I was born in 1970, so too young for the Beatles. I have heard a person was either an Elvis person, or a Beattles person, but not both. Is that true, in general?
Some commenters here sneer at the Beatles as "jus another Boy Band."
Funny...I don't remember Boy Bands writing, singing and performing doing songs like this one, or...
Cried for No one Eleanor Rigby Yesterday Here Comes the Sun Fixing a Hole Benefit of Mr. Kite Something Hey Jude Lady Madonna Blackbird A Little Help from My Friends....
Back in the mid-to-late '70s there was a traveling multi-media show featuring the music of the Beatles. It was so cheesy that at the end everyone filed out quietly, avoiding eye contact with others, knowing we had been had in the worst way and resolved never to speak of it again.
I'll bet most of the people I went with have forgotten or will deny it ever happened, but I always feel a frisson of embarrassment at it on the Prof's Beatles posts.
I see this as an evolving trend. To take songs from older bands and do modern, animated videos to them where the artists - even the ones who are no longer with us - are represented in their glory days. The Monkees did it a few years ago with You Bring the Summer.
Back in the mid-to-late '70s there was a traveling multi-media show featuring the music of the Beatles. It was so cheesy that at the end everyone filed out quietly, avoiding eye contact with others, knowing we had been had in the worst way and resolved never to speak of it again.
I'll bet most of the people I went with have forgotten or will deny it ever happened, but I always feel a frisson of embarrassment at it on the Prof's Beatles posts. ************
Yeah. Hundreds of millions of fans, 600 million albums and 2 billion singles sold.
Over "cheesy" music Narr, noted final arbiter of musical taste, suffers precious...frissons...of embarrassment at.
IOW "music Narr, who had both cochlea shot off in Viet Nam, doesn't like".
Narr, do you ask people, "Do you like good music?"
“This song was composed within days of Paul hearing Pet Sounds for the first time.”
Same with speech in conversation and text. Somebody says something that resonates and a good response comes from somebody else. That’s why censorship is so dangerous. You kill the give and take and we shrivel up and die.
It's been interesting to listen to the remastered versions of the Beatles' albums as they have been re-released, with the various audio tracks cleaned up and enhanced. Revolver is the latest to get the treatment, coming out a few weeks back. Not all of the bonus alternate tracks on the super-deluxe editions of the albums are great, but some are noteworthy, and it is interesting to watch how songs evolved through various takes. For instance, the instrumental/strings only version of "Something" on Abbey Road is really lovely.
I thought the song was okay before, but seeing it spotlighted and illustrated like this makes me feel like it's weak and sickly and in need of Geritol, or B-12 injections, or something far stronger.
Lots of people are fans of both the Beatles and Elvis, but if you are a fanatic about something you have to be a fanatic about one thing.
Listen to the beginning again and tell me Paul didn't reuse some of it for "Live and Let Die."
Political Junkie said... I was born in 1970, so too young for the Beatles. I have heard a person was either an Elvis person, or a Beattles person, but not both. Is that true, in general?
Not at all! a person is either a Ramones person... Or a Clash person
I wanted to find out more about Badfinger and other Apple artists, so I got Strange Fruit: The Beatles' Apple Records. It's way too long, too much business, and way too much Beatles. I suppose I ought to have realized that it would be.
I've got a non-exhaustive list of faves on my profile, if you're interested. The Beatles could have made the list, but that would be like . . . "Wow, what are the chances? Boomer likes the Beatles!"
I have heard a person was either an Elvis person, or a Beatles person, but not both.
I was 19 in 1970, too young to be in the Elvis craze so take this with a grain of salt, but my perspective was that the Elvis fans were generally Beatles fans too, but younger people thought of Elvis as of an older generation. Not current, and not relevant. About a decade between them. I think what you are asking did exist, but not in enough quantity to be called in general.
>>Nah the Beatles themselves idolized Elvis. But he was the prior generation practically.
I always thought it was a generational thing. My ten-years older brother (born in 1943) was bigly into Elvis. Starting with my sister born in 1949, it was Beatles and who cares about Elvis (I went with her to a Beatles concert in Chicago when I was about 12 and she was 16)? I wouldn't say the two sisters in between (does it seem like I have a lot of sisters?) were into the Beatles; I can't say what they thought about Elvis. I had nothing against Elvis, but was a Beatle-freak from day one.
Odd video as the visuals don't match the song at all. But I welcome more and more Beatles media. The world was a lot better place when they were a band. Their songs were absolutely positive and uplifting. Can that be said of current rock music?
