Beatles – Page 5 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Time Machine To Hamburg

Dave at A Sound Day gave writers a question to write about. If you could safely go back in time and move about for one day, what one concert or live performance would you choose to go to?

Well, that narrows it down to me because there are two cities that come to mind after he asked that. Now…if this was a baseball question I would go to New York in the twenties and see who I think was the best baseball player ever…Babe Ruth. But it’s music so the two cities are Hamburg and Liverpool…the Star Club in Hamburg or the Cavern in Liverpool…and I shouldn’t have to name the band.

I’m going to pick Hamburg…and the reason is The Beatles would play 6-8 hours a night compared to lunchtime sessions at the Cavern so to Germany I go! From everything I’ve read the performances there were off the charts. They played loud sweaty rock and roll there and accumulated way past 1000 hours playing there in a 3-year stretch from 1960 to 1962. It’s not a stretch to say at that time they could have had more hours on a stage than any other rock band.

The Beatles played over 250 nights in the seedy red-light district of Hamburg. If you average 6 hours a show that would be 1500 hours…that is why they could play so well with a wall of screaming in their ears later on. They would get to know the gangsters who would buy them champagne, the barmaids who would sell or give them Preludin (a type of diet pill speed so they could play all night…”prellies”), and the prostitutes who would take them in and befriend them. They also met Little Richard, Billy Preston, and Gene Vincent there.

They slowed down in 1962 and didn’t play as long of sets but at the end they had Ringo. I would want to see them in 1960-61 when Stuart Sutcliffe was on bass and Pete Best was drumming. Other bands from England started to come over but none of them had the impact of the Beatles. They lived off of prellies and beer when they played and would go have an English breakfast when they could afford it. There are pictures of them holding a Preludin metal tube (what they came in) and grinning manically.

They would write a few songs but mostly played covers through this period of learning. They caused all kinds of trouble and there were rumors of John Lennon urinating off of a balcony on nuns…but that has been disproven…no he did urinate off of balconies but left the nuns alone. He once appeared with a real toilet seat around his head on stage after being angered and ripping it off a toilet. George was booted out of the country for being underaged and Paul and Pete were accused of trying to burn down a cinema. Stuart Sutcliffe found his true love there Astrid Kirchherr. He would die in 1962 of a brain hemorrhage at 22.

When they came back from Hamburg in 1960 to Liverpool…people were amazed and at first thought, they were a German band with their all leather clothes. They were a sensation because they played like no one else. Without Hamburg…there would probably be no Beatles. After they got back they started to play the Cavern regularly and the promoters were wary of them because of their reputation but soon knew they would make them a lot of money. They were NOT the grinning moptops that the world came to love. They were rough and tough growing up in Liverpool with further education in Hamburg. Often after shows in Liverpool, they would have to fight because of the rough audiences being jealous of their girlfriends who were fawning over them.

Well, that was long-winded…but Hamburg in 1961… is where I want Dave’s time machine to take me. I might hijack it and make another trip to the Cavern if Dave is not watching. So what is the saying about rock music? Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll? This probably helped that saying along.

There are some low-fi recordings of them in Hamburg in 1962 with Ringo drumming which shows how stripped down and raw they were.

Beatles – Twist And Shout ….Under The Covers Week

Usually, I don’t like covers better than the original but with this song I do. John Lennon sounds demented and he pushed his vocals over the edge. Lennon has said he screamed the lyrics more than sang them but it worked. He provided the power to this song with just his vocals. The Beatles didn’t have monitors live…no one else at this time didn’t either so they had to sing loud to be heard. Author Mark Lewisohn called it “arguably the most stunning rock and roll vocal and instrumental performance of all time.”

This is probably close to sounding like they did live in Hamburg and The Cavern. This session took place on February 11, 1963, at EMI Studios in London, which was later renamed Abbey Road Studios. The Beatles did 10 songs that day, nine of which ended up on Please Please Me, their first UK album. Think about that for a minute… in one day they recorded their debut album except for the song Please Please Me which was recorded later.

When The Beatles played the Royal Command Performance with the Queen watching. During the introduction to this song, John Lennon famously said, “For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands and the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewelry.” He told Brian Epstein that he was going to say “rattle your fu**ing jewelry” and Epstein was on pins and needles worried that John would go through with that…but he didn’t. John wasn’t a fan of playing at these functions.

They actually did two takes of the song and kept the first one. John was sick with a cold and had stripped off his shirt to let himself sweat it out, but he pulled it off. The next day…February 12, 1963 – The Beatles played two shows, one at the Azena Ballroom in Yorkshire and another at the Astoria Ballroom in Lancashire. No rest for the weary.

This was the first song ever written by Bert Burns. He went on to write, Piece of My Heart, Here Comes the Night, Hang on Sloopy, Cry to Me and Everybody Needs Somebody to Love to name just a few. He signed Van Morrison to his first solo deal with Bang Records. Unfortunately, he died at 38 of a heart attack in 1967. Phil Medley did get a co-writing credit on the song.

The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100, #5 in Canada, and #1 in New Zealand in 1964. The Beatles version was not done yet. In the film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in 1986, the song was used and charted again. It peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100 and #16 in Canada.

The Isley Brothers’ version is great and there have been many other charting versions of it.

