Friday, July 15, 2016

The Dave Clark Five's "Don't Let Me Down"

About a month ago, I listened to The History of the Dave Clark Five, and I became interested in the bass part of "Don't Let Me Down."  It follows a paradigm that - with some variation - I've noticed in a lot of rock and roll songs from the '50s with a I IV I V IV I progression.  For the first three chords (I IV I), the bass part arpeggiates the chords with a root, third, fifth, sixth, minor seventh figure (which is then played backwards to return to the root).  For the next two (V and IV), there are arpeggiations of pure triads (root, third, fifth, third), and then the last chord (I) goes back to the root, third, fifth, sixth, minor seventh figure.

It wasn't until notating "Don't Let Me Down" that I realized that it diverges from that at one point.  Near the end of the piano solo there's a D (the fifth scale degree) instead of an F natural (the minor seventh scale degree).  In the notation, this is the first note of the fourth measure in the fourth line.

(click here for a larger image)

I have a few extra comments (I can't really say "notes") about my notation.  First, I can't for the life of me draw a good-looking quarter rest.  Second, I think there may be some glissandi that I didn't indicate.  I wasn't sure if what I was hearing was part of the bass line or the saxophone, but since I couldn't figure out a good way of playing those glissandi, I didn't include them in my notation.