Re: Stones vs. Beatles: I'm a lyrics guy. Music can get me jumping but I don't want to hear it very often. Listen to Stones songs....very much about the rock star lifestyle. Not so, the Beatles. I turn to the Beatles over the Stones when I want to listen. If I want to crank it up and immerse myself in rock, the Stones are good. But since I'm no longer 18, Jimi Hendrix and the Stones have to wait for Dylan songs - at least he provides insights into life that provoke the mind. If you don't like Dylan's voice, I collect Dylan covers and they reveal more about the "wicked good" songs that he wrote, and many, many of them.
I haven't heard any of the remasters improve on the old ones. Frequently they take the most important part and bury it in the mix. Some of them are unlistenable.
George Martin knew what he was doing the first time.
"I haven't heard any of the remasters improve on the old ones. Frequently they take the most important part and bury it in the mix. Some of them are unlistenable."
I was mystified by the new "Abbey Road." I couldn't tell you what's different, but I don't want whatever it is they did. Maybe because I'm emotionally bonded to the original.
"To take songs from older bands and do modern, animated videos..."
I don't view the style of animation as any more "modern" than the original song. It's very much like the animation in the "Yellow Submarine" sequence of "Yellow Submarine" combined with the "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" sequence of "Yellow Submarine."
The animation is as nostalgic and 60s-based as the music — at least.
">>Nah the Beatles themselves idolized Elvis. But he was the prior generation practically./I always thought it was a generational thing."
In the 60s, when the Beatles came out, the music of the 50s was called "The Oldies." You could like it, but it was back in its own era, even if the performers were still around.
Elvis in particular had a narrative arc that cut him off from the 60s. He'd gone into the military, where they cut off his hair, and he came back and specialized in a type of movie that just wasn't very good, and he wasn't that much of an actor. He didn't adapt well to the mid-60s style. He got fat. He wore the white jumpsuit. He performed in Vegas for audiences of women who were not Baby Boomers. He adapted away from us and seemed like a joke. That's on him. We could have loved him. We grew up with him. I remember him emerging in the mid-50s and getting made fun of on the variety TV shows of that time. His shaking. "I'm All Shook Up." We who were kids liked him then.
When I was learning to play the guitar several decades ago I bought a Beatles songbook and discovered the same intricate chord progression McCartney uses behind the melody of the verse of “Here There and Everywhere” (‘Here, making each day of the year…’ is employed by Lennon for the bridge of “Sexy Sadie” (‘We gave her everything we owned just to sit…’). It’s a knuckle buster for a beginning guitarist. I learned a lot about the relationship of chords and melodies from those changes. (And something about Lennon’s sense of humor, too)
Thanks for the comments on Elvis vs Beatles. I was wondering if there was a political/cultural correlation re preference for Elvis/Beatles. Wondered if Elvis fans were more traditional/conservative than Beatles fans. My mother and her lifelong bestfriend were born in 1943 and there is some correlation when looking at the 2. The traditional/conservative Dem was more into Elvis. The artist who lived in NYC enjoyed both.
“ I was wondering if there was a political/cultural correlation re preference for Elvis/Beatles. Wondered if Elvis fans were more traditional/conservative than Beatles fans.”
Pop culture didn’t feel like part of politics.
In the 60s, by the time the Beatles hit, the big political issue was the Vietnam War and the draft. There was no more hated figure than LBJ. The Democratic Party was not something you’d feel aligned to anymore than the Republican Party. Neither seemed connected to the fantastic music we had the pleasure to experience in real time. The art and the fashion and the movies were also very new and exciting.
I hope your cousin let you play some of his vintage Gretsch and Rickenbacker electrics.
I never met him, alas, much less have access to his guitars. Though we were living in Hawaii at the same time and I had unknowingly driven by his Maui house many times!
I didn't even realize we were related until recently. My grandmother was born in Liverpool and used to mention that we were cousins (and she was George's aunt) but by then she was just a bit batty, so my brother and I didn't quite believe her.
It was only while my wifey and I were watching "Get Back" and watching George quit the band because he was tired of Paul's overbearingness and me yelling at the TV "YOU TELL 'IM, GEORGIE! STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!" that I mentioned it to my wife.
She just happened to have a trial subscription to Ancestry.com and she said "well, let's look it up."
Sure enough, my grandmother "Nanny" was correct: She was half-sister to George's father, William Hargreaves Harrison. :-)
She didn't know him growing up, as she left Liverpool for London shortly before WWII, so didn't have many stories about her.