Norman Smith engineer: “Someone suggested they do ‘Twist and Shout’ with John taking the lead vocal. But by this time all their throats were sore; it was 12 hours since we had started working. John’s, in particular, was almost completely gone so we really had to get it right the first time. The Beatles on the studio floor and us in the control room. John sucked a couple more Zubes (a brand of throat lozenges), had a bit of a gargle with milk and away we went.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF1xPYktKtY

Twist and Shout

Well, shake it up, baby, nowTwist and shoutCome on, come on, come, come on, baby, nowCome on and work it on outWell, work it on out, honeyYou know you look so goodYou know you got me goin’ nowJust like I knew you would

Well, shake it up, baby, nowTwist and shoutCome on, come on, come, come on, baby, nowCome on and work it on outYou know you twist, little girlYou know you twist so fineCome on and twist a little closer nowAnd let me know that you’re mine, woo

Ah, ah, ah, ah, wowBaby, nowTwist and shoutCome on, come on, come, come on, baby, nowCome on and work it on outYou know you twist, little girlYou know you twist so fineCome on and twist a little closer nowAnd let me know that you’re mineWell, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, nowWell, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, nowWell, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, nowAh, ah, ah, ah

Beatles – Here, There, And Everywhere

I was looking for a Beatles song to post about and I came across Hobo Moon Cartoons a while back and this new video was featured. Check the site out when you can.

What a beautiful song this is..I think it’s one of Paul’s and The Beatle’s best ballads. Paul has said before that the song was inspired by the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” off of their album Pet Sounds.

The way that John and Paul heard Pet Sounds for the first time is interesting. Beach Boy Bruce Johnston was in England in 1966 and he met a huge Beach Boy fan Keith Moon. Moon dragged him to every hip spot in London. To Johnston’s surprise and amazement…he took him to a hotel and invited John and Paul to come over and meet Johnston and listen to the Beach Boy’s new album that was about to be released. Bruce had no idea how connected the Who’s drummer was at the time. He had come to England to sightsee and maybe hype the album a little but did not expect to have an audience of John and Paul.

Keith at the time acted like he liked the album but at heart, he wanted the same old surf songs…he wasn’t expecting an art-pop album from the Beach Boys. John and Paul were knocked out by Pet Sounds and after hearing God Only Knows Paul came up with this melody and he and John finished it off. Paul said this song was around 80-20 his song. It was a full circle because Brian Wilson was inspired by Rubber Soul when writing Pet Sounds.

Paul said that John praised his songwriting only once. He said “John says just as it finishes, ‘That’s a really good song, lad. I love that song.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes! He likes it!'”

The song was on arguably the Beatle’s best album Revolver. This song was somehow not released as a single. The album peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, in Canada, and in The UK in 1966. During the 1987 CD releases, it peaked at #3 on the US Billboard Top Compact Disks Charts…seriously? I never heard of the US Billboard Top Compact Disks but that is also a chart.

Paul McCartney: “I wrote that by John’s pool one day, I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E, and soon had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up…John might have helped with a few last words…But it’s very me, it’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve written…So I would credit me pretty much 80-20 on that one.”

John Lennon: “Here, There And Everywhere’ was Paul’s song completely, I believe – and one of my favorite songs of The Beatles.”

John Lennon: “There was a period when I thought I didn’t write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock’n’roll. But of course, when I think or some of my own songs – ‘In My Life,’ or some of the early stuff, ‘This Boy’ – I was writing melody with the best of them.”

The Beatles released an animated video for this song in 2022. It was directed by Rok Predin.

Here, There, And Everywhere

To lead a better life
I need my love to be here

Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there
There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking
But she doesn’t know he’s there

I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere

Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there

I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere

Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there

I will be there
And everywhere
Here, there and everywhere

Beatles – All My Loving

This is the first song America heard on February 9, 1964, on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I love this song for one big reason. John Lennon plays a hell of a rhythm in the background. He makes it sound so deceptively easy but it’s not. I need to start focusing on some of their earlier music instead of just their late sixties tracks. I have some readers that just like their early stuff and others who like just the mid or later. I love both because it’s the same band… early, middle, or late… both have great melodies but just different tones of instruments.

What is great about the early part is their harmonies. When I played in a band we didn’t do many Beatles songs although they were being requested. If we did we did a later song like Get Back without those harmonies. It takes a band with 2 or better yet 3 singers who can do those harmonies. Not easy to do when you are teen playing instruments at the same time. We stuck with Rolling Stones and CCR songs without the complicated harmonies. Now we couldn’t do I Am The Walrus either because of the craziness of the instruments.

This song was on the first Beatles album I listened to…the American version of With The Beatles named Meet The Beatles with their faces in shadow. We had a clubhouse and my older cousin bought the album and I was hooked…for life. It’s hard not to get hooked by the songs.

On February 9th, 1964, an estimated 73 million viewers watched this much-hyped young Liverpool band perform five songs ‘live’ from CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York City. Capital Records kept rejecting Beatles songs until I Want To Hold Your Hand. A few radio stations started to play the song and soon Capitol realized that they could not reject them anymore. They didn’t like British records and only would release novelty British songs in America. When they started to get behind Meet The Beatles the dam burst.

They chose All My Loving to start the set and made an immediate good first impression and kept that huge television audience tuned in for the whole show. What separated the Beatles from other bands? The thousands of hours they already had under their belt from rocking in Hamburg, The Cavern, and all around Europe. At one point they very well could have had more hours on stage than any other rock band. Another thing was the quantity and more important the quality of the songwriting of the band that would continue to their end.

It’s a Lennon-McCartney song but mostly McCartney. The song peaked at #1 in Canada and New Zealand. It surprisingly only peaked at #45 on the Billboard 100 in 1964.

