She Loves You, the Beatles (1963)

Ringo Starr drum roll, please. The time is upon us. Tomorrow, February 9, 2014, it will be 50 years to the day since John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr took possession of the molecules previously known as Wendy Schweiger and rearranged them into a Wendy Schweiger whose veins suddenly coursed with more endorphins than she had experienced in all of the preceding years. 

I wasn't planning on it, being the morose sort, but I was powerless against it. Just be in the presence of a song like She Loves You, the third of five songs the Beatles sang on their first Ed Sullivan Show appearance - and tell me how it is possible to maintain the status quo after that.

This is a song that, after all this time, and with all of the sophistication that later developed in their repertoire, still represents the best of what the Beatles had to offer humanity. It started for me with their singing - a force of nature that shook me to my core. In those early days, the boys could sing in perfect unison, and then shift to vocals laden with counterpoint, where you can, say, pick out Paul's voice over John's though they are very interdependent and unison-like. It was - and is - like an elixir.

As regards Ed Sullivan, the anticipation had been building for months. I lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, where it happened that another girl in town, Marsha Albert, begged Carroll James, a DJ at WWDC, to get a hold of I Want to Hold Your Hand, after she saw a segment about them on CBS News. Somehow James managed to snag a copy of it from the UK before Capitol Records released it in the U.S., and the song took off like wildfire, putting Capitol in a bit of a pickle as they'd been dragging their feet on the domestic release. Although they'd set a date, it was a month away and they were royally hacked off at being scooped.

Between that and the news that the exotic Liverpudlian lads were coming to America in February, I was going a bit bonkers with excitement. To this day I'm not quite sure precisely what happened to cause such a furor in advance; whatever it was, though, I lapped it up like a person dying of thirst. It was a life force - the salvation of music that underpins my life to this day. 

Truly, what do you say about a song that you first heard when you were 11, and 50 years later, it makes you feel exactly the same as you felt then? That's She Loves You. Everything about it explodes with greatness - the vocals, the drumming, the guitars, the lyrics, the yeah-yeah-yeahs, the woos. They are so locked into each other, so tight as a band - they were just kids but beyond their years by the time they hit U.S. soil. And we paid them for their efforts in total adoration. When you listen to the performance on the show, the audience hysterics were at their peak for this song. Absolute pandemonium.

Yes, there were hormones involved. But 50 years later, with considerably fewer hormones in play, nothing has changed. NOTHING.

I Live For You, George Harrison (1970)

This past month I was stricken with bacterial pneumonia and landed in the hospital for 10 days so my plan to comment on the long-awaited documentary on George Harrison by Martin Scorsese, Living in the Material World, went by the wayside. I am now recuperating at home and thinking about George is back on the agenda.

Note: I Live For You is not a cut on Let It Roll shown above. I just love the beauty of his likeness here.  The song isn't in the documentary either, but to me it exquisitely sums up what George's life came to be about.

Every Scorsese music doc I've ever seen suffers from content that zigs and zags and leaves me hanging. This one is no exception. Fortunately, it does settle down in enough places to further my education about George and for that I am supremely thankful.  

My primary interest was understanding his spiritual journey and getting some sort of bead on the entirety of the life that the Beatles' only true outsider had led.  I remain sorry that he left us too soon and so painfully but have no doubt that George made the most of the life he had, in spades.

The man had so many friends, and they are liberally featured in the film. One of the most intriguing aspects of his personality was how many he had despite having such a devotion to solitude and cultivation of his inner life.  And of all of them, there was an uber-friend - Ravi Shankar.  I am clear that we have Shankar to thank for George's liberation as a solo artist committed to putting the material world in its proper perspective after a life where all of his worldly needs had been met very early on but brought little happiness. He states unequivocally that Shankar ("my blessing") was the first person in his life to ever impress him who wasn't trying to impress him. He showed him how his beloved music had the power to take him directly to God, George's paramount objective.

Nothing about his Catholic upbringing, which exhorted him to simply believe, resonated. His ongoing exposure after a certain point to holy men, swamis and mystics helped him to arrive at one major epiphany: you must see God, you must perceive the soul, otherwise it's better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. His life became a quest for direct spiritual experience and meaning, while doing the things he loved with the people he loved. As much time as is spent on this topic in the film, I would have been open to seeing more.   

As we all do, George had a dark side. Eric Idle and others point out the bitterness and anger that he always struggled with. Sources of those emotions varied, and aren't fully explored here, but certain things can be deduced and at the very least revolve around the Beatles - and taxes. 

On the Beatles years, not much is new, but the doc distills it well - how marginalized he was despite his obvious and prodigious talent as a musician and deep knowledge of so many genres, and how ready he was to fly the coop of the oppressive group politic. A lowlight: too many of the comments excerpted from McCartney interviews here were maddening in their condescending tone. Put a sock in it, Macca. What a massive ego that man has.

Yet I would argue that George's quiet personal influence and competence as a band member probably kept John and Paul from destroying each other sooner - as George Martin points out, they were far more competitive than they were collaborative. George does acknowledge, though, that the four of them depended on each other every overwhelming step of the success ladder they ascended. ("How many Beatles does it take to change a lightbulb? Four!") 

The composer of Taxman truly loathed the punitive British tax system, although that's not given any major emphasis either beyond one early interview where he and John were asked if they were millionaires yet. No, they said. Where does your money go, then?  "A lot of it goes to Her Majesty," John says. "She's a millionaire," George says.  While he was dying he bought a house in Switzerland so that he wouldn't have to pay exorbitant taxes. 

In one of the final moments of the film Ringo relates going to that house to visit George in what turned out to be the last weeks of his life.  Ringo's daughter Lee was battling a brain tumor in Boston and he had to immediately depart for the U.S. following the visit. With tears in his eyes, Ringo, who in every interview excerpt clearly communicates his love for his bandmate, says the last words George spoke to him were, "Do you want me to go with you?" 

George believed that leading a spiritual life was a choice and was available to anyone who was willing to work to find what was already present but hidden.  It does seem he was more evolved than the rest of us for having put forth the effort with such dedication. And when he finally died, "he just lit the room," according to his wife Olivia.

