Paul McCartney Carpool Karaoke

[EagerBeaver]

I Am The Walrus Video

I mentioned I Am The Walrus earlier and remembered the video the Beatles did of it, which is in color and of extremely high quality considering it was made in about 1967. It's also extremely weird, but features the Beatles at the peak of their creative powers while John Lennon was still somewhat focused on being the leader/main man of the group:

https://vimeo.com/172674451

 

[Meta not Meta]

While "A Day on the Life" is probably their greatest collaboration, spare a thought for "We Can Work It Out," in which you can hear, quite clearly, both lyrically & musically, their respective and very particular geniuses mesh together in one perfect pop song.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1hTUFqJuQAMjXVGwUPWDqi?si=xOUfeeyqQha6Kc-xms85Wg

 

[Meta not Meta]

They could no longer tour and things were drifting apart by '67 and the death of Brian Epstein. Magical Mystery Tour, as a film, was Paul's idea, an effort to address this, Ken Kesey-style: let's get together with some friends and collaborators, drive around the English countryside and wait for something "magical" to happen. It didn't.

Up until then everthing they touched had turned to gold. Maybe the best thing I've read on the dissolution of the band is Peter Doggett's "You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup."

 

[Meta not Meta]

I mentioned I Am The Walrus earlier and remembered the video the Beatles did of it, which is in color and of extremely high quality considering it was made in about 1967. It's also extremely weird, but features the Beatles at the peak of their creative powers while John Lennon was still somewhat focused on being the leader/main man of the group:

https://vimeo.com/172674451

It's not much of an exaggeration to say that everything they did from Brian's death to Abbey Road was Paul trying to keep John's interest in the band alive ....

 

[GaryH]

Meta that's so true. You can see this in the Let It Be film where Paul is trying to stoke John's interest in playing live again. They ended up just doing the rooftop concert, but you can see even there that there was some spark in John's eye when they were playing together. But once they stopped playing there was the bickering again. Paul had to drag everyone back into the studio to do Abbey Road. Even their producer, George Martin, had had enough at that point.

John and Paul - the Yin and the Yang. "We Can Work It Out" is a great example. How about "It's Getting Better" :
Paul - It's getting better all the time.
John - It can't get no worse.

 

[Meta not Meta]

GaryH, yes, lol ...

It's always thrilling to watch again the rooftop concert. John's at his best, still the charismatic centre of the group, even if it was Paul's band in all but name by this time ...

 

[EagerBeaver]

For that rooftop concert the band, via Harrison, brought in Billy Preston as a “Fifth Beatle”, this in order to secure the focus of Lennon, who by then was more interested in world politics, staging protests and sit ins (including one in Montreal if I recall), and banging Yoko Ono, not necessarily in that order:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles'_rooftop_concert#

Preston had impressed the Beatles with his keyboard skills and was essentially treated as a Fifth Beatle in their collaborative efforts.

 

[GaryH]

I mentioned I Am The Walrus earlier and remembered the video the Beatles did of it, which is in color and of extremely high quality considering it was made in about 1967. It's also extremely weird, but features the Beatles at the peak of their creative powers while John Lennon was still somewhat focused on being the leader/main man of the group:

https://vimeo.com/172674451

Wierd and funny video. But wait . . . I thought the Walrus was Paul?

 

[EagerBeaver]

Wierd and funny video. But wait . . . I thought the Walrus was Paul?

Actually the Walrus referred to is from a Lewis Carroll poem. There is a detailed analysis of Lennon’s composition of the song here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_the_Walrus

Lennon’s primary objective was to write the most confusing lyrics possible (due to the letter he received which inspired the song) and he succeeded in writing by far the Beatles’s most obtuse song. I personally believe it’s a Lennon masterpiece along with Strawberry Fields Forever, Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds and In My Life. Which isn’t to say Revolution and Get Back aren’t also great, but the other 4 are to me hardcore Beatles classics. They represent another level of artistry he brought the Beatles up to, before losing focus on the band which coincided with Yoko Ono’s arrival into his life.

 

[Meta not Meta]

But wait . . . I thought the Walrus was Paul?

Lol ....

https://open.spotify.com/track/2jAojvUaPoHPFSPpF0UNRo?si=nmN7Ow-OTJiQSFecjVQmHw

But who was the fool on the hill?

 

[GaryH]

Speaking of Lennon - https://bestclassicbands.com/usps-john-lennon-stamp-7-10-18/

 

[EagerBeaver]

The USPS also did Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix stamps as part of that same commemorative series. I ended up buying the Elvis Presley commemorative stamps because I thought the artwork on that one was really good. At the time I thought it had something to do with both Presley and Hendrix having served in the US Army as to why they were chosen, but Lennon clearly didn't, so I guess the criteria was in fact greatness in the field of music.

 

[sambuca]

There seems to be a lot of love for Lennon's songwriting abilities here. Taken separately both Lennon and McCartney are some of the greatest songwriters in music history. One's style might appeal to you over the other, but I never took the Beatles' music that way. As Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine about his collaboration with Keith Richards, "I think in the end it all balances out."