Paul McCartney: “I don’t know that I was thinking specifically of Jane Asher when I wrote this, though we were courting. It’s probably more of a reflection on what our lives were like then – leaving behind family and friends to go on tour and experience all these new adventures.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-4sOvbWjg4

All My Loving

Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
Remember I’ll always be true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my lovin’ to you

I’ll pretend that I’m kissing
The lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my lovin’ to you

All my lovin’, I will send to you
All my lovin’, darlin’, I’ll be true

Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
Remember I’ll always be true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my loving to you

All my lovin’, I will send to you
All my lovin’, darlin’, I’ll be true
All my lovin’, all my lovin’
Ooh ooh, all my lovin’, I will send to you

Ranking Beatle Albums

For anyone who has talked to me in person or through the blog…the number one choice is NOT going to be a surprise. The rest of the bunch might be a little but not number 1. It’s also an almost impossible task for me to do this. The Stones albums were easier for me to rank because of the wide selection.

I’ve seen Hanspostcard to this before but I’ve never tried it. Since it would be convoluted to include the American versions…I’m sticking with the UK versions only…except with Magical Mystery Tour. Magical Mystery Tour was released as two eps in the UK but an album in the US…now the album is considered the standard.

I was struck again by how far they came. Please Please Me and four years later I Am The Walrus. Who makes that big of a jump?

As with my Stones list a while back… I will do this on personal preference. When people mention the best Beatle album…many say Revolver or Sgt Pepper. Artistically I always thought Revolver is at the top but not personally.

The only easy selection for me was the bottom two but that doesn’t mean I don’t love them both. Many bands would make a career out of the bottom two. The hardest part was comparing the early albums with the others. That is not all…how do you compare Strawberry Fields with I Want To Hold Your Hand to Something off of Abbey Road?

I have some readers who are pro-early Beatles and some who are pro-middle to late. I’ll take them all. They were innovative to start off with…not just middle to late. I know that many will disagree and I hope you do… that’s the fun of these lists! If I made this tomorrow…only the top pick and the last two would be the same. I have over 40 revisions of this post…yea it was hard.

Yellow Submarine

13. Yellow Submarine (Soundtrack) – This was the dumping ground of the not wanted songs for a while. The Beatles would keep sending songs to this album but just because it was last doesn’t mean it wasn’t any good. The album also had songs from other albums on this one.

Favorite Song – Hey Bulldog

Beatles for Sale

12. Beatles For Sale – The cover tells the story. Beatlemania had worn them down physically and emotionally. Six out of the fourteen songs on the album are cover versions. They were good cover versions but were running low on gas at this point.

Favorite Song – No Reply

Let It Be

11. Let It Be – My love for this album has grown but I’ve always liked it. Lately, it has drawn new fans into the Beatles because of the Get Back film. Why oh why did Phil Spector leave off Don’t Let Me Down? This is another album that I hated to rank as low as I did.

Favorite Song – Two Of Us

Please Please Me

10. Please Please Me – I love this debut album. They recorded most of it in one day… on February 11, 1963. Recording this in one day shows you how well they knew their material. It takes people days just to start on an album…much less get it done. It really hurts to rank this as low as it is.

Favorite Song – Please Please Me

Magical Mystery Tour

9. Magical Mystery Tour – I remember buying this album as a kid I liked it better than Sgt Pepper at the time. Many of the songs had already appeared on singles like Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, Hello Goodbye, I Am The Walrus.

Favorite Song – Strawberry Fields Forever

With The Beatles

8. With The Beatles – This album was close to its American counterpart (Meet The Beatles) without I Want To Hold Your Hand. It had many more covers. I think Meet The Beatles could be a little better because it was totally made up of Lennon-McCartney songs with Harrison’s first original song…Don’t Bother Me.

Favorite Song – It Won’t Be Long (one of my favorite Beatles songs of all time)

Help!

7. Help! – For me this album gets underrated and this is where you can start hearing the change between Beatlemania and more mature Beatle music. It opens the door for Rubber Soul and then Revolver.

Favorite Song – The Night Before

Abbey Road

6. Abbey Road – This album has been said to sound more modern than the other Beatles albums. The reason is they recorded on a 16-track recorder just installed at the time in Abbey Road. It was the last album they all worked on together.

Favorite Song – The “mini pop opera” on side B

Sgt Pepper

5. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The most famous album of the Beatles and quite possibly of all time. As John Lennon said it wasn’t really a concept album after the first two tracks and the refrain…it worked because they said it worked. If The Beatles would have included Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane…this could be my number 1.

Favorite Song: perhaps my favorite of all time… A Day In The Life

Rubber Soul

4. Rubber Soul – This was known as their pivotal album. I think Help! was the album that you started to know the change between the early Beatles and mid-Beatles but this one was full-blown. It shows their folk and drug influence with their great melodies.

Favorite Song – In My Life

A Hard Day's Night

3. A Hard Day’s Night (Soundtrack) – I think this is the best album they released during the Beatlemania days and on some days it could be listed even higher. Songs such as the title track, Tell Me Why, I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, Anytime At All, and many more.

Favorite Song – I’ll Cry Instead

Revolver

2. Revolver – I think Revolver is the Beatle’s best album artistically. It’s not the most popular with the masses but it’s a masterpiece of an album. I’m biased but this one or Pet Sounds? I would take Revolver any day of the week…and I love Pet Sounds! It’s as close to a perfect album as you can get.

Favorite Song – Tomorrow Never Knows

The White Album

The Beatles (White Album) – This not only is my favorite Beatles album…but my favorite album of all time. It gives such a wide palette of music… there is something that everyone would like on here somewhere. Unlike Abbey Road or Sgt Pepper…it’s not slick…it’s them playing in a room. I like the well-known songs and I love the album tracks even more. Actually, all are album tracks technically because there were no singles (except for an overseas single) from this album. Songs included Back in the USSR, Helter Skelter, Dear Prudence, Sexy Sadie, Cry Baby Cry, Revolution 1, and so many more.

