From the school's website:
When rearranging the piece, [Naseem] Alatrash kept the energy and, well, drive of the original while lending it an unmistakably Middle Eastern character. To do this, he swapped out the Beatles’ piano, drums, guitar, and electric bass for the qanun, cello, violin, double bass, and Arabic percussion instruments, incorporating that culture’s melodic aspects, ornaments, and microtones. He also ditched the guitar solo for a traditional Arabic improvisational interlude.They also had to change the lyrics:
The new version tells the story of a woman who’s in love with her newly granted freedom, and feels that marriage and family can wait. She sings, "Baby, I can drive my car/Yes, I’m gonna be a star/Baby I can drive my car/And maybe I’ll love you."In The Beatles version, the woman is the one acting dominant, and she's deigning to allow the man to be her chauffeur. She has big plans. She's going to be a star. But she doesn't even have the car yet. What did that say about female empowerment? I always took it to mean that the woman was deluded and grandiose and the man was onto her and not going to be conned.
I see that at the Genius lyrics website, the song, by Paul McCartney, originally had the line "You can buy me golden rings" instead of "You can drive my car." Paul thought rings were awful: "‘rings’ always rhymes with ‘things’ and I knew it was a bad idea." Somehow they hit on "drive my car," and they liked it because, as Paul put it, "‘Drive my car’ was an old blues euphemism for sex, so in the end all is revealed.... This nice tongue-in-cheek idea came and suddenly there was a girl there, the heroine of the story, and the story developed and had a little sting in the tail like 'Norwegian Wood' had, which was ‘I actually haven’t got a car, but when I get one you’ll be a terrific chauffeur.'"
Sounds a little misogynistic, no? Paul and John do not like this woman and they're not going to serve her. But for Saudi Arabian purposes, the step up is not getting a driver but being freed from the need to have a driver.
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Saudi Arabia is finally allowing women to drive. Yay!
Progress in the land of Mohammed!
Allowing subscriptions to Playboy Magazine is next up by year 2072.
Why Don't We Do It In The Road? Drive, that is.
Interesting that the strings are all playing together, but the tambourine is isolated, and so is the qanun.
I found the singer's eyeliner distracting. Looked Winehouse-y.
Roller skates
This would have been a more appropriate song to translate: https://youtu.be/o9DxtHPxqUs
(I kid, I kid)
If George Harrison was alive, he'd appreciate that qanun playing.
"Ball you silly" was an old blues euphemism for sex, too. Every word was either a blues euphemism for sex or drugs.
Shut up and drive.
A great song. Paul trusts me with his car. I love you Paul.
I took the point of Drive My Car to be that the joke was on the would-be driver, but obvious your mileage varied. Norwegian Wood, on the other hand, was a fairly factual account of an actual incident, in which John Lennon set fire to the furniture in a groupie's apartment. Lennon was a major asshole.
"Rings"/"things" can't have been so very bad or they wouldn't have used it on "Can't buy me love". Though the fact they'd already done so was a good reason not to do it again.
Cultural appropriation.
as Jupiter points out; not nearly as misogynistic as Norwegian Wood,
where he burns down her apartment (killing everyone on the block) because after sleeping with him; she didn't make him breakfast before she went to work .
There's great Thai, Tibetan, Chinese pop music. I haven't run into Arabic that's any good.
she didn't make him breakfast before she went to work
There's a cultural contract of some kind. It's not by itself misogyny.
PGCYD VFCPF UJHWT LAKNT GYVNW TTLJC WYIAZ NWGPN LLWTH QGICW DJWYY TRRGC TCBEC CRAIJ NWUMP
5-letter random code groups. To some ear, as sent as properly spaced morse code, it's very musical.
In 10 years the leftists are going to try really hard to give credit for turning Saudi Arabia into a rapidly secularizing and modernizing country to anyone except Trump.
The WSJ is still trying to keep the war in Korea going.
"Ball you silly" was an old blues euphemism for sex, too. Every word was either a blues euphemism for sex or drugs.
Exaggerated, but a good point nonetheless. Makes one wonder if there was anything else on their mind.
Glad to see she's ditched the slave-collar headdress, too.
The red-headed violinist is Jordanian.
She has a very pretty voice.
There's a lot of Arab music that I like, mostly when it's sung by women. I spent several seasons in Egypt and, though most of the music was blaring out of tiny little speakers and was way too "busy", some of it was very good. IMO.
"'Ball you silly' was an old blues euphemism for sex, too."
