Watching

 Last night I watched the new cleaned up version of the Beatles Let it Be documovie - it was great to finally see it cleaned up, thanks to Peter Jackson, and it is of vast historical importance, but it really is miserable, though compelling, viewing for a Beatle fan. 

Also last night I enjoyed  the latest episode of Dr Who -  73 yards written by Russell T. Davies, was an excellent formula breaking episode of the new Disneyfied Doctor Who. The new Doc was hardly in the episode and instead companion, Millie Gibson as Ruby, carried the episode. It was all creepy folk horror and it really was a touch of genius to film an episode which was largely doctorless. Though this may not have been by design but rather because of necessity.  Although the fourth episode aired, this was the first episode of the current season to be filmed, and Ncuti was not available for much of the filming. Still, the result was a truly memorable episode.

Get Back and Re-evaluate Paul McCartney

People are taking different things from Peter Jackson's edit of the Beatles  Twickers sessions, entitled Get Back that recently aired over eight plus hours on Disney +. But for me (I'll start a sentence how I fucking want to. That's rock 'n' roll) , a lifelong Beatle (there's nothing better) fan the vibe, the message, the word I get is that it's time to re-evaluate Paul McCartney.

 Of course Jackson's edit is not 100% truthful - the pressure is just too much and Yoko is presented as less than the annoying fucker she likely really was. If you watch the original Beatles Let it Be movie and then  Jackson's latest mammoth edit then the truth about the Yoko (remember she firmly holds the reign of the John Lennon brand)  is probably somewhere in-between. If you think she sat around knitting and on occasions uttered a series of unmelodic yowls, the sound of pain and anguish, then you're just a little bit fucked up. No doubt, the victim of reality TV and the dumbing down of the brain cells that fire, spark, and evaluate in the viewer. You can only watch so much consuming of kangaroo anus and bonding sessions between false fuckers, before you're critical facilities are as fucked up as the average Jeremy Kyle viewer.

All you need is love, baby!

After all this time (it was more than fifty years ago today! That's half a fucking century) nothing could be really truthful and all that gold tinged celluloid can be made to tell any story that is required, meet whatever agenda is needed to keep everyone happy. Fuck that though - it's time for some peace in the neighbourhood. Yoko bashing is no longer necessary, Lennon myth-making has run its course, and now it is time to look at the Beatles as they were - that is what made up the Beatles.

There is no doubt that Beatles were four hearts combined - the Ringoist, the Lennonesque, the Harritualist and the Maccamelodist that made the band greater than its parts. None of these quarter parts would ever equal the wonder, the sheer magic of the whole but the truth must be spoken and it is McCartney, that dude who looks more and more like Murder She Wrote with each passing year who was the heart of the latter period Beatles and since that heart stopped Beating it is the Macca who has continued to push the boundaries of what popular music can be.

One day the Press to Play album will be considered a fucking epic masterpiece because it  fucking is, even if Press is a shit song.

Watching Macca pull the song Get Back from thin air in the Jackson edit has drawn loads of comments - magic, wonderous, brilliantoid - but this is what songwriters do and McCartney is arguably (fuck the facile arguments) the greatest pop./rock songwriter the world has ever known. I saw two Magpies, We're open tonight, the other me wags the long tailed winter bird. I mean get real - stop dissing the genius and for every Ebony and Ivory there is a Looking for Changes to restore the equilibrium.

Macca rocks!!!!

That's what Get Back shows - I've always maintained that the Beatles as a functioning unit ceased to be after Revolver and that from Sgt. Pepper's onwards it was the Paul McCartney band. Sure John and George (actually George came up with his best stuff during this period) contributed a lot of greatness but Macca was the driving force. McCartney seemed to be the only one who cared - the others were burnt out from being the most amazing musical force the world had ever known. Paul was still Beatle-Paul while George was fast vanishing into mysticism, Lennon was in ego destroying and self indulging smack head mode and Ringo was Bricky building. It's all too much but listen to reason folks because you're mother should know.

Let's imagine (all the people) that's it's 1968 - John's off tripping the light fantastic, George's discovering that we all live on within you and without you, Ringo's coming up with a cool sand/cement mix and Paul's...well, Paul's all over the place and soaking up influences from the Asher's eclectic mix of friends and friends of friends. These Liverpool scallywags have done good but whilst the others are content to enjoy the trappings of wealth and fame Paul is still pushing boundaries. John Lennon may have been the original Punk, but Paul was the nutty professor on acid.

The recent album, McCartney III shows this...acid or otherwise.

It's that deep deep feeling in the carrot patch.

So let's re-evaluate Macca - let's pull him from his Beatle past, his ever present past, but remember the Beatles may have split up but Paul never stopped being Beatle Paul. He's still, after all these years, Beatle Paul.

Once you're Beatle Paul you are always Beatle Paul.

Ram is astounding - continues to astound with each passing listen, Venus and Mars is actually better than Band on the Run which in itself is actually AOR gold and if you Listen to what the man said then you may stumble across Electric Arguments which is  amazing. There's a lot more too - Don' Be Careless Love and That Day is Done from Flowers in the Dirt or No Values from the stroll down Broad Street, or the Pound is Sinking while we play Tug of War. There's so much in Beatle Paul's solo work that will astound you and with a little luck carry you on through life.

I got married last year, to a girl I'd known forever and directly after the ceremony (Hand in Hand was played in place of  the wedding march) we went and had a snap at the Abbey Road crossing.

The Beatles and me...we go back a long way.

EX-Beatle slams Murder She Wrote

Paul McCartney lookalike Angela Lansbury has called the forthcoming remake of her popular TV series, Murder She Wrote,a terrible mistake. Speaking to Variety magazine the ex-Beatle said that -

 "I suddenly became a worldwide-known character as Jessica Fletcher and really built an enormous audience, which I have to this day.That was the thing that really made me a star in the minds of everybody. It will be a terrible mistake if NBC go ahead with the remake.'




The new Murder She Wrote will star Oscar winner, Octavia Spencer as Jessica Fletcher mark II.

Lansbuy as Jessica Fletcher and also in her Beatle days

David Janollari and Alexandra Cunningham (“Desperate Housewives”) will exec produce the drama, which will aim for a light, contemporary feel, according to NBC. Spencer will play the hospital administrator and amateur sleuth who self-publishes her first mystery novel, then becomes an active participant in true crime investigations.




Lansbury says that she feels some ownership of the Jessica Fletcher character after playing her for so long, and is not at all amused by the prospect of a remake.

I guess they passed the audition - Fabbing it up with the Fabs

Incredible that in 2013 we have new Beatles music - but that's what we get with the On Air: Live at the BBC volume 2 set (out today) from Apple Records. The two disc set contains 37 previously unreleased Beatle performances, many of them not heard since they were first broadcast way back in the 1960's - that decade which started out in black and white but soon exploded into vibrant colour.

The first volume, which originally came out in 1994 is also re-released and  it's worth replacing the original with this new version. Not only does the thing sound better but there are extra tracks. The new CD's are also better packaged with an improved booklet.

And in other Beatle related news Dhani Harrison, son of George, has recorded a version of his dad's song, For You Blue. George's version appeared on the Let it Be album and Dhani's take, recorded as a charity single for the Material World Foundation, is excellent - he sounds so much like his father. In fact when I first heard it on the radio via Dennis Mitchell's Breakfast with the Beatles I thought it was George. It's on iTunes for 99p and you can bet I've bought a copy.

And in even more Fab news I suggest anyone with even a passing interest in the world's best ever group check out the Fab 4 Free 4 All podcast which is hosted by three self confessed American Beatards. The current show features a great interview with author Mark Lewishon. And check out the archives for the older shows which are all worth a listen or two or three.

All these years later there is no escaping the Beatles and the incredible influence they still exert over all the music out there in this big wide world.

CD ONE
And Here We Are Again (Speech)
WORDS OF LOVE
How About It, Gorgeous? (Speech)
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET
LUCILLE
Hey, Paul… (Speech)
ANNA (GO TO HIM)
Hello! (Speech)
PLEASE PLEASE ME
MISERY
I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU
A Real Treat (Speech)
BOYSAbsolutely Fab (Speech)
CHAINS
ASK ME WHY
TILL THERE WAS YOU
LEND ME YOUR COMB
Lower 5E (Speech)
THE HIPPY HIPPY SHAKE
ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN
THERE’S A PLACE
Bumper Bundle (Speech)
P.S. I LOVE YOU
BEAUTIFUL DREAMER
DEVIL IN HER HEART
The 49 Weeks (Speech)
SURE TO FALL (IN LOVE WITH YOU)
Never Mind, Eh? (Speech)
TWIST AND SHOUT
Bye, Bye (speech)
John - Pop Profile (Speech)
George - Pop Profile (Speech)

Betards - one and all - the Fab 4 guys with Mark Lewishon

CD TWO
I SAW HER STANDING THERE
GLAD ALL OVER
Lift Lid Again (Speech)
I’LL GET YOU
SHE LOVES YOU
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR SATURDAY CLUB
Now Hush, Hush (Speech)
FROM ME TO YOU
MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT)
I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND
Brian Bathtubes (Speech)
THIS BOY
If I Wasn’t In America (Speech)
I GOT A WOMAN
LONG TALL SALLY
IF I FELL
A Hard Job Writing Them (Speech)
AND I LOVE HER
Oh, Can’t We? Yes We Can (Speech)
YOU CAN’T DO THAT
HONEY DON’T
I’LL FOLLOW THE SUN
Green With Black Shutters (Speech)
KANSAS CITY/HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY!
That’s What We’re Here For (Speech)
I FEEL FINE (STUDIO OUTTAKE)
Paul - Pop Profile (Speech)
Ringo - Pop Profile (Speech)

Beatles Back at the BBC

All These Years

Is there really a need for another Beatles book? I must have read at least a dozen books that claim to tell the full story and that includes the Beatles own telling, The Anthology, so I wouldn't have thought so. However if there is one Beatles book that deserves to be called definitive then it is this one. At 800 plus pages it goes into incredible detail and the author, Mark Lewisohn's research is astounding. And this is only the first part of a trilogy of books and covers the story from Beatles pre-history right up to the release of their first album, Please Please Me.

The book often borders on the obsessive in its quest to leave no detail unturned and Paul McCartney takes a few knocks - Stuart Sutcliffe claiming, in a letter written in Hamburg that the rest of the band hate him - also almost getting the shit kicked out of him when he goaded the usually mild mannered Stuart Sutcliffe one too many times. Beatles ex-drummer Pete Best is also revealed as a not very good drummer but that doesn't seem to be the real reason for his ejection from the group right when they were on the cusp of stardom. This seems more to do with his so called mean, moody and magnificent persona and the fact that he wasn't really a team player. That said it is painful reading when the book covers his sacking and the cowardly way the Beatles went about it. Though this is consistent with the way they ejected a former guitarist from the Quarreymen.

This story may have been told before but never have the formative years of the band been covered in so much detail and after reading the book you really do feel a little closer to the band. I've been a Beatle nut myself for a couple decades and felt I knew everything there was to know, but this book opened my eyes several times.