I'm always amazed how such young, elite talent meets up where they live in a small circle near each other in their youth. Since I believe in the divine, I don't think it's an accident. The other spark is the ability to know talent in front of you and to realize you're more powerful working together than on your own. I actually believe younger talents like Lennon-McCartney and Jagger-Richards needed each other to push each other and inspire each other. In fact, knowing Lennon and McCartney personally is attributed to inspiring Jagger and Richards to try their own songwriting skills.

 

[EagerBeaver]

Sambuca,

When I initially started listening to the Beatles I thought of Lennon-McCartney as an inseparable corporate songwriting conglomerate. As I became very familiar with their music including their solo efforts, my ears recognized in their songs and lyrics the distinctive songwriting attributes of each. While I consider Lennon’s songwriting efforts to be far more profound and intriguing, and at times both deep and amusing, nobody can dispute that McCartney is an absolute giant in the history of songwriting. He wrote some amazing melodies and even if most of his stuff amounted to “silly love songs”, he had great talent to write them. I have always thought that his song “Silly Love Songs” was a retort to Lennon’s criticism of his music. I think Lennon’s “criticism” was meant to exhort Paul to do better, because he believed Paul had the talent to do better. Lennon was famous for giving backhanded compliments to McCartney, including an interview in which he was asked about many of his decisions in the music business and noting that “I chose my business partners wisely.”

Your other point about two megatalented dudes finding each other in such a small artistic community is one that I have also considered must be more than a coincidence. It’s quite remarkable. If you were to do a ranking of 20th Century songwriters I would think they would individually both rank extremely high on that list.

 

[GaryH]

Sambuca well said. I think it is remarkable and divine that John, Paul, and George met as teenagers and became world famous as a group, but also solo. There is no other group that entered the HOF as a group and as solo members. As great as Jagger and Richards were together, they didn't come close to the same magic as solo acts.

And as much as I liked John and Paul as solo acts, the whole group together exceeded the sum of the parts. You are right that John and Paul pushed each other. Before John met Paul, he was content just doing covers. When he found that Paul wrote songs, he began writing songs. John would write Strawberry Fields about his childhood, and Paul responded with Penny Lane.

I do feel that alot of the resentment that John felt against Paul in the latter years was jealousy. Penny Lane got the "A" side over Strawberry Fields. Hello Goodbye got the "A" side over I am the Walrus. Hey Jude over Revolution. Get Back over Don't Let Me Down. In one of John's latter interviews, he was asked which of his songs best represented him and he replied "Jealous Guy".

 

[EagerBeaver]

I do feel that alot of the resentment that John felt against Paul in the latter years was jealousy. Penny Lane got the "A" side over Strawberry Fields. Hello Goodbye got the "A" side over I am the Walrus. Hey Jude over Revolution. Get Back over Don't Let Me Down. In one of John's latter interviews, he was asked which of his songs best represented him and he replied "Jealous Guy".

Each of those Lennon B sides were the better song except for Revolution, which should have been A1 and not "B". I remember when my father bought that 45 (I was a young child when he bought it but we had it for many many years). Probably the best 45 ever released, considering A and B sides, was Hey Jude/Revolution. I can recall my father playing it over and over and over.

 

[sambuca]

I don't know. Who got the A side vs. the B side seems kind of quaint to anyone born after the Baby Boom years. Album sales, now digital sales and songs stand on their own. This is certainly true of the great bands. As kids, we would try to celebrate the tracks that weren't released as singles and yet to be given radio play. Is there a great Beatles or Stones song that you haven't heard dozens of times? I only know 45s because my parents owned them. They would put on that adaptor and stack them up. In retrospect, it was pretty cool for that era because you could select the songs and the sequence.

Perhaps you all remember Stairway to Heaven was never released as a single but is the most played FM radio song of all time.

 

[EagerBeaver]

They called them 45s because they require 45 revolutions per minute of the record, whereas larger full album records were called 33s because they only required 33 RPMs. It now seems like such dated technology. I remember my father being very copious of needle care because you could scratch those records if you got sloppy with the needle. Scratches would lead to the songs skipping in parts.

And then came 8 track cartridges and 8 track players. I recall my father investing in an 8 track player. He loved Neil Diamond, and actually played his music more than the Beatles. He also liked Linda Ronstadt. Of all the stuff he played I liked the Beatles the most.

 

[GaryH]

Sambuca,

You are of course right. My point was that Lennon indicated in later interviews that this really irked him because he thought his songs were better and should have been the "A" or more promoted song.

And it is easy to come up with many great Beatle songs that were never released as singles and are more famous than some of these singles.

 

[sambuca]

Gary H, I don't know if I give much thought to Jagger and Richards' solo acts not matching up to John, Paul and George's solo acts. Jagger and Richards were in their forties and their creative peaks were certainly behind them.

Without doing any research, I would say John, Paul and George were more prolific songwriters on their own and together than Jagger and Richards. However, when I want to go to a rock concert or jam some pick me up tunes I choose the Rolling Stones. To me, the Stones were the epitome of "stadium rock". Having said that, I wouldn't dare say the Stones are better or bigger than the Beatles.

Food for thought: Both bands are global phenomenons. You can hear their music in any city in the world. Does the dominance of English in global culture give bands recording in English an insurmountable advantage from sheer market size and exposure? Or, is the music that comes out of English-speaking countries generally more creative than anything being produced elsewhere?