Weekend reading

I've been meaning to post this for some time. It's an old book review (Helter Skelter) by The New Republic's William Crawford Woods that surveys the horror, mystery, and perverse fascination of the Manson Family murders. More specifically, Woods probes the link between the grisly killing spree and the '60s counterculture, exploring where at the outer limits of Peace, Love, and Rock 'n' Roll there might have been room for a deranged, bloodthirsty cult. It's a fascinating topic. Perhaps too much so.

Excerpt:

It is harder now than it would have been in the '60s to imagine children dumb or drugged enough to be entranced by such a story. But Manson had an old con's skill (he had spent most of his life in prison—had even begged to be kept inside before being released for his final killing spree) at picking the members of his band: the girls were young, homeless, fanciful, at war with their parents—the boys were kept in line by being given the girls. In the moonlit desert, in the ready-made romance of the decaying Spahn Movie Ranch, they would sit adoringly around Charlie and hear him make promises of a future that would give them the power they'd never had, heal wounds that burned fresh daily. There were drugs, sex in constant splashes every which way, and all the other sticks and carrots that kept the kids in line. But there was something else in Manson that could turn them from borderline psychotics into psychopathic killers of unparalleled cruelty. Bugliosi admits it, but he cannot quite say what it is.

Most likely no one will ever be able to. Unlike Bugliosi I doubt Manson himself is in possession of his "formula." The element of the demonic, introduced here to supply the book's only missing note, is not something any pragmatic intelligence feels comfortable with, but one glance at the famous Life cover photo of Manson is almost enough to make disbelievers switch sides. (It's included in the exhaustive photo section of this book.) I don't think there's any possible doubt that Manson was a demon—not possessed by one, was one. His hellish history makes any appeal to a supernatural principle superfluous; but having both motive and motive force behind it, we are still shy of understanding. To come closer to that we must close in on the ideational undertow of helter-skelter, the art where Manson's twisted art originates.

It is in music. Manson was convinced that the Beatles were sending him coded messages in support of helter-skelter, particularly in the double "white album" released in 1968; he took the term from one of its songs. As family members testified at the trial, he had worked out with scholarly precision correlations between his murderous doctrine and virtually every line of every lyric; more than that he had searched beyond his origins in the Beatles to their origins in the Book of Revelations, where in the ninth chapter he found the "four angels" with "faces as the faces of men" but "hair as the hair of women"; even mention of their electric guitars ("breastplates of fire") and much else besides. There was word of a fifth angel, and the family knew who that had to be. One translation of Revelations calls him Exterminans.

Revelations 9. Is it chance that the Beatles song Manson liked best is called "Revolution 9"? Or that the Bible chapter ends, "Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries..."? And the song ends on the grunting of pigs, and machine-gun fire?

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."

"Revolution 20"

From The Onion's A.V. Club:

In 1968, The Beatles released three versions of "Revolution." "Revolution 1" is the mellow, mostly acoustic version that leads off side four of The White Album. "Revolution 2," released as the flip side of "Hey Jude," is the anthemic, guitar-driven version you're most familiar with. "Revolution 9" is the self-indulgent marathon of found sounds and tape loops, also from The White Album.

Still, rumors have abounded for years that the group recorded as many as 22 different takes on the song, each as different to each other as the three we're familiar with. But, as none were included on The Beatles Anthology, it was assumed they would never see the light of day, if they existed at all.

But yesterday, Open Culture posted almost completely unheard—albeit, uploaded to YouTube in 2009—material from 45-year-old sessions by the most scrutinized band of all time. "Revolution 20" is a 10-minute long alternate take on the song. After some chatter from the band (a snippet of which you'll recognized from "Revolution 2"), the song starts off in a similar vein to The White Album version, but gets progressively stranger as it goes, with a few clips also used in "Revolution 9" making an appearance. It may not replace the single version in anyone's iPod, but it's a fascinating glimpse at The Beatles' process as they attacked the song from all angles before settling on the versions they wanted to release.

__________

What I find so interesting about "Revolution 20" is that it represents a rather unlikely bridge between "Revolution 1" and "Revolution 9" - a pair of songs situated on opposite ends of the musical style and accessibility spectrum. "Revolution 20" doesn't exactly make sense of the radical disparity, but it links the two "White Album" entries in a way that we likely couldn't have imagined on our own.