Later I found out that George's older sister was living in Missouri. She moved to the US before the Beatles made it big. George was financially supporting her, but I learned that Olivia, George's wife, cut off that support after George's death.
I reached out to her to see if there was anything I could do for her (she's in her 90s), and heard back from her grandson that she was doing just fine... She had been managing a Beatles tribute band called Liverpool Legends that had been very successful in the crazy Springfield, MO theater circuit for years, and the guys adopted her as second family to them, and that she was well loved and taken care of.
Her grandson is a guitarist, and now serving in the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell.
Sorry for the delay but I just noticed this. The reel to reel tape recorder/player is running backwards at the start of the video. Reel to reel tape reels run counter clockwise, not clockwise.
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48 comments:
Hope stuff like this keeps coming. A shame they got tired of the collaboration as soon as they did.
I was born in 1970, so too young for the Beatles. I have heard a person was either an Elvis person, or a Beattles person, but not both.
Is that true, in general?
Some commenters here sneer at the Beatles as "jus another Boy Band."
Funny...I don't remember Boy Bands writing, singing and performing doing songs like this one, or...
Cried for No one
Eleanor Rigby
Yesterday
Here Comes the Sun
Fixing a Hole
Benefit of Mr. Kite
Something
Hey Jude
Lady Madonna
Blackbird
A Little Help from My Friends....
And many more.
I'm trying to stop mainlining Karo syrup.
i thought they broke up?
One of their finest songs. Lovely.
Nice!
Back in the mid-to-late '70s there was a traveling multi-media show featuring the music of the Beatles. It was so cheesy that at the end everyone filed out quietly, avoiding eye contact with others, knowing we had been had in the worst way and resolved never to speak of it again.
I'll bet most of the people I went with have forgotten or will deny it ever happened, but I always feel a frisson of embarrassment at it on the Prof's Beatles posts.
This song was composed within days of Paul hearing Pet Sounds for the first time.
I see this as an evolving trend. To take songs from older bands and do modern, animated videos to them where the artists - even the ones who are no longer with us - are represented in their glory days. The Monkees did it a few years ago with You Bring the Summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbf6HbKZSMk
Narr said...
Nice!
Back in the mid-to-late '70s there was a traveling multi-media show featuring the music of the Beatles. It was so cheesy that at the end everyone filed out quietly, avoiding eye contact with others, knowing we had been had in the worst way and resolved never to speak of it again.
I'll bet most of the people I went with have forgotten or will deny it ever happened, but I always feel a frisson of embarrassment at it on the Prof's Beatles posts.
************
Yeah. Hundreds of millions of fans, 600 million albums and 2 billion singles sold.
Over "cheesy" music Narr, noted final arbiter of musical taste, suffers precious...frissons...of embarrassment at.
IOW "music Narr, who had both cochlea shot off in Viet Nam, doesn't like".
Narr, do you ask people, "Do you like good music?"
I bet you do.
SNORT
“This song was composed within days of Paul hearing Pet Sounds for the first time.”
Same with speech in conversation and text. Somebody says something that resonates and a good response comes from somebody else. That’s why censorship is so dangerous. You kill the give and take and we shrivel up and die.
2 minutes and 34 seconds long. And full of melody and harmony with great chords. Nothing more than that’s needed.
Man, that video animation is a load of crap.
"an Elvis person, or a Beattles person"
Nah the Beatles themselves idolized Elvis. But he was the prior generation practically.
It was more like Beatles or Beach Boys.
Guarantee that a significant number of people would hear that title and think "It's hip, hip, so hip to be square"
It was Beatles or Stones.
Personally, I loved both of them. Just depended on my mood.
It's been interesting to listen to the remastered versions of the Beatles' albums as they have been re-released, with the various audio tracks cleaned up and enhanced. Revolver is the latest to get the treatment, coming out a few weeks back. Not all of the bonus alternate tracks on the super-deluxe editions of the albums are great, but some are noteworthy, and it is interesting to watch how songs evolved through various takes. For instance, the instrumental/strings only version of "Something" on Abbey Road is really lovely.
Both good, but for new Beatles videos, I like this one better:
https://youtu.be/5XwXliCK19Y I'm only sleeping
I might have found it on Althouse, I don't remember.
I thought the song was okay before, but seeing it spotlighted and illustrated like this makes me feel like it's weak and sickly and in need of Geritol, or B-12 injections, or something far stronger.
