Beatles Archives - Page 32 of 36 - Ramblin' with Roger

Beatles Island Songs, 153-144

Recommended: DM’s Beatles site.

JEOPARDY Answer of the day – POP MUSIC: Take 2 letters off a Beatles song title & you get this title of Paul McCartney’s 2002 live CD of his American tour. (Question is below.)

The rules of engagement

153 From Me to You. This song wasn’t on any album I owned until the Past Masters Volume 1 CD! Fine song, actually, but I just plain forget about its existence.
152 Within You Without You from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. An interesting, if ultimately slightly pedantic theological treatise from Harrison.
151 Please Mr. Postman from With the Beatles (UK), The Beatles’ Second Album (US). A song orginally by the Motown group the Marvelettes; this is a competent cover from John, but not better than the original.
150 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill from the white album. A very funny Lennon song, particular the falsetto. Not sure what it means, but that’s all right.
149 Ask Me Why from Please Please Me (UK), Introducing the Beatles/The Early Beatles (US). Like the Latin feel of the Lennon song. Also the double meaning of the word “please”.
148 The Night Before from Help! Just saw the movie last year for the first time in decades, a quadruple feature with A Hard Day’s Night, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be. Lots of good music in Help!, but this is a lesser tune by McCartney.
147 Matchbox from an EP (UK), Something New (US). Ringo does a credible version of this Carl Perkins song.
146 Another Girl from Help! DITTO the 148 info.
145 Chains from Please Please Me (US), Introducing the Beatles/The Early Beatles (US). A Goffin/King song performed by a girl group called the Cookies. I like this Harrison version.
144 One After 909 from Let It Be. I didn’t realize until the Anthology albums that this was an old Lennon and McCartney song from their early days never released before. A rather jaunty piece, actually.

DM’s Beatles site, with:
– Comprehensive UK and US discographies with album covers, additional information, reviews, and comments.
– Complete song index with the lyrics. Different takes, demo and live versions, unreleased songs, and songs for others.
– Detailed history day by day, with pictures, links to albums, interviews.
– More than a thousand pictures of the Beatles, people close to them, magazine covers.
– Various information on the Beatles, their films, interviews, concerts, bootlegs.
– Popular discussion forum where you can meet Beatles fans from all over the World

JEOPARDY Question – What is ‘Back in the U.S.’?

Beatles Island Songs, 163-154

Some Beatles fans have fantasized about what the next Beatles album might have sounded like, had the band not broken up in 1970; or if they’d taken a break, then gotten back together.

JEOPARDY! Answer du jour – SPORTS STARS: Born in 1980, this [former] world champion figure skater was named for a Beatles hit. The question is below.

The rules of engagement

163 I’m a Loser from Beatles for Sale (UK), Beatles ’65 (US). Another downer from the Beatlemania period.
162 Something from Abbey Road. A nice, though overplayed song. But I was always a bit peevish about the way Harrison stole the first line from James Taylor when he was signed by Apple.
161 Little Child from With the Beatles (UK), Meet the Beatles (US). Nice little early tune. At some level, the earliest songs, with few exceptions, will fare less well than the middle period work. I didn’t buy Meet the Beatles album until about when Revolver came out, and as I recall, it came from my record club in STEREO when I had a mono player. At the time, these things just did not mix. Eventually, I said, the heck with it and played it anyway, to no discernible harm.
160 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da from the white album. Another Macca dance hall song. Fun enough.
159 Only a Northern Song from Yellow Submarine. My favorite thing about this Harrisong is the title, referring to the company that published Beatles’ songs.
158 Not a Second Time from With the Beatles (UK), Meet the Beatles (US). Really like the bottom of this Lennon song.
157 Honey Don’t from Beatles for Sale (US), Beatles ’65. A nice Ringo vocal on this Carl Perkins song.
156 Cry Baby Cry from the white album. A moody Lennon tune.
155 Anna (Go to Him) from Please Please Me (UK), Introducing the Beatles./The Early Beatles. A nice Lennon cover of the Arthur Alexander song.
154 No Reply from Beatles for Sale (UK), Beatles ’65 (US). Yet another downer. I had a discussion of misheard lyrics re this song with my father at the time.

Some Beatles fans have fantasized about what the next Beatles album might have sounded like, had the band not broken up in 1970; or if they’d taken a break, then gotten back together. I was never one for such idle speculation but here’s one take and here’s another.

Dick Cavett interviews John and Yoko in 1971.
***
JEOPARDY Question: Who is Michelle Kwan? (My wife’s all-time favorite skater.)

Beatles Island Songs, 173-164

Just watched on PBS How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin, about how Beatles music was smuggled into the Soviet Union and represented freedom.

JEOPARDY Answer of the day: ROCK & ROLL HISTORY: The name “Beatles” was inspired by the backup group of this singer. (The question below.)

