"Good Morning Good Morning"
Cover of the Northern Songs sheet music (licensed to Sonora Musikförlag)
Song by the Beatles
from the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released26 May 1967[1]
Recorded8 and 16 February,
13, 28 and 29 March 1967
StudioEMI, London
Genre
Length
  • 2:41 (stereo)
  • 2:35 (mono)
LabelParlophone
Songwriter(s)Lennon–McCartney
Producer(s)George Martin

"Good Morning Good Morning" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was written by John Lennon[4] and credited to Lennon–McCartney. Inspiration for the song came to Lennon from a television commercial for Kellogg's Corn Flakes.[4][5] Another reference to contemporary television was the lyric "It's time for tea and Meet the Wife", referring to the BBC sitcom.[6]

Lennon himself was critical of the track. "It's a throwaway, a piece of garbage, I always thought," he once said. "I always had the TV on very low in the background when I was writing, and it came over, and then I wrote the song."[7]

Recording

The basic track was recorded on 8 February 1967, with overdubs on 16 February (bass guitar and lead vocals), 13 March (brass section), 28 March (backing vocals and guitar solo), and 29 March (animal noises).[8] The guitar solo was played by Paul McCartney on a Fender Esquire.[8][9][10] At Lennon's request, George Martin brought in Sounds Incorporated to provide the song's prominent brass backing.[6]

Lennon asked engineer Geoff Emerick to arrange the animal noises heard at beginning (and end) of the song so that each animal heard was one capable of devouring (or frightening) the animal preceding it.[6][9] The final sound effect of a chicken clucking was so placed that it transforms into the guitar on the following track, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)". According to Emerick, these animal noises were inspired by the coda of "Caroline, No" that ended the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album.[11] They begin with the crow of a rooster, while the other animal sounds heard at the end of the song include birds, a cat, a dog, a cow, a horse, a sheep, a group of bloodhounds accompanying fox hunters on horseback with horns blasting, and a chicken.

The rapid 16th note bass drum fills were done on two bass drums, according to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn.[12] The length of the mono version of "Good Morning Good Morning" is 2:35, whereas the stereo version (due to a lengthier fade out of animal sounds) runs to 2:41. The 2017 stereo mix follows the editing style of the mono version, and as a result, it is also 2:35.

For the Beatles' 2006 remix album, Love, the horse sounds were mixed into "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!".[13]

Rhythm

The song is played at 117 beats per minute, has an unusual rhythmic feel, and uses different time signatures. Beats are played in groups of 2, 3 and 4, and time signature changes frequently. Parts with 5
4 and 4
4 bars alternate, with 3
4 transitions.[14] Most of the song uses simple time, where the beats are divided into two, but the middle eight sections use compound time, where the beats are divided into triplets.

The song is divided into seven sections, two of which are repeated once and one twice, in a time-symmetric pattern A, B, C, B, C, B, A (disregarding the fade out of the last bar):

A: 4,4,4,4,4 (introduction: five bars, 20 beats)

B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)
C: 5,5,5,3,4,4,4,4,4,4 (contains refrain: ten bars, 42 beats)
B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)
C: 5,5,5,3,4,4,4,4,4,4 (contains refrain: ten bars, 42 beats)
B: 5,5,5,3,4,5,4,3,3,4,4 (eleven bars, 44 beats)

A: 4,4,4,4,4,4 (end: six bars, 24 beats, with fade out bar)

That adds up to 64 bars with 260 beats which, at the published 117 beats per minute, would result in a length of 2:13.333... minutes.[15][16][17]

Cover versions

Personnel

Personnel per Ian MacDonald[20] and the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band 50th Anniversary booklet.[21]

The Beatles
Wind instruments
Production

Notes

  1. ↑ Everett 1999, p. 123. "In the United Kingdom Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ... was rush-released six days ahead of its official date, June 1."
  2. ↑ Unterberger, Richie (2009). "Good Morning, Good Morning". AllMusic. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  3. ↑ Elizabeth Thomson and David Gutman, "The Lennon companion: twenty-five years of comment", ISBN 0-306-81270-3, p.119.
  4. 1 2 Sheff 2000, p. 183.
  5. ↑ Cott, Jonathan (23 December 2010). "John Lennon: The Last Interview". Rolling Stone. No. 1120–1121. New York City.
  6. 1 2 3 Miles 1997, pp. 320–321.
  7. ↑ "10 Beatles songs that John Lennon hated". Far Out Magazine. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  8. 1 2 Lewisohn 1988, pp. 95, 97, 105–106.
  9. 1 2 Emerick & Massey 2006, pp. 176–179.
  10. ↑ Dowlding 1989, p. 178.
  11. ↑ Womack, Kenneth (2014). The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four. ABC-CLIO. p. 333. ISBN 978-0-313-39172-9.
  12. ↑ Lewisohn 1988.
  13. ↑ Corliss, Richard (30 June 2006). "The Beatles Come Together". Time. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
  14. ↑ The Beatles – Complete Scores 1993, pp. 335–341.
  15. ↑ George Martin: Summer of Love. The Making of Sgt. Pepper. London, Macmillan, 1994, ISBN 0-333-60398-2. S. 73–75.
  16. ↑ Walter Everett: The Beatles as Musicians. Revolver through the Anthology. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-19-512941-0. S. 114–116.
  17. ↑ Dominic Pedler: The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. London, Omnibus Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7119-8167-1. S. 552 f.
  18. ↑ "Various - Sgt. Pepper... With A Little Help From His Friends (CD, Album) at Discogs". discogs.com. Discogs. February 2007. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  19. ↑ "Release "Mojo Presents: Sgt. Pepper... With a Little Help From His Friends" by Various Artists - MusicBrainz". musicbrainz.org. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  20. ↑ MacDonald 2005, pp. 234–235.
  21. ↑ Howlett, Kevin (2017). Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (50th Anniversary Deluxe Version). Apple Records. p. 75.

References

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