Song 194 - The White Album - The Beatles

Today is the 50th Anniversary of The Beatles’ - The Beatles album, affectionately known as The White Album, and there is no better other way to regenerate the jukebox than by starting with this album. The trouble is where do you start with this album? It is a feast of musical masterpieces, which starts with Back in the USSR and ends with Number Nine, and shows off the extraordinary talents of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison & Starr. If anything, this for me, this is their sad album because it is the individual talent that shines throughout the tracks and signals that this supergroup is outgrowing each other. 

There is no way I can do this album justice in one blog post so, over the next four weeks, I am going to cover some of the songs on this remarkable album. If I had to pick one song and discard all the others, the one song I would keep is Blackbird. I know it’s the obvious choice, but it is one of the most beautiful songs I think that has ever been written. For years, I’ve listened to this song, without fully appreciating its true meaning. For those, who may not know, Blackbird is not only a reference to the bird but also to the race relations and the plight of African-American Women at that time.  1968 was a poignant year for America as only months earlier  Martin Luther King had been assassinated.

Recorded as a solo performance on the album with McCartney playing a Martin D 28 acoustic guitar, the lyrics brings goosebumps whenever I listen to it. It is a standard out song that captures a moment of history. The tune itself was based on Bach’s Bourée in E Minor, a tune Paul & George tried to teach themselves at school. 

But anyone who listened to the album will know that Blackbird isn’t the only creature to appear on the album, with Rocky Racoon and Piggies both appearing on the album and there’s the reference to the walrus in Glass Onion.  I remember the first few times I heard these songs and how visual the lyrics were in describing these characters.  As I writer and lover of music, I love musicians who can tell a character’s story as strongly as the Beatles.

Listen and enjoy the first four tracks and look out for more over the coming weeks

Blackbird

Piggