[@prueba9348]

Amy you should see Paul live. He does this song on his current tour

[@peterolbrisch8970]

This is a great song, one of their best.

[@BILLYMORGAN1971]

I used to be cruel to my husband, I forced to play the harp and he had no say. I know I was mean but I'm changing my scene and bought him a sitar the other day. It's getting better ll the time.....

[@Bassman2353]

John's retort "It can't get no worse" followed in the bridge by his confession "I used to be cruel to my woman..." turns this from a happy, upbeat pop song into a Lennon/McCartney stunner. During your analysis, Amy, I contextualized how John's use of George's sitar in his confessional bridge has the same textural feel as in "Norwegian Wood". Both are confessions of a rather sour memory of interactions with a female, and the buzzing quality of the sitar conveys that feel brilliantly. I really appreciate your "fresh ears", Amy. These are all songs I've lived with since I was a teenager; it's like reading a classic book in my old age and seeing it anew through someone else's eyes.

[@RoderickCairns]

It's a tambura, not a sitar. People often make that mistake because almost every time they've ever heard a sitar it was accompanied by a tambura. It's the instrument that provides the constant single-note drone in Indian classical music.

[@Bassman2353]

@@RoderickCairns Thanks for the catch - of course it is a tambura, capable of the droning as opposed to the melodic capabilities of the sitar. My association is based on the similar timbres of the two Indian instruments, which I do find interesting in how the two songs use them to "set the scene" sonically. Kudos.

[@edwardross7033]

Lots of groups have similar “harmonically static” pieces. Love’s Forver Changes incorporates some similar chord repetitions. The Clash’s Know your rights is the Getting Better intro riff for the whole song

[@elmoluizpereiradacostafilh8087]

I've got a feeling - Black eye peas

[@cesarprieto2983]

I've got to admit it's getting better!

[@SpuzzyLargo]

Bettah😊

[@cesarprieto2983]

@@SpuzzyLargo bettah... beeeettaaahhh

[@SpuzzyLargo]

@@cesarprieto2983 Getting so much bettah all the time!

[@tomfurniss7725]

I enjoyed your analysis, as always. But this song is much more than a palate cleanser. Paul's vocal performance and the electric guitar are sublime.

[@menopausalmusician414]

My Favorite Group and My Favorite Channel Peace

[@davegrant7819]

Also, this ‘palate cleanser’ might have been experienced at the time as following not only the first three songs of the album, but the psychedelic intensity of the double A-side single that preceded it chronologically, Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever

[@dago87able]

The drums are congas, from Cuba. You can easily spot them among the instruments in photographs of the Sgt. Pepper’s sessions at Abbey Road.

[@mrbudlove2]

One of the few songs that gives me a musical high...

[@erickvermeulen9734]

The Beatles gave just one concert in the Netherlands, with Jimmy Nicol instead of Ringo Starr, on June 6th 1964, in Blokker, just north of Amsterdam.

[@BigSky1]

And in Australia.

[@wojciechwlodarczyk9964]

Thank you, VirginRock (perhaps less virgin now after a few years)! I think the best (in The Beatles discography) is still to come for you (and for me, as a gourmet of your analysis)

[@moonrock41]

So, if Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was the part of the process of freeing the mind of its constrains and hang ups, then Getting Better is the part of it when self-realization and integration occurs. Fixing a Hole is the long term change needed to keep the mind free to wander where it will.

[@saramaya3302]

I think the opening staccato guitars are supposed to kind of represent an evening news broadcast opening. Like a type writer thing .Letting us know the state of things for the Beatles at that moment.

[@RealILOVEPIE]

If you want a good example of something like a "rock toccata" you can check out "Through The Fire and The Flames" by the band Dragonforce. It's melodic heavy metal. There are TWO lead guitarists in this song due to the difficulty of playing the piece. It's a essentially a nine minute long rock toccata on guitar and pushes the guitarists to their limit. Due to how difficult the song was, the song was featured as a extra bonus "challenge" track in Harmonix's Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band 3 video games, beating the song in those games on expert without making a mistake is one of the hardest feats in any rhythm game.

[@jackmaddox4960]

Holy Cow, Vlad has the bluest eyes I think I've ever seen! From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, with those eyes and that hair, I gotta say he is an incredibly striking looking man... And it's good to have a face to put to the disembodied voice occasionally drifting in with advice or info!

[@rippog1]

I’m looking forward to when you get onto George’s later works.

[@joebloggs396]

Actually quite a popular song.

[@Deebhoy]

I think this is your best reaction 👍

[@floydshambles]

excellent sitar imitation

[@BecomeConsciousNow]

I like John's bit '...it can't get much worse'. Haha

[@David-mo5jw]

Paul’s Banana finger base par excellence

[@JohnLancaster-i2o]

This is the song they were recording when John accidentally took LSD in the studio!

