“Not Too Soon,” from the 1991 Throwing Muses album The Real Ramona. Guitars, growls, and girl-group gusto!
*Note – I’m not even going to try to rank songs. I just plan to periodically write a little bit about some songs that I like.
In 2018, I wrote a super-long, quite in-depth, shoulda-maybe-had-an-editor-but-I-do-this-for-free-so-bite-me piece about my obsession with certain songs. That post is about my 100 Fave Album Star, by Belly. (Go check it out! I’ll wait.) Song obsession is a jumping off point for that album because I’ve probably been obsessed with Throwing Muses’ “Not Too Soon” longer than any other song[ref]I’ve loved my favorite song, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” since the 1970s, when I was 8 or 9, but favorite is a different quality than obsession.[/ref]. The song introduced me to Belly, as Belly leader Tanya Donelly wrote and sang it for Throwing Muses, her other band, the one with with her step-sister Kristin Hersh.
From the opening, furiously strummed, fuzzy electric chords, and Donelly’s committed opening word, “She …” the song has a certain distorted, singular sound that I love. It’s not just those chunky guitars and soft-but-hard voice. It’s also the drum beat, by drummer Dave Narcizo, a wizard who rarely uses cymbals. (Take a look at the video – his kit only has one cymbal, a high-hat. Or does that count as two?) It’s a modern (for 1991) take on the classic “Girl Group” sound of the 60s, in which bands with names like The Ronnettes, The Shirelles, The Shangri-las, and, of course, The Supremes would harmonize about their men over a thump like a Roman warship time-keeper.
“Not Too Soon” has multiple overdubbed guitars played by Donelly and main Muse, Hersh. They bow out during the chorus, allowing that girl-group thump (and a few haunting wails) to support the antagonist/boy in the song’s lyrics. “It’s not too soon, he said/ it’s not too soon at all/ You might as well be dead, he said/ If you’re afraid to fall.”
Then comes the killer hook: five words, stretched over four bars (“I said, ‘I know her'”) then four bars of Tanya’s growling, purring vocal riff. It’s catchy as hell, and as the songs move along, the guitar will frequently repeat that riff. In the second verse a few more guitars are added, and we hear the girl’s perspective, clearly baffled by the boy’s interest. “Why do you stare so hard/ Wrapped up like a doll in bad dreams and broken arms?”
When I wrote about the Belly album Star, I mentioned my love of Donelly’s lyrics. They’re very Steely Dan-ish, impressionist verbal paintings that give you just enough detail so your brain can fill in the rest of the story. In the case of “Not Too Soon,” it sounds as if Donelly, the narrator, is observing an interaction between a boy and a girl. And she’s clearly been in the girl’s situation before (“I know her…”) It may even be a story about herself. It’s enough to “Make these old bones shiver …”
The boy’s pressuring the girl (For sex? Commitment? As a former boy, I’d guess sex.) The girl, inexperienced (“colorblind”) yet intrigued (“her hallway aching”), is clearly not interested (“she’ll never move him – likes it that way”). The boy appears to “fall apart” in the spoken bridge. This is when the guitar really runs through that catchy-as-hell riff, sounding watery and distant and super cool. Donelly was the band’s usual lead guitarist, but a live video shows Hersh playing the riff, so I don’t know who plays it on the song. The boy offers one more plea – restating that “it’s not too soon,” and “you might as well be dead … instead of afraid to ‘fall[ref]I’m pretty sure he means ‘fuck,’ not fall. There’s such a weird history of songs about either boys pressuring girls to fuck (“It’s Now or Never,” “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Go All the Way,” “Do Me, Baby,” “Come On, Eileen“) or girls worrying about that pressure (“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” “Anticipation.”) There are also some with the roles reversed (“We Don’t Have to Take our Clothes Off,” “Fuck and Run” and (as a 53-year-old white dude, it would horrify my family to know I typed this, but I mean, come on …) “WAP“) but generally it’s horny dudes and reluctant girls. It’s a weird, skewed message.[/ref].'”
And then Donelly finally, in a gush of words, lets him have it: “Done your time, been in your place/ I couldn’t look you in the face/ And tell you that it turns me on/ It makes my stomach turn!/ I know her!” Look dude! I’ve been there! I know her! She’s saying “No!” It repulses her!
OR??!! Did the girl fall apart in the bridge? It’s not clear. Did the girl, against her better judgment, give in to the boy? Is Donelly’s stomach turning because she’s been there and remembers the pain of caving in? Is she saying, “Look, upon reflection, I cannot honestly say I really liked that experience!”
IN A NUTSHELL:The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a glam-rock, guitar-feast masterpiece. The songs range from ballads and cabaret to screaming rock ‘n rollers. Always melodic, David Bowie’s remarkable voice carries the album. He sells every ounce of every song about Ziggy, the space alien, bisexual, rock-star savior who put together a band to save Earth. It’s not exactly Puccini, but I saw La Boheme at The Met, and that story didn’t make much sense either.
THEORETICAL PLACE IN A FUTURE TOP 100 LIST I’LL NEVER WRITE: Top 30.
Here’s a big shout-out to Sully, a co-worker at a biofuels lab ten years ago who told me I’d really like Ziggy Stardust. Sully is almost exactly my age, and had an eerily similar upbringing to mine. This, apparently, aligned our musical tastes as well. He was one of the first people with whom I’d shared an early version of my 100 Favorite Albums list. At that point it was a bulleted email of otherwise perfect albums ruined by one bad song[ref]Some of these albums, from artists like Maria McKee and Stone Roses, ended up placing highly on the final list despite their flawed song.[/ref]. I also emailed him a list of Unexpectedly Great Albums, including titles such as Billy Squier’s Don’t Say No and Buckcherry’s Time Bomb.
A person whose co-worker shares weird lists of albums with them and DOESN’T immediately run away or call HR is clearly a very decent human being. One who actually engages in the lists is a kindred spirit. And in recommending Ziggy Stardust to me, Sully clearly understood what I’d like in a record. It’s terrific.
As an AOR music fan in the 70s and 80s, I thought of David Bowie as the weird uncle of Classic Rock. The adults felt compelled to invite him to Christmas parties, and everyone chatted with him and smiled, but you could tell he made them all uncomfortable. He’d laugh and make jokes you didn’t understand, and ask you to come close so he could see how big you’d grown. You’d grin warily and softly answer “Fine,” when he asked you how school was going. Then he’d leave early, and everyone enthusiastically shouted “‘bye!” and breathed a sigh of relief. He was part of the family, but only sort of.
As an adult you finally realize that the uncle had switched faiths, or gone to college, or was gay, or a union leader, or didn’t go hunting, or in any case had done something that set him apart from everyone else. And whatever that something was, you also realize that the rest of your family were just as weird, or weirder than, him. You’d also want to learn more about him.
Such is David Bowie. He was definitely invited to the party that Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kansas and Led Zeppelin and Van Halen were having on 70s FM rock radio, but he sure made them uncomfortable. He was in the family because some of his songs had fuzzy, squawking guitars or really cool lead guitar. But then some were sort of synthesizer-y or R&B or disco or just weird. And some were, like, a combination of all that. Then there was the whole “Is he gay?” thing, which in that era surely turned off some folks. In those less-enlightened days, rock fans pretty much assumed Freddie Mercury was gay, and just ignored it. But with Bowie, there was a feeling that he could be gay, straight, or some other orientation that had yet to be considered[ref]There’s a great scene in the amazing 1980-set TV show Freaks and Geeks where Seth Rogen’s character, Ken, is wondering whether he’s gay, and so listens to David Bowie albums to help himself find out.[/ref], which seemed much scarier. But still, he was at the party.
Given his weird-uncle status, I never really connected with him as a young rock fan. I enjoyed some of his songs on the radio, and I loved his Queen duet, “Under Pressure.” When he repackaged himself for MTV with 1983’s Let’s Dance album, I thought “Modern Love” was great, but I mostly liked that he hired Stevie Ray Vaughan to play guitar for him. I had a couple of his Greatest Hits cassettes, but I didn’t buy an album until Sully pointed the way.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a concept album, a sort of rock opera. I like many such projects (The Wall, American Idiot) and have even created them from albums that weren’t intended to be (Give the People What They Want). But I never get too caught up in the stories, as their narratives can often be described as disjointed, at best. In this case, Ziggy Stardust is an alien sent to Earth to save it from an apocalypse that’s described in the lyrics of the opener, “Five Years.”
Five years remain for life on Earth. No reason is given, but it’s a sufficiently sad song for such a topic. It starts and ends with a ticking-clock drumbeat, a nice touch. There’s plenty of orchestra to underpin the emotion, but it doesn’t go overboard, and Bowie uses his best “Heroes-y,” heartache-y voice. It’s a great opener.
“Soul Love” has a flamenco/tango feel, with an off-kilter time signature that keeps the song gently hiccuping along. The lyrics describe the different forms love takes, and it’s not clear, exactly, how this fits into the greater narrative (Is Ziggy singing it? Are the nearly-annihilated Earthlings?) but that’s to be expected in these rock operas. The song does set the stage for “Moonage Daydream,” the introduction of that “alligator, mama-papa, space invader, rock ‘n roll bitch,” Ziggy Stardust, who somehow will save Earth with his freak-outs. And Earth is pretty psyched, too, as “Starman” indicates. It’s a strumming folk tune, almost, with a nice, simple bass. The lyrics are short on specifics, but this savior’s plan does include letting all the children boogie. (Hey, look, when you have five years left, you’ll try anything, I guess.)
I’ve thrown a lot of snarky comments in here about the story, but let me say this: story-schmory. The songs on the album are awesome. Mick Ronson’s guitar sound is cool throughout, the songs are catchy and really well-produced. And Bowie can sell any lyric, even those extolling the Hoochie-Koochie woman who helps Ziggy get to Earth. I think that’s what “It Ain’t Easy” is about? Anyway, it has cool slide guitar that I really like. “Lady Stardust” sounds like an Elton John number, with Mick Ronson playing piano. Bowie sings about a drag queen, presumably Ziggy, who blows the audience away with her performance. I really like the sing-along “all right.”
It’s never clear how or why, but Ziggy has to form a band to save Earth. “Star,” a rocking number, perhaps my favorite on the record, describes the process. Bowie’s voice presages the new-wave stylings of Gary Numan and Devo, and there’s a cool bridge. The backing vocals are great, and drummer Mick Woodmansey really shows his skills! If “Star” isn’t my favorite song, then it’s probably “Hang Onto Yourself,” a Ramones-ish, glam-rock workout.
The bass from Trevor Bolder is high and tight, hurtling the song forward. The song could fit perfectly on a New York Dolls album. The lyrics, again, don’t exactly, continue the story. Ziggy is having a great time in the band and enjoying the groupies, including a funky thigh collector with whom he moves like tigers on vaseline. No specifics are provided on how such high jinks are helping, or hurting, his whole Earth-saving mission.
However, “Ziggy Stardust” pretty clearly explains that the experience is getting out of hand. Although the song is about a space alien drag queen rocker, it could probably describe any of a number of debauched, strung-out 70s rocker. It’s one of Bowie’s best-known, and coolest, songs. Mick Ronson’s guitar tone and riff are perfect, and Bolder’s ranging bass supports it brilliantly. Woodmansey’s drums sound really cool, too. And it flows perfectly into “Suffragette City,” another of Bowie’s most celebrated numbers. The story seems to have completely broken down at this point. I don’t know what a Suffragette City is[ref]Happy 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the USA! In a high school speech class of mine, a girl gave a talk on the Amendments to the Constitution, and when she got to the 19th, commonly described simply as “Women’s Suffrage,” she stated it was put in place so that women would no longer suffer.[/ref], or how it relates to Ziggy saving the world. But it’s a cool song, for sure, with nice horns and piano.
“Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” is, musically, a perfect album closer. It’s sort of a show tune, a jazzy cabaret-style number driven by Bowie’s sparkling voice. There’s a nice 50s-style, watery guitar in the background, as the song builds to Ziggy shouting “you’re not alone!” at 2:15. It’s great, but lyrically it doesn’t really wrap up the story. It seems Ziggy is dying? But all he’s really done for Earthlings is tell them they’re not alone? (Story aside, I’m sure the lyrics have been helpful to depressive Bowie fans for the past 48 years, which is a positive thing!)
But regardless of the story, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a brilliant album. It covers a lot of territory, musically, and the sound and performances are killer. I’d like to publicly thank Sully for encouraging me to pick it up! He’s a great guy, and he still reads this blog (I think). You’ll sometime see his comments after posts!
“Freedom! ’90”, from the 1990 George Michael album Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. It’s amazing how direct George Michael was in these lyrics.
*Note – I’m not even going to try to rank songs. I just plan to periodically write a little bit about some songs that I like.
Back in 1990, if you’d time-traveled from today to tell me about it, I’d say, “You’re lying. You’re telling me 2020 America has a rotten, infantile grifter in charge, and, having botched its response to a pandemic, is now stripped of all its global prestige, influence and esteem, and on the precipice of a fraudulent fascist takeover by a tiny minority of white people who just 5 years ago thought tyranny was a national exercise program for kids[ref]The program was headed by a Black woman, so I guess it’s understandable those particular white people disliked it.[/ref]?” But even more unbelievable to the 1990, 23-year-old me would be the fact that George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” is now a favorite ‘oldie’ of mine.
And despite all of his success, I could not express to you the magnitude of the fuck I did not give. (That’s a line from the amazing comedian DJ Hazard.) I was not interested in Top 40 music. I was in many ways at war with it, and I actively, aggressively, disliked any non-guitar, non-rockin’ music[ref]I did, however, kind of like the song “Faith,” as it had a catchy melody and bass line, and cool guitar sounds not too dissimilar from a contemporaneous Van Halen number …[/ref].
As for Michael, I knew he was super-successful, but I hadn’t been paying attention. What I gleaned about this next smash record, “Freedom! ’90,” from watching MTV (and just being part of the US culture) was that this song was a kind of rebuke. It was supposed to express his weariness with a wretched music industry and the demands of worldwide fame. The video famously featured his iconic Faith-era accoutrements – leather jacket, Gretsch guitar, and fancy jukebox – being lit on fire and blown to bits. He, apparently, was shockingly biting the hand that had fed him, gnawing it off, even, and had no fucks left to give.
“Oh, puh-leeze,” I thought. “Waa-waa-waa.” Perhaps because of my lower-middle-class upbringing, I’m skeptical of any such complaints from wealthy folks. Upon hearing the song and watching the video in 1990, I thought, “Nobody is this upset about success. This song is bullshit.” Totally catchy, sure, and a non-guitar song that I sort of liked, but bullshit. I knew all artists grow, and change, and sure, even The Beatles came to find their early mop-top years rather embarrassing. But they weren’t setting their collarless suits ablaze[ref]Although I could probably make the case they sort of did (metaphorically) in their solo years, but that’s for another post.[/ref].
Still, I’ve always found the song catchy. About 15 years ago I heard it in the car and paid attention to the words, and I realized I was right all those years ago. To my ears, the song isn’t really a condemnation of showbiz hollowness and selling out. It’s partly about that, but given George Michael’s life story I think “Freedom! ’90” is a coming-out anthem from a closeted gay man.
Musically, it’s a funky groove that lifts the oft-sampled “Funky Drummer” drums from James Brown and puts them beneath a syncopated piano reminiscent of 60s Motown. Michael’s voice enters softly on a slice of the chorus, and he immediately tries to set both the listener (“I won’t let you down …”) and himself (“Gotta have some faith in the sound”) at ease. He reveals the despair that living a phony persona has brought him: he now thinks the sound is “the one good thing that I got.” He begs the listener not to abandon him: “Please don’t give me up/ … I would really love to stick around.”
If you’ve come out, or maybe especially if you’re closeted, I imagine the fear presented in this opening is familiar. “What will all the folks I’ve known think of me when they know?” If you’ve had friends or loved-ones come out, you probably recognize it, too. And if, like me, your own homophobia was thawed and evaporated by the experience, you may remember feeling a bit confused, even ashamed, as you realize this new fact has absolutely no bearing on your relationship with the other person. Throughout the song, this idea that nothing’s changed – despite everything changing – is drilled home.
As the song builds, those opening words are developed and become the refrain. Look, listener, he’s not who you think he is, okay? But he won’t let you down! Trust his sound – it worked on those 14 Top Ten hits the past 5 years, right? He doesn’t belong to you, and you don’t belong to him. He only wants the freedom (Freedom! Freedom!) to be himself, so why should that change your love for his music? The bridge (at 4:30; “Well it looks like the road to heaven …”) sums things up beautifully. It ends with a powerful “Sometimes the clothes DO NOT make the man!” and the lyrics that started as a bashful suggestion become a forceful insistence. He’s no longer asking your permission with those words, he’s telling you it’s how it’s going to be. It’s a pretty stunning feat, lyrically and musically. As the song fades he announces, “May not be what you want from me/ Just the way it’s got to be.”
The verses are great, too, a typical story of chasing a dream and making compromises along the way. He gives a nice shout-out to luckiest-man-alive-candidate Andrew Ridgeley (“what a kick, just my buddy and me”), his childhood friend and Wham! bandmate who smiled charmingly and wore cool clothes and wisely sat back and let his talented mate take over[ref]Today, Ridgeley looks like the CEO of a British pharmaceutical company.[/ref]. (Too bad John Fogerty’s bandmates in Creedence Clearwater Revival didn’t have his example back in the 70s.) Plus Michael acknowledges that it was all a lot of fun! He was living the dream and loving it (“we were living in a fantasy/ we won the race, got out of the place”). But over time it got old, and now he realizes what he really wants is happiness. He doesn’t want to pretend to be someone he’s not, and that doesn’t seem like an audacious request.
The music remains funky throughout, and Michael himself plays that bouncing bass line. During the bridge there’s a nifty wah-wah guitar from ace session man Phil Palmer. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a second to mention the video. As a heterosexual young man in 1990, it’s the reason I listened to the song so often even though I wasn’t a big fan. Seeing supermodels Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Cristy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Tatjana Patitz poutily lip-synch the song was not unenjoyable.
But you know, maybe I’m wrong about all this. Maybe the song really is as it was originally described. The early ’90s were an era when people were more skittish about sexuality. Maybe “Freedom! ’90” is simply about Michael dealing with fame and the music industry. Maybe he wasn’t coming out. After all, he didn’t come out publicly until 8 years later, when an arrest for a lewd act in Beverly Hills sort of forced him.
But to me it all adds up and makes sense. I’m a 53 year old man that never had to worry about coming out, but I still can relate to the idea of staying true to myself. “Freedom! ’90,” and the meaning I see in it, really resonates with me. It’s a song that caused my entire estimation of George Michael to rise. I still strongly prefer guitar rock to dance pop, but the song is a favorite of mine. Sadly, George Michael died in 2016 from an enlarged heart and fatty liver after years of struggling with addiction. He was 53 years old.
Fetch the Bolt Cutters 2020, Epic. Producers: Fiona Apple, Aimee Aileen Wood, Sebastian Steinberg & David Garza. In My Collection: Spotify, 2020.
IN A NUTSHELL:Fetch the Bolt Cutters has a unique style of music – rhythms and melodies that sound almost made up on-the-spot, produced by instruments that aren’t usually considered instruments. (Instrumentation credited on the record includes, among others, “metal butterfly,” “harp thing,” “water tower,” and “breathing.”) The lyrics are wise and kick-ass and funny, and the whole thing is just really fun to listen to!
THEORETICAL PLACE IN A FUTURE TOP 100 LIST I’LL NEVER WRITE: Top 10.
There was a time I would’ve hated a record like this. I mean, just look at my 100 Favorite Albums. It’s mostly filled with dudes with guitars playing loud, melodic rock. That description (basically) works pretty well for my Top 13 Beatles albums, as well. Regarding lyrics, while it’s true that The Clash, who sit at #1, were brilliant lyricists chronicling profound cultural and socio-political issues of the day, artists such as R.E.M. and Steely Dan and Stone Roses are better known for their cool-sounding inscrutable words than for heavyweight philosophizing. Even tremendous lyricists like XTC, The Replacements and Tom Petty, generally sing about personal relationships, not the larger world.
So, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in producing this website it’s that my favorite music tends toward a definite “type.” That type is NOT a woman singing strange, percussive songs that comment brilliantly on both her personal life and the society around her, accompanied only by piano, bass, drums, weird noises and barking dogs. And that’s why this is the first record I picked after all those other ones. I like to know I can still expand my horizons even as a 53 year old man.
To be fair, Fiona Apple is certainly not an unknown quantity to me. Her 2005 album Extraordinary Machine is #73 on my Top 100. Both her 1999 album, When the Pawn …[ref] Actually, the full title is When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right.[/ref], and her 2012 album, The Idler Wheel …[ref]Actually, the full title is The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do[/ref], were not far outside my Top 100 when I made the list in 2014. So when I heard she had a new record this spring, I was very interested. Apple’s always had a great sense of melody, and she mixes up styles on her albums. If there’s a second thing I’ve learned producing this website, it’s that I love melodies and variety. (That pretty well describes London Calling.)
Fetch the Bold Cutters opens with the lovely “I Want You to Love Me,” which builds on Apple’s simple, evocative piano riff. Her voice is incredible – rough and tough yet sensitive, reminiscent of Michael Stipe’s. The lyrics very much straightforwardly describe the title. On the bridge she uses the Bob Dylan/hip-hop move of heavy internal rhymes that deliver a satisfying sense of surprise to the listener. Apple puts this tactic to great effect throughout the album. The song ends with Apple’s kooky dolphin sounds, which, well, look, I guess artists just have to go for it sometimes, so good for her.
“Shameika” is the song for anybody who was a nerd and teased or bullied by the popular kids. Once again the piano underpins the song, this time a percussive riff accentuated by a brushed drum kit. The found sounds throughout the album are cool, but the star is Fiona’s incredible voice. Speaking of found sounds, they really come to the forefront on the title track. On this one, she uses the internal rhyming in a near-rap, and the lyrics do the work. They’re a reflection on her life, and where it’s led her, and her desire to move on despite it all. “Fetch the bolt cutters/I’ve been in here too long,” she sings in a lilting, catchy melody. (Apple’s dogs, Mercy, Maddie, Leo, Alfie and Little, all credited on the album, make their first appearance on this one, but as with all backing vocalists since the dawn of recorded music, it’s really tough to distinguish who’s who).
I love “Under the Table” because it’s sung by someone who I wish I was, able to speak my mind in all situations. Her voice is amazing, and it builds in power and energy. (“I would beg to disagree, but begging disagrees with me.” Nice!) “Relay” is sort of a summer camp chant interrupted by jazzy vocals and bass[ref]The bass is by Sebastian Steinberg, a guy who grew up near where I live and who’s friends with my buddy! I’m three-degrees separated from Fiona Apple![/ref]. It expresses both an anger at the douchebags who hurt us, but also a desire to not give in to the temptation to pass that anger onto others. “Heavy Balloon” is one of my favorites, a song with a sort of jungle beat and cool harmonies. Apple’s voice hits a variety of tones, both musically and emotionally. Like “Under the Table” and “Relay,” its lyrics are all about personal strength.
But the album’s lyrics are at their best when they’re dealing with the uncomfortable, challenging issues of personal relationships. “Rack of His,” is a reference to all the guitars an ex had, guitars he treated better than her. It’s a jaunty number where Apple shows off the jazzy side of her voice. I love “Drumset,” another swirling harmony vocal workout, with lyrics that say maybe she should stop dating musicians. “Cosmonauts,” has a spare, slow groove that builds to a raucous finish. It suggests that maybe there is a hope for couples willing to accept the heaviness of commitment.
I love the set of songs that address the topic of how heterosexual women interact with one another in relationship to the men in their lives. “Newspaper” is a great song, dark, creeping and intense, with multiple voices and sounds building on each other. It’s sung from the perspective of an ex-girlfriend to the new girlfriend, saying, essentially, we should be friends – we have so much in common! (Obviously there’s more to it than that.) “Ladies” is another slow, jazzy number. (I’d love to hear her sing some standards!) It calls for unity among women, with the excellent lines to the new woman in his life: “And oh yes/ There’s a dress in the closet/ Don’t get rid of it, you’d look good in it/ I didn’t fit in it, it was never mine/ It belonged to the ex-wife of another ex of mine/ She left it behind with a note, one line, it said/ ‘I don’t know if I’m coming across, but I’m really trying’/ She was very kind”
The song “For Her” opens with an Andrews Sisters-style harmony, and it’s sung beautifully. Accompanied throughout by only drums, the voices swirl and build to an angelic closing. It’s about sexual assault, but calling it a ‘Me Too’ song really denigrates the power and the meaning of the song. Fetch the Bolt Cutters closes with “On I Go.” Similar to “Relay,” it’s a sort of meditation on strength and persistence. There is a vocal screw-up about 1:50 that was left in the mix. That goof adds to the song. It demonstrates that we can persevere through the bullshit that might otherwise slow us down. In fact, I think if I were to sum up the album in one word, I think it would be: Perseverance.
In those 8 years, lots has happened! I’ve gotten older, my family’s gotten older, my dad died, this whole pandemic thing … On top of all that, I’ve listened to more music! As I pointed out a while back, once I started the project, my list couldn’t change – it was 100 records only, so adding any new albums would disrupt the entire thing. That means I couldn’t write about any stuff I heard since assembling the list.
Plus, there are lots of albums I’ve loved for a long time that are NOT in the top 100. I’ve never gotten a chance to say much about those! Additionally, there are several SONGS I’d like to write about, songs that may or may not come from a write-up-worthy album, so how do I tell you about them??
So here’s the deal. From here on out, 100 Favorite Albums is going to be a lot more free-form. I expect the posts to be much shorter (you’re welcome!!), and I expect them to come more often (sorry.). I’ll put numbers next to the albums, just to keep track, but there’s no ‘order.’ It’s just going to be stuff about music that I like. I’m having too much fun doing this to just suddenly stop because I’ve written about 113 records! And I hope you’ve been having fun, too!
The Only Meaningful Memory, by Eric Riley Moore, available on Kindle or in Paperback.
Did James Nauman murder someone thirty years ago but doesn’t remember it?
Students at North High wouldn’t believe that their chubby, balding, dork of a chemistry teacher, Mr. Nauman, was a skinny, long-haired bass player called Jim Nasty in an underground punk band way back in the 80s. When an out-of-town detective, Joanne Grimes, calls him, James can’t believe something else. He’s a suspect in the decades-old, cold-case murder of a punk rock fangirl named Sherri Statler.
He’s shocked, but he can’t be sure it’s not true – there’s so much from those days he doesn’t remember. Even his wife, Dr. Jane Blanton, isn’t sure – and she knew him back in 1989. That’s when MakeFist Punch was an indie punk band with a silly name on the cusp of success, and Jim Nasty just wanted the booze and drugs to keep flowing. Band leader Mike D was going to change the silly name and make himself a star. But the drummer, Darren Devil, quit and ended it all. Then Jim met troubled med-student Jane, and the couple escaped the band turmoil, married and changed their lives.
By 2018 his past – the loud, sweaty shows, the intra-band squabbles, the long, dark rides on endless highways – is long-forgotten. But until Detective Grimes called, James had never really considered how much of that time he had, indeed, forgotten. As he goes looking for clues to prove his innocence, he realizes just how much his bandmates and wife have kept hidden from him. Now, as the law closes in, and MakeFist Punch warily rehearses for a reunion show, James Nauman isn’t sure he wants to remember any of it.
Revolver 1966, Parlophone. Producer: George Martin. Purchased Vinyl, 1988.
IN A NUTSHELL: Revolver has it all. Every song sounds new, and each has its own style. The band swerves from gentle love songs to caustic rockers; fun kids’ music to heart-wrenching grown-up songs; Byrds-ian folk-rock to experimental drone. And throughout the record, the amazing vocals – harmonies, backup, lead – guitars, drums and bass remain intact. The playground that was the modern 1966 recording studio is added to that genius, giving the record the sound of four expert musicians (and an unmatched producer) in full control of all their powers having the time of their life.
NOTE: The setup – below the line ↓ – might be the best part … Or skip right to the album discussion.
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And now: NUMBER 1!! But first – my favorite Beatles’ ALBUM COVERS, ranked, in order, from #1 to #13.
#1: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (Rutles version here.) A great concept perfectly executed. You could stare at this album cover for hours. The image is now part of the world’s collective artistic consciousness. My favorite part is the doll’s shirt, which reads “Welcome The Rolling Stones.” The Stones returned the favor by embedding four little Beatle head images on the cover of their psychedelic album, “Their Satanic Majesty’s Request.”
#2: Abbey Road. Another iconic image that lingers in peoples’ minds everywhere. So many stories, so many theories. Proof that Paul is Dead! (28IF! Bare feet! Out of step!) It’s simple and classic. Often overlooked about the image: that curved line of parked cars beyond them receding into green trees and blue sky is really cool-looking.
#3: With the Beatles.(Rutles version here.) Stark black and white, half-lit faces, the hair just brushing their ears… It’s another indelible image. I find it interesting that John is so much more prominent than the others, the only one with his face fully visible.
#4: Yellow Submarine. Groovy cartoons, psychedelic colors, a world of hippy-dippy dynamism. Not too many album covers are more “of-their-era” than this one!
#5: The Beatles. The anti-album cover. And I love that “The Beatles” is not printed level. In the words of Bobbi Flekman, Polymer Records Artist Relations and hostess with the most-est, “A sexy album cover isn’t why an album sells! The White Album? What was that? There was NOTHING on that goddamn cover!”
#6: A Hard Day’s Night. Five-times the Beatle faces than your normal record! This album deftly says “soundtrack” by mimicking film footage. George wins the photos with the back of his head and a cool cigarette.
#7: Rubber Soul. The groovy 60s font and the elongated, hairy Beatle heads really give a strong hint that the boys’ songs are starting to change with this record.
#8: Help! (Rutles version here.) Spelled out in semaphore code, that’s N – U – J -V. Wait, what? Apparently the real semaphore HELP didn’t look as cool. But the point was made, right?
#9: Please Please Me. Ah, the cute boy-band days! A great shot on their first album that gives the impression that the band is moving up. Quite prescient. And I love that they reproduced the shot for their “Greatest Hits 1967-1970” album.
#10: Let it Be.(Rutles version here.) Like those pictures you saved, for some reason, of yourself with girlfriends or boyfriends past, depending on one’s mood this cover can seem wistfully pleasant, deeply embarrassing, or simply rage-inducing.
#11: Magical Mystery Tour (US LP). (Rutles version here.) I’m disinclined to appreciate any album cover that lists all the song titles on the front. It seems lazy. Even the star-studded “BEATLES” and goofy costumes don’t save this one.
#12: Beatles for Sale. The only good thing about this record is that the four Beatles are quite photogenic. Everything about this cover screams “Take the damn picture! We have a record to get on the shelves!!” (For an album called Beatles for Sale, maybe that was the point?? Was Parlophone savvier than I ever realized?)
#13: Revolver.
It pains me to say it, since I love love love the songs so much, but I just find this album cover … amateurish. To me it looks like a rough draft that was accidentally approved.
“What? No – there’s no time. We’re just going to use this one – as it is.”
“But all I’ve really finalized are the intricate strands of hair on the four large faces. The photos are just slapped in, the drawings are just sketches, it’s incomplete … why, I only just gave Ringo and George the photograph eyeballs, and three of them don’t have the photograph lips …”
“Thanks, Klaus. Goodbye.”
One thing that always confused me about the cover was the smaller line drawing between the larger heads of John and Paul. There are four images, four Beatles, one would presume. The bottom two are clearly John and Paul. But the top two … are they supposed to be George and Ringo?
I always thought they looked more like Keith Richards and Mick Jagger:
Starting at the bottom, Paul is gazing up and John appears self-satisfied, and then the “Mick” figure looks distressed. It’s as if he’s hearing the amazing songs on Revolver and thinking, “our songs are shit, aren’t they[ref]To be clear, I do not think the Stones’ songs are shit. (Mostly).[/ref]?” And the dark-eyed head above “Mick” must be zombie-eyed, drug-hazed Keith, sulking against a balled-up fist, no? For years I thought this was a great knock by one talented songwriting pair on another talented pair. After all, the bands had a well-known (and completely manufactured) rivalry.
But I recently noticed something about “Mick,” something that makes it clear I’ve been wrong. It also indicates that others may have told Klaus that they dug his Glimmer Twins stunt. He made sure that the person’s namesake jewelry are clearly visible on both of “Mick’s” hands.
So I suppose it is The Fab Four after all, even though I’m not convinced the likenesses of Harrison and Starr are all that accurate. I’m especially unconvinced because I’ve seen several thousands of pictures of George and Ringo over the years, and I will bet everything I own that both men, in 1966, had, in fact, no more than two arms each. Yet, this doesn’t appear to be the case on the cover of Revolver.
Pictured, bottom to top, with hands annotated: Paul, John, “Ringo,” “George.”
And there’s one more question I have about the drawings: who the heck is popping out of Paul’s ear, apparently listening with displeasure?
When I tried googling, I came up with a phony April Fool’s column from 15 years ago, which claimed the figure is Paul. But it looks less like Paul than George and Ringo look like George and Ringo, so I don’t buy it. Others on a Beatle Fan site say the figure is artist Voorman. Perhaps? He clearly wasn’t great at drawing good likenesses of others, so one would expect a self-portrait would also be difficult. (Okay, that was a cheap shot. I can’t draw AT ALL – and he’s clearly an actual artist!) I would love to know who that is. If you know, please leave a comment!
But enough of the pictures … let’s get to the sound. Strap in for a long post, as I’ve gotta go pretty deep on Number One! And Number One on Number One is “Taxman.”
The Beatles have always known how to open an album. Please Please Me shot their canon out of a cannon with an urgent count-off. With the Beatles and Beatles For Sale opened with bare voices. A Hard Day’s Night featured the most famous chord ever, and Help!a shouted plea. Rubber Soul began with a classic guitar and bass riff. In 1966, Revolver opens with a cough, a creepy fake count-in and then the real McCoy. “Taxman” is the first Harrison song to open a Beatles album, and it is a song that is equal to the task. The bass riff by McCartney is a rock classic, and Ringo’s drumming (the fill at 0:21) and percussion (tambourine at 0:34, cowbell at 0:49) are excellent. Speaking of bass, check out what Paul does around 0:55 – he’s incredible. He also played the George-esque, raga-inflected guitar solo at 1:13. The harmonies are terrific throughout, as George complains about taxes that, at 95% for the extremely wealthy in 1965 UK, do sound rather high[ref]Then again, if Bezos lost 95% of his wealth he’d still have $9B, and maybe we’d have a decent healthcare system. Oh, but I guess he did ‘earn’ all that money himself … get the fuck outta here.[/ref]. At 1:33 a guitar riff mirrors the bass, and it sounds so good! As does the outro solo. What a way to open a record!
And they follow it up with a completely different song, and a completely new pop sound: the string quartet!
Actually, it’s a double string quartet, a string octet, I suppose, and it gives the song a melancholia that perfectly captures the loneliness described in the lyrics. Paul sings lead, and the harmonies of John and George (which have their own Wikipedia section) are brilliant, as is the contrapuntal “look at all the lonely people.” I like a variety of sounds and styles on my albums, which is a big part of why my #1 non-Beatles album is London Calling. After a guitar rocker and a string quartet, it’s hard to predict what might come next.
How about a drowsy ode to … well, sleep, I guess? … that features guitar recordings played backwards?
