"Good Ol' Freda" review

I recently took the time to watch Good Ol' Freda, the charming indie documentary released last year about The Beatles' faithful and beloved secretary, Freda Kelly. Several things stood out.

First, this is Beatles history that we really haven't encountered before, or not in meaningful detail anyway. Yes, a chapter of the Fabs' story that hasn't already been painstakingly probed in books, dramatized in movies and plays, and otherwise combed through and commodified. It's strange. A small miracle even. As you learn in the film, the explanation is that Freda is someone who has long valued privacy and loyalty over the limelight and the almighty dollar. She probably would've felt she had betrayed The Beatles' trust by cashing in early and often on her unique vantage point. And all these years later, Freda only agreed to do this project at the urging of her young grandson. Who could find fault there?

At the same time, there is an unmistakable streak of melancholy to Good Ol' Freda, underscoring that integrity can come with material costs. Freda hasn't penned a smash memoir. She hasn't spent her life busily on the hunt for the next media op. Right after The Beatles split, she simply gave away most of the merchandise and memorabilia she had accumulated over the years. As a result, this would-be minor celebrity has had to provide for herself in that most familiar, blase manner: as a 9-5er. A 9-5 secretary no less. True, this was to a certain degree by design. It doesn't seem (seem) much out of step with the path that Freda claims she wanted for herself. But, watching Good Ol' Freda, it's hard to elude the "what could've been" angle. Might she have been able to reap some measure of financial security through her former life while still maintaing her sense of integrity? Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, the broader point is that the film almost forces you to consider the question.

Last, and most rewarding, it's a treat to watch and listen to Freda as she - fondly but with a notably casual tone - revisits her past. Memories like seeing The Beatles nearly 200 times at the Cavern Club (she was a fan first) or developing a deep bond with Ringo's mother or forcing John down onto one knee as part of an apology he owed her. It's wild. From basically the start of the Fabs' run to the end, she was right there in the thick of things - not just an up-close witness to history but an active participant. She was a "family member" to the boys, a confidante, an object of respect and adoration. Yet, to Freda - this impossibly down-to-earth woman - it was just part of her life. She has to be the luckiest Beatles fan who ever lived.

"Appreciate"

Watch below as Macca serenades and grooves with a robot named Newman in the just-released video for "Appreciate", the excellent fourth single off last year's New. Both the song, which boasts a heavily processed, cinematic sound, and the futuristic video, which comes with a "presented by Microsoft" tag, convey a message that Paul has long seemed keen to emphasize: this knighted legend is no wrinkly legacy act, proudly and permanently chained to the past. No, even at the ripe age of 71, Sir Paul remains fresh and vital. He just wants to party.

Tuesday reading

- "Beatlemania in 1964: 'This has gotten entirely out of control'" - Here's a vividly detailed first-look at The Beatles' maiden visit to the U.S., published in The Saturday Evening Post in March of 1964. What stands out most is that, even at this early stage of band's mega-prominence, the press had already identified the role of each Beatle - roles that quickly became familiar and overstated to the point of cliche. John as the intellectual, Paul as the Cute One, etc, etc.

- "The Beatles’ first U.S. concert: An oral history of the day the Fab Four conquered D.C."

Macca: The press conferences were quite funny. It was always: “Hey, Beatles, is that hair real, or is it a wig?” Well, that’s a very good question, isn’t it? How dumb are you? But we didn’t mind it at all. We expected it. It was a completely different world. It’s not like now where you’ll find all these kids writing for the Internet. It was elderly, balding gentlemen who smoked a lot — grown-ups looking disapprovingly at the children having too much fun. We knew it wasn’t hard to beat that kind of cynicism. It was like a chess game. And the great thing was, being four of us, one of us could always come up with a smart-ass answer.

- "The 10 Most Technically Amazing Beatles Songs" - I was delighted to see what song occupies the top spot of this list. Hugely underrated, imo; the atmosphere is matchless.

- Lastly, "Listen Closer! 35 Songs You Didn’t Know Feature Famous Background Singers"

Great non-Beatles song...

... with a random Beatles reference.

Nilsson...I just can't quit the guy. And for someone who operates a blog about The Beatles, this is fortuitous, as there's no shortage of shared history between the two acts. The list encompasses press conference plugs, surprise late-night phone calls, transatlantic visits, cover songs, tribute mash-ups, collaborations (both sonic and cinematic), epic booze-and-coke benders, best-man wedding duties, and so forth. I've already blogged about much of this, but here's one Nilsson-Fab intersection that I've yet to highlight: Harry's shout-out to The Beatles in "Don't Leave Me."

