Beatles Archives - Page 33 of 34 - Ramblin' with Roger

Beatles island song list

The interesting thing about this exercise is that I became aware, sometimes for the first time, some biases.

Ever have what you think is a really good concept, then you start actually DOING it, and you decide, “Well, maybe it WASN’T such a hot idea, after all”? So it is with this blogging project about the Beatles, clearly my favorite group.

The idea was to create my Beatles island song list. If I only had 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 Beatles songs available, which ones would I choose? First off, I had to find a list of all the songs that the Beatles recorded that are in the canon: the singles, albums, and EPs released between 1963 and 1970. No Star Club in Hamburg, no Tony Sheridan, no BBC or Anthology recordings. This list shows 215 songs, but lists Love Me Do twice (but not the other possibilities?) and also has Real Love, but not Free As a Bird. So I’m assuming 213 individual songs. It would be easy to just pick four songs from Revolver, four from Rubber Soul, and a couple others for my Top 10, but I tried, when I could, to be more diversified.

And let’s face it: making a list like this always depends on the mood so that a song at 93 on this list might be 103 or 83 if I did it again. Which almost certainly WILL NOT HAPPEN. I started working on this before February. Of 2009, for the 45th anniversary of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, which I am old enough to have watched in real time. Someone coming to the group after the fact would surely hear the songs differently.

Know also that these are not entirely or strictly by most to least favorite, but more about both the (artificial) scarcity AND the diversity. One Lennon cover version rocker might push another one back; likewise, a McCartney saloon song, a Harrison tune with sitar, or a Ringo record.

The interesting thing about this exercise is that I became aware, sometimes for the first time, of some biases. Surely, I knew about my affection for Beatles VI, my first album. But I wasn’t as aware of my general antipathy for Let It Be, an album that always felt like the group’s musical funeral. Still, all things being equal, I wouldn’t give up ANY of the songs!

I also had to find videos for all of these; if you find a broken link, PLEASE let me know, as they all worked when I started this thing. Some of the sources are HERE at Beatles Box Set 2009 and HERE at BeatlesTube.net, the purpose of the latter site being “to organize all videos about The Beatles that you can find on Youtube.” But I DID find items elsewhere and used Beatles videos from the movies, were readily available.

To give you an idea of how my thinking went. On the list:
217. Across the Universe, the Wildlife version.
216. Love Me Do, the LP version which included Andy White, NOT Ringo on drums.
215. Let It Be, the single version, solely because the album version is longer
214. Get Back, the Let It Be album version, because the single actually ends, rather than “I hope we pass the audition,”, which IS a great line on a Simpsons’ episode, to be sure.
Because other versions of these songs appear elsewhere on the list.

So I’ll be doing these 10 at a time, at no particular set schedule. It’ll be at least once a week, but it might be twice or thrice, depending on what else I have in mind for the blog, and, of course, time.

My designation of the source album requires an explanation, I reckon. For the British albums, I limited myself to the original albums that the Beatles intended. Several of the early singles, EPs and the song Bad Boy appeared on A Collection of Beatles Oldies but Goldies, but it was their intent to put those songs out AS singles or EPs, so I’ve ignored it; all of those songs now appear on the Past Master CDs. Whereas for the US albums, I picked the Capitol albums, plus the Vee-Jay Introducing the Beatles and the United Artists’ A Hard Day’s Night, which had some overlap, because those releases, especially prior to Sgt. Pepper, were so convoluted. In fact, Introducing the Beatles was released at least TWICE, with 10 common songs, plus two on each album that don’t overlap; I’m not making the distinction.

Since I’m starting this on the 5th of November, I suppose I ought to provide a link to REMEMBER by John Lennon.

John Lennon Would Have Been 70

“No short-haired, yellow-bellied son of Tricky Dicky”

The Beatles were my favorite group, and John Lennon was my favorite Beatle. As I stated on Ringo’s 70th, I decided I would list my 10 favorite songs of each Beatle on his 70th birthday, or what would be his 70th. Here’s my JL list, with YouTube links throughout.

Crippled Inside – Frankly, I have lots of #10 choices, but this one jumped out at me this month playing all my Lennon CDs. Maybe it’s because of the juxtaposition between the title and the jaunty melody.

Mind Games – “Love IS the answer.”

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – I had a girlfriend who thought this was the silliest Christmas song ever. (Had she heard Macca’s Wonderful Christmastime?) But I’m very fond, though I tended to cry when I heard it in December 1980. “War is over if you want it.” Idealist? Naive? Don’t care.

Cold Turkey – with its blistering guitar line, it FELT like drug withdrawal.

Love – very simple, some say simplistic, song.

Gimme Some Truth – I like this so much that I tend to sing harmony vocals, mostly a third above the melody, in the “No short-haired, yellow-bellied son of Tricky Dicky” section. Those particular lyrics always amused me.

Nobody Told Me – I wasn’t really paying attention. When Double Fantasy came out in 1980, I thought that was going to be it for John’s musical output. Then Milk and Honey came out posthumously in 1983, and I felt happy. And I can relate: “Nobody told me there’d be days like these.”