Sure. When I was a teenager "balling" was a common term for having sex. In the Little Richard song "Rip It Up," (written by Robert Blackwell and John Marascalco), there is the verse"
"I'm gonna rock it up
I'm gonna rip it up
I'm gonna shake it up
I'm gonna ball it up
I'm gonna ride it out
And ball tonight"
"Rock" and "rock and roll" were also terms that meant having sex. I'm guessing that in context of this song, (if not also elsewhere), so do "rip it up," "shake it up,"and "ride it out."
On the 29th I’m flying out to Oakland and going to the McGuinn, Hillman and Marty Stuart Band do Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the next day I’m meeting a Navy buddy in Berkeley. Never been there. On Tuesday, I’m Doing a job in Petaluma, I’ll be there (at
Least a week)which appears to be gorgeous, then following it up with a couple of days at the Joshua Tree Inn. I’m
Gonna embed with the hippies and see if I can’t nail a grandma or two. IYKWIMAITYD. I’m all kinda pumped up.
From the article: He also ditched the guitar solo for a traditional Arabic improvisational interlude.
Improvisational? Hardly. The instrumental bridge mimics the Beatles' guitar solo to the note, and there are two musicians doubling the exact melody on two instruments - not improvisational at all.
"The new version tells the story of a woman who’s in love with her newly granted freedom, and feels that marriage and family can wait."
That really rubs it into the Saudi clerics. Next they'll have to give the treatment to the classic Beach Boys lyrics:
"And she'll have fun fun fun 'til her daddy takes the T-bird away."
Arabs shouldn't be allowed to own, drive, or ride in cars. That's cultural appropriation.
How did they miss the obvious and not attempt to cover, "Walk Like an Egyptian (woman)"?
The chamber music of Faure is banned in Iran.
I took the point of Drive My Car to be that the joke was on the would-be driver,
Of course it was. I scratched my head reading Althouse's take.
Rank cultural appropriation.
It's hard to embrace a culture wherein women wear burkas, and alcohol consumption is forbidden.
Thinking about chicks and booze probably takes up 73% of my brain cells.
What would I do without chicks and booze? I dunno -- play the Sitar for hours? Read the Koran and hit myself in the forehead with two by fours, chanting in Farsi, "I'm with Stupid?"
The possibilities are endless, but not much fun.
If you don’t agree with something I’ve said about the lyrics, please quote what I said and say what’s wrong with it. I said nothing about who a “joke” was “on,” So I can’t understand your point. There are 2 characters, each with a point of view. I talked about both. She gets the punchline, but I infer something about the singer’s reaction to her. Not getting what you disagree with.
Thanks - this is great.
John Lennon was a terrible misogynist. So many bad lyrics in his music.
"You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end'a little girl
Let this be a sermon
I mean everything I've said
Baby, I'm determined
And I'd rather see you dead"
Reminder - John Lennon is a hero to the left.
Girl, you got an ass like I never seen
And the ride...
I say the ride is so smooth
You must be a limousine
I love it. As bonuses, the vocalist has a beautiful voice and is herself gorgeous.
remember! it's not just chicks and booze
Hashish explicitly forbidden
Opium explicitly forbidden
(technically) boys explicitly forbidden
but, remember!!
The Koran is perfect, and complete. It needs no updating.
And since it Doesn't mention
Coffee
Tobacco
those two are Explicitly allowed!!!
If Allah (SAW!) had WANTED to forbid coffee or tobacco; He would have mentioned them (even though that might have seemed strange to arabs for several hundred years; until they heard about plants from the americas). Since:
There is No mention of these unknown plants in the Koran
AND!
The Koran is perfect! and complete!
This means that ALLAH (POS) explicitly WANTS you to smoke at Cafes
Personally, i'd have been Very impressed if Allah (GMaB) had forbidden these unknown plants, but since Allah (FOAD) DIDN'T mention them; you're okay !!
Too many notes. It hurts my ears.
Tibetan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VbRST_AlyE&feature=related
Chinese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdJwMAzIDKE
A spit shield (or pop filter, if you like) comes in real handy when you're singing in Arabic.
Can they drive camels?
Or do they just maintain a toe?
Chuck Berry, I Want to Be Your Driver, is a prototype.
Except here, we learn in the twist at the end, its the woman making the invitation.
Berry's version might be read as misogynist, but why this one?
"Paul and John do not like this woman and they're not going to serve her."
I don't see that in the song or the discussion about writing the song. Maybe I'm missing something.
That's kinda cool. Has anyone expressed outrage yet?
-sw
Lot of cultural appropriation in this. I saw two apparently white guys playing middle eastern music. How can that be? Where's maxine Waters when you need her?
For Unknown: OUTRAGE!!! OUTRAGE!!! phew!
