Recently I was reading a book called The Beatles - 10 Years That Shook The World.

The forward was written by Brian Wilson, the Mastermind behind the Beach Boys. Brian, much like me, was incredibly impressed with The Beatles. He mentioned how amazing it was that they were getting such a big sound from so few instruments.

In his forward he also mentions a number of his personal favorite Beatle songs, such as With A Little Help from My Friends, All You Need is Love, Across the Universe and My Sweet Lord (a George Harrison song).

What made me chuckle was when he said that last chord on A Day In The Life scared the heck out of me. I tried to recall how that song ended, but I couldnt remember. So I fired up my itunes program to hear it and well, quite frankly it would be very difficult to describe it to you. But Ill give it a shot.

It is a very discordant and powerful Beatles chord that reminds me of a dramatic Beethoven symphony, with the resonance of something you might hear at the end of a concert by The Who, as they finished destroying their instruments. This particular Beatles chord lingers much longer than I think any avid Beatles fan would realize.

Since itunes allows me the luxury of not only seeing how long a song is, it also allowed me to actually time the chord, and its resonance, which was slightly more than 40 seconds.

Back in the 60s and 70s when I was learning how to play guitar there were times when my friends would show me the chords to certain songs and every once in a while when they would teach me a new chord I would ask them "what is that chord called?" They would refer to them as Beatles chords, which basically meant that it wasnt a typical E major or F sharp minor, or an A flat, but that it was something created specifically by the Fab Four.