Tag: Beatles

George Harrison would have been 70

Here are a dozen Harrison songs. Only the Top 2 are for sure on the list. It seems to change a lot, depending on what I’ve been listening to most recently.

When John Lennon died in 1980, I was devastated. When George Harrison died in November 2001, I was melancholy, but I knew he was sick, so I wasn’t surprised. But as time passed, I realized I missed him more and more. Incidentally, All Things Must Pass was my high school prom theme.

I felt sorry for George in the Beatles. He’d write songs and they wouldn’t make the album, because those two other songwriters in the group dominated. That explained why the All Things Must Pass album had three LPs, including an instrumental experiment.

Unique among the Beatles, George’s first greatest hits album included Beatles songs, even though there were arguably enough of his solo works to make their inclusion unnecessary; this was an insult to the artist by his soon-to-be-former record label, in my view.

Here are a dozen Harrison songs. Only the Top 2 are for sure on the list. It seems to change a lot, depending on what I’ve been listening to most recently. I have all the Harrison solo studio albums, excluding some compilations.

Links to songs.

12. Blow Away (from George Harrison – GH) – Always liked the guitar line.
11. Love Comes to Everyone (GH) – guitar intro by Eric Clapton is quite nice.
10. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) (Living in the Material World- LITMW) – In one of the later verses, I like how the chorus is sung off the beat. And more than occasionally, I relate to its message.
9. All Those Years Ago (Somewhere in England -SIE) – Harrison’s tribute to John Lennon, featuring Ringo Starr on drums, as well as Wings members Paul and Linda McCartney and Denny Laine on backing vocals
8. Let It Down (All Things Must Pass -ATMP) – Lovely song. Can’t find the album version, unfortunately, but this is nice, too.
7. Devil’s Radio (Cloud Nine – CN) – Like the somewhat nasal quality of the vocal.
6. Living in the Material World (LITMW) – Story of the Beatles, in part. And when he sings, “We got Ritchie on a tour,” and Ringo plays a little drum solo, it always cracks me up.
5. What Is Life (ATMP). On the extended CD of ATMP, there’s an instrumental version of this song that I like nearly as much.
4. Got My Mind Set on You (CN) – I think I like this as much for the surprise element at the time. George hadn’t had an album in five years, let alone a hit single. This muscular Rudy Clark cover seemed to come out of left field.
3. Not Guilty (GH) – At the time, some people thought this was in response to the My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine lawsuit. (No, but This Song, from Thirty-Three and 1/3 was.) Not Guilty was actually recorded with The Beatles in 1968 for The White Album; like many of his songs, it was not included. However, you can find a louder version on the Beatles’ Anthology 3.
2. Wah Wah (ATMP) – Love the volume, the guitar line, the choir of vocalists, pretty much everything.
1. When We Was Fab (CN) – This telling of the Beatles’ story, though, is the best of the songs in that specific genre.

A couple of Traveling Wilburys songs in the mix.
The last time I wrote about George, which was the 10th anniversary of his death.

The Beatles reunion, and our Christmas tree

I’d say that Paul’s stuff in this century has been better more frequently.

More questions from western New York’s finest blogger, Jaquandor:

If Lennon hadn’t been shot in 1980, do you think there would eventually have been a Beatles reunion? If so, what form? A one-shot performance at something like Live-Aid? A new album?

John and Yoko’s album Double Fantasy comes out in the fall of 1980. It does all right [not as well as it did in response to Lennon’s death]. They put out Milk and Honey a year later; ditto. They tour for a few months.

Around 1982, George, whose career was in a bit of a downturn – no All Those Years Ago hit single – plays on a John and Yoko album. John and George play on Ringo’s comeback album.

Live Aid in 1985 becomes the venue in which the Beatles get together for a one-off reunion. But they enjoy it so much, they put together an album a year later. They get together periodically but primarily continue with their solo careers.

Whose post-Beatles material do you prefer, Lennon’s or McCartney’s? (Wow, I just wrote that as “McCarthy”. I have GOT to get politics out of my brain.)

Difficult to say. I liked the first two Lennon albums a lot, then parts of most of the rest, though the New York City album was a bit too pedantic, and Rock ‘N’ Roll totally unnecessary. It’s impossible for me to judge the two albums with Yoko because they are so tied to John’s death, but I do love most of John’s songs.

I liked Paul’s first two albums, less enamored by the next two, thought Band on the Run was a classic, but pretty much think that his output since then, including the period with Wings, was terribly uneven – a good album, followed by one had a few good songs or might even be an outright dud.

