Monday reads

- On the cultural etymology of "gear".

- "10 musicians who saw the Beatles standing there."

Fantastic line from Billy Joel: "And when I saw four guys who didn't look like they'd come out of the Hollywood star mill, who played their own songs and instruments, and especially because you could see this look in John Lennon's face -- and he looked like he was always saying: 'F--- you!' -- I said: 'I know these guys, I can relate to these guys, I am these guys.' This is what I'm going to do -- play in a rock band'."

- USA Today ranks the top 12 Beatles songs. Quality effort overall. Rearrange the order a bit, swap out "The Fool on the Hill" and the Abbey Road medley for "In My Life" and "I Am the Walrus", and you're in the same ballpark as what my list would look like.

Also from USA Today: "The Great Album Debate: Is 'Pepper' The Beatles' best?" The sooner we reach the end of Pepper's reign (we're getting there, it seems), the better. Revolver belongs on top.

- Finally, here's an amusing rundown of The Beatles' "decidedly mixed" reception in America. In this case, "decidedly mixed" = hostile, scathing, impossibly condescending, savage, unsparing, and so forth.

Re: They got it covered

I should've included this in the post I wrote yesterday about recent Beatles/solo-Fab covers. It's the Flaming Lips' thoroughly spaced-out stab at "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." On the whole, Wayne Coyne and his merry band of psychedelic indie-rock pranksters stay true to the 1967 blueprint, but there is one notable deviation: when the chorus goes vertical, it's like a controlled explosion that slowly ascends rather than the original's sudden leap to the stars. It's a very Flaming Lips kind of touch for a very Flaming Lips kind of song.

While we're on the topic, here's the Lips' cover of "Revolution", and here's their interpretation of "I Am the Walrus."

Book review: "Lucy in the Mind of Lennon"

While reading Tim Kasser’s Lucy in the Mind of Lennon, a slim but detailed “psychobiography” about John Lennon and the disputed meaning behind “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, I kept veering between two poles.

At many turns, I wanted to follow Kasser down the rabbit hole into Lennon’s messy, complex, deeply scarred psyche to glimpse behind the curtain of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. As much as the late Beatle has been written about and lionized over the years, he remains an extraordinarily compelling figure. Beyond the astounding talent and personal magnetism, Lennon was just so human (“insecure, anxious, and vulnerable” in Kasser’s sober estimation), and his life was riddled with fascinating twists and turns.

And then there’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. What a song! Weird, eerily cryptic, and bursting with psychedelic whimsy, “Lucy” is a first-ballot Beatles classic. In contrast to much of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it has aged quite well.

If these winning elements are in place, then what accounts for my other reaction, which was wariness of Kasser’s analysis? The problem is an off-putting interplay that’s central to Lucy in the Mind of Lennon. Kasser isn’t some run-of-the-mill rock historian or professional Beatles fanatic. He’s a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois. Per the practices of a research psychologist, his approach to scrutinizing why Lennon composed “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” relies on statistical comparisons, the promiscuous use of charts, and data sets with names like “Standard Deviation of Recent Hit Songs”. It often has the feel of a plastic glove.

In essence, Kasser applies very clinical and invasive methods of inquiry to something that falls into the category of art. It's rock 'n' roll meets a psychology lab. For reasons that shouldn’t be hard to grasp, this jarring clash frequently left an unpleasant aftertaste.

The long and short of Kasser’s theory is that, when connected with Lennon’s distant and recent past, everything from the story, linguistic style, and word selections of “Lucy” to its key signatures and chord progression suggests that Lennon was addressing (though obliquely and at an emotional remove) his long-standing but long-suppressed hang-up with being abandoned by women. (“And she’s gone…”). This stemmed not just from the premature death of his mother, Julia, but in fact went all the way back to Lennon’s early childhood, when Julia was an on-again/mostly off-again presence in his life. The well-worn theories that involve LSD and the fanciful picture that Lennon’s son Julian drew aren’t dismissed outright, but Kasser instead ascribes them more of a facilitating function.