How Do You Sleep? – from the generally mellow Imagine album, it is a really nasty song directed as his friend and former writing partner. Long before the smackdowns rappers were doing on records, John was dissing Paul, and doing it so well! Love the strings; I even forgive the rhyme of Yesterday and Another Day, since it namechecks a couple of Macca songs. What did it mean that George appeared on the track?

(Just Like) Starting Over – the first single from Double Fantasy in 1980, I was so glad to hear John having fun after his five-year self-imposed musical exile. Of course, after he died, the irony of this tune became quite unbearable for a while. Now I think of it fondly, though the other, posthumous singles from this album (Watching the Wheels and Woman, et al) I just never listened to enough to really appreciate.

Instant Karma – always thought it was just the perfect single, from the first two notes, followed by the drum fill. In fact, the little drum solos through I rather like as well. Feels like a follow-up of sorts to the Beatles’ Ballad of John and Yoko.

You’ll note that Imagine did not make the list. I’m afraid that it suffers in my heart from massive overplaying, not just his version but many others, from the 9/11 tribute album to the Glee soundtrack. I’ve just ODed on it, though I always liked the piano part before the vocals come up.

Oh, and happy 35th birthday to John’s son, Sean, who I saw perform a couple years ago.

Picture courtesy of Google
LENNONYC – Preview Excerpt
Watch a clip from the AMERICAN MASTERS: LENNONYC, a new film that takes an intimate look at the time Lennon, Yoko Ono and their son, Sean, spent living in New York City during the 1970s. The film premieres nationally Monday, November 22 at 9pm on PBS.

Salon review: Sundance: John Lennon, angry young man; British hit “Nowhere Boy” delivers a compelling family melodrama about the future Beatle’s Liverpool teen years

Mitch Miller & The Gang – Give Peace A Chance

What if the Beatles were on Motown Records?: an imaginative fiction.

Julian and Sean Lennon Come Together; Having Grown Up Separately in the Shadow of a Beatle, the Half-Brothers Discuss Their Careers and Their Close Bond (CBS Sunday Morning)

Podcast: Coverville 710: The John Lennon Cover Story III

John Lennon: Working Class Mythmaker. I really like this piece. Interestingly, it has a clip about the Beatles and Jesus controversy; the subsequent clip noted the influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the protests.

30-Day Challenge: Day 25-One Of Your Most Prized Possessions

The Ringo signature has all but disappeared. The John and Paul signatures are quite faint. They all were done in ballpoint pen, it seems. Only George’s signature is clearly visible.

I have developed, over the years, almost an antipathy for “prized possessions”, if by that one means something of great monetary value. This is not a function of getting all Mother Teresa, but rather of pragmatism. When you have STUFF, and especially if it’s expensive STUFF, it starts to own you as much as you own it. Someone once told me that the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life is the day he buys it and the day he sells it.

I remember being appalled at hearing about someone buying a painting for $100 million for his private collection. If you have something that goes for nine figures, you have to have security, insurance et al worthy of the piece in case it gets stolen or damaged.

Even, at a much smaller scale, I started tiring of working in the comic book store dealing with customers who were more concerned about an issue’s potential worth, rather than its written or artistic value.

So anyway, I have a copy of Abbey Road signed by all four of the Beatles. Perhaps. Certainly, the person who gave it to me back in the mid-1980s believed it to be so. Funny story about how he gave it to me, actually.

My LP records were and are organized in alphabetical order. The pop albums are alpha by artist, pop being anything not classical. And my classical albums were ordered by the composer. For Christmas one year, I got a cryptic card telling me that I should look in my classic albums for some Fab item, clearly a Beatles reference. Sure enough, between my Bach and Beethoven was the album with four signatures.

As you can see (or more correctly cannot see), the Ringo signature has all but disappeared. The John and Paul signatures are quite faint. They all were done in ballpoint pen, it seems. Only George’s signature is clearly visible, made with some sort of marker.

The other issue is that Beatles’ roadies were notorious for signing Beatles’ names and passing them off as their bosses’. The album is from the UK, was acquired in the UK by means I was not privy to. For all I know, it’s the real deal. Or maybe it’s not. I have an odd comfort not knowing for sure.

James Dean – d. 9/30/55

It’s clear, though, that Bob Dylan “got” it about James Dean, and that Don McLean understood that Dylan “got” it.

I’m not sure that most people can fully understand cultural phenomena that take place before they were born, or aware of the outside world. A person born after 1968 could appreciate the Beatles’ music, but could he or she understand Beatlemania?

Well, that’s how I am about the actor James Dean, who died 55 years ago today, not to be confused with Jimmy Dean, the sausage guy who died recently. I recognize him as a cultural icon, though he was in only three major movies, two of which were released posthumously. I understand it intellectually, but I didn’t “get” it.

CBS News has done at least two stories about Dean; here’s just a snippet of one, James Dean’s cousin Marcus Winslow takes Steve Kroft on a tour of Dean’s museum and his final resting place.