The book also turns what we know, or rather thought we knew, of John Lennon's father on its head. Previously he has been presented as a waster who abandoned both his wife and child. And whilst that may be true the book reveals a story much more complex than that, and that it was Julia, John's mother, who was actually the catalyst in their break up which resulted in John being raised by his Aunt Mimi. And, as expected, the book reveals that she certainly had her hands full with the young John Winston Lennon. Momentous character forming events such as John losing his mother and Paul losing his own are covered with great sensitivity and psychological insight.

There are no new interviews with Paul or Ringo but the author does go to every other source for information and the period of the band's first visit to Hamburg is covered in exquisite detail. I bought the book in both the physical form and the audio version - the audiobook lasts for forty plus hours and I managed to get through it in a week, and so engrossed did I become that I also started reading the physical book alongside the audio reading. This really is an excellent book and it is difficult to think that any other will ever top it.

The author claims that the next volume will follow in four to five years and I for one can't wait.

Fifty years ago today.....London Zoo could have been as big as Abbey Road

Fifty years ago the four fresh faced and incredibly nervous Beatles came together in an EMI stuio to record their first album. The entire LP, Please Please Me was recorded in one 12 hour session and in fact as I write this, at this precise moment fifty years ago, the boys were working on Misery which would be the second track on the album.

For the album cover George Martin, a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, owners of the London Zoo, thought that it might be good publicity for the zoo to have The Beatles pose outside the insect house for the cover photography of the album. However, the stuffy old Zoological Society of London turned down Martin's offer, and instead, Angus McBean was asked to take the distinctive colour photograph of the group looking down over the stairwell inside EMI's London headquarters in Manchester Square.

The New Musical Express reported in January of 1963 - Please, Please Me recorded on Parlaphone by the Beatles had been publicized as the record of the year. I have the slightest nagging doubt about that, with fifty weeks of releases to come this year it may prove a teensy weensy exaggeration.

However it wasn't any exaggeration and after the album the world would never be the same - the album would be released on 22nd March. The Album sold strongly,helped along by some killer singles and by May hit the top spot where it would remain for thirty weeks until it was hit off the top spot by the Beatles second album. In the week that Please, Please Me hit No 1 the UK album top five looked like this:

1 Please Please Me - The Beatles
2 Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard
3 Reminiscing - Buddy Holly
4 It Happened at the World's Fair - Elvis Presley
5 I'll remeber You - Frank Ifield

The same week Roy Orbinson, interviewed in the Daily Mail, said that The Beatles sounded fresh and could be big in America. The big O went onto say that it is rare to find a new group who are not just a watered down version of Elvis Presley. He said the Beatles sound seemed to be all of their own and he thought it was great.

How right he was - the Beatles second album came out in November of 1963 and that week the top five UK albums were:

1 With The Beatles - The Beatles
2 Please Please Me - The Beatles
3 How Do You Like It - Gerry and the Pacemakers
4 Sugar and Spice - The Searchers
5 West Side Story - Original Cast


It truly is incredible but the recording of this album marked the appearance of the band on the world stage and even now they are still the biggest thing in all music. There's got to be a reason for this and indeed there is. The reason that the Beatles will last forever is quite simple - it's because they are f**king fab. The greatest band the world's ever seen - and that's a fact!

Note - Ringo yet to adopt Beatle hairstyle

You must Press to Play

Whilst I was browsing and Googling, I did pause  upon a blogger blasting the Paul McCartney album, Press to Play. Now this album is, I think, very overlooked and actually one of Macca's best and so below, underneath these words, down the screen a bit, that's it right there,  you will find my deepest thoughts, or thoughts of this particular moment, on the sonic masterpiece that is Press to Play

Stranglehold is a great album opener - a rocker that is best appreciated from behind earphones, as there are so many interesting things going on in the mix that this is the only way to experience the full mix  - the song leads into a McCartney classic in which two similarly themed songs are merged into an astounding single entity. This is Good Times Coming/Feel the Sun - the first section seems to be culled from memory - that was a golden summer, so long ago - while the second half basks in the warmth of the present - feel the sun shining in on you - it don't get much better than that. Then we have a weird but compelling oddity called, Talk more Talk which is actually a classic tune with as much substance as anything Macca did with the Fabs and I'm not kidding. The song oozes rhythm and melody and it doesn't matter that the lyrics are mostly nonsensical. The song is all about the feeling and it's a bloody good feeling - words of a feather are worn in a hat. I hear water going through the pipes. Music is ideas. Then we have one of the Macca's greatest ever ballads - Footprints which starts out with the imagery of an old man gathering wood for a fire. It's a snowy landscape and the lush score helps create this movie in the mind as our attention shifts to other scenes in this winter wonderland. It's almost like wandering around in one of those snow globe thingies - the song also rubbishes claims that Macca is never any good at lyrics. There a wonderful sparse poetry about this piece - snow white blanket, covers the memory of all that used to be. And then we have the richly produced, Beatley number, Only Love Remains. The song is piano led and epic in scale but one of the nicest things is the warm bass line that holds things together as we move into a full blown orchestral sound.This certainly ain't no Silly Love Songs.

On the original album we are now onto side two with the title track, Press to Play - now this to my mind is the weakest track on the album but that's not to say it is bad. It isn't but it's just not as strong as everything else and the 80's pop production on this track sounds far more dated than anything else on the album. Pretty Little Head follows and this is a cosmic experiment that really should be better known. The lead in is infectious with chanted wordplay- Hillmen come down from the lava, Carrying trinkets, silk and precious stones. This is perhaps the most experimental track Macca did up to this point and its simply awesome. Then we have some good old rock and roll with typical Macca whimsey in Move Over Busker - any song that puts Mae West in a sweaty vest in our minds is OK with me.  Angry follows in which the Macca gets all irate and blasts the critics who keep harping on about his silly love songs - what the hell gives you the right to tell you what to do with my life - right on, Macca. However Absurd follows which is another big production number with whimsical lyrics.


