The Beatles: Note By Note

This week on our Beatles podcast, we dive into “I’m a Loser” with Kenyon, Peter, and special guest Abby Devoe. The trio explores how the song feels and what it does. They frame “I’m a Loser” as a bold statement in peak Beatlemania, talk about how vulnerability reads as power, and trace the way the track announces a new voice in John’s writing. Abby brings her fashion and culture lens, then jumps into a playful “Beatles à la mode” tour of early looks, tailoring, and boots, connecting style to sound and attitude. You’ll hear how the hosts set the table with just enough songwriting and recording context to ground the chat, then pivot to impressions, performance choices, and why that opening hits like a headline. Come for the laughs, stay for the perspective shift.

What happens when a Beatles song stares straight at the word “loser”? In this lecture, Kenyon takes the title seriously and follows the lyric to ask whether Lennon means simple heartbreak or a jab at his own image. Kenyon reads the verses closely, noting the high-school-diary metaphors, the mask that slips, and that striking question, “Is it for her or myself that I cry?” He highlights the sudden drop to a surprisingly low note as a storytelling move, then looks at the chorus as a plain confession that doubles as advice when the song turns to the listener at the end. Rather than technical analysis, Kenyon focuses on feel, pacing, and vocal shape, including how the arrangement hands the solo spotlight from harmonica to guitar to underline the mood. The episode places “I’m a Loser” inside Lennon’s early tug of war between pop polish and raw self-portrait, showing why this simple song hints at deeper honesty.

This week on our Beatles podcast, we bring on Skylar Moody and use “No Reply” to tell a bigger story. First, we map how new fans discover the band today, then tap Skylar’s front-row view of online fandom, the good, the bad, and the very human. We follow the song’s path from Tahiti spark to a confused “demo” on Anthology, weigh a theory about who kept time on that tape, and zoom into the finished track’s arrangement choices, overdubs, and piano accents. We place the opener on Beatles for Sale in context, ask what “deep cut” really means, and test that album’s “burnout” reputation against what we actually hear. Everyone goes out on a limb and gives a rating for their impression and close with a story about Tommy Quickly and the wider NEMS stable. No matter what you feel about the song, you're bound to find something interesting here.

Kenyon treats “No Reply” like a short film. He builds the scene from the lyric clues and follows how silence drives the story. He connects this song to Lennon’s earlier promises of easy connection, then shows how that promise collapses into absence here. He lingers on charged pivots like “I saw the light” and “I nearly died,” and questions whether the “another man” twist adds meaning or just color.On craft, Kenyon shows how the opening feels like it starts midair, how the phrasing sets up a question and then answers it, and how a small change in the pattern reframes the verse. He points out arrangement choices you can hear immediately, from Ringo’s rim clicks to doubled acoustics to Paul’s high line. He explains why the middle section feels fresh and how the ending leaves the ache intact, giving songwriters concrete ideas to lift.

We start the episode hilariously out of sync, then use “She’s a Woman” to find our groove again. Instead of reciting facts, we rebuild the track from the ground up: why the bass takes the driver’s seat, how those sharp guitar stabs act like percussion, and why the low piano line changes the feel. We zoom in on the tiny tag we both obsess over and show how the sudden shift there creates the exact jolt that keeps you replaying it. Then we step through how the session came together and what flipped a messy run into a locked final take. We compare UK and US release quirks, and we point you to a few covers worth your time without spoiling the surprises. We finish by putting real ratings on our impressions and explaining why. If you like hearing a song transform from “I think I know this” into “wait, that’s what’s happening,” this one’s for you.

In this Lecture Series deep dive, we pull “She’s a Woman” apart to find the craft hiding in plain sight. First, we scan the lyrics for structure, cadence, and sly wordplay, from the racy “turn me on” placement to unexpected internal rhymes and that clever enjambment that resolves a line one phrase later. Then we pivot to arrangement under a microscope: John’s relentless stabs on two and four, the rolling bass as the backbone, piano echoes of the vocal, and a stripped setup that spotlights the melody. You’ll hear how Paul vaults up, then snakes down, shaping a hook with big interval jumps and off-beat stresses. We map the harmony too, charting an A mixolydian canvas interrupted by a brief, color-splash middle eight that hints at Paul’s future key-play. We compare its DNA to “I Feel Fine,” trace the solo’s blues logic, and close by stress-testing that Little Richard-style outro. Tune in to re-hear the song with fresh ears.

In this lecture, Kenyon digs into “I Feel Fine” not as a chart-topping single, but as a turning point in Lennon’s songwriting and the band’s evolution in the studio. We unpack the way John’s neutral “I feel fine” lyric carries more weight than it first appears, how the melody crosses bar lines in subtle, surprising ways, and how the Beatles start to experiment with perspective in their storytelling. You’ll also hear how the band’s Latin-influenced drum pattern and riff-based arrangement reveal a whole new level of musical interplay. By the end, you’ll see why “I Feel Fine” is more than just an early example of feedback — it’s the sound of a band learning to speak a new musical language.

This episode steps outside the usual track-by-track format to explore The Beatles’ Story, Capitol Records’ 1964 double-LP “documentary” about the band. With historian Dr. Richard Driver, we look at how this release tried to define the Beatles for the American audience—mixing interviews, narration, and orchestral renditions with facts that were sometimes inaccurate. We trace the record’s place alongside other interview albums of the era, and how it fit into Capitol’s rush to issue product when a planned Hollywood Bowl live album fell through. The discussion reaches beyond the LP itself into questions of myth-making: how early biographies, liner notes, and media portrayals created an official story of the Beatles, and what was left out. Along the way, we connect these myths to later scholarship and even to Peter Jackson’s Get Back, asking what it means for fans and historians to keep retelling the Beatles’ story.