Talk:The Night Before (song)

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The Night Before (song) has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: August 9, 2023. (Reviewed version).

This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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Lead Guitar

OK, it states in the article that George Harrison played lead guitar in the song. But in the credits, it says George Harrison and Paul McCartney both played lead guitar. Which is it, one or both? Democraticmacguitarist (talk) 11:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are two guitars on the solo. One is doing a high part, one is low. Ive read McCartney played both. But when live it would have to be George..... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.153.204 (talk) 13:20, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, now it states in the article that George Harrison played lead and in the credits it says Paul McCartney played lead. Which is it? Democraticmacguitarist (talk) 16:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think one, if not both guitars, is George. The article cites a book that has often dubious claims of who played what, even though it is written by an "expert". Anyone with a good ear can tell that the credits in this book are often way off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.106.203.142 (talk) 04:27, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion with these line-ups is avoid over-relying on Ian MacDonald's book, because he was a music critic, not an authorized Beatles biographer like Mark Lewisohn, John C. Winn or Walter Everett.61.69.217.3 (talk) 05:04, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, and a lot of MacDonald's comments regarding Beatles history have similarly been shown to be off-the-mark by later biographers. Although, Winn and Everett can't be described as "authorized Beatles biographers" at all, but their books do highlight errors or misconceptions on MacDonald's part and also Lewisohn's in fact.

On "The Night Before", it's definitely Harrison and McCartney playing the solo together – what MacDonald seems unaware of is that the Beatles just didn't yet have the luxury of available tracks for, say, McCartney to play something twice. As with percussion on the band's mid-'60s recordings, there usually had to be two (or more) players recording at the same time. What no writer seems to notice with this song, as far as I know, is Harrison's choppy rhythm guitar part. It's played and mixed so tight with Lennon's electric piano that the overall sound is more like a clavinet. If anyone comes across a source that can put that particular issue right, I'd be over the moon(!). JG66 (talk) 05:25, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tambourine?

There's no tambourine on this song. There are maracas though. The fact that it is sourced as being a tambourine makes me think that the writer of the book cited was mistaken, which happens. I am changing it to credit Ringo as playing maracas and I am removing reference to the tambourine. 76.100.57.219 (talk) 06:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like maracas to me, but it could be something else, and MacDonald was unsure. He listed it as "tambourine (?)" in his credits list, and then wrote that "The percussion instrument with which Starr shakes up the middle eight is unidentified." (He had access to the EMI docs for the track.) The credits should be sourced, and we should avoid WP:OR, so how about this compromise: I'll change that instrument to "percussion". — John Cardinal (talk) 13:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:The Night Before (song)/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I assume it's McCartney on the piano, it would be good to have that confirmed.

Last edited at 15:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC). Substituted at 08:17, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Melody

"The whole being alternated with a second melody" - what does that mean? If it refers to the background singing,then it's not a "second melody" - it's background singing. I don't hear a "second melody". Please explain. Thanks.--Daveler16 (talk) 04:58, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

Passed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:17, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Night Before (song)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 21:37, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll get a review posted for this shortly. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:37, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PianoUpMyNose This article is really well put together. Its prose is solid, and its referencing is on par with a Featured Article. The one significant issue is the level of technical language that's used to describe its composition, which affects readability and makes the article inaccessible to people who are not subject matter experts. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:40, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thebiguglyalien: Thank you for taking the time to do this review and for the encouraging words. My replies are below. PianoUpMyNose (talk) 04:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well-written

Just as a suggestion, it might be better if background and recording were combined into one section, and then composition was its own section. There's a lot more composition information compared to the other two, and it would also help keep things a little more chronological.

Makes sense, done.

The composition info leans really heavily into music jargon and technical details. If there's an alternative way to write a given fact that's more accessible to a layman without losing any important information, that would be the ideal. Otherwise, any technical language should be at least briefly explained so a layman can follow the general sense of what it's saying. The rule of thumb is that articles should be useful both to people who are and people who aren't knowledgeable about the subject. Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable goes into more detail on this.

Yeah, I definitely got carried away with the details in this section. I did a significant trim to make it clearer and more useful to an average reader.

Not really a GA issue, but keep MOS:SEAOFBLUE in mind. It can be confusing when two or more blue links are side by side.
Further to the film's premise of Starr being targeted for assassination by a cult – Without context, this seems like a strange thing to mention in passing. Maybe this should get its own sentence. Something like "The film's premise involves Starr being targeted for assassination by a cult. In line with this, the Beatles perform the song under the protection".

Done, went with your wording.

Verifiable with no original research

All sources appear to be reliable and high quality.
One thing I always note when reviewing music articles is that quotes should only be used when the specific wording is important. If it's possible to paraphrase without losing the meaning, that's preferable. This is particularly relevant when discussing the reception, which can fall into the trap of "Reviewer A said X, Reviewer B said Y". WP:RECEPTION provides some advice on improving coverage of reception.

I also trimmed this section a bit and tried to replace the quotes with paraphrases as much as I could. Let me know if I should also remove or trim the lengthy Rolling Stone quote.

Spot checks:

Gould (2007): Good. Checked all uses.
Davies (2016): Good. Checked both uses.
Turner (2009): Good. Checked both uses.
MacDonald (2007): Good, except it says that Harrison just played guitar, not "lead guitar" like McCartney. Checked all uses.

Good catch. I copied the note that explains the lead guitar confusion.

Broad in its coverage

The article covers the aspects I'd expect of a song article: production, composition, release, and reception. It does not go off topic at any point.

Neutral

Gives a fair analysis of the reception. No aspect of the song or its creation is given undue weight.

Stable

No recent disputes.

Illustrated

Both images are non-free. Both have valid non-free use rationales with justifications for their use.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.