Paul McCartney – Page 3 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Paul McCartney – Let Me Roll It

This song has always reminded me of a John Lennon-type song because of the heavy use of echo and the raw riff. The song was on arguably Paul’s best album Band on the Run. The song was the B side to the song Jet in 1974. I like some of the Wings material…this one to me is in the top tier.

Let Me Roll is in my top two of McCartney’s Wings songs along with Juinor’s Farm. It’s a song our band played a lot and it’s powerful live. I’m not a huge fan of Wings but I’ve been digging into them after finishing a huge McCartney book called The McCartney Legacy.

McCartney wanted to record this album somewhere remote and not in the same old studios in London. He picked Lagos Nigeria to record partly thinking that his family could hit the beach and have a nice time. That didn’t happen for Wings. Before they were set to go guitarist Henry Mccullough quit and a week later drummer Denny Seiwell quit.

At that point, Paul had only two other Wings members. Linda McCartney and Denny Laine. A big problem at the time was that money was tight. The reason money was Paul hadn’t seen his royalties from any of his Wings albums or even Let It Be because all of it had gone into Apple. The same with John, George, and Ringo. Everything was tied up with Allen Klein.

The three set off to Lagos and recorded at the EMI studio there which was severely underequipped. Ginger Baker had a studio down there and was unhappy that Paul didn’t record at his place. They did end up going there and recording Picasso’s Last Words there.

Wings were not welcomed by Feti Kuti, a huge musician there, because he thought Paul was there to steal their music. Around 40 angry people including Kuti went into the studio to confront Paul so Denny Laine called Ginger Baker. He came out to diffuse the situation. You know it was pretty bad when Baker plays the peacemaker.

Also, Paul and Linda were told NOT to wander off of the compound they were staying at because it was unsafe. Paul and Linda took a chance and left at dark and started to walk down a dirt road and a car pulled up and robbed them at knifepoint. Linda probably saved their lives by letting the robbers know who Paul was…they were lucky they were not killed.

They managed to record most of the album there and saved most of the overdubbing until they got back to London. When Paul’s back was to the wall…he pulled off what I think is his best solo album.

Paul McCartney: Let Me Roll It was a riff, originally, a great riff to play, and whenever we played it live, it goes down great. We’d play it on two guitars, and people saw it later as a kind of John pastiche, as Lennon-ish, Lennon-esque. Which I don’t mind. That could have been a Beatles song. Me and John would have sung that good.”

Let Me Roll It

You gave me something
I understand
You gave me loving in the palm of my hand

I can’t tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you

I want to tell you
And now’s the time
I want to tell you that
You’re going to be mine

I can’t tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you

You gave me something
I understand
You gave me loving in the palm of my hand

I can’t tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you

Beatles – Now And Then

I have been hyped about this because I’m not old enough to remember The Beatles when they were together. In the 90s when Free As A Bird came out I was so excited because it was the first time I ever heard a “new” Beatles song. I’ve been waiting for Paul to finish this song for 27 years. I thought it would end up just being him finishing it or not at all. My son Bailey is excited also. He was born in 2000 so he didn’t even get to hear Free As A Bird much less The Beatles as an active band. I think he is more excited than I am.

The thing that I’m happy about the most after listening to it is the great sound. They didn’t try to make it fit with everyone else now. The mix sounds lively and not flat and compressed to death like a lot of recordings. I’m listening through headphones and they did a hell of a job on it.

Over 700 radio stations will play the song when it’s released.

This song is not one of John’s best but it sounds great hearing John Lennon again. This will be the last single from them and for me, this is my musical event of the year.

This came about because of Peter Jackson’s advancements in audio technology while working on Get Back. He took John’s voice off of the 1978 cassette tape and it’s clean. They ran into a buzz on the tape before and could not finish it in the 90s.

Is this the best song ever by them? No, it’s not but it’s a nice send-off. On the single version, the B-Side is appropriately their first single Love Me Do. The video (out tomorrow) was directed by Peter Jackson.

What a long road this song took to get here.

12-Minute Bio on the song.