Favorite Song: Sexy Sadie

Billy Preston – That’s The Way God Planned It

A soulful song by Billy Preston that was produced by his friend George Harrison. It was released in 1969 on Apple Records. This song had an ALL-STAR band backing it. George told Preston he would “invite some of his friends” over. Billy had no idea those friends were Eric Clapton on guitar, Keith Richards on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. That alone makes the song worth listening to. Also, the backup vocals were done by Doris Troy and Madeline Bell.

This song peaked at #62 on the Billboard 100 Charts, #61 in Canada, and #11 in the UK in 1969.

Preston was good friends with the Beatles…playing on the Let It Be album and the Get Back film. They signed him to Apple Records after getting him out of his contract with Capitol Records. He ended up with 5 top 5 hits including 2 number 1’s. He also toured with the Rolling Stones throughout the seventies.

The album was called That’s the Way God Planned It and it peaked also at #62 in the Billboard Album Charts. Critic David Fricke said: “Preston would have bigger hits in the Seventies but never make a better one than this album’s rapturous title track … The rest of the album is solid church-infused soul, with Preston covering both Bob Dylan and W.C. Handy.”

In 1979, after a few years without a hit, he would hit the charts again with Syreeta Wright on the ballad “With You I’m Born Again.” Preston suffered from kidney disease in his later years and would pass away on June 6, 2006.

Billy Preston: “I first met [them] in Hamburg in 1962, I was backing Little Richard and they were just one of 14 other groups. They used to dedicate ‘Taste Of Honey’ and ‘Love Me Do’ to me and they were the only group I bothered to watch.”

That’s The Way God Planned It

Why can’t we be humbleLike the good Lord saidHe promised to exalt usFor love is the way

How men be so greedyWhen there’s so much leftAll things are God givenAnd they all have been blessed

That’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants it to be, didn’t HeWell, that’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants it to be, for you and meYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Let not your heart be troubledLet mourning sobbing ceaseLearn to help one anotherAnd live in perfect peace

If we just be humbleLike the good Lord saidHe promised to exalt usFor love is the way

That’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants it to be, doesn’t HeYou better believe meThat’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants it to be, for you and meYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

That’s the way, alrightCome on, come on, come on

I hope you get this messageAnd where you won’t others willYou don’t understand meBut I’ll love you still

That’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants it to beYou better believe meThat’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants, He wants it to be

That’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants it to beYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahThat’s the way God planned itThat’s the way God wants it to beOh, yeah

…

Beatles – Christmas Time Is Here Again

It’s that time of year…and this is one-holiday song that is on my list and not worn out. I first heard this in 1994 when I bought the Beatles Anthology album. I never knew of this song before. this song was never officially released until it appeared as the B-side to “Free As A Bird” in 1994. I’ve posted it every year since I’ve blogged and will continue to do so…it’s repetitive butI like it…it drives home the point.

My friend Dave posted this song last year and he has more info than I do so check it out.

The song is credited to Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey. The original version was distributed to The Beatles fan club in 1967. It’s the only song ever written specifically for the Beatles Fan Club members. Along with the Beatles…actor Victor Spinetti and roadie Mal Evans were on the recording.

Between December 1963 to December 1969, sent out 7 flexi discs that had spoken and musical messages to their official fan clubs in the UK and the US at Christmas time.

The Beatles recorded this in 1967 and wasn’t released until 1994 paired with “Free As A Bird”. It is a fun Christmas song that will stick in your head. The Beatles did not release a Christmas song commercially… only to their fan club when they were active.

Many performers of this era like The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons released Christmas songs, but The Beatles never had an official Christmas release.

Christmas time is here again

Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again

Ain’t been round since you know when
Christmas time is here again
O-U-T spells “out”

Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again

Ain’t been round since you know when
Christmas time is here again
O-U-T spells “out”

Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again

Ain’t been round since you know when
Christmas time…[music continues and fades to background]

[spoken]

This is Paul McCartney here, I’d just like to wish you everything you wish yourself for Christmas.

This is John Lennon saying on behalf of the Beatles, have a very Happy Christmas and a good New Year.

George Harrison speaking. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas, listeners everywhere.

This is Ringo Starr and I’d just like to say Merry Christmas and a really Happy New Year to all listeners

[a John Lennon pastiche at this point, very hard to understand]

Paul McCartney – All Things Must Pass

No, I didn’t type the artist wrong.

It was touching to see Paul cover this great George Harrison song in the Concert For George…a year after George passed away. I don’t think Paul really got this song until he performed it. Not only did he do it in that concert but he would play it live occasionally after that. He knocks it out of the park with this version.

It’s simply one of the best songs George ever wrote. It was the title track of his debut album released in 1971. The song was worked up with the Beatles during the Get Back sessions and started to sound really good. It wasn’t rejected…they just moved on with different songs. There were songs they worked up that ended up on McCartney’s debut album as well. The same with John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth.

A few days before George passed…Paul and Ringo joined him and talked about old times. George also told Paul to start getting along with Yoko because as he very well knew…life is too short. Paul did just that.

Paul McCartney: “I sat with him for a few hours when he was in treatment just outside New York. He was about 10 days away from his death, as I recall. We joked about things – just amusing, nutty stuff. It was good. It was like we were dreaming. He was my little baby brother, almost, because I’d known him that long. We held hands. It’s funny, even at the height of our friendship – as guys – you would never hold hands. It just wasn’t a Liverpool thing. But it was lovely.”