“I’m Only Sleeping” has a phenomenal sound. From the acoustic chord that opens the tune, a millisecond before John’s lethargic voice, to the splashing thunk of Ringo’s snare and Paul’s relaxed bass line, there’s a thick feeling of doziness about the track. When George’s backwards guitar lines are added throughout, the result is a song that truly sounds like its lyrical content. The precise “ooos” and harmony backing vocals (I love Paul’s “going by my window,” at 1:16) are wonderful, and provide a dreamy sensation. When Paul yawns at 2:00, one wonders if it’s real! But the song is not boring – that’s what’s amazing. It’s an exciting, interesting song about sleeping. Genius.
Yes, yes, it’s certainly ironic that the man who just complained three songs ago about taxes would now be singing about the meaninglessness of money in the context of existence. Hey, people are complex, what can I say? As with “Within You Without You,” on Sgt. Pepper’s, “Love You To” is a song that has grown over the years into one of my favorites. George plays sitar on this song[ref]This is according to most references. Some have said it’s an Indian musician.[/ref], including the 30 second opening of the song, and all the other instruments except the tabla and tanpura. The song has a lovely, droning sound, and it’s enhanced by George and Paul’s close harmony, as at 0:53. Revolver is a record of varying sounds, all of them interesting, and it’s hard to imagine – after all this – what could possibly come next.
How about a brilliant love song, destined to become a standard?
“Here, There and Everywhere” is a song I was fascinated by for years. I’ve always loved how clever the lyrics are. Verse one begins with the word “Here,” verse two with “There,” and the bridge prominently features “Everywhere.” That kind of thing tickles my nerd brain. Often overlooked in the song are Ringo’s subtle, orchestral drums. And how about the background harmony!! Holy moley!! George’s guitar chords are lovely, as is his line that mirrors the melody in the “but to love her is to need here” lyrics. At 1:57 listen for the finger snaps that start – the kind of hidden treasure I love discovering! I’m never as big a fan of Beatles’ love songs as I am of rockers, but “Here, There and Everywhere” is an exception. (Even though I’d prefer an oxford comma in the title.)
The band keeps everyone guessing at what’s coming next on Revolver, and I’d guess that in 1966 few expected the band to release a full-on children’s song.
“Yellow Submarine” is a fun one, perfect for Ringo’s singing style. He gamely describes his seafaring experiences on the ship, and the background noises and voices of the crew have made it an ever-popular song. Of course, the band eventually made a cartoon movie out of the song. I don’t have much to say about it. The band and their friends had a lot of fun recording the song, coming up with sound effects and funny voices.
Childhood whimsy is pushed aside for the brash sounds, drug-induced words and changing meter of one of my favorite songs ever (but not my favorite on Revolver!), “She Said She Said.”
Harrison’s guitar sound on the opening riff is distinctive, even disorienting, and then the bass, also by Harrison[ref]McCartney doesn’t appear on the track. He left the studio due to an argument.[/ref], plays a single note while Ringo throws in an incredible fill to open things up. Lennon’s lyrics are famously from an LSD-influenced conversation he had with actor Peter Fonda, and George provides some Paul-esque high harmonies. Check out Ringo’s drums – just in the first 30 seconds! Throughout the song he’s a monster. And what I really love are all the guitars! It sounds like there are a million. There’s some cool finger-picking (or maybe just pick-picking) during the verses, and of course Harrison’s metallic lead, and it’s all supported by a faint organ underneath. As for song structure, they deftly (Thanks, Ringo!!) shift from 4/4 to 3/4 during the “When I was a boy” bridge. This song ended an amazing Side 1 (back in the day), and one would be right to think it unlikely that Side 2 could be quite as good.
But Side 2 may even be better!! John may have lamented Paul’s “Granny” songs, but “Good Day Sunshine” is a classic number no matter how you describe it.
Lyrically, the song perfectly describes that feeling of being happily in love. The John and George harmonies are terrific, including John’s spoken “she feels good,” as is Paul’s piano. George Martin actually plays the piano solo. It’s just a happy little song, and the band does throw in the Beatley vocal outtro. Revolver just keeps getting better and better, more and more interesting.
And we’ve reached what is likely my favorite Beatles’ song of all time, “And Your Bird Can Sing.”
The dual guitar, played by George and Paul, is just amazing. Through the entire song, they create a riff that’s practically a song unto itself. It opens the song, then from 0:37 to 1:20 a descending version is played through the bridge, then the intro returns, and the bridge is played once again. And behind the entire thing, Paul’s bass is ranging far and wide, culminating in the final verse, where he plays a high triplet (1:25). This figure accents the close, three-part harmony in the third verse, the one where “your bird can swing.” The lyrics are apparently about Frank Sinatra, John’s take after reading a glowing article in Esquireon the by-then-out-of-fashion crooner. But we can never be sure because Lennon, the main songwriter, actually hated the song and barely spoke of it, except to say he disliked it. Well, John, I love it. I think you guys created a masterpiece. (If you want some laughs, listen to theBeatles Anthology 2 version, which sounds like a Byrds song, and features old pals John and Paul cracking up so bad they can’t even sing!)
This album would already be my favorite if it ended right there, but five great songs remain! And since we’ve already heard a Paul love ballad, how about we hear a Paul break-up ballad.
It’s a sad song[ref]I’ve had friends listen to it on repeat after bad breakups.[/ref] about a relationship that’s ended, and it includes what is probably the best use of a French Horn in all of rock. Also of note is McCartney’s bass, which enters after two verses, at about 0:24. It’s lovely, ranging very low (I wonder if it was tuned low?) and includes slides and staccato, really showcasing his all-around ability on the instrument. Only he and Ringo appear on the piece, apart from Alan Civil, the horn player. The entire song is Classic Paul.
So, Revolver must fall off at some point, right? Well, certainly not now, not when we’re about to pay a visit to “Doctor Robert”!
Doctor Robert is clearly an over-prescriber, but that’s precisely why John is singing his praises. He sings the song with a bit of a lag[ref]This sound is apparently achieved by Automatic Double Tracking, technology developed at Abbey Road Studios specifically for Beatles records.[/ref], but a different energy forms when Paul joins in verse two (0:30). And the harmonies in the “he’s a man you must believe” chorus (0:49) are outstanding! There’s a subtle dueling guitar sound to George and John’s riffing and rhythm throughout the song. I particularly love George’s guitar at about 0:56, heading into the “well, well, well” bridge, a bridge with wonderful three-part vocals. George’s guitar is great, as is his maraca playing! I couldn’t mention “Doctor Robert” without also mentioning Dr. Dave, as this song is a favorite to play in our band, JB & the So-Called Cells. It was in learning to play and sing harmony[ref]If you ever want to learn the harmony parts to Beatles songs, check out this Italian guy on YouTube![/ref] on this song that I first noticed the times (1:39 & 2:04) when John and Paul sing “Doc Robert!”
George Harrison was known as “the quiet Beatle,” and compared to the always-on Paul, the sarcastic John, and the quippy Ringo, he could seem shy and retiring. That persona (which from all accounts is not true) is captured int the fantastic ode to lovable-losers, “I Want to Tell You.”
Look, I’m just saying, not necessarily from personal experience, that if you were a young college-age guy with not-great self-esteem and terminal timidness around women you found attractive, then this song may have connected with you. The song’s great from the beginning, featuring a fade-in and rolling guitar riff, combined with Ringo’s authoritative snare drum. John and Paul’s backing vocals, as usual, are spot on, as is Paul’s bass. George’s voice is affecting, as he draws out the “Tee-ee-lll you …” And the dissonant piano in the second half of the verses is perfect. And how about that fill Ringo plays at 1:11! At the end (2:18), the boys sing a “melisma,” a word I just learned two minutes ago.
I hate to keep typing it, but it just seems like this record can’t get any better, any more diverse, and then an R&B number appears! Paul’s “Got to Get You Into My Life,” which, oddly enough for a song recorded in 1966, was the last U.S. top ten song the band recorded together, hitting #7 in 1976[ref]”Free as a Bird” hit the top 10 in 1995, but that was a Lennon original to which Paul, George and Ringo added instrumentation and arrangement.[/ref].
I’d never say a cover version is better than a Beatle original … but Earth, Wind & Fire doing “Got to Get You Into My Life” is pretty darn good…
The first note I wrote about this song is “Ringo’s hi-hat!” I love that sound against the cool horn fanfare. This is a fun song, and Paul’s bass is terrific. It sounds like a magical, love-at-first sight number, but Paul has actually said the lyrics are an ode to pot! (Oh well – it can mean what you want it to mean!) There’s not much guitar, until George enters at 1:49 with typical George-genius! Paul sings the heck out of the song, really using his best shout-y voice, especially on that outro! By the way, I don’t love a lot of covers of Beatles’ songs, but Earth, Wind and Fire’s version of this song is pretty great (it has more guitar than the original!) and hit #9 in 1978 (and #1 on the Billboard’s Soul Chart).
Okay, okay, for a final song on Revolver, what could The Beatles do to possibly cap off all of that? If you were a music fan in ’66 and just heard all those songs, what would you expect to close the record? Could you even fathom something like “Tomorrow Never Knows”?
Ringo’s snare and tom pattern drives the song forward continuously, as does Paul’s monotone bass. Those seagull sounds are actually a tape loop of Paul laughing, distorted for the record. In fact, there are tape loops all over this song, providing an otherworldly sound that John was looking for. The lyrics are all about meditation and psychedelic drugs and way too much for me to go into here, but the title is never mentioned in the song[ref]It’s apparently a phrase Ringo used, like “a hard day’s night.”[/ref]. It’s a simple song, structurally, but so much occurs – the violin-like tapes at 0:40, the truck horn at 0:50, the squiggly solo at 0:59, George’s backwards solo at 1:09 … I mean, I can’t keep up. It’s a sonic treat, and shows the band was – (is?) – just light-years ahead of the curve. This song had to be the final song on the album – there’s nothing else they could have done!
I’ve heard people say that this is the last song The Beatles should’ve released, that Revolver was the apex and should’ve ended it all. Many critics and music fans have called it the best album of all time[ref]Okay, sometimes they say “best Beatles’ album,” but come on – the best album by the best band means best ever, right?![/ref]. (Or thereabouts.) I agree that the band never was better, but I sure don’t think that the remaining albums – Sgt. Pepper’s, White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be – were extraneous! And aside from all the music I loved on them, it gave them more time to perfect their album covers!
Keep watching this space – I’ll be doing some more music writing soon! Just because The Beatles records are complete doesn’t mean I don’t have more to say!
TRACK LISTING: “Taxman” “Eleanor Rigby” “I’m Only Sleeping” “Love You To” “Here, There and Everywhere” “Yellow Submarine” “She Said, She Said” “Good Day Sunshine” “And Your Bird Can Sing” “For No One” “Doctor Robert” “I Want to Tell You” “Got to Get You Into My Life” “Tomorrow Never Knows”
Abbey Road 1969, Apple Records. Producer: George Martin. Purchased Cassette, 1986.
IN A NUTSHELL: Abbey Road fully encapsulates everything that is wonderful about The Beatles. It also recapitulates their entire career, from doo-wop (“Oh! Darling”) to psychedelia (“I Want You,” “Sun King”) to singer/songwriter balladry (“Here Comes the Sun”). As if to lay to rest any doubts about their talents, the album is chock full of amazing songwriting (from all four members!), incredible vocal harmonies, and even some knockout solos from the boys. It’s the most-perfect final album of any band ever.
NOTE: The setup – below the line ↓ – might be the best part … Or skip right to the album discussion.
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Star Wars[ref]At that time it was not yet known as Star Wars: A New Hope. Well, I’m sure some nerd knew that, but most people didn’t.[/ref] opened in American theaters in May 1977, a week before my tenth birthday, making me a prime member of the film’s target audience. The film had spaceships, lasers, robots, bigfoots, a swashbuckling cowboy and a princess (with no kissing!), plus a teen-ager who learns to fight with a lightsaber. It came at a time when I was young enough that I still played with GI Joes. All those Star Wars action figures were aimed directly at me, and my dad’s wallet.