There's a subtle sense of balance about the recording that caught my ear. The first four minutes or so hew somewhat closely to "Revolution 1," with one major exception being the squealing Mellotron line inserted at many points. It plays like a cautionary intimation of the madness to come. But when the chaotic experimental jam does kick in, it's leavened to a certain degree by the background "shoo-bi-doo-wahs" that recur throughout the entire track. Amidst a heated avant-garde digression, these classic rock 'n' roll garnishes stand out, almost as if they're waving the flag for familiarity and conventionality.

To be sure, "Revolution 20" is still a very first-half vs. second-half kind of construction, but the break isn't perfectly clean. The pop side and the experimental side interact with one another for the full running time, creating symmetry where it doesn't seem to belong.

A shorter description: "Revolution 20" is weird, serious, playful, and indulgent all at once (sounds like John, no?). Have a listen below. If nothing else, what a fertile and creative period for The Beatles, despite the friction and infighting. Somehow, their art was still soaring.

(If the video is removed, go here.)

Bad songs by The Beatles

They do exist. The Beatles were but men, prone to missteps and lapses in judgment.

I recently came across this rundown of unFab creations that was compiled by Neil McCormick of The Telegraph. I'm painting with broad strokes, but it seems there are essentially four categories of bad Beatles songs you'll find in such lists: John's occasional misfire (vague, I know, but his duds aren't easily classifiable like the others'), Paul's music-hall confections, George's self-serious Eastern dirges and Ringo's ... songs. McCormick targets a cut or two from each group - John: "Revolution 9"; Paul: "Your Mother Should Know"; George: "The Inner Light" and "Long, Long, Long"; and Ringo: "Honey Don't" and "Octopus's Garden." I agree with some but not all of these. I happen to love "Your Mother Should Know," along with Paul's other dainty throwbacks like "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Honey Pie." Ringo's moments in the sun usually don't bother me, but I'm emphatically not a fan of George's Eastern/stoner outings, particularly "Within You Without You" and "It's All Too Much." Joyless and navel-gazing, in my opinion. As for John, I'm not keen on "Revolution 9," but I consider his body of work to be the strongest overall. I even like his misogynist tirade "Run for Your Life" quite a lot.

For my own (very short) list, I have a different approach in mind. I'm going to write about the two Beatles songs that annoy me the most. I'm limiting it to two because only this pair has consistently stuck out over the years. By objective standards, they may not represent the worst of the worst (perhaps far from it, even), but for various reasons they get under my skin. And that's worse than merely being bad.

- "I Need You" (Help!)

An otherwise unmemorable song that is made memorably irritating by the nasal, offbeat, dragging guitar effect that George conjured up with a volume pedal. It sounds like a car horn mixed with a duck call; it's grating every time. I can credit George for trying something different, but all he managed to do in the end was constantly interrupt his own song. George Martin should've said no. Whenever I listen to Help!, I always bypass this track. It's the lone bum note on Side One.

- "Blackbird" (The Beatles)

Paul's precious paean to the civil rights movement is beloved by many. If you browse user comments on YouTube, you'll find that, through "Blackbird," people locate inner peace, experience the numinous, and achieve cosmic unity with Paul. I've never come close to any of that. On the contrary, I think "Blackbird" is a crashing bore. I detect no color, no spark, no passion. The melody is dull and erratic; Paul's vocal is little more than serviceable; and - to top it off - the chirping bird sample is super contrived and obvious. An exceedingly amateur touch, if you ask me. It rankles hard. On Side Two of "The White Album," I'll take "Martha My Dear," "Rocky Raccoon," "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" and "I Will" (to say nothing of John's contributions) over "Blackbird" every day of the week.

. . .

By speaking well of "Run for Your Life" and trashing "Blackbird" in the same post, I may get excommunicated from the Global Community of Beatles Fans. I'm prepared to accept the consequences.

The charms of "I'm So Tired"

I welcome any reason to reflect on "I'm So Tired" - my favorite song by The Beatles - even if that reason is the scourge of restless sleep. When the body is weary but the mind still sharp and active, it's the ideal moment to share in John's comic exasperation with being unable to shut down for the night.

What I enjoy most about the song is John's vocal, so rich in tonal shifts, so full of humor, frustration, and wild-eyed conviction, and so indicative of the singer's messy, complicated nature.

