This band was musician’s musicians… Not a weak link in the Zombies.
This was written by Zombies keyboardist Rod Argent. The group had a big hit with their first single, “She’s Not There.” The band followed it up in the UK with “Leave Me Be,” which flopped. The band did not want that song to be next but the producer and all the people that were making the decisions released it anyway.
The Zombies then recorded “Tell Her No,” which became their second single in the US and third in the UK. In America, it did very well, but in the UK it fared worse as the band had lost some momentum by releasing “Leave Me Be.”
The song peaked at #6 in the Billboard 100, #6 in Canada, and #42 in the UK. Some critics point to this song as a precursor to jazz fusion for the way the song moves.
This is one of the three big hits the band had in America. She’s Not There, Tell Her No, and Time of the Season. I also have to include their great album Odessey and Oracle which personally I would put up there in the same league as Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds.
Tell Her No
And if she should tell you “come closer” And if she tempts you with her charms
Tell her no no no no no-no-no-no No no no no no-no-no-no No no no no no Don’t hurt me now for her love belongs to me
And if she should tell you “I love you” And if she tempts you with her charms
Tell her no no no no no-no-no-no No no no no no-no-no-no (Don’t take her love for your arms) No no no no no Don’t hurt me now for her love belongs to me
I know she’s the kind of girl Who’d throw my love away But I still love her so Don’t hurt me now, don’t hurt me now
If she tells you “I love you” Just remember she said that to me
Tell her no no no no no-no-no-no No no no no no-no-no-no (Don’t take her love from my arms) No no no no no Don’t leave me now for her love belongs to me
I had a lot of comedy albums growing up and these were my favorites.
10: Steve Martin – His Wild and Crazy album, Let’s Get Small, and Comedy is Not Pretty stayed on my turntable forever.
9: Sam Kinison – His routine of Are You Lonesome Tonight is worthy enough to have him on this list.
8: Chris Rock – I followed him from SNL on.
7: Eddie Murphy – His eighties standup videos are still staples of the era.
6: Bob Newhart – If you like dry humor…this is your man.
5: George Carlin – Carlin was just so cool. His routines are well known now. He was topical and many of the things he expressed are true today. He was also on the first SNL episode.
4: Woody Allen – He had a wit as quick as you could get. His stand up from the sixties is outstanding. I had a friend with a lot of his standup routines that we listened to in the 80s.
3: Robin Williams/Jonathan Winters – Williams and Winters were very similar because Winters was a huge influence on Robin Williams. They could pick any subject and make it funny.
2: Bill Hicks –NOT family-friendly. Bill was as dark as they come but he made you think whether you agreed with him or not. He will offend EVERYONE… I like Denis Leary but Leary got a lot of his material from Hicks and cleaned it up. It can get uncomfortable listening to Bill…maybe that is the reason I liked him.
1: Richard Pryor – Richard was a game-changer…I had his albums growing up and he changed stand up comedy. He can make me laugh at any time.
Honorable Mention: Albert Brooks, Lily Tomlin, Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Klein, Joan Rivers, and Denis Leary.
***One comedian, I never understood…maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in his time. He had an interesting story but I just never got Lenny Bruce. I find his material once in a while funny but many lists have him as number 1 or 2. Yes, he did make a huge impact on his profession like few others but I just don’t get him like some do.
From the opening odd riff of his second single you knew it was going to be different. When the recording was sent to Hendrix’s American label, a note was attached that said, “deliberate distortion, do not correct.”
When manager Chas Chandler heard Hendrix tinkering with the song’s opening riff, he said, “That’s the next single!” Hendrix wrote as many as 10 verses to the song but Chas Chandler helped him edit it down to a radio-friendly length.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded the song two weeks later, on January 11th, 1967. After some overdubs and producing, the song was released as a single on March 17th. The Experience’s debut album, Are You Experienced? would be released a couple of months later.
In March of 1967, “Purple Haze,” the single, was released in England and shot up the charts. Three months later, the Experience gave its first U.S. performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. After that show, Jimi Hendrix became a star in America.
The song has become a symbol of the ’60s counterculture and has since lent its name to a strain of cannabis and acid.
This contains one of the most misheard lyrics ever, with “Scuse me while I kiss the sky” interpreted as “Scuse me while I kiss this guy.” Hendrix added to the confusion by sometimes singing it that way and pointing to one of his band members.
The song peaked at #65 in the Billboard 100 and #3 in the UK in 1967.
Jimi Hendrix:“I dream a lot and I put my dreams down as songs,” “I wrote one called ‘First Look Around the Corner’ and another called ‘The Purple Haze,’ which was about a dream I had that I was walking under the sea.”
From Songfacts
At one point, Hendrix wrote the chorus as “purple haze, Jesus saves,” but decided against it.
Part of the lyrics were formed from some of Jimi’s free verse ramblings that he jotted down from time to time.
This song was written under the guidance of Hendrix’ manager, ex-Animals bassist Chas Chandler. They had just released Hendrix’ first single, a cover of Tim Rose’s “Hey Joe” and were looking for a follow up. Chandler was impressed when he first heard the riff, and inspired Jimi to finish writing the song.
On the original recording, you hear the line up of the Experience with Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums.
