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Notes on the "Quarrymen At Home"

Notes on ... Series (QUARRYMEN)

by Alan W. Pollack

I have always had a hot spot for the so-called "Quarrymen At Home" bootleg. To the extent I've entertained the secret fear that the tape used for it might not be authentic, I was quite cheered to hear the short excerpt of "I'll Always Be In Love With You" included in the first TV installment; it was the ultimate implicit authentication :-)

I wrote an article on the entire Quarrymen tape back in 1990 for the now erstwhile "Illegal Beatles". For your information — here are my comments about the tracks from this collection which appear in part in "Anthology", Volume 1. I guess "Unkown Instrumental" turns out to be "Cayenne".

With respect to the choice of key for the new "Free As A Bird", is it really a coincidence that three of the four tracks below are also in the key of A? (And that one of them makes prominent use of the minor iv chord in a Major key?)

Keep your sense of humor :-)

"Hallelujah, I Love Her So"

       Key: A
      Form: NOT twelve-bar

Another cover with Paul doing Eddie Cochran doing Ray Charles. The fact that the Quarrymen lyrics here follow Cochran's changes (right down to all those "Eddy, baby"s) shows which version is being imitated. In spite of the slavish imitation, this version contains a repeat of the break not found in Cochran's recording. Also, the Quarrymen do it in A Major while Cochran plays it in G.

The vocal performance is good though the instrumental backing continues in the rough, sometimes unsteady style of the instrumentals of this collection. The guitar solo here is particularly raucous if you can dig it.

"I'll Always Be In Love With You"

       Key: A
      Form: NOT twelve-bar

The Quarrymen cover Jack Pleis (or The Ravens, or both.) This is actually quite a nice performance featuring, in context of the rest of this collection, a rather tastefully restrained backing instrumental; note the triplet figures in the guitar part.

Even though this is not an original, it's interesting to note how the most salient detail in the music here is the use of the chromatically descending inner voice and the "minor iv" chord in a major key. Both of these items were to later become distinctive elements in the harmonic vocabulary of the Beatles.

Interestingly, though the verse of this song is not a twelve-bar blues, the music momentarily shifts into that form for the guitar solo.

"You'll Be Mine"

       Key: A
      Form: NOT twelve-bar

A strange song and another one of the highlights of the set. The vocal arrangement features an intentionally campy baritone solo in the verse, an equally campy backing falsetto starting in the second verse, and most astonishing, a spoken overdub during the bridge.

If you listen carefully, during the bridge you can hear (what I imagine to be) a tape recorder being turned on with someone intoning in an artificially slowed down voice, and then the tape recorder turned off. In other words, a primitive double tracking/special effect!

Furthermore, the self-parody lyrics in this bridge ("My darling, when you brought that toast the other morning ...") are incredibly more reminiscent of the horsing around of the "White Album" or "Get Back" periods than the early Beatles. There is wild laughing at the very end of this track, if you have any question about the humorous intention.

"Unknown Instrumental"

       Key: d
      Form: twelve-bar

This is a straightforward twelve-bar blues instrumental in the key of d minor, but compared to the slew of rehearsals on "Liverpool 1960", this track contains some serious attempts at developing long melodic lines and, while not entirely consistent, makes a hauntingly beautiful impression.

The form consists of six full twelve-bar frames, each of which introduces somewhat new material. Not all the ideas are equally interesting or well developed but this track is still a quantum leap over the "Blues Instrumental" series on the previous collection (i.e. Liverpool 1960).

Regards,

Alan

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