Lots of people are fans of both the Beatles and Elvis, but if you are a fanatic about something you have to be a fanatic about one thing.
Listen to the beginning again and tell me Paul didn't reuse some of it for "Live and Let Die."
You're an effin idiot effinay. Read it again. The cheesy was the multi-media, not the Beatles music.
Try harder.
Political Junkie said...
I was born in 1970, so too young for the Beatles. I have heard a person was either an Elvis person, or a Beattles person, but not both.
Is that true, in general?
Not at all! a person is either a Ramones person... Or a Clash person
Popularity=Quality for sheeple. Snorf
Was just running through the guitar chords for this song last week. It's a back to back play with "God Only Knows" on my playlists.
Here's hoping for more videos from Apple.
Mining the IP.
I wanted to find out more about Badfinger and other Apple artists, so I got Strange Fruit: The Beatles' Apple Records. It's way too long, too much business, and way too much Beatles. I suppose I ought to have realized that it would be.
I've got a non-exhaustive list of faves on my profile, if you're interested. The Beatles could have made the list, but that would be like . . . "Wow, what are the chances? Boomer likes the Beatles!"
I have heard a person was either an Elvis person, or a Beatles person, but not both.
I was 19 in 1970, too young to be in the Elvis craze so take this with a grain of salt, but my perspective was that the Elvis fans were generally Beatles fans too, but younger people thought of Elvis as of an older generation. Not current, and not relevant. About a decade between them. I think what you are asking did exist, but not in enough quantity to be called in general.
I've been playing my guitar, picking up old Beatles tunes, and realizing some of the animosity in the creation of said tunes.
I see old videos, and Brian Epstein set them on their way. Epstein washed away the Liverpool vulgar.
>>Nah the Beatles themselves idolized Elvis. But he was the prior generation practically.
I always thought it was a generational thing. My ten-years older brother (born in 1943) was bigly into Elvis. Starting with my sister born in 1949, it was Beatles and who cares about Elvis (I went with her to a Beatles concert in Chicago when I was about 12 and she was 16)? I wouldn't say the two sisters in between (does it seem like I have a lot of sisters?) were into the Beatles; I can't say what they thought about Elvis. I had nothing against Elvis, but was a Beatle-freak from day one.
--gpm
thanks, Ann!
Odd video as the visuals don't match the song at all. But I welcome more and more Beatles media. The world was a lot better place when they were a band. Their songs were absolutely positive and uplifting. Can that be said of current rock music?
Re: Stones vs. Beatles: I'm a lyrics guy. Music can get me jumping but I don't want to hear it very often. Listen to Stones songs....very much about the rock star lifestyle. Not so, the Beatles. I turn to the Beatles over the Stones when I want to listen. If I want to crank it up and immerse myself in rock, the Stones are good. But since I'm no longer 18, Jimi Hendrix and the Stones have to wait for Dylan songs - at least he provides insights into life that provoke the mind. If you don't like Dylan's voice, I collect Dylan covers and they reveal more about the "wicked good" songs that he wrote, and many, many of them.
“Here, There, Everywhere” is beautiful due in great part to its fluid key changes. Key changes are what make music most beautiful to me.
I haven't heard any of the remasters improve on the old ones. Frequently they take the most important part and bury it in the mix. Some of them are unlistenable.
George Martin knew what he was doing the first time.
My cousin George's old band!
They wound up doing pretty well for themselves.
I just gave Within You, Without You a listen recently. Astonishing that he created that in his mid 20s.
May he and John Lennon RIP. Long live Paul and Ringo.
"I haven't heard any of the remasters improve on the old ones. Frequently they take the most important part and bury it in the mix. Some of them are unlistenable."
I was mystified by the new "Abbey Road." I couldn't tell you what's different, but I don't want whatever it is they did. Maybe because I'm emotionally bonded to the original.
"“Here, There, Everywhere” is beautiful due in great part to its fluid key changes. Key changes are what make music most beautiful to me."
The death of the key change was a big topic last month. Lots of links to this.
"To take songs from older bands and do modern, animated videos..."
I don't view the style of animation as any more "modern" than the original song. It's very much like the animation in the "Yellow Submarine" sequence of "Yellow Submarine" combined with the "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" sequence of "Yellow Submarine."
The animation is as nostalgic and 60s-based as the music — at least.
">>Nah the Beatles themselves idolized Elvis. But he was the prior generation practically./I always thought it was a generational thing."