Incidentally I thought it was really well done.
"Golden Slumbers" probably wouldn't work. Too close to the salacious Steele Dossier.
@Achilles:
In 10 years the leftists are going to try really hard to give credit for turning Saudi Arabia into a rapidly secularizing and modernizing country to anyone except Trump.
Predictions of Saudi Arabia's imminent modernization and secularization have been going on since at least the 1970s. It's always a winning message for Saudi rulers to sell to credulous Western audiences, especially when it can extract concessions from the West over some destructive policy it is pursuing. In this case, there's its destructive, cruel, and pointless war again Yemen, its empowering of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in support of that war, its failed attempt to isolate Qatar, and its funding and arming of various radical salafists in Iraq and Syria.
Mohammad bin Salman has proven an incompetent and reckless leader, including his summary execution of Saudi dissidents and regime critics, the 2015 Mina stampede, and his aforementioned foreign policy quagmires. MBS is likely sincere in his desire to diversify the economy away from oil, but how successful he will be remains a big question, as every Saudi leader has made a similar pledge with little to no progress. There are far more repressive systems against women in Saudi Arabia (e.g. the guardianship system) that aren't even on the table. And MBS has taken the traditional absolute monarch's route of consolidating power by appointing loyalist cousins to key government positions. And MBS is still beholden to the clerical class from which the monarchy derives much of its legitimacy. Recall his own Vision 2030:
The first pillar of our vision is our status as the heart of the Arab and Islamic worlds. We recognize that Allah the Almighty has bestowed on our lands a gift more precious than oil. Our Kingdom is the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, the most sacred sites on earth, and the direction of the Kaaba (Qibla) to which more than a billion Muslims turn at prayer.
BAG,
Might be a song for some of the young children sent here
Once there was a way,
To get back homeward.
Once there was a way
To get back home.
Sleep, pretty darling,
Do not cry
And I will sing a lullaby.
Golden slumbers,
Fill your eyes
Smiles await you when you rise
Sleep pretty darling
Do not cry
And I will sing a lullaby.
"Not getting what you disagree with."
"I always took it to mean that the woman was deluded and grandiose and the man was onto her and not going to be conned."
"Sounds a little misogynistic, no? Paul and John do not like this woman and they're not going to serve her."
I took it to mean that he had already been conned; "I told that girl I could start right away. She said listen, Babe, I got somethin' to say. I got no car, and it's breakin' my heart, but I found a driver and that's a start."
But I also took the fact that it ends there to mean that it was, indeed, a start. The pretense that their relationship is mercenary is no longer tenable, and they both drop it. "Baby, you can drive my car, and Baby I love you."
Meanwhile, Norwegian Wood is an account of John Lennon doing something really rotten to a woman for no apparent reason except that she wanted to fuck him but didn't meet his standards. Or something. I never could make sense of that song, but I was surprised to hear from friends who idolize the Beatles that it was a true story. What an asshole.
Remember "She's Leaving Home"?
I guess she was leaving her parents empty, loveless home so she could rent a cheap apartment and save up for some nice furniture for some asshole musician to break up and burn in her fireplace. Nice thing for a working girl to come home to. Imagine you've no furniture.
@Jupiter:
What an asshole.
Yep. Just look how he treated his first son. Lennon was a selfish, self-involved prick whose fans have beatified him. Lester Bangs was spot on when he described Mark David Chapman as "the ultimate Beatlemaniac."
Wouldn't it be great if Saudi Arabia moved into the mid-20th Century? Of course, in the mid-20th Century the Shah of Iran tried that, and we know where that led.
Still, I can dream can't I?
I can see
No matter how near you'll be
You'll never belong to me
But I can dream, can't I?
Can't I pretend that I'm locked in the bend of your embrace?
For dreams are just like wine
And I am drunk with mine
I'm aware
My heart is a sad affair
There's much disillusion there
But I can dream, can't I?
Can't I adore you
Although we are oceans apart?
I can't make you open your heart
But I can dream, can't I?
@Jupiter,
I guess she was leaving her parents empty, loveless home so she could rent a cheap apartment and save up for some nice furniture for some asshole musician to break up and burn in her fireplace.
Actually, she met a man from the "motor trade", who probably was sane enough not to bust up good furniture.
Not only that -- she could probably drive his car!
YoungHegelian said...
"Actually, she met a man from the "motor trade", who probably was sane enough not to bust up good furniture."
My impression was that she was going to "keep the appointment she made, meeting a man from the motor trade", and it was strictly mercenary. So she could afford the apartment, and the nice furniture for some conceited asshole to destroy.
In those days, there were no "apps" you could use to make appointments with total strangers for, ah, romantic purposes.