The opening chord of two riffs then an interval of flattened fifth is the d5 or “tritone,” which has long been regarded as the “Most imperfect of dissonances” and was generally avoided in composition for that reason.
Hendrix claimed this had nothing to do with drugs, but it’s hard to believe they weren’t an influence. The lyrics seem to vividly portray an acid trip, and Hendrix was doing plenty of drugs at the time.
Jimi and producer Chas Chandler used some unusual studio tricks to get the unique sound. To create the background track that sounds distant, they put a pair of headphones around a microphone and recorded it that way to get an echo effect.
Hendrix wrote the lyrics on the day after Christmas in 1966. He wrote a lot more than what made it to the song. The track was developed at a press function that he attended at East London’s Upper Cut Club, run by the former boxer Billy Walker. Hendrix launched into the scorching riff in the club’s compact dressing room and every head turned. “I said, write the rest of that,” said Chandler. “That’s the next single!” It was premiered live on 8 January 1967, in Sheffield in the north of England.
For one of the guitar tracks, Hendrix used a device called an Octavia, which could raise or lower the guitar by a full octave.
A month before Hendrix died, he opened a recording studio in Greenwich Village called Electric Lady. One of the studios is known as “Purple Haze” and contains a purple mixing board. The studios have remained active with The Clash, Weezer, Patti Smith and Alicia Keys all recording there at some point.
This song is apparently referenced in an episode of The Simpsons. Homer is shopping (for useless garbage, of course) and finds a back massaging chair called the Spinemelter 2000. Homer sits in the chair and orders the store clerk to put it on full power. As the chair begins to massage Homer, he tells his family, “Excuse me while I kiss the sky…”
The track was the penultimate song Hendrix played in concert, on September 6, 1970, days before his death.
James Ford, who is a member of the production duo Simian Mobile Disco tells in the NME column “My first record”: “The first record I remember really connecting with was ‘Purple Haze.’ I remember being blown away by its wild and unhinged energy. It was also the first thing I ever tried to work out on a guitar. Needless to say, I didn’t get very far at that age.”
Bob Rivers did a parody of this song called “Holidaze,” which is all about the mad rush of the holiday season (“S’cuse me, I got gifts to buy…”). Playing Hendrix in the parody is Randy Hansen, a renowned Jimi Hendrix tribute artist. On drums is Alan White of the band Yes.
Purple Haze
Purple haze, all in my brain Lately things they don’t seem the same Actin’ funny, but I don’t know why Excuse me while I kiss the sky
Purple haze, all around Don’t know if I’m comin’ up or down Am I happy or in misery? What ever it is, that girl put a spell on me
Help me Help me Oh, no, no
Ooh, ah Ooh, ah Ooh, ah Ooh, ah, yeah!
Purple haze all in my eyes Don’t know if it’s day or night You got me blowin’, blowin’ my mind Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?
Ooh Help me Ahh, yeah, yeah, purple haze Oh, no, oh Oh, help me Tell me, tell me, purple haze I can’t go on like this (Purple haze) you’re makin’ me blow my mind Purple haze, n-no, no (Purple haze)
Not the most pleasant song available from John but it does get your attention. I do like the guitar sound that John and Eric Clapton get in this song.
This song is about drug withdrawal. Quitting “Cold Turkey” means abruptly stopping drug use and the effect it has on your body and mind. John Lennon quit cold turkey because he wanted to get off drugs and start a family with Yoko.
John wanted to record this with the Beatles but they rejected it so he went off and recorded it on his own.
Eric Clapton and John played guitar on this, Ringo drummed, and Klaus Voormann played the bass, It was released as a single in 1969 as The Plastic Ono Band. The song peaked at #30 in the Billboard 100, #14 in the UK, and #30 in Canada.
This was Lennon’s second single away from The Beatles. “Give Peace A Chance” was released a few months earlier. This was also the first song John took complete credit for as he dropped the McCartney from Lennon and McCartney.
Its first public performance on September 13, 1969, was recorded and released on the Live Peace in Toronto 1969 album by the Plastic Ono Band.
John Lennon:“Cold Turkey was banned. They thought it was a pro-drugs song. But I’ve always expressed what I’ve been feeling or thinking at the time. So I was just writing the experience I’d had of withdrawing from heroin. To some it was a rock ‘n’ roll version of The Man With The Golden Arm because it showed Frank Sinatra suffering from drug withdrawal.”
From Songfacts
Lennon performed this on September 13, 1969 at The Toronto Rock and Revival Show, where he introduced his Plastic Ono Band (at least the configuration of it for this show). Eric Clapton was on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass, and Alan White on drums. Yoko Ono was also part of the act, and she made an impact during “Cold Turkey.” As the song played, she emerged from a bag on stage, stepped up to a microphone, and made turkey-sounding noises (not out of character). The set was released as a live album called Live Peace In Toronto 1969.
Eric Clapton played some of the guitar on this. Lennon asked Clapton to join The Plastic Ono Band, but Eric declined.
Lennon wrote and recorded this song before attending Arthur Janov’s Primal Scream therapy workshop, which played a part in his song “Mother.” The screams he used in “Cold Turkey,” he was actually emulating Yoko singing.
When John Lennon decided to return his MBE (Member of the British Empire) award on November 25, 1969, he sent it to Queen Elizabeth II with a note explaining, “I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.”