Off 1968's Aerial Ballet - a delightful hodgepodge dotted with classics - "Don't Leave Me" is full of the tricks, surprises, and wonders that have always set Nilsson apart. Foremost, take notice of how the song begins and where it is by the end. It's a full-on transformation: from subdued and plaintive to effervescent and whacky. In part, this is thanks to the range and elasticity of Nilsson's legendary voice. As with Roy Orbison, his vocal acrobatics often lead you on little adventures. There's also the unconventional use of just a single chorus, the closing half-minute stuffed with Nilsson's signature "nonsensical melodic mortar" (in the words of Grantland's Sean Fennessey), and - getting to the point of this post - the appropriation of "beep beep beep beep yeah" from "Drive My Car" that comes out of nowhere right in the middle of the track. Why is it there? Hardly matters. All I need to know is that it's Harry and The Beatles.

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?

A Concert for Linda

Ultimate Classic Rock recently commented on the 15th anniversary of "A Concert for Linda":

On April 10, 1999, Paul McCartney made his first public appearance since his wife Linda passed nearly a year earlier – and just his second in the two years she’d battled breast cancer – during a touching farewell concert.

...

McCartney was backed by members of the Pretenders, along with Costello, for his appearance. He dedicated his set to Linda, whom he called “my beautiful baby — and our beautiful children, who are here tonight.” He then joked: “It’s past your bedtime” before launching into Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town” (a favorite of the couple’s as youngsters) amidst a standing ovation.

As he played an energetic version of the Beatles‘ 1963 hit “All My Loving,” many of the evening’s stars began to congregate on stage, joining in for a rousing chorus.

Because Paul has maintained such a visible public presence in the last decade-plus, it's weird to think there was a time in the near past when he just dropped out of view. The reason he did so couldn't be more understandable, but still. Anything that doesn't perfectly comport with the now-ingrained image we have of him - youthful, irrepressible, jet-setting, eternally carefree - takes time to compute.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Beatles and America, Then and Now"

Below are four excerpts from a new e-book by Michael Tomasky called Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Beatles and America, Then and Now. Tomasky undertakes the important task of illuminating the cultural context in America at the time that The Beatles' invasion began. Lots to digest.

- "A Revolution, With Guitars: How The Beatles Changed Everything"

Excerpt: "The Beatles did two big things. First, they popularized—I’d even say they basically invented—the rock’n’roll two-electric guitar sound. That fundamental rock’n’roll line-up—guitars, bass, drums, emulated millions of times—comes from them. Second, they broke down the wall between teen music and adult music, a wall that had been insuperable until then. And not just with Sgt. Pepper—from the start."

- "Before the Earthquake Hit: When The Beatles Landed in America"

Excerpt: "There existed a sharp divide then: Teenagers bought 45-inch singles, and adults bought albums. The 12-inch, 33-rpm album was invented in 1948 by Columbia Records chiefly for the sake of classical music fans. Until then, if you wanted to listen to Beethoven’s Ninth (around 65 minutes) on the old 78’s, you need around ten discs, sometimes turning them over in the middle of movements! So the LP was a revelation in its day, as amazing as Pandora is to us. An entire symphony on one record, with virtually no hiss? And having to turn the record over only once? Incredible! But albums were expensive, too—in the late ’50s, around $2.98, sometimes more. That would be around $23 today, adjusted for inflation, and this in a society where most people had far less disposable income than they do now. This is a big part of why LPs were for adults, along with the fact that no pop idol could cobble together 12 songs of any quality."

- "‘You’ve Got to Be Kidding’: Why Adults Dismissed The Beatles in 1964"

Excerpt: "The idea that this was all potentially quite subversive wouldn’t really take root for another year or two. So the general posture of the adult world, in early 1964, was a kind of dismissive indulgence. In those days, The New York Times did not write about this sort of falderal; neither did The New Yorker or any other serious magazine. “Music” was classical music, jazz, and Broadway."

- "Was The Beatles’ Music Really That Unique? Yeah, It Totally Was."

Excerpt: "Theirs was the first music that took these influences and combined them into a new sound that was driven by the interplay between two guitars—two electric guitars, going along together, playing different parts, both playing at a high volume, driving the sound. Others may have come along and quickly taken matters to even higher volumes—the Stones and the Kinks and the Who. But combining blues, country, pop, music hall, and Broadway into a two-guitar sound called rock’n’roll was something The Beatles did first."