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Post Beatles Beatles relationships

Started by biggytitbo, November 24, 2018, 10:20:20 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

the science eel


grassbath

Mean Mr Mustard and Polythene Pam are great - surreal sketches with bite, given life by a typically brilliant band arrangement full of verve and colour. How can you deny the fuzz bass on MMM, and how the dour, downwards step-wise chords and melody are hoiked back up occasionally by that four-note riff?

As for Bathroom Window, I love 'now she sucks her thumb and wanders, by the banks of her own lagoon' - another easy-listening nonsense lyric allowing McCartney to get away with filth.

Replies From View

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 22, 2019, 01:07:59 PM
We had a lot of fun with the Beatles 1970 what if, so how about a Let It Be was sacked off and they used its best songs on Abbey Road instead what if?

1.   Come Together
2.   Something
3.   The Two Of Us
4.   Don't Let Me Down
5.   Get Back
6.   All Things Must Pass

1.   Here Comes the Sun
2.   Let It Be
3.   Across the Universe
4.   You Never Give Me Your Money
5.   Dig It
6.   Golden Slumbers
7.   Carry That Weight
8.   The End
9.   Her Majesty

Not entirely sure about Side 2 tbh, but the current songs on it barely have any relation to each other so i reckon they could have stitched anything together and make it work. Could have What is Life instead of All Things Must Pass if it doesn't fit the mood of it.

Hmm.  Not sure the jam 'Dig It' warrants inclusion.

Golden Slumbers needs to come off the back of the whole medley, in my view.  It all builds even if you don't like the individual pieces that form it.  To me the medley is the Beatles gradually saying goodbye to their career together.

But going into Golden Slumbers from Dig It?  Why?

biggytitbo

Yes I'd ditch track 5 altogether I think. I just felt it needed something short and snappy and lennon on there, but these 5 songs are perfect together and don't need anything else. -

5.   You Never Give Me Your Money
6.   Golden Slumbers
7.   Carry That Weight
8.   The End
9.   Her Majesty


Replies From View

Which version of Across The Universe would you be including?

The only one I really like is on the Anthology release, but it feels more like a White Album off-cut than something that should have ever been dumped into Let It Be.  It was only included on that album because, as with I Me Mine, a scene with it being rehearsed was included in the film.

biggytitbo

As its a game of what if, I'm presuming they'd record an Abbey Road version of across the universe. This might be a problem for get back though, as it wouldn't exist if.not for the let it be sessions, but I think in this alternative universe they still happened, they just decided to release its best songs on Abbey Road and maybe bung out some live stuff for the let it be album instead. So my revised track list is -

1.   Come Together
2.   Something
3.   The Two Of Us
4.   Don't Let Me Down
5.   Get Back
6.   What is life

1.   Here Comes the Sun
2.   Let It Be
3.   Across the Universe
4.   You Never Give Me Your Money
5.   Golden Slumbers
6.   Carry That Weight
7.   The End
8.   Her Majesty

Main issue now is no Ringo. Was there anything better than Octopuses Garden floating around in 1969 for him?

Nowhere Man

What if, they were somehow able to hold it together enough to release a double album of the best of the Abbey Road - Let It Be material? Just by adding on a few of the newer solo songs they had already recorded by February 1970 plus a new version of All Things Must Pass, and you already have the best double album ever basically.

Imagine if this came out in early-mid 1970 instead of Let It Be, would have been fucking brill. (Obviously we'll ignore the fact that Abbey Road and Let It Be had two different producers)

Side One
1. Come Together
2. Something
3. Every Night
4. Oh! Darling
5. Across The Universe
6. Let It Be

Side Two
7. Octopus's Garden
8. Get Back
9. All Things Must Pass
10. I Want You (She's So Heavy)
11. Here Comes The Sun
12. Maybe I'm Amazed

Side Three
1. Two Of Us
2. Don't Let Me Down
3. Because
4. I've Got A Feeling
5. Dig A Pony
6. The Long And Winding Road
7. I Me Mine

Side Four
8. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
9. You Never Give Me Your Money
10. Mean Mr Mustard
11. Polythene Pam
12. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
13. Golden Slumbers
14. Carry That Weight
15. The End
16. Her Majesty

biggytitbo

I dunno I think I'd rather this as a proper beatles album in that it only contains songs that actually recorded as the beatles in their last year together. I mean a better Abbey Road would presumably have happened if they weren't contractually obliged to turn out something for let it be, so it's less of a what if than a post breakup fantasy album.


