jingle jangle mornings, ten

The original sources of jangle are intercontinental. From Europe, it's Django Reinhardt. In the United States, it's Buddy Holly, Chet Atkins, and the Everly Brothers. And in the UK, it's basically the Liverpudlian Merseybeat thing, which of course spawned the Beatles. I think what the Beatles did to set them apart was to incorporate folk/skiffle changes into their songs, lots of passing notes that elevate the music's dramatic impact.  So if you want to know why it was the Beatles who became the carriers of the zeitgeist and not, say, Freddie and the Dreamers, I would submit to you that it's all about those subtle passing notes.  My guitar teacher likes to say that the Beatles were extremely chord literate.  And it's true. If you look at their songbook, there's almost always at least one or two fairly unusual chords or chord changes in even their most basic songs... Not to take anything away from the other beat groups. I always have time for Merseybeat music. Today's song - as well as this one, and this one - gives a better understanding of why the 60s changed for the worse by the end of the Summer of Love, if not before. There's a lot of reasons this happened, but at the most basic level it just wasn't possible to sustain the level of euphoria you hear in this music.  It's so simple, so perfectly self-contained, so uncluttered by life's vexing complexities. The culture is still ascending and hasn't peaked yet, hence the music's pleasing combination of confidence and earnestness.  You listen to this stuff and almost forget that gravity catches up with everything eventually...