It’s a testament to my frustrating ambivalence about this book that, even as the form and feel of Kasser’s research steadfastly rubbed me the wrong way, I couldn’t shake how convincing and at times even illuminating parts of his argument were (his conclusion being no exception). The section that compares “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” to songs that Lennon wrote in subsequent years, from material off The Beatles to John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, is especially insightful. It appears to demonstrate the significant degree to which Lennon’s changing circumstances – Cynthia to Yoko, LSD to heroin, etc. – influenced if and how he confronted his separation demons. In novel fashion, Kasser makes sense of the tortuous journey from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” to the bleak, raw, and harrowing likes of “Mother” and “My Mummy’s Dead”.

At the same time, there are many moments when Kasser overreaches in his examination or leans too heavily on a very mechanical and insular understanding of the songwriting process. Take his observation that because the imagery John chose for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” doesn’t better reflect the “typical” experience of an acid tripper, it undermines the LSD theory. Even if you accept the notion of a “typical” acid trip, who’s to say one or more of Lennon’s wasn’t wildly different because of any number of random variables? Or, even if “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was based on a “typical” experience, maybe the words he decided on for the lyric were the product of multiple influences operating on him at once. Like too much of the book, it’s all so overdetermined, so biased toward order, so A must yield B must yield C. Kasser rarely gives any weight to chance, chaos, and the unpredictable.

Some interesting questions arise: How comfortable are you with the idea of an artistic creation being so thoroughly probed and explained away that it can be reduced to a series of chartable findings? Does this rob art of its distinct magic? And, contra the conceit that everything has to bear deeper meaning and we should leave no stone unturned in arriving at a final interpretation, is there perhaps value in deferring to mystery for why specific words were chosen or how a melody was constructed? The overarching question seems to be: What is the appropriate intersection of scientific inquiry and art?

How you respond to these questions may be a reliable gauge for how much stock you’ll put in Lucy in the Mind of Lennon.

"It's contrapuntal, man!"

I'm open to correction, but it strikes me that the most talked-about Beatles song of 2013 has been "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!." Weird, no? It owes to Paul's (questionable) decision to dust off the Sgt. Pepper's circus curio for his current tour. In my humble opinion, it ill-fits the stage (follow the appropriate link here to arrive at your own conclusion). But I do salute Macca for keeping his set-lists fresh. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, he elaborated on the history of "Kite!" and the thought process that led to its resurrection. Interesting remarks.

Excerpt:

You've added a few new Beatles songs to the set – "Lovely Rita," "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" and "All Together Now." What's it like playing those live for the first time ever?

That's challenging. I mean, something like "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is hard to do. Ask a bass player who sings. It's contrapuntal, man! It really is. I've got to sing a melody that's going to one place, and then I've got to play this bassline that's going to other places. It's a concentration thing. But that's half the fun of the show. I'm still practicing, still trying to figure it out, particularly on the new numbers. It's like, "How does this one go again?"

What made you want to revisit those particular songs?

Well, for instance, "Mr. Kite" is such a crazy, oddball song that I thought it would freshen up the set. Plus the fact that I'd never done it. None of us in the Beatles ever did that song [in concert]. And I have great memories of writing it with John. I read, occasionally, people say, "Oh, John wrote that one." I say, "Wait a minute, what was that afternoon I spent with him, then, looking at this poster?" He happened to have a poster in his living room at home. I was out at his house, and we just got this idea, because the poster said "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite" – and then we put in, you know, "there will be a show tonight," and then it was like, "of course," then it had "Henry the Horse dances the waltz." You know, whatever. "The Hendersons, Pablo Fanques, somersets…" We said, "What was 'somersets'? It must have been an old-fashioned way of saying somersaults." The song just wrote itself. So, yeah, I was happy to kind of reclaim it as partially mine. But like I said, you've got to look what you're doing when you play that one.

Does it feel like you're coming full circle when you sing those words in front of these huge crowds after all those years?

