Don’t ask me why, but I went on a Beatles bender the other day and found some great links.
The first is Alan W. Pollack’s Notes On series, in which every Beatles song has been pulled apart and examined from the view of a music academic. Far from dry (well, okay, some of the stuff is pretty dry, and it helps to know music), Pollack’s analysis makes some connections–mostly between the early songs and the later–that haven’t been pointed out before.
For an even more in-depth analysis, Ian Hammond makes a pretty convincing argument that Revolution 9 is actually a coherent and structured piece and not just John Lennon assing about with magnetic tape. Even if you don’t agree, Mr. Hammond has bloody good ears–he has uncovered several layers of sound and things to look out for (a carnival barker calling our “thirty!” not once but twice) and identified some of the sources of the classical music heard in the piece.
Then there’s Joseph Brennan’s page on Songs the Beatles Didn’t Do including the songs they wrote for others and the ones that they never put out (such as the mythical “Carnival of Light”).
Finally, because there’s many different versions of each Beatles song (mono, stereo, remixes, etc.), Brennan has also maintained the excellent list of Beatles Recording Variations.
Apart from that, you could just listen to the music…
Some Beatles Links
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