Cold Turkey
Temperature’s rising Fever is high Can’t see no future Can’t see no sky
My feet are so heavy So is my head I wish I was a baby I wish I was dead
Cold turkey has got me on the run My body is aching Goose-pimple bone Can’t see no body Leave me alone
My eyes are wide open Can’t get to sleep One thing I’m sure of I’m at the deep freeze
Cold turkey has got me on the run Cold turkey has got me on the run
Thirty-six hours Rolling in pain Praying to someone Free me again
Oh I’ll be a good boy Please make me well I promise you anything Get me out of this hell
Like “A Hard Day’s Night,” the title came from an expression Ringo Starr used. Ringo’s turn of the phrase took the edge off the heavy philosophical lyrics. Working titles for the song before Ringo gave them inspiration were “Mark I” and “The Void.”
It was on what perhaps is the greatest Beatle album…Revolver.
The inspiration for the song came from a book entitled “The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based On The Tibetan Book Of The Dead.” This book was published in August of 1964 by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert
The Beatles made “tape loops”…short tapes of grandfather clocks, sitars, seagulls, laughter, and other things. They brought them to the studio and put them together at different speeds, played forward, and backward. That is what you hear at the beginning.
John wanted his voice to…sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a mountaintop, miles away or like a group of Tibetan monks chanting on a mountain top. Well, that was impractical so John suggested they suspend him from a rope in the middle of the studio ceiling, put a mike in the middle of the floor, give him a push and he’d sing as he went around and around. They didn’t do that either but they ended up putting Lennon’s voice through a Leslie Speaker Cabinet (a rotating speaker cabinet) and that made John happy.
Tomorrow Never Knows was a great innovation. It opened the door to Sgt Pepper and was one of the great psychedelic rock songs.
John Lennon on LSD: “Leary was the one going round saying, ‘take it, take it, take it,’” Lennon remembered in 1980, “and we followed his instructions in his ‘how to take a trip’ book. I did it just like he said in the book, and then I wrote ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ which was almost the first acid song: ‘Lay down all thought, surrender to the void,’ and all that sh*t which Leary had pinched from ‘The Book Of The Dead.’”
From Songfacts
John Lennon wrote this, and described it as “my first psychedelic song.”
The book is a reinterpretation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and a guide to understanding it through psychedelic drugs. Lennon would read it while tripping on LSD, and according to his biographer Albert Goldman, he recorded himself reading from the book, played it back while tripping on LSD, and wrote the song.
The most overt reference to the book is the line:
Turn off your mind
Relax and float downstream
It is not dying
The book states: “Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.”
To accompany the psychedelic imagery in Lennon’s lyric, each Beatle created strange sounds which were mixed in throughout the recording, often backward and in different speeds. Their producer, George Martin, was older and more experienced, but he allowed the group to experiment in the studio as much as they pleased.
The night before they recorded this song, Paul McCartney created 16 tape loops of guitar sounds and odd vocals that he brought in to the studio to create some of the effects. Several people remember standing around the room holding pencils for the tape to loop around and back into the recording machine as the various sound effects and instrumentation were faded in and out.
John Lennon used only one chord in this whole song, which creates a hypnotic feeling. For his vocals, he asked producer George Martin to make him sound like the Dali Lama.
Drugs influenced the creation of this song, but the Beatles recorded sober. “We would have the experiences and then bring that into the music later,” Ringo Starr explained.
George Harrison played a droning Indian instrument called a tambura on this track, which added an ethereal feel to the soundscape.
The musical break that comes in about a minute into this song consists mostly of guitars that were heavily processed. This wild passage makes use of just about every studio trick at their disposal, including passing from one channel to the other. Those listening in mono (often in cars) didn’t get the full experience.
This was the first track recorded for the Revolver album, but the last one on the tracklist.
On May 6, 2012, this song was featured in an episode of the popular American TV series Mad Men. The episode was set in 1966, and part of the plot was the ad agency in the show helping a client capitalize on Beatlemania. This was a big deal, since Beatles songs are very rarely licensed for TV shows – at least in their original versions. Cover versions and performances (think American Idol) show up from time to time, since those just have to be approved by Sony/ATV, which owns the publishing rights. Getting permission to use an actual Beatles recording requires permission from Apple Corp, which is controlled by The Beatles and their heirs.
The Wall Street Journal reported the payment for the song at $250,000, and that Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner had to reveal to Apple exactly how the song would be used, which was a big deal since he is very secretive about scripts. In the episode, the main character Don Draper has trouble adapting to changing musical times. He plays this song to see what all the fuss is about, and after a character-developing montage while the song is playing, he switches it off. The song then comes back to play over the closing credits.
Phil Collins covered this on his debut solo album, Face Value, in 1981, using synthesizers to create many of the unusual sounds. Like The Beatles did on Revolver, Collins used it to close the album.
Our Lady Peace remade this song for the soundtrack to the movie The Craft. It’s played during the opening credits.
Oasis pays tribute to this song in “Morning Glory” with the line:
Walking to the sound of my favorite tune
Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon
The Beatles were a huge influence on Oasis.
This song is featured on the 2006 Beatles album Love (a soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil show based on their music) remixed with “Within You Without You.”