The rules of engagement

173 It’s All Too Much from Yellow Submarine. The niftiest part of the Harrison tune is the guitar intro.
172 Yesterday from Help! (UK), Yesterday and Today (US). When my father, sister, and I used to perform together when I was a teenager, it was in my sister’s repertoire. It’s a perfectly nice song, but for the life of me, I don’t know why it’s been covered 2500 or 3500 or however many times it has, especially since most of them sound not dissimilar to the original. I also realize the song made me, and my office mate at the time, peevish when two versions of it showed up on Anthology 2, not that far apart on the album, and I would tend to skip past it. “Scrambled Eggs,” indeed.
171 Baby’s in Black from Beatles for Sale (UK), Beatles ’65 (US). One writer suggested that the songs of this period were rather melancholy because of the stress of Beatlemania – touring, movies, plus recording. Maybe. I like the black/blue imagery, but much of the rest sounds like Lennon/McCartney circa 1962.
170 Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? from the white album. Rather funny, if insignificant song by McCartney.
169 I Me Mine from Let It Be. This is the title of a Harrison autobiography. A slight song, I do like the change of rhythms.
168 I Wanna Be Your Man from With the Beatles (UK), Meet the Beatles (US). A ditty McCartney and Lennon gave to the Rolling Stones but also had Ringo sing.
167 Girl from Rubber Soul. It’s OK, but the album is filled with much greater songs.
166 Old Brown Shoe. B-side of The Ballad of John and Yoko. It’s OK, in that laid-back Harrison style.
165 You Never Give Me Your Money from Abbey Road. This is actually HIGHER than I had planned. I thought the reprise of this song in Golden Slumbers would allow this track to be in the 200s, but the song argued otherwise.
164 P.S. I Love You from Please Please Me (UK), Introducing the Beatles/The Early Beatles. A pleasant enough story song.

Just watched on PBS How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin, about how Beatles music was smuggled into the Soviet Union and represented freedom. It also talks about the myth of a secret Soviet performance by the Beatles, generated by the song Back in the USSR. see it HERE or the first part HERE, with subsequent parts on the sidebar.

JEOPARDY! Question of the day: Who was Buddy Holly? (His backup group was called The Crickets.)

If it was 30 years ago, why do I remember it so well?

“The Beatles, lead by John Lennon, created music that touched the whole of civilization.”

Unfairly or not, I always associate John Lennon’s death with the breakup of my girlfriend the week before. It was Monday, December 1, 1980, and, unlike all of those “grownup” breakups in the movies of that time, this was painful and acrimonious. About the only cinematic aspect of it was the line from near the end of the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall, delivered by Alvy Singer (Allen): “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

So when the FOLLOWING Monday night came around, it was incumbent upon me to do whatever I could that would be contrary to what I would likely be doing with her. The choice was clear: I needed to watch Monday Night Football. It’s not as though I never watched the game, but it was usually a bit here and there. This time I was going to watch the whole damn thing.

And, if I recall correctly, it was a pretty close game between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots, when announcer Howard Cosell said at about 11:15 p.m., “One of the great figures of the entire world, one of the great artists, was shot to death horribly at the Dakota Apartments, 72nd Street and Central Park West in New York City. John Lennon is dead. He was the most important member of the Beatles, and the Beatles, lead by John Lennon, created music that touched the whole of civilization. Not just people in Liverpool, where the group was born, but the people of the world.”

Here’s a snippet of the broadcast after that point.

So the first thing I do is call my good friend Karen, who had written, for our sixth-grade newsletter, a fantasy story about winning tickets to a Beatles concert, and who, that very fall, was working for his record company and promoting his and Yoko’s album, Double Fantasy. But her line was busy. I called my ex-girlfriend and told her; she was appreciative of the fact that I told her. I called Karen several times after that, but the line remained busy. I began to listen to my favorite radio station, WQBK-FM, Q104, and listen to the requests pouring in. It was either that night or the next morning that I asked for, oddly, The End by the Doors, and they played the whole 11-minute version.

Eventually reached Karen at about 1:40 a.m. When she heard my voice, she just cried for 10 minutes. We talked the next day, when I went out and bought, at lunchtime, Rock ‘n’ Roll; there wasn’t a copy of Double Fantasy to be had.

And thinking about time period STILL fills me with a surprising amount of sadness.

JEOPARDY! factoid: Calling him a Revolutionary, in 2000 Fidel Castro dedicated a statue of John on the 20th anniversary of his murder.

I was watching LENNONYC this past weekend – it’ll be repeated on my local PBS station tonight – and it was a good portrait of John’s life from 1971 until the end. Much of the info I knew, but a few bits I did not, such as Yoko going back to the studio after John died to listen to his outtakes.
***
Denise Nesbitt remembers.

Beatles Island Songs, 183-174

Listen to the Coverville Thanksgiving podcast; nothing but Beatles covers!

The rules of engagement

183 Honey Pie from the white album. More dance hall McCartney. This was apparently the music he learned from his father.
182 Polythene Pam from Abbey Road. Another 48-second song, which would have fared better in the medley. In fact, the link is to the medley.
181 Blue Jay Way from Magical Mystery Tour. An interesting Harrison song about Los Angeles.
180 Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey from Beatles for Sale (UK), Beatles VI (US). Not one of their strongest covers. And it annoyed me that the Little Richard latter part wasn’t credited at the time.
179 Revolution 9 from the white album. This is too interesting, too weird to go out in the bottom 10. But ultimately too weird to keep.
178 Misery from Please Please Me (UK), Introducing the Beatles (US). As with There’s A Place, never on a US Capitol album until something called Rarities, long after the group’s demise. So it was largely out of my consciousness.
177 Flying from Magical Mystery Tour. Only instrumental in the canon, attributed to the 4 Beatles. Disposable filler.
176 Happiness Is a Warm Gun from the white album. I have no real idea what this Lennon song is about, though it apparently has something to do with sex and Yoko.
175 Savoy Truffle from the white album. A Harrison trifle. A truffle is a trifle.
174 Rock and Roll Music from Beatles for Sale (UK), Beatles ’65 (US). A relatively perfunctory version of the Chuck Berry song, compared with some of the other songs Lennon covered.

The most popular Beatles album downloaded in the first week on iTunes was Abbey Road, coincidentally the most popular vinyl Beatles album. Here Comes The Sun was the most popular individual song.

Listen to the Coverville Thanksgiving podcast; nothing but Beatles covers!