When I originally bought the album it was on cassette and However Absurd actually ended the album, but the CD version had other tracks which I didn't experience until I got the album on CD a few years later- the extra tracks are Write Away, It's not True and Tough on a Tightrope. Write Away fits perfectly with the rest of the album, but the other two tracks, whilst good, don't really fit the vibe, so I actually think I prefer the original album, still bonus tracks can be skipped. And to me the album is much more satisying if it ends with However Absurd and then fades into silence, at least until the click of the play button releasing as we run out of tape. Remember that! Time to get up and change the tape!


The current CD version also contains another two bonus tracks - the shite, Spies Like Us which really should have been strangled at birth and the excellent, Once Upon a Time Ago.

Strange that this album was one of the lowest selling of all Macca's albums, and doubly strange that so many fans dislike it, even Macca's rubbished this album in interviews, because I really think it is one of his best. Maybe the reason so many fans don't like this is that they still expect Beatle Paul from a McCartney album, and yet in some ways that is just what you get because when you think about it Beatle Paul never played it safe either...

Who the F**k is Harry Nilsson

"When you mention Harry Nilsson people either love him or look with a blank expression - who?' So says Mickey Dolenz at the start of the documentary movie, Who is Harry Nilsson which comes from the same team who brought us last year's, John Lennon V the USA.

I must admit I sort of knew of Nilsson - well I knew the mega hits, Everybody's Talking and Without You and I knew he had been a drinking and hell-raising buddy of John Lennon, but other than that zilch. However since catching the documentary, which is now available on Netflix, I found myself so interested in checking out more that I picked up six Nilsson albums this past week. The reason I checked out the documentary was because I heard Nilsson's version of the Beatles, You Can't Do That in the Breakfast with the Beatles radio show. Nilsson does something clever with this song - not only does he give us a pretty good reading of the song but he also manages to reference 20 other Beatle lyrics in the backing vocals. It was this song,  Beatle nut that I am, that drove me towards Nilsson.

The documentary is brilliant - it shows us a man born into terrible poverty who has an incredible talent - an awesome vocal range, but this boy grows into a man who is never going to toe the line. He frustrates his producers and record company by refusing to play it safe. His early albums did OK but it was the 1971 effort, Nilsson Schmillson that  went into the stratosphere. There were three hit singles from the album, Without You, Let the Good Times Roll and the insanely catchy The Coconut Song. The record company wanted a follow up that would follow the same pattern but Nilsson delivered Son of Schmillson which was an altogether stranger record - one track, I'd Rather be Dead has a chorus provided by a bunch of old age pensioners singing, I'd rather be dead than wet my bed. And another song went, you're breaking my heart, you're tearing it apart so fuck you. Can you imagine the executives faces? They had seen Harry give them a worldwide smash with his reading of Without You and now he's putting the phrase, Fuck You onto a major release but not only that he's belting out a tune with a group of old foggies from a retirement home in the UK.

Nilsson also refused to tour which was unheard of at the time - even The Beatles had to go through years of hard touring to achieve success, and yet Nilsson became a major artist without ever touring. Harry seemed to do everything different. The documentary covers the infamous antics of Nilsson's lost weekend with John Lennon - actually an eighteenth month period in which Lennon separated from Yoko Ono would often hit the bars and clubs and drink and drug themselves into senselessness.They were famously thrown out of a Smothers Brothers show at the Troubadour club in Hollywood. Both Nilsson and Lennon were acting like complete dicks, but we've always known Lennon had a wild side and by the sound of it Nilsson did too.

Lennon and Harry

"John Lennon and Harry Nilsson - a friendship made in Hell!"

Ultimately the documentary charts a tragic course of missed opportunities and a death at an absurdly young age - a death that was mostly self inflicted by a lifestyle of drink and drugs, but that was Harry and he couldn't be anyone else. And, I suppose, he did ultimately get his wish and manage to get out of it before he wet the bed.

"He committed suicide," one of the talking heads in the documentary points out. 'It might have taken him twenty years but he killed himself." Eric Idle provides the theory that Harry didn't think he deserves his massive success and became an alcoholic in order to cope. While Mickey Dolenz said Harry moved at five hundred miles an hour until he simply stopped - dead.

It's well worth checking out the documentary especially if, like me, you move onto discover some of the great music - Harry gives us a great reading of the Beatles She's Leaving Home on his album, Pandemonium Shadow Show and then on Harry gives us a direct sequel in the song Mournin' Glory. Other Beatle songs covered include a great reading of Mother Nature's Son. There may be more but I've only got the six Nilsson albums so I'm not sure - I can't be arsed to Google the track listings of the albums I've not yet got. I will be getting more though - I love Nilssson Schmilsson, Pandemonium Shadow Show, Ariel Ballet and Harry. A Touch of Schmillson in the Night, not so much, but Son of Schmillson is growing on me.

Anyway the next time someone asks who is Harry Nilsson, I'll say he was that guy who.....

and remember you putt-da lime in de-cocount

The Lost Beatle Albums

The Beatles Sessions album came very close to being released in 1984, but was scrapped at the eleventh hour because of objections by two of the surviving Beatles. McCartney was livid about plans for the album especially as the release would clash with his own, Give My Regards to Broad Street.

 The story of the album started in 1982 when a technician at Abbey Road was given the job of listening to all of the Beatles recordings in the archive with a view to releasing an all new Beatle album later that year. The anniversary came and went though and the project didn't resurface until 1984.

