My Evolution Revolution of the Solo Fabs (Or Imagine Living in the Material World, say London Town, with Beaucoups of Blues) Part 9: Classic singles playing Mind Games

When it comes to James Bond title songs, nobody does it better than Paul McCartney.  (get it?)  Live and Let Die is epic in structure, three minutes of building an orchestra-infused tension to it’s breaking point, and then—ka-boom!—release to the reggae “middle-eight” (Linda’s influence, no doubt), then back to re-building for the penultimate ka-boom.  As Bond songs go, it simply can’t be beat.  (Although Duran Duran’s A View to a Kill comes close.   I keed…)

This is McCartney pulling out the stops, working with Fifth Beatle George Martin to produce (and orchestrate) a song that, once again, is a Wings’ as a band, record. The song was released one month (!) after the release of Red Rose Speedway but sounds nothing like the album, and, instead foreshadows the rock and roll gems from McCartney and Wings that were soon to come.

The flip side, I Lie Around, is a terrific little ditty.  The lead vocals go to Denny Laine, solidifying the band concept, which really does apply here, as McCartney himself takes the lead vocal during the last “…all over the place” jam-fest fade out.

 On the plus side, George Harrison’s album Living in the Material World sounds great.  Gone is the wall-of-sound, replaced with a cadre of fine musicians, most notably Harrison himself on the guitar, both acoustic and electric.  He is in good voice, too.  Mostly.  (We’ll get to that.)  The songs range from good to great, with but one misstep (We’ll get to that.)  And while a “heavy” album, it’s not quite the arduous adventure as listening to the entire All Things Must Pass is.  

On the negative side, with the exception of the opening (and single) Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth), Living in the Material World is not a whole lot of fun.  Preachy spirituals, often conveying a cold harshness, are mixed with songs about his former bandmates—one almost rivaling Lennon’s How Do You Sleep?

The Light That Has Lighted the World is, basically, a plea to us, the fans, to stop putting Harrison in the Beatle Box and allow him his quest for spiritual enlightenment.  Even when he was a Beatle, in interviews, Harrison was most aware of the Beatle trappings; which is why it’s interesting how often, as a solo artist, Harrison’s songs bring up his fellow band mates.  Like Who Can See It for example.

The huge success of All Things Must Pass and his phenomenal orchestration of The Concert For Bangla Desh proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to Harrison and the public at large, that Harrison’s talents were, at least the equal of his fellow bandmates, Lennon and McCartney.   Who Can See It is Harrison letting us, and his former bandmates, know that Harrison is more than a little bitter at the way he was treated when he was Fab. 

In contrast to the bitterness of Who Can See It, Living in the Material World (itself a song of contrasts), as it relates to the Fabs’, is almost warm.  While Ringo sang about his three fellow mates in Early 1970, Harrison actually name-checks them in Living in the Material World.  It’s quite a fun, toe-tapping tune, with the middle-eight getting in the spiritual element.  Musically and lyrically, it’s one of the album’s highlights.

The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord) is a sermon, and while an okay tune, it’s still a sermon.

One of my favorite of all Harrison songs, Be Here Now just floats on perfection.  Admittedly, when I first heard the song as a teenager, I just didn’t get it and pretty much dismissed it out of hand.  But even then, the dreamlike melody worked its way into my subconsciousness, and I found myself humming it over and over.  It wasn’t until later, when listening to it as an adult, that the lyrics, the line Be Here Now, in the present, in the now, made complete sense.  

The Day the World Gets ‘Round is pretty odd, both lyrically and musically.  It opens with the optimism of Lennon’s Imagine, but quickly turns politically pessimistic, until finally ending in a sort of ‘holier than thou’ accusation.

The last song on the album, That Is All, is a love song.  To God?  To a woman?  To both?  Yes.  It’s a tad schmaltzy, in all the right ways and is a nice way to conclude the album.

I leapt over Try Some, Buy Some because it’s the odd man out.  Living in the Material World contains some of Harrison’s best vocals in his career.  But he is straining a lot on Try Some, Buy Some.  (Probably because he used the same backing track used in the Ronnie Spector version, done in 1971.  But her key is obviously not his key.)  Why Harrison wanted to include the song to begin with is hard to say, because it’s not one of his best.  Lyrically it’s preachy and covers the same territory as the title track. 

