Project 3 "The Beatles Shannonized" Preface

This summer my best friend and I spontaneously took a bike ride from my home town approximately thirty miles north of Philadelphia all the way to the New Jersey Coast......STARTING AT 6 P.M! As we cruised through the summer night small talk became very small and even being the best friends that we are, we began to run out of things to talk about. Soon enough we started asking each other questions about music such as...."If you could be in one band from the sixties who would it be?" or "Would you rather be Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison?" (That was a hard one...I eventually went with Morrison). After about thirty or forty of these questions my friend asked me what still remains as my favorite question of the night; "What three Beatles songs mean the most to you and your life?"

This question took about an hour of serious thinking before I could give any kind of answer. I mean, how could you even begin to answer a question like that? I really could not think about a single song The Beatles wrote that I don't even like let alone love. After Shannonizing one of my own songs, I really fell in love with this way of algorhythmically processing text and I really wanted to mess with one of my favorite artist’s songs. I know it may be a bit of a leap from a bike ride between two friends and an English 303 project but I really see these songs as relevant to my work thus far in this class. Though my answer to the infamous "Beatles Question" has changed drastically since the bike ride, here are the three songs I selected that night, my reasoning behind selecting them, and my reflection on how they were algorhythmically processed.

1) “When I’m Sixty Four” – This has always been one of my Beatles favorites because of how interesting of a concept it was for Paul McCartney to write a song about himself as an old man. I was lucky enough to see Paul McCartney two years ago in concert (he was sixty-four at the time). He sang this song and told us that Eric Clapton called him on his birthday and sang it to him when he picked up the phone. After I Shannonized this song using the Mark Twain option I really liked the line “drop me, and save Grandchildren on a valentine Birthday!” This was very good McCartney/Twain hybrid of a line!
2) “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – Another great song that reminds me of my younger days. This song was a huge influence for me to start becoming a serious musician and playing live. I chose Edgar Allen Poe for this song because much like “When I’m Sixty Four” this song and Poe’s writing style work very well together. I especially enjoy the line “While my guitar gently weeps I had no one of the grave all Still my recollection a ghastly river, as of the floor and its vast weight-- fables I had always deemed them-- sick unto death.”
3) “Let It Be” – This song not only speaks volumes about myself but it has gotten me through some really tough personal times and for that this song will always be revered in my heart. I chose to Shannonize this song by God himself because it has a biblical feel to it in my opinion. In my senior year of high school my band and I ended up performing this song live in front of our entire school. This was one of the best moments of my entire life. After Shannonization this remarkable line was produced: “mother Mary comes to my hour of wisdom, there will not covet any time go, mother Mary comes to me, let it be.”

By the way, we ended up making it to the beach by 4 a.m that morning.