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!)
.jpg)
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment