So writes my son John in a blog post yesterday about "Abbey Road," which came out 50 years ago yesterday. I had just started college, and I remember being surrounded by people who were all so excited about the new Beatles album. I remember listening to the album for the first time with the person who would turn out to be [my son] John's father and it was specifically the song "Because" that we both especially loved the first time we heard it. I even remember the line that seemed most sublime: "Because the world is round/It turns me on."
John writes:
"Come Together" starts the album on a dark note, with the band sounding united as they play a primal, minimalistic hook that fuses guitars, bass, and drums; every instrument feels essential, especially Ringo's repeated fill. Eerily, John starts each repetition of the hook by saying: "Shoot me!"I don't know when I started, but ever since maybe the 3rd playing of the record, I put the second side on first. To me, the album begins with "Here Comes the Sun." Very bright. Not dark!
ADDED: I added the bracketed "[my son]" because there are 2 Johns mentioned here and one could imagine not just that there's no heaven but that I got mixed up into some time travel and listened to "Abbey Road" with John Lennon's father. I don't want you to be confused!
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Yoko Ono playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".
I have always thought that the first few chords of Moonlight Sonata today look like as a pretty standard rock progression.
In grade school and most of high school, all we listened to was the Beatles, who had broken up nearly a decade earlier.
Abby Road goes in the "moody" category for me. Lots of songs establishing a certain mood, but not many straight rock songs.
John starts each repetition of the hook before the first verse by saying: "Shoot me!"
Did not know that.
I don't know when I started, but ever since maybe the 3rd playing of the record, I put the second side on first.
I like many thought the crosswalk cover of the album of was the back, and the wall with writing was the front.
"Very bright. Not dark!"
A very Trump way of describing it?
I am Laslo.
I was 10 years old. Likewise, I always perceived Side 2 as "Side 1" in my mind.
Amazon is a day late delivering my 50th Anniversary vinyl edition.
On a sad note the final recording session for Abbey Road is the last time all four Beatles were in the same room together.
“You Never Give Me Your Money” and “Carry That Weight” are great commentaries on the dissolution of the Beatles. Within a month of the album’s release John quit.
My favorite moment on Side 2 is "She came in through the bathroom window".
After a while many of us would play only the second side.
I always thought he was saying "Shoo-Bee," like "Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo." Oh well.
I remember listening to the album for the first time with the person who would turn out to be John's father...
I love the phrasing of that. It sounds like John was already there, and you were waiting to see who would turn out to be his father. Kinda like an episode of Jerry Springer...
I don't know when I started, but ever since maybe the 3rd playing of the record, I put the second side on first.
You still have a record player? And records? And you still use them?
Wow.
This has to be bullshit. Yoko Ono playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" backwards?? I'd be surprised if she could play the music forwards.
"Come Together" and "I Am The Walrus" are my favorite Beatles tunes.
One cannot imagine anyone else trying to cover them, but perhaps it's been done.
As I recall it's in C-sharp Minor. All those black keys and accidentals all over the score!
Not for the tyro.
I hope she didn't hum along with it, al la Glenn Gould. [shudder]
Does it sound like Beethoven if you play the record backwards?
If you play "Moonlight Sonata" backwards you hear "Because".
If you play "Because" backwards you hear Paul Is Dead. With Yoko on piano.
I am Laslo.
I'd be surprised if she could play the music forwards.
Yoko couldn't even hum it backwards. I admire Yoko, however, because she is positive proof of Beatle pseudo-intellectualism.
Phidippus said... "Come Together" .... One cannot imagine anyone else trying to cover them
Aerosmith's version, from the awful BeeGees movie "Sgt. Pepper," is a staple of the classic-rock radio format.
'Abbey Road' has become my favorite Beatles album. Prior to that it was 'Rubber Soul'.
yES! We were all so ready to experience Abbey Road.
My English Lit Lab Professor surprised us all, arrived at our hour-and-a-half session that morning with the album still wrapped and a record player in tow. She peeled the plastic reverently, and we spent the time listening and musing on this new and timely poetry.
i remember my beloved lab teacher musing,
"'Here comes the Sun'!