Now and Then

I know it’s true, it’s all because of you
And if I make it through, it’s all because of you
And now and then, if we must start again
Well we will know for sure, that I love you

I don’t want to lose you – oh no, no, no
Lose you or abuse you – oh no, no, no, sweet doll
But if you have to go, away
If you have to go
Nda-da-doo, doo-doo-doo

Now and then, I miss you
Oh now and then, I want you to return on me
And now return to me…

I know it’s true, it’s all because of you
And if you go away, I know you you’ll nev’… stay

I don’t want to lose you – oh no, no, no
Abuse you or confuse you – oh no, no, no, sweet darl’
But if you had to go,
Well I won’t stop you babe
And if you had to go, well you believe in that love

Beatles – The Ballad of John and Yoko

This song was on the first album I ever bought by the Beatles. It was a greatest hits package called Hey Jude Again when I was eight. This song I liked right away as I was learning about the band. Ask a Beatle fan what their opinion of Yoko is…and you will get different answers but I would safely say more negative. Don’t count me as a fan. She gets blamed for breaking the Beatles up. I think Allen Klein deserves more of the blame but not all…

It’s John, George, and Ringo who followed Klein and later paid millions for it but not as dearly as The Stones. Klein ended up with rights to all of their 1960s catalog. Paul’s lawsuit against the Beatles and Klein stopped Klein from doing more damage. I do think the Beatles broke up at a perfect time. Closing a career with Abbey Road…is about as good as it gets.

This song…was written obviously by Lennon but it wasn’t a true Beatles recording. Only John and Paul played on the recording. Despite the business BS going on…the music still worked between the two. John played all of the guitars and lead vocals and Paul played drums, bass, and backing vocals. George was out of town and Ringo was filming a movie. The song is a true story about John and Yoko getting married.

It was banned by many stations in America and the UK because of the line “Christ, you know it ain’t easy.” The song was supposedly written, recorded, and mixed on the same day…April 14, 1969. John didn’t like spending a long time in a studio and would do this later on with Instant Karma. He liked minimum production in those days.

John and Yoko were married on March 20, 1969, in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on Spain’s south coast.

The song peaked at #1 in the UK, #8 on the Billboard 100, #7 in Canada, and #2 in New Zealand in 1969. At the time, it was a non-album single with the George Harrison song Old Brown Shoe as the B side. It would later be on Hey Jude Again.

A small side note…as an eight-year-old, I did learn about Holland, France, Paris, Gibraltar, and Spain. I told my mom that I would like her to drive me to France please…hey give me a break…I was 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVnSh-93tlk

The Ballad of John and Yoko

Standing in the dock at Southampton
Trying to get to Holland or France.
The man in the mac said you’ve got to go back,
You know they didn’t even give us a chance.

Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.
Finally made the plane into Paris,
Honeymooning down by the Seine.

Peter Brown called to say,
You can make it OK,
You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain.

Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.

Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton,
Talking in our beds for a week.
The newspapers said, say what’re you doing in bed,
I said we’re only trying to get us some peace.

Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.
Saving up your money for a rainy day,
Giving all your clothes to charity.

Last night the wife said,
Oh boy, when you’re dead you
Don’t take nothing with you but your soul think!
Made a lightning trip to Vienna,
Eating chocolate cake in a bag.

The newspapers said,
She’s gone to his head,
They look just like two Gurus in a drag.
Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.

The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me.
Caught the early plane back to London,
Fifty acorns tied in a sack.
The men from the press said we wish you success,
It’s good to have the both of you back.

Christ! You know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
They’re going to crucify me

The Beatles Website Updated

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This morning they updated it with an announcement with the link below…The new song will be out on November 2, 2023.

Now and Then will be released on 11-2-23…Here is the Announcement

So the Beatles and Stones released something new…this is pretty cool. I wasn’t around when the Beatles were together…I was 3 when they broke up. Like 1995 and 96 I am looking forward to hearing it.