But my family were targets the marketers could rarely hit. We weren’t destitute by any means, but we were definitely lower-middle class, a family of five living on a machinist’s hourly wages. We were fed and clothed, and had a few “nice things,” like bikes and church outfits and a handheld calculator that cost more than all three bikes together, and that was hidden in my mom’s desk, requiring special permission for my sisters and I to access it. But non-necessary expenditures were rare, and anything that could be found as a “hand-me-down” was. Those GI Joes that I still played with had come from my older cousins.
Also, my parents weren’t movie-people. It cost money to go see a movie. Additionally, they required leaving the house, and possible mingling with people, an experience my dad, in particular, found difficult. My parents never went out on “dates.” They were content to watch movies on TV with annoying commercial interruptions, years after they’d been released in the theaters. Throughout the 70s I only recall them going to three movies in the theater: The Sting, Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie, and one other.
My sisters and I periodically went to a kids movie – Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory[ref]At which I cried and cried, especially when Augustus Gloop got sucked up the chocolate pipe.[/ref], Bambi, Snowball Express, – and once or twice we went as a family to the Drive-In theater. But as a whole, my family were not movie-goers. I’d never cared about that fact until I returned to school in the late summer of ’77.
That’s when Star Wars fever was boiling over.
Everyone in my fifth grade class had seen the film, and I mean everyone. John H. claimed to have seen it 30 times, probably an exaggeration, given his well-known penchant for stretching the truth, and, frankly, his family’s well-known limited financial means. However, he could, indeed, draw an astoundingly accurate version of R2-D2 in chalk on the blackboard. And this being decades before the internet, and years before DVDs and even household VHS machines, he’d had to have gone to the theater more than once to draw such a great picture.
I figured there was no way I’d get to see Star Wars until it appeared on TV. I even discussed with my buddy, Bruce F., my only ‘wealthy’ friend with HBO, whether I could come watch it at his house, without commercials, when it finally ran. I thought it was hopeless to ask my parents to take me to an actual movie theater to see it, but I decided to give it a shot.
My dad told me he’d take me[ref]Looking back, and knowing my dad, I’d say that in addition to wanting to make me happy, he probably heard about the movie from “the guys at the shop,” and was interested in it himself.[/ref]. We went to see it one evening at a theater in downtown Lebanon, PA, and it was amazing. I will never forget the first time I saw Star Wars because 1) it meant so much that my near-hermit, movie-indifferent dad took me; and 2) it was such a cool movie!
I’ve thought a lot about it, and there’s only one other work that I so clearly recall experiencing for the first time, and that’s The Beatles’ Abbey Road. And I didn’t even have all the family baggage surrounding that experience!
It was a summer evening in 1986, and I stopped to shoot hoops in an elementary school playground with a guy named Jeff. He had a boombox in his nearby car and was blasting the tape. Some of the songs I knew, some of them I didn’t, but one trip through the entire album while we played HORSE and one-on-one, and it immediately became my favorite record. The sounds, the melodies, the guitar, the feeling, the ending … it made an impression. Of all the records I love, I can’t recall my first listen as clearly or as deeply as I recall that first Abbey Road.
Abbey Road turned out to be the final album the band ever recorded. After the studio experimentation of Sgt. Pepper’s, the fraught individuality of “The White Album,” the band’s indifference to Yellow Submarine, and the awkward discomfort of filming the recording of Let it Be, (which was recorded earlier, but released after Abbey Road), it was to be a return to the camaraderie, synergy and musical focus that marked their earlier albums. Named for the recording studio in which they worked[ref]The studio website has a 24-hour webcam of the famous album cover crosswalk, so you can see folks posing all day long![/ref], The Beatles’ Abbey Road is as good a final album as any band has ever recorded.
And John Lennon’s “Come Together” is as good an album opener as has ever been recorded.
The bass, the drums the whispered “Shoot me,” with the “me” obscured by echoing handclaps … it’s among the most identifiable 4 seconds in rock music history. The nonsense lyrics are fun to sing, and it’s actually John singing his own harmonies during the verses. The bass line throughout is one of the coolest ever. At 2:31 Paul plays a little curlicue at the end of a line, and you can hear a little bit of studio shouting, if you listen closely. Lennon plays the Billy Preston-like electric piano, and Harrison adds a terrific lead guitar. And the entire time Ringo proves he’s one of the most creative drummers in rock. At 3:13, a lengthy runout begins, and if you listen closely in the left side, you’ll hear Lennon’s great rhythm guitar. It’s a song that’s been played a million times that I never get tired of hearing.
“Come Together” is an obvious group effort, and teamwork is a feeling that permeates Abbey Road. Even on Harrison’s masterpiece “Something,” a certain Beatle-ness is evident that was missing on “The White Album.”
As with “Come Together,” the bass and drums are once again perfect and indelible. Paul’s widely ranging bass and Ringo’s slow tom rolls are perfection, and check out what Ringo does in the bridge (~1:14 on). Harrison’s guitar is also amazing, and his sound and slide work throughout, (on the solo, at 1:43, in particular) became a sort of template (perhaps unfortunately) for 70s lite-rock. As love songs go, the lyrics of “Something”, coupled with George’s voice, are among the best. And let’s not forget the wonderful harmonies throughout!
The collaboration among the band is even clear on songs on which part of the band is absent – for example “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” which John considered “Granny music,” and so didn’t play along[ref]And to be fair, he was recuperating from a bad car accident.[/ref].
It is a silly song, with goofy lyrics about a serial killer, but I do like the tuba-ish bass, which is played by Harrison. And it’s got that wonderful guitar throughout the choruses, pure Harrison in sound and style.
Of course, even while the boys sound like they’re playing nice together, there were still some hurt Beatle feelings. For example, John really thought Paul should’ve asked him to sing “Oh! Darling.”
But maybe those hurt feelings are why he played such amazing guitar on the song! It’s Lennon alone playing all those attacking slides in the verses and arpeggiated chords in the choruses. And it was revealed last year that Harrison actually played bass on the song! Just as Paul easily copped the “Harrison sound” in past guitar solos in, for example, “Taxman” and “Ticket to Ride,” Harrison plays a wonderfully McCartney-esque bass line throughout, changing things up every time through. (I particularly love the syncopated ascending run he throws in, about 2:28.) Paul sings the hell out of this doo-wop tune about a gal who left him, and the subtle backing vocals are perfect. Lennon finishes off the song with great harmonics.
With Harrison doing so much on the album – bass, songwriting, guitar – I find him to be the unsung hero of Abbey Road. He even helped Ringo write his second Beatles songwriting credit, “Octopus’s Garden.”
And of course, he played that super lead guitar! Lennon actually plays all the nice fingerpicking rhythm guitar. The bass is A+, of course, and I really love all the backing vocals, particularly during the great guitar solo (1:38), when they sound as though they’re under water! It’s a perfect Ringo song, his voice is great, and though the song is often criticized as just a glorified kids’ song, Harrison actually found the lyrics to be quite spiritual.
Perhaps they are. And maybe there’s something spiritual, in a mantra-way, in the minimalist lyrics of Lennon’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)[ref]By my count, the song just barely beats out Nirvana’s “School” for hardest rock song with fewest lyrics, at 12 words for John and 14 for Kurt.[/ref].”
Much like the way I used to dislike “Within You Without You,” on Sgt. Pepper’s, but found myself growing to love it, this song is now officially one of my favorite Beatles’ songs. There’s so much happening, from an almost jazzy beginning through a slow-building musical fire that’s repeatedly tamped down, to a droning, repetitive, wild outro, it’s a song that simply requires repeated listens. “Fifth Beatle” Billy Preston plays a terrific Hammond organ, and I noted so many times in this song where I went back and re-listened (Paul’s bass, 1:00; Preston, 2:00; harmonies, 2:05; Guitar solo with organ, 2:26; drums everywhere; Guitar 3:37, 4:05, 4:14, 4:19; studio shouting at 4:33) that, really, it would be ridiculous to list them all. Okay, so I just did, but basically I think you should go listen to this song a bunch of times in a row, on headphones. You’ll be happy you did. Listen for the extra hi-hat at 7:16, after which there are two more times through the pattern before the song abruptly cuts out.
More evidence of Harrison’s status as Album Hero on Abbey Road comes in the next song, one of the band’s most popular ever, “Here Comes the Sun.”
First off, that’s a cool video produced for the song last year. From the first notes of Harrison’s acoustic guitar, this song is perfection. Once again, McCartney’s rolling bass provides a great countermelody, and the backing instruments – a whooshing Moog synthesizer, a harmonium, electric guitar – give the song an uplifting sound. The lyrics celebrate, well, being alive, when it gets down right to it. The backing harmonies (by George and Paul – John doesn’t appear at all on the track) are brilliant. Ringo’s drumming is pretty straightforward, even through the 3/4 “it’s all right” sections. Then, from 1:30 to 2:12, during the “sun, sun, sun, here it comes” section,” he goes nuts with some of the coolest tom fills ever. It’s a tremendous song – upbeat, positive, fun to sing along to, interesting musically … I love it.
The rest of the album is unique and wonderful, and – for some people – almost as frustrating as “The White Album.” That album left some folks wondering “what if they’d truly collaborated and then pared the record down to the strongest 15 songs?” The second half of Abbey Road is made up of a medley of songs, and leaves some folks wondering “what if they’d completed all those snippets?” As for me – it’s interesting to think about, but I’m happy with the record as it is. The record builds, and packs an emotional wallop that may not have occurred with 9 more complete songs.
The beautiful “Because” is probably not part of the medley, but it melds so seamlessly with the rest of the songs, I usually think of it as the first bit.
Musicologist Walter Everett, in comparing the song to Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” notes that both songs “arpeggiate triads and seventh chords in C♯minor in the baritone range of a keyboard instrument at a slow tempo, move through the submediant to ♭II and approach vii dim7/IV via a common tone[ref]Walter Everett. The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver Through the Anthology Oxford University Press, Oxford 1999. pp. 259–260.[/ref].” I think you should just listen to the beauty of the song, the voices, the sparse, hippy-ish lyrics, and not worry about all that. Then listen to this mix of vocals-only from the song, George, John and Paul (low register to high), each recorded three times to create 9 voices. Amazing.
Then comes the medley. NOTE: The Beatles(R) are very diligent in removing unofficial content from YouTube, etc. They only allow what they want floating around out there, which means … the version of The Medley that was on the original album, and the 2009 remix, is no longer available[ref]Someone might post it, but if they do it will be taken down quickly, for sure.[/ref] on YouTube as a single piece. The only full medley available is the version below, from 2019, when the band (i.e. McCartney) reshuffled things and put “Her Majesty” in between “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam,” where it had (apparently) originally been before a last-second change (made by McCartney!) before the album release. Also, the arrangements are different, with different vocal tracks, missing orchestral tracks, fewer guitar solos … SO – I’ll have a link to each song, below, but I like to hear the medley as a medley, so I’ll leave this here, too, even though it’s not the way I’ve always heard it. Ugh. Artists. Such prima donnas. (Love you, Paul!!)