Eric Clapton: The only minor difficulty arose over who should sing “Something.” Olivia thought I should sing it. Paul McCartney had been doing it on the ukulele in his shows and wanted to do it that way, and I wanted Paul to sing “All Things Must Pass,” which I considered the key song of the whole event. In the end, we compromised and Paul and I did “Something” as a duet, and later in the show he performed a brilliantly soulful version of “All Things.” It was a great night, and everybody who was there or has seen the DVD agrees that it was the perfect sendoff for a man we all loved, and who gave us over the years so much beautiful music.

‘Those guys’ (Beatles) inability to express love for one another was classic, the exception is Ringo, who says [in the film], ‘I love George, and George loved me.’ That wouldn’t have been so easy for Paul.’”

“Paul had to admit that he didn’t know ‘All Things Must Pass,’ and that was an awful thing to confront. It was huge humble-pie stuff for Paul to be among these people who he may have thought had a better relationship with George than he did.

“But I believe Paul missed George as much as — if not more than — anybody.”

All Things Must Pass

Sunrise doesn’t last all morningA cloudburst doesn’t last all daySeems my love is up and has left you with no warningIt’s not always gonna be this grey

All things must passAll things must pass away

Sunset doesn’t last all eveningA mind can blow those clouds awayAfter all this, my love is up and must be leavingIt’s not always gonna be this grey

All things must passAll things must pass away

All things must passNone of life’s strings can lastSo, I must be on my wayAnd face another day

Now the darkness only stays the night timeIn the morning it will fade awayDaylight is good at arriving at the right timeIt’s not always gonna be this grey

All things must passAll things must pass awayAll things must passAll things must pass away

Beatles – I Me Mine

George’s contribution to Let It Be included For You Blue and today’s song I Me Mine. The song was very significant in Beatles history as you read on. It was the last song they recorded, minus John, until the 90s.

George Harrison wrote this song and sang lead. He said it is “About the ego, the eternal problem.” The version we hear on Let It Be didn’t have John Lennon who was away at the time.

In the Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita, the following verse is found: “They are forever free who renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego-cage of I-me-mine, to be united with the Lord. This is the supreme state; attain to this and pass from death to immortality.”

This uses a 3/4 time signature like a waltz, rather than the standard 4/4. With a rather mournful sound, Harrison called it a “heavy waltz.” The first version The Beatles recorded ran just 1:34, and had only one chorus. The album’s producer, Phil Specter, copied and pasted parts of that recording to make the song 2:25.

The song wasn’t going to be in the film but when Allen Klein, made a deal with United Artists to release the project it was included. When Let It Be Naked came out in 2003 this was one of the few songs McCartney decided to leave as it was. I will have to say though that I do like that release that took away Spector’s production…or overproduction of some of the numbers.

When I first watched Let It Be in the 80s I remember this well because Lennon and Ono waltzed around the huge studio to this song. You always think of The Beatles ending in the sixties but on January 3, 1970, Paul, George, and Ringo got together to work on some of the songs. It would be the last time those three recorded together until the 90s with The Beatles anthology. Sixteen takes were laid down of “I Me Mine,” featuring Harrison on acoustic and lead vocal, McCartney on bass, and Starr on drums. Backing vocals, Hammond Organ and electric piano from McCartney, and a lead guitar by Harrison were added toward the end of the session.

Supposedly after the 12th take, Harrison led the group through an impromptu run-through of Buddy Holly’s 1959 hit “Peggy Sue Got Married,” which if it’s true…has not been released. This short version of I Me Mine was included in the Beatles Anthology.

Harrison’s 1980 autobiography is also titled “I Me Mine.”

George Harrison: “It was the TV, you see, that science fiction thing (referring to an episode of “Out Of The Unknown: Immortality Inc.”), but then it suddenly turned into that crap about medals and things. That’s what gave me the idea. Suddenly it was the bit where they were all coming into the ball. I think it was Austria, and they all had their medals. And there was some music that was just playing…like a 3/4 thing. Some things like that happen where you just hear something, and it registers in your head as something else. And so I just had it my head, just the waltz thing, and it was fitting…It’s like one of those things where they’re all swaying!”

*** Unfortunately, I was going to try to see that episode but The BBC in their infinite wisdom wiped this episode. No known copy is known to exist. *** When he said “it turned into that crap about medals” he was talking about a show called Europa: The Titled and the Unentitled that must have followed “Out of the Unknown.”

I Me Mine

All through’ the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through’ the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Now they’re frightened of leaving it
Ev’ryone’s weaving it
Coming on strong all the time
All through’ the day I me mine

I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine
I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No-one’s frightened of playing it
Ev’ryone’s saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through’ the day I me mine

I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine
I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine

December 8, 1980…Lennon

Damn this date. Every Dec 8th I can’t help but think of where I was when I heard. Last year the release of Get Back only heightened the anger and confusion over what happened. I post this post every year on this terrible date and will continue. I have updated it each time and I’ve almost rewritten it since I posted it first back in 2018…and if it’s too long now I apologize. I STILL feel what I felt on that date. Although to be accurate it was on December 9th that I found out…the next morning getting ready for school.

When I watched the news clips I felt like an interloper because all of these fans that were sobbing grew up with Lennon in real-time…I was this 13-year-old kid who was late to the party…a decade late.

