Lennon and McCartney: Were they equal?

[Van Dammage]

It inspired my friend richard to rewrite the lyrics so that it was about femidoms, which the funniest thing the 11 year old thenoise had ever heard.

Even inspired me to do a remix featuring Andy Tate.

[Johnny Yesno]

he's now regarded as one of the fathers of lo-fi music.

According to who and on what basis?

[Custard]

McCartney looked marginally better in a bikini.

The most I've laffed in ages

What is that?

[CaledonianGonzo]

According to who and on what basis?

That reading was a feature of most of the reviews and reappraisals of Ram when it was re-issued a couple of years back.

Of course, music journalists and critics hold no more authority on the subject than you or I, but I think there's a general sense that it's shambolic,  home-spun nature was either vaguely influential on - or at least predates - a lot of the indie pop music that was to follow in the eighties and nineties.

[Johnny Yesno]

That reading was a feature of most of the reviews and reappraisals of Ram when it was re-issued a couple of years back.

Of course, music journalists and critics hold no more authority on the subject than you or I, but I think there's a general sense that it's shambolic,  home-spun nature was either vaguely influential on - or at least predates - a lot of the indie pop music that was to follow in the eighties and nineties.

Hmm. A look at the list of lo-fi bands on Wikipedia suggests that my understanding of the meaning of lo-fi is out of date. It now seems to be able to include almost anyone. That at least explains why I couldn't see a connection between McCartney and Dinosaur Jr, Pussy Galore and Flying Saucer Attack. There isn't one.

Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV2kJ0rSfKU

Pussy Galore - Cunt Tease: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK_ICQhRaeE

Flying Saucer Attack - "The Sea": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i9QanWsIdg

Still, even if we ignore the erosion of what was once a fairly clearly defined term, it takes a special kind of revisionism to believe that hopeless hack was the father of anything and ignore garage music, e.g.

Evil Hoodoo - The Seeds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OljHHbvTwdE

[CaledonianGonzo]

Yeah - I think in terms of lo fi I was thinking more about DIY things like early of Montreal, Daniel Johnston, Fence Collective, etc.

Though I'd dispute that Macca had no influence at all on J Mascis. Less than Neil Young did, clearly, but in amidst all the plankspanking Dinosaur Jnr have a clear mid sixties pop sensibility.

And I think you'd also be in denial if you don't note the influence that The Beatles and other sixties invasion acts had on US garage bands like The Seeds.

[NoSleep]

"McCartney" isn't lo-fi (Studer tape machines are the best there are; I have a couple here), it's essentially DIY.

EDIT: snap

I think Sun Ra pipped the post on both DIY and Lo-fi, back in the 40's & 50's (knowing his musical direction was not going to sit easily with the musical establishment he armed himself with the means to record his band from the get-go).

[Johnny Yesno]

Though I'd dispute that Macca had no influence at all on J Mascis. Less than Neil Young did, clearly, but in amidst all the plankspanking Dinosaur Jnr have a clear mid sixties pop sensibility.

And I think you'd also be in denial if you don't note the influence that The Beatles and other sixties invasion acts had on US garage bands like The Seeds.

Well, that's a different argument. At least we've addressed this bollocks about the influence of Ram and the show tune writer's other 70s output on lo-fi music.

[NoSleep]

Ram doesn't even come into it (recorded at Columbia and A & R Studios, New York). I thought we were talking about the first solo album, which was started on a Studer 4-track at home (albeit mixed in Abbey Road - not a particularly lo-fi facility).

[Johnny Yesno]

Fuck knows. Perhaps if the person who made the original claim would care to clarify...

Edit:

From the wiki page on McCartney:

The recordings were carried out on a recently delivered Studer four-track tape recorder, without a mixing desk,[18] and therefore without VU displays as a guide for recording levels.[19][20] In the commentary he later supplied with the album, McCartney described his home-recording set-up as "Studer, one mike, and nerve".

Okay, fair enough.

On 12 February, McCartney took his Studer tapes to Morgan Studios, in the north-west London suburb of Willesden,[20] in order to copy all the four-track recordings onto eight-track tape, to allow for further overdubbing.

Right...

Later in February 1970, McCartney moved to the more familiar Abbey Road Studios, with the booking again under the name of Billy Martin.[34] There, he carried out further mixing on the previously recorded material, as well as taping new selections.[35] On 22 February, McCartney recorded "Every Night"[34] – another composition rehearsed during the Get Back sessions,[36] and a song that authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter note as the "first 'professional' recording" on the finished album, given its position as track 4, following "Valentine Day".[22] Also on the 22nd, McCartney recorded "Maybe I'm Amazed",[34] a piano-based ballad dedicated to Linda,[9] and, in Madinger and Easter's description, "the most elaborate instrumental track on the LP".[32] The final new recording for McCartney was "Man We Was Lonely", which he taped on 25 February,[34] having composed it earlier that day.

Hang on a minute...

[Johnny Yesno]

We shouldn't forget what a huge influence The Beatles had on Captain Beefheart.

Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuv1HBTbHO4

And the lo-fi reach of McCartney was so powerful it extended backwards through time:

Kandy Korn - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIYKYyDfEEg

[Head Gardener]

Macca new vid : http://vevo.ly/PzG7eT

erm, lol

[Johnny Yesno]

[Glebe]

[wosl]

Macca new vid

Christ, what an overblown tart.[nb]And the song and the video, eh?![/nb]

[Brundle-Fly]

Paul McCartney: patronised a 12 year-old who had bafflingly been assigned to interview him on 'The Tube', circa 1986.