You know, it's more a question of what a delight it is to finally play it. We played it when we recorded it – for instance, "Mr. Kite," when we recorded it, we laid down the track as a group, and then I put the bass on afterwards, as I often did in those days. So that gave me the opportunity to really think about the bassline and make it melodic. But, of course, if I'd have thought, like, "Tomorrow you're going to have to play this live," I don't think I'd have made it so complicated! "Day Tripper" was another one. I thought, "I just can't do it." It's like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. It's not that easy to do. You've got to practice up on that. I goofed it a million times in rehearsal. Then, finally, I just thought, "OK, wait a minute, I'll do that . . ." And I worked out how I was going to do it. So it's great for me, reviewing the past, and just thinking, "This is cool." It's still up-to-date. The combination of all of that makes it quite a joy to do.

Catching up on Beatles news

A thousand apologies for the lengthy absence from this space. I'll try to resume semi-regular blogging starting now. Below is a news round-up from my time away.

- Paul will appear on The Colbert Report this Wednesday for an hour-long music special. Colbert: "I think this McCartney kid’s got something special and I’m gonna put him on the map!"

- In Memphis for a gig late last month, Macca visited Graceland for the first time and left a memento at Elvis' grave.

- From Rolling Stone's review of the Wings Over America re-issue: "There’s something daft and touching about how McCartney strives for band democracy: Whenever Denny Laine sings lead, you can almost hear the fans stampede for their bathroom weed break. Here's a better, more detailed appraisal. And here are some streaming tracks from the triple album. And video. Ah, the Seventies!

- The news that John felt some shame over his spell as a radical activist is not news at all. It's been well documented for years. The more interesting part of this story deals with John's desire near the end of his life to return to Liverpool. He "wanted to sail into the city on board luxury liner Queen Elizabeth 2 as his fans lined the shore."

- Photograph, a collection of pictures that Ringo took on tour and in the studio as a Beatle, is being released in e-book form on June 12th and in (laughably overpriced) physical form next December.

- June 1st was the 46th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's. In her infinite wisdom, The Gray Lady sneered at it.

- It's a staple of "How The Beatles Impacted History" journalism: Yes, The Beatles won the Cold War. I love this detail: "A widely held fantasy that Woodhead (an ex-British spy turned filmmaker who traveled throughout Soviet Russia) heard over and over was that the Beatles landed in the USSR to play an impromptu concert on the wing of their tour airplane on their way to Japan. The Soviet city would change in each telling but people sincerely believed that this undocumented performance happened."

- A guitar played by John and George was recently auctioned off for $408,000.

- Help! is coming to Blu-ray later this month.

Weekend reading

"Bias at Rolling Stone Magazine?" - a critical take on the mag's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Excerpt: The Rolling Stone 500 would be easily dismissed as a marketing stunt were it not for the sad fact that the superiority of boomer-era rock is viewed by some as truth. These folks would agree with what Rolling Stone says about its top album: "'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' is the most important rock & roll album ever made"; it is "rock's ultimate declaration of change." No, it is not. It had predecessors that made it possible and that are thus at least as important. And "Sgt. Pepper" brought no greater change to rock and pop music than did subsequent recordings like "Crosby Stills & Nash," "The Ramones," Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," Michael Jackson's "Thriller," Nirvana's "Nevermind," Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet" or Radiohead's "Kid A."

Sweep aside 45 years of almost-unchallenged praise, some of which has nothing to do with its 13 songs and 40 minutes of music, and really listen to "Sgt. Pepper." It is a great rock and pop album. But indisputably better than, say, "Kiko," a 1992 album by Los Lobos, or Björk's 2001 disc "Vespertine"—neither of which is among the Rolling Stone 500? Of course not. But the greatness of "Kiko" and "Vespertine" exist outside the confines of boomer-rock's narrow cultural context.

. . .

"White Elephants and Termites, Revisited" - a response.