It’s odd to think the Beatles had only been broken up for 10 years when this happened…to a 13-year-old at the time…that was a lifetime but in reality, it’s nothing. To put it in perspective… it’s now 2022 and 10 years ago was 2012…that doesn’t seem that long ago. I was only 2 years old when the Beatles broke up so I had no clue.

Since second grade (1975), I’ve been listening to the Beatles. While a lot of kids I knew listened and talked about modern music …I just couldn’t relate as much. By the time I was ten I had read every book about The Beatles I could get my hands on. In a small middle TN town…it wasn’t too many. I was after their generation but I knew the importance of what they did…plus just great music. The more I got into them the more I learned about the Who, Stones, and the Kinks. I wanted to get my hands on every book about the music of the 1960s. Just listening to the music wasn’t enough…I wanted to know the history.

I spent that Monday night playing albums in my room. Monday night I didn’t turn the radio on…I’m glad I didn’t…The next morning I got up to go to school and the CBS morning news was on. The sound was turned down but the news was showing Beatle video clips. I was wondering why they were showing them but didn’t think much of it.

Curious, I turned the television on and found out that John Lennon had been shot and killed. I was very angry and shocked. The bus ride to school was quiet… at school, it was quiet as well. Some teachers were affected because John was their generation. Some of my friends were shocked but some didn’t get the significance at the time and some didn’t care. A few but not many acted almost gleeful which pissed me off…It was apparent their parents were talking through them. I never said swore words as a kid…it would have embarrassed me…I knew all the words but I never would have except for one particular kid on the bus…after he seemed to be happy about it he got a F**k yourself from yours truly. Not my finest moment as a child but the first time I swore in anger…no regrets here.

I went out and bought the White Album, Abbey Road, and Double Fantasy in late December of 1980…I can’t believe I didn’t have the two Beatles albums already…now whenever I hear any song from those albums they remind me of the winter of 80-81. I remember the call-in shows on the radio then…pre-internet… people calling to share their feelings for John or hatred for the killer.

The next few weeks I saw footage of the Beatles on specials that I had never seen before. Famous and non-famous people pouring their hearts out over the grief. Planned tributes from bands and everyone asking the same question…why?

My young mind could not process why a person would want to do this to a musician. A politician yea…I could see that…not that it’s right but this? A musician? Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and JFK were before my time. By the mid-1970s John had pretty much dropped out of sight…John and Yoko released Double Fantasy on November 17, 1980, and suddenly they were everywhere…Less than a month later John was murdered. The catchwords were Catcher in the Rye, Hawaii, handgun, and insane. The next day we were duly informed who killed John in the First, Middle, and Last name format they assign to murderers. I won’t mention his name.

I didn’t want to know his name, his career, his wife’s name, his childhood…I just wanted to know why… he says now…” attention”

I noticed a change happened after that Monday night. John Lennon was instantly turned into a saint, something he would have said was preposterous. Paul suddenly became the square and the uncool one and George and Ringo turned into just mere sidemen. Death has a way of elevating you in life. After the Anthology came out in the 90s that started to change back a little.

I called my dad a few days after it happened and he said that people were more concerned that The Beatles would never play again than the fact a man, father, and husband was shot and killed. He was right and I was among those people until he said that. Dad was never a fan…he was more Elvis, Little Richard, and country music… but he made his point. When my father passed in 2005 I thought about this conversation and knew he was teaching me again.

It was odd being into the Beatles at such a young age and after their time so to speak. While my peers were talking about all the contemporary artists at the time…all I talked about were John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I would end up comparing all the new music I heard to theirs…and that wasn’t fair at all. I would think to myself…well this song (any new song at the time) wasn’t as good as Strawberry Fields and so on. I, fortunately, grew out of that but it took a while.

Below is a video of James Taylor telling on how he met the killer a day before Lennon was murdered. Also Howard Sterns broadcast the day after.

…

Beatles – Rocky Raccoon

This coming weekend I’m going to attempt a Beatles album ranking post which I’ve never done… so I’ve been listening to the White Album. Rocky Raccoon is a great way to start out the week

I bought the White Album in the winter of 1981 right after John Lennon was murdered. It has remained my favorite album ever by far. You have such a variety on this album and it gives you different glances at the Beatles without many studio tricks and sounds.

This song starts with a strumming guitar and then comes Paul talking/singing in his best western voice. Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon.

The main character was originally called Rocky Sassoon but McCartney changed it to Raccoon, as he thought the name was more cowboyish.

The original title of the album was going to be “A Doll’s House“… but the band Family used the title Music from a Doll’s House for its debut album, so The Beatles scrapped the idea. The album’s real name ended up being “The Beatles” but the plain white cover nickname soon took over. From some accounts here is the original cover.

In 1968, McCartney got the idea for it when he was playing guitar with John Lennon and Donovan Leitch at the Maharishi’s camp in India. Rocky in the song is a cowboy in the old west and challenges Dan when Dan ran off with Rocky’s girl. In the gunfight, Dan is too quick and shoots Rocky wounding him. When the song was recorded… Beatles producer George Martin played the piano in an old-west saloon style.

Rocky in this song is not a raccoon but a boy whose girl runs off with his rival, Dan. The song is set in the Old West, so Rocky does what any self-respecting cowboy would do: he challenges Dan to a gunfight. Unfortunately for Rocky, he Dan is quick on the draw and shoots him first, wounding Rocky and proving himself worthy of the girl.

The album peaked at #1 in the US, Canada, UK, and just about everywhere in 1968.