The song will be paired with Love Me Do…appropriately the first single they released and now the last.

https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/the-beatles-final-song-now-and-then-release-date-details-1235454695/

Max Picks …songs from 1974

1974

After appearing on the covers of Time and Newsweek in October 1975, Springsteen sometimes changed the words to “Tell your papa I ain’t no freak, ’cause I got my picture on the cover of Time and Newsweek” when he performed it live. This wasn’t a “hit” at the time but it still lives on in classic radio and is a key song in Bruce’s catalog.

I’ve seen Bruce do this song live and it is special. It’s one of the best live songs I’ve ever heard along with The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again. The song is exciting as he pleads with Rosie and calls out the nicknames of their friends.

I was around 7 years old when this was released. I remember being in a tire swing in my Aunt’s front yard when I heard this Hollies on a radio that was playing from a car that someone was working on. I still remember smelling the grass and the green surroundings of that day.

This song would be way up in my favorite songs ever. Graham Nash had left by this time and the band turned a corner when he had gone. They went from a pop sixties band to more of a rock/pop band with hits like Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress, He Ain’t Heavy (He’s My Brother), and finally this song which was their last top ten hit in the US and Canada. It was written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood.

Great song great music great voice. This song was performed by Rufus with Chaka Khan and written by Stevie Wonder. The Talk-Box which Frampton later used sounds great in this song.

Rufus evolved from a group called The American Breed, who had a hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me.” They took their name from a column in Popular Mechanics magazine called “Ask Rufus,” later shortened to Rufus when Chaka Khan joined the band in 1972.

Paul McCartney‘s Band on the Run was one of his best songs since the Beatles. This song fell in a grey area. The album was released in December of 1973 but the single was released in April of 1974 so it could have gone in either year.

The song was recorded in two parts, in different sessions. The first two were taped in Lagos while the third section was recorded in October 1973 at AIR Studios in London. Paul was robbed at knifepoint in Lagos, Nigeria and they took the tapes that he had at the time. They were never recovered and Paul figured they recorded over them.

The song was off the album Band On The Run which was I think Paul’s best solo album. It was written by Paul and Linda McCartney.

Trying to figure out Elton’s lyrics has always been interesting…not what they mean…I won’t even try that. No, it’s… what is he singing? “He’s got electric boots a mohair suit You know I read it in a magazine, oh” I wasn’t even close. I thought “masseuse” was in there. I don’t think I can even spell what I’ve been singing along with for years. Mick Jagger does this well also.

Regardless of the hard-to-decipher words…I love the song.

Elton wrote the music to this song as an homage to glam rock, a style that was popular in the early ’70s, especially in the UK…and of course, Bernie Taupin co-wrote it with Elton.

…

Max Picks …songs from 1973

1973

Pink Floyd released one of the biggest albums of all time…Dark Side of the Moon.

Roger Waters put together the cash register tape loop that plays throughout the song. It also contains the sounds of tearing paper and bags of coins being thrown into an industrial food-mixing bowl. The intro was recorded by capturing the sounds of an old cash register on tape and meticulously splicing and cutting the tape in a rhythmic pattern to make the “cash register loop” effect. Waters also wrote the song.

Like many of their songs, this was not released as a single in the UK, where singles were perceived as a sellout…but it was released as a single in America in 1973

Another positive song that was written by George Harrison. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” replaced Wings’ “My Love” at number 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart…For the week ending 30 June that year, the Harrison and McCartney songs were ranked numbers 1 and 2 respectively.

This song was based on a true story that happened to the band. Smoke On The Water took inspiration from a fire in the Casino at Montreux, Switzerland on December 4, 1971. Deep Purple was going to start recording their Machine Head album there right after a Frank Zappa concert, but someone fired a flare gun at the ceiling during Zappa’s show, which set the place on fire when Deep Purple was watching. It was released in May of 1973.

Music stores would not be the same without this song. It was written by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice.

Allman Brothers released this song in August of 1973. It was the band’s biggest hit that almost didn’t get released. The band thought it was too country and almost didn’t release it. This one was written by Dickey Betts.

