From NPR, a story about the decoding of that famous first chord of The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” I’ve played that song in several bands and nobody has ever been able to figure out what the chord really is—the guitarist would just play an approximation and then it’s off to the races with the rest of the song.

It turns out, according to this guy’s analysis (a Fourier transform, for you audio geeks out there), that George was playing a chimey chord on the top eight strings of his 12-string, John played a C note on his 6-string, Paul played a D note, and George Martin played a five-note chord on the piano, voiced in such a way you don’t even notice it’s a piano. Very cool. And no wonder no one ever figured it out!

One thing I wish they'd done (hmmm…) is round up four musicians to record the individual elements of the chord, so you could hear how it all hangs together. And that would be a convincing statement that this is the definitive solution to the question. It’s not a burning issue, but it’s fun to think about something besides crisis and catastrophe every once in a while.

Speaking of Issues, I’ve got to get out of here and get to my gig. Have a good New Year, everyone!