I notice I have broken my own rule by including what is life though, they never recorded that with the beatles did they? Maybe put old brown shoe in there (which is better than either of George's let it be songs imo) , or put all things must pass back on.

massive bereavement

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 22, 2019, 07:01:06 AM
I always thought they went into Abbey Road knowing it was the end.

George Martin painted it that way in "The Compleat Beatles" doc and the whitewash ending to the "Anthology" went along with that narrative, but in truth they began working on tracks that would end up on "Abbey Road" from as early as three weeks or so after the rooftop show, well before the Northern Songs thing got out of hand.

Paul was still pushing for them to go out and play somewhere live unannounced in September '69 and John had apparently wanted to record "Cold Turkey" as the follow up Beatles single to "Ballad of J & Y". Having that song rejected by the others most likely reminded him of his frustration with "Revolution" being stalled (to the point it ended up as a b-side) and now that "Give Peace a Chance" had reached #2 in the UK charts, he was probably feeling confident enough to go it alone, the Toronto gig convincing him once and for all that he could.



Lennon's NME interview in December 1969 shows him being close to quitting but not yet having made a definite decision:

http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1969.1213.beatles.html

The stated reason is that they no longer want to be backing musicians on each other's songs, or having to spend six months recording a double album. I think it's just a case of them outgrowing the group.


biggytitbo

Very interesting infographic here. Somewhat surprising to see the overall number of beatles songs written by lennon and mccartney, I always thought lennon wrote significantly more songs than mccartney but it's only 29/31%. Hardly believable mccartney wrote 43% of their number one hits and lennon only 14%.


Didn't McCartney kind of hog the A-sides towards the end though

biggytitbo

Yeah that's was a big lennon complaint, even though he was always essentially the leader of the band. It was basically due to him drifting away wasn't it?




biggytitbo

In terms of Harrison, he'll always be my 3rd favourite Beatle, but he's also the one with the most underrated great songs. I love the description of the brilliant Blue Jay Way as 'haunted', it's a great spooky, typically harrison drone, totally unique amongst anything they ever did. And It's all too much is arguably the best psychedelic pop song the Beatles ever did, if not anyone. It's only a northern song is another lovely drone, with bracingly bitter refrain and the oddest atonal parps and beeps in any beatles song. Adding to his weirdly uncanny oeuvre, long long long is also as different from anything the other Beatles were doing as to be from another dimension.

the science eel

'For You Blue' a number one hit? how does that work?

rue the polywhirl

Quote from: the science eel on January 27, 2019, 08:17:56 AM
'For You Blue' a number one hit? how does that work?


Listed alongside The Long And Winding Road as their final #1 on the Billboard 100 as a Double A Side. Up there with Elton John's Something About The Way You Look Tonight as greatest 'technical' hits of the century.


Nowhere Man

Lennon had many of the 'best' songs, although when you look into it much of his best material hugely benefited from McCartney's influence. (i.e tape loops on Tomorrow Never Knows, the orchestra crescendo and middle section of a day in the life, plus most pointedly the bass lines of songs like Rain, Hey Bulldog ect) Not knocking John there either, they were both just so perfect for each other. Actually if you look at many of Paul's most memorable Beatles basslines, more often than not they were featured on John and George's songs, Come Together/Something being a perfect example.

It's sort of funny to think that 'The Ballad of John And Yoko' just had Lennon/McCartney on it, I imagine that must have eased some tension between them both at the time, and who knows, probably resulted in Lennon feeling positive enough to at least finish up Abbey Road before leaving the group.

QuoteMcCartney, Starr and Martin have reported positive recollections of the sessions,[10] while George Harrison said, "we did actually perform like musicians again".[11] Lennon and McCartney had enjoyed working together on the non-album single "The Ballad of John and Yoko" in April, contributing friendly banter between takes, and some of this camaraderie carried over to the Abbey Road sessions.[12] Nevertheless, there was a significant amount of tension between the group members. According to author Ian MacDonald, McCartney had an acrimonious argument with Lennon during the sessions. Lennon's wife Yoko Ono had become a permanent presence at Beatles recordings and clashed with other members.[10] Halfway through recording in June, Lennon and Ono were involved in a car accident. A doctor told Ono to rest in bed, so Lennon had one installed in the studio so she could observe the recording process from there.[4]

The album's two halves represented a compromise; Lennon wanted a traditional release with distinct and unrelated songs while McCartney and Martin wanted to continue their thematic approach from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by incorporating a medley. Lennon ultimately said that he disliked Abbey Road as a whole and felt that it lacked authenticity, calling McCartney's contributions "[music] for the grannies to dig" and not "real songs"[13] and describing the medley as "junk ... just bits of songs thrown together".[14] During the sessions, Lennon expressed a desire to have all of his songs on one side of the album, with McCartney's on the other.[11]

Nobody was entirely sure that the work was going to be the group's last, though Harrison said "it felt as if we were reaching the end of the line".[15] After the album was released, the Get Back/Let It Be project was re-examined, and work on it continued into 1970. Therefore, Let It Be became the last album to be finished by the Beatles, even though its recording had begun before Abbey Road.

By September 1969, after the recording of Abbey Road, Lennon had formed a new group, the Plastic Ono Band, in part because the Beatles had rejected his song "Cold Turkey".[16] While Harrison worked with such artists as Leon Russell, Doris Troy, Preston and Delaney & Bonnie through to the end of the year,[17] McCartney took a hiatus from the group after his daughter Mary was born on 28 August.[18] On 20 September, Lennon formally announced his departure to the other Beatles.[19] Abbey Road was released on 26 September 1969. The single "Something"/"Come Together" followed in October, while Lennon released the Plastic Ono Band's version of "Cold Turkey" the same month.[20] The Beatles did little promotion of Abbey Road directly, and no public announcement was made of the band's split until McCartney announced he was leaving the group in April 1970, at which point they disbanded

Lennon apparently wanted it to be released as a potential single, in hindsight, Cold Turkey would have been a bit of a crap single for The Beatles wouldn't it?

the science eel

That business of having a bed 'installed' for Yoko....that's fucking terrible, isn't it? I mean, whichever way you look at it. That's bound to piss the others off. Maybe that's what he wanted.

biggytitbo

#410
On the subject of Paul's best baselines been on the others' songs, I think arguably the biggest criticism you can make of Lennon in the Beatles is of the 4 he's the one that brings the least to the others songs. Ringo obviously drums on them all, George provides endless selfless guitar parts, ditto Paul with bass, whereas it's relatively rare that John will provide some outstanding contribution to one of George or Paul's songs. His piano is good on Obladi, but that was clearly just to entertain himself more than anything, as he hated the song.

MiddleRabbit

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 28, 2019, 06:57:53 AM
On the subject of Paul's best baselines been on thebithers songs, I think arguably the biggest critism you can make of Lennon  in the Beatles is of the 4 he's the one that brings the least to the others songs. Ringo obviously drums on them all, George provides endless selfless guitar parts, ditto Paul with bass, whereas it's relatively rare that john will provide some outstanding contribution to one of George or Paul's songs. His piano is good on obladi, but that was clearly just to entertain himself as he hated the song.

A bit harsh, I'd say.

Lennon wasn't the instrumentalist that Macca was, certainly, but neither was George.  After around 1965 Macca played a lot of the guitar parts and, even prior to that, told George exactly what to play.  Ringo too was always told exactly what to play. 

Ringo didn't seem to mind and, to be fair, he's recognisable and a better drummer than Macca (see Back In The USSR and Dear Prudence, although it's recently come to light that the George and John also helped out with drums on USSR as well).