I’d say that Paul’s stuff in this century has been better more frequently, though I didn’t “get” his Firemen album, and HATED his post 9-11 song. And Paul has the luxury of owning his Beatles roots and not needing to run away from it. His 2009 live album, a solid mix of Beatles, Wings, and solo material, was tremendous.

So I’d say it was about a tie, percentage-wise. But, of course, Paul has had a far greater output.

I’m sure you HAVE to have done this in the past, as prolific as your blogging is, but how about a tour of your Christmas tree? Favorite ornaments and such? (If you have a tree, that is.)

Actually, I never have done a tree tour. Yes, we have a tree. It’s artificial, green. We had a real one until three or four years ago, when…actually, I don’t recall the conversation anymore.

Most of the decorations were my wife’s, from years before I knew her. The angel on top, bulbs, Santas, and, notably, various Biblical characters that she hand-painted when she was a child.

A couple of moves ago, my favorite decorations got lost; I loved some of them. Then the red sneakers ornament got lost or broken more recently. So, there are very few that were originally mine: a Pez snowman, and, of all things, a Barry Bonds Hallmark piece one of my sisters gave me a number of years ago. There are also pictures of The Daughter inside ornaments.

This year I felt particularly distanced from the process. The Wife was sick on the Friday before Christmas, the Daughter on Saturday. I slept most of that Sunday, with various ailments, during which time, the tree got put up.

It’s become obvious: I need to buy some ornaments. For ME. Or maybe my baby sister has something from my childhood…

R is for Rubber Soul and Revolver

The GOOD news is that, from this point, the albums released in UK were the same in the US, starting with Sgt. Pepper.

 

My two favorite Beatles albums came out in successive years, and are successive albums, at least in the United Kingdom and the rest of civilised world. In North America, the record executives managed to squeeze out another album in between.

George Harrison once said, “I don’t see too much difference between Revolver and Rubber Soul. To me, they could be Volume One and Volume Two.” Paul McCartney has also blended the albums together in interviews. Here are the listings; there are also links to every song.

The title Rubber Soul is a variation on the term plastic soul, a term referring to white musicians singing soul music. Paul McCartney, in a studio conversation recorded in June 1965 after recording a take of “I’m Down”, the B-side of the single “Help!”, said “Plastic soul, man. Plastic soul.”

The italicized songs are those from the second half of the UK Help! album that show up on the US RS album. The songs marked in red were removed from the UK versions and put on the US-only album, Yesterday…and Today.

Side one
1 UK Drive My Car
1 US I’ve Just Seen a Face
2 UK & US Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3 UK & US You Won’t See Me
4 UK Nowhere Man
5 UK, 4 US Think for Yourself
6 UK, 5 US The Word
7 UK, 6 US Michelle

Side two
1 UK What Goes On
1 US It’s Only Love
2 UK & US Girl
3 UK & US I’m Looking Through You
4 UK & US In My Life
5 UK & US Wait
6 UK If I Needed Someone
7 UK, 6 US Run for Your Life

Or listen to the full UK album here or here.

At least they added a Lennon and a McCartney song (It’s Only Love, I’ve Just Seen a Face) as they dropped songs by John (Nowhere Man), Paul (Drive My Car), George (If I Needed Someone), and Ringo (What Goes On).

The cover illustration for Revolver was created by bassist and artist Klaus Voormann, an old Beatles’ friend from their days at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany. Voorman played on albums for each of the Beatles on their solo albums, save for Paul.

When it came to Revolver, the music, it was quite the lopsided edit:

Side one

1 UK & US Taxman
2 UK & US Eleanor Rigby
3 UK I’m Only Sleeping
4 UK, 3 US Love You To
5 UK, 4 US Here, There and Everywhere
6 UK, 5 US Yellow Submarine
7 UK, 6 US She Said She Said

Side two

1 UK & US Good Day Sunshine
2 UK And Your Bird Can Sing
3 UK, 2 US For No One
4 UK Doctor Robert
5 UK, 3 US I Want to Tell You
6 UK, 4 US Got to Get You into My Life
7 UK, 5 US Tomorrow Never Knows

Or hear the full UK album here or here.

John’s only represented twice on the US version, because three of his songs on the UK version also were dropped. Robert Rodriguez, who wrote a 2012 book on Revolver explains: “Capitol needed three more songs to flesh out Yesterday and Today, and he had the most songs finished by then.” George had three songs (Taxman, Love You To, I Want To Tell You) on both versions of Revolver.

