A Beatles blog at Beatledom.com
Hi, this is a Beatles blog. It's hardly a tome of work yet but thanks for stopping by anyway. My posting record thus far has been reprehensible, I vow to do better from now on, at least once a week.
Sunday 3rd August 2008
DVD - Music in Review: The essential music of the sixties: The Beatles 1962-64
A bunch of blokes talking about how great the Beatles were with clips… bloody marvellous stuff. The clips draw heavily on Ed Sullivan and A Hard Days Night footage. What did I learn from it? Well, a few things actually, like, Things We Said Today is based on a circle of fifths.
So many of the clips you get on these dvd’s have been seen so many times. The value to be had are the gems that you haven’t seen before. Love me do here shows the Beatles playing on a set heavy with scaffolding. We learn that the harmonica is taken from Bruce Channel’s ‘Hey Baby’. I immediately download Hey Baby, realise that I’ve heard it before but not too sure about that claim, it’s certainly not in the Bad Penny Blues/Lady Madonna category.
It’s interesting when they pull apart the songs as it gives a glimpse into the song writing, songs that sound very simple can have complex or unusual structure. Here we learn that the three parts to the opening verse on Love me do is unusual ‘love love me do, you know I love you, I’ll always be true’. Some songs would begin with the chorus as in She Loves You and A Hard Days Night, creating an instant impact. When the Beatles first wrote Can’t Buy Me Love it was intended that the song would start with the verse but George Martin suggested that it would be better with the chorus first.
I think I’m a bit of a philistine. I listen to the songs, love the songs but some of the subtleties just pass me by. It’s pointed out how later in their early career you would hear much less cymbal and that the lead guitar would come to the fore more. Good to see Ringo is singled out for special praise, his drumming is often taken for granted but not only did he have a really solid beat he could introduce great subtlety into songs. Very underrated if it’s possible to be a member of the Beatles and underrated at the same time, probably an oxymoron or at least a tautology!
Before the Beatles, pop music was really about singles, artists released albums but often the quality of the compositions tailed off over the length of an LP. The Beatles were strong across a whole album, initially with help from covers but by the mid sixties just with their compositions alone.
The movie A Hard Days Night was a good brew, probably better for being black & white, more of it’s time, more atmospheric. Wouldn’t say it was a minimalist movie but in scope it was very modest, mundane, even parochial. Certainly in comparison with the altogether different, Help! Always the great soundtrack and the first album to feature exclusively Beatle written compositions. Stuff we don’t realise these days where we can know everything about every group we might care to. In those days we knew much less about them and having a movie gave people a chance to hear what they spoke like and to get an impression of what they might be like in the flesh. I’ve heard people say that they didn’t really know which Beatle was was singing on any particular track, it was this thing called the Beatles that was singing and that is often as far as the analysis went. Seems strange now but only the diehards would really care then.
Gem Alert: The prof talks about the move from songs that rely on their chord structure to songs driven by the riff and the best example of this is I Feel Fine. It allows for greater complexity in songs. He says this change that happened in the mid sixties is still being played out today. Fascinating, and I don’t mean that ironically.
I was looking forward to this early years much less than the second volume but there is some interesting stuff in there. All in all fair play to em, could have been crap but it isn’t.
Wednesday 9th July 2008
Have you seen this footage of the Beatles during the Magical Mystery Tour?. Even though it is silent it's a real treat to see, they look so relaxed. You see people standing there thinking 'oh my god, that's the Beatles'. It must be a strange feeling to be that famous and to have people just gorp at you as if you are some exhibit. Their image has become so iconic that it is somehow strange to see them in an everyday situation, it makes this kind of footage all the more valuable. They just look so cool.
Tuesday 8th July 2008
A few days ago Radio 4 broadcast 'The lost Beatles interview'. It was about, unsurprisingly, a Beatles interview that was filmed in Scotland on Thursday 30th April 1964 and lay undiscovered for over forty years in a south London garage.
John and Paul were interviewed seperately, at least they got chairs, George and Ringo were interviewed sitting on the floor. George, asked what had happened in the last year replied 'everything's happened. The main difference is we have more money but less time to ourselves'. It's hardly forensic stuff but typical of interviews then... 'How do you write songs?','Do you have any difficulty in keeping up your public image?', what on earth was that supposed to mean?.
Beatle fans hero Mark Lewisohn gets to see the film. When John and Paul say they met when they were thirteen Mark talks about their lack of regard for their own history. Hunter Thompson is another who commented on their 'useless' ability to remember events, dates and years. I like that, I always think it diminishes an artist a bit when they remember all the details of their career ..records sold, concert attendance etc.
The show only plays snippets from the interviews but as always it's fascinating listening, you get no impression that they're in the eye of the storm. You get a feel for the innocence of the time. The BBC have now deleted it from their website. If anyone wants to hear it, contact me via the feedback form.
Tuesday 10th June 2008
Listening to an old tape, an interview with George at the time of 'Cloud Nine' in 1988. Talks about fame, that everyone dreams about being rich and famous but when you get there it can be a hollow experience. That statement certainly made me feel better :-)
George seemed like such a good bloke, no edge to him. He spoke of the unfortunate time he spent when his movie company Handmade Films made 'Shanghai Surprise' (1986), He also wrote the soundtrack. Unfortunate because Madonna was not too pleasant to work with. Other stars seem to be so much more up their own backsides than the Beatles but they were bigger than anyone, including Elvis in my opinion. He was a good example of the destructive nature of fame.
Radio One has changed so much in twenty years. In the nineties the station realigned itself with a younger audience. It was always the 'youngest' music station but by the eighties it started to feel a bit middle aged with dj's to suit. The Hairy Cornflake, Simon Bates, they made Bruno Brooks seem as if he was down with the kids!