By performing on such tracks in which Lennon and Starr took direct aim at McCartney (most notably, of course, being How Do You Sleep?), Harrison had given, at the very least, a tacit endorsement of the sentiments expressed.  And while some of his songs reflect, many negatively, on his time in the Beatles, nothing he’d written, so far, had been so pointed at McCartney as Sue Me, Sue You Blues.  Yes, lawyers take it on the chin, too, but Harrison pretty much makes it clear that he places all of the blame on McCartney, who had brought suits against Apple and the band in an effort to dissolve the partnership.  The difficulties of disbanding were complicated to say the least, particularly with Apple Corps involved and the fact that McCartney did not want to be represented by Allen Klein.  Since it was a three against one scenario on all fronts, all of the legal hooey got blamed on McCartney.  But it seems clear that, because of the various deals, contracts, debts et al that were part of The Beatles’ package, even if the four were amicable, the dissolution of the band would still have been nightmarish.  But the way it played out, McCartney was the villain, and as such, well the song tells the tale…

So, the song.  It’s pretty darn funny and wonderfully cynical, in the cheeky way that was Harrison’s forte.  The inspired blues-as-square-dance opening, where we get to serve eachother, with our lawyers by our side, all (save the lawyers, of course) eventually getting screwed, is pretty much a musical “lawyer joke.”  (Although, for some reason, I never did like the last line of the verse, “Get together, and we can have a bad time.”)  Musically the song is also fun, particularly George’s dobro-like guitar sound.  It’s verse two where Harrison serves McCartney.  While not actually naming him, it’s pretty clear that the last line in the verse, “All that’s left is to find yourself a new band.” is pointed directly at McCartney, who, as we’ve seen, was doing exactly that: finding himself a new band.   While nowhere near as vitriolic as Lennon’s song, Sue Me, Sue You Blues is almost more depressing as it comes long after John and Paul had, more or less, made amends.

Ringo’s Photograph should have been a Beatle song.  I suppose it kinda already is, considering it was written by Starr and—the finally credited although he’d helped Ringo write many of his songs—George Harrison.  Further, George’s guitar playing, and particularly his backup vocal, which is really more harmonizing with Ringo throughout much of the song, Photograph is as close to a Beatle song from the former Fabs thus far.  The production is a bit much, but maybe not, because what are you going to change?  The strings?  The choral backup vocals?  The almost overwhelming drums?  Certainly not the gorgeous acoustic guitar, which has a prominent place in the mix.  No, Photograph is just right.  It’s an interesting song, in that it’s kinda upbeat, yet the lyric basically says the relationship is over, kaput, with no chance of reconciliation, and “all I got is a photograph…”  The first single from the forthcoming Ringo album remains a high point in Ringo’s solo career.  Indeed, it’s a highlight among all of the solo Fabs’ releases.  (Sadly, the song took on a whole other meaning when Ringo sang it during the Concert For George.)

The flip side, Down and Out is, well, a B-side.  But it can’t be dismissed entirely because Harrison has a rip-roaring guitar intro and solo that makes the song worth listening to more than once.  Klaus Voormann’s bass is kicking too. 

As my mother’s name was “Helen”, McCartney’s Helen Wheels was always a personal favorite.  (Because she didn’t realize the lyrics went, “Helen, Hell On Wheels”, my singing along marked the first occasion I’d cursed in front of my mother.)  Released on the same day as Ringo’s Photograph single, Helen Wheels kicks into high gear at the get go with the two guitars—one in each channel—racing to the opening lyrics.  An ode to McCartney’s Land Rover (!), Helen Wheels is pretty much the perfect car jam, best played cranked high, with the windows down of course!  (I love the ending where Linda does the four-count to the fade.  It’s the small things, I guess…)   

The flip side, Country Dreamer is yet another Paul-in-the-country tune, but is one of the best.  While it takes nearly 30-seconds to finally begin, the song is a jaunty ditty, with a terrific vocal by McCartney, and, during the chorus, the rest of the band.  Steel guitar authenticates the country music-ness in all the best ways. The song is a sharp contrast to the A-side, and together the two songs make up, yet another terrific McCartney single.

A few weeks after Ringo and Paul released their singles, John releases both the album and single Mind Games.  Except for one song (two, if you count the 4-seconds of silence that makes up the Nutopian International Anthem, which I don’t), Lennon steers well clear of the politics that infused Some Time In New York City.  Made at the height of Lennon’s deportation hearings, and at the beginning of his and Yoko’s separation, the album’s lack of focus is understandable.  But the fact remains, Mind Games, as an album, while not a failure, is pretty boring, particularly compared to Imagine and Plastic One Band.

Lennon had been working on the melody to Mind Games back in the Beatle Let It Be era, and the song is fine, maybe even single-worthy.  Lyrically Lennon returns to his All You Need Is Love persona, which is nice, but somehow, now, artificial.  (Lennon, himself, seems to get that he’s blowing some old smoke by ending the song with “I know, you’ve heard it before.”)  I think Tight A$ is my favorite song on the album.  I like Lennon’s return to a bit of rockabilly, he and the band seem to be having fun, and the lyric/title is pretty humorous.  Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) is okay, but is a little too Lennon/Yoko specific.  One Day (At a Time) is also okay.  Heck, all of the songs on the album are “okay” but that’s just the problem.  Nothing really stands out, not even Mind Games.  Okay, I do really like the insanity that is Meat City.  Maybe that’s my favorite song on the album.  I wish there was at least one song that I loved on the album, a great song.  Tight A$ and Meat City are fun songs, but nowhere near great. 

Great would have to wait until Lennon's next turn at bat. 