The GOOD news is that, from this point, the albums released in the UK were the same in the US, starting with Sgt. Pepper. Not incidentally, on the Rolling Stone magazine list of the 500 greatest albums, Sgt. Pepper was #1, with Revolver at #3 and Rubber Soul at #5. I tend to disagree. While Sgt. Pepper was clearly a breakthrough album, it sounds more dated, of its time, to me, than either Revolver or Rubber Soul.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Lyrical revenge

I realized that this was some sort of cosmic payback.

I was at a church meeting recently, which hadn’t really started. I was sitting next to one guy, and it seemed that every other sentence uttered by the others was a cue for a song lyric to pop into my head. It was coming so fast and furiously that I stopped citing the song and would just mention the artist. “Fleetwood Mac!” “Led Zeppelin!” “Jackson Browne!” Indeed, after a while, I only noted every OTHER song I was hearing from the discussion.

It’s fun, but it’s also a curse. I don’t go listening for songs; they just well up in my brain. I used to subject my mother to this torture when I was growing up, but it was a bit of a wasted effort since she usually didn’t know my reference point.

A few days ago, the Daughter was lying on the sofa and said something I thought was funny, so I chuckled. She said, with a straight face, “How can you laugh when you know I’m down?” She was quoting lyrics from the Beatles, and an obscure song at that, the B-side of the single Help.

I realized that this was some sort of cosmic payback.

The graphic above I stole from Facebook and indeed reposted. Someone commented, “I can vouch that it’s true.”

I’m Down – the Beatles (1965).

M is for the Monkees: 1967

In 1967, the Monkees had the #1 album far longer than any other group, and More of the Monkees was #1 longer than any album, including Sgt. Pepper.

 

1967 was a stellar year in popular music. According to Robert Christgau and David Fricke, the former billed as the “dean of American rock critics”, the “40 Essential Albums” of that year included albums by the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Velvet Underground, and, of course, the Beatles. As it turns out, none of the albums released by the Monkees made the list.

The Monkees was a band formed by television executives to have a loony TV program in the tradition of the Beatles’ first movie, A Hard Day’s Night. The program which ran from 1966 to 1968 was quite popular, and even more so in eventual MTV reruns. I watched it occasionally, I will admit. But the group was derided as the “pre-Fab Four,” as opposed to the “real” Beatles.

Interestingly, the listening public did not seem to care about the controversy. On this weekly list of number #1 albums of 1967, the 1966 album The Monkees continued as #1 for five weeks (plus 8 weeks at the end of the previous year). It was replaced by More of the Monkees, which was #1 for 18 straight weeks. After a week of the Tijuana Brass, and a week by the Monkees’ Headquarters album, the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper ruled for 15 weeks. Then two weeks of Ode to Billie Jo by Bobby Gentry, and five weeks of Supremes Greatest Hits. The last five weeks of the year, the top-selling album was the Monkees’ Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.

In other words, in 1967, the Monkees had the #1 album far longer than any other group, and More of the Monkees was #1 longer than any album, including Sgt. Pepper.

Fast forward to the early 1980s. One of my co-workers gave me some Monkees’ greatest hits album. I must admit that I liked it enormously. I wrote it off as a “guilty pleasure,” but now I proclaim that there are lot of songs by the Monkees that I enjoy a lot.

And BestEverAlbums.com even gave the group a modicum of respect, with Headquarters considered the 38th best album of 1967, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. at 39, and More Of The Monkees at 85.

From More of the Monkees
Mary, Mary (Michael Nesmith). The song was first recorded by The Butterfield Blues Band for their 1966 album, East-West. The Monkees were derided for doing a Butterfield song until it was shown that a Monkee had actually written it.
(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone (Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart). Boyce & Hart wrote a number of Monkees songs. This went to #20 in the US, making it the first Monkees B-side to chart.
I’m a Believer (Neil Diamond). #1 in the U.S. for the week ending December 31, 1966, and remained there for seven weeks, becoming the biggest-selling single record for all of 1967.

From Headquarters
Randy Scouse Git (Micky Dolenz). The songwriter says it was written about a party that The Beatles threw for the Monkees, with references to the Beatles (“the four kings of EMI”) and to others such as Cass Elliot of the Mamas and Papas.

From Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
Words (Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart). One of my favorite songs by the group.
Pleasant Valley Sunday (Gerry Goffin, Carole King). The single got to #3 in the US. Even though it’s about a street in New Jersey, I always pretend that it’s from upstate New York, where I have visited often. And how can I not love the lyrics: “And Mr. Green, he’s so serene. He’s got a TV in every room.”
***
And for no reason except that it would have been John Lennon’s 72nd birthday: Strawberry Fields Forever – the Beatles (1967).

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

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