My sister had a Jim Croce greatest hits album and I played it non-stop. This one is easy for kids to remember. This song has been played to death but I still love it. This one remains one of the most remembered songs from the early seventies. Jim Croce wrote this one.

Stuart Sutcliffe – The Forgotten Artist

In May of 1960, Stuart Sutcliffe was a brilliant young artist with a bright career ahead of him when he sold one of his paintings and his friend John Lennon talked him into buying a bass. He didn’t know how to play bass but was taught by John, Paul, and George because like George said…it was better to have a bass player that couldn’t play than no bass player at all.

Stuart Sutcliffe 1960

Stuart did learn to play bass and had a lot of stage time in Hamburg. He was never a great bass player but good enough to hold the position down. Stuart and John came up with the band name Beatles. Stuart wanted it to be Beatals but John stuck with Beatles. He quit art college to go on tour with The Silver Beatles to help back up a performer named Johnny Gentle in Scotland. After that they went to Hamburg and that changed their career. John also quit art college but he didn’t have the talent that Stuart did.

After a year or so he wasn’t at the other Beatles level and Paul never let him forget it. Paul was jealous of Stuart because of him being so close to Lennon. George also was a little jealous but not like Paul. John was basically hero-worshiped by Paul and George. In Hamburg, Paul said something about his girlfriend Astrid and tiny Stuart tackled Paul while they were on stage…they rolled around a bit and then it was finally over. Paul still talks about how he feels bad for the way he treated him.

He probably would have never got to their level musically because although he was good friends with John… his heart was in art not music. He was with them from May 1960 to August of 1961.

Many art experts say Stuart would have been a major artist had he lived… with or without the Beatle connection. He was indeed a sought-after artist when he quit the Beatles. He was the James Dean of the Beatles…He was the Artist…the Stylish one who attracted new friends in Germany that forever changed the Beatles. Some pictures of him make him look ahead of his time.

While playing in Hamburg Germany he met Astrid Kirchherr who would become the love of his life. Astrid would take some of the most famous early photographs of the Beatles.

Astrid’s soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Klaus Voormann would befriend the Beatles and later designed the Revolver cover and play bass for John, George, and Ringo at different times in their career. Jürgen Vollmer, a photographer in the circle of Astrid’s friends would end up cutting John and Paul’s hair into the famous haircut …after Astrid had already cut Stuart’s hair in that fashion first. Stuart was of course laughed at by the rest until they got theirs cut. Pete Best refused and did his own thing.

Stuart’s influence went beyond playing bass. Without Stuart, things may have turned out differently for The Beatles.

Stuart finally quit The Beatles to concentrate on art and to marry Astrid. He got a scholarship while living with Astrid in Germany, at the Hamburg College of Art in 1961. He produced a lot of paintings in the last year of his life. He started to lose weight, got terrible headaches, and had trouble walking. He kept going to college and kept painting in Astrid’s attic. They wanted to marry in May but on April 10, 1962, he had a ruptured aneurysm and passed away on the way to the hospital in Astrid’s arms.

If Stuart had lived he would have almost certainly stayed in the Beatles circle although not playing…he may have been remembered more as an artist than a one-time bassist of the Beatles that happened to be an artist.

For the Beatles part…he was a major influence in coming up with the name, helped bring on the haircuts, and gave them a more sophisticated style other than leather jackets and boots.

John Lennon would remember his friend in his song “In My Life.”

George Harrison: “He wasn’t really a very good musician. In fact, he wasn’t a musician at all until we talked him into buying a bass, we taught him to play 12-bars, like ‘Thirty Days’ by Chuck Berry. That was the first thing he ever learnt. He picked up a few things and he practiced a bit until he could get through a couple of other tunes as well. It was a bit ropey, but it didn’t matter at that time because he looked so cool. We never had many gigs in Liverpool before we went to Hamburg, anyway.”
John Lennon: “I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth, Stu would tell me if something was good and I’d believe him. We were awful to him sometimes. I used to explain afterwards that we didn’t dislike him, really.”