Paul McCartney: “Rocky was me writing (speaks-sings in a baccy-chewing old prospector voice), ‘It was way back in the hills of Dakota-or Arkansas-in the mining days. And it was tough, picking shovels, and we were underground 24 hours a day…’ I could have taken this serious route, researched it – ‘Take This Hammer’ (a prison work song recorded by British skiffle star Lonnie Donegan in 1959), stuff I’d been brought up on. But at that point I was a little tongue-in cheek. So I crossed it with a (British singer and banjo player popular in the 1940s) George Formby sensibility, where John and I would go (sings a bit of doggerel in a choppy rhythm) – Stanley Holloway, Albert in The Lion’s Den (the comic poem The Lion and Albert, written by Holloway’s creative partner Marriott Edgar in 1932). We were very versed in all that stuff (sings opening lines of Rocky Raccoon in the same choppy way). The scanning of the poetical stanza always interested me. Somehow this little story unfolded itself.

I was basically spoofing ‘the folk-singer.’ And it included Gideon’s Bible, which I’ve seen in every hotel I’ve ever been in. You open the drawer and there it is! Who’s this guy Gideon! I still don’t know to this day who the heck he is. I’m sure he’s a very well-meaning guy. Rocky Raccoon was a freewheeling thing, the fun of mixing a folky ramble with Albert In The Lion’s Den with its ”orse’s ‘ead ‘andle,’ ha ha.”

Many cover versions have been recorded. Some of the artists are Richie Havens, Ramsey Lewis, Jack Johnson, Andrew Gold, James Blunt, Phish, Jimmy Buffett, Maureen McGovern, Kingston Wall, Charlie Parr, and Andy Fairweather Low.

Rocky Raccoon

Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
Hit young Rocky in the eye
Rocky didn’t like that
He said, “I’m gonna get that boy”
So one day he walked into town
Booked himself a room in the local saloon

Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible
Rocky had come, equipped with a gun
To shoot off the legs of his rival
His rival it seems, had broken his dreams
By stealing the girl of his fancy
Her name was Magill, and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy
Now she and her man, who called himself Dan
Were in the next room at the hoe down
Rocky burst in, and grinning a grin
He said, “Danny boy, this is a showdown”
But Daniel was hot, he drew first and shot
And Rocky collapsed in the corner

Now the doctor came in, stinking of gin
And proceeded to lie on the table
He said, “Rocky, you met your match”
And Rocky said, “Doc, it’s only a scratch
And I’ll be better, I’ll be better, Doc, as soon as I am able”

Now Rocky Raccoon, he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible
Gideon checked out, and he left it, no doubt
To help with good Rocky’s revival

Paul McCartney – The Back Seat Of My Car

This is an overlooked McCartney song on his album Ram. It’s close to pop perfection. He wrote it when he was still with the Beatles. You can hear some of it on Get Back. It sounds like Paul and Brian Wilson merged together.

This song charted in the UK in 1971 at #39. Paul wasn’t the most popular Beatle out of the gate. Much of the public still blamed him for the Beatle’s split because he was the one that officially announced it to the world. The other Beatles weren’t really happy with him either because he was suing them. The critics were after him for being too pop. His first album McCartney and this one, Ram were not well received when released.

After time these albums are favorably reviewed. Ram has been called the first alternative album by some modern critics. The Back Seat Of My Car was McCartney’s second single release in the UK but it wasn’t released as a single the US. Uncle Albert – Admiral Halsey was the first single released from the album and it peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, in Canada, and New Zealand.

There were some lines in this song that John Lennon thought were directed at him and Yoko. Specifically, “We believe that we can’t be wrong.”Paul did get the help of the New York Philharmonic to provide the orchestral accompaniment on this song.

Paul McCartney: “Back Seat of My Car” is the ultimate teenage song, and even though it was a long time since I was a teenager and had to go to a girl’s dad and explain myself, it’s that kind of meet-the-parents song. It’s a good old driving song. [Sings] “We can make it to Mexico City.” I’ve never driven to Mexico City, but it’s imagination. And obviously “back seat” is snogging, making love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_EMEf6EA20

The Back Seat Of My Car

Speed along the highway, honey I want it my way
But listen to her daddy’s song, don’t stay out to long
Were just busy hidin’, sitting in the back seat of my car

The lazy lights are pretty, we end up in Mexico City
But listen to her daddy’s song, makin’ love is wrong
Were just busy ridin’, sitting in the back seat of my car

Oh we was only hidin’, sitting in the back seat of my car
And when we’ve finished drivin’ we can say we were late in arriving
And listen to her daddy’s song, we believe that we can’t be wrong
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong

We can make it to Mexico City, sittin’ in the backseat of my car

Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong
No no no no
Ohhh we believe that we can’t be wrong

…

The Music of 1968

Dave from A Sound Day (check out the other posts on Dave’s “Turntable Talk”) posted this on November 5, 2022. He wanted a group of us to write about what we thought was the best year in music…I ended up picking the turbulent year of 1968.

When I think of the best year of music …for me it’s between 7 years. I would pick 1965 through 1971. I cannot pick all so here it goes…I pick 1968. It had some of the greatest albums and singles ever.

It was a turbulent year, to say the least. We lost two proponents of peace—Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Other events include the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive, riots in Washington, DC, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and heightened social unrest over the Vietnam War, values, and race.

The music was also toughened up by moving away from psychedelic music. The social climate and The Band’s album Music from Big Pink had a lot of influence on this. You still had psychedelic music released but overall, music was more stripped down to the basics.

My favorite album of all time was released by The Beatles. My favorite album by The Rolling Stones was released that year as well. Let’s look at the albums released in 1968…it’s outstanding.