Tolkien used the word 'brambles' in LOTR.
There is no finer word in the world, any language, as if it hasn't assuaged itself to my knowledge it weren't (though), than brambles after tits and chihuahua.
Is there a song for when Iran stops throwing gays off rooftops?
It's not misogynistic because there are women like that, and the Beatles were not writing a thesis on female's universal traits.
Next they will do a version of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations"; "I love the colorful clothes she wears and the way the sunlight plays upon her hair."
Saudi Arabia is already worse than Paraguay.
Linked to the Berklee Youtube site, I found the Berklee Indian Ensemble, which is awesome:
A. R. Rahman Meets Berklee - Bombay Theme
The song reminded of Plant & Krauss "Fortune Teller" for no good reason.
those two are Explicitly allowed!!!
Fifty years ago, my parents invited some Turkish naval officers to a party. "The Koran says you shall not drink wine. It says nothing about whiskey!" Then the boss tried a bite of (pork) BBQ. "This is good. The Koran says pork is bad. Therefore, this is not pork."
Lennon and McCartney - the greatest songwriting pair in history of music.
Alex said...
"Lennon and McCartney - the greatest songwriting pair in history of music."
Yeah, well. Perhaps you would like to hold forth on the finer points of "Love Me Do"?
Not a bad song for a debut single. A bit of neo-skiffle right there with just enough inventiveness to be interesting for late 1962. Peaked at #17 on the UK singles chart. Of course you'd throw out a debut single and ignore the high points like "I Feel Fine", "We Can Work it Out", "Rain", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Hey Jude", "Something".
I guess they won't cover "Rock the Casbah".
""You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end'a little girl
Let this be a sermon
I mean everything I've said
Baby, I'm determined
And I'd rather see you dead"
Meh. Morrissey wrote "Bigmouth Strikes Again" and "Girlfriend in a Coma" and is now loathed by the left for being strangely "alt-right".
Sounds a little misogynistic, no? Paul and John do not like this woman and they're not going to serve her. But for Saudi Arabian purposes, the step up is not getting a driver but being freed from the need to have a driver.
I didn't see it that way when I first bought this record in my early teens almost 50 years ago, and I'm not convinced otherwise. I always heard this as a straight-up (if euphemistic) offer of sex. The idea that Paul and John "didn't like this woman" didn't occur to me. I definitely liked the woman and found her exciting. Maybe they were cynical misogynists thinking this would turn on thirteen-year-olds. I didn't read it that way back in the day. Certainly, by today's standards, they were misogynists. Lennon was far worse than that - an abuser. And there is a certain degree of cynicism in a bunch of guys in their twenties who had done a long apprenticeship in "the naughtiest city in the world" singing about innocent teenage love. But if you are going to indite Drive My Car, you have to indite the first 4-5 albums as essentially false. I think there is a lot of sincerity there. Of course, I know what Jack Valenti said about sincerity.
@Jupiter,
My impression was that she was going to "keep the appointment she made, meeting a man from the motor trade", and it was strictly mercenary
Interesting interpretation. I thought he was the main squeeze.
Maybe we can book an appointment with Sir Paul McCartney & ask him which one of us or neither of us is right. You got a number handy, 'cause, honestly, it's not in the rolodex?
Let’s hope no one cuts off her head or shoots everyone in the studio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vydd5CpLgY
Well that was because a) reza Shah wasn't a young man at the time b) he was riddled with cancer 3) the land reform unsettled the merchants who were the keys to the revolt against mossadecq in 53, now I've read the crash of 79, which predicted a similar alignment back in 76.
Bob R - my take on the Beatles and sincerity is different than yours (I think - your comment was sort of subtle). Poor little Paul grew up in a very musical house and he really really wanted to be a musician. And, in fact, he became a good musician. The weird level of universal fame does not detract from that. But the man is just an entertainer, which is a good thing, however he is also a mediocre human being, and nobody wants to be that (I speak from experience, I am not being rude! I feel great compassion for my fellow mediocrities!) John, a sad lonely little violent angry man, just wanted to be affirmed - to be able to say, with a proud sly tone of voice, that "I've got a gig" was his great desire in life. I really like Yoko Ono because she made that ridiculously selfish ugly little man into somebody who seems to have become more kind as he grew older.
I can't think of a single Beatles song that does not, when I think about it, remind me of a better song by someone who is not a Beatle. Every single song. My favorites are "Here Comes the Sun" which has some really good acoustic guitar in there with some great chord changes, but which is really not all that good compared to, say, what Andre Segovia used to do in major keys; "Yesterday", which is a pastiche of Rachmaninoff chord changes: and "Your Mother Should know", which is really good but which is not better than lots of other great music hall songs. And all the cute little instrumental riffs fade into mere pleasantness when compared to the things people like Armstrong and Beiderbecke did with instruments.