Tomorrow Never Knows
Turn off your mind relax and float down stream It is not dying, it is not dying
Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void It is shining, it is shining
Yet you may see the meaning of within It is being, it is being
Love is all and love is everyone It is knowing, it is knowing
And ignorance and hate mourn the dead It is believing, it is believing
But listen to the colour of your dreams It is not leaving, it is not leaving
So play the game “Existence” to the end Of the beginning, of the beginning
Since I posted Paul McCartney’s Concert for Kampuchea yesterday I thought I would concentrate on the festival John Lennon popped up at in 1969… The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival. Unlike Kampuchea which was spread out on multiple days and nights, this festival was held on one day September 13, 1969.
John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band just played fifties songs plus John’s new song that Beatles rejected…Cold Turkey. The reason for the fifties’ songs was because the band had limited time to rehearse and they wanted to do songs they all knew.
It was a great festival lineup but it’s remembered mostly by John Lennon’s participation. The Doors were the headliners and John only agreed to do it
The concert was conceived by promoters John Brower and Ken Walker with financial backing from Eaton’s department store but stymied by poor ticket sales, the venture began to lose support. The festival was almost canceled but Brower called Apple Records in the UK to ask John Lennon to emcee the concert. Lennon agreed to appear on the condition he would be allowed to perform.
The Lennons flew in from England with a makeshift band that included Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, and Yoko. They arrived at the backstage area at about 10 p.m, while Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys were singing Good Old Rock ‘n’ Roll to an audience of about 20,000.
Lennon was quoted as saying “I threw up for hours until I went on” because it had been three years since he played live in a concert setting. The band went on and did a good job…ragged but it was a hastily assembled band with only a rehearsal on the plane ride and backstage.
John Lennon:“The ridiculous thing was that I didn’t know any of the lyrics. When we did Money and Dizzy, I just made up the words as I went along. The band was bashing it out like hell behind me. Yoko came on stage with us, but she wasn’t going to do her bit until we’d done our five songs….Then after Money there was a stop, and I turned to Eric and said, ‘What’s next?’ He didn’t know either, so I just screamed out ‘C’mon!’ and started into something else.”
Little Richard: “I remember the show that people were throwing bottles at Yoko Ono. They were throwing everything at her. Finally, she had to run off the stage. Oh, boy, it was very bad.”
John Lennon:And we tried to put it out on Capitol, and Capitol didn’t want to put it out. They said, ‘This is garbage; we’re not going to put it out with her screaming on one side and you doing this sort of live stuff. And they just refused to put it out. But we finally persuaded them that, you know, people might buy this. Of course it went gold the next day.”
John Lennon and Yoko’s setlist
Blue Suede Shoes.
Money (That’s What I Want)
Dizzy Miss Lizzy.
Yer Blues.
Cold Turkey.
Give Peace a Chance.
Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)
What do the Monkees and Dwight Yoakum have in common? They both covered this song.
Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day is a song written by Tommy Boyce and Steve Venet that appears on The Monkees, the debut album of the Monkees.
Micky sang the lead on this song. He is the only Monkee on this recording but this setup fell away quickly as the band began to take ownership of their music and come into their own as musicians and songwriters by the 3rd album. This song has the same sound as Last Train To Clarksville…it is a nice pop song.
It was not released as a single but it was a solid song for the Monkees brand of pop.
Dwight Yoakam also covered this song. The song was on his album Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day and was released in the summer of 2016.
Tomorrow Is Gonna Be Another Day
I’m gonna pack up my pain, I been a keepin’ in my heart, I’m gonna catch me the fastest train And make me a brand new start But that’s okay, Tomorrow’s gonna be another day, Hey, hey, hey. And I don’t care what they say Tomorrow’s gonna be, tomorrow’s gonna be, Tomorrow’s gonna be another day. Yay, yay, yay, Yay, yay, yay.
They say there’s a lotta fish, Swimmin’ in the deep blue sea, I’m gonna catch me a pretty one And she’ll be good to me. But that’s okay, Tomorrow’s gonna be another day, Hey, hey, hey. And I don’t care what they say Tomorrow’s gonna be, tomorrow’s gonna be, Tomorrow’s gonna be another day. Yay, yay, yay, Yay, yay, yay.
Well, I ain’t gonna think about ya, ‘Cause it ain’t no use no more, I’m gonna make it fine without ya, Just like I did before, I’m on my way. Tomorrow’s gonna be another day, Hey, hey, hey. And I don’t care what they say Tomorrow’s gonna be, tomorrow’s gonna be, Tomorrow’s gonna be another day. Yay, yay, yay, Yay, yay, yay.
Love the Beggars Banquet album (1968) and this song in particular. Mick remembers the working class in this song. It was written by Mick and Keith.
It’s a mostly acoustic number, with Charlie Watts playing tabla and Ric Grech sitting in on fiddle. Grech was a violinist and bass player who was a member of the band Family in the ’60s and went on to play in Blind Faith with Eric Clapton. He also played on Gram Parsons’ solo albums in the ’70s, and he appears on Ron Wood and Ronnie Lane’s 1976 Mahoney’s Last Stand project.
Dave Mason, who did some session work for Jimi Hendrix and was a member of the band Traffic, played the mandolin on this song.
The song wasn’t released as a single but it’s a great song like most of what’s on Beggars Banquet.