Excerpt: The real question, then, isn’t whether the list is focused on commercial rock and pop. It’s whether the focus on the boomer golden age is justified within than context. Fusilli notes that “Of its 500 albums, 292 were released in the ’60s or ’70s, a highly improbable 59%.” But this is only “improbable” if you assume that achievements in a particular genre are randomly distributed across time. That’s absurd. Art forms have their periods of growth, maturity, and decadence. Fusilli doesn’t want to be believe that rock is in its decadence. He suggests, for example, that Los Lobos’ 1992 record Kiko and Björk’s 2001 Vespertine rival Sgt. Pepper. I have never especially liked the Beatles, and do love Los Lobos and Björk. But their work isn’t comparable in influence or technical innovation. Sgt. Pepper changed listeners’ understanding of what rock ‘n’ roll could be. Kiko and Vespertine, on the other hand, are just terrific records.

. . .

My two cents: When it comes to Rolling Stone, you should know what you're getting. For a long time it's been a thoroughly mainstream publication that, in terms of its music criticism, clings to past glories. The magazine's classicist biases - like awarding five stars to nearly every recent album by Bruce Springsteen - are well known and hardly worthy of a fuss. The pop culture mythology of the Boomer generation does make for an interesting topic, but no one should be surprised by Rolling Stone's dogmatic promotion of it. And besides, the vast majority of the albums on that list deserve the praise they received.

"Such magical sounds"

An album that was both inspired by Rubber Soul and part of the motivation for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is always going to be relevant on this blog. On a personal note, this same album is among my favorites. It's one of the few collections of pop music that I consider nourishing to the soul. Indeed, I usually don't go three or four months without dipping into Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys' landmark psychedelic-pop release of 1966. I did so again last week with the intention of recording some thoughts and observations. Pet Sounds is an album one should not just know, but know intimately. It's a way of returning the favor to Brian Wilson for how revealing he is on these thirteen tracks.

A perfection-crazed auteur even at age 23 (23!) when he started the project, Brian has said that the music of Pet Sounds - marked by warm, wistful, whimsical soundscapes; the colorful and complex meeting point of Phil Spector, baroque, and found objects - is actually more personal than the lyrical content. Part of his ambition with the album was to almost make lyrics unnecessary. Using the studio as one of his exotic instruments, he wanted the music to be able to communicate on its own the outlines of his emotional existence. He dubbed it "feeling-music." This is one of the album's great triumphs: Through the sonics alone you encounter not only Brian the tortured sound architect, but also Brian the gentle dreamer, Brian the fragile soul, and Brian the earnest romantic. You could say that Pet Sounds is a musical portrait of Brian Wilson's inner life.

This portrait is fleshed out and made more immediate by the lyrics, which Brian mostly co-wrote with Tony Asher, an ad copywriter whom he barely knew before they collaborated. Asher has said he served as his counterpart's interpreter and helped give narrative life to the emotions conveyed by the music. What resulted was a moving and resonant account of human frailty. There's callow longing for adulthood ("Wouldn't It Be Nice"); strongly-implied boyish indiscretion ("You Still Believe in Me"); isolation ("I Just Wasn't Made for These Times"); and heartbreak ("Caroline, No"). All of it shows Brian, a man of deep vulnerability, struggling to retain what he considers his innocence. At times, he pines for a youth that he's doubtlessly romanticizing, and elsewhere he looks ahead to the future with both trepidation and excitement. He wants the comfort and stability of love without the inevitable complications. He may sound naive, but the spellbinding sincerity of his appeals is what matters. That voice could never tell a lie, right?

Brian's voice and those of the other Beach Boys made the band, and their vocal arrangements on Pet Sounds supply much of its beauty. The harmonies are exquisite; the way different parts weave in and out of each other - rising and falling, fading in and then dissolving - displays a beautiful kind of mathematical perfection; and the contrast between Brian's elegant higher pitch and Mike Love's nasal delivery works as well as it ever did. And then there's Carl Wilson's stirring, heaven-sent performance on "God Only Knows" (once Macca's choice for his favorite song of all time; not sure if this remains true). It was supposed to be Brian's vocal, but he eventually concluded that Carl's voice was better suited to the material. The decision, so unselfish, was handsomely rewarded.