Famous for being one of the first rock songs about being screwed by the music industry, “You Never Give Me Your Money” introduces a melody on piano that will return throughout the medley. The song’s various sections are held together by the genius of Ringo. The chiming guitars (1:34) in the “magic feeling” section give me chills every time. I think it’s might be Harrison playing it, and the chiming continues (1:50) when a great guitar solo enters, maybe played by John? Either way, the dueling guitar work is stellar, and when the pair doubles on the solo (along with Paul on bass near the end of the solo, 2:12 – 2:32), with Ringo’s fills, it’s some of the best Beatles stuff on record. Every time I listen, I hear something new. It’s actually a rather sad song, particularly for a Beatles fan, and considering it’s the last album. “Step on the gas and wipe that tear away …”
Next comes “Sun King,” a kind of repeat of “Because,” vocal-wise, with awesome harmonies, this time on nonsense, faux Spanish lyrics. The guitar work of Harrison and Lennon is, once again, really sweet. And Paul plays a slightly distorted bass that sounds cool. And check out Ringo’s bongos! The song transitions quite suddenly with a nice Ringo fill into …
“Mean Mr. Mustard.” For all of Lennon’s complaints about Paul’s “granny music,” this composition of his is not too far from that description! Paul plays a fuzz bass[ref]More on that in album #1, Revolver.[/ref] and sings harmonies. This song, though short and somewhat insignificant (anyway, it’s my least-favorite part of the medley), really showcases how the voices of John and Paul blend together. It’s about a miser, with a sister named Pam, who turns out to be …
“Polythene Pam.” Those three acoustic chords that open the song are so simple and so grand next to McCartney’s swooping bass. Great harmony vocals, as usual, on a song about a particular woman (who seems much different than her brother). It’s one of Ringo’s most creative, terrific drum tracks, and George’s solo (0:49) adds so much, leading to (“Oh, Look out!) …
“She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.” Actually, George’s guitar seems to continue right through into this song, with the same tone. He’s hero-George again, and his guitar work is my favorite part of this song. His guitar sound, coupled with the vocals is another place on the album where I always get chills. This is another awesome Ringo performance, too, with classic swingin’ Ringo hi-hat and Ringo-y fills, like 1:20 and 1:26. And don’t sleep on John’s 12-string acoustic, in the left channel! The song was written by Paul after an actual Beatle fan actually climbed into his house through his bathroom window.
The medley has about a 2 second break here, as the powerful “Golden Slumbers” is cued up. It’s one of Paul’s best vocal performances, fluctuating between sweet and powerful with ease on lyrics partially adapted from an old poem[ref]The poem is “Cradle Song,” by Thomas Dekker.[/ref]. It also has some fine orchestral work (WHICH IS REMOVED FROM THE MEDLEY VERSION, ABOVE!!), arranged by George Martin. His strings never seem overdone, like the ones Phil Spector added to Let It Be, and it’s nice to hear him go out with a bang on Abbey Road, as well.
“Carry That Weight” is kind of the second half of “Golden Slumbers.” John was recuperating from a car crash, and doesn’t appear on either song (except vocals in the chorus), but hero George plays 6-string bass on both. It has a nice reprise of “You Never Give Me Your Money,” and some nice electric guitar from George. It transitions quite suddenly into …
“The End,” is truly a bittersweet song – the final time the band played together, on the final song of the final album, and titled “The End.” And it really delivers a thrilling demonstration of the 4 lads’ musical abilities. It features (0:20) Ringo’s only recorded drum solo (unless you count those 8 bars in “Birthday,” which nobody does) and dueling guitar solos from the other three. The solos start about 0:54, and rotate, 2 bars each, in order – McCartney, Harrison and Lennon. They sound like they’re having so much fun!! I love listening to the distinctive styles of each, with Paul flashily ranging up and down the neck, George playing tricky bends and rockabilly-ish riffs, and Lennon mostly playing simple licks and dirty chords. When the solos end, about 1:30, and Paul’s piano remains, I once again feel the frisson, leading into the famous couplet from Paul: “And in the end the love you take/ Is equal to the love you make.” (I get a little misty typing it.) Somewhat lost in there is the fact that Harrison and Lennon play cool riffs behind the lyrics, and Ringo’s drums are orchestral and brilliant to close things out.
Perfection. And it wouldn’t be perfection without a little mistake: “Her Majesty.” As discussed above, this song was originally excised from the medley, then was mistakenly added to the end of the master tape, so it made it onto the record. It’s Paul on an acoustic, singing to the queen. And it’s really a song for our time, 2020: at 23 seconds long, it’s the perfect song to sing so I’m sure I wash my hands a sufficient length of time!
So long, boys! Thanks for everything!!
This was a long post – if you made it to the end, bless you. Leave a comment so I can thank you directly. But I love Abbey Road so much, I could have typed three times as many words. Long, long ago, on a playground far, far away, I had no idea it would still resonate with me as a 53 year old.
TRACK LISTING: “Come Together” “Something” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” “Oh! Darling” “Octopus’s Garden” “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” “Here Comes the Sun” “Because” “You Never Give Me Your Money” “Sun King” “Mean Mr. Mustard” “Polythene Pam” “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” “Golden Slumbers” “Carry That Weight” “The End” “Her Majesty”
Rubber Soul 1965, Parlophone. Producer: George Martin. Purchased CD, ca. 1991.
IN A NUTSHELL: Rubber Soul is the record in which The Beatles established the template for guitar-based pop rock. In song after amazing song they distill everything wonderful about the guitar-bass-drums format into 2- to 3-minute bits of perfection. Each Beatle gets an opportunity to shine, and the Lennon-McCartney songwriting machine is running at peak efficiency. I can’t believe there are 2 Beatles albums I like better than this one … because Rubber Soul has everything I love!
NOTE: The setup – below the line ↓ – might be the best part … Or skip right to the album discussion.
I added to my middle school Cheap Trick paraphernalia with a supercool belt buckle, the likes of which are now selling on eBay for $140.
Sometime around 8th grade I got into Classic Rock, the guitar-based music from the 60s and 70s. I think it was because of a Cheap Trick mirror I won by throwing darts at balloons at the Lebanon Area Fair in the summer of 1980. I’ve written before that the 70s and 80s were a very odd era in music-listening in that What You Liked really mattered to other people. You were judged by your professed musical tastes, and if you were a nerdy, sort-of-out-of-it teen with low self-esteem, it was difficult to be open and honest about your musical tastes for fear of harsh reprisals from tough kids in Iron Maiden concert jerseys, or popular kids who scoffed at everything. Classic Rock was a safe (and enjoyable!) music for which to express my appreciation. And my Classic Rock education taught me that I should be listening to blues-based music.
Songs by The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and Cream and Creedence Clearwater Revival and on and on and on demonstrated the basic model. (Even Steely Dan started with the blues, even though they took a path more toward the head than the groin.) Some of the stuff I liked in high school was very-much-not-blues-based, like Rush and Yes and U2. But these bands were guitar-oriented enough to be Classic Rock staples (even the then-new U2) so liking them wasn’t really going out on too much of a limb. But if I ever heard something new, the first test of whether to admit my fondness to my friends was whether or not I could pick out that familiar 1-4-5, verse-chorus-verse-guitar solo structure that dominated the AOR airwaves. I listened for big guitar riffs, howling vocals, and long, wailing guitar solos, and, very frequently, indirect (or direct) references to sex.
But I retained that early love of melody from my childhood. (I’m sure my fondness for Cheap Trick had as much to do with their melodies as that belt buckle.) There were lots of melodic songs that I liked on the 4 – 8 hours of MTV I watched per day. But being very attuned to others’ opinion of me, I kept it quiet when I liked something that fell outside that Classic Rock paradigm. I didn’t tell many friends about my fondness for Yaz[ref]The American name for Yazoo.[/ref] or General Public or even R.E.M. The fact that I couldn’t wait to see (and hear) videos from bands like Eurythmics or JoBoxers or Romeo Void was unknown to those around me. (Well, my buddy, Dan, knew, but I tried to make it seem like I was mocking those songs I loved.)
This was also when I really started to get heavily into The Beatles. They were definitely a safe, “Classic Rock” band (and so, so much more). They had, indeed, also mined the blues and blues-based songs, particularly at the beginning of their career, so their music seemed to fall into the “typical” Classic Rock Band format[ref]Although Lennon penned a song that kind-of mocked the British Blues Revival stuff, “Yer Blues,” which was actually really great.[/ref]. But the longer I listened to them, and the less I cared about what others thought of my musical tastes, the more I realized that much of what I loved about the band had more in common with those artists I kept secret than the Classic Rock bands I thought I was “supposed” to like.
I purchased Rubber Soul in 1991, when I was really getting into the “alternative music” scene. I was listening to Belly and The Stone Roses and XTC and Juliana Hatfield and Pixies (and still R.E.M., of course) … When I first put on Rubber Soul to dive into its wonderful depths, it suddenly dawned on me that everything I loved about this “new” music had been done years before by my favorite band! Catchy melodies, concise structures, great – but not overbearing – guitar … it was all waiting for me right there in one album by my favorite band. And there wasn’t one big riff, howling vocal or wailing guitar in the bunch.
Okay, it’s true the album’s opener, “Drive My Car,” has a great riff, but it’s not the dominant feature of the song. It blends with everything else that’s great about the song.
First of all, there’s the most-perfect 5 seconds ever to open an album, Harrison’s guitar riff and McCartney bass line blending perfectly before Ringo’s snare roll gets the first verse underway. Lennon and McCartney sing co-lead on funny lyrics about an ambitious woman. The slide guitar solo, at 1:08, is actually played by Paul, and I love Ringo’s drums coming out of it, at 1:20. His drums and percussion are strong throughout, as he throws in both a syncopated tambourine and the second-best cowbell ever[ref]My only complaint about this song is that when my son was little, I saw Elmo sing it and at times that version sneaks into my brain. Oof.[/ref].
On their previous album, Help!, the band brought folk music sounds into their repertoire, and on Rubber Soul they continue expanding away from bluesy pop. The biggest move coming in the sitar-based gem “Norwegian Wood.”
The sitar sits beautifully between acoustic guitars and McCartney’s rangey bass line. Lennon’s voice is terrific, supported by Paul’s brilliant harmonies in the bridge[ref]I guess it’s the bridge? The song doesn’t really have verse-chorus-verse structure.[/ref]. The lyrics tell a humorous story – until the end, when maybe he burns down the house? (Or maybe he lights a joint. I could see the mid-60s Lennon doing either.) The sitar hits a cool, droning tone coming out of the bridge (0:48) and check out the really great bass at 1:03 – you may need headphones to pick it up. Anyway, it’s perhaps the best 2 minutes in pop music. And it’s not even my favorite song on the record.
My favorite may very well be the soulful, moving “You Won’t See Me.”
Paul plays a rolling bass line that is perfectly set against the syncopated piano he also plays. Ringo’s drumming – the snare and tom fills, the tambourine – is perfect, and the “ooh-la-la” backing vocals from John and George are almost as brilliant as their harmonized “you won’t see me” (chorus) and “no I wouldn’t, no I wouldn’t” (1:31). The lyrics are a bit whiney, perhaps, and make me think that certainly Paul must have played some part in this deteriorating relationship, right? But I love the line “Though the days are few/ they’re filled with tears/ And since I lost you/ it feels like years.” But my favorite thing about the song may be the fact that it slows down! (Listen at 0:05 to 0:08 and compare to 1:50.) Ringo is well-known as one of the most reliable time-keepers in rock drumming, but on this song, Paul’s piano was the backing track, and it wasn’t as reliable as Ringo. The rest of the band, including Ringo, played along to the piano. There’s something about that slipping time that adds a feeling to the song.
“Nowhere Man,” I’m not going to lie, is a song I find to be rather ‘meh.’ But the 3-part harmonies are really terrific. The guitar solo, with it’s cool harmonic pitch finale, was played by both John and George (making it a duet, I guess?) George’s guitar is great throughout, actually. And John’s lyrics are the band’s first non-romance/relationship-oriented words. “Think For Yourself” is a Harrison song, with very Harrison lyrics (joining such titles as “Don’t Bother Me,” “You Like Me Too Much” and “Only a Northern Song” in George’s Mt. Rushmore of Crabby Songs). It features Paul on “fuzz bass,” that low, whirring lead-guitar-sounding part. Ringo’s drumming is outstanding,
By 1965, The Beatles were still in their lovable mop-top phase, still a couple albums and years away from their psychedelic hippie phase, yet John presaged those years with the love-fest beauty “The Word.”
It’s got all the classic Beatle stuff going on. The harmonies, the cool bass, and Ringo’s maracas and great fills, for example about 0:22, “so fine, sunshine” and before the second verse, 0:28. I love the guitar riff through the beginning of each verse (0:30, 1:00). It’s one of my favorite Beatles drum songs. I also love the super-high harmony the last two times through chorus. It’s got it all. And it’s followed by one of the band’s most enduring love songs, “Michelle.” Paul sings in French, the harmonies are stunning, the acoustic guitar is charming, and it deserves its status as a Standard.