Drummer Charlie Watts: “On Factory Girl, I was doing something you shouldn’t do, which is playing the tabla with sticks instead of trying to get that sound using your hand, which Indian tabla players do, though it’s an extremely difficult technique and painful if you’re not trained.”
From Songfacts
This song is a great example of Mick Jagger taking on a persona, which he often did in his lyrics. Here, he sings from the perspective of a guy who is waiting for his girlfriend – a destitute, disheveled sort – to get out of work at the factory. It’s quite a contrast to Jagger’s reality: a glamorous rock star who often dated models.
Guitarist Keith Richards: “To me ‘Factory Girl’ felt something like Molly Malone, an Irish jig; one of those ancient Celtic things that emerge from time to time, or an Appalachian song. In those days I would just come up and play something, sitting around the room. I still do that today.”
Factory Girl
Waiting for a girl who’s got curlers in her hair Waiting for a girl she has no money anywhere We get buses everywhere Waiting for a factory girl
Waiting for a girl and her knees are much too fat Waiting for a girl who wears scarves instead of hats Her zipper’s broken down the back Waiting for a factory girl
Waiting for a girl and she gets me into fights Waiting for a girl, we get drunk on Friday night She’s a sight for sore eyes Waiting for a factory girl
Waiting for a girl and she’s got stains all down her dress Waiting for a girl and my feet are getting wet She ain’t come out yet Waiting for a factory girl
Hey Hey…Let’s all wake up to the Monkees on this quarantined morning. It’s hard to resist this song…it’s fun and reminds me of the intro to their television show…which is a good thing.
This was the first song written and recorded for The Monkees TV series, which ran on NBC 1966-1968. Written to introduce the Monkees and used as the theme song for the show.
It was written by the songwriter/producers Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who were hired to write three songs for the show’s pilot, including the theme. When they wrote it, the cast had not been chosen and they had very little direction…the show was pitched as “An American version of The Beatles” and loosely based on the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night.
Peter Tork:“I always thought the song worked fine as the theme song for the TV show. But I never allowed us to sing it in public,” “The whole idea of standing up there and singing, ‘We’re wonderful/We’re the wonderful ones/And our names are The Wonderful Ones,’ was too self-congratulatory. What we do now is, the backing band plays [the music] and Micky and I come out onstage to it. I can’t ever see us singing ‘Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees!’ I couldn’t bear it.”
From Songfacts
The finger snaps and “here we come” line were influenced by the Dave Clark Five song “Catch Us If You Can,” where they sing, “Here we come again, catch us if you can.”
The Monkees didn’t play on their early albums, so very often the only band member to appear on a song would be its lead vocalist, which in this case was Micky Dolenz. This song was produced by the song’s writers, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who had members of their band, the Candy Store Prophets, play the instruments. The backing credits are as follows:
Micky Dolenz: vocal Tommy Boyce: backing vocals Wayne Erwin, Gerry Mcgee & Louie Shelton: guitar Larry Taylor: bass Billy Lewis: drums Gene Estes: percussion
Turns out this song works very well in a documentary about actual monkeys: It was used to open the 2015 Disney film Monkey Kingdom.
The Monkees Theme
Here we come Walkin’ down the street We get the funniest looks from Everyone we meet
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees And people say we monkey around But we’re too busy singing To put anybody down
We go wherever we want to Do what we like to do We don’t have time to get restless There’s always something new
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees And people say we monkey around But we’re too busy singing To put anybody down
We’re just tryin’ to be friendly Come and watch us sing and play We’re the young generation And we’ve got something to say, oh
Any time Or anywhere Just look over your shoulder Guess who’ll be standing there?
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees And people say we monkey around But we’re too busy singing To put anybody down
Whaaa, one time!
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees And people say we monkey around But we’re too busy singing To put anybody down
We’re just tryin’ to be friendly Come and watch us sing and play We’re the young generation And we’ve got something to say
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees
As Van Morrison would say…Into The Mystic… this song off of Sgt Pepper was a George Harrison song…and he was the only Beatle on it… This is about as sixties as you can get with the sitar and philosophical lyrics.
This was a brilliant addition to Sgt Pepper to show yet another side to the Beatles.
It’s hard to overestimate how profound of an effect that the introduction to Eastern religion had on George Harrison. Under the name of Sam Wells, George, along with his wife Pattie, vacationed in Bombay, India for six weeks, beginning on September 20th, 1966. At the suggestion of Ravi Shankar, from whom he was going to take sitar lessons while there, he grew a mustache as a subtle disguise so as to ward off any Indian “Beatlemaniacs” that may have been around in the area.
The book Autobiography Of A Yogi really changed his life and mind. It influenced his writing of songs like Within You Without You’ and many others. George started to write this song on a pedal harmonium at friend Klaus Voormann’s home.
During the recording, George was there with Indian musicians and they had a carpet on the floor and there was incense burning.
At George Harrison’s request, they added a small bit of laughter at the end of the song as it faded out to lighten the mood a bit.
John Lennon: “I think that is one of George’s best songs, one of my favorites of his. I like the arrangement, the sound and the words. He is clear on that song. You can hear his mind is clear and his music is clear. It’s his innate talent that comes through on that song, that brought that song together. George is responsible for Indian music getting over here. That song is a good example.”
