My Evolution Revolution of the Solo Fabs (Or Imagine Living in the Material World, say London Town, with Beaucoups of Blues) Part 10: The Great and The Greatest

Before going on I want to backtrack a moment.  I may have been a bit harsh on John Lennon’s Mind Games.  Well, actually Lennon’s Mind Games is still rather boring.  That is, the version of Mind Games that Lennon himself mixed is somewhat blah.  That would include the original LP and the latest CD Lennon Masters version of the album.  BUT—and this is as curious to me as to anyone—the version of Mind Games, which was remastered and released on CD in 2002, THAT Mind Games is substantially better.  That 2002 mix brings out some hidden gems of musical bits that enhance each and every song.  (Well, except the Utopian National Anthem, that is.)  Each instrument, vocal, sound is discernible and makes the songs come to life in a way that Lennon’s muddy mix never did.  It’s odd, since the album was produced by Lennon himself, that he would bury so much in his mix.  Since the

Lennon Masters were released in 2010, and since they are the mixes that were used on the original LPs, I didn’t bother to re-visit the 2002 editions in my current evaluations.  I don’t know why, but I decided to re-listen to the 2002 mix of Mind Games, and, perhaps because I had so recently listened to Lennon’s mix, I was, and am, considerably more fond of the album.  Now don’t get me wrong, Mind Games is far from a masterpiece; it still lacks focus, and the songs still seem mostly uninspired, but the uncovered original production, heard on the 2002 release, has given a new lease on life for the entire album.

So, Mind Games, the original LP and Lennon Masters CD, is pretty ho-hum.  Mind Games the 2002 CD mix is much, much better.  

Ringo is rightly considered Starr’s best solo album, as well as one of the best albums, to date, released by a former Beatle.  Of course all of the former Beatles play on Ringo, making it the closest the lads would come to a reunion.  It’s hard not to speculate that, had McCartney not had his legal problems and was allowed in the U.S., would he have been invited to play on the album’s opening track, I’m the Greatest, a song written by Lennon, who also sings and plays piano, with Harrison on hand, too, playing guitar.  As it is, Klaus “friend-from-Beatle-Hamburg-days-and-illustrator-of-Revolver” Voormann plays bass.  So the song is still very much in the Beatle family.  By why fight it?  I’m the Greatest, featuring Billy Shears singing in front of the very same audience he did when performing on Sgt. Pepper, is a Beatle song.  It’s one of the best Lennon compositions in a while (light years ahead of anything on Mind Games and Sometime in New York City) and it’s funny as all get out.  It’s one of, if not my very favorite solo Ringo song.

Harrison’s Sunshine Live For Me (Sail Away Raymond) is equally fun.  The jaunty country-ish tune, played by Harrison and much of The Band (and others), is pure Ringo.  It’s a wonder that he never resurrected it on one of his All Starr tours.

For years I didn’t much like McCartney’s Six O’Clock, particularly when compared with Sunshine and I’m the Greatest.  But over the years the song has grown on me and is now, for me, one of the album’s highlights.  The longer version, found on the original cassette release (and, presumably 8-track [remember those!]) is far superior to the album’s version, with more McCartney vocals; although they both contain McCartney’s synth solo, which dates the song, and not in a good way.  (The longer version is a bonus track on Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna CD.  That’s right, Goodnight Vienna.  Why?  I don’t know.  He’s on third….) 

Along with Photograph, You’re Sixteen and Oh My My were singles released from the album and both are 70s AM radio-pop heaven.  Oh My My in particular, with all of those luscious, over-produced horns and backing vocals (courtesy of Martha Reeves and Merry Clayton, “and friends”), the song demands the listener to sing along.  You’re Sixteen, of course, is hard to resist.  Particularly with McCartney doing a kazoo solo!

("I'm the Greatest" lithograph by Klaus Voormann)

Devil Woman is a punchy little ditty, and a tad raunchy too.  And Ringo name-checks Sexy Sadie!  (There’s also a brief drum solo, if a solo can be shared by drummers Ringo and Jim Keltner with a driving bass by Voormann.)

You and Me (Babe), is as perfect an album closer as Goodnight was for the White Album, maybe more so.  Bittersweet on so many levels, it sports not only some of Ringo’s best vocals, but also some stunning guitar playing by Harrison.  It’s another high point on an album filled with ‘em.