Deconstructing the Beatles: Estivator's Top 27 Dearly Beloved

The reports are everywhere of iTunes' upcoming release of the remastered Beatles number ones, which of course reminds me that I have never circled back from my deconstruction of their songs earlier this year to report on my favorites. The exercise was originally prompted by my observation that the typical "top 100" or "best of" lists are invariably miles apart from the songs I cherish all these years later.

I may always second guess myself, but now is as good a time as any to just come out with it, and since there were 27 number ones, I'll share the 27 that are the closest to my heart - or rather, songs I'd be heartbroken if I never heard again and play often. Other than avoiding the monotony that afflicted too many of their later songs, that's my only criterion. Here goes: 

A Day in the Life - The pinnacle of what the Lads could do as studio musicians with George Martin and Geoff Emerick presiding, minus the self-indulgence of so much of the later fare. Can still remember what it felt like to hear this for the first time; it was destabilizing, mind-blowing and awe-inspiring - no drugs required.
A Hard Day's Night - One of the best examples of Lennon & McCartney's early craft which, coupled with the movie, pretty much had me and millions of others losing their minds the summer of 1964. There was nothing out there like it, and it was much more sophisticated than it probably seemed at the time.
Abbey Road Medley - How all of the disparate elements of this medley work so well together is beyond me. I just know it will never get old, its alchemy interpreted to everyone's delighted shock by Steven Tyler at the Kennedy Center recognition of Paul McCartney last year.
And Your Bird Can Sing - It gave me the shivers then, it gives me the shivers now. Gorgeous to the nth power from the standpoint of vocals and guitars.
Eleanor Rigby - Probably my first indication that things weren't always going to stay the same with the Beatles and me. A show-stopper then and now.
For No One - McCartney at his absolute best. A brief but gut-wrenching look inside the devastation of dying love.
Girl - And on the subject of love, pop songs can be so generic. Beatles' songs were the opposite, this being one of the best examples of the power of getting specific, with the added benefit of the stunning musicality.  
Help! - As the other "movie song," I can't not include this. Everything about it is indelibly imprinted on me. You had to be there.
Hey Bulldog - A song that barely registered with me at the time that I have come to adore. Don't know what it's about, don't care. Never fails to increase my endorphin level. 
I Saw Her Standing There - Where it all began for me. If I could go back to the moment when I heard this - and McCartney's scream - for the first time, I would do it in a skinny minute.
I Should Have Known Better - For 2:45, starting with John's harmonica intro, I am awash in endorphins and singing at the top of my lungs.
I'll Be Back - Unrequited love tied up in an exquisitely somber bow.
It Won't Be Long - Simple. Exuberant. With many of the qualities of She Loves You, only better.
I've Just Seen A Face - Proof that McCartney didn't have to resort to sappiness to convey upbeat emotions. Also one of his best, the wizardry he was capable of was never more apparent. As an aside, my friend Harvey Gold has interpreted this movingly in an altogether different tempo, to me demonstrating that the song can be understood on many levels beyond the obvious.
Kansas City (Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey) - No way you could doubt McCartney's rock and roll roots with his raucous handling of this medley first imagined by Little Richard.
No Reply - Another non-generic song about the universal problem of betrayal. Nails it. 
Nowhere Man - They were at the top of their form as a cohesive singing group on this. What a sound, and the lyrics are as powerful today, perhaps even more so.
Oh! Darling - I love my love songs with that hard edge. This delivers on every level with McCartney again reminding us what he could do as a rocker when he put his mind to it.
Roll Over Beethoven - George Harrison paying unabashed homage to Chuck Berry sounds as joyous today as it did then.
There's A Place - Tom Petty once remarked that when John and Paul sang lead in unison, as they do on this, they almost created another voice. It could rearrange your molecules. 
This Boy - The power of John Lennon's solo in this rocks my world.
We Can Work It Out - As emotionally resonant and authentic as anything they ever did in this category.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Although I don't think of this as a Beatles song because it is so pervasively a George production, nonetheless it came out on their watch. Call me trite if you will, but this is a masterpiece by any measure. 
You Can't Do That - One of their "I'll kick your ass" songs that they excelled at but probably aren't generally associated with. Fabulous lyrics and overall construction. 
You Know My Name, Look Up the Number - I know it's ridiculous, but the sublime goofiness of this song quite simply makes me grin from ear to ear. Worth its weight in gold for all that.
You've Really Got A Hold On Me - Another favorite cover. I didn't know what I was listening to at the time, but this interpretation of the Smokey Robinson classic was life-altering, one of the many doors that opened to kick-start my lifelong love of the music of black artists.
You're Gonna Lose That Girl - The call and response construction of this, another ass-kicker, makes it one of my very favorites, along with its parting crescendo. Fabulous.

Deconstructing the Beatles: Part V, The 'We're Not in Hamburg Anymore' Songs

Today's New York Times travel magazine has a feature called Twist and Stout! which examines the contemporary scene in Hamburg, Germany, the city where the Beatles demonstrated the intestinal fortitude they would need to become world sensations.

In clubs like the Kaiserkeller, which still exists, they gave true meaning to the phrase "the hardest working m(e)n in show business," playing gritty rock and roll for hours on end in the most raucous circumstances imaginable. Today, Hamburg is to Europe what Austin and Seattle are to the U.S. - a veritable hotbed of around-the-clock indie rock. 

But that was then. Starting in 1965, the Beatles turned their attention to expanding what they were capable of producing both sonically and in subject matter, moving further and further away from their original roots. We fans marveled at the newfound complexity of what we were hearing on Rubber Soul and Revolver, and in singles like Eleanor Rigby, Paperback Writer and Rain.

But they left the concert world in August of 1966 (the last official concert, held at San Francisco's Candlestick Park) and became entirely a studio band, adopting a no-holds-barred approach to experimentation. The first single to arrive in the new world order was Strawberry Fields Forever, the first album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I would be lying if I said that I reacted to the shift positively - I did not. Although there were flashes of artistry to come that were stunning, I broke with loving them unconditionally about this time. Too much of their output was monotonous or ridiculous and the influence of drugs on their music saddened me. More to the point, it did not speak to me. I still remember the Life magazine interview (June 16, 1967 to be exact) in which Paul McCartney admitted to have used LSD, and spouted off about how we only use one-tenth of our brain. The Age of Innocence was officially over, and at 14, it terrified me.

