What I'm digging right now

"Another Day" by Macca. It's "Eleanor Rigby" in brighter confines. The "do-do-dos" make for a blithe touch.



(If the video is removed, go here.)

Happy belated 71st, Ringo!

I badly dropped the ball yesterday by not acknowledging Ringo's birthday. This is to make amends.

- "Rock & Roll Birthday: Ringo Starr"

- "Ringo Starr’s 71st Birthday: A Life In Videos"

- "Sir Paul McCartney makes video wishing former Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr a happy 71st birthday"

- "Ringo Starr, Confident and Sober: Rolling Stone's 1992 Feature Story"

Today in Beatles history

Over the years, July 6th was of great significance to The Beatles:

7/6/1957 - John and Paul are introduced to one another at the Woolton Village Fete.

7/6/1961 - The first issue of Mersey Beat ("The Paper That Made The Beatles") is released.

7/6/1964 - The world premiere of A Hard Day's Night.

A haiku for pretty much every song by The Beatles

At long last, my Beatles haiku project has come to an end; the finished product is below. I began writing these haiku for a simple reason: I wanted to contribute something original to the world of Beatles writing. As far as I can gather from searching the Internet, no comparable undertaking has been completed and published. If this is the case, terrific. If not, I've still had a rich experience becoming intimately familiar with pretty much all of The Beatles' songs. As lightweight as these pseudo-poems may be, a lot of research went into their formation. I'd like to think that, on some level, this project serves as a history of The Beatles. It addresses the band's influences, the development of their sound, their individual personalities, important figures in their lives, significant events, the Lennon-McCartney partnership, and more. But I also realize that, on another level, it's just a curiously packaged collection of trivia.

Either way, I hope that you read it, enjoy it, and maybe even learn from it. If you spy any errors (i.e., misinformation or non-conformities with the 5-7-5 haiku format), please let me know.

Finally, it would be quite an affront to decency if I failed to thank The Beatles for their wonderful songs. They've brought so much joy and inspiration to so many people, including myself. I suppose these haiku could be seen as a show of gratitude (however meager by comparison) for all of that.

Here they are, by album:

- Please Please Me
- With The Beatles
- A Hard Day's Night
- Beatles for Sale
- Help!
- Rubber Soul
- Revolver
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Magical Mystery Tour
- The Beatles
- Yellow Submarine
- Abbey Road
- Let It Be
- Singles and B-sides

Singles and B-sides haiku

Below, you'll find the haiku I've written for The Beatles' non-album singles and B-sides. It's everything from the Past Masters collections with the exception of these songs: "Love Me Do" (which I had already done), the German-language renditions of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" (skipped for obvious reasons, I think), the covers from the Long Tall Sally EP and Larry Williams' "Bad Boy" (I didn't feel like getting bogged down with covers), "Get Back" (which I had already done), the charity version of "Across the Universe" (it's superior to the one on Let It Be, but it's not blessed with canon status), and "Let It Be" (which I had already done). For all of the other songs, I wrote a haiku, and they collectively represent the last ones I composed or will compose; in other words, I'm done. Tomorrow, I will bring them all together in one post and finally close the book on this project.

Enjoy.

1) "From Me to You"
2) "Thank You Girl"
3) "She Loves You"
4) "I'll Get You"
5) "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
6) "This Boy"
7) "I Call Your Name"
8) "I Feel Fine"
9) "She's a Woman"
10) "Yes It Is"
11) "I'm Down"
12) "Day Tripper"
13) "We Can Work It Out"
14) "Paperback Writer"
15) "Rain"
16) "Lady Madonna"
17) "The Inner Light"
18) "Hey Jude"
19) "Revolution"
20) "Don't Let Me Down"
21) "The Ballad of John and Yoko"
22) "Old Brown Shoe"
23) "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)"

John's ex-spokesman denies claims

Elliot Mintz, one of John's close associates throughout the 1970s, had this to say about the ex-Beatle's alleged turn to conservative politics:

"From the time I met John in 1971, until the end, all of those things he expressed in 'Imagine' were part of his belief system until the last breath of his life. If you listen to the last recorded interviews that were done with John, you'll hear him express in his own words... his own beliefs... which are virtually identical to the beliefs he held in '71."

Super '80s Beatles cover

Here's Robert Palmer trying out "Not a Second Time":



(If the video is removed, go here.)