More about Stuart and his Art…thank you for reading this.

http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8556/a-five-point-guide-to-the-art-and-style-of-stuart-sutcliffe

Beatles – And Your Bird Can Sing

This guitar riff is incredibly hard to learn. I’ve learned some difficult riffs before but this one I finally gave up on. It’s doable but not one you can just pick up quickly. How John came up with this unorthodox riff is beyond me. John came up with some great riffs. Daytripper, I Dig a Pony, I Feel Fine, Yer Blues, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), Cold Turkey, and more.

I’ve always remembered the Joe Walsh story about this song…He said he worked for weeks to master this song by himself. Only to find out later that it was two guitars playing the riff, not one… after Ringo told him.

The song was never released as a single. One of the things I like about the Beatles is the songs that they never released as singles would be milestones for other bands. I think it perfectly encapsulates the mid-sixties pop sound. You can also hear early power pop in this song. I always thought this would have fit better on Rubber Soul but I don’t care…great song.

John or Paul never said what the song was about or what inspired it. Some have speculated that the “bird” was Mick Jagger’s then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull. Others say it was about an interview that Frank Sinatra gave and he kept using the phrase “How’s your bird?” What caught John’s attention was the press release from Sinatra’s PR firm that read: “If you happen to be tired of kid singers wearing mops of hair thick enough to hide a crate of melons… ‘Tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is ‘and your bird can swing.

Sinatra was not a fan of rock music when it came out. He said “Rock and roll smells phoney and false. It is sung, played, and written, for the most part, by goons. It is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has ever been my displeasure to hear.”

Frank did soften up a bit as the sixties went along. He covered “Something” written by George Harrison and said it was the greatest love song written in the last 50 years.

Some songs I have to listen to a few times to like and some the first time. This one was love at first listen. It’s not a Beatle’s masterpiece but if you like catchy guitar riff-driven songs then you can’t go wrong with this one. The song was written primarily by John. The song was released on the UK version of Revolver and the “Yesterday and Today” compilation in America in 1966. The dual guitar solo rates at #69 on the “100 Greatest Guitar Solos” list by Rolling Stone magazine.

George Harrison: “I think it was Paul and me, or maybe John and me, playing in harmony,” it’s “quite a complicated little line that goes through the middle-eight.”

Paul McCartney: “George and I would work out a melody line, then I would work out the harmony to it. So we’d do it as a piece, ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ – that’s what that is. That’s me and George both playing electric guitars. It’s just the two of us live. It’s a lot easier to do with two people, believe me. It’s another one of our little tricks!”

And Can Your Bird Can See

You say you’ve got everything you want
And your bird can sing
But you don’t get me
You don’t get me

You say you’ve seen the seven wonders
And you bird is green
But you can’t see me
You can’t see me

When your prized possessions
Start to weigh you down
Look in my direction
I’ll be round, I’ll be round

When your bird is broken
Will it bring you down
You may be awoken
I’ll be round, I’ll be round

You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is
And your bird can swing
But you can’t hear me
You can’t hear me

Beatles – Good Day Sunshine

It’s hard to be unhappy when you hear this song. McCartney said the song was influenced by The Lovin’s Spoonful’s song Daydream. I can hear that but I can’t help but think the song was also influenced a little by The Kinks. I could hear Ray Davies singing this song.

Original handwritten lyrics to Good Day Sunshine

McCartney did admit to hearing not only Lovin Spoonful but the Kink’s Sunny Afternoon. Most of these British bands would play off each other and the fans were the benefactors to this. John Sebastian would not know about this until 1984 (quote down below) Paul mentioned it in an interview.

Ray Davies did in fact rave about this song in Disc and Music Echo magazine…a very popular British popular music magazine in the 60s and early 70s. The song has a bounce to it and also an older sound…even in 1966 when it was released.

The song was on the album Revolver. That album I think personally is their artistic best…not my number 1 favorite but one of the greatest albums ever made. When they hit America in 1964 all of their albums progressed ahead and weren’t the same. They never remade an album…they were always looking to improve and change. You could see the progression of this from Help! to Rubber Soul to Revolver. After Revolver came their most famous album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. With Revolver, listeners heard more sophisticated sounds and techniques adopted by the Beatles. This song was not released as a single…but it could have been.

