Congratulations, With the Beatles! You’ve just achieved a milestone!
That’s right, the band’s second album is the first one to be completely represented on the countdown. “Not a Second Time” is the best that With the Beatles has to offer, and it comes in at #75. The next time we finish off an album won’t be until entry #46, which will be posted in 2025.
And that’s if you behave.
But I really do like “Not a Second Time.” As a composition, it feels more complex than anything else on the first two albums and if I had any knowledge about music theory I’m sure I could point to some structural or chord change that sets it apart, but I’ll leave that to the experts.
“One gets the impression that [the Beatles] think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes,” wrote William Mann in The Times. “The flat submediant key switches, so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of ‘Not A Second Time’ (the chord progression which ends Mahler’s Song of the Earth).”
Obviously.
Anthony Cusumano 