Decades later, my attitude hasn't changed much. Most of what I love about the Beatles was in the can before they quit the road - fortunately there is so much of that! Reading Here, There and Everywhere, the memoir by their engineer Geoff Emerick, last year, it was easy to see what they were doing. They were amusing themselves; it was all pure whimsy. Once their egos began to clash and it was clear they were coming apart, I truly believe we were lucky to get anything good. But there were exceptions, where the music was original AND a pleasure to listen to. Leaving aside songs like Let It Be, which I think could have been written on either end of the timeline, the ones I will never forget follow. 

Estivator's Picks for Best 'We're Not In Hamburg Anymore' Songs

A Day in the Life
Side two of Abbey Road plus Oh! Darling and I Want You (She's So Heavy) on side one
While My Guitar Gently Weeps 

Deconstructing the Beatles: Part IV, The Goofy Songs

You know, you know, you know my name. 
You know, you know, you KNOW you know my name.
You know my name. Look up the number.

Good Golly Miss Molly the Beatles were irrepressible goofballs, and upon occasion that spilled out into their songs in a most memorable way. Maybe they were under such pressure to churn stuff out that songs like these were inevitable, maybe it was just impossible to suppress their natural zaniness.

I didn't like all of them by a long shot. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey?  No thank you. Yellow Submarine?  Zero interest. And there were many others that seemed to me like a waste of perfectly good vinyl.

But the ones I did like I loved. It's tempting to think that these songs were spontaneous eruptions of the Lads' exuberance and/or creativity, but we know that isn't so. From the Beatles Anthology Vol.3, for example, we learned that Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, one of my favorites, once sounded this way, and that wasn't even the first take (it took 42 hours to get to the recorded version, and tempers boiled over during a lot of that time as the group was by then deep in the throes of coming undone, driving everyone around them barking mad.  

And some of what I'm labeling goofy songs were serious - Dig A Pony and Hey Bulldog were two notable examples that I love, and I Am The Walrus was probably the epitome of that. Lots of streams of consciousness, bizarro sound effects and kooky song titles earn these that distinction.

The truth of the matter is the Beatles were just sponges of the highest order - whatever they stumbled across in their sonic world eventually was incorporated into their lyrics, instrumentation and vocal embellishments. Where other artists might not have been able to get away with it, by the time that the Beatles were dominating the music world they could pretty much do what they wanted, with producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick only having to keep up with them.   


Estivator's Picks for Best Goofy Songs

Dig A Pony
Hey Bulldog
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Rocky Raccoon
You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)

Deconstructing the Beatles: Part III, The Raw Nerve Songs

My teenage years were a time when I felt an almost constant need for emotional catharsis. I could never have gotten away with all the screaming and trashing rooms in the house that could have provided that catharsis, so how great was it that rock and roll music provided that outlet for me? Let me tell you, great with a capital G.

Although not what they're best known for, I almost always immediately loved every Beatles song that pulled no punches, was emotionally raw and cut me to the quick. These weren't pretty songs; they weren't meant to be. (Not a fan of Helter Skelter no matter how hard I tried, though.)  In these songs they could wring torment out with their voices - so extreme and intense that it was almost painful to listen to. But not too painful - they truly did help sooth the savage beast that raged within me.

And not all of them were about agony. No one familiar with McCartney's cover of Long Tall Sally or Lennon's of Twist and Shout could doubt the purity of their screaming pedigree, the sheer rock energy of it. Playing hundreds of shows at the Cavern Club in Liverpool over several years before they broke through, putting crowds into total frenzy, this was their stock in trade.

When it finally paid off, we got a glimpse of it right away ... who doesn't remember what it felt like to bear witness to Paul's screaming break in I Saw Her Standing There? It never, ever gets old.

Estivator's Picks for Best Raw Nerve Songs 

I Want You (She's So Heavy)
I'm A Loser
I'm So Tired
Oh! Darling
Revolution
Sexy Sadie
 

Deconstructing the Beatles: Part II, The Intimate Conversational Songs

John Lennon and Paul McCartney had an uncanny knack for writing songs that revealed themselves as actual speech - the lyrics and the phrasing of the lyrics were so 'in the language' that they forged an immediate, inclusive connection with the listener.

Remarkably free of the contrivances that yell out "this is a song, people!", it was like having a conversation with them or overhearing one - that's how much like spying on the singer's most intimate musings and vulnerabilities it seemed with these songs. It could be creepy on some level, but the feeling went away quickly because, even at such a young age, we could relate to the emotions. I've never quite understood why that should be, but certainly the older I got, the more these songs resonated because they pertained to experiences I'd actually had.

And of course it didn't hurt that these songs tended to be beauties of musical construction from start to finish.

Estivator's Picks for Best Intimate, Conversational Songs

Girl - "She's the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry, still you don't regret a single day."
I'll Be Back - "You could find better things to do than to break my heart again."
If I Fell - "If I give my heart to you, I must be sure from the very start that you will love me more than him."
No Reply - "I tried to telephone. They said you were not home. That's a lie."
You Can't Do That - "I've got something to say that might cause you pain; if I catch you talking to that boy again I'm gonna let you down and leave you flat. Because I told you before, oh you can't do that."
You're Gonna Lose That Girl - "I'll make a point of taking her away from you - watch what you do. The way you treat her, what else can I do?"

Deconstructing the Beatles: Part I, The Covers

During February baby boomers like to hark back to the three Sunday nights that month in 1964 that we first saw the Beatles live on American television, on the Ed Sullivan show. This often leads to further woolgathering on the span of their remarkable career. Perusing Rolling Stone's list of the top 100 Beatles songs recently I was reminded that my taste in their songs never quite matches up with these lists, which often include songs I found to be the dreariest and overlook scores of other delights. Furthermore, when I sat down and put together my top 100, I could only come up with 71.

I started thinking about the Beatles canon and into how many different categories their prodigious output could be divided. I decided to come up with my own breakdowns with representative examples. Note that any one song could potentially go into other categories; they will be listed purely for illustrative purposes. At the end of the series I will attempt to select my top 10 most beloved Beatles songs. I reserve the right to make that the top 25.  Let the fur flying begin.

Category I - The Covers 

Growing up as they did in post-war England, the Beatles lacked for a lot, including anything that passed for indigenous music. As with all of the British Invasion groups, John, Paul, George and Ringo devoured what they could hear on the radio, which consisted almost entirely of the music of American rock and roll, rockabilly and rhythm and blues artists. The first song they ever recorded (as the Quarrymen, minus Ringo) was Buddy Holly's That'll Be the Day. They copied the music they heard, and further evolved it into a new form that changed the world forever.
 
Although Lennon and McCartney had written their own material as far back as when they were in school, they didn't show the signs of their genius right off the bat. Their producer George Martin has said he outright doubted their songwriting ability at first, but they were fortunate in their early days to be on the bill with people like Roy Orbison, whom McCartney names as an inspiration to them to become better writers.

In any case, Martin's policy of not putting the released singles on the LPs that meant the first three albums included a good half dozen covers by artists and composers who were their most seminal influences. As I was first hearing these, at the tender age of 11 and 12, I certainly had not been exposed to the original versions that they were interpreting. I just knew how infectious and life-affirming the rhythms and beats of these songs were and the exuberance with which the Lads presented them. Later comparing these to the originals, I concluded that the Beatles made these songs more accessible and appealing, introducing Americans to their own artists in many instances. To this day I remain fascinated by the process musicians go through to make someone else's song their own.  

Estivator's Picks for Best Covers:

Honey Don't (Carl Perkins)
Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Little Richard)
Roll Over Beethoven (Chuck Berry)
You Really Got A Hold On Me (Miracles)

Beware of Darkness, George Harrison (1970)

I was very jazzed to hear that Martin Scorsese has directed a documentary, due out next year, on the one Beatle about whom I know the least and want to know the most.  Living in the Material World will be sort of a co-production with George Harrison, in that it will contain footage that George himself shot for a documentary that he intended to make someday.

Watching Paul McCartney receive his Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress recently, I couldn't help but wonder what George's legacy would have been had he lived longer.  Because, of the four of them, George's body of post-Beatles work is more pleasing to me - by many orders of magnitude - than that of any of the others.  Paul's mostly goofy, saccharine songs ... John's mostly heavy-handed, take-no-prisoners songs ... Ringo's mostly, well, fluff songs - on the whole they've left me cold.  Not so with George's work, both as a solo artist and with his pals the Traveling Wilburys.  Marginalized though he was while a Beatle, I am convinced their sound would have been far less memorable without his particular touch, and that his musicianship was every bit as evolved, if not more so.

Beware of Darkness is just one of many examples of George's gift; I've already written about his masterpiece, While My Guitar Gently Weeps. His unusual nasal singing voice - pervasively Liverpudlian - and the breadth of the licks he charmed out of his guitars over the years were entrancing to me. A YouTube commenter called the song George's "musical instruction manual for living life." I never thought of him as preachy, but his songs always seemed to emanate from a deeper place, where he could transcend the madness of life as a Beatle, something he would always be to the rest of his days. 

The longer he was on his own, the more George seemed to become supremely comfortable in his own skin, whereas as a Beatle he always seemed quite the opposite. The others always projected an essential sameness - what they were like as Beatles, just more so.  Beatle George was "the quiet one," almost morose, he rarely smiled; he was the youngest, and he seemed no match in the charisma department for Lennon and McCartney. He looked like he didn't even want to try. It was always obvious that he was a guitarist of considerable talent, and his guitar leads were distinctive, to say the least, but it was a mystery why he was treated as a bit player by the two alpha dogs. (I'm sure I answered my own question there, but at the time ...)

So when the Beatles finally parted the ways amid tremendous acrimony, George went solo before the year was out. Talk about your pent-up demand!  He had a backlog of material that couldn't find an outlet as a Beatle, and the floodgates opened with a 3-album release in All Things Must Pass, a title probably chosen for its many potential meanings. Beatles fans didn't think the Beatles could break up; they were supposed to be permanent. Weren't they?

Sadly, no, and even sadder, George shuffled off this mortal coil in at the peak of his powers as an artist. It affected me badly - it was not long after my father died, so I was already predisposed to mourn, but I felt then and still do that we'd lost someone we hadn't known well enough. Those people he counted as friends - and there were many - did him proud when they joined Eric Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall the next year for the memorial Concert for George, one of the most moving tributes to a musician I've ever seen. And left me feeling even more than this was someone we needed to know better than we did. 
  
Maybe that will be rectified with the Scorsese doc. According to his wife Olivia, George didn't throw much out, so we should be treated to things we've never seen or heard before from all stages of his career. All things must pass, but sometimes what people have held on to give us a pathway to get back to where we once belonged.

Two of Us, Beatles (1970)

The final months of high school for your typical Class of '70 baby boomer will always have certain associations - the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and the resulting widespread student demonstrations against the Vietnam War; the killing of students by National Guardsmen at Kent State University in Ohio and by state law enforcement officers at Jackson State University in Mississippi; the first-ever Earth Day; the Beatles' announcement they were breaking up; and the release, 40 years ago this weekend, of their final album together, Let It Be.

I'm sure there are teenagers who didn't care one whit about the Beatles.  I'm always surprised when I talk to people today - my peers - who profess to having had no particular interest in them. I tell myself that these people are few and far between. 

For me, the breakup of the Beatles was about as traumatic as it could possibly be. It was like a death, not that I'd had any experience with death at that point.  Nonetheless, I had a very difficult time grasping the fact that four people who had clearly loved each other, were better as a unit than they were separately, and changed the world with their magnificent music no longer cared to be associated - and in fact would probably have done some real damage to each other if forced to remain together a minute longer.  I felt like I was being abandoned, truth be told.

Graduating from high school is a scary time under the best of circumstances.  From an historical perspective, this was not the best of times, clearly, to be contemplating setting foot on a college campus (when I arrived, three months later, I was treated to a recipe for a Molotov cocktail on the front page of the student newspaper), and from a personal perspective - well, my parents were going through a terrible divorce and the fallout from it was grotesque on so many levels.