Lastly, I can't resist highlighting some of my favorite moments from the album. There are many. I love the booming drumbeat that sets "Wouldn't It Be Nice" into motion; I love the way Brian sings "I kiss your lips when your face looks sad" on "I'm Waiting for the Day" - it's with such determined affection; I love the baritone saxophone that chugs through the end of "Sloop John B"; (And what's really happening in that song, anyway? Such a prosaic story - and the thematic outlier of the bunch - and yet so full of tension and urgency.) I love the line "I may not always love you" for what it really is: the biggest bluff in all of pop music; I love the weird instrumental break on "Here Today"; and I love everything about "Caroline, No," a song of dreamy, slow-moving heartbreak that should be a mainstream pop classic but isn't. It's the Beach Boys' "She's Leaving Home."

One hopes that Brian Wilson knows just how much Pet Sounds means to so many people. It's an album we love, and it seems to love us right back. Achieving a perfection of sound, it wasn't just a giant leap forward for the Beach Boys; it was a giant leap forward for all of pop music. Its influence is vast. Who knows: Without it, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band may never have happened, and then where would pop music be today?

*The quote in the title comes from Elton John.

Watch it, hippie!

Others have made the point - and I've piggybacked off of them - that "She's Leaving Home" shows The Beatles to have been out of step with the counterculture of the late 1960s. The reasoning goes that, because John and Paul registered notes of sympathy for the parents of the runaway teen, they can't be seen as full-throated supporters of that period's youth movement. Adults - instinctively conservative and out-of-touch - were part of a system of oppression, and yet The Beatles, to a certain degree in this instance, sided with them. Some avatars of the youth culture!

Lately, I've been rethinking this idea from several different angles. First, it's probably unwise to infer a connection between the song's narrative and concurrent real-life events that weren't directly related to it. Yes, "She's Leaving Home" was based on a true story, and yes, John saw some of his life in it; but there's no evidence that The Beatles recorded this song as a means to comment on the burgeoning culture war. The story likely appealed to Paul because of the raw and complicated emotions involved. Then, to make the narrative more engaging, Paul and John let the parents have a voice. After all, they're songwriters, not social commentators; the main priority is an effective story.

Second, the lyric is indeed quite evenhanded, indicating sympathy for both the girl and her parents; but in no way does it fully exonerate Mom and Dad. Consider some of the lines that provide their perspective: "We gave her everything money could buy"; "How could she do this to me?"; "We didn't know it was wrong." They evidently thought that money and consumer goods could be a substitute for meaningful interaction, and earn their daughter's love. They were wrong, and The Beatles are saying they were wrong. With her remark, "How could she do this to me?," the mother selfishly focuses on her own emotions rather than her daughter's. Again, The Beatles are critical of this. John and Paul essentially depict the parents as misguided, emotionally clumsy, and blind to obvious truths. Mom and Dad had never truly connected with their daughter. Hence, "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years." That's the chorus - lyrically, the most important part of the song - and it's a strong statement of sympathy for the girl. Paul and John clearly understood her plight, and yet they were also mindful of the parents' pain. (How could they not be?) They considered both sides.

"She's Leaving Home" is a very human song, and I now think that connecting it with the youth revolt of the 1960s misses this critical point.

On this day in 1967...

... The Beatles unveiled to the British public perhaps their most accomplished feat of sonic artistry in the form of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Read more here.

Excerpt:
An original vision for their new sessions, led by McCartney, spurred on by the recent grapples with touring, was to create a concept album underpinned by a fictional band, with fictional members and, in relieving the four bandmates of their own duties, taking the record out on tour instead. As it turned out, the idea was never fully realised, but fragments did remain and become important aspects of the record, from the introduction and farewells of ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ and its reprise, to the lavish costumes which served as the focal point of the iconic sleeve design. Ringo Starr, by now filling his time by getting in some crucial chess practise, did see his alter-ego living on, as Billy Shears following the opener seamlessly on ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’.