John comes out of the gate as languid and defeated as you might expect. "I'm so tired / I haven't slept a wink / I'm so-ooo tired / My mind is on the blink / I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink / No-no-no-oh." He couldn't sound any more drained of life, underscoring the toll of his inability to sleep but also the cruel, nagging humor of it (Note that, when he wrote the song, he couldn't do drugs because he was in India at a Transcendental Mediation camp). He continues: "I'm so tired / I don't know what to do / I'm so-oo-oh tired / My mind is set on you." The "you" is Yoko, and the mere thought of her instills John with vigor. From there to the end of the chorus ("You know I'd give you everything I got for a little peace of mind"), he sings as a man renewed, though in reality it's the anxiety of being separated from Yoko that sets him ablaze. He could suffer this bout of insomnia if only his future wife was at his side. Without her, he's pushed to the edge of madness ("I'm goin' insane"). At the start of the next verse, he retreats from it, but only briefly. He soon finds himself again overcome by vexation ("I'm feelin' so upset"), which spills into a miniature comic tirade against Sir Walter Raleigh, the "stupid git" who popularized tobacco use in England. Then another chorus and various repetitions follow, sung in the same vein.

A perfect song.

"I'm So Tired" is the sound of John's oversize personality working its charm. It's the sound of John stricken not only with the inability to sleep but, more so, the human condition. It's the sound of John laughing, crying, hating, and loving all at once.

Renaming "The White Album"

A favorite parlor game among Beatles fanatics is to prune and rearrange the 30 songs on "The White Album," creating a track listing that fits onto two sides instead of four. Though the double album's bloat is part of its appeal, I'm sure most would agree that not all of the songs hit their mark, and some are just downright baffling ("Wild Honey Pie" and "Revolution 9" are atop that list). Such is the case with The Beatles' ninth album: because of its size and colorful oddity, it often confounds us and prompts us to second-guess.

Other games are possible. What of the curiously plain cover art? It's iconic, to be sure, but it's not exactly a feast for the eyes. And then there's the album's name, The Beatles or "The White Album," neither of which stokes the imagination.

Finding suitable replacements for the album's cover art and name would clearly be more difficult than the first exercise because the former require that you come up with something new as opposed to just marking songs for deletion. With that in mind, I thought of an alternative: use existing concepts. As in, what album name that already exists would be fitting for "The White Album"?

Two ideas: Pet Sounds or Animals.

"The White Album" is suffused with animal imagery. There's a walrus on "Glass Onion," tigers and elephants on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," and a lizard on "Happiness Is a Warm Gun;" "Martha My Dear" is about a dog; there are songs named "Blackbird," "Piggies," "Rocky Raccoon," and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey;" and "Why Don't We Do It in the Road" was inspired by the sight of monkeys having sex.

God bless "The White Album."

My favorite song ever written by John Lennon

"I'm So Tired"


(If the video is removed, go here.)

Today in Beatles history

Via Steve Marinucci: On this day in 1968, George recorded a lovely acoustic version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."

Have a look/listen:


If the video is removed, go here.

After listening to it, I asked myself this: What is it that is so sad and even fateful about the line, "I look at the floor/And I see it needs sweeping?" George turns a domestic commonplace into something haunting. Ordinary People anyone?

"The White Album" ...

... in haiku form.

Disc 1
1) "Back in the U.S.S.R."
2) "Dear Prudence"
3) "Glass Onion"
4) "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
5) "Wild Honey Pie"
6) "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"
7) "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
8) "Happiness Is a Warm Gun"
9) "Martha My Dear"
10) "I'm So Tired"
11) "Blackbird"
12) "Piggies"
13) "Rocky Raccoon"
14) "Don't Pass Me By"
15) "Why Don't We Do It in the Road"
16) "I Will"
17) "Julia"

Disc 2
1) "Birthday"
2) "Yer Blues"
3) "Mother Nature's Son"
4) "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey"
5) "Sexy Sadie"
6) "Helter Skelter"
7) "Long, Long, Long"
8) "Revolution 1"
9) "Honey Pie"
10) "Savoy Truffle"
11) "Cry Baby Cry"
12) "Revolution 9"
13) "Good Night"

Saturday haiku #2 - "Good Night"

Given to Ringo,
"Night" is a sweet lullaby
John wrote for his son.

Saturday haiku - "Revolution 9"

John's long sound collage,
"9" strikes some as avant-garde
and others as tripe.

Monday haiku - "Cry Baby Cry"

A nursery rhyme
that John later regretted,
“Cry” ends with a twist.

Sunday haiku - "Savoy Truffle"

Slowhand's love of sweets
prompted George to write "Savoy",
a goofy tribute.

