Sic Semper Tyrannis

She's Leaving Home

One of my favorite things to do while waiting for sleep to arrive is to listen music through headphones. I have done this for many many years.

A few nights ago I was listening to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper for sentiment's sake and to see if I can even still listen to this album I've known so well for twelve years or so.

Turns out I can. There's no doubt this album is one of the most creative, varied, active musical statements ever recorded. But I realized there is a song on there that gets shamefully overlooked in discussions of the Lads' best songs--"She's Leaving Home." It was as if I heard this song for the first time the other night.

There are a lot of little things that set this song apart from your run-of-the mill pop song. Number one with a bullet is George Martin's string arrangement. It's hard to tell where Paul McCartney's writing stops and Martin's input begins as the sentiment of the words is pure McCartney and he sings the melody as comfortably as if there wee a direct line from his brain to the microphone. Yet the strings are more than just "filler" or "sweetener," (indeed there are no traditional rock band instruments on this song) as Martin employs several ear-catching effects that betray his intention to make the song and arrangement indistinguishable from each other, as he did in several other Beatle songs:

1) There is much scalar motion in the basses and cellos that contrasts with the staccato upper strings during the verses. The easier route would have been just block chords a la a schmaltzy Celine Dion ballad for instance.

2) At the end of the shorter vocal phrases, like "Silently closing her bedroom door," Martin inserts little syncopated gestures to keep you listening forward.

3) Something really interesting happens as Paul sings "our baby's gone." The upper strings play a triplet-introduced fanfare-type motif for three bars, which is never heard again in the song. I wonder what Made Mr. Martin decide to do that? Is that the emotional peak of the song? When we hear the sound of a mother's broken heart?

Could be.

If so, it's another indication of the greatness of the Beatles' songwriting. For, in this song we get both sides of a slice-of-life melancholy snapshot: why a girl decides that it's time to leave the safe comfortable world of her parents' home contrasted with the ache that a parent feels at that time. The Beatles were at the center of a youthful cultural revolution, no doubt, but this song is so artful in that it entertains the ideas of the older "establishmnet" as equally valid. (In fact, McCartney has gone on, in the Anthology to say how glad he is that their lyrics were generally "peace and love" and not telling parents to "sod off.")

4) Finally, continuing on the topic of the uniqueness of George Martin's arrangement, there are the lithe trills that accompany our girl that's leaving as she's "waiting to keep the appointment she made"--another nice little flourish that corresponds to the hope and freedom of her new life.

In addition to the lovely string arrangement I was also struck by Paul and John's vocal interplay on this song. Just like the give-and-take between both parties in the song, the choruses have John singing the parts of the parents in first person (plural) and Paul singing a much higher descant part in third person narration and they never sounded more beautiful. I wish I could have been there to hear the conversation between the two when Paul said, "so I wonder-could we both be singing something on the choruses?" Anyway, that kind of counterpoint is also very rare in the music of your average pop song.

If you've got Sgt. Pepper, give this song a listen. Maybe you'll hear what I did the other night...

posted by Mike @ 6:10 PM