Today in Beatles history

It was on this day in 1967 that possibly the most iconic album cover in pop music history came into being. Read more here.

Excerpt:
The concept eventually evolved into The Beatles dressing up as the pretend group and being surrounded by some of their pop culture and historical heroes. The last vestiges of the “park” idea surfaced in the floral display that spelled out The Beatles at the bottom of the cover.

Blake and Haworth began putting together the cover’s collage, titled “People We Like,” by taking suggestions from the band. McCartney, Lennon and Harrison were responsible for the majority of the people chosen (Ringo Starr let the other guys pick), although Blake and Fraser contributed some ideas, too. The end result was a pretty strange menagerie – Karl Marx, Marilyn Monroe, Sigmund Freud, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, Laurel and Hardy, and Edgar Allen Poe were among the 70 images. Although it’s not remembered who suggested each person, Lennon requested Jesus Christ, Adolf Hitler and Mohandas Gandhi. Of the three, only Gandhi made it to the photo shoot, although the image was removed before the cover went to press because of political reasons.
. . .

On this day in 1967, the cover shoot took place at photographer Michael Cooper’s studio. With the Fab Four dressed up in day-glo colored military uniforms, the evening shoot lasted for three hours. By night’s end, the Beatles, Fraser, Blake and Haworth had created an iconic image.

The final bill for the album artwork was £2,868 5s 3d (which would be equivalent to about £39,000 or $60,000 today). It’s been reported that this was 100 times the average cost for an album cover in 1967.

"A Day in the Life" - why is it great?

Oftentimes, it seems that the greatness of The Beatles is simply taken as a given. Too seldom do we seriously explore what composes and sustains this greatness. Too seldom do we unpack a song or an album in order to locate the qualities that make them so vital and compelling.

Here's a worthwhile question then: "'A Day In The Life' Is A Weird-Ass Song. So Why Does It Work?"

And here is one noteworthy part of the answer:

“The John Lennon section, like a lot of his music: I wouldn’t call it ‘whiny,’ but there is a bit of that ‘moany,’ ‘whiny’ tone to a lot of what he sings, you know, the way he sings through his nose the way he does, and the way he holds on to single notes for multiple syllables.” [Covach sings me “I read the news today, Oh boy…” to illustrate.] “It’s so very... John.”

Then the McCartney part - what Covach calls “the happy-go-lucky Paul thing” - and the contrast it creates, brings out the best of the two Beatles. It’s all packaged in a George Martin/Geoff Emerick production that turns the collaboration into a kind of a weird drug trip or psychedelic dream. “It’s like looking at the Beatles through some sort of weird psychedelic lens,” Covach says. “You recognize each of the guys [John and Paul], but everything about is sort of … the edges are all faded and the colors are not quite right.”

Today in Beatles history

As usual, it's courtesy of Gibson:

1967, at Abbey Road studios in London, The Beatles started work on a new song “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.” It wasn't until The Beatles had recorded the song that Paul McCartney had the idea to make the song the thematic pivot for their forthcoming album.

Weekend reading

Gibson: "The Great Album The Beatles Nearly Made"

Excerpt:
For many Beatles fans, 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band represents the pinnacle of the Fab Four’s achievements. Densely textured, sublimely arranged and packed with some of Lennon and McCartney’s best songs, the disc remains a touchstone for every pop band that puts a premium on melody and craftsmanship. Incredibly, however, as writer Philip Norman and even Sir George Martin have pointed out, The Beatles’ psychedelic masterpiece might have been even better, had some grievous missteps not occurred.

The Boss, "When I'm Sixty-Four," etc.

I'm a big fan of Bruce Springsteen, but it wasn't until recently that I became well-acquainted with his 1980 double album, The River. In my view, it's among his best. One of my favorite tracks is "Hungry Heart,” which I call attention to because, the first time I heard it, I immediately thought of "When I'm Sixty-Four." It's all in the vocal. When the Boss enters on "Hungry Heart," it doesn't sound quite right. That’s because his voice was sped up for the recording, which resulted in a higher pitch and an overall younger-sounding vocal. The parallels to "When I'm Sixty-Forty" are obvious: Paul had the same modification done to his voice, with the same result.