Saturday haiku - "Honey Pie"

Paul wrote this ditty
in dainty music-hall style,
and sounds right at home.

Best three songs in a row - Pt. 10

Parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine:

Album: The Beatles (aka The White Album)
Three songs: "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," "Martha My Dear," and "I'm So Tired"
Comments: One might suspect that, regarding my mission with these posts, The White Album would present some difficulties. After all, it's long and sprawling, needing 30 songs and four sides to get from start to finish. That's a wealth of room for strong stretches of music. And most Beatles fans would agree that, bloat and all, it is a very rewarding album, even uniquely so. A staple observation from White Album reviews is that, on some level, the double LP benefits from its excesses and indulgences; they're a source of charm. And who could really imagine the experience of The White Album without all those animal songs, or with "Revolution 1" but not "Revolution 9?" We accept it as it is and enjoy it as it is.

That doesn't mean we enjoy the whole of it, though. It's an inescapable fact that not all of The White Album's oddities and affected amusements (many of them essentially solo compositions, a product of the band's disunity) are very satisfying, and some are downright masturbatory. When you combine these songs - the bad and the ugly - with the good, it can make for uneven listening. For instance, disc one tracks like "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," Wild Honey Pie," "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," and "Piggies" often just seem to be in the way, disrupting the momentum whipped up by the many outstanding entries around them. Buried amidst the 17 songs of that disc is an efficiently masterful album; what The Beatles left for us was something longer and perhaps more memorable and interesting, but also eccentric to a fault. Conversely, disc two, which for the most part lacks highlights on par with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," and "Martha My Dear," could not function well on its own. In a way, it feeds off the strength of disc one. Though I really dig songs like "Sexy Sadie," "Long, Long, Long," and "Cry Baby Cry" the only true classic there may be Paul's blistering, bludgeoning "Helter Skelter."

These are some of the thoughts that occupied me as I started to consider The White Album's three best in a row; and in the end, they helped make my task fairly easy. Eliminating all of disc two right off the bat obviously narrowed the field quite a bit. Its sole contender, "Sexy Sadie"-"Helter Skelter"-"Long, Long, Long," isn't without substantial merit, but it wasn't hard to see that some combination of songs on disc one would prove superior. Again, disc one is the better of the two, boasting a handful of classics and some very solid second-tier tracks. For my purposes, it didn't hurt that three of its lesser songs - "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "Wild Honey Pie," and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" - come one after the other. Mind you, they still have a disruptive presence, but it's not broadly distributed. Pushing them to the side left these in the running: "Back in the U.S.S.R"-"Dear Prudence"-"Glass Onion" and then everything from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" to "Julia," the concluding track of disc one. In other words, a bevy of superlative music remained. But that didn't mean that I struggled to arrive at my pick.

First of all, when you look at the songs that populate disc one, you find that "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" - a song so very much and only itself - is just staring at you, not letting you even entertain its exclusion. It's the anchor of tracks 1-17 and possibly the best song on all of The White Album. Critically, it's also surrounded by other high-caliber tunes. George's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" precedes; Paul's "Martha My Dear" follows; and "I'm So Tired," which on some days is my favorite Beatles song period, comes after the latter. That's possibly the best four-song stretch in the hallowed discography under discussion. But keeping it to three meant deciding between "Weeps" and "Tired." An earnest, darkly balladic guitar-burner versus a piquant, small-bore cry for sanity. Acknowledging my bias, I still went with "Tired." The way it captures John in a particular moment and in a particular state of mind is absorbing. And that vocal, which "caresses and crackles, soothes and snarls," stands as one of his finest.

Thus, "Happiness"-"Martha"-"Tired" emerged from that foursome, and it took the prize over other combinations like "U.S.S.R."-"Prudence"-"Onion" and "Dear"-"Tired"-"Blackbird." Though I wrote at length about it, the choice (again) struck me as the obvious one.

Sunday haiku - "Revolution 1"

To back violence
or not to back violence?
John wasn't sure yet.

Wednesday haiku - "Long, Long, Long"

Showing George's faith,
"Long" is a love note to God:
"Now I can see you".

Wednesday haiku - "Helter Skelter"

Fierce and clamoring,
and made by Paul for its noise,
"Helter" raises cain.

Tuesday haiku - "Sexy Sadie"

Packed with bitterness,
John's "Sadie" has one target:
the Maharishi.