Here’s the song Message From James Dean by Bill Hayes.

It’s clear, though, that Bob Dylan “got” it, and that Don McLean understood that Dylan “got” it. In this FAQ about McLean’s American Pie, referring to the line, “In a coat he borrowed from James Dean”:

In the movie “Rebel Without a Cause”, James Dean has a red windbreaker that holds symbolic meaning throughout the film… In one particularly intense scene, Dean lends his coat to a guy who is shot and killed; Dean’s father arrives, sees the coat on the dead man, thinks it’s Dean, and loses it. On the cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, Dylan is wearing just such as red windbreaker and is posed in a street scene similar to one shown in a well-known picture of James Dean. Bob Dylan played a command performance for the Queen and Prince Consort of England. He was not properly attired, so perhaps this is a reference to his apparel…
James Dean’s red windbreaker is important throughout the film, not just at the end. When he put it on, it meant that it was time to face the world, time to do what he thought had to be done, and other melodramatic but thoroughly enjoyable stuff like that. The week after the movie came out, virtually every clothing store in the U.S. was sold out of red windbreakers. Remember that Dean’s impact was similar to Dylan’s: both were a symbol for the youth of their time, a reminder that they had something to say and demanded to be listened to.

But maybe I began to understand better when I read what Wendy wrote about first seeing Rebel Without A Cause:
Here was a character who felt unloved and unseen by his parents just like me. He was also an outcast at his high-school which I completely understood. What I didn’t understand though was how could anyone not fall in love with a character like “Jim”. That was the first time that James Dean touched me with his magic.

As I watched the movie further, I realized that Jim represented all the loneliness, angst, and anger that teenagers either flaunt or hide. He was the antithesis of the shiny smile-y, white-bread teenager that was hailed in the 1950s. Jim didn’t care about how he appeared and couldn’t hide the pain that he wore like a cloak.

THAT, I GET.
***
Eddie Fisher died last week. I don’t remember his singing career at all – and I knew singers of his era – and all that leaving Debbie Reynolds for Liz Taylor stuff was before my recollecting, too. Mostly, for me, he was Carrie Fisher’s dad.

September Ramblin’

There was this woman named Dottie Rambo, an American gospel singer, musician, and writer of over 2500 songs, who died a couple of years ago in a motor vehicle accident. I mention this because in her obit in an Italian online news publication, the accompanying picture is NOT Dottie Rambo. Who is it? Dottie’s given name was Joyce. There is a librarian friend of mine named Joyce Rambo, still alive, BTW; it is HER picture that graces the Italian obit, not Dottie’s.

A record producer plays the entire Beatles catalog on the ukulele; this video is only a sample.

The Apostrophe Song. For those who know the difference between it’s and its or you’re and your, and grimace when they see her’s. And especially for those who dont. I mean, don’t.

Playing for Change, Episode 34: Raghuvamsa Sudha. What do the letters in music stand for?

Vanessa’s wedding reception surprise. I HAD to post this because this IS my second favorite musical, after West Side Story. More about the couple.

Librarians will survive budget cuts.

NCC-1701 Pizza Cutter for your favorite Star Trek fan. And the video.

Star Wars TV Intro (Hawaii Five-O Version)
Star Wars TV Intro (Dallas Version)

And speaking of Dallas: Only one of the reasons I hate the Dallas Cowboys.

America Is a Joke article about Jon Stewart. “The worst of times for politics and media has been the best of times for The Daily Show’s host—and unfortunately things are getting even funnier.”

How to quit your job. OK, so it was just acting.

Did Christine O’Donnell make this PSA?

Are You a Comic-Con Dork?

“1,002 theatrical cartoons were produced by the legendary Warner Brothers animation studio in its heyday. This video, which is about the length of one of those cartoons, purports to feature one frame from each of those 1,002 cartoons.” Plus several iterations of the song The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down; if you’ve watched Bugs Bunny or his pals, you KNOW this song.

Explaining Fair Use Using Disney Characters. Not every use of copyrighted material is disallowed.

Disney Epic Mickey Mouse. Love the visuals.

Katy Perry Spoofs Canceled ‘Sesame Street’ Appearance on ‘SNL’, with a link to the original duet with Elmo

You may be familiar with the fact that Hollywood’s making a film about Facebook. Now, the Twitter movie.

Ken Levine says: They must really be out of stars for the Hollywood Walk of Fame!

The FOR COLORED GIRLS trailer from Tyler Perry. Looks intense. My sister read the book, but I never did.

Finally, Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5, who I must admit I never heard of. “Danny Glover and Edward Asner, co-chairs of ‘Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5’ made a call to their colleagues in the United States inviting them to add their name to a letter to President Obama encouraging him to issue an Executive Clemency order on behalf of the Cuban 5.

“A significant number of well-known actors and artists who responded to the call” include Susan Sarandon, Oliver Stone, Martin Sheen, Pete Seeger, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Haskell Wexler, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, James Cromwell, Mike Farrell, Elliott Gould, and Esai Morales.