In the 60s, when the Beatles came out, the music of the 50s was called "The Oldies." You could like it, but it was back in its own era, even if the performers were still around.
Elvis in particular had a narrative arc that cut him off from the 60s. He'd gone into the military, where they cut off his hair, and he came back and specialized in a type of movie that just wasn't very good, and he wasn't that much of an actor. He didn't adapt well to the mid-60s style. He got fat. He wore the white jumpsuit. He performed in Vegas for audiences of women who were not Baby Boomers. He adapted away from us and seemed like a joke. That's on him. We could have loved him. We grew up with him. I remember him emerging in the mid-50s and getting made fun of on the variety TV shows of that time. His shaking. "I'm All Shook Up." We who were kids liked him then.
(I was born in 1951.)
’My cousin George's old band!’
I hope your cousin let you play some of his vintage Gretsch and Rickenbacker electrics.
When I was learning to play the guitar several decades ago I bought a Beatles songbook and discovered the same intricate chord progression McCartney uses behind the melody of the verse of “Here There and Everywhere” (‘Here, making each day of the year…’ is employed by Lennon for the bridge of “Sexy Sadie” (‘We gave her everything we owned just to sit…’). It’s a knuckle buster for a beginning guitarist. I learned a lot about the relationship of chords and melodies from those changes. (And something about Lennon’s sense of humor, too)
Thanks for the comments on Elvis vs Beatles.
I was wondering if there was a political/cultural correlation re preference for Elvis/Beatles.
Wondered if Elvis fans were more traditional/conservative than Beatles fans.
My mother and her lifelong bestfriend were born in 1943 and there is some correlation when looking at the 2.
The traditional/conservative Dem was more into Elvis. The artist who lived in NYC enjoyed both.
“ I was wondering if there was a political/cultural correlation re preference for Elvis/Beatles.
Wondered if Elvis fans were more traditional/conservative than Beatles fans.”
Pop culture didn’t feel like part of politics.
In the 60s, by the time the Beatles hit, the big political issue was the Vietnam War and the draft. There was no more hated figure than LBJ. The Democratic Party was not something you’d feel aligned to anymore than the Republican Party. Neither seemed connected to the fantastic music we had the pleasure to experience in real time. The art and the fashion and the movies were also very new and exciting.
Narr said...
You're an effin idiot effinay. Read it again. The cheesy was the multi-media, not the Beatles music.
Try harder.
************
Express yourself more clearly.
And, who else out there has ever had a "frisson of embarrassment" remembering a film they saw years ago.
How special.
I didn't see it mentioned, but today is the anniversary of John's murder.
I hope your cousin let you play some of his vintage Gretsch and Rickenbacker electrics.
I never met him, alas, much less have access to his guitars. Though we were living in Hawaii at the same time and I had unknowingly driven by his Maui house many times!
I didn't even realize we were related until recently. My grandmother was born in Liverpool and used to mention that we were cousins (and she was George's aunt) but by then she was just a bit batty, so my brother and I didn't quite believe her.
It was only while my wifey and I were watching "Get Back" and watching George quit the band because he was tired of Paul's overbearingness and me yelling at the TV "YOU TELL 'IM, GEORGIE! STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!" that I mentioned it to my wife.
She just happened to have a trial subscription to Ancestry.com and she said "well, let's look it up."
Sure enough, my grandmother "Nanny" was correct: She was half-sister to George's father, William Hargreaves Harrison. :-)
She didn't know him growing up, as she left Liverpool for London shortly before WWII, so didn't have many stories about her.
Later I found out that George's older sister was living in Missouri. She moved to the US before the Beatles made it big. George was financially supporting her, but I learned that Olivia, George's wife, cut off that support after George's death.
I reached out to her to see if there was anything I could do for her (she's in her 90s), and heard back from her grandson that she was doing just fine... She had been managing a Beatles tribute band called Liverpool Legends that had been very successful in the crazy Springfield, MO theater circuit for years, and the guys adopted her as second family to them, and that she was well loved and taken care of.
Her grandson is a guitarist, and now serving in the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell.
:-)
It was more like Beatles or Beach Boys.
I've always looked at it as Beatles or the Stones.
Stones, for me.
I'll try not to describe things others might not have experienced, effin.
Wouldn't want to trigger you again.
Sorry for the delay but I just noticed this. The reel to reel tape recorder/player is running backwards at the start of the video. Reel to reel tape reels run counter clockwise, not clockwise.
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