A lesser-known song that should get more attention is the fun, weird, Ringo-sung “What Goes On.”
This is the only Beatles song ever credited to Lennon/McCartney/Starkey. Much like “Act Naturally,” on Help!, and “Honey Don’t,” on Beatles for Sale, Ringo finds success with a girl-done-me-wrong, country rock number, keeping things swinging on the drums and making the most of his limited vocal range. The rest of the band’s harmonies are fantastic, but what makes this song weird and wonderful are the clipped squawks and squiggles that Harrison lays down in the verses. Listen to the right channel in stereo – it’s so strange! Also cool – at 1:30, after Ringo sings “tell me why,” you can faintly hear John reply “we told you why!” You can also hear a little chatter right around Paul’s super-cool bass at 2:33.
John’s got several great slow songs on Rubber Soul, and one of the most underappreciated is “Girl.” It’s an acoustic ballad about, well, a girl, that John sings beautifully, loudly drawing breaths in the chorus. Paul and George chime in with cheeky (as the Brits might say) “tit tit” backing vocals. Another terrific John ballad[ref]It may be a true Lennon/McCartney song, but it’s often been thought of as a mostly-John-penned song.[/ref] is the wonderful “In My Life.” The music is great, and Ringo’s drumming is simple yet inventive, as is George’s guitar work. (Listen to the guitar behind George Martin’s harpsichord-like piano solo.) I’ve often thought that if John and Paul lived 200 years ago, Paul would’ve been a musician and John a poet. The lyrics from John are wonderful poetry.
And while I love the Beatles’ love-song catalog, I’m always more drawn to the faster numbers. One of my all-time favorites is “I’m Looking Through You,” Paul’s song about his crumbling relationship with Jane Asher.
It’s got a great opening acoustic riff, and features Ringo playing a matchbox instead of drums! (The Beatles were big Buddy Holly fans, and I wonder if this choice was at all influenced by Holly’s “Everyday,” in which Cricket drummer Jerry Allison slaps his thighs for percussion.) Paul’s voice has so many facets to it, and I love the version he displays here, with its frustration and hurt. I also dig the two-note organ in the chorus, because it’s played by Ringo, and also George’s riff after the organ. Actually George is great throughout, as is Lennon’s acoustic rhythm guitar. The song’s so good. Have I called a song on this album my favorite yet? If not, this is it[ref]In the 70s, The Muppet Show had a great version of this song![/ref]
The catchy “Wait,” which features Harrison on a tone pedal, changing the volume of his guitar, is a cool song with on-the-road lyrics reminiscent of “When I Get Home” and “P.S. I Love You.” Lennon and McCartney share lead vocals, and Ringo again contributes excellent, Ringo-y fills, but Harrison’s guitar steals the show.
George steals the show once again on “If I Needed Someone,” one of my favorite George songs ever.
George’s 12-string Rickenbacker riff establishes an immediate feeling, a sound I recognized in the R.E.M., Ride and XTC I was listening to in 1991. Paul’s bubbling bass line is perfect, as usual, as are Ringo’s drums. But what I really love is the three part harmony that starts in earnest just before the second verse, about 0:17. It’s called a love song from George to girlfriend Patti Boyd[ref]A woman who had three different Rock and Roll Hall of Famers write no fewer than 10 songs about her.[/ref], but its lyrics are rather, well, ambiguous. Explaining to a woman that if she goes to all the trouble to “carve your number on my wall” that in return “maybe you will get a call from me” is hardly Romeo Montague-level courting. “If I had some more time to spend/ then I guess I’d be with you my friend” aren’t exactly the words one whispers into a lover’s ear. But I don’t come for the lyrics, I come for the sound, and this sound is excellent.
And while I don’t really care much about lyrics, the violence of “Run for Your Life” is pretty scary. Lennon himself hated the song. I don’t love it. It’s got some nice George riffs, but otherwise – eh.
The Beatles were always exploring and constantly reinventing what people thought about pop music. They started out playing blues and R&B, but grew into a band that could write and play almost anything. This record demonstrated that all the stuff I’d grown up listening to – from plastic AM pop to leathery Classic Rock, from crystalline MTV fare to the flannel of alternative rock – was right there in one place on Rubber Soul.
TRACK LISTING: “Drive My Car” “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” “You Won’t See Me” “Nowhere Man” “Think For Yourself” “The Word” “Michelle” “What Goes On” “Girl” “I’m Looking Through You” “In My Life” “Wait” “If I Needed Someone” “Run For Your Life”
The Beatles 1968, Apple Records. Producer: George Martin. Gifted Vinyl, 1988.
IN A NUTSHELL: The Beatles, aka “The White Album,” is, for the most part, a bunch of songs by the solo Beatles. It’s an Easter Basket of a record, with some favorite treats, some stuff you just kind of like, and even a (“WTF?”) stick of deodorant. I’ve come to appreciate the hit-or-miss nature of the songs, as they rise and fall in my estimation as I age and change. There seems to be no genre unexplored, and there was certainly nobody to tell them NOT to make such a weird record. And in the end they produced an album like no other.
NOTE: The setup – below the line ↓ – might be the best part … Or skip right to the album discussion.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I usually start with a bit of a background story for these posts about these albums. In the spirit of “The White Album,” it feels appropriate to instead start off with a bunch of random, disconnected Beatle memories and thoughts.
When I was a kid, my dad used to tell a story that Ringo Starr had once stopped at our house in rural Pennsylvania, knocked on the door and asked how to get to Pushnik’s, a nearby hotel with a nightclub. (I don’t believe it was true.)
I worked on the third shift at Hershey’s Chocolate Factory in the summer of 1987, and I had a bit of a crush on a co-worker. One night during work she said she hated The Beatles. The crush immediately deflated.
John Lennon seemed very scary to me as a child, as if he had things to say that my parents might not want me to hear. When he was murdered, I was surprised by how many people were saddened, even people who I wouldn’t have expected, like my fat, old YMCA basketball coach. (Who I hadn’t thought about until just now, and I suddenly remembered that time he was alone with me, a 13-year old, and he asked me to take off my shirt and try on my basketball jersey, then he told me to lose some weight. That was pretty creepy, now that I think about it. Even back then if felt creepy.)
In high school, I watched the documentary The Compleat Beatles on the old TV show Night Flight with my buddy Rick, and he said the following two sentences, in order, with no break: “Paul McCartney is the worst, he had no business being in The Beatles. He’s a musical genius, I love him.”
J.B. and the So-Called Cells, my band with Dr. Dave, play many Beatles’ songs, and in my younger years I learned the entire bass line to “Oh! Darling.” This doesn’t sound too difficult at first, but then you realize that McCartney plays it differently every goddamn time through the song! (I no longer remember its many permutations.)
In the September 1976 issue of MAD Magazine, there was a “future Where-Are-They-Now?” piece, imagining celebrities 20 years in the future. It included photos touched up to make people look older, and I still sometimes picture The Beatles as those images. I envision George Harrison as a long-haired, bald Anglican priest quite regularly. (Boy, it would’ve been great for Lennon to reach 1996, right?)
I saw Paul McCartney perform at Fenway Park in 2009. He was 67 years old, played for about 3 hours and he and the band sounded incredible. They played lots of Beatles songs. It was a dream come true.
George Harrison may be the most underrated guitar player ever.
My friend Dave Finney, who is a musician with a a great EP called Recycle My Soul, recently recommended the book Dreaming the Beatles, by Rob Sheffield. It’s an excellent book, and very different from other excellent Beatle books, and I also highly recommend it!
I heard one time that back in the 70s and 80s, Ringo Starr was the third-most-recognizable person on the planet, after the Pope and Muhammed Ali. The Beatles famously met Ali (then Cassius Clay) in Miami on their first trip to America.
In Haifa, Israel, near the Bahai Gardens, there’s a mosaic mural that, oddly, features Ringo.
At a family wedding in the mid 2000s, my sister-in-law brought a guest who was a music documentary filmmaker and he had the phone number for Paul McCartney in his cell phone. He’d worked on The Beatles Anthology TV series in the 90s. I didn’t ask to see the number to confirm – it seemed rude to ask. And he wasn’t sure it was still a working number, as it had been years since he’d had to call it. But over drinks he told me Paul was friendly and business-like, and that George was very funny. Then he shared a bunch of funny stories about other famous classic rockers he’d worked with on the BBC Classic Albums series.
In the brilliant[ref]That’s right, I said ‘brilliant.'[/ref] film Fletch, Fletch visits the hospital records room as Dr. Rosenrosen, when he gets asked to assist on an autopsy. After passing out, he is roused and informed that he’s in the records room. He immediately asks for “The Beatles’ White Album.” (And a glass of hot fat and the head of Alfredo Garcia.)
I got “The White Album” on vinyl as a 21st birthday gift from my sister. I excitedly played it, but was not immediately impressed. At the time, I was really only familiar with the songs that had been played on the radio often. Beatles “deep tracks[ref]The band’s catalogue is now so well-known due to streaming services that it’s a bit weird to think that there were “deep tracks” at one point.[/ref]” weren’t well-known to me, and I didn’t know what songs were on which albums. So upon pulling the discs out of the sleeve (it was a two-LP set) the only songs I really knew well were “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Blackbird,” “Rocky Raccoon,” and “Helter Skelter.” And, of course, “Birthday,” thanks to Farmer Ted. That left 24 songs I didn’t really know.
Those 24 songs, on first listen, didn’t really sound like Beatles songs. I mean, sure, yes, I could make out the distinctive voices of Paul and John and George and Ringo, and the nonpareil melodies and harmonies were evident. But there was a particular “Beatle-esque” quality that seemed to be lacking. And I noticed that it was lacking even in the songs that I did know – apart from maybe “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and “Helter Skelter.”
This blog is not a history of The Beatles – so many folks have done that so well that I’m not even going to try. But lots was happening among the band members in 1968, so suffice it to say that this album lacked that certain Beatle-y something because The Beatles is the album where John, Paul and George – and even Ringo – were basically testing out their solo stuff. Even the photos included in the album were four individual close-ups of the band members, plus a bunch of random solo photos, and NOT shots of jolly mates frolicking in matching suits. And though I was initially unimpressed, over the years this album has rocketed up my Beatle chart. The lack of a unifying spirit to the album has become its main draw to me now. I seem to find something new in the album with every listen. It’s almost like the record has changed with me over the years.
This painting by John Patrick Byrne was nearly used as the cover for the album, (according to Wikipedia).
The Beatles is like an Easter basket of candy. There are plenty of Reese’s eggs and Kit-Kats and lots of chocolate, plus a few jelly beans, and then, let’s face it, one or two stale marshmallow peeps. (There’s even an equivalent to finding a stick of deodorant in your basket.) The point is, there are THIRTY mother-effing songs on this record!! And just like candy, everyone has their favorites. I don’t think I can go into detail on each song. Some are going to just get a brief mention. I hope I hit your favorite song! I’ll do my best.
SIDE ONE
I figure the best way to tackle all these songs is to go through it the way I first heard it: as a double album, four sides. I’ll start right at the beginning: “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
What a great way to kick off an album, with the sound of a jet airplane, a cool guitar squawk, and a some old-fashioned rock-n-roll piano! It’s a Paul-song, with music and lyrics written as a sort of parody of/homage to The Beach Boys[ref]Beach Boy Mike Love was with Paul in India when the song was being written, and he claims to have suggested the rundown of U.S.S.R.-type girls, ala The Beach Boys’ classic “California Girls.”[/ref] and Chuck Berry. George and John provide perfect 60s surf harmonies, and George and Paul share lead guitar – George on the first solo (1:23) and Paul on the last verse (2:03). By the way, that’s John Lennon on bass, and Paul himself on drums, as Ringo had briefly quit the band due, in part, to Paul’s criticism of his drumming on the song.