My Evolution Revolution of the Solo Fabs (Or Imagine Living in the Material World, say London Town, with Beaucoups of Blues) Part 8: Classic Singles Cruise Down the Red Rose Speedway

Lennon followed the questionable Sometime in New York City with, arguably, the greatest Christmas song ever.  But who’s arguing?  Happy X-Mas (War is Over) is the greatest Christmas song.  Ever.  (And that includes the standards!)

Once again, Lennon finds that easy to remember slogan, this time being “War is Over/If You Want It” and pens a universal anthem to peace, happiness and, of course, Christmas.  Of course he’d used the slogan earlier, back in 1969, on his and Yoko’s poster/billboards blitz.  But Lennon being Lennon, he knew a good slogan when he saw it and wasn’t going to let this one go to waste.  There’s a genuine warmth in Lennon’s vocals, and Spector’s production, complete with the boys’ choir, is spot-on perfect.  Timeless and as relevant as ever, Happy X-Mas (War is Over) is one of Lennon’s defining songs.

Hi, Hi, Hi is a terrific rocker that (say it with me) was banned by the BBC.  The notoriety, paired with a couple of well-publicized drug busts, surely helped push the single, despite lack of airplay, but as a tight, go-to encore kinda song, Hi, Hi, Hi didn’t need much help.

And the flip-side, the reggae infused C Moon is simply terrific.  The mistakes in the song—including Paul missing the intro—make the song sound spontaneous (you can hear Paul ask “should we do another” [take] as the song fades) and it just sounds as if everyone in the band is having a blast.  Every the positive guy, Paul came up with C Moon (the letter “C” coupled with a crescent moon, meaning “cool”) to contrast with L 7 (square).  Paul’s right, C Moon defines cool.

Following Hi, Hi.Hi, McCartney released a single that would be included on the forthcoming album, Red Rose Speedway.  There are many extraordinary things about My Love, first and foremost being Henry McCullough’s stellar guitar solo, which is indicative of what makes the song so special.  In the same way that Yesterday or Hey Jude aren’t McCartney songs but Beatle songs, My Love is a Wings song.  In My Love, the band had found its’ sound, and while members would come and go, that Wings sound would be present throughout the life of the band.  (Nothing on McCartney’s solo Tug of War, for instance, sounds like a Wings tune.)

Showcasing his rock and roll cred on the flip side, The Mess is another minor gem in the McCartney crown.  A “live” version (with studio overdubs) from their 1972 tour, The Mess, with its relentless beat, is essentially an audience stomper extraordinaire.  As good and as defining as My Love is, I have no qualms in admitting that the B-side got substantially more airplay in my abode. 

It’s hard to believe that McCartney planned Red Rose Speedway as a double album, particularly when the released album contains so many lackluster songs.  Bootlegs and b-sides let us hear some of the songs that could have—should have—been included, as C Moon and The Mess show.

We’d gotten a taste of the album’s punchy opener Big Barn Bed on the fade out of Ram’s Ram On.  The pulsing bass drives the song and it’s another of the good to great opening tracks to McCartney albums, and remains one of my favorites.  My Love follows and the album seems to be off and running.  But to where?  Get On the Right Thing is an okay tune with Linda’s vocals fairly prominent in the mix, and One More Kiss is the kind of song McCartney could do in his sleep and is what B-sides are for.  Little Lamb Dragonfly sounds like what it is, a song for kids.  It’s not bad, and lyrically is considerably more inspired than any other song on the album.  Single Pigeon falls into the One More Kiss category and When the Night is flat-out boring.  And what can one say about Loup (1st Indian on the Moon) except “huh”?  It’s one of the oddest songs in the McCartney cannon, but not in a good way.  

And then there’s the medley.

When trying to establish his new band and distance himself from The Beatles, it seems odd that McCartney would revisit the medley idea that he’d come up with and was so successful on the Fabs’ Abbey Road.  And while the four songs that make up the medley on Red Rose Speedway are okay ditties, not a single one even comes close to anything on Abbey Road.  Lyrically the songs amount to repeating the title, a lot!, particularly Hold Me Tight and Lazy Dynamite (Power Cut has the line “[Ba]By, I Love You So” being rinsed and repeated.)  Throughout his career McCartney took scraps of song ideas and meshed them together with others.  When writing with Lennon, it often worked spectacularly well.  (We Can Work It Out and A Day in the Life for example.)  The medley on Abbey Road, of course is the best example, but McCartney would continue to connect disparate ideas throughout his work, with varying degrees of success.  In regards to the medley on Red Rose Speedway, the song ideas themselves are uninspired and so lightweight that the eleven-and-half-minutes seems very loooooong indeed.

Considering how successful McCartney was in creating and capturing the sound of his new band in their first, truly successful single, My Love, it’s a real shame that Red Rose Speedway is so unfocussed, unambitious, and, frankly, rather dull.