Plain and simple, in my unhappy pre-teen and teen years, the Beatles had been a source of joy.  Always joy.  Pan Am flew them in at a time when we were reeling from the assassination of our President, and when I was in dire need of something that let me know there were other emotions besides the ones I generally experienced. Those four boys from Liverpool, England, were how I spelled relief.  I was in awe of them - their talent, their exuberant life force, their good looks and humor, the songs they cranked out year after year as they grew and changed with the times.

It never occurred to me that it could take its toll.  And that they were human.

Let It Be was far from my favorite album, especially because I knew they'd had such angst producing it.  But like every Beatles album, it had songs I wanted to hear.  Here's one of them.

Hey Jude, The Beatles (1968)

Over the weekend, I heard an interview on NPR with Dr. Deforia Lane , who heads up the Toddler Rock early education program at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame here in Cleveland.  I was not aware there was such a program, but its emphasis is on intervention with at-risk preschoolers, their caregivers and teachers, with the objective being to increase a child’s overall skill sets through the structured use of music. 

 

Dr. Lane, who is also director of Music Therapy at the Ireland Cancer Center of the University Hospitals of Cleveland, and Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, noted in the interview how the music of the Beatles melds particularly effectively with the toddler rock initiative.  It seems many of their songs have the qualities that produce the human response of “entrainment,” wherein the music’s rhythms are so resonant for their audience that the songs can be physically and emotionally healing or otherwise catalysts to promoting a state of liveliness or serenity.  

 

I’m glad I heard about that phenomenon, because I was asked by my dear friend Meghan to write a post about Hey Jude.  The occasion for this is one of profound sadness, as she was pregnant with a child she learned had Potter’s Syndrome, a fatal condition, and the child could not be carried to term.

 

Meghan subsequently delivered a baby girl whom she named Jude, after the patron saint of lost causes.  In the time that’s passed, as she has mourned her loss, she has been contemplating Hey Jude, a song she since realized was released in 1968 on the exact day that she found out about the fate of her unborn child.

 

One of the things Meghan pointed out to me was the high degree of comfort that Hey Jude has brought her in recent days, and there are numerous anecdotes of how it has served in that capacity for millions of people the world over.  We already know that the song was written by Paul McCartney to console John Lennon’s son Julian (the two had a very close relationship, closer than the father and son’s was) during John’s divorce from his first wife Cynthia.  I am assuming that one of the reasons for this effect upon the masses is that it is a living example of the entrainment transformation principle in action.  Anyone who wants to really dissect the song’s unusual structure from a musicologist’s perspective can always read Alan Pollack's extensive treatise on the subject.

 

I remember eagerly watching the only live performance of the song ever recorded for posterity – a previously aired David Frost Show appearance in the UK that later aired exclusively in the U.S. on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

The lads had not appeared on TV for about a year at that point, and to say that I was feeling deprived is an understatement.  When Paul looked straight into the camera and sang the first “Hey Jude” as only he could, teenagers the world over swooned, figuratively and probably literally in some cases.    

 

I always felt the 4 minute fadeout was a bit monotonous, even despite the considerable effort McCartney expended in varying each segment of it with some new scream or scat-like vocal embellishment.  But the full 7:11 song held the #1 spot on the charts for nine weeks, so not everyone agreed with me, obviously.   

 

For Meghan, Hey Jude has helped her “take a sad song and make it better,” and that’s all that matters.  To her and her husband Kirk, my heartfelt condolences.   

Rain, The Beatles (1966)

I can't imagine being a bass player when this song hit the scene, It would've totally changed everything.- YouTube commenter

Well, look who's having a significant birthday today!  It's my friend Jim, and there's a party tonight so I told him I'd do a post in his honor, and I'm a woman of my word. 

First, a vignette about this day in musical history.  I can barely fathom this little item, and I certainly wouldn't have any way of knowing this without the internet, but something quite peculiar happened on James' birthday in 1964, when he was a teenager, let's just say.

On that day, if you happened to be in the Indianapolis area, you could have dropped in on the Indiana State Fair and seen the Beatles for $3, $4 and $5, depending on your budget, I guess. No, I didn't leave out a zero. There's a page where the old tickets are posted.  And another with concert footage.  And another, the set list.  I'm still scratching my head - the organizers knew they were dealing with the actual Beatles, didn't they?  And not a tribute band?  How, at the height of their fame, were the Beatles selling their wares for those prices?  It's a mystery. 

Anyway, Jim's favorite song wasn't on the playlist that day, but today it is and it's the legendary B-side to Paperback Writer that many consider to be the best B-side that anyone ever recorded - Rain. 

I remember Rain as one of the last 45s where the Beatles were playing as a powerful unified force of nature before it became all about the album and the artistic and/or personal splits began to be apparent.  Highly exotic, droning and masterful, Rain was especially notable for its prominent bassline - Paul McCartney is considered by some to be the greatest melodic bass player who ever lived, and his licks on this blew people away who understood such things.  Others point to the drumming as being exceptional in the Ringo canon, including Ringo himself.  

It was also the first song in which they used a backwards vocal track, which contributed to its psychedelic feel.  As described by Alan W. Pollack, the musicologist who analyzed every Beatles recording in his "Notes on ..." series,  the track was "the unprecedented (and in retrospect, historically significant) trailing vocal of John's, dubbed over the backing track by playing a tape of his earlier vocal in reverse.  The actual splicing and mixing in of this special effect was done very smoothly, especially by the standards of 1966 technology.  No pops, no clicks, no sudden change of ambiance, etc." 

The image above makes it appear as though Rain was the A-side of the record, but in fact the sleeve looked different on the two sides.  I remember finding that intriguing at the time, for no particular reason, but now it seems quite apt since history showed that Rain was probably as important a song as Paperback Writer, if not more so. 

Anyway, happy happy birthday Jimmy!  Have a delightful day, and I'll see ya later.

For No One, Beatles (1966)

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years

It was this past week in 1966 that an event many felt was a seminal one in the evolution of Beatles musicology occurred - the release of their album, Revolver.

I wasn't one of those people. I was underwhelmed, disappointed, even, in the tracks on Revolver. The fact that it marked a new phase in the Beatles' development as studio musicians just didn't resonate with me, because the majority of songs didn't resonate with me.