From Songfacts
Although this song is billed as being recorded by the Beatles, George Harrison was the only Beatle to play on the track. There is no guitar or bass, but there are some hand-drums.
Harrison spent weeks looking for musicians to play the Indian instruments used on this. It was especially difficult because Indian musicians could not read Western music.
This is based on a piece by Indian musician Ravi Shankar, who helped teach Harrison the sitar. Harrison wrote his own lyrics and shortened it considerably.
Harrison wrote this as a 30-minute piece. He trimmed it down into a mini-version for the album.
This was the only song Harrison wrote that made it onto the album. He also contributed “Only A Northern Song” (recorded in February of 1967 as verified by the Anthology 2 album), but it was left off the album at the last minute. It was initially intended to go on the first side of Sgt. Pepper between “She’s Leaving Home” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.” >>
This was one of Harrison’s first songs to explore Eastern religion, which would become a lifelong quest. He believed in reincarnation, which helped him accept death in 2001, when he lost his life to cancer.
Oasis covered this for the BBC to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
This is the second Indian classical-influenced song that George Harrison wrote for the Beatles, the first being “Love You To.”
“Now “Within You/Without You” was not a commercial song by any means. But it was very interesting. [George Harrison] had a way of communicating music by the Indian system of kind of a separate language… the rhythms decided by the tabla player.” –Sir George Martin, from the documentary The Material World.
Within You Without You
We were talking About the space between us all And the people Who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion Never glimpse the truth Then it’s far too late when they pass away
We were talking About the love we all could share When we find it To try our best to hold it there, with our love, with our love We could save the world, if they only knew
Try to realize it’s all within yourself, no-one else can make you change And to see you’re really only very small And life flows on within you and without you
We were talking About the love that’s gone so cold And the people Who gain the world and lose their soul They don’t know, they can’t see Are you one of them?
When you’ve seen beyond yourself then you may find peace of mind is waiting there And the time will come when you see we’re all one And life flows on within you and without you
This was the B side to Cecilia. I’ve had two different bloggers mention this song to me in the past few days. I started to get into this song a little later than the others but it’s a beautiful song.
Paul Simon wrote this song about his partner Art Garfunkel going to Mexico to act in a movie called Catch-22, which was directed by Mike Nichols, who gave Simon & Garfunkel a big boost when he featured their songs in his 1967 film The Graduate. Simon was also going to be in the film, but Nichols cut his part, which separated the duo. Garfunkel spent months working on the film while Simon returned to New York, where he toiled away on the Bridge Over Troubled Water album.
Paul Simon sent letters to keep in touch with Garfunkel and update him on the album’s progress. Up to that point, the pair had always partnered musically and shared a bond, which was now breaking… Simon and Garfunkel split up after the album was released…Paul recorded as a solo artist, and Art pursued his acting career.
From Songfacts
Regarding the lyrics, “Tom get your plane right on time. I know that your eager to fly now,” before the folk duo became famous, they were known as Tom and Jerry. Tom was Art’s stage name, so this line symbolizes their increasing need for musical and personal freedom.
In a 1990 interview with SongTalk magazine, Simon said: “I liked the ‘aaahhhs,’ the voices singing ‘aaah.’ That was the best I think that we ever did it. It was quite a lot of voices we put on, maybe twelve or fifteen voices. We sang it in the echo-chamber.”
This song was addressed during a screening of the Simon & Garfunkel documentary Songs of America. At the screening, Garfunkel said, “I had Paul sort of waiting: ‘All right, I can take this for three months. I’ll write the songs, but what’s the fourth month? And why is Artie in Rome a fifth month? What’s Mike [Nichols] doing to Simon & Garfunkel?’ And so there’s Paul in the third month, still with a lot of heart, writing about, ‘I’m the only living boy in [New York]. You used to be the other one.”
This was used in the 2004 movie Garden State. Zach Braff, who wrote and directed the movie, thought the song worked perfectly to convey the loneliness of a character. Simon & Garfunkel rarely license the song, but they let Braff use it for a greatly reduced fee after seeing the scene.
The session musician Joe Osborn played an 8-string bass on this track, which the album’s producer Roy Halee said was the featured musical element of the song. Years later, when Osborn tried to relearn his part to demonstrate it, he realized it was very difficult to reproduce live, as Halee spliced together various takes for the recording.
The Only Living Boy In New York
Tom, get your plane right on time
I know your part’ll go fine
Fly down to Mexico
Do-n-do-d-do-n-do and here I am,
The only living boy in New York
I get the news I need on the weather report
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile
Do-n-doh-d-doh-n-doh and here I am
The only living boy in New York
Half of the time we’re gone
But we don’t know where,
And we don’t know where
Half of the time we’re gone
But we don’t know where,
And we don’t know where
Tom, get your plane right on time
I know you’ve been eager to fly now
Hey let your honesty shine, shine, shine now
Do-n-do-d-do-n-do
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in New York,
The only living boy in New York
In 1975 my friends and cousin had a clubhouse that was an old horse barn. We had a record player, a lantern, and a one-armed bandit. My cousin played the Meet The Beatles album and me… being a Monkee fan soaked it up and it started a lifelong love for The Beatles.
