music Archives - Page 68 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

My favorite Beatles McCartney songs

“I didn’t know what I would find there”

Paul McCartney.May27Dublin0031 — from PaulMcCartney.com

I linked to my favorite post-Beatles Paul McCartney songs on his 70th birthday. So I reckon I ought to post my favorite Beatles McCartney songs on his 80th birthday. When he hits 90, I don’t know WHAT I’ll do.

The list is roughly #11 to #1. Well, except for one thing. Also, comments are based on recollection because that’s what Beatles music is for me.

Helter Skelter – white album. The Who and other bands were considered loud, and this was a response. Paul usually plays this on tour in the latter third of his shows.

Get Back– A-side of a single; Hey Jude(album (US). A joyous song, whichever rendition.

I’m Down – B-side of Help! single, which only made it to #101 on the US pop charts. Yes, it’s surely McCartney’s remake of Long Tall Sally. The ABC-TV broadcast of the live performance at Shea Stadium in 1965 hooked me.

Getting Better – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I am fascinated by the STRUCTURE of this song. It’s verse and chorus, but the chorus gets increasingly longer each time out. I thought it was incredibly clever writing.

Back in the USSR – white album. The first song on the album with fun lyrics and Beach Boys harmonies

Lady Madonna – A-side of a single; Hey Jude album (US). Initially, I wasn’t positive this last Capitol single even was the Beatles.

Revolver and Rubber Soul rule

Eleanor Rigby – Revolver. A moving McCartney story song. But even without the lyrics, it’s a beautiful song, as the Anthology version shows.

For No One – Revolver. Simple yet devastating. Vocal, then horn solo, then vocal and horn. Stunningly effective.

You Won’t See Me – Rubber Soul. It is the Mal Evans sustained chord on the Hammond organ throughout the last verse, last chorus, and outro that gives this song a special buzz. At the same time, I have related to the notion of feeling invisible. On the US version of the album, this is followed by Think for Yourself (Harrison) and The Word (Lennon), and they go well together.

Drive My Car – Rubber Soul (UK), Yesterday and Today (US). Extraordinary chord structure. I’ve noted before that it was John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful, saying in a magazine that this was on Rubber Soul, which eventually led me to realize that the UK and US albums were not alike, even when they had the same name.

Got To Get You Into My Life – Revolver. When I was home alone, as the song got to the final chorus, I started slowly increasing the volume. The horns were so resplendent to my ears and down my spinal column that Ie practically wept for joy. Then it led into Tomorrow Never Knows, possibly my favorite pairing on any album.

One more thing, though. There are some great songs in the medley on Abbey Road. I’m particularly fond of Golden Slumbers. Happy 80th, Macca.

Coverville 1404: Paul McCartney Cover Story IV

The extra Paul McCartney tickets

passion

As I have noted, my daughter and I saw a certain musician at the Knickerbocker Arena* in Albany on July 5, 2014.

I really wanted to see this show, so I went to some secondary seller online site to get Paul McCartney tickets. It wasn’t until the transaction was complete that I realized that I had made a purchase for the Pittsburgh show two days later. The layout of the Consol Energy Center looked quite similar to the Albany venue. I don’t know why I had it in my mind that the Albany performance was on the 7th; I even initially wrote that in my review.

A month later, a friend of mine gave me a lead to get better tickets for the Albany show, and at a cheaper price. I bought two MORE tickets for the 5th. I figured my wife, my daughter, someone else and I would attend.

But when I offered my wife the opportunity to go, she seemed rather indifferent. “Yeah, I guess so.” It wasn’t really the enthusiasm I was looking for, whereas my daughter was psyched. I suspect the amount of money I had now spent might be driving my need for more passion.

In the end, I gave the more expensive pair to a couple at church. They have had season tickets for the Albany Symphony Orchestra for several years. When they couldn’t go, they would offer them to my wife and me. This seemed like a way to pay them back.

Steel City

But what to do with the pair of tickets for the July 7 Pittsburgh show? At first, I contemplated going, but I didn’t want the expense of flying there or taking the time required to ride the bus. I attempted to sell them online without success. Yeesh, I couldn’t let them go to waste.

Finally, on either July 3 or July 5, I searched for a radio station in the Pittsburgh market that I thought had the right playlist; don’t remember which one. I called them up and asked if they could give away two Paul McCartney tickets for the July 7 show. Naturally, they were suspicious that this was a ruse. But they said that if I had them, they could and would give them away. So I emailed them the electronic tickets.

That was my story that I needed to share on the eve of Paul McCartney’s 80th birthday.

* The arena in Albany has had a few name changes. After the Knick, it became the Pepsi Arena, then the Times Union Center, which it was in 2014, and now the MVP Arena. So I just call it the Knick.

June rambling: Until Proven Otherwise

green sneakers

Back In My Day — From https://wronghands1.com/2022/06/03/back-in-my-day-millennial-edition/

Assume Every Child Has PTSD These Days Until Proven Otherwise

Chaos in John Roberts’s Court

Dobbs Decision Punctures the Supreme Court’s Sacred Mythology

The 1883 Civil Rights Cases, the 14th Amendment, and Jim Crow New York?

Gov. Ron DeSantis begins recruiting for his own Florida army

How Diversity Became a Bad Word at One State’s Public Colleges

How Milton Friedman Fought Segregation through the American Economic Association

I miss our old futurists

New York’s Redistricting Chaos Is Part of Andrew Cuomo’s Legacy

Insinuendo

New York Passes Nation’s First Electronics Right-To-Repair Law cf malicious compliance

Rocks: John Oliver

It’s Time to Bring Back the AIM Away Message

Measure Twice, Cut Once by Norm Abram

City Lights was the greatest film ever made

Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, Oscar Isaac, and the THR Drama Actor Roundtable

THR Tony Nominees Roundtable: Hugh Jackman, Ruth Negga, Jesse Williams, Mary-Louise Parker, and Sam Rockwell on Broadway in the Time of COVID

Now I Know: The Town That Keeps Tooting Its Own Horn and Here’s Something About Gary and I Guess You Could Say He Was Too Sharp and When North Dakota (Briefly) Tried to Secede From the United States and
How to Turn Donuts into Dough?

Four days in the Finger Lakes

The Crooked Forest: A Mystery Worth Exploring

A backyard train layout

GUNS

America’s guns have changed in my lifetime. “Comparing the United States to other countries is one of the most powerful arguments for gun control. Recurring mass shootings are a problem unique to the US, requiring an equally unique explanation. Other industrialized countries also have… all the other factors NRA-sponsored politicians and pundits raise to divert attention from guns. “

Cruz’s suggestion of one door entrance to schools for safety is problematic. But having one EXIT to a building is a fire hazard. (See any number of factory and nightclub infernos.)

Cruz says, if we limit guns, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome in Uvalde or Buffalo and that we need to do more about mental health. What if we raised the age to 21 to buy these AK-15-type weapons? 18 y.o.’s brains are not developed. The shooters in Uvalde, Buffalo, Newtown, and too many others were under 21. New York State just passed such a law.

If banning them outright seems like too extreme a solution to be politically palatable – and the US even banned at least some assault weapons for ten years, from 1994 to 2004 – here’s another option: Reclassify semi-automatic rifles as Class 3 firearms. Still, The AR-15 Has No Business Being in the Hands of Civilians.

These weapons exist for exactly one reason — to kill multiple people as quickly and violently as possible. 60 Minutes reran a story about high-velocity guns such as the AR-15. Its use in the Uvalde, TX school massacre is why families needed to offer up their DNA and why one girl was identified only by her green sneakers.

Hit the fan

Yet the Congressional talks appear to be unserious, as though mass shootings are just “Something We Have to Accept”

Do we need an Emmett Till moment, or more likely, a variation on it?

What drives mass shooters? Grievance, despair, and anger are more likely triggers than mental health, experts say.

“Mass shooters’ desire for death and destruction, experts have found, stems from a variety of circumstances and is rooted in an entrenched grievance, despair, and anger, regardless of whether they experience symptoms of mental illness.”

School Police: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. NOT the end-all

MUSIC

Kate Bush’s 1985 classic Running Up That Hill has re-entered the chart at No. 8. The revival of the track is from the new fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things.

Returning Waves by Mieczysław Karłowicz.

Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan (2022 Remake)

Le boeuf sur le toi by French composer Darius Milhaud.

Oye Como Va ft. Carlos Santana, Cindy Blackman Santana, and Becky G

Beethoven-Liszt Symphony No. 9, Op. 125 (Sheet Music) (Piano Reduction)

The Kids Are Alright – MonaLisa Twins

Coverville 1402: Cover Stories for Oasis, Fine Young Cannibals and Siouxsie and the Banshees and 1403: The Three Dog Night Cover Story II

Jungle Boogie – Muppets

Forty years of Come On Eileen – Dexys Midnight Runners

Themes from the Flintstones TV show with Lego stop motion animation

A Chinese reed instrument called the Sheng

Pink Glasses – Randy Rainbow

Love theme Splash by Lee Holdridge

Judy Garland would have been 100

“Forget your troubles, c’mon get happy”

Since Judy Garland was about to turn 100, I decided to see The Wizard Of Oz at Albany’s Spectrum Theatre in early April, and my wife accompanied me. We had never seen the film in a cinema before. There were only the two Tuesday showings, at 4 and 7 pm, so I figured it would be packed; there were less than ten of us there at the latter.