But lurking amidst the various ditties about taxes and yellow submarines was a gem called For No One. It was a song that Emmylou Harris once described as being about "love hurting real bad." It was notable for being such a stark departure from what surrounded it. And it was notable on its own merits, for nailing what it feels like when the look in your former love's eyes has gone dark and cold - even if tears are flowing from those same eyes.

Several things about this song made it interesting apart from its naked emotion. At first blush it appears to be outlining the all-too-familiar perspective of the one suffering - "Your day breaks, your mind aches" ... But we switch back and forth between hearing his anguish and watching her movements, presumably separate from his. A well done juxtaposition that made the song even more harrowing. Such power Paul McCartney packed into such a small space.

For No One also featured a haunting instrumental solo by Alan Civil, a French horn player of international renown who was asked by George Martin to become part of the recording session, because McCartney wanted a horn break.

Some say the song was so perfect because McCartney was writing about the demise of his relationship with the beautiful actress Jane Asher who, it must be said, I wanted to be for a full five years of my teenybopper life. (To her credit, Asher, who continues to act and is a much sought-after cake baker, has never sunk to a tell-all about their romance. If she hasn't by now, she probably never will. A true class act.) But unless they broke up at some point before the relationship ended completely (1968), the chronology is off. Regardless, it is McCartney at his best and purest.

As to Revolver, I will say that I also love everything about And Your Bird Can Sing. Everything. And Eleanor Rigby was a masterpiece in its own right. But because it was released simultaneously with Revolver as a single, I have always thought of it independently of the album because that is how I experienced it.

Beatles For Sale (1964): To Cover Or Not To Cover? That Is the Musical Question

Earlier this week, crossword puzzle constructor extraordinaire Brendan Emmett Quigley sparked a very minor but amusing firestorm when he mildly dissed the Beatles For Sale album.

In the aftermath, my friend Karmasartre felt compelled to comment on Brendan's blog. Anyone who reads my blog knows I have nothing whatsoever against covers and have written in glowing terms about many of them. One of the reasons is that, done with the appropriate flair, they exposed us to musical genres and artists we'd not likely have known about otherwise, for reasons of marketing (read: profiling).

I thought Karma's perspective was well worth bringing out into the open, as his points are well taken and insightful. They follow, edited for standalone publication.

******************
In a recent casual poll rating Beatles' albums, Beatles For Sale made a poor showing. The lack of appreciation was linked to the number of cover songs - six out of 14 - on the album. Hard to reconcile with the joy I remember hearing it.

When any of the Beatles albums came out, I slipped a twenty to a friend whose father was a pilot. He would pick up the "real" version (as opposed to the Capitol Records smush job) for me in London. So, I was able to hear the songs the way they were intended, plus enjoy the hyper-glossy finish of the EMI sleeve. In my dorm, Beatles For Sale got as much turntable time as the other early albums.

Until the Beatles came along, nearly all songs were composed by others. Neil Sedaka sang his own stuff, but many 45s were a combination of great writer/great performer. Purchasing an LP was a waste, as much of it would turn out to be crap. Think 11 B-sides and one A-side. There were exceptions: folk albums (and other genres, of course) where the entire album was good material ... and then along came Bob. But for rock and roll, covers meant the best music.

The Beatles, combining great songwriting and performing skills, were the first to make albums a great value. Part of the early allure, though, was not just their own compositions, but their ability to transpose r&b or soul songs into a more penetrable - for some - format. When their version of Twist and Shout first hit the airwaves, people were transfixed, overwhelmed, amazed. There was a bit of "Hey, if John can sing that, maybe I can" among a certain set of listeners ... those who couldn't conceive of matching Ron Isley's soaring notes.

The simple four-instrument lineup added to that fantasy. Could other magic music be similarly attainable? Hearing George transform some wild horn section's scream into a simple guitar line was a normalization of sound that reached the ears of listeners who wanted to replicate it in their parents' garage. It wasn't better, but it was approachable. And the Beatles had traditionally performed r&b songs as part of their repertoire. I wanted to hear them do Shout (and finally heard it on some VHS tape) and Desiree, some Sam Cooke numbers, and other beautiful, soulful sounds (e.g., Phil Specter, more Smokey, maybe an Impressions).

So when Beatles For Sale emerged, most of the covers were warmly welcomed. Rock and Roll Music was explosive and exciting; John's particular brand of gravel needed to see the light of every stylus. Mr. Moonlight was an unfortunate choice, to these ears (note from Estivator: I loved that thing). Always fun to tell people "If you were a Beatles song, you'd be Mr. Moonlight." The Kansas City medley (Estivator: see my 2007 review) was inspired and wild. Words of Love was a serviceable interpretation with excellent harmonies. While Honey Don't just seemed like a vehicle to give Ringo a microphone (Estivator: again, I loved this tune), Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby, showcasing George's obvious dedication to exploring Carl Perkins' guitar licks, was a delight. That these tunes were mixed with such a sweet selection of John/Paul numbers was gravy. The covers may not hold up as well, or appeal to new listeners, but at the time, they were gold.

How many of us have spent good time in the shower meditating on Eight Days A Week or What You're Doing, struggling to grasp how someone dreamt up those wondrous melodies? (Oh, not that many, sorry.) Those are just two of the gorgeous John/Paul songs on Beatles For Sale. This September, the remastered versions of the Beatles' catalog will finally be available. Having heard a few of their songs remastered, I know what a joy this is going to be. Can't wait to hear I'm A Loser (Estivator: along with No Reply, one of their best ever) and the rest in all their glory.

RIP Gordon Waller (1945-2009)

He was my best friend at school almost half a century ago. He was not only my musical partner but played a key role in my conversion from only a snooty jazz fan to a true rock and roll believer as well. Without Gordon I would never have begun my career in the music business in the first place. ... The idea that I shall never get to sing those songs with him again ... is an unthinkable change in my life with which I have not even begun to come to terms. - excerpt from statement of Peter Asher, on the death of Gordon Waller

This is so peculiar and eerily prescient - only last week I was thinking about all the noteworthy Peter and Gordon songs that I might write about and had been listening to various of their many Top 40 songs from the mid-60s.

The duo with the mellifluous harmonies were the British equivalent of the Everly Brothers, some felt, and certainly both credited Don and Phil Everly with being direct influences on their style.