My first favorite Beatle song was It Won’t Be Long…then this one came in second at the time. George wrote this when he was down with the flu in a hotel room in the Northeast of England. It was the first song he wrote……technically he did have partial credit on the instrumental Cry For A Shadow.
Is it George’s best song? Of course not but it fits in well with the early Beatles and it gets overlooked. If you think about it…”Don’t Bother me” is so George and his attitude at times. I always really liked it…the overall feel of it is cool. It was a very good attempt at his first song.
George Harrison:“I don’t think it’s a particularly good song… It mightn’t even be a song at all, but at least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing, and then maybe eventually I would write something good.”
Tom Petty:“I thought it was just the coolest song, like nothing I’d heard in rock,” Petty said in 2014 “I’d say, ‘Well, I like it. A lot. If you did that today, I’d say it was really good.’ And he’d go, ‘Well, you’d be wrong.'”
The Smithereens did a great job covering this song.
From Songfacts
This was George Harrison’s first recorded song. It was his response to critics who claimed he was not an important member of the group because he did not write songs.
A Harrison-penned song would not appear again until the 1965 album Help!. That would be “You Know What To Do.”
This song has a darker, more pessimistic mood that was uncommon of The Beatles main sound, but would come to be Harrison’s trademark stamp. This is actually part of what made the Beatles’ formula work: McCartney was the chirpy, positive one, and Harrison was the melancholic counterpart.
Years later these were sold off at one of the London auction houses. This song in it’s very earliest stages is available on bootleg and features George working the music and lyrics out as he goes along. George stated, “I wrote the song as an exercise to see if I could write a song. I was sick in bed. Maybe that’s why it turned out to be ‘Don’t Bother Me.'”
For your information, the photography technique for the cover of With The Beatles, in which the Fab Four’s headshots hover in a half-moon, light-and-shadow effect, is called “chiaroscuro.” It’s an Italian word to describe the Renaissance technique of dramatically contrasted lighting effects in oil paintings.
This was the first song on Side 2 of Meet The Beatles, their first album released in the US. With The Beatles was their second UK release.
Don’t Bother Me
Since she’s been gone I want no one to talk to me It’s not the same but I’m to blame, it’s plain to see
So go away, leave me alone, don’t bother me I can’t believe that she would leave me on my own It’s just not right when every night I’m all alone
I’ve got no time for you right now, don’t bother me I know I’ll never be the same if I don’t get her back again Because I know she’ll always be the only girl for me
But ’til she’s here please don’t come near, just stay away I’ll let you know when she’s come home Until that day Don’t come around, leave me alone, don’t bother me
I’ve got no time for you right now, don’t bother me I know I’ll never be the same if I don’t get her back again Because I know she’ll always be the only girl for me
But ’til she’s here please don’t come near, just stay away I’ll let you know when she’s come home Until that day
Don’t come around, leave me alone, don’t bother me Don’t bother me Don’t bother me Don’t bother me Don’t bother me
As a teenager, I could relate to this song. Now in this world, we live in now… I can relate to this song even more. I love the harmonies in this song.
Brian Wilson suffered from severe agoraphobia and refused to leave his bedroom for a significant amount of time. He wrote this song to give people an idea of how he felt. The song, like many Beach Boys songs, has beautiful harmonizing. The song was written by Brian Wilson and Gary Usher.
This song was the B side to Be True To Your School released in 1963. The song peaked at #23 in the Billboard 100 in 1963.
Brian Wilson: “When Dennis, Carl and I lived in Hawthorne as kids, we all slept in the same room. One night I sang the song ‘Ivory Tower’ to them and they liked it. Then a couple of weeks later, I proceeded to teach them both how to sing the harmony parts to it. It took them a little while, but they finally learned it. We then sang this song night after night. It brought peace to us. When we recorded ‘In My Room,’ there was just Dennis, Carl and me on the first verse… and we sounded just like we did in our bedroom all those nights. This story has more meaning than ever since Dennis’ death.”
From Songfacts
In the 1998 documentary Endless Harmony, Brian Wilson described this song as about being “somewhere where you could lock out the world, go to a secret little place, think, be, do whatever you have to do.”
Charles Manson, who was convicted of orchestrating the murders of six people in 1969, made repeated claims that The Beach Boys stole this song from him. In Manson’s view, he wrote a song called “In My Cell” which was about how he feels peace with himself in his jail cell. Manson did have a connection to The Beach Boys – he knew their drummer Dennis Wilson – and did write and record some songs. His claims have little basis in fact – something that is true of most of his proclamations.
Bill Medley from The Righteous Brothers recorded this with Phil Everly and Brian Wilson for his album Damn Near Righteous, his first new album since the untimely 2003 death of his partner Bobby Hatfield.
Interesting food for thought: Brian Wilson just might have inadvertently inspired one of the greatest jazz fusion bands, Blood Sweat & Tears, albeit indirectly. Al Kooper relates in Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards that he was sitting in Brian Wilson’s living room while he showed off the Pet Sounds album. He was just leaving The Blues Project and wandering around California in an existential haze wondering what to do next, when while visiting with Brian Wilson, “Deep in the back of my mind was a band that could put dents in your shirt if you got within fifteen rows of the stage…” He explains his idea of having a band with a horn section in it, more than R&B bands but less than Count Basie’s or Buddy Rich’s. “Somewhere in the middle was a mixture of soul, jazz, and rock that was my little fantasy.”
