Ian Macdonald

It’s sad to read that Ian Macdonald, the music critic, has died.

Macdonald deserves the description ‘music critic’ rather than the more workaday ‘rock journalist’, in my view, simply on the strength of his extraordinary book Revolution in the Head: The Beatles and The Sixties.

I’m a second-generation Beatles fan. I’ve known all the Beatles songs for as long as I can remember, since my parents were of the first generation, yea even unto the possession of a Mono edition of ‘Please Please Me’. Still, Macdonald’s book made me listen to some of the records completely differently. He knew about, and cared about, the notes themselves, and differed from almost every other writer about rock in being able to write with confidence about the harmonic machinery that made some of the Fabs’ stuff so, well, fabulous.

The opinions about the social effects of the ‘sixties that Macdonald expresses in the book aren’t ones I’d necessarily sign up to, but they are honestly, unpretentiously, and intelligently expressed, and are in an entirely different league from the sophomoric stuff from which certain others who have written in this genre have made careers.

Anyway, here he is on ‘Good Day Sunshine’:

The summer of 1966 was particularly glorious and McCartney’s ‘Good Day Sunshine’, written one hot afternoon at Lennon’s mansion, was one of several records to capture the atmosphere. Made quickly and easily in two sessions, the song is both blissfully simple and full of the free-spirited musical jesting with which The Beatles amazed classical critics. (It was a particular favourite of Leonard Bernstein.) Stealing up through the deceptive shade of E major, it leaps joyously into the light of the dominant – dropping beats left, right, and centre – before landing, in barrelhouse 4/4 on A major. Lest this become too familiar, the second verse cuts itself short for a rolling piano excursion to D, played with aplomb (and varispeed) by George Marin, before modulating in a telescoping coda of canonic entries from all parts of the the stereo spectrum. Superbly sung by McCartney and exquisitely produced by Martin and his team, Good Day Sunshine displays The Beatles at their effortless best.