Oddly, Peter and Gordon were the first British Invasion musicians after the Beatles to have a #1 hit in the U.S. - something I neither remembered nor would have guessed to be true. (I'd have said maybe the Animals, with House of the Rising Sun, but actually it took another 3 months for them to be the third group of British artists to top the charts). How would their story have been different if Peter Asher's sister Jane hadn't been Paul McCartney's girlfriend in those early Beatlemaniacal days? Fortunately, they didn't have to find out, and shared their talents with the whole world.

Mates from boarding school, Peter and Gordon discovered each other's musical bents and began performing together early. At first, they had to scale the wall on school grounds to work their late-hours coffeehouse and pub dates. Later, they were noticed in a ritzy supper club by a man who repped for EMI, one of the UK's three major labels at the time. Still teenagers, they were signed and suddenly in need of songs to take to their first session. McCartney had previously played a version of World Without Love for them, they liked it (Paul and John, not so much, apparently) and he offered it up to them for their maiden voyage in the studio.

Although A World Without Love became the breakout #1 hit, I always thought the less Beatle-esque songs like I Go To Pieces (by Del Shannon) and To Know You Is To Love You (by Phil Spector) showcased their vocal talents most effectively. The latter is a good vehicle from which to appreciate Waller's booming baritone. Both are beautifully rendered.

Connected as they were to the Beatles, they toured the world with the Fab Four as well as other acts, and became internationally recognizable.

Waller pursued a solo career after the duo split but he never found the kind of success he had known with Peter and Gordon. In addition to writing and performing his own music, he became involved in musical theatre. Asher headed up A&R for Apple Records and for decades has been a fixture in the music industry, producing California acts such as Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor. Friends forever, in 2005 Peter and Gordon reunited for a performance to benefit the Dave Clark Five's Mike Smith, who had been seriously injured in a fall, and continued to perform intermittently as a duo for special occasions.

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Rolling Stones (1965)

Though it seems like Keith Richards is the sort of guy who should have passed over to the other side a long time ago given his various excesses, as fate would have it, he's still with us and for my money has always been one of the great guitar gods. Blues-rock guitar gods, anyway.

And so it's his famous grinding riff in Satisfaction - conceived, he has claimed, while asleep; why am I not surprised? - that defined one of the anthems of rock in the mid-60s, giving the Stones their first #1 on the charts 44 years ago yesterday and flipping the bird at the comparatively sweet Beatles. (I Feel Fine, Eight Days A Week and Ticket To Ride had already been #1 that year.)

The Stones had found their way into the top 10 with The Last Time and their cover of Time Is On My Side, both killer songs, but #1 had eluded them. Debates over which band was better were common as was, after Satisfaction, ongoing interest in who was #1 or close to it at any given time. (The Beatles would have more singles top the charts that year than the Stones.)

A Battle of These Particular Bands seems silly when you think about it now, but the menacing, edgy Stones were the anti-Beatles and the juxtaposition of the two was interesting to ponder back in the day. Newsweek didn't call the Beatles "leering." The Stones? Oh yeah they did.

Although being an inductee of the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress (2006) would seem to fly in the face of that leering sensibility, nonetheless Satisfaction was, 44 years ago and today, one of the best examples of disaffectedness that the 60s had to offer.

The song was actually railing against America's empty values, but somehow I don't think that's what most kids took away from it. I know I didn't, anyway. It was one of those songs that simply made it OK to give voice to the idea that life is a disappointment on so many levels. (Kind of a musical version of the brain of Holden Caulfield.) And it's also one of those songs that if, say, you're having a bad day 44 years later, still taps into that belligerent streak that some of us (read: I) have always had, for better or worse.

What I didn't know is that the song wasn't initially viewed as anything special, at least not by Richards and Mick Jagger.

On their third U.S. tour, they stopped into various recording studios along their route to lay down tracks for whatever was percolating in their brains at the time. Following a Chicago concert in 1965, that studio was Chess, where some of their own heroes, such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, recorded - as did McKinley Morganfield aka Muddy Waters, after whose Rollin' Stone, the first single Chess ever released, the Stones had named themselves.

Here the song's first take germinated but it was nothing like what was eventually released. The finishing touches didn't happen until they hit L.A. and RCA's studios. Keith had recently acquired a Gibson Maestro FuzzTone pedal, and suddenly the song morphed aggressive. However, the story goes that the guitar riff was merely a stand-in for the horns that he was actually envisioning. In any case, he didn't see it as A-side fare. For one thing, he thought it was too much a knockoff of Martha and the Vandellas' Dancing in the Street.

In reality, Satisfaction was probably the synthesis of many influences that could have been soaked up in those days. Nothing unusual about that. Here's Keith briefly demonstrating the song's bluesy roots, from what source I do not know.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Beatles (1968)

I look at the world and I notice it's turning

While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

Songs that are too big to contain only the material world are indeed something to be thankful for when one's heart is as battered and sore as mine is this week. Songs like that help promote a healthy catharsis because they annihilate our perverse preoccupation with ego and somehow put our suffering in its larger and proper context. That's how I feel about While My Guitar Gently Weeps, ostensibly a Beatles song that I don't think anyone for a minute believes is a true Beatles song.

No reason why they should. It's pretty well known that the other Beatles were initially less than enthused about George Harrison's contribution to what became known as the White Album (apparently originally conceived as an acoustic number), and it took pressing the reluctant Eric Clapton into service as lead guitarist to make it the transcendent song it became and remains today. (The above link is to the version the grieving Clapton unleashed during the 2002 memorial Concert for George, with Harrison's son Dhani - and many others - accompanying him in one of the most moving performances I've ever seen of any song. However, this Todd Rundgren/Joe Jackson/Ethel version from 2005 also blows me away.)

Why Harrison had to fight to get his stuff due consideration remains a mystery, but I guess it all worked out in the end - of the four Beatles, he was by far the most influential as a solo artist. Prior to this, Harrison's output was relatively meager and marginalized. I had always regarded the Quiet Beatle as a strong lead guitarist but that was about it.

