Meme: on a variety of topics. Today: The Beatles

[pensnest]

as requested by solariana


When I was a child, my Dad used to record the Top 30 from the radio, and every so often we—I don't know quite who 'we' is in this context, probably my mother and I—would listen to the them. We had more early-sixties than late-sixties stuff, and no fresh pop music on tape at all after mid-1969 until I started taping it myself when I was at boarding school. *pause* Okay, I was at boarding school from April 1970, but I don't think I taped stuff for a few years, not until my Dad also gave me his old record player.

So I got to be very familiar with the most popular songs that were just a little bit out of date, and familiarity, of course, tends to mean that those are the songs a person loves.

Among other things, this meant that I loved the early Beatles stuff, when they were pure and joyful pop. And increasing consciousness came as the Beatles got more experimental, or, as I probably put it, weird.

All this changed gradually, of course. For quite some years I owned Abbey Road and the red album and the blue album (but not the White Album) on vinyl, only getting them out of the house a couple of years after the record player had gone… eh, I procrastinate, it's a thing.

But nobody who grew up then, even if a little too young to be really 'into' popular music (my coming-into-awareness decade was the '70s), could fail to notice the Beatles. I, as a good girl, very much preferred them to the Rolling Stones (still do). I had a mild crush on Paul, and subsequently George. If I'd been a little older, I could well have become a Fan, but by the time I was old enough to be buying records and sticking posters on my wall, the Beatles weren't together any more. And Wings never lived up, never. I kinda liked George's solo stuff, though.

By and large I prefer the songs which John sang lead on, which I *think* (somebody will know) were the ones he mostly wrote, as he was a much more interesting lyricist than Paul. (I have a suspicion Paul was more musically interesting—certainly an accomplished pianist of my acquaintance admires McCartney harmonies.) Although I have always loved 'The Long and Winding Road', which would seem to be a Paul song, and of course Yesterday. I still have great fondness for Love Me Do, and Please Please Me, and And I Love Her, and I adore the bass line on Can't Buy Me Love, which is so adventurous, it goes off on a little journey all on its own which miraculously works with the song everyone's actually singing. Brilliant. Also very fond of The Fool on the Hill and—unexpectedly—Back in the USSR. But I can probably make a good go at singing along to any of their songs. I toy with the idea of having All You Need Is Love played at my funeral. It kinda depends on me dying soon enough that there'll be people attending who actually know how to sing along!

I was too young to be much interested in their breakup (I do so envy the people who were in the right place at the right time to hear that rooftop concert!), and wasn't quite the right age to be devastated by Lennon's murder, but I was pretty horrified. I was pleased to see Paul McCartney at the Olympics, although… not sure he should still be singing. Sometimes you need to retire.


To fill in the last few days, go here.

Comments

[carolyn_claire]

I believe it was their habit to sing lead on their own songs, yeah. John did bemoan the fact that they started out doing mainly 'his' songs but moved toward doing more of 'Paul's' songs later, because they did think about them that way. He was so annoyed at being serenaded with Yesterday by a restaraunt violinist because he thought of it as Paul's song, where to the violinist it was just a Beatles song. They worked more collaboratively on the early songs than they did on the later ones, but they still felt ownership of individual songs. There's that Playboy interview John did where they took him through a list of songs and he would say "Paul's" or "mine" and then talk about each song a bit. It bothered him that people covered Paul's songs more than his, and he wondered how he would be remembered, if Paul would eclipse him (according to Yoko).

"Long and Winding Road" is definitely Paul's, about his issues with the state of the band at that time--so sad. One of my favorites of their earlier songs is "It's Only Love," which was John's and which he disowned later, calling it trash; he did that sometimes with songs written about his feelings for people or things that he wanted to renounce later.

People have talked a lot about John's deeper lyricism and Paul's superior musicianship, but neither of them were slouches at the other, of course. John complemented Paul's lyrics to "The End," for instance (the 'love you take' section), claiming that it showed Paul 'could think when he wanted to', though Paul did kind of go lyrically off the rails with Wings, and some of John's music in his solo work was amazing and pretty much shut up some of his earlier critics who preferred Paul's.

(I'm a fan of both their music and their tragic love story, so it's a thing I enjoy talking about, heh. :)

[solariana.livejournal.com]

I've been in love with them since I was 3. There was the Beatles and *all that other stuff*. Back in the 60s most of the pop radio stations played top 40 most of the time and of course that led to the Beatles being played quite a bit. I think I liked John the best at first, then Paul in the mid 60s, then went into a Ringo phase in the late 60s, then a George phase in the early-mid 70s, back to a John phase in the late 70s and back into a Paul phase in the 80s. Still a huge fan of The Beatles collectively and as solo artists, but Paul remains my favorite to this day.

Throughout school there was a big rivalry between The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Despite the bands being friends, at my school, you only admitted to liking and owning albums of one group or the other. The Beatles were far more popular. I didn't own a Rolling Stones album for years until a friend was giving their LP collection away when they were moving. I thought it was okay as long as I didn't buy it, LOL!

I didn't know they'd broken up until I complained to my dad I hadn't seen any new Beatles records to buy. I kept looking, but I already had everything. That was when my dad actually laughed and me and told me they'd broken up a year or so earlier. He didn't even tell me they had solo stuff available, but I managed to discover that and have almost everything John, Paul and George put out solo and a handful of Ringo's stuff. I still have all my records to this day, also all the Beatles stuff and much of the solo stuff on CD as well.

The general thought is that they're mostly signing lead on the songs they wrote, however, it wasn't unusual for John to write choruses for Paul's songs or Paul to write choruses for John's songs. I definitely agree John was a better master at lyrics while Paul had a knack of developing was really awesome and catchy tunes. If you read through some lyrics of Paul's best songs, they're generally pretty simple. That only makes them easier for the general public to sing along with I suppose.

I absolutely remember being totally devastating by John's murder. Right about the time of the murder I had an awful gut feeling that something was terribly wrong, but brushed it off as nothing. I heard the next morning on the radio that he had been killed. I remember crying so hard that my mom let me go into school late. Some of my class mates were walking around with black sleeves on their arms. I was too much of a mess to think of such a thing, however, as all of my T-shirts were black back then, I was at least wearing black, I am sure.

Paul has his good days and his bad days vocally to be sure. I saw him a year ago November here in St Louis. I think he hadn't been on stage since May. It was the best I have ever heard him sing live. I've seen him in concert 5 times, beginning in 89. I remember him sounding quite strained at some concerts I've been to as he'd often do 2-3 nights straight. I think his voice gets strained. But at his age, yes, he certainly has earned a happy retirement!

Always interesting to hear the Beatles POV from someone from England!