But I am an American and I give John and Paul props for having grown up jealous of American music.
Look the 20th century was going to have a bunch of people who became more famous than they should have been, based simply on intrinsic talent or genius, because they were at the right place at the right time as technological commerce swept them along up on to exponentially rare heights. The poor little Beatles are just the fantasy of hundreds of millions of consumers, a fantasy that you can be a musician who is creative without being what people who do not like music think of as being a lonely genius. They were not sincere with their love songs, but who is? I like to listen to their music but I am not going to claim that there is not an immense amount of music that is just as good or better. Their post-Beatle work was in any case more sincere and sometimes even good and honest. At least to a degree.
another reason I like Yoko Ono is because I can imagine having a daughter like that.
I would have been surprised if you told me in 1985 or so that I might have a daughter like Yoko Ono (in 2018) but I am more than 30 years older than that now
and those were a long 30 years
I'm not gonna say you can't imagine because you can
(in the real world where random commenters on Althouse do not have middle aged daughters that remind them of Yoko Ono, I have no children like her, but must we always talk about the real world - no, of course not ....)
Jei beibi!
Imagine there’s no liberals - it’s easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us - only sky
I really like Yoko Ono
Full stop....right there.
And regardless of Bob and his Nobel Prize, the three musicians from the 20th century who will be passed down through the ages.
George Gershwin
The Beatles
Hank Williams
Imagine there's no Yoko - it's easy if you try
No chick to break us
Ringo's our main guy
Stephen Cooper : a gentle reminder that the sun does not shine out of your ass.
YOU do not get to decide what music hundreds of millions across several generations like.
When Paul dies, those hundreds of millions will mourn his passing.
You?
Not so much.
Jay - I have seen the face of angels as they looked on God.
What bad thing happened to you that you are so unkind?
also I really like Yoko Ono.
I do not live by your materialist criteria, my friend.
God loves you more than God loves me! but ...
I would not be as rude as you were, no matter what, so there's that.
Not the worst cover I ever heard. William Shatner and Leonard are in competition for that award.
It seems to signify progress, something Westerners seem to take for granted.
I have known some very bad people, Mafiosos/biker gangsters, drug dealers, selfish drunks, and I have had conversations about God with them.
I have no idea if they cared about what I was saying, the Mafia dudes thought I was not all that tough, the drug dealers liked me but did not see any profit in spending time with me, the selfish drunks, well, they enjoyed my company until they got too drunk to do so.
My comment about having seen the faces of angels had nothing to do with bragging about things I have seen, I just wanted to say that every single one of us will either die having accepted Jesus as our Lord, and will be welcomed to Heaven or Purgatory by billions and billions of angels (I like big numbers, remember that each big number is, in its way, an individual - remember poor Ramanujan's streetcar) or we will spend our last moments on earth trying not to think about all the people we should have cared about.
Wake up, my friend! Reread what I said, if that helps, if it doesn't, wake up anyway ...
And listen to some Gottschalk, Jay, listen to some Segovia, to some Beiderbecke. Are we not all music lovers, after all - come on don't stay mad, I like passionate people !!!
I think Rodgers and Hammerstein will outlive the Beatles and most Boomer music, thanks to the movies and the inevitable reaction to the last few decades of increasingly arcane and/or crappy music. Or maybe it will all go the way of Tin Pan Alley.
I once re-arranged some key words of the Human Rights Charter, the Environmentalist Manifesto, ‘I Have A Dream’ and random EU law and we put it to ‘This Land Is Your Land.’
There, at the Kennedy Center, each human held a candle in the wind, our noble political leaders projected onto a screen, locked arm in arm mouthing the very words we were mouthing...in Esperanto.
You might say we bowed and prayed, slouching towards Bethlehem in boots of Spanish Leather. I say it’s easy if you try.
Many songs are more enjoyable when you don't understand the words.
The Washington Post had a recent article called "The five hardest questions in pop music". And question 1 was "is cultural appropriation ever okay?" I immediately answered "yes of course". And this video (which I like very much) clinches the argument (if it needed clinching.)
"The pretense that their relationship is mercenary is no longer tenable, and they both drop it. "Baby, you can drive my car, and Baby I love you.""
Nope. The final lyric is the the queen bee to her beta orbiter: "Baby, you can drive my car, and maybe I'll love you"
How dare Naseem Alatrash appropriate British culture!
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