The Beatles – The Beatles (The White Album)

The Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet

The Kinks – Are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Band – Music From Big Pink

Small Faces – Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland

Cream – Wheel Of Fire

The Byrds – Sweetheart Of The Rodeo

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Big Brother and Holding Company – Cheap Thrills

Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison

The Zombies – Odyssey and Oracle

The Grateful Dead – Anthem of the Sun

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

Aretha Franklin – Lady Soul

Simon and Garfunkel – Bookends

Traffic – Traffic

That list could be on my desert island list… those albums are still being played today. I’ve only scratched the surface of the albums that year.

The Holy Trinity of Rock all released music that year… which would be The Beatles, The Who, and The Stones. I can’t imagine living in the era when these bands were in their prime and roamed the earth. The Who didn’t release an album, but they did release some singles and were gearing up for the following year. Let’s look at some of the singles of that year.

The Beatles – Hey Jude/Revolution

The Beatles – Lady Madonna

The Who – Magic Bus

The Rolling Stones – Jumping Jack Flash

Steppenwolf – Born To Be Wild

The Doors – Hello, I Love You

The Rascals – People Got To Be Free

Cream – Sunshine Of Your Love

Otis Redding – The Dock of the Bay

The Supremes – Love Child

The Chamber Brothers – Time Has Come Today

Janis Joplin – Piece of My Heart

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Suzie Q

Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends

The year featured the debut album of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Brian Jones made his final album with the Rolling Stones and it was the start of their great 5 album stretch. The Who started to record the album that would break them worldwide with Tommy. Dock of the Bay would be released posthumously after Otis Redding died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967. The Grateful Dead would release their second album Anthem of the Sun and continue to build one of the largest fan bases ever. Jimi Hendrix was breaking barriers with his experimentation in the studio as well as live.

The Band would change the game by releasing Music From Big Pink. It influenced nearly everyone at the time to go back to a rootsy kind of music. Fleetwood Mac would release their debut album this year. Jeff Beck would release his legendary album Truth.

FM radio was getting huge at this time and showed that audiences didn’t have to have top 40 hits to buy albums. Take Van Morrison for instance. Astral Weeks didn’t have a “hit” on the album but continued to be played and sell. The Beatles The White Album is as diverse as you can get… Pop, Rock, Country, Folk, Reggae, Avant-Gard, Blues, Hard Rock, and some 20’s British Music Hall thrown in for good measure. No singles were released from this album or Sgt Pepper the previous year. They treated singles and albums as two different things. Hey Jude and the hit version of Revolution was recorded during the White Album but yet they left those two off. The Stones would do the same and leave off Jumpin’ Jack Flash from Beggars Banquet.

1968 set the stage for the coming decade’s rock music. Bands like The Who, Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin didn’t need hit singles. You bought the album now and listened to the music in the context of that format. There were still pop/rock singles but the albums were gaining traction.

To wrap it up…I think any of the years between 1965-1971 could have a strong argument for my tastes. If you are into disco or synth music…not as much.

Carl Perkins – Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby

I learned about Carl Perkins through George Harrison and The Beatles. On their first tour, they all adopted “stage names” and George’s was George Perkins. A wonderful title for this song.

This gets kind of confusing. It was written by Carl Perkins, but it’s also very similar to another song by the same title by Alabama country singer Rex Griffon in 1936. Carl modernized it by the same sound he was getting out of Blue Suede Shoes.” Meanwhile, the melody was also borrowed from the Hank Williams song “Move It On Over” and “Mind Your Own Business.” Rock Around The Clock also borrowed from this. Anyway…it is credited to Carl Perkins.

Carl Perkins was on the rise fast in 1956. He just had 3 top-10 hits in that year. On March 22, 1956, Perkins was severely injured when the car he was riding in crashed on Route 13 between Dover and Woodside, Delaware. Perkins and his band were headed to New York City for a Mar. 24, 1956, appearance on NBC-TV’s Perry Como Show after playing a show in Norfolk, Virginia, on Mar. 21, 1956. Perkins had sustained three fractured vertebrae in his neck, a severe concussion, a broken collar bone, and lacerations all over his body. Perkins remained unconscious for an entire day.

Worse than that…his brother Jay Perkins had a fractured neck and severe internal injuries. Later he developed a malignant brain tumor and died in 1958. It had been planned on the Como show to present Carl with a gold record for Blue Suede shoes. When the wreck happened the song had peaked at #1 on the Country Charts and #2 on the Hot 100. Perkin’s career was never the same after that.

After 1956 he had 6 more top 40 hits in the country charts but never a top 10 hit again. One of those songs peaked at #31 in 1986 called “Birth of Rock and Roll.” Throughout the rockabilly revival of the 80s Perkins worked with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and many more.

Carl Perkins continued to achieve many successes throughout his career, such as writing the 1968 number one country hit “Daddy Sang Bass” as recorded by Johnny Cash as well as Glen Campbell and The Statler Brothers. He played for about ten years with Johnny Cash, playing lead guitar on Cash’s number one country hit “A Boy Named Sue.” He even appeared on the Johnny Cash Show playing “Matchbox” with Derek And The Dominoes.

Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby was recorded in March of 1956 in Sun Studios with no other than Sam Phillips producing.

The Beatle’s version was recorded their version on October 18, 1964. They did it in one take not counting Ringo overdubbing a tambourine and George doubling his voice. It was released on the Album Beatles for Sale released in December of 1964. It was not their best album by any stretch. They were worn out and the album included a lot of covers. The album was not available in the United States and Canada until 1987. The song appeared on their US-only album Beatles 65.

George Harrison sang lead because he was a huge fan of Perkins. It was his showcase song on early tours.