What is the sun? . . . a smile? . . . a vision? . . . a new hope?"
And yeah, Abbey Road became my first realization that I mostly LOVED the second side of most any album.
Can't be sorry about being so gone for the FabFour in those days. their songs empowered women, taught me about a girl's Power and Freedom better than any feminist essay, both the painful costs and the dreamy opportunities.
with my morning coffee I say, "Cheers to All!" clink!
Didn't the Abbey Road cover inspire more Paul is dead nonsense?
I remember an Aerosmith cover of “Come Together.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BjoN2yXwmoc
Aerosmith covered ‘Come Together’ and missed it wide right. Not even close.
Mad as Hell: About Yoko playing Beethoven: I read that several years ago. It's the legend, if not the fact. I have also read that "Because" is John, Paul and George's harmonies x 3, so their original + 2 overdubs. Don't know if that's true, either, but it sounds like it is.
Phid: Arrowsmith did a credible version of Come Together. I remember, too, around 1970-71, when underage drinkers could more easily get into bars, we liked to visit a certain bar that featured live bands in their downstairs bar. And, this one band always played a rock'n'roll version of "Walrus". A really good version, too.
One night I complimented one of the musicians on their version, and they told me they got it from the band "Spooky Tooth", a band name I've somehow remembered. Fifty years later, I imagine their version is still out there. I'll have to look.
Hope this helps, and thank you.
Mad as Hell: About Yoko playing Beethoven: I read that several years ago. It's the legend, if not the fact. I have also read that "Because" is John, Paul and George's harmonies x 3, so their original + 2 overdubs. Don't know if that's true, either, but it sounds like it is.
Phid: Arrowsmith did a credible version of Come Together. I remember, too, around 1970-71, when underage drinkers could more easily get into bars, we liked to visit a certain bar that featured live bands in their downstairs bar. And, this one band always played a rock'n'roll version of "Walrus". A really good version, too.
One night I complimented one of the musicians on their version, and they told me they got it from the band "Spooky Tooth", a band name I've somehow remembered. Fifty years later, I imagine their version is still out there. I'll have to look.
Hope this helps, and thank you.
When I was a kid, "50 years ago" may have been ancient Greece or Rome. I wonder if that's the case today too or if media has changed all that--back then there were very few recordings more than 20 years old. Some scratchy newsreels and that's about it.
The first side had Maxwell's Silver Hammer and Octopus's Garden, the weakest songs on the album. So do I play side 1 and deal with skipping those songs, or do I opt for side 2 and not have to deal with that? Just thinking back to my summers at my grandparents' place, listening to the records my uncle had left behind. There was even a copy of the Vee Jay album, which was great fun.
As for the story about Because, Wikipedia references a source for that anecdote, page 320 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_the_Head
Love that album.
By the way, Yoko can not only play Moonlight Sonata backwards, she sings it backwards.
One night I complimented one of the musicians on their version, and they told me they got it from the band "Spooky Tooth", a band name I've somehow remembered. Fifty years later, I imagine their version is still out there. I'll have to look.
It’s Spooky Tooth!
I was 3 years and 2 months old when the record was released, but it is deeply embedded in my memories because my mother played it in the car for over year or more from about age 4-5 or 6. Every time I hear "Come Together", "Something", or "Here Comes the Sun" I am taken back to that time in a very powerful way. "Something" is still my favorite Beatles song.
Its interesting that few Rock and Roll types write great music after 35. The decline is fast and very steep. But they keep playing.
I first heard "Because" in a crummy bar in Scotland. I had to ask what it was, and was answered with "Where have you been?". Well, I had been at sea, and was out of touch.
Not related to the Beatles in any way, but I had a similar college experience with one of my frat brothers. He had just purchased Keith Jarret's "The Koln Concert", and we listened to it together for the first time. Made me an instant fan, and was a major influence on how I viewed improvisation.
“Because” is a perfect gem and my favorite Beatles song. Everything on the first side except the guitar solo in “Something” got old quick for me, and I haven’t listened to it voluntarily since shortly after it was released. Still not tired of the second side.