It was 13 year old model, Felix Howard (who is the kid from the Madonna promo, Open Your Heart). He was a guest presenter on The Tube in 1986 and had to interview Paul McCartney. Quite understandably, Felix was completely out of his depth and as how I recall, McCartney didn't patronise him but was actually very supportive.

[gilbertharding]

"In this ever-changing world in which we live in".

I know you know, but: "... If this ever changing world in which we're living..."

I can't ever let that pass.

[Black_Bart]

If you read most of the lit out the Beatles, it does seem that

a. Lennon asked Macca to join his band because, well, at best Macca is a savant very good at working out covers (and letting Lennon rework them into his own songs, which he admitted to, the ripping off songs, that is).

b. Most of the quality work by the Beatles is infact Maccas, something Lennon hated, but was too gutless to fully express (He cut a line from HDYSAN because of a fear of libel).

c. He spent his time after the Beatles either smacked off his head, being nasty with Yoko about people like Bette Midler, or worrying terribly what the idiot "revolutionaries" were saying about him.

d. Nearly everything he did solo was actually shit. Imagine is a fucking awful song, made worst by the fact he didn't believe a single word of it.

Yeah, some people think that if you say "I perfer Macca" that you are trying to be reverse-cool, but Let me Roll it and SLLS show that the veggie burger munching Rupert fan was much more of a grown up. But that's being working class as opposed to middle class, eh Aunt Mimi?

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Nearly everything he did solo was actually shit. Imagine is a fucking awful song, made worst by the fact he didn't believe a single word of it.

Matter of opinion.  I agree Imagine is a bit dull, but Number Nine Dream, Whatever Gets You Through The Night, Mind Games and his version of stand By Me are all great songs, for me.

[lazyhour]

In general I don't find that much to enjoy in Lennon's solo work, but Oh Yoko is ace.

[Black_Bart]

Matter of opinion.  I agree Imagine is a bit dull, but Number Nine Dream, Whatever Gets You Through The Night, Mind Games and his version of stand By Me are all great songs, for me.

Hence the "nearly everything", note you listed singles.

Should of been a line "Imagine beating your wife, it's easy, cuz I do it all the time, imagine her losing our child, cuz I beat her so bad."

[biggytitbo]

His best songs are God and Mother. They are genuinely great songs imo. Number 9 Dream and How Do You Sleep (despite been pretty horrendous in some ways) are musically nice too. Beautiful Boy is underrated too.

[wosl]

The way #9 Dream somehow both glances back at and closes the door on the Beatle times is majestic and affecting, his best solo piece (Paul must've been stopped dead in his tracks the first time he heard it), but sorry biggy, Beautiful Boy is reassessment-proof: corny, cloying instrumentation; hackneyed words that his first wife and son must've found bitterly hilarious, and featuring one of Lennon's worst vocal performances.  The way he draws out 'Sean' at the end of the song in that adenoidal, descending see-saw flutter makes you want to throw an incense burner through a window. Its short length apart, there's not a thing that redeems it.  Worse than the worst of McCartney?  Could be.

[Hypodeemic Nerdle]

Number 9 Dream

version

[Replies From View]

Beautiful Boy is underrated too.

I bet your favourite line in it is "Darling Sean".  In fact I suspect that's one of your favourite moments in any song ever.  You lie awake in bed sometimes grinning with admiration and thinking "Cor, what a lyric."

[Sam]

Biggy's got a whole book of Macca stickers, which he got made at the stationers. He sticks them on his wall and at night shines a torch over them in bed so he's lit up by a sea of little Beatles. He's got a picture of Macca's nephew on his lunchbox. In 1988 Biggy engraved the lyrics for Live and Let Die onto the shingle of his dingy Northern house, with the aforementioned egregious solecism rendered correct by delusional chiselling. Once Biggy had to wait considerably at a kiosk, but it was alright. It was alright because he thought of Paul McCartney while he waited.

[PaulTMA]

I know this is a controversial subject that could smack (to many) of sacrilege, but think about it. Paul and Ringo are not exactly young, and as the Beach Boys (and probably others) showed in 2012, concerts can include performances by the departed. Think about it, Paul, Ringo, and members of Paul's band, doing a last blow-out three hour show (maybe at the O in London, and obviously filmed for posterity and video release) where they obviously sing their own songs (perhaps with vintage Beatles harmonies piped in, as well as live backing vocals for a fuller sound) and videos of John and George singing (or a nice multimedia series of pictures and video to vintage songs) with accompaniment by those on stage. I think something like this could really work, and should be given consideration.

[Shaky]

I know this is a controversial subject that could smack (to many) of sacrilege, but think about it. Paul and Ringo are not exactly young, and as the Beach Boys (and probably others) showed in 2012, concerts can include performances by the departed. Think about it, Paul, Ringo, and members of Paul's band, doing a last blow-out three hour show (maybe at the O in London, and obviously filmed for posterity and video release) where they obviously sing their own songs (perhaps with vintage Beatles harmonies piped in, as well as live backing vocals for a fuller sound) and videos of John and George singing (or a nice multimedia series of pictures and video to vintage songs) with accompaniment by those on stage. I think something like this could really work, and should be given consideration.

Nah, Ringo should do all that once Macca's died too.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Paul is Dead already, though.

[Nowhere Man]

It makes you wonder why afterwards they left so many fucking clues to his death!