It had been nearly a year and a half since George Harrison released The Concert For Bangla Desh and well over two years since All Things Must Pass so Harrison fans must have been elated when, finally, a new single off his forth-coming album was released.  Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) shot to number one on the U.S. charts (bumping McCartney’s My Love from the top spot), and it’s no wonder, the song is one of Harrison’s best.  It’s a jaunty tune, with lyrics that espouse the sixties pleas for peace and love while also dabbling in religion, but not in a preachy way.  So Lyrically interesting, Give Me Love also sounds great!  No Phil Spector this time, so no muddying that lovely acoustic guitar opening, not to mention allowing Harrison’s soon-to-be-trademarked slide-guitar to glide in and take the song to another level.  AM radio always faded out before the song’s actual end, so when I finally got the record, and heard that unusual guitar strum finish (on, I think a seventh chord), I nearly was in heaven.  Great song.

The fun continues on the single’s flip side where Harrison frets while waiting to hear from his friend, Chris O’Dell.  The lyrics are far from light-hearted, briskly moving from the lack of rice in Bombay, to pollution, to the early 70s L.A. scene, but the jaunty tune, and Harrison’s vocal—I mean he actually cracks up in the middle of the song—makes Miss O’Dell one of Harrison’s most endearing tunes.  He only had a few non-album B-Sides, and while I can’t imagine Miss O’Dell fitting comfortably on one of Harrison’s early albums, it surely is a song one should to miss.

My Evolution Revolution of the Solo Fabs (Or Imagine Living in the Material World, say London Town, with Beaucoups of Blues) Part 7: What Were They Thinking?

Wild Life, the critically underwhelming debut of Wings on LP, was followed up with a controversial debut single, which was promptly banned by the BBC as being “unsuitable for broadcasting.”  I’d heard about the song being banned, and was eager to finally get to hear the notorious Give Ireland Back to the Irish.  Even at the time, with little to no understanding of Bloody Sunday, it was clear that the song was political in intent, but rather banal both musically and particularly lyrically.  Written, recorded and released within a month of the tragic day, it’s clear that McCartney felt compelled to respond, and the controversy with the BBC’s banning of the song shows that McCartney had hit his mark.  I just wish it was a better tune.

 On his VH1 Storytellers album, Ringo tells an amusing story of how he came to write Back of Boogaloo, how it was primarily based on his friend’s, T-Rex’s Marc Bolin, incessant use of the word “boogaloo.”  The fact, however, that lyrically, Back Off Boogaloo seems to be a song rife with slams at Paul McCartney, suggests that Bolin was not Ringo’s only inspiration.  If, as I believe, the song includes swipes at McCartney (“Everything you try to do/You know it sure sounds wasted” and “Wake up, meathead/Don’t pretend that you are dead” for instance), it’s actually sadder than Lennon’s overt How Do You Sleep?, especially considering the flip side of Ringo’s previous single, Early 1970, was so conciliatory.  As with How Do You Sleep?, George Harrison is on hand, playing some stellar slide guitar, and also producing the song (and actually co-writing it, too, but uncredited), which is a more than tacit verification that George was in agreement with Ringo.   

Sigh.

Still, Back Off Boogaloo, driven by Ringo’s drumming, is one of my favorite Starr songs.  And the single’s picture sleeve is a hoot. 

A little over two months after releasing Give Ireland Back to the Irish, McCartney and Wings release the inexplicably dreadful Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Well, it’s not quite that bad.  As a nursery rhyme song for kiddies it’s fine, but it’s hardly worthy of an A-Side by a former Beatle.

It’s said that McCartney released the song as a response to the BBC banning Ireland, and as such, Mary Had a Little Lamb is a pretty great way for McCartney to thumb his nose at his would-be censors.  But McCartney himself says otherwise, claiming he wrote the sing for his children.  I believe McCartney.  And the song is lame.

The flip-side, however, Little Woman Love, is tight little rocker that’s over before you know it.  (Unlike Lamb, which seems eons long.) 

My local Sam Goody had an abysmal policy that made me flinch every time I was at the register.  Upon ringing up my new treasured album, one that I would handle with the utmost care at all times, the clerk would reach for the nearby blade-cutter, turn the album face down, slice a neat little cut in the shrink-wrap at the lower right-hand corner, and write—IN PEN no less!—the purchase price of the album, right there, on the album’s cover!  Done, I suppose, to somehow thwart would-be scammers trying to get one-up on Goody by returning an album, purchased when on sale, for a full price refund; but c’mon.  Are a few pennies here and there worth desecrating an album’s cover art, even if done in the most inconspicuous location on the cover?  Ack.

In the case of John and Yoko’s Some Time in New York City album, particularly with it’s newspaper design, which covers both the front and back of the jacket, the black-ink pen scribble, reading B 3.74, stands out like that proverbial sore thumb.

Since albums became CDs, and now downloads, album cover art has gone the way of the dodo.  Which means, now, looking at the back cover of Sometime in New York City, the B 3.74 doesn’t seem that bad.  Indeed, it amazes me that it only cost three dollars and seventy-four cents for the album.  Double album!  (Although I do remember the shrink wrap having a sticker saying the second album was considered a “Bonus record”.) 