Next up, blending into the diminishing sound of that BOAC jet, is a song that is one of my favorite Beatles’ songs ever[ref]I’ve probably written that about 12 different songs by now, so please don’t hold me to it![/ref], “Dear Prudence.”
This one’s a John song, a soft, acoustic, finger-picked ballad that builds beautifully into an inspirational, electric epic. It was written to encourage Mia Farrow’s sister, Prudence, to have a little more fun while they were all in India meditating. I love Paul’s repeated lone bass note (0:19) at the beginning, balancing on the perfect dueling guitars of George and John. Although it’s a John song, Paul nearly steals the show with his wonderful bass and – once again – DRUMS! (His fills and rolls, particularly beginning at 2:50, are so Ringo-like that some people still insist Ringo played them.) But forget Paul – put on your headphones and listen to John and George play guitar. They work together brilliantly, curling around each other, John holding down the rhythm, George playing lead … check out 1:25, 1:43, 2:14, 3:30… Just listen to the whole song, it’s amazing. And if flows into another excellent song, Lennon’s “Glass Onion.”
The lyrics cleverly recall many old Beatle songs, spoofing the mystical nonsense that was swirling around the band at this time. It’s a short song with really cool-sounding bass and guitar from Paul and George, and terrific vocals from John. (I love his “oh yeah!” at 1:13). Ringo’s back on drums, too, and while I myself could’ve used a little less of the string section, it’s still a great track.
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” is a fun song I used to sing to my kids at bedtime. It was my favorite Beatles song in college, but now I find it very ‘eh[ref]Except for the version my daughter sang to me and my wife at our 50th birthday party![/ref].’ “Wild Honey Pie” is one of those stale peeps of a song. “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” is a sort-of singalong kids song with funny lyrics (and a Yoko Ono cameo vocal) about asshole cowards who go “trophy” hunting. Then we arrive at one of the all-time greats, the George Harrison classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
It’s a slow, bluesy number that opens with Paul’s piano, then George’s mellow vocal begins. It’s a song with a lyrical theme that Harrison would return to throughout his solo career, a wish for the power of love to triumph, and the potential for music to make it happen. (Or not. The interpretation is sort of a glass-half-full/half-empty kind of thing.) McCartney’s harmony vocals are great, and Ringo’s drums are subtly brilliant. But, of course, the star of the show is guest Eric Clapton, who plays lead guitar throughout and really does seem to make it weep[ref]I gotta go on record, too, to say that I think Prince’s famous solo on the song at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is excellent. It’s a different style than Clapton’s, and almost says “enough with the weeping!” but I love it.[/ref].
Side one finishes off with my favorite song on the album – oh wait, I think I said that already about another song. A John Lennon masterpiece, “Happiness is a Warm Gun.”
It’s got three separate sections (“The Dirty Old Man,” “The Junkie,” and “The Gunman”) that each have different lyrics and different sounds, but that all fit together due to Beatle Magic. George’s guitar sound is phenomenal throughout, as is Paul’s bass and harmonies. And Ringo makes the sections flow together. I love the sound of the band in the “Mother Superior” section (1:14), and the 50s doo-wop vocals after 1:36. Also, Lennon is really a great vocalist – and his final “guu-uu-uun!” (2:22) is thrilling. I just love how weird and cool and different this song is. Well-done, boys.
SIDE TWO
Side two kicks off with one of those tremendously catchy, timeless songs that Paul seems to write in his sleep – “Martha My Dear.” It’s a Paul solo song, with hired musicians. And as much as I love it, it’s no “I’m So Tired.”
It’s a John song, and I heard this song for the first time in the Beatles documentary The Compleat Beatles[ref]The same night Rick bizarrely offered two diametrically opposed opinions of McCartney.[/ref]. I wondered then, and I still wonder, why it wasn’t a radio staple. John’s voice is great, swooping between anguish and frustration as insomnia and paranoia get the best of him. Of course Paul’s bass is excellent, as is George’s guitar, particularly in the chorus (0:48, for example). It’s a great example of the band working together.
A great example of a Beatle working solo is everyone’s favorite song – “Blackbird.”
It’s just Paul with an acoustic guitar, tapping his foot, and singing a song about the US Civil Rights movement in the 60s. I don’t know how to play guitar, but I have heard that Paul doesn’t play traditional chord fingerings on the song, and that this makes it a popular song for guitarists moving out of the novice realm to learn and butcher (until they get it right!) It’s a beautiful song, and one that was rightfully left untouched by further studio production. A voice, a guitar and a tapping foot are the perfect arrangement for it.
Side Two continues with “Piggies,” George’s darkly funny lambaste of consumer culture (with harpsichord!). Then comes “Rocky Raccoon,” a humorous country ballad, and the last Beatles song to ever feature John Lennon on harmonica. “Don’t Pass Me By” is the first Ringo composition to appear on a Beatles album, which reportedly took him 7 years to write. “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” is a Paul solo song (with Ringo drumming), more akin to “Wild Honey Pie” than “Blackbird,” that clearly serves as evidence of the boredom that must accompany long hours in a recording studio[ref]Although John, apparently, loved the song and was quite hurt that Paul hadn’t invited him to help on the recording.[/ref].
Another Paul solo song, and one that would have fit nicely on even the earliest of Beatle LPs, is the lovely “I Will.”
Ringo and John help out on percussion, but otherwise it’s just Paul on acoustic guitars, harmony vocals and “vocal bass.” That’s right, he scats the bass part. The lyrics are rather simple, perhaps in the “silly love song” vein that he was pilloried for later (a criticism he mocked with a Number 1 hit.)
Paul wasn’t the only Beatle recording solo songs for The White Album. John contributed the beautiful song “Julia,” written about his mother who died after being hit by a car when John was 17.
It’s just John finger-picking an acoustic guitar and singing along. I’ve always loved this song, but since I met and married a woman named Julia nearly 30 years ago, I’ve grown fonder and fonder of it. And listen to that last chord John plays – it’s really wonderful.
SIDE THREE
Side three opens with what may be the only truly Lennon/McCartney-penned song on the entire album, “Birthday.” It’s a guitar heavy, blues-based, party romp that leads into a different style of blues, the Lennon-penned “Yer Blues.”
I love the dirty sound of the Harrison and Lennon guitars coupled with McCartney’s heavy bass. And Ringo plays great fills throughout (check out the fill at 3:00). The song is meant to be a spoof of the British blues boom happening around 1968 (Led Zeppelin, Cream, John Mayall, etc), but it sure doesn’t sound like Weird Al. Lennon totally sells his vocals, and the guitars in the faster section (2:30 – 3:17) are terrific.
Side three really has a tremendous run of songs. After those rockin’ numbers, another soft Paul solo song appears, “Mother Nature’s Son.”
It’s an acoustic song on par with “Blackbird,” in my estimation. Paul’s playing is charming, even the little goof at 0:39. It’s a celebration of nature, with some lyrics contributed by John. I think the song would have been even better if George Martin’s backing brass arrangement had been pared down, or deleted. I don’t think it’s necessary, but it’s still a great song.
As is “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide, Except Me and My Monkey,” a Lennon song that almost sounds punk rock!
Have I selected a favorite song on the record yet? If not, this is the one. I love Paul’s ascending-scale bass, I love the keening guitar sound of the riff, I love the busy guitar behind the lyrics. I even love the psychedelic lyrics that don’t fit into the space they’re given. There’s a weird bell that rings through the entire song, too, that I don’t love as much as I love Harrison’s lead guitar. It’s purely strange fun.
But you know what? My actual favorite song – and this time I mean it – is the next one. Lennon’s sharp take-down of phonies, specifically the guru the band sought out in India, “Sexy Sadie.”
There’s so much to write about this song. First off, Paul’s piano intro and Ringo’s drum entrance. Next, John’s voice, which truly captures the disillusionment he obviously felt after investing so much of himself in the teachings of someone by whom he later felt duped. The backing vocals of Harrison and McCartney, the “wah-wah’s” and “see-see’s,” and especially the “Sexy … Sadie” as the chorus begins, about 0:54. George unleashes some great guitar in the second chorus (1:56) to the end. The whole thing is just brilliant.
And this side of The White Album keeps delivering, with the frantic song – sometimes called the first heavy metal song ever – “Helter Skelter.”
This ride seems like a whole lot less fun than its namesake song.
It’s a raucous, furious song with lyrics about a British amusement park ride that seems far more tame than the song implies. (Hmm… maybe it’s not about a ride…) Paul screams his lungs out, while Lennon plays bass, driving things forward, and Harrison rips off a series of descending runs and a cool solo at 1:37. Ringo bashes his cymbals throughout (famously causing “blisters on his fingers”) and the band manages to sing cool backing vocals, too. There’s also two false endings, at 3:09 and 3:44. The song sounds like rather mischievous fun, like nothing else. Certainly it sounds nothing like Harrison’s “Long, Long, Long,” which closes Side Three.
Its lyrics could be about a woman, or could be about his spiritual devotion to a higher power. The song makes great use of dynamics, and Ringo’s drumming is perfect for it. The acoustic guitar is simple and lovely. The song’s the perfect way to close out a near-perfect side of music.
SIDE FOUR
It opens with a song that, when I saw its name on the label, I expected to jump around and shake my fist to it. But it turns out that “Revolution 1” is not the “Revolution” I knew and loved through my teenage years. That song was released only as a single. The White Album version is instead a slow doo-wop song with the same lyrics. Great Harrison guitar in both. Which isn’t the case in “Honey Pie,” which has a guitar solo by Lennon. It seems to want to recapture the charm of “When I’m Sixty-Four,” but it doesn’t.
“Savoy Truffle” is another George song, and one that shows that despite his frequently dour appearance, he was really a funny guy. The song – on which he plays a ferocious guitar – is about pal Eric Clapton’s fondness for chocolate. John Lennon also displays a different side than his usual sarcasm on the charming children’s song “Cry Baby Cry.”
The first verse is simply John on acoustic guitar, but Ringo soon joins on drums, and by the second verse Paul is once again shining with an inventive bass line for a simple song. I used to sing this song to my kids at bedtime, and images of “the Dutchess of Kilcardey” and “the local Bird & Bee” were perfect for conjuring dreams. It’s a cool song with great harmonies, and an addendum from Paul (“can you take me back?”) that really wraps it all up.
So, now we get to the stick of deodorant. Just as no one would describe such a practical gift as “a bad piece of candy” even if it’s received in one’s Easter basket, I can’t really call “Revolution 9” a “bad song.”
True, it appears on an album by a band that is well known for recording songs, but is it a song? I suppose if John Lennon says it’s a song, then it’s a song. Wikipedia calls it a “sound collage,” and I think that’s a better term. Whatever you call it, I have never been able to listen to more than about 4 minutes of this longest-ever Beatles recording[ref]I wouldn’t call this the band’s weirdest song, since I don’t call it a song. I’d save that honor for the wonderful “Let It Be” B-side, “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number.)“[/ref]. I really tried for this post – but I couldn’t do it.
The album ends with a song that I don’t really love, but is perhaps the perfect way to end this wonderful monstrosity of an album: the Lennon-written, Ringo-sung “Good Night.” It’s a way-too-schmaltzy lullaby, and elicits the final “what the fuck?” from the listener. The band released a beautiful four-part harmony version a few years ago, which is probably a better version, but is not what was really needed after 28 disparate, crazy songs, plus one sound collage.
After all that, I can’t really say anything else besides “Go listen to this record!”
TRACK LISTING: “Back in the U.S.S.R.” “Dear Prudence” “Glass Onion” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” “Wild Honey Pie” “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” “Martha My Dear” “I’m So Tired” “Blackbird” “Piggies” “Rocky Raccoon” “Don’t Pass Me By” “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” “I Will” “Julia” “Birthday” “Yer Blues” “Mother Nature’s Son” “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” “Sexy Sadie” “Helter Skelter” “Long, Long, Long” “Revolution 1” “Honey Pie” “Savoy Truffle” “Cry Baby Cry” “Revolution 9” “Good Night”
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