[@sophitsa79]

Aussies - wasn't there an ad back in the '80s or '90s that had this tune as a jingle? Does anyone remember what it was? I've got that horrible tip of my tongue feeling

[@ianeland2323]

I could be wrong, but maybe it was MBF or Medicare Private. Hence the "getting Better" hook. I could be miles away, but that thought just came into my head.

[@ElementaryPenguin]

In the US, at that time, there was a commercial for an electronics company, I think it was Phillips. Their TVs were "getting better all the time", I couldn't help but think they can't get much worse.

[@katznkittens]

I much prefer the next one: Fixing a Hole.

[@LunaDad2020]

Please consider Fool On The Hill.

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

Vlad you should have yelled “ I’ve got blisters on me fingers !”

[@stormy8207]

John always gave the impression he was a precocious brat with a big ego. Brilliant though. My favourite song of theirs, Long and Winding Road.

[@seanmcmichael2551]

I don't know why, but I always saw TLAWR as paired with ATU (Across The Universe). A great game of Lennon vs McCartney. I've no idea if they motivated each other that way, but I still love to think that they helped complete each other('s songs).

[@michaelrosel1951]

I like your reaction videos. I admire your musicianship especially when you reproduce the music with your harp. You and some othre reaction performers fail to apreciate the electric guitar. The sharp bighting treble from the rythem guitar sounds so fine. It carries the song. The electric guitar be it leed break or simply the rythem guitar is the dominant force in rock music.

[@michaelrosel1951]

Back in the day, the 60's, musiscians didn't give their audiance the terrific lead breaks like Niel Young's Cortez the Killer or Led Zeplsn Stairway to Heaven. These lead breaks are awsome! But the Beattles mususcianship is so superb they provide short rifts throughout the songs with jarring clarity. Try listening to I Feel Fine or the flip sideSh's A Woman and observe this. Eric Clapton recorded a song co-written by George Harrison called Badge. Give a listen to that one and you will hear the unmistakable guitar sound the Beatles employed. I want you to understand this. I play folk rock songs. I can accompany myself. But rock and roll has electrifying guitar riffs. Get it? Got it? Good.

[@Idahoguy10157]

Credit the Beatles producer George Martin for how well Beatles music was recorded

[@Uetti]

Wasn't alternating long and short melodic sentences a fingerprint of Paul McCartney? You forgot to remember that 🙂

[@scunner6828]

Who was that? Sound engineer or a passer-by?

[@tonytjandra4798]

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the holiest books of Hinduism. The Bhagavad Gita is part of the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata. It is considered to be written in the first millennium BCE, about a human's moral duties (called dharma) regarding a broad range of philosophical and metaphysical matters. The Gita in the title of the Bhagavad Gita means "song". Religious leaders and scholars interpret the word Bhagavad in several ways. Accordingly, the title has been interpreted as, "the song of God"; "the word of God" by the theistic schools, "the words of the Lord", "the Divine Song", and "Celestial Song" by others. Thank you.

[@prestuvius]

It's honestly weird that this is her first time hearing this song.

[@BigSky1]

Oh no it’s not!

[@WilliamThompson-b1j]

Paul's song

[@gettinhungrig8806]

"It's probably more John's song than mine". An actual quote from Paul re 'Getting Better' in about the 1980s.

[@OhioOwns]

was any of the song even played

[@wdechand]

Parsley. Ouch.

[@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk]

What? No Elton John LSD?

[@stonehobson2487]

Don't even. The less they know the better.

[@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk]

@@stonehobson2487 Why, you don't like it? Amy has reacted to other covers. It has a good story involving a bet and even Lennon liked it.

[@vonVile]

Lennon, who played guitar and did backing vocals, says Elton John's version is the one he wish he had done with The Beatles. It was truer to his vision.

[@ForbiddTV]

@@vonVile Exactly

[@yes_head]

Good analysis. Notice how the influence of Indian drone music has intruded into what is otherwise another bit of bouncy McCartney Brit-pop. "Getting Better" is a 'deep cut' and a bit filler-y by Beatles standards. It's not a song you might actively seek out, but it's also one you're not going to change the station for either. It serves the same function as "Good Day Sunshine". But even though it's got Paul's finger prints all over it, it's perhaps best known for John's droll lyrical contribution: "It can't get much worse." Re: that vocal harmony part, so many 70's bands owe the Beatles for that. Queen is probably at the top of the list.

[@robintougas9697]

Can't get much worse as a response to Getting better.

[@phillyhope27]

😂

[@kerrykoontz3299]

Honestly....two notes and youre talking again?

[@vonVile]

Amy, can't play Beatle songs without getting a copyright strike. You don't really need to hear the song if you know the song already.

[@SeppoHiltunen]

Thank you so far for the analysis and reactions to Beatles album Sgt Peppers. I've enjoyed very much of the findings of Amy in the musical flavours in every piece. May I suggest that in the future you take also another concept album in your reactions, I mean band Moody Blues and album Days of Future Passed. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Future_Passed