So, why all this shmooze about Sam Goody and writing on the back of album covers?  Because the less said about Sometime in New York City, the better.

After Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, I had exceptionally high expectations for Sometime.  Yes, I figured that with Phil (To Know Him Is To Love Him) Spector’s image being included on the newspaper cover, above the fold no less, meant that we were likely in for some heavy duty echoooooo.  And in that, particularly on the vocals, my expectations were met to a T.  (Just check out Yoko’s intro to Sisters, O Sisters where she laughs saying “Male chauvinist-pig engineers eers eers eers…).  But even Spector’s wall-of-sound co-production couldn’t hide the fact that most of the songs on Sometime in New York City were pretty awful.

Since I was a kid when I first got the album, I had little knowledge of what Lennon was talking about in most of the songs on Sometime.  And considering how personal and open he was in both Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and how the honesty and directness opened the songs up to a universality, Sometime came off as preachy.  (“Too Many People/Preaching practices”).  It wasn’t for years that I was able to understand the context in which Sometime was recorded and released.  The ultra-leftist politics, the persecution from the U.S. Government, being put on Nixon’s sh*t list, possible deportation, etc., Lennon’s plate was pretty full.  But even in context, Sometime in New York City is still preachy, condescending, and ultimately hollow.  

Now the album isn’t all bad, of course.  I mean it’s John Lennon we’re talking about here.  And, Yoko Ono.  New York City is a terrific rocker, and sort of sequel to The Ballad of John and Yoko, and, while nothing great, The Luck of the Irish is considerably better than Paul’s protest tune.  (If nothing else, John’s sarcastic wit is on full display.)  

I’m the first to admit that I don’t understand Yoko’s avant-garde music.  And I actually hate, in a visceral kind of way, Yoko’s guttural screeches, yowls, yells, screams, etc., that she interjects in the live performances found on the bonus album, Live Peace in Toronto and elsewhere.  I not only don’t understand them, but her cacophonous racket seriously undermines Lennon’s performances.  

But on Sometime in New York City proper, Yoko abandons the avant-garde and embraces pop.  And it works.  Surprisingly, it’s Yoko’s songs that stand out.  Sisters, O Sisters is a jaunty little ditty, and We’re All Water is a bit of fun, too.  I mean, who doesn’t want to sing “…some day we’ll evaporate together”?

And then there’s the album’s first, and only single; Sometime in New York City’s opening track. 

It’s odd, perhaps, and naive surely, but coming of age in the 70s, where I did— in a suburban, middle-class neighborhood—race was something rarely if ever discussed.  Since the neighborhood, indeed the town, was nearly all white, my exposure to black people was mainly through the media.  Contrary to popular opinion, however, at least for me, blacks were represented, or rather represented themselves,  pretty much like everyone else.  Sit-coms like Sandford and Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times and What’s Happening were part of the not-to-be-missed weekly television viewing; Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson and Richard Pryor comedy records were in high rotation; Cooley High, Cornbread, Earl and Me, Car Wash, Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again, etc. were all movies that were watched and re-watched.  All this is to say that the only single and the opening track of Lennon’s Sometime in New York City made for some quite uncomfortable listening.

Woman is the N. of the World is Lennon, once again, applying an anthem to a movement, in this case the Women’s Movement.  Given Lennon’s history with women, he hardly seems the best spokesman, and, perhaps knowing this to some extent allowed Lennon to write a song that includes him as being the oppressor; “We make her paint her face and dance.”  Of course Yoko’s influence is all over the track, the title coming directly from her.  But the song is still rather preachy and self-serving, and the title/chorus makes it a hard sell.  Indeed, many of the plethora of Greatest Hits collections put out under Lennon’s name conveniently omits the song.

The bonus live album contains an energetic version of Cold Turkey, which, unfortunately is marred by Yoko’s vocal annoyances.  A way too long version of Yoko’s Don’t Worry Kyoto is worth a listen or two for some of the jam, and the flip side, which features John and Yoko with the Mothers of Invention has one terrific version of Well (Baby Please Don’t Go) along with a couple of less interesting jams (one of which, Zappa’s King Kong, for some reason is called Jamrag.  There’s also, what sounds like an impromptu jam, with John, Yoko and Zappa singing/screaming “Scumbag,” which once prompted my father to pop into my room and shake his head in bewilderment.  In the case of the song Scumbag, I pretty much agree with him.

Consecutive Beatles

Last Thanksgiving I took advantage of an opportunity to do something I’d always wanted to do.  Facing a solo, twelve-hour drive from Indiana to New Jersey, I set out to listen to the entire British Beatle catalog in order of release.  To add to the fun, I decided I would include all of the official recordings released, including some from the Decca sessions, (those found on Anthology 1) as well as the many BBC recordings found on the two LIVE AT THE BBC collections.  (However, I only included those BBC recordings of the plethora of songs the lads covered, but never “officially” released; thus Too Much Monkey Business was in, but She Loves You, from the same session, was out))  Using the wonderful, fairly recently published book, THE BEATLES: THE BBC ARCHIVES by Kevin Howlett, I was able to see the exact date a given song was recorded and broadcast, thus was able to fit it in the precise location in their chronology. 