This was released as the B-side of “Be True To Your School.”
Linda Ronstadt and Tammy Wynette both covered this song.
One of the many who found solace in this song is Steve Perry of Journey fame, who told Rolling Stone: “This was an anthem to my teenage isolation. I just wanted to be left alone in my room, where I could find peace of mind and play music.”
In My Room
There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to In my room, in my room In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears In my room, in my room
Do my dreaming and my scheming Lie awake and pray Do my crying and my sighing Laugh at yesterday
Now it’s dark and I’m alone I won’t be afraid In my room, in my room In my room, in my room In my room, in my room
White Trash or Trash as they were later called signed with Apple Records and released these Beatles songs from the Beatles then-upcoming Abbey Road album. John Lennon loved it but Paul was upset about the recording…the reason why is below.
I’m critical on Beatle covers because I’m such a fan…but this is pretty good.
This was supposed to be just a demo but it was a finished product. Paul was not happy about the money spent producing it…
When they recorded what was supposed to be a demo of it, Paul was furious: “I asked for a demo and I’m handed a finished master of a full production with strings on it and the lot!” Everyone thought the record was dead,
but press officer Derek Taylor grabbed the record and took it to John Lennon.
When it was over, Lennon pointed to one of the speakers and declared, “That’s a good imitation of us! It’s going out!”
They started out as the Pathfinders, a Scottish group from Glasgow, doing a Goffin-King song called “Road To Nowhere”, which Tony Meehan brought to George Harrison and Paul McCartney who liked it and said “Let’s put it out.” DiLello worked in the Apple Press Office, interviewed the band, and came up with a better name — White Trash. Unfortunately, the record distributors didn’t go for that, so they censored the offensive word “White” and just called the band “Trash”. The band consisted of: Ian Crawford Clews, vocalist, Fraser Watson, lead guitar Colin Hunter-Morrison, Bass, Ronald Leahy, organ, and Timi Donald, percussion
Richard DiLello was the “House Hippie” of Apple Records in the press department and was writing the press biography for the band and was trying to come up with a tag line for them. His choice? “They begin where The Cream leave off!” Apple’s press officer Derek Taylor said a big fat NO. A bit later, Richard came up with an alternate: “They Leave Off where the Cream BEGAN?”
In 1969, White Trash hooked up with singer Marsha Hunt and went on
tour. When she ripped her vocal cords one night, a long rest was recommended for her, and by mid-September The White Trash found themselves rehearsing to perfection their version of Golden Slumbers from the Beatles’ “Abbey Road”.
To any Beatle fan, I would recommend the Richard DiLello book The Longest Cocktail Party.It’s informative and hilarious.
Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight
Once there was a way To get back homeward
Once there was a way To get back home
Sleep, pretty darling Do not cry And I will sing a lullaby
Golden slumbers Fill your eyes Smiles await you when you rise Sleep pretty darling Do not cry And I will sing a lullaby
Once there was a way To get back homeward
Once there was a way To get back home
Sleep, pretty darling Do not cry And I will sing a lullaby
Carry That Weight
Boy, you gotta carry that weight Carry that weight a long time Boy, you gonna carry that weight Carry that weight a long time
I never give you my pillow I only send you my invitation And in the middle of the celebrations I break down
Boy, you gotta carry that weight Carry that weight a long time Boy, you gotta carry that weight You’re gonna carry that weight along time
After Bullitt finished filming, the car was sold to a studio executive in Los Angeles, who kept it briefly before selling it, coincidentally, to a police detective. The officer shipped the car to New York and kept it for about three and a half years before placing a for-sale ad in the back of Road & Track magazine in 1974. His $6,000 asking price was somewhat steep, but Robert Kiernan, a New Jersey insurance executive, and Mustang fan went out to look at it. He bought it for his wife, Robbie to use as a daily driver.
The Kiernans kept the car a secret, mainly to ward off thieves and gawkers. Steve McQueen found out that the Kiernans owned the car and he tried to buy it but insisted that the price had to be right. Apparently, it never was right. McQueen never did buy the car.
Robert and Robbie’s son, Sean Kiernan decided to sell the car in 2020.
It stayed in the garage for decades after it was driven by his mother, Robbie, back in the day to St. Vincent’s parish, where she taught third grade. Her husband took a train to work in New York City. This month, Robbie Kiernan went to the auction with her 7-week-old grandchild.
The car will be inducted into the Historic Vehicle Association roster this year—kind of like the National Register of Historic Places, but for cars. It’s only the 21st car to be so honored.
“I am OK with any price. But I would like it to be the most valuable Mustang ever,” he said… he succeeded.
Before he sold the Mustang, he brought it home in October for his mother’s birthday and put it in the garage where the car had been hidden for four decades.
“I had never prepped the car to sell, so I changed all the fluids and did all the car stuff to it,” Kiernan said. “My sister, my mom, my wife, Sam’s dad came down from Dearborn and sat in the car. That car had been in the garage forever. It was her spot. I think everybody cried at some point or another.”
They all said goodbye to the car….But… hello to 3.74 million dollars to an unknown buyer on January 10, 2020.
Thanks to everyone who has read my “Where Is” posts…here are the rest:
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 