Blackberry Smoke is playing a cover of "Come Together" in their live shows, and are doing a pretty good job with it.
According to Timothy Leary, that song was originally written for him as a campaign jingle when he was running for governor of California but he never used it. When it was later released by the Beatles, Leary asked John Lennon about it and Lennon replied it was akin to someone ordering a suit from a tailor and never picking it up so someone else got it
I wish I could find a good quality version of "All This and World War Two."
GIVE KEITH JARRETT A VOCAL MIC!
GIVE KEITH JARRETT A VOCAL MIC!
GIVE KEITH JARRETT A VOCAL MIC!
GIVE KEITH JARRETT A VOCAL MIC!
The Dave Clark 5's "Because" is the song I always mistake for a Beatle's song.
I remember hearing about the band called "Spooky Tooth", but that's all I remember about them.
The one non-Beatles song that can easily be mistaken for a Beatles song:
Lies, the Knickerbockers
The a capella version of Because on Anthology 3 is a revelation, and excellent evidence that harmonies were a major (and very underrated) part of the Beatles' success.
@Phidippus - I seem to remember that Jim Carrey did a cover of "I am the Walrus" for some Beatles tribute thing. It's probably on YouTube, but I've never felt the need to look it up.
When I was a kid, "50 years ago" may have been ancient Greece or Rome. I wonder if that's the case today too or if media has changed all that
Growing up, 50 years before the 1970s-80s was the 1920s-30s -- a world away. Two totally different eras and cultures, etc. But the 1980s, at least, do not seem all that foreign today. The 70s were different from today, but in a sense of seeming to be more innocent and happy-go-lucky and really rather stupidly silly when it came to being uptight about some things.
And there are some ways in which 50 years ago were ahead of where we are now. We can't land a man on the moon today, for instance.
If I remember right, Paul had some classical music training. And of course George Martin added all sorts of classical elements.
The one non-Beatles song that can easily be mistaken for a Beatles song:
I downloaded the new Abbey Road. The physical disc should arrive tomorrow. I decided to get that since it includes a Blu Ray disc of the album in Dolby Atmos.
But on the "new" album is Come And Get It which Badfinger made into a massive hit. It's, of course, a McCartney song and it so exact that you know they took it to Badfinger and said, "Do it JUST like this"*. It's almost eerie.
* So I went to Wikipedia for the history of the song. It is, indeed, that Paul took it to them, produced it and said, "Okay, it's got to be exactly like this demo."
The side 2 first approach is inspired. Ann doesn't say so, but that ends the album with the abrupt stop at the end of I Want You (She's So Heavy).
I always did the same thing with Who's Next. That begins the album with Getting in Tune, which is the perfect way of starting off an album - tuning up and getting ready - and then it ends with Song is Over, with its segue into Pure and Easy.
When I was a kid, "50 years ago" may have been ancient Greece or Rome
One big difference, apropos this thread, is recording quality. Fifty years before Abbey Road's 1969 was 1919. Though Nipper the dog might have been fooled into thinking that that was "His Master's Voice", no human being would.
But around 1950, magnetic tape running 15 inches per second was capable of recording fidelity very, very close to the original sound. In fact, though new media allows cheaper, quicker, easier way to reach this fidelity, it has not been improved.
So instead of hearing tinny Rudy Vallee's voice, we get lush Sinatra and sounds that are true and will never age in that respect. (This is where I give "digital" it's props. Since it is turned into numbers, the medium itself will never be the downfall)
Re: Jason @ 12:41 PM: I hear you, but get him some vocal training first.
Case in point: Vienna Concert.
There are a bunch of "Come Together" covers on youtube.
“Here Comes the Sun” is my favorite George Harrison song because it is upbeat. It feels so right when I hear that song played on the radio in April here in Wisconsin because the weather is warming up, the sun is shining longer, and everything feels so positive... Harrison wrote the song in Eric Clapton’s backyard when he wanted to get away from a contentious Apple Corp meeting.
If you like power chords you'll probably like Gary Clark Jr. “Come Together” on the Howard Stern Show
Spooky Tooth was Gary Wright's (Dreamweaver) first band, IIRC.
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