The album peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, Canada, The UK, and probably Mars as well.

An interesting piece of info on this song. Now all of you non-musicians may not care about this part but George Harrison played bass on this song…so please indulge me. George was right-handed so he could not play Paul’s left-handed basses. He ended up renting one out to play at the session.

I thought I knew most of the instruments they played but this I didn’t know. He played a 1965 Burns Nu-Sonic bass guitar. There is a reason I never heard of this bass guitar. The Nu-Sonics were one of the first instruments discontinued by Baldwin after they bought the Burns company in September 1965. They disappeared from the catalog by the fall of ’66 so the total production run for all versions was only about two years.

Here is a picture of George playing the Nu-Sonic Bass Guitar.

Paul McCartney: “Once again, I was out at John’s house in Weybridge. I’d driven myself there from my home in London in my beautiful sierra-blue Aston Martin, ejector seat and all. I love to drive, and an hour’s drive is a good time to think of things; if you’ve got half an idea, you can flesh it out on the way. I would often arrive at John’s place with a fully formed idea. Sometimes I would have to wait, if John was late getting up; he was a lazy bastard, whereas I was a very enthusiastic young man. Mind you, if I did have to wait there was a little swimming pool I could sit beside.”

“Around that time there was quite a spate of summer songs. ‘Daydream’ and ‘Summer In The City’ by The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Kinks’ ‘Sunny Afternoon’…We wanted to write something sunny. Both John and I had grown up while the music hall tradition was still very vibrant, so it was always in the back of our minds. There are lots of songs about the sun, and they make you happy: ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’ or ‘On The Sunny Side Of The Street.’ It was now time for us to do ours. So we’ve got love and sun, what more do we want?”

Paul McCartney: “Wrote that out at John’s one day…the sun was shining, influenced by The Lovin’ Spoonful. It was really very much a nod to The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Daydream,’ the same traditional, almost trad-jazz feel. That was our favorite record of theirs. ‘Good Day Sunshine’ was me trying to write something similar to ‘Daydream.’ John and I wrote it together at Kenwood, but it was basically mine, and he helped me with it.”

John Sebastian: “One of the wonderful things The Beatles had going for them is that they were so original that when they did cop an idea from somebody else it never occurred to you, I thought there were one or two of their songs which were Spoonfuloid but it wasn’t until Paul mentioned it in a Playboy interview (in 1984) that I specifically realized we’d inspired ‘Good Day Sunshine.’”

Good Day Sunshine

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

I need to laugh, and when the sun is out
I’ve got something I can laugh about
I feel good, in a special way
I’m in love and it’s a sunny day

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

We take a walk, the sun is shining down
Burns my feet as they touch the ground

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

And then we lie, beneath a shady tree
I love her and she’s loving me
She feels good, she knows she’s looking fine
I’m so proud to know that she is mine

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

Beatles – Good Morning Good Morning

Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I’m here
Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you’re in gear

I was 10 when I bought Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band…10 years after it was released. It came with the same cutouts as it did in 1967. I remember taking hours and looking over the album cover. You would find faces you didn’t see before and I remember spotting Stuart Sutcliffe, the former Beatles bassist and the man who was most responsible for coming up with the band’s name.

Here is Stuart (left) on the cover and the picture they took it from.

The Cutout page that came with Sgt Pepper.

The song started out with a rooster crowing and ends with a chicken clucking. Good Morning Good Morning was inspired by a Corn Flake commercial. Lennon would always leave the TV on and sometimes with the volume turned down. He saw an ad for Corn Flakes and the song came to him. “Good Morning Good Morning…the best to you each morning.” I’ll have the video at the bottom of the post.

As a youngster, I enjoyed this song and Lovely Rita. The only song that was hard for me to grasp on the album was Within You Without You…because it was so different. In time, it became one of my favorites on the album.