I, likewise, placed songs that were completed but not released until the Anthology collections, such as Leave My Kitten Alone and What’s the New Mary Jane, in their proper locations. 

But Kev, what about Bad Boy? In the good ol’ U.S of A, it was released on BEATLES VI (sixth song, side two) in 1965.  But it didn’t get released in the U. of K. until the quickly-put-together-greatest-hits-package A Collection of Beatles Oldies, providing a holiday release in late 1966.  (Bad Boy is the second song, side two.)  Where, oh where did you place Bad Boy?

What an intelligent question!  I thought long and hard about the placement of Bad Boy and came to the conclusion that it should be placed after Beatles For Sale, which is about when it was recorded and released in the U.S.  (To be accurate, given recording dates, etc., I placed Bad Boy between Yes It Is— the b-side to Ticket To Ride—and I’m Down—the b-side to Help!).

What about singles?  How did they fit in?

Another stellar question.  As we know, in general for the U.K., the Beatles did not include the songs they released as singles and EPs on their LPs.  So, singles and EPs were simply placed where they were released.  (The single From Me To You/Thank You Girl after the LP Please Please Me, for instance.)  In those cases where a single was also included on an album, I just used the album release.  (The singles Ticket to Ride and Help!, for instance, were both released before the album Help!.  So as not to duplicate those tracks, and to keep the integrity of the Help! album intact, I did not include those songs as singles.  However, their b-sides, Yes It Is and I’m Down, which were not included on the Help! album, were placed in their proper chronology, before the LP.) 

Now, to confuse things a bit, in the case of the singles Love Me Do and Let It Be, I did include both the single and album versions, as they are not exactly the same.  (On the single Love Me Do, Ringo plays drums; on the LP, studio drummer Alan White plays drums with Ringo relegated to tambourine.  Harrison’s guitar solo on the Let It Be single is different than that on the LP.)

And yes, I did include both version of Across the Universe, too.  And Get Back.

So, basically I drove from My Bonnie all the way through Real Love.  I stayed mono—since that’s how the boys would have wanted it—until there was no more mono to be had (Abbey Road on).  The total number of songs was 266, with a running time of 11 hours and 57 minutes.  And guess what?   It’s a twelve hour drive from my house in Indy, to my brother’s in Jersey.  No foolin’.  (Okay, I sat in his driveway for the last verse of Real Love.  Sue me.)

So, what, if anything did I learn?

Po-len-ty.

For songs and albums I literarily know backwards and forwards (Yes, I have Beatlegs with their songs playing backwards.  I’ve even listened to them.), there were still some pretty significant things I’d only peripherally thought about or never considered.

For instance:

The trajectory and momentum of their work, particularly in the first few years is astonishing.  It’s always been clear that the leap from their first album, Please Please Me, to their second, With the Beatles, is enormous.  But when heard in context, with an astounding 25 BBC cover songs, not to mention the single She Loves You separating the two albums, the leap ahead from one album to the other becomes clearer.

Not so clear, and perhaps their biggest leap forward comes from With the Beatles to A Hard Day’s Night.  While the single, I Want To Hold Your Hand is, indeed, a huge step, the handful of BBC cover song tracks now seem old and out of place.  The EP Long Tall Sally rocks pretty hard, however, but still doesn’t foreshadow the bliss of that chord opening A Hard Day’s Night, song and album. 

With no more BBC songs (from here on out, the lads played mostly their own songs for the BBC) we are pretty much left with the known catalog.  But, again, by placing the singles and EPs in their proper order, the progress is more understandable.  Still awesome, but understandable.

The feedback of I Feel Fine (and the hyper reverb, if one is listening to the American version) is jarringly advancing as well as welcome, as is the blues of the b-side, She’s a Woman.  But this single leads us to the only—not step back, but more accurately a place holder—Beatles For Sale.  The original material doesn’t seem terribly “new,” and the album also reverts to the earlier LP formula by including a substantial amount of covers.  How they left off Leave My Kitten Alone but included Mr. Moonlight—which gets my vote for worst Beatle song—is beyond me.  But, I did rectify that omission by including Kitten immediately following the album’s last tune, Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby.  Following Kitten, I then put the Harrison composition, You Know What To Do; an okay song that would have worked on the first album or so, but not now.

Yes It Is, Bad Boy (Bad Boy should have been on Beatles For Sale, too), and I’m Down come next.  Admittedly, it was odd hearing I’m Down before Help!, but, as explained above, I didn’t want to duplicate songs.  The album Help! has always been a favorite, and, with it’s regular use of acoustic guitar, is a perfect bridge to Rubber Soul.

Before Soul, though, is the double A-sided We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper, which is that perfect little step between the two albums.

I was curious how Rubber Soul would lead to Revolver so paid particular attention after Run For Your Life.  Next I’d placed the Fabs’ instrumental, 12-Bar Original, since it was one of their complete unreleased songs.  A novelty, really, which, does little.  Not so, of course, for their next single, Paperback Writer.  While a terrific rocker, it’s the b-side, Rain, which, with it’s backwards guitar, comes as an interesting little “shock,” but, again, is that perfect step leading us to the wonder that is Revolver.

With this chronological sequencing, finally we get to hear, what to my mind is the Beatles' greatest single, in it’s proper place, before Sgt. Pepper.  Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane have, at least in the U.S., forever been a part of Magical Mystery Tour.  But in reality, of course, the single was released after Revolver.  I seriously got chills when, after the fade-out of Tomorrow Never Knows, the first strains of Strawberry Fields Forever came wafting through my car speakers.  I can’t even imagine what fans at the time of it’s original release made of it.  Even given the experimental nature of Revolver, Strawberry Fields seems light years away.  But, as with most things Fab, it also provides that bridge to the next album, Sgt. Pepper.

After Pepper (and that annoying Inner Groove bit), we return to again, what most consider, Magical Mystery Tour territory.  All You Need Is Love, Baby Your a Rich Man and Hello Goodbye do work as the tiny step down from the ubber-psychedelia of Pepper and takes us comfortably to, what once was, the EP Magical Mystery Tour. 

The contrast from the close of I Am the Walrus to the bouncing piano of Lady Madonna works well, and eases us further away from the psychodelic period.  That is, after a brief return, of sorts, with Harrison’s The Inner Light.   With Lady Madonna in memory, Hey Jude slips right in place and Revolution firmly returns us to the land of rock and roll.

And rock and roll is where the White album begins, with, of course, Back in the U.S.S.R.  While the White album’s close, Goodnight, works as a bit of a pallet cleanser after Revolution 9, it also, in an odd way, leads us to What’s the New, Mary Jane.  Goodnight’s final string fade meeting with the lone piano of Mary Jane works nicely and allows Mary Jane  to take us, what feels like a bit backwards, to the four Yellow Submarine tunes.  (I say four, because, of course the songs Yellow Submarine and All You Need Is Love are repeats.)

Would that EMI/Apple/Capitol have put out Yellow Submarine as an EP, because it would have been great.  Well, in this chronological sequencing, it is essential an EP, and, while the songs feel more in the Pepper/Mystery Tour-ish vein, the long fade-out of It’s All Too Much works amazingly well with the fade-in of the Get Back single.  It is a bit startling hearing Get Back before Abbey Road, but it’s back where it belongs. (Pun intended.)  Get Back’s flip side Don’t Let Me Down leads us to the next single, The Ballad of John and Yoko and it’s b-side, Harrison’s Old Brown Shoe, which brings us to the opening track of Abbey Road, Come Together.

Abbey Road ends, of course, with Her Majesty, and that brings us to the opening strains of the single version of Let It Be.  Now the flip side, You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) always felt, to me, like it should be the last Beatle song.  But, alas, keeping true to the proper order, it is not even the last non-album track.  That “honor” is left to the World Wildlife Fund version of Across the Universe.  And, while I don’t particularly care for this version, it does lead nicely to the opening track to the final Beatle album. 

While Let It Be seems anti-climatic coming after Abbey Road, it does work well as a kind of a coda.  It feels like, what is was, a work in progress, and culminates with that “live” rooftop version of Get Back and the “hope we passed the audition” gag.

While I knew they wouldn’t quite fit, I did include Free As a Bird and Real Love.  I mean, they are Beatle songs, right?  Indeed.

Some things I learned about The Fabs’ Individually:

George:

When CD burners were all the rage, I’m confident that the first disc burned by a whole host of people, including moi, was a disc that was made up of all the Beatle Harrisongs.  My disc, cleverly called: The Quiet One,  opened with Cry For a Shadow and went thru I Me Mine.  The disc not only was (and still is) great, but it really puts Harrison—as a songwriter—in perspective.  My trip, however, put Harrison—as a Beatle—in perspective.

When including the Decca audition and the BBC recordings, George Harrison is surprisingly quite often the lead singer.  On the fifteen track Decca audition tape, George sings lead on four songs.  This, in itself, shows how much confidence John and Paul must have had in George as a singer.  Why else would they have risked four songs on their audition for a recording contract?  (For my trip I only included three of Harrison’s Decca tunes: Three Cool Cats, Crying, Waiting, Hoping and Sheik of Araby, which are found on Anthology 1.  While I have his fourth, Take Good Care of My Baby, I did not want to include anything from Beatlegs.)

Most of the BBC cover tracks were recorded and broadcast between the release of their first two albums.  While George takes lead on two tracks on Please Please Me (Chains, Do You Want To Know a Secret), and three on With the Beatles (She’s Got the) Devil in Her Heart, Roll Over Beethoven, and his own, Don’t Bother Me) in between, on The BBC recordings, George takes over the lead singer role on a whole host of numbers, including Glad All Over, Young Blood, Nothin’ Shakin’ to name but a few.

