Talk:Hey Bulldog

Lead

who played lead in the song bull dog by the beatles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.247.251.249 (talk) 12:58, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Lead what? Vocal? That's John. Anything else, and I've no idea. - 211.28.82.49 03:58, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, John played the lead guitar solo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyclopseslayer (talk • contribs) 07:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

John was the lead vocal although George was the guitar soloist. John played the piano riff. -wtk — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.250.112.144 (talk) 01:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Geoff Emerik, lead guitar solo was played by George. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.127.234.7 (talk) 15:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

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Personnel section

please confirm it, or give george lead credit, because i read a lot that he played lead and the solo and not john, so please someone search for a source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.173.175.125 (talk) 12:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

About Lady Madonna

The quote: "the song was recorded during the filming of the "Lady Madonna" promotional video, and is one of the few Beatles' songs to revolve around a piano riff." is wrong. Its actually vice-versa. The "Lady Madonna" video was put together using footage from the "Hey Bulldog" recording session. When watching the Lady Madonna video you can see the playing and the lyrics dont match the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfthrizXKOM 83.253.32.171 (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Compare the above Lady Madonna video with the Hey Bulldog video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WBelmO65J4

83.253.32.171 (talk) 18:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Heavy metal

There was a hardcover book in my high school library, c. 1978, that described "Hey Bulldog" as the first heavy metal song.
Naturally I do not recall the title. Varlaam (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

You serious? "Helter Skelter" sounds more like heavy metal than this... Yeepsi (Talk to me!) 20:35, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely.

Now, of course, the meaning of "heavy metal" has changed a lot since I was in high school.

That term used to mean Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Rush, at a time when progressive rock was the dominant form around here. For the girls too. Disco made no impression on my high school; it was a Genesis and Supertramp school.

I remember on which shelf that book was, but not the author's argument. "Helter Skelter", sure, I know what you mean.

But it is helpful to try to put yourself in a frame of mind where you can perceive "Hey Bulldog" as metal, in order to consider the context of that time and the development since.

And we were interested a lot in origins in those days, the first concept album, the first progressive rock album. Could the Beatles be reasonably described as progressive rock? art rock? or what exactly.

My stepmother saw the Beatles play here. Made her angry. So much screaming she couldn't hear the band.

Varlaam (talk) 22:29, 5 January 2012 (UTC) (Toronto)

Key

The source for the song's key lists it as being in C, despite it being in B. Does anyone have an accurate source for this? PossiblyRita (talk) 02:56, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, PossiblyRita. I've found different answers across sources. Alan W. Pollack describes it as C major and c minor, (currently cited in the article). He also further mentions the shifting home key, which you can read there. Ian MacDonald describes it as a B major, A major and b minor (MacDonald 2007, p. 495). Walter Everett includes a few bars of the chorus to John's demo and it indicates flats on A, E and G (Everett 1999, p. 156). What key would that be? Terence O'Grady doesn't discuss the key at all. Tkbrett (✉) 03:17, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my physical copy of The Beatles Complete Scores, which is as close a thing there is to an authoritative set of transcriptions, shows a key signature of B-major. TJRC (talk) 23:18, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks TJRC. I tend to shy away from the official sheet music, given their predisposition to errors – I believe there's a moment where Paul is seen complaining about this in the new Get Back documentary. In Dominic Pedler's book The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles, there is a brief mention of John climbing on b minor during the chorus, which would seem to support MacDonald's description. Wilfrid Mellers' book Twilight of the Gods is the only other musicological analysis I could think to check, but I unfortunately do not have access to it.

Ideally, I'd like to hear from someone with a deeper appreciation of music theory to help explain what Pollack is talking about in places here. Namely, these statements: The home key mode shifts repeatedly: minor for the intro, outro, and refrains, and Mixolydian-tinged Major for the verses. A touch of the blues prevails above all throughout the song. Therefore, even those supposedly Major mode verses are shot through with flat thirds and sevenths. and The off-center impact of the Mixolydian/Blues/Minor overlap is strongly in evidence here. The minor v chord may not destroy your sense of the home key being C, but it does a much weaker job of reinforcing that fact than a Major V chord would. Given the sense of modulation to the unusual key of flat-VII that you feel during the second group of four measures, ask yourself honestly: does the final C chord in measure eight still sound like the I chord of the home key, or more like a V-of-V in the key of B-flat? The last sentence there makes me think that the composition leads to ambiguity regarding its key, and that the C major/C minor description of Pollack is not a simple mistake on his part. Tkbrett (✉) 15:11, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I don't claim it's dispositive (hence "For what it's worth"). However, be aware that Complete Scores is not the usual sheet music arrangement of songs to be played on guitar or piano. It purports to be an accurate transcription of each of the Beatles' songs as recorded, with detailed transcription of all parts. For example, for Hey Bulldog, the score has eight staves: one vocal, one guitar (with a second stave usually showing tabulature); two piano; two bass (again, one tabulature); and one drums. For Yesterday, and She's Leaving Home, to give other examples, the individual strings parts are included. So it's not your typical Hal Leonard Publishing P+V arrangement (although I see that the US publication rights did in fact go through HLP).

That being said, it is just One More Source rather than being definitive.

Probably the best approach here is to document the various sources that ascribe it to one key or another, rather than for us as Wikipedia editors to make a ruling. TJRC (talk)

References

While I certainly don't deny that the song is quite definitely modally ambiguous, I can quite confidently assert that it isn't in the key of C. It seems to me that Pollack's assessment of the song is simply a half-step sharp of the actual key in the song (perhaps his turntable was running a bit fast), rather than an alternative interpretation of the song. This is also indicated by the fact that the chords that he outlines in his "section-by-section walkthrough" are all also a half-step above what can be heard on the recording. PossiblyRita (talk) 18:04, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

PossiblyRita and TJRC: I switched sources from Pollack to MacDonald, since he mentions B major, A major and B minor. This seems like the best alternative. Thoughts? Tkbrett (✉) 12:46, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Inclusion in Yellow Submarine the movie

According to Yellow Submarine animating director Jack Stokes, in his audio commentary for the Warner Brother's DVD of the film, the audio and animation sequence of Hey Bulldog was added near the end of movie very late in its production at the behest of the Beatles. Stokes adds that this was highly unusual because the Beatles had very little input with the production details of the movie until then. Optimister (talk) 15:01, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Untitled

Lennon does not play solo on the recording or in the video. Moreover, he plays something completely different there, neither related to the solo nor to anything else in this song. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoisinMorgan (talk • contribs) 23:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)