Another four-and-a-half hour session ran from to pm and showed the group once again experimenting with different arrangements. It then segued into the verse with a simple drum and bass guitar rhythm kicking in as George plucked out the melody line on the sitar. Paul also did his background vocals during the rhythm track this time around. Take four was the keeper, which began with John performing three attempts at the acoustic guitar introduction.
An additional eight measures were included in the instrumental portion of the song at this stage, which brought this section to sixteen measures to equal all of the other verses. George then overdubbed his distinct sitar part, playing the riff during much of the song and performing a drone during the second and fourth verses. Therefore, the sitar ended up being used as more of a complimentary ingredient to the song rather than the primary focus as originally intended.
The answering sitar phrases heard in the bridges of the song were therefore dropped in favor of letting the acoustic guitar strums take precedent. Ringo then entered the picture for overdubs, performing parts on tambourine and what sounds like knee slaps during the bridges of the song. Who needs drums to be a good percussionist? One thing they apparently neglected to do on this mono mix was to fade down George Harrison's isolated sitar track whenever he wasn't playing, which left some sound traces that weren't intended to be there.
Also, a voice is heard presumably saying " sounds good " just as the vocal begins " she told me she worked.. Nobody noticed these flaws at the time and they became part of the mono mix released to the public.
The engineering staff did remember to turn down the sitar track during the first bridge this time around. However, a quick discernible voice is heard just before George starts his sitar riff in the instrumental section of the song, this possibly being a cue from someone to instruct George to start playing his sitar. The presence of this voice appears to indicate that engineer faded up that track a little early this time around.
This flaw also went unnoticed and was released to the public as well. The Beatles actually went through "Norwegian Wood" on two different occasions, January 7th and 9th, , at Twickenham Film Studios during the rehearsals for what became the " Let It Be " album and film.
Of course, neither of these taped renditions were released to the public in any way. This has become the prominent mix of the song that is available to this day. Song Structure and Style. A minimalist approach was definitely taken with the structure of the song, the single chord verses with a repeated downward-spiraling melody line being the consuming feature of the entire track.
What on the surface could have resulted in monotony became an amazingly enduring trait in this highly respected song. A simple introduction and conclusion are thrown into the mix, which also highlights the pointed melody line. The sixteen-measure introduction takes the exact form of the verses that follow by repeating the single-chord eight-measure melody line twice.
However, the first half of the introduction is played solo by John on acoustic guitar while the second half is an identical repeat with George playing the melody line on sitar and Paul kicking in with a simple bass guitar part. George is also heard on string acoustic guitar during this section as well.
The first sixteen-measure verse follows immediately afterward with John singing the melody line and George echoing the last four notes of each phrase on sitar.
The verse is played in E major but the bridge that follows it shifts to E minor. Ringo makes his first appearance in the song during this section with his syncopated leg-slapping in measures five through eight and then thirteen thru sixteen.
George also plays fragrant little phrases throughout on string guitar from the original rhythm track. A third verse immediately follows, which acts as an instrumental section of the song. After a quiet but detectable cue from an unknown person as heard in the stereo mix , George once again plays the melody line on the sitar, repeating it twice this time to fill out the full sixteen measures.
He also begins a tambourine rhythm that is heard on the two and three beat of every measure throughout. The final verse concludes the story with all of the elements of the second verse, including the sitar drone and fragrant string picking from George. Ringo continues the bass drum pattern into this section of the song and alters the tambourine to a single hit on the downbeat of every even numbered measure.
This segues nicely into the song's conclusion, which is actually a repeat of the first half of a verse, therefore being eight measures in length. Being the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, John Lennon is very much the focal point of the song. His vocal work is entirely single-tracked and was performed while playing his excellent rhythm guitar work, which appropriately gives the effect of a story-teller or singer-songwriter.
As for his rhythm guitar playing, his solo introduction sets the tone for the whole song. Similar to other protagonists of Murakami, Toru is an ordinary young adult living in one corner of a tumultuous world. The ridiculousness of student revolt, together with the social hyperactivity disguised as some politically correct movements, is a theme Murakami returns to in his other books.
His modesty and ordinariness are never in terms of mediocrity, but of his authenticity as a person, and the problem Toru confronts is not political nor social, but the one fundamentally human. Naoko embodies the fragile purity and sincerity Toru longs for, but to his ignorance, she is already bonded to death, all struggles in vain. Caught in our cultural ignorance of death, they often fail to recognise the impact of loss on their lives.
And trapped in that ignorance, the natural processes of grief cannot unfold and heal their psyche. Even as an older man reflecting upon his life, Toru Watanabe remains horrifyingly ignorant of the sequence of deaths and suicides that have left him trapped in a state of half-life. Horrifying because there are all too many people caught and suffering in exactly this state of suspended grief in our world.
The desperate hunger of winter also brings out nature's predators. The rapacious aspects of some human relationships is a theme that Murakami tackles again and again.
In men, that predatory instinct can manifest as violence against women, and Murakami frequently introduces sexually violent male characters in novels including After Dark and his latest, 1Q But the most terrifying and subtle predators in Murakami's worlds are the female characters who inflict psychological violence, often on naive and emotionally vulnerable young men. Murakami's characters are forced to learn the hard way that emotional dependence is not love: another valuable lesson for youthful readers when popular culture often represents the two as one and the same.
Haruki Murakami's novels have gained immense popularity because they guide readers through some of life's darkest and most dangerous territory — the cold, dark winter woods of death and grief and abuse — and do so with wisdom and warmth.
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