Macca's basslines are - after about Help!, at least - generally great.  Don't forget though that John and George did point the finger at him for being 'experimental' on their songs when he wouldn't do the same on his own.  John said, I think, that Macca ruined Strawberry Fields Forever and George said he'd vastly overplayed on Something.

Personally, I think the pair of them are being a bit churlish about it.  Strawberry Fields is, as far as I'm concerned, the peak of their creativity: their best record.  The bass on Something doesn't detract from the song and is played so well and tastefully that I think George might have wanted something tangible to blame Macca for, apart from being a bossy boots. 

Macca was a bossy boots, but with Lennon evidently not giving that much of a shit - not as much as Macca at least - towards the end, I suppose he thought he was helping.  And he was, let's face it.

Lennon, while not being the instrumentalist that Macca was (although he had his moments: the introduction to Ob La Di, as you say, but also the guitar on Honey Pie's perfect, as it is on Get Back) he was better with words than Macca (who could be great, but often slipped into bland mawkishness).  Lennon might not have added much in the way of instrumentation to the others' records but he did in terms of the writing, mainly where Macca would let him.  Taxman is one of George's best and that's due to Lennon's input.  George resented Lennon and Macca for not helping him out, and I don't blame him.  Lennon certainly helped Macca out, even if just through editing, but Macca didn't always want it, even if it was good for his songs.  Again, understandably.

The thing was that they complemented each other perfectly, even if they didn't always recognise it and not just instrumentally.  Macca's a much more flowery melodicist than Lennon, who tended towards the police siren in his melody lines, for instance.  George liked a drone, but Lennon and Macca wrote better drones than he did.

Ultimately, and understandably, they all wanted to take charge of their own material which was great in The Beatles but none of their solo albums comes close to any of The Beatles' later work because they were better together, even though it might have been hard for them to see that at the time and being so close to it.

They were all great ingredients that made a perfect meal but separately?  Much less so.  On the other hand, I think they were just sick of each other after so long in each other's pockets so fair dos, eh?

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: the science eel on January 28, 2019, 03:59:44 AM
That business of having a bed 'installed' for Yoko....that's fucking terrible, isn't it? I mean, whichever way you look at it. That's bound to piss the others off. Maybe that's what he wanted.

"Glyn! Glyn. Yoko wants a mic..."

http://amoralto.tumblr.com/post/68911122415/january-10th-1969-twickenham-film-studios

kngen

Quote from: the science eel on January 28, 2019, 03:59:44 AM
That business of having a bed 'installed' for Yoko....that's fucking terrible, isn't it? I mean, whichever way you look at it. That's bound to piss the others off. Maybe that's what he wanted.

I said a few pages back that I'd slowly come to the conclusion that 'John was using Yoko to antagonise the others as a kind of power-play' - that pretty much seals it.

MiddleRabbit

Quote from: kngen on January 28, 2019, 02:44:24 PM
I said a few pages back that I'd slowly come to the conclusion that 'John was using Yoko to antagonise the others as a kind of power-play' - that pretty much seals it.

Maybe.  I doubt it though.  She had John pissing about for the rest of his life, doing what she told him.  He had a long history of being totally in thrall to people - up to a point, at which he then decided they were a bag of shit - which some suggest he was getting to with Yoko by the late 70s.  I have my doubts.  He was no match for her.

Custard

Just started reading David Quantick's book on the White Album, and he's just claimed Hey Jude was the last great Beatles single

SOMETHING, DAVID. FUCKING SOMETHING

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: Shameless Custard on January 28, 2019, 03:42:22 PM
Just started reading David Quantick's book on the White Album, and he's just claimed Hey Jude was the last great Beatles single

SOMETHING, DAVID. FUCKING SOMETHING

"hey jude"? ffs. it's not even that good.

MiddleRabbit

Quote from: Shameless Custard on January 28, 2019, 03:42:22 PM
Just started reading David Quantick's book on the White Album, and he's just claimed Hey Jude was the last great Beatles single

SOMETHING, DAVID. FUCKING SOMETHING
Quote from: a duncandisorderly on January 28, 2019, 03:46:10 PM
"hey jude"? ffs. it's not even that good.