Speaking of high points, Ringo also has the honor of having the best album cover of the former Lads’, to date.  I remember staring at the drawings of the balconied audience, trying to figure out who was who, just like everyone does with Sgt. Pepper.  (And just like Pepper, John, Paul and George are right there, in the center.  Linda and Yoko, too.)  The cover was done by Tim Bruckner, whose credit appears in the album’s accompanied book of illustrated lyrics, lithographs done by Mr. Voormann himself.  Lots to look at and savor as I played the album Ringo again and again.

Starr released Ringo a week or so after Lennon had put out Mind Games, and a month after that, McCartney drops, what many consider (including your humble author), the penultimate Wings album.  Band on the Run is everything that critics and fans alike had been waiting for from McCartney.  And some.  And lots of some.

After my discovery of the Fabs and finally collecting all of the Beatle albums, I knew it was time to venture out into the netherworld of non-Beatle music.  So I bought Band on the Run.  I was surprised at how much I liked, nay, loved the album.  While I didn’t (and still don’t) think that album sounds anything like the Fabs, it nevertheless had a similar effect on me as the Beatle albums did, in that I liked, no, (or nay to be consistent), loved every song on the album.  Still do.

So, the song Band on the Run…  Three separate parts that work seamlessly together to form a complete story.  When I originally got the album I didn’t know about the two members of Wings quitting the band just before the album was to be recorded, but the album cover made it plain that there were now only three members.  (That is, unless Christopher Lee had taken up the drums.)  So, while the story of Band on the Run works as simply that, a story of a jail break and the quest for freedom, McCartney had also created a metaphor for what really happened to his band.

That’s what I thought for a long time.  It wasn’t until the 25th Anniversary release of the album that I learned that the song was actually a reference to something Harrison had said during one of the business meetings at Apple.  Harrison’s meaning was that they were all prisoners just wanting to break out and be free, a sentiment that has universal appeal.  One of the brilliant and frustrating things about McCartney is how often he seems cavalier with his lyrics, and yet, he is equally as often pretty sneaky in getting some really fundamental ideas down in a pop song.  Uncharacteristically pessimistic for McCartney, Band on the Run is one of his most interesting songs both musically and lyrically.  Not a bad way to kick off an album.

No matter how you slice it, Jet is a great song.  One of McCartney’s best.  Talk about a one-two punch in opening an album.  While Band on the Run has a story (or several), Jet has, well, it has great sing-along-but-what-do-they-mean lyrics.  Jet was the name of the McCartney’s dog.  And it rhymes with suffragette (or “suff-er-a-gette” to be precise).  What else does a song need?

Bluebird is a nice acoustic breather after the bombast of Jet and leads to Mrs. Vandebilt, with that infectious “Ho-hey-ho” refrain.  (Like the “Na, na, nas” in Hey Jude, the Ho-hey-ho refrain just screams audience participation.  It’s curious why McCartney waited until only recently to include it in his live set list.)  Like so many things McCartney, it’s the little things that make a song like Vandebilt so great.  For me, it’s during that last “What’s the use of worrying” line, where McCartney answers himself (somewhat off mic) with “no use.”  That line and response was a mantra of mine while growing up, and it still often comes to mind. 

It always makes me curious when I hear (or, more likely, read) someone categorize McCartney as being a balladeer and not a rock ’n roller.  Yes, true, McCartney writes ballads.  Lots of ‘em.  But c’mon, he also wrote Let Me Roll It, no?  Balls-to-the-wall rock’n blues that is just plain…yowza.  (While the album sounds entirely like Wings, Let Me Roll It is the one song I would have loved to hear a Beatle version.)

Mamunia is that grin-inducing kinda song that McCartney was so good at producing, which is now, sadly ironic, given the serious drought California is currently facing.  Although, my guess is that folks may still be complaining about “LA rainclouds….”

I always look forward to No Words.  The structure of the song is so interesting to me, as is the vocal interplay between McCartney and Denny Laine.  I also love the guitar solo at the end, and just wish it was a longer fadeout to hear more of it.

The whole Dustin Hoffman story about watching McCartney write Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me) is great fun, as is the song.  It’s a goofy, oddly moving song, which seems to organically allow for reprises of several of the album’s tracks.  

And then there’s Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.  Wow, what a powerhouse of a song.  Piano-pumping, bass thumping epic rock, with lyrics that sound like they are actually saying something, but what that might be, I have no idea.  The tension it builds at the end is wonderfully intense, and when released, it bounces back into a coda of Band on the Run.  How can you not want to flip the album over and start all over again?

McCartney was riding high; Ringo was riding high; Harrison was riding high.  But Lennon, Lennon was struggling, with demons, both internal and external, to conquer.  As his past showed, when Lennon was at his most vulnerable, he was also at his most inspired.  And, of course, history has a tendency to repeat…

Station beak.