This time things looked certain and a single was also promised which would feature the unheard (out of bootlegs of course) Leave my Kitten Alone which came from the Beatles For Sale sessions on the A- side backed with a previously unused version of Ob La Di Ob La Da.

Leave my Kitten alone was even played on US radio which sent Beatle fans into a frenzy for the new album.

Alas - the Beatles themselves made their objections known, but all of the tracks have since been released as part of the Anthology Project, but fans can see how The Sessions Album would have sounded by making their own playlist.

The tracklisting of the Sessions album was set before the project was scrapped and the album would have looked like this.

All tracks by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, except where noted.

1. "Come and Get It" (McCartney)
2. "Leave My Kitten Alone" (John/Turner/McDougal) – An outtake from the Beatles for Sale sessions.
3. "Not Guilty" (Harrison) – An outtake from The Beatles ("The White Album"), heavily edited.
4. "I'm Looking Through You" – Alternative version, with hand claps
5. "What's the New Mary Jane" – An outtake from The Beatles ("The White Album"), heavily remixed.
6. "How Do You Do It?" (Murray)
7. "Besame Mucho" (Velázquez/Skylar) – From the Beatles' first EMI session.
8. "One After 909" – Earlier version recorded 5 March 1963
9. "If You've Got Trouble" – A Help! outtake, with verses edited into a different order than they were originally recorded.
10. "That Means a Lot" – A Help! outtake.
11. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (Harrison) – Take 1, with an artificially looped ending.
12. "Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues" (Roberts/Katz/Clayton) – An outtake from the "Get Back"/"Let It Be" sessions, heavily edited.
13. "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)" (Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr) – Edited from the 1967 fan club Christmas 

Another Beatle album - not really a lost album - has kept fans busy for years and this is the album the Beatles may have released in 1970 if the split hadn't have happened. The album is made up of tracks from the first solo albums by the Fabs and there are many ideas for track listings floating around. However only this week the Telegraph Newspaper joined in the game and came up with the following track listing.

 

SIDE ONE
Instant Karma
(John Lennon, single, 1970)

• Technically Lennon was still in the Beatles when he recorded this exuberant, sloppy rocker. With Harrison on guitar and Lennon providing a rip-roaring vocal over a witty, polemical, philosophical lyric, it would make for an ear-catching, agenda-setting opening track.

Band on the Run
(Paul McCartney, title track of Wings’ 3rd album, 1973)

• An elegant guitar and keyboard figure leads us gently into this shape- and time-shifting, multi-layered mini-epic. There are echoes of the structural daring of McCartney’s Abbey Road medley in a vignette celebrating both the unity and pressure of life in a band.

What Is Life
(George Harrison, 'All Things Must Pass’, 1970)

• One of Harrison’s most Beatles-esque songs, a melodic, surging rocker with a driving guitar figure, the chorus swollen by an uplifting horn session. The message is simple and universal: “What is my life without your love?” It’s a song with a smile on its face.

Love
(John Lennon, 'Plastic Ono Band’, 1970)

• Lennon gets down to the essence of the conundrum with one of his most beautiful ballads, singing with aching yearning over a delicate, elegant piano figure.

The Back Seat of My Car
(Paul McCartney, from 'Ram’, 1971)

• The understated guitar ballad intro picks up quite nicely from Lennon’s introspection, leading us into a song that typically marries the throwaway and the sublime, a rich melody building to a monumental singalong (“Oh, we believe that we can’t be wrong”) and a rocking playout.

Back Off Boogaloo
(Ringo Starr, single from 'Stop and Smell the Roses’, 1972)

• This is actually my favourite Ringo song, and certainly better than anything he wrote and recorded in the Beatles. A great, shaggy, joyful groove. Produced by Harrison and featuring his distinctive guitar playing.

Mind Games
(John Lennon, title track from his 4th solo album, 1973)

• To close side one, Lennon on soulful, philosophical form with a big, anthemic classic given an uncharacteristically (for his solo career) lush, Beatley production. “Love is the answer,” he sings. And in this parallel universe, maybe we can still believe it.

SIDE TWO
Gimme Some Truth
(John Lennon, from 'Imagine’, 1971)

• One of Lennon’s greatest heavy rock mantras, this is driven by a simple climbing and descending guitar figure and overlaid with Lennon on coruscating lyrical form, railing against hypocrisy. Harrison takes the lead.

Let Me Roll It
(Paul McCartney, from 'Band on the Run’, 1973)

• McCartney sweetly answers Lennon’s paranoia with this fantastic, slow-grooving rocker, which features a very Lennon-style brittle guitar figure. Indeed, Lennon always thought this song was about him, a gentle rebuke for his public antagonism towards his old friend.

Jealous Guy
(John Lennon, from 'Imagine’, 1971)

• Which brings us neatly to this devastating admission of his own hypocrisies set to a gorgeous melody, which surely ranks among Lennon’s greatest ballads. It actually started life as a Beatles song, demoed for the White Album as Child of Nature.

Maybe I’m Amazed
(Paul McCartney, from 'McCartney’, 1970)

• Not to be outdone, McCartney comes back with this heartfelt, soulful ballad, a blood brother to Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road, with piano, organ, lilting lead solo and Macca letting rip on a raw-throated, tender vocal.

#9 Dream
(John Lennon, from 'Walls and Bridges’, 1974)

• Lush and dreamy, Lennon embraces psychedelia on an evocative journey “on a river of sound?/ Thru the mirror go round?/ I thought I could feel?/ Music touching my soul”. Epic, gorgeous and touching.

All Things Must Pass
(George Harrison, title track from his triple album, 1970)

• Stately paced hymn to the temporariness of everything, love, pain, life. With horns, strings, yearning melody, think of it as an elegiac farewell from the greatest group that walked the earth.

Junk
(Paul McCartney, from 'McCartney’, 1970)

• Let’s give the last word to McCartney, who most wanted to keep the band together. He plays us out with this lovely acoustic sketch. It’s a poignant trawl through the debris of life, “something old and new, memories for you and me.”

The Beatles in Middle Earth

It's been awhile since I've seen Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even longer since I last saw the animated version that was directed by Ralph Bakshi way back in the mid to late 1970's.

When I saw the new Blu-Ray edition of Bakshi's Lord of the Rings in the local supermarket I decided that perhaps now is the time to revisit the movie. Especially after Jackson's Hobbit part one recently bored me rigid in the cinema but left me hungry for a return to Middle Earth.

The Fab Four

Director and animator Ralph  Bakshi was in the right place at the right time when he managed to get the rights to adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, a project that had previously stymied filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick and John Boorman . He set about to create a new look for Middle-earth by using the rotoscope technique, to shoot large portions of the film as live-action and then provide the footage to his animators to essentially trace. It was an ambitious project and although it was originally intended to cover the entire trilogy, it was decided that there would be two movies covering one and a half books each. In initially the film was to have been released under the title, Lord of the Rings Part One but the studio, fearing people wouldn't pay to see half a movie dropped Part One from the title, which caused confusion with movie fans and angered the director.

"I told them they can't drop the Part One, because people are going to come in thinking they'll see the whole film, and it's not there. We had a huge fight, and they released it as Lord of the Rings. So when it came to the end, people were stunned in the theater, even worse than I ever realized they would be, because they were expecting to see the whole film. People keep telling me I never finished the film. And I keep saying, 'That's right!'" Ralph Bakshi.

The film was however a commercial success and it seemed certain that the follow up would be made to complete the story but, for reasons that are unclear this never happened. There was an unoffical follow up of sorts with 1980's The Return of the King from Rankin Bass animation but this was made for television, was a musical and was tonally different to Bakshi's.

There were many attempts to bring the Lord of the Rings to the screen before the animated version. Perhaps the most outlandish was a version that was to be directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring The Beatles. This almost came about - the books were favorites of John Lennon who pushed the possibility of the Beatles doing an animated version with Apple Films.

Apple Films had seen The Beatles dominate the box office  in  Yellow Submarine, so the prospect of the band involved in the adaptation of a bestselling book was obviously tantalizing. The central driving force was John Lennon, an huge fan of the books.

Lennon had set his sights on the role of Gollum, whilst Paul McCartney would be assigned Frodo, Ringo Starr would take on Sam, and George Harrison would beard up for Gandalf. Apple went so far as to approach a pre-2001 A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick. However the project fell apart as the Beatles themselves started to fall apart.

I don't need a magic ring, my friend
Cos magic rings won't buy me love.

Alas, it never happened and so Tolkein fans had to wait for this version from Ralph Bakshi to see Middle Earth brought to life on the big screen.

The white post

The debate about the Beatles White Album has raged ever since the album was released way back in 1968 - should it have been a single album? Or is it fine the way it was? I'm not really sure where I stand on that though there is a lot of filler on the White Album - I've always felt it would be a better album without that awful Revolution No 9 and dirge like Long, Long, Long. But there are times when I think the album is just perfect the way it is.

I listened to the album again today and started to wonder what it would be like as a single album. I Googled the question, hoping to find some suggestions posted by Beatle fans.And there were many but I can across this cool site HERE which had a little program that allowed you to compile your own single White Album using album tracks and others that were recorded around the same time. The running time of each side must be between 15 and 25 minutes, and the program works this out for you.

This was my attempt at an Alternative White Album

Side 1
1. Back in the USSR (2:43)
2. Glass Onion (2:17)
3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (4:45)
4. Happiness Is a Warm Gun (2:43)
5. Honey Pie (2:41)
6. Martha My Dear (2:28)
7. I'm So Tired (2:03)
8. Julia (2:54)
9. I Will (1:46)
Side 2
1. Yer Blues (4:01)
2. Mother Nature's Son (2:48)
3. Revolution 1 (4:15)
4. Piggies (2:04)
5. Everybody's Got Something to Hide... (2:24)
6. Cry Baby Cry (3:10)
7. What's the New Mary Jane (6:12)

It's great fun trying this out so why not turn Beatles producer and go and compile your

own White Album. 

A Fab Christmas

"Hello this is Gary typing with his fingers."

Introducing the Beatles Christmas album - what?

Of course the Beatles didn't record any Christmas music and whilst this is likely just as well, since most Christmas albums end up as sentimental pap that doesn't stop fans from creating their own Beatles Christmas album, and you know what the result is zany fun. Between 1963 and 1968 The Beatles fan club sent out a flexi desk every Christmas with festive messages from the Beatles to all members of the fan club. These recordings have been available collected on an expensive bootleg album for years, but now some helpful fan has posted the entire collection of flexi discs onto you tube.


So the recordings - jokes, skits, music - which was never meant to be sold in the first place can now be listened to for free and that's how it should be.

It's not really music but rather a series of Goonish Beatleness - check it out below:

Magical Mystery Tour goes Blu-ray

The first time I saw this movie I thought it was a load of shit - I'd gotten heavily into the Beatles sometime in the early 80's and when I managed to get hold of a pirated VHS of this film I wasn't aware of the entire Beatles body of work.I think I'd listened to most of the albums but as far as movies went I'd only ever seen A Hard Day's Night and Help. Magical Mystery Tour in comparison to those two mop-top comedies  made no sense at all. Of course all these years later I know the Beatles work inside out and have come to appreciate Magical Mystery Tour for what it is - an indulgent mess of a movie true enough but nevertheless a fascinating snapshot of the times.

