Well, of course I've heard these songs before - many, many times - and I knew that Lennon, with his plaintive voice and aching idealism that was somehow never fulfilled, had written and recorded the classic War is Over. But I never put Paul together with the Wonderful Christmas Time song, which I've always liked - it's innocent and happy and family-oriented, like Paul himself.
So who wins? Depends on what you're listening for. And it brings home once again how each songwriter was infinitely better when they were together. They wrote songs "at" each other, ran them by the other, then defended criticisms and added suggestions, so that there was a true amalgam of genius.
Separately, not so much: Paul kind of devolved into sweetness and easy domesticity, and John just got more and more weird under the influence of Yoko, who could be heard screaming and caterwauling in the background of his later songs. And freed from the stabilizing influence of Paul, his mother issues really sent him into a funk.
But the songs they wrote together, or "at" each other, were beyond good. As Leonard Bernstein pointed out, they were pocket symphonies, miniature operas, the likes of which we'll never see in pop music again.
I'll listen to both of these this year, of course, but though Paul still walks among us, I will always miss John and be marked by how he died only three months after my brother Arthur, whom I still can't write about forty years later.
Further to my post of yesterday, here is a really fascinating deconstruction of the final chord of A Day in the Life - perhaps the most meaningful one minute of sound in all of pop history. As most of us know - well, I did from somewhere - the final chord is an auditory amalgam of the same chord played simultaneously on several different pianos by several different groups of people - with a kind of "buzz" sound added to the mix to boost the bass. In the last five minutes or so of this video you actually get to hear the component parts. This kind of technical manipulation was almost unheard-of in 1967, and in itself was a stroke of genius perhaps invented or implemented by George Martin. The original ending was going to be one note. Thank God someone re-thought THAT idea!
If you listen very carefully to that legendary final chord, as it slowly decays you can hear a chair squeaking. Others have heard the air conditioning system at Abbey Road Studios, though personally I can't. Given that playback is now much improved in clarity, people are still finding sounds in it, and to everyone's dismay, it turns out the recording equipment was turned off BEFORE THE END OF THE CHORD. It was still vibrating ever-so-subtly, but the truth is no one could pick it up even in playback. It was finished, wasn't it? SURELY it was finished, it had to be! No, it was not. It may have gone on vibrating for another 30 seconds, but we will never know.
I keep thinking of the first line of a John Lennon song called, aptly, You Can't Do That: "I've got something to say that might cause you pain." Funny, though, how no one else seems to preface their own statements that way. Like everyone else, I've had Harvey Weinstein shoved in my face lately, and I cannot think of anyone more repulsive to take up space in my brain. I guess I'm just supposed to NOT think about it, not react too much, react only partially, feel good that "now it's all out in the open", and/or just get on with my own happy life because everything really is still great.
It is? People are going around saying, "Ah! Now, at last, a man like this will be brought to justice." Just like Jian Ghomeshi. Just like Stephen Galloway. Just like Bill Cosby. It seems that in every case, the man accused of sexual assault drew sympathy, cosseting, and strenuous denial they had done anything wrong. With Cosby, the attitude is "how could you even think such a thing?" This is the Jell-o Pudding man! The next step (which has already happened with the first two, and is just about to happen with the third) is that the whole thing "blows over" and is reburied. "Oh, no, not THIS time," is the chorus. Oh yes? It will blow over. Just wait. Weinstein will find a role in Hollywood somewhere, the old boys' network (fellow abusers all) will forgive and forget, and he will serve no jail time, while the women he assaulted are haunted for the rest of their lives. (Though really, shouldn't they just forgive him? It's the only way to get over their anger, isn't it? And it's crucial they get over their anger. Anger in a woman is most unattractive.)