                                 

                 

For those playing at home, let’s pause a moment and take a look at the leaderboard.  Thru November of 1973, the former Fabs released a total of thirteen albums and fourteen non-album singles.  It breaks down like this:

              Albums    Non-Album Singles
Lennon:              4                  5

McCartney:      4                  6

Harrison:              3                  1

Starr:              2                  2

Of course this doesn’t entirely tell the tale.  While Ringo only released two albums thru November ’73, in December he’d release his third, RINGO.  Harrison released three albums, one being the live Concert For Bangla Desh, which, obviously didn’t contain any new material; but he’d also released a triple album of original material, (which I think is best considered a double album since the live jams were just that, jams).

In any event, all told, it’s a substantial amount of material.

Lennon had released two classic albums (Plastic Ono Band and Imagine), one so-so (Mind Games), and one not so (Some Time in New York City).  While the album quality ratio still works in his favor, from Give Peace a Chance to Happy X-Mas (War is Over), Lennon knocks each single out of the park.  This should come as no real surprise, as Lennon had often said that, as a listener, he preferred singles to albums.

McCartney checks in with one classic album (Ram), one near-classic (McCartney), one good, but not critically appreciated (Wild Life) and one so-so (Red Rose Speedway).  In singles, he’s got the iconic Live and Let Die, and the rockers Hi, Hi, Hi and Helen Wheels.  He has the “meh” Another Day and Give Ireland Back to the Irish, and the “what the ___?” Mary Had a Little Lamb. 

Harrison has the classic albums All Things Must Pass and The Concert For Bangla Desh, and the good Living in the Material World.  The only non-album single, Bangla Desh, while no classic, is still pretty good.

Ringo has one, truly dreadful album (Sentimental Journey) and one good to really good album (depending on how much you like country music—which I don’t), Beaucoups of Blues.  Like Lennon, however, he hits both non-album singles, Back Off Boogaloo and, his signature It Don’t Come Easy out of the park.

The interesting thing about the above break down is that Lennon and McCartney are just about equal in their output, with Harrison following and Starr close behind.  One should draw their own conclusions, but the break down is pretty close to many a Beatle album, but very little of the music released sounds very much like the Beatles.  (The closest would be the next album released in this chronology, Ringo, which, of course, featured all four Fabs, just not entirely together at one time.)

But it must be said that, while McCartney had the most material released, critically, his output was decidedly lacking.  (It was decades before Ram got a reassessment, although it has always been a favorite of mine.)  To date, again to the critics, nothing McCartney released matched Imagine (which is, essentially, Lennon’s Yesterday).  I’m not sure if the old Beatle fans at the time were keeping score, but when you add Lennon’s early success to the—for some—surprise and continuing success of Harrison and Starr, McCartney’s lack of bona fide hits must have been more than a little puzzling.   

“But Kev,”  I know you’re thinking.  “Why did you pause here, in November 1973?  Why not break at the end of the year?”

Well, that’s a great question. 

The summer of 1973 was when I discovered The Beatles, via the Red and Blue compilation albums.  While being immersed in the Fabs’, I was becoming more and more caught up with their history, particularly the breakup, which, at the time, was what most of the magazines, etc. were writing about.  I remember being particularly saddened when learning of the animosity the former Fabs’ felt for each other, and like most people on the planet, I hoped for a reconciliation.  Well, in late 1973, the stars were aligning…

(The "Beatleg" Alpha/Omega)

The success of the Red and Blue complications (and the bootleg Alpha/Omega) sparked renewed (or, in my case, “new”) interest in The Beatles.  By this time in their solo careers, Paul and John had made up.  And, best of all for Paul, Allen Klein was out of the picture.  The doorway was open…

In their solo careers, John had peaked early, but was now clearly struggling, in both his professional and personal life.  Except for a couple of singles, Paul had not yet had the success he, and everyone else, thought he’d have.  It’s reasonable to think that both John and Paul thought seriously about, once again, combining their talents.  

No question that Ringo would have been on board.  His film career wasn’t taking off, and he was once again interested in making music.

Only Harrison had any real reason to say no to a reunion.  But he also had every reason to say yes.  His success proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was now in the same category as Lennon and McCartney.  For a reunion to occur, he could have dictated terms, such as equal representation on future releases.  

Naturally expectations for a reunion would have been enormous, probably insurmountable.  But it’s fun to speculate, even now.  Given the situations they were in, particularly for John and Paul, how close were they to getting back together?

Whatever the answer was in November 1973, in December the chances likely would have diminished by quite a lot.