It’s when the albums were made up entirely of original material, beginning with A Hard Day’s Night—the only album where George has no lead-singing spot—where Harrison’s presence as lead singer is noticeably diminished.  (Beatles For Sale, of course, only allows for one solo Harrison vocal, the album’s closing cover, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby.) 

While Harrison himself dismissed his first song, Don’t Bother Me actually sits quite well among the Lennon/McCartney originals found on With the Beatles.  However, it’s clear that his second song, You Know What To Do, the unreleased (until the Anthology series) Beatles For Sale-era Harrisong, was a step backwards, perhaps fitting more comfortably on Please Please Me.  Following two albums without an original Harrison tune, at least one original Harrisong is found on each side of a Beatle LP—notable exception being Sgt. Pepper, of course.  (Remember, I’m doing this chronologically, so Magical Mystery Tour is an EP, not an LP.)  From, perhaps, Rubber Soul but certainly from Revolver on, Harrison’s songs are as good as, and sometimes better than Lennon’s and McCarney’s.  But, because he is only represented by one tune per side, Harrison seems less present than he did earlier with the Fabs.  This is born out by the Yellow Submarine LP, which, as I explained above, I treated it as a 4-song EP.  With two songs, one over six minutes, Harrison actually dominates, and, while often dismissed by critics (and the Fabs’ themselves), Harrison’s songs are certainly good, with one, Only a Northern Song, also being quite funny.  (As far as funny Beatle songs, I think Harrison’s Taxman and Only a Northern Song win.  And yes, I know that Lennon offered some of the best lines in Taxman, but it’s still a Harrisong.)

So, in regards to Harrison, the stand out lesson for me when listening to the Beatle chronology, especially when including the BBC and Decca tunes, is how often Harrison is featured.  Because in the early years, 1962-1963, he was featured so much, Harrison is noticeably absent in 1964.  Because he tended to take a different lyrical bent in his songs (Don’t Bother Me,Think For Yourself, If I Needed Someone are hardly love songs.  Or are they?), it’s quite nice when he returns to the fore in ’65, and from there, well… You know.

John & Paul:

The interesting thing I gleaned about Lennon during this exercise is how often he halts the band, with, maybe just a drum beat or vocal filling the void before the band comes back in.  Indeed, it’s there in the very beginning, in Please Please Me, where Lennon halts the band, allowing just that little guitar riff, right before the “c’mon, c’mon” bit, before bringing the band back in for the “Please, please me/Oh yea” chorus.  It’s there, too, at the very end, in Dig a Pony.  This happens throughout Lennon’s Beatle output, the most obvious, in my mind’s ear, being in The Ballad of John and Yoko. 

While always aware of Lennon’s penchant for gloomy lyrics, it wasn’t until this trip that I realized just how forlorn John was.  Dejected, miserable, lonely, jealous, depressed…and these were the early pop love songs.  Misery, There’s a Place, Little Child, Not a Second Time, I Call Your Name, I Should Have Known Better, Tell Me Why, You Can’t Do That, I Don’t want To Spoil the Party…. the list is endless.  And Endlessly fascinating.

Not surprisingly, McCartney is quite the opposite.  Most of his love songs are, well, love songs.  

One of the fascinating things in regards to McCartney is, unlike the other Beatles, McCartney presence is felt on nearly ever track. (Well, maybe not Within You Without You.  Nor Julia.  But most everything else.)  It becomes quite clear, very quickly, that McCartney is the best musician in the band, and he uses this talent to the best of his ability on all of the songs.  Two late examples would be his bass playing on Harrison’s Something and particularly on Lennon’s Come Together, where McCartney’s bass nearly defines and certainly drives the song.  Both tunes on Abbey Road, both recorded after various disagreements and serious rows with the band (see the film Let It Be), and both pure and simply Beatle songs.  Lennon often said that, after Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles were essentially four solo acts on one album.  That doesn’t really hold up. (With the exception of several tracks from the White Album, mostly by McCartney.)  Whether it be his backup and/or harmony vocals or his melodic bass and/or other instrument playing, McCartney turned, what Lennon saw as a solo song, into a Beatle song.  The Ballad of John and Yoko, the very title and lyric of which screams solo (or duo with Yoko) has McCartney all over it.  And he, and John too, sound as if they are having a blast.

As with Don’t Let Me Down, Give Peace a Chance is credited as Lennon/McCartney, but both songs are obviously written by Lennon.  But as recordings, as records,  Don’t Let Me Down, with McCartney’s essential harmonies and lilting bass, is clearly a Beatle song.  Just as clearly, Give Peace a Chance, sans McCartney, is not.

Ringo:

I already knew that Ringo was a rock steady drummer, who added fills and frills only when necessary, and never wanted to draw attention to himself.   What I didn’t know was how lucky the Fab-three were in getting Ringo.  My Bonnie and most obviously the Decca audition tapes prove that Pete Best was not a good drummer.