The song's connection to The Beatles doesn't end there. Wikipedia: "On the day of his murder in December 1980, John Lennon said he thought 'Hungry Heart' was 'a great record' and even compared it to his single '(Just Like) Starting Over.'"

Give it a listen:


(If the video is removed, go here.)

The Beatles vs. The Stones

For an informative and lively read, have a look at this Beatles vs. Stones exchange between Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis, two veteran Chicago-based music journalists and co-authors of the new book, The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones: Sound Opinions on the Great Rock 'n' Roll Rivalry. Most of it focuses on the relative merits of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Their Satanic Majesties Request, which was, effectively, the Stones' response to Pepper.

Excerpt:
But even if the lesser moments are not A-level Stones songs — "On with the Show" could be dismissed as hokey vaudeville, "Sing This All Together" is basically an acid campfire song, and Wyman's contribution of "In Another Land" is evidence of why he doesn't have more song credits on Stones albums — they are less offensive than "When I'm Sixty-Four" or "Lovely Rita" and the other weaker moments on "Sgt. Pepper's." Here we are at the epicenter of the youth-culture revolt, the high moment of "tune in, turn on, drop out," and Paul McCartney is romanticizing being an old geezer and giving us a love song to a cop! And it doesn't end there. In "She's Leaving Home," he sympathizes with Mom and Dad rather than the girl who's setting off on her own in the first full blush of independence. Again and again, McCartney sympathizes with the establishment on "Sgt. Pepper's" rather the counterculture. Meanwhile, John Lennon is tripping like a wildebeest, writing one brilliant song about a circus poster ("Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!") and another, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," full of hallucinatory images and bearing the convenient initials L-S-D. Otherwise, he's pretty much missing in action.

Much of what DeRogatis, in the above excerpt, sees as flaws, I actually see as virtues (albeit mild ones). I like that The Beatles didn't make of Sgt. Pepper's a full-on counter-cultural statement, but instead gave us a proper Beatles album, complete with goofy songs by Paul and other material that didn't necessarily speak to the times. In fact, those thirteen songs aren't anything like sonic documents of the youth-revolt moment. Had The Beatles gone in that direction, Pepper would probably be perceived as even more stale, even more fly-in-amber than some already think it is. And, contra DeRogatis, I admire that Paul stayed true to himself with songs like "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "She's Leaving Home," and didn't feel the need to pander to rebellious youngsters. It complicates The Beatles' relationship with that moment, which I find interesting. DeRogatis also fails to recognize Paul's sympathetic treatment of the teenage runaway in "She's Leaving Home," i.e., "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years." That Paul sees both sides could be taken as a sign of maturity. Finally, how does DeRogatis not acknowledge "A Day in the Life" when discussing John's contributions to Pepper?. That's a major, major oversight.

Tony Curtis (1925-2010)

The actor Tony Curtis died yesterday from cardiac arrest; he was 85. He gained fame for his roles in Some Like It Hot and Spartacus, and also had the honor of being among the motley collection of celebrities and historical figures who graced the legendary cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He's just to the right of Dion and in front of W.C. Fields. R.I.P.

"Sgt. Pepper's" ...

... in haiku form.

1) "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
2) "With a Little Help from My Friends"
3) "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
4) "Getting Better"
5) "Fixing a Hole"
6) "She's Leaving Home"
7) "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
8) "Within You Without You"
9) "When I'm Sixty-Four"
10) "Lovely Rita"
11) "Good Morning Good Morning"
12) "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"
13) "A Day in the Life"

Wednesday haiku - "A Day in the Life"

Containing two songs,
"Life" is the Fabs' grandest work,
their songwriting peak.

Tuesday haiku - "Sgt. Pepper's (Reprise)"

It's a farewell song:
the band has finished the show,
and "It's time to go".

Sunday haiku - "Good Morning Good Morning"

It's about John's life -
his lazy and humdrum life -
in suburbia.