I suspect Quantick might be considering it the last great non-album single, in which case, its only competition is The Ballad of John & Yoko, in which case, yeah, alright.  Quite strict parameters, but it's The Beatles, innit?  They should - and do - stand up to such scrutiny.

Hey Jude is a bit like The Beatles themselves. And sunlight.  And chips.  You know, it's easy to take them for granted and they're so fucking great that they still stand up to modern scrutiny, even after all this time. 

Both Hey Jude and The Beatles can be sneered at a bit because of the nineties' re-embracing of them as Godlike, which brings as much scorn as it does worship.  If there's such a thing as a typical Oasis fan, they're going to love The Beatles (and accept that Oasis resembled them in some manner beyond the fact that Noel Gallagher told them so, even though they didn't really) and their favourite Beatles record is going to be Hey Jude, because it's, unlike most Beatles' records, anthemic.

Hey Jude is a beautiful song that's not afraid to steer well clear of being especially clever.  The Beatles were great for a lot of reasons but one of the main ones is that they were often mainly about ideas.  They didn't innovate as much as they took what was happening - perhaps a Jungian collective unconscious, I don't know - and they made it palatable for ordinary people.

And - and this is the really big one - they were about inclusivity.  Everybody was invited, even though The Beatles were clever and maybe other people weren't.  Hey Jude's never going to be cool again because it's not for cool people.  Not anymore, anyway. 

There was a brief period of time - late 80s to early 90s when you didn't hear it around and for my generation, it was possible to be into Hey Jude and still be cool about it.  Which was odd, but I suppose it's how it goes.

I love Hey Jude, me.  Oddly enough, I was just playing it on the guitar and it feels lovely to play and sing along with and, if you're unfortunate enough to be at a party where there's an acoustic guitar going around, once the show offs have played Blackbird, While My Guitar Gently Weeps and impressed the nerds who want to talk about plectrums and guitar strings, if someone plays Hey Jude half decently, that's what people are going to enjoy the most. 

And, get this, the nah-nah-nahing isn't even the best bit of it.

Cheers. I'll get back to watching The One Show now.

Replies From View

You know the movement you need, yeah?

Well, it is on your shoulder, mate.


Yeah.

Nowhere Man

Whenever I hear Oasis they always remind me much more of Slade funnily enough, and Noel would be the first to admit they stole a lot of those big riffs.*

I think outside the band McCartney was definitely the most capable as a solo singer/songwriter, and as RAM, Band On The Run and Chaos & Creation can attest to, he generally works best when he either feels he's got to prove himself or there's someone like Nigel Godrich to tell him an idea needs another draft or something. Even his better albums like Back To The Egg and Tug Of War have a few instances where you think, "hang on Macca, you might want to think up a better lyric here."

I think knowing that a lot of the solo songs that he's written with fantastic melodies could be improved with less disposable lyrics has a lot to do with people being quite aggravated/frustrated with him. Although there does this seem to be a general ignorance going all the way back to the 70s about how good a fair chunk of his solo work actually is, mainly from the likes of reviewers such as Christgau, and then alleviated further by authors like Phillip Norman ect. Funnily enough, I think the fact that McCartney has been the uncool, increasingly elderly one for so many years has a lot to do with why a lot of pro-Macca fans feel the need to reason why we like him so much. Which is obviously ridiculous, as if anything, he's already celebrated more than enough these days. Plus his profile will inevitably be on the up when he carks it, so it hardly matters now. I'm generally very chuffed that Harrison get's a lot of plaudits these days too.

Post-1980 there was understandably but frustratingly a lot of "LENNON IS THE BEATLES" shit. But now I wonder if the pendulum is swinging to far the other way? Lennon seems to be just as known to younger generations for 'beating his wife', being an angry political sort and getting shot.

*My biggest issue with Noel remains him disliking Brian Wilson/Beach Boys but i'm still not sure if that's a wind up, either way.