Beatles Because: Bach Not Beethoven

2021-05-26 music

I was surprised to read that the Beatles song Because was purportedly inspired by Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata. This surprised me because not only do I hear no resemblance to that piece, I also have always assumed that George Martin lifted the opening harpsichord solo from Bach BWV 999, with which I do hear a strong resemblence.

So I think we’re being hoodwinked on the provinance of this song, and people are exhibiting confirmation bias when they claim to clearly hear the influence of Beethoven’s song in the opening harpsichord riff – if anything it’s Bach, not Beethoven.