'Guitar' was a game changer and his masterpiece. And it stood out like a sore thumb against most of the other 29 songs on the album; I maintain only a slender handful of the cuts can be defined as remotely exceeding mediocrity. I loved it from the start, but in being such an anomaly, it sounded a bit of a death knell for the Beatles as recording artists, which was a scary prospect at the time. The White Album was a messy concoction that seemed to belong to just one Beatle at a time rather than a synthesis of their talents as a group. Certainly 'Guitar,' as a harbinger of what was to come when the group dissolved and went their separate ways, was a revelation in this regard.

Forty years later, it's still a powerful spiritual balm. Despite this week's weeping, "I look at the world and I notice it's turning." And I'm learning.

Summer in the City, Lovin' Spoonful (1966)

Though it's not yet summer, here in Ohio the dog days have descended suddenly so I don't feel the need to wait for further estivation to spotlight Summer in the City, a bit of an anomaly among the many earnest Lovin' Spoonful Top 10 singles that pleased us between 1965 and 1967.

The only "dirty and gritty" Spoonful hit, Summer in the City was notable for its distinctive use of organ, electric piano and rhythm section as well as sound effects mimicking the characteristic noise of a sweltering urban setting. John Sebastian tells the story that they hired an old sound man to punctuate everything with car horns, traffic and a jackhammer. To this day I can't hear the song without feeling as if I'm stewing in my own juices in a hot car, which is especially resonant at the moment as my car's air conditioning has decided to die.

New Yorker Sebastian and Canadian Zal Yanovsky were brought together by one Cass Elliott for a viewing of the Beatles' first appearance on Ed Sullivan. Enjoying their experiments melding folk style fingerpicking with electric guitars, the two for a time were members of the short-lived Mugwumps with Cass and Denny Doherty. The Mugwumps' breakup spawned two new groups, the Mamas and Papas and the Spoonful, with Sebastian and Yanovsky recruiting bassist Steve Boone and drummer Joe Butler to round out the band, which was determined to break through the British Invasion-Motown domination of the charts at that time.

Few record companies exhibited interest until Phil Spector and Brill Building songwriters showed up at their Greenwich Village performances and the spreading word led to a contract and their irresistible first feel-good hit, Do You Believe in Magic?

Indiana boy John Mellencamp, inducting the Spoonful into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, said of Summer in the City's influence, "I never got tired of hearing it. Poetic and beautiful in its course. Sexy and poignant in every breath that the singer sang. The song I assumed was written about New York City. I'd never been to New York City, but here I was in a town of 4,000 people and I related to every word that guy sang."

I Saw Her Standing There, The Beatles (1963)

On far too many days of late, the cumulative effect of all the things that are pervasively wrong in the world, close to home and far away, weighs far too heavily on my psyche. Made worse by the sense that there is almost nothing that can be done to right many of the wrongs - or nothing that will be done, in any case - it's hard to look forward to a better day.

That's when the balm of music seems to have its most profound effect. And there are few songs that are as therapeutic as I Saw Her Standing There. Yeah, it's 45 years old, but every time I hear it, it sounds new. And it transports me into a realm where it's possible to believe that something good could be just around the corner.

A YouTube commenter writes about the song, "The rock'n'roll bass riff. Cool guitar solo dripping with reverb. Rock-solid drumming. Tight, soaring harmonies. Never ever let it be said that The Beatles couldn't rock!"

I certainly would never say that. I'm not sure which Beatles song was the first one I ever heard - it could have been this one - but regardless, I know that whatever I was doing at the precise moment Paul McCartney's 1-2-3-4 count-off assaulted my ears became supremely unimportant. (Count-offs ordinarily would have been edited out in the studio but Beatles producer George Martin intuited the shift in the zeitgeist that was about to occur and left it in - an inspired decision.)

I've said before that many of my favorite Beatles songs were the earliest, the ones that were steeped in their seminal influences. From The Beatles as Musicians: The Quarry Men through Rubber Soul by Walter Everett, we learn that Paul's persistent (ostinato) bassline here was an homage to a similar one in Chuck Berry's I'm Talking About You (here they are performing it in Hamburg in 1962) and that many of the guitar licks from Little Richard's Ooh! My Soul were incorporated as well, primarily by George Harrison. The Beatles' joyful interpretations of the works of their musical heroes exposed young America to whole new galaxies of rhythm and melody that made us happy to be alive.

And even on a bad day - they still do.

I've Just Seen A Face, The Beatles (1965)

For some, the most perfect Beatles album is Revolver, but I've always reserved that honor for Rubber Soul, which in the eyes of many marked a sea change in the way the Lads from Liverpool presented their gifts to the world. I still remember my heart pounding the day I bought the glorious-looking package to the right, my anticipation over its contents was that intense.

Digessing for just a moment (although there is a Rubber Soul connection), today is a special day where other avocations are concerned, to wit - I accomplished the unthinkable this morning and finished, without googling, the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle.

For those who may be unaware, the Saturday puzzle is the hardest of the week and, very often for me, impossible in terms of gleaning more than a few answers, much less finishing it. That I did is probably as much a testament to today's puzzle constructor, the devious and delightful Mike Nothnagel, as it is to my growing solving skills, but in any case, I want to remember this day forever. My fellow daily solvers and bloggers (check out an example of our underworld here at Madness ... Crossword and Otherwise) will understand the rush.

The connection between the puzzle and Rubber Soul is that one of today's clues was "it's heard on the Beatles' Rubber Soul" and of course that answer is SITAR. So today's as good a day as any to share one of my most favorite songs from that LP, albeit one without a sitar, I've Just Seen A Face.

In the UK, fans will associate this song with Help! instead; it was common to release slightly different versions of Beatles albums on both sides of the pond. Confusing, and never clear what the nuances were that led to such decisions. My research now reveals that in this instance it had to do with Capitol Records wanting to take advantage of the surging interest in folk rock, so this acoustic number - on which George Harrison shines with his 12-string - was one of several replacements for harder-edged songs like Drive My Car and Nowhere Man.

In the U.S., however, it was the first song on Rubber Soul, and what an exhilarating, joyful one it was. What fun it was to marvel at Paul McCartney's vocals on the tumbling lyric; he sang line after line with no apparent intake of breath. I love to sing this song.

A film I've not seen yet, but which is a rage among some of my young co-workers, Across the Universe, has a cover of the song by the actor who portrays Jude, Jim Sturgess, and the recasting is pretty interesting. If it introduces a new generation to the Beatles, I'm all for it.