'We knew it was indulgent but it was a zany representation of vivid minds of the time." Paul McCartney.

The blu-ray/DVD release of the movie features a perfect digital remaster of the iconic film, but by far the chief selling point is a director's commentary from Macca himself and a selection of extras which offer inisghts into the making of the movie and the supporting case - the Ivor Cutler selection was particularly entertaining. The info on the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band was also great, as are the clips on The Beatles on Top of the Pops. I'd also never seen the Magical Mystery promo that is included here. It may have been specially produced for this release since it seems to vintage footage edited into a modern surrealist video of people coming and going in  a snowy landscape.

Also of interest is the short film Nat's Dream which was directed by John Lennon and features Ivor Cutler going through a Chaplinesque routine - least it would be Chaplinesque if old Charlie had ever been off his face on acid. It's an inventive piece and you can imagine Lennon grinning behind the camera. We also get the footage of the band Traffic performing Here we go Around the Mulburry Bush which was shot for inclusion in Magical Mystery Tour but never used.

All in all it's a great disc that belongs in the collection of any Beatle fan - and Macca's commentary is absolutely excellent. It's like sitting next to  a particularly chatty McCartney while you watch the movie.

'We made it up as we went along.' Paul McCartney.

The bus was pointed towards Cornwall, McCartney reveals chiefly because he and John had fond memories of the UK holiday resort. He also points out that - "we didn't do proper things like proper filmmakers do"- which became a nightmare in the editing room, but Macca claims allowed for a certain looseness with the finished film. Many of the scenes were made up on the spot with suggestions coming from the band themselves as well as the actors and extras.

McCartney claims that it took many years for the film to find an audience who could appreciate it and was surprised when Steven Speilberg told him the film was used when he had been at film school as an example of how alternative movies could be made.

Magical Mystery Tour

It looks as if the Beatles, really not very good but interesting, third film, Magical Mystery Tour is at last to get a DVD release -  The British Film Institute has provided yet another clue to the puzzle and another indication to the yet-unannounced Blu-ray and restored DVD releases of 'Magical Mystery Tour' in October. Their webpage shows that on Oct. 2, a week ahead of the rumored release date of the new DVD on Oct. 9, the British Film Institute will screen “Magical Mystery Tour” and a new behind-the-scenes BBC-TV “Arena” series feature, “Magical Mystery Tour Revisited.”

Magical Mystery Tour is a strange film which will appeal to Beatle fanatics but as an entertainment it will leave most people cold - brilliant soundtrack, though.

There will be no Beatle Babies, Ringo Star claims

Ex-Fab, Ringo Star has shot down rumors that the sons of the Beatles are to form a Beatles MK II band.

Earlier this year, Paul McCartney's son James said he and the rest of the Fab Four's offspring could pay tribute to their dads by creating a second-generation incarnation of the group.

James, who has released two EPs titled 'Available Light' and 'Close At Hand', admitted that he had discussed working with Sean Lennon and Dhani Harrison, although he did that it seemed as if Ringo Starr's son, Zak Starkey, isn't keen on the idea.

When asked if he had ever thought about forming a band with the rest of the Beatles' children, he replied: "I don't think it's something that Zak wants to do. Maybe Jason [drummer and one of Starr's other sons] would want to do it. I'd be up for it. Sean seemed to be into it, Dhani seemed to be into it. I'd be happy to do it."

Yellow Submarine reissue gets huge critical acclaim

We all live in a Blu-Ray Submarine

I have been diagnosed with Entomofabomania - apparently it's quite a common affliction that troubles one in maybe every three of us. The illness manifests itself with the urge, the need, to buy new Beatle product even if you already have it. The illness is better known as CBBD - compulsive Beatle Buyer Disorder. 

And that's what's wrong with me...

Which is why I now own the Beatles Yellow Submarine on VHS, DVD and now after todays' purchase on super new restored Blu- Ray. Yeah, yeah, yeah the Beatles 1968 animated feature is now out on Blu-Ray - frame by frame restoration means that the songs are even punchier, the visuals crystal clear and the Blu-Ray Meanies even blue-er. Mind you the special features are better than the original DVD release and these include a commentary, though sadly not by any Beatles.


Still let's talk about the movie.

Many years ago when the world was fab, four young lads did set out to sail for Pepperland to aid Old Fred in his battle against the Blue Meanies who had enslaved his world and turned the normal psychedelic landscape quite blue. With animation by King's Features and the Beatles voices supplied by a group of actors, one of which included Coronation Street's Eddie Yates, and the real fabs having no real involvement other than supplying the songs for the groovy soundtrack, nothing much was expected of the movie which was only being made to fulfill a movie contract - by 1968 the real Beatles were less of a cohesive whole and more a fractured collective who had developed in totally different ways and quite often didn't like being around each other. The movie did, however capture the spirit of the times and is a timeless masterpiece. You know my eight year old daughter Georgia, named after the quiet one who passed away the year she was born, loves the movie and sings along to Eleanor Rigby which she calls, all the lonely people and of course the title track - we all live in a Yellow Submarine.


Contract filler it may have been - but the submarine emerged from the waters of the Mersey as an intelligent, witty and edgy movie that has lost none of its powers in these far less magical times. The music is forever current and will never age and the storyline  captures the essence of Beatledom in a far better way than even the Beatles of 1968 could manage.


Nothing is Beatleproof.

Ahh look it's a pair of Kinkyboot beasts.

In 1967 the Beatles manager Brian Epstein died and the Beatles were left floundering. They had no choice but to manage themselves. Paul during this period adored being a Beatle and wanted to keep things going but George and John didn't give a shit for the band and Ringo was busy enough being Ringo and going along with whatever the others decided. Without Epstein's restraining influence the band were off the leash and free to run wild.