I saw a Facebook post or re-post by a young woman I sort-of know, the daughter of someone I used to know actually, just a rant rant rant about Weinstein, with every other word being FUCK! FUCK! FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!!!! This got lots and lots of likes and supportive comments and shares (or, no, sorry! Copy and paste! That's MUCH more noble and spiritual than share), but I doubt if too many will be interested in what I just wrote here. I'm ranting, see. I'm bitter. I'm angry, and that's a no-no. I'm past the threshhold of anger, which ends around age 50 when you are past your female expiry date. Today I read a Facebook post which was, in essence, one of those gratitude lists Oprah said we should make about everything wonderful in our lives. This was a long one, introduced with, "I know things are horrible in the world, countless people are suffering, and I see all sorts of negative things on Facebook, BUT. . . " It was a list, a long list of a lot of nice things in her life, really nice things, one after another, wonderful and enjoyable and satisfying things, which should have I guess made me feel better. Instead, it clanged. To me it just reeked of upper-middle-class white privilege. Yes, homelessness is rampant, people's houses have burned down or flooded out, children have vanished, women have been raped. . . and it's really too bad. . . but I baked a lovely pumpkin pie today, and everyone just loved it!
I'm not saying it's "bad" to count your blessings instead of sheep. We all have our Julie Andrews moments - and why not? But this had a definite flavour of "I have all this wonderful stuff in my life, and you don't". It's nice if you can go out for a brisk gallop on your thoroughbred mare at dawn, but hey. . . those beasts cost money. A lot of money. It's nice to have a wonderful six-week holiday in Greece coming up before Christmas, but. . . All those things she listed were attached to having the means to afford/enjoy them (not that that's an issue to those who have it: they become conveniently oblivious). The blatant smugness I see all over Facebook, with people oblivious to how their words will actually affect others, is disturbing. Of course this person's friends provided the usual Greek chorus of cheers, ooohs and ahhhs that SOMEBODY was (at last) being "positive" about something. How refreshing! "Hey, YOU had to deal with a fire in your home, YOU lost everything in a flood, YOU got sick, YOU got a divorce or lost your child or your business or your mind, but there's still something positive in the world: I won a literary prize and I lost ten pounds and I went for a charming walk and I. . .", etc. etc. Spawning a hundred likes, a hundred happy-faced comments, a hundred copy-and-pastes.
I don't know what the answer is, and like everyone else I have to live in the present and enjoy it as much as I can (and though it sometimes surprises me, I do: I lived through enough nightmares of chaos and alcoholism and psych wards to appreciate the bliss of an ordinary, sober day). My husband and I have so little money that we have to write down every expenditure to the nearest dollar, and I don't care because going for a walk in the woods is free. I feel most powerless when I look at Trump, feel most alarmed when people still make jokes about him, as if that helps people and doesn't just temporarily numb them. He might just destroy the world, perhaps believes that is his ultimate mission. Weinstein and his ilk are legion, I am sure, but with anything this traumatic, it comes out explosively at first, then tends to get reburied. It's a cycle, which means, ultimately, that nothing happens. Trump crudely bragged about grabbing women's pussies and STILL got elected. Probably he got a lot of votes because he bragged about it. God knows Harvey did, and for how long we don't know.
My hope is in my grandkids, not so scarred or twisted just yet, and the hope-against-hope that those three beautiful, accomplished, bravehearted girls WON'T be mauled or molested or nastily propositioned, as women and girls have been for countless centuries. I see no signs of it yet, but puberty looms, and I know what comes next. They become fair game. Weinstein will buy his way out of jail, Cosby will go doddering into an institution somewhere, Trump will serve his four years, and all the rest will keep on being sleazeballs until a small percentage of them actually have to take responsibility for what they have done. What they have done is leave a mark on someone's soul forever, take their joy and never give it back. No jail sentence, not even the death penalty, could cause that kind of pain.
It was fifty years ago today, or whenever it was, that this landmark album first came out, and the world is celebrating. I wish I remembered my first reaction to it. Since we lived in a small town, I am sure we didn't get around to buying it 'til maybe 1968. But there it was, and it was as if it had been part of our lives always.
Though it was indescribably weird, at the same time, there was something familiar about Sgt. Pepper, and it fast became a friend, an album you'd go back to again and again, maybe for the next. . . fifty years. I've started dipping into it again, though I find the Beatles so "dense" (no, not stupid, just musically thick and layered and emotionally laden, not to mention dizzyingly brilliant technically) that I have to take it a few songs at a time.