I love the horns in this song and McCartneys stinging guitar solo in this one. Ringo’s drumming also stands out on this track…the sound and the playing are outstanding. His cymbols sound like a steam engine with the compression they ran on them.

This song is one of the most technically challenging songs they wrote. It was highly aggressive and complex, with a loud french horn, animal noises, pounding drums, strong vocals, and a large amount of intricate strumming guitars. The time signature to this song is all over the place…3/4, 5/4, 4/4, 12/8… but the song doesn’t sound forced or disjointed. This track is an example of how great Ringo is as a drummer. This and his work on A Day In The Life. He had to play in many different styles because John, Paul, and George wrote so many different styles of songs.

One of the most interesting things about the song is the end of it. Various animal sounds are put together but they had a purpose. The animal sounds were dubbed in from a sound effects disc. They were arranged in order of creatures capable of eating or chasing the one before, at Lennon’s request. And at the very end…was a very cool effect. A clucking chicken suddenly turns into a guitar lick when it melts into Sgt Pepper’s Reprise.

Six brass players were involved in this session, three saxophonists, two trombonists, and one French horn player. George Martin was excellent at mixing horns with Beatle songs. Got To Get You Into My Life is another example of that. They are not regulated to the background like other songs. They are upfront and have a fat sound to them.

This song was also the first song The Beatles ever licensed, while they were together, to be used in a show. It was in the last Monkees episode (“The Frodis Caper”) which was totally surreal…not like the formula driven episodes of the first season. It was kinda like The Simpsons meet Green Acres.

John Lennon: “I often sit at the piano, working at songs, with the telly on low in the background, if I’m a bit low and not getting much done, then the words on the telly come through. That’s when I heard ‘Good morning, good morning.’ It was a corn flakes advertisement. I was never proud of it. I just knocked it off to do a song.”

Paul McCartney: “John was feeling trapped in suburbia and was going through some problems with Cynthia, it was about his boring life at the time. There’s a reference in the lyrics to ‘nothing to do’ and ‘meet the wife’; there was an afternoon TV soap called ‘Meet The Wife’ that John watched, he was that bored, but I think he was also starting to get alarm bells and so ‘Good morning, good morning.’”

Micky Dolenz (drummer for the Monkees): “And I’ll never forget it. John Lennon looks up at me and says, ‘Hey Monkee Man!…You want to hear what we’re working on?’…And he points up to George Martin and I remember this so clearly…He’s wearing a three-piece suit…and he pushes a button on a four-track tape recorder and I hear the tracks to ‘Good Morning Good Morning.’…And then we sit around and then I remember some guy with a white coat and tie came in with tea…’Tea time, eh!’ And we sat around a little table and had really God-awful tea. And then everybody sat around and then we were chatting – ‘What’s it like, The Monkees?,’ me again trying to be so cool. And then I think it was John that went, ‘Right lads, down in the mines.’ And they went back to work.” .

Just in case you wanted to know who was who on the cover.

This is the commercial that inspired John Lennon

I couldn’t find a version of Good Morning Good Morning going into the Sgt Pepper Reprise. You have to listen to the end of Good Morning and the beginning of the Reprise to hear it. The album of course plays them together…there is no space between the songs.

Good Morning Good Morning

Nothing to do to save his life call his wife in
Nothing to say but what a day how’s your boy been
Nothing to do it’s up to you
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning

Going to work don’t want to go feeling low down
Heading for home you start to roam then you’re in town
Everybody knows there’s nothing doing
Everything is closed it’s like a ruin
Everyone you see is half asleep
And you’re on your own you’re in the street
Good morning, good morning

After a while you start to smile now you feel cool
Then you decide to take a walk by the old school
Nothing has changed it’s still the same
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning

People running round it’s five o’clock
Everywhere in town is getting dark
Everyone you see is full of life
It’s time for tea and meet the wife
Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I’m here
Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you’re in gear
Go to a show you hope she goes
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning

cat, dogs barking, horses, sheep, lions, elephants, a fox being chased by dogs with hunters’ horns being blown, then a cow and finally a hen.

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

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]