And run wild they did.


To fully appreciate the period it is worth remembering that the band were little more than boys when they first shot to fame, and they were kept working so hard during the initial Beatlemania years that they didn't seem to know what was going on. Old interview footage with them often shows four young men who appear to be in shock, and even when they quit touring in 1966 the workload didn't let up  during a two year period they produced the classics, Revolver and Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.


The genesis of Yellow Submarine goes back to 1966 when Brian Epstein was approached by Al Brodax a brash New Yorker who had joined the American animation studio, King's Features. United Artists were growing imaptient with the Beatles who had failed to complete their three picture deal following A Hard Day's Night and Help and so Brodax's plan for a full length animated feature that would complete the Beatles contract and require little input from the band themselves, seemed like a good one.




'13 illegitimate children and several marriages.'




The problem was that no one had an idea of a storyline until it was decided to base the movie around the transatlantic Lennon/McCartney hit, Yellow Submarine. Paul McCartney told the production team that he wanted a movie with monsters, while the other Beatles were not fussed one way or the other. The voice actors were cast but finding someone to play George was proving problematic until a young man Peter Batten was suggested by one of the production girls. Peter proved to be a great choice until he was arrested by military police for deserting from the British army. The entire production was a mix of chaos and mishaps - there were over 150 young ladies working on the production and Jack Stokes, the production manager told Mojo magazine that the production was responsible for thirteen illegitimate children and several marriages.

Stoned Fabs - 1968

Once the shoot was close to completion the Beatles themselves filmed their live action appearance for the end of the movie And although all four of the band saw rough cuts of the film they each moaned that their own voices were wrong but thought the others sounded just like them. Paul took the most interest in the movie and he wasn't at all pleased with it, moaning that it should have been more like Disney. Thankfully Paul didn't get his own way here and the resulting movie is both of its time and of a time yet to come.

Producer Brodax later said that Paul, George and Ringo were very pleasant about the movie but John was a real pain in the arse.


The end result was a movie which showed the Beatles as a firmly bonded whole, when in reality the Apple antics were just about to begin. But the movie was born in a time of optimism and wild creativity and it is, like most Beatle product, excellent. Well worth buying for the umpteenth time.

Why Paul is cool again

The UK radio are giving tracks from McCartney's Ram, particularly Back Seat of my Car a lot of airplay. Ironic given that the album was virtually ignored back in the day. And for many years now  Paul McCartney's image has been one of tweeness, but now it seems people have started to take him seriously again, and there is a major reevaluation going on. About bloody time too, whack.

Yep, Paul McCartney has suddenly become cool again - why is this?

Of course us fans have never considered him anything but cool and every time we hear someone say, but he only does ballads, we know they are ignorant and that the Macca has always rocked with the best of them. A string of acclaimed albums obviously helped put Macca back on top of the poppermost but I think that it is the new sharing of information that has put the Macca back in his rightful place.

I'll explain - the critics you see have always had it in for Macca ever since he dared leave the Beatles and they were too quick to jump on, admittedly twee songs like We all Stand Together, Ebony and Ivory and look what your bloody doing. They ripped him apart when he recorded the Soap Opera theme for Crossroads and ignored it in the context of following the song, Lonely Old People on the Venus and Mars album. The song was almost a coda to the track about growing old you dumb arse, strung out, rock critics!  It's easier for them to slag off poor numbers, or misunderstand numbers,  than write about the criminally underrated tracks that make up a truly remarkable career. The Pound is Sinking from the Tug of War album is another underrated Macca work of genius - course it could also be the theme song for the current UK government.

However these days we have the Internet and the critics don't matter anymore Fans, the people who really matter, can write about this stuff and point out the absolute gems.These days it's the same with books and reviews posted onling by readers, listeners, the end users have far more credibility than anything written by the spiteful critics.

It's also true that whilst pop music is these days bland and sat over by Simon Cowell, a real life Patrick Bateman, Macca's music seems real in comparison. It's always been real, though.


Paul's never been as hip as John - that's the general perception but things are changing and even the most ardent Paul hater would have to admit that Lennon, whilst great, was never as good without Macca. Mind you the visa versa is also true and Paul was always best alongside Lennon. Apart they were both major talents but when they got together something magical happened.

John though was political while Paul just wrote slushy love songs - not true and Paul has had his  moments such as releasing Give Ireland Back to the Irish when IRA activity was at an all time high in Mainland Britain. Mind you let's try and brush the well meaning but overly bombastic Freedom under the carpet.

The truth is that McCartney has a genius for melody and a true love of music and performing, and he's been vilified for that. It seem, the critics, can handle love songs but only if there's a darkness there, a regret and how dare Macca give us gentle sweet love songs. Yeah, guilty as charged but there's nothing wrong with a silly love song.

What's wrong with that?
I need to know...cos here I go again

Paul McCartney - cool!

Of course he is and even if he does often come across as being far too twee, false even, it should not be forgotten that this is the man who has given us some of the greatest music ever gifted to the world. And far from having lost it when he jumped ship on the fabs, recent years has seen some of his most creative work - the 2008 album, Electric Arguments remains a modern classic that is comparable with his best 60's work. That album of course was released under the pseudonym, The Fireman an identity Paul uses for experimental music but Arguments really should have been released as a McCartney album - it's excellent. Likewise Chaos and Creation (2005) is another excellent album and probably the most personal work McCartney has ever done, and the track "Riding to Vanity Fair" might be the coolest thing he has done in 30 years

Paul McCartney cool again.
Nah - he's always been cool.
Long may he rock on

Still a sucker for the fabs