My wife said more than once afterward, “She could really act,” and I concurred. Her performance was vivid on the big screen. Of course, I had seen the movie on CBS-TV annually for several years in the 1960s, though only the last two times on a color TV. I had missed the “horse of a different color” joke.

My, those ruby slippers really sparkled when she ran. I did not know that one of the iconic dresses was missing until 2021. Nor was I aware that there was a black and white dress for the Kansas scenes and a blue and white dress for Oz. Movie magic.

It was strange, though. In the same timeframe that I’m watching the teenage Judy, I’d also see her on her eponymous show (1963-1964) or guesting on Ed Sullivan or another program. Also, I’m sure I watched the television special Judy and Liza at the Palladium (1964). Liza, of course, was her daughter Liza Minelli, about 18 at the time. (Liza’s 1972 movie Cabaret was shown at the Spectrum the week after The Wizard of Oz.)

Only two score and seven

I never paid much attention to the tabloids at the time, so I was very surprised when Judy Garland died in 1969 at the age of 47. I’ve viewed documentaries about her life since, though I never saw Judy, the 2019 biopic with Renée Zellweger.

One last thought. When I was in the play Boys In The Band in 1975, there was a specific cue for the lead character Michael to be playing the Judy Garland track Get Happy. So that song has had a soft spot in my heart ever since.

Here’s a clip of early films from when Frances Gumm was seven until Judy Garland turned 17.
Waltz With A Swing/ Americana -Every Sunday, 1936
Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart -Listen, Darling, 1938

Somewhere Over the Rainbow – The Wizard of Oz, 1939; plus a discussion of the isolated vocal
Our Love Affair, with Mickey Rooney
The Trolley Song – Meet Me In St. Louis, 1944
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Meet Me In St. Louis, 1944

Get Happy – Summer Stock, 1950
Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy , with Barbra Streisand, 1963?
The Judy Garland Show with Peggy Lee and Jack Carter (November 1963)
By Myself, 1964

She was accidentally slapped at the 1954 Oscars

Judy Garland would have been 100 today.

1952 #1 songs: They liked Ike

Shine, little glow-worm.

Considering I was not born yet, I remember the election of 1952 quite well. Adlai Stevenson looking all erudite. VP candidate Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech. Dwight Eisenhower, less than a decade after WWII, went from supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe in 1943 to being elected as the 34th President less than a decade later.

If you do the math, you’ll note that there are 78 weeks’ worth of #1 songs. That is because there were three different charts in those days: Best Sellers, Juke Box, and Disc Jockey (radio airplay). By 1958, there was only one Billboard pop chart.

I’m fascinated that I have a number of the #1 big band songs of 1942, as well as the pop hits of 1962. But I own NONE of these tracks, save for the annoying Xmas cut.

You Belong To Me – Jo Stafford with Paul Weston and his orchestra 12 weeks at #1

Wheel Of Fortune – Kay Starr, 10 weeks at #1, gold record
I Went To Your Wedding – Patti Page, 10 weeks at #1, gold record

Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart – Vera Lynn, 9 weeks at #1, gold record. The singer fascinated me. I wrote about her around her 100th birthday in 2017. She died in 2020.

Kiss Of Fire – Georgia Gibbs, 7 weeks at #1, gold record

Liars’ Club?

Why Don’t You Believe Me – Joni James, 6 weeks at #1, gold record. She died in February 2022.

Blue Tango – Leroy Anderson (instrumental), 5 weeks at #1, gold record

The Glow-Worm -Mills Brothers, 3 weeks at #1, gold record. This tune I had heard, possibly as a children’s song
Half As Much – Rosemary Clooney, 3 weeks at #1, gold record
Here In My Heart – Al Martino, 3 weeks at #1
Slow Poke – Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys, featuring Redd Stewart, 3 weeks at #1, gold record. I remember this as an oldie on the radio.

It’s In The Book (Parts 1 and 2) – Johnny Standley (comedy), 2 weeks at #1, gold record. A sermon on Little Bo Peep and other topics.
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – Jimmy Boyd (Christmas novelty), 2 weeks at #1, gold record. Even as a child, I was not a fan.

Wish You Were Here – Eddie Fisher
Delicado – Percy Faith (instrumental)
A Guy Is A Guy – Doris Day