When I listen to Pepper now, I hear George Martin. His musicality and influence permeates every song. Along with the less-brilliant Magical Mystery Tour, Pepper is one of the Beatles' most highly-produced (some would say overproduced) albums, meaning that it is just thick with the bells and whistles that spawned the stoned, psychedelic, signature '60s sound. They could not have done this on their own. They were a gear group, man, and as they matured as songwriters, they could tear off a masterwork like Blackbird backed by a single guitar. But right there they were in an uncharted musical wilderness, breaking ground like crazy, and badly needed a guide.
I love finding snippets of interviews with George Martin. His love for the group is palpable, as is their trust of him and openhearted willingness to apply his complex arrangements to songs that, let's face it, were still pretty scouse around the edges. Though Ringo retained more skiffle than the rest of them, the fact that they remained working class lads probably kept them from flying off the edge of the world from the insane pressures of fame.
Please forgive these strange animations. I got making them today, and couldn't stop. What happened is, I decided to see if I could animate (if you can call it that) the legendary Sgt. Pepper album cover. Of course I could not go near the front. That would be plain foolish. So I tackled the back instead, though in its own way it is no less complex. All the song lyrics are superimposed on top of the four lads, creating an eerie 3D effect. (By the way, I used to be on the front cover myself: I clipped out my face from one of those godawful class photos - I was wearing a pink velvet dress with a ruffle down the front - and scotch-taped it next to Laurel and Hardy. Or was it Marilyn Monroe.)
As I poked around in all this 50th anniversary stuff, noticing the approximately ten billion YouTube videos on the subject, I inevitably ran into the stupidest conspiracy theory in human history: "Paul Is Dead" (as of 1966, when he was replaced by a double). I was amazed to see that the rumor, poisonous lie, or whatever it is, is still around and has so many viciously enthusiastic proponents. There are comparisons of eyes, noses, lips, even teeth, insisting that the Paul of today (indeed, the Paul of 1966 - God, I can't believe I just wrote "indeed") is a mere stand-in. Some even call him, inexplicably, Faul.
Apparently, the Beatles' music is rife with clues as to Paul's demise/replacement. Since he died in a car crash, John wrote, "He blew his mind out in a car/He didn't notice that the lights had changed." Never mind that John specifically stated that the song was about the death of Guinness heir Tara Browne.
I could go on. "Dying to take you away." "Turn me on, dead man." "I buried Paul." Bare feet, black carnations, "the walrus was Paul" (and by the way, conspiracy people see all sorts of omens and portents where there aren't any. Walruses are NOT a sign of death, people. They are large marine mammals. John's use of them was pure surrealism.)
This album has been analyzed and written about to death. Each song has brought forth PhD theses and books and more albums and all manner of things. My favorite Pepper story - and this may even be true - is about Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, the circus poster come to life. George Martin wanted something special to illustrate the surrealism of Henry the Horse dancing the waltz, so he had a technician find an old tape of calliope music, cut it up into one-second pieces, throw them up in the air, then splice them back together as they landed. This led to a lot of snippets of backwards music that was, like, weird, man, it was just incredible. I don't know for sure if the Beatles invented backwards music/messages, but I do remember that in 1965 the end of Rain sounded a lot like "nair".
I always assumed Paul was alive, but then it hit me, as I was mucking around trying to make these silly animations: hey, why is he facing backwards? This was 1967, and though the conspiracy theory didn't really come out until two years later, the Paul-is-dead zealots would claim that he had died already and they were trying to cover up the fact that his "double" (Billy Shears? William Campbell? - whatever) looked nothing like him.
I was determined to get Paul (Faul?) to turn around here, and found an image of a guy in a blue Pepper uniform. I don't know who he is, nor do I care. He was the right size and shape for my purposes, Beatlish in a generic sort of way. I keep thinking he looks a bit like Dave Thomas of SCTV wearing a Sonny Bono wig.
I don't know. It is odd as hell, when you think about it. I am not sure if all the people on the cover were dead, or just most of them. I can't remember, and I don't want to look it up because I am getting bloody sick of the topic. If they were all dead, then Paul was "facing" them by looking backwards like that.
But wait, wait, no, JOHN is dead - we know that much. We know George is dead. Good old scouse working-class Ringo is still around, and he is SO COOL and hip now, it's a real transformation. It's really just stupid, because it means Paul never did Blackbird, and - screw it, it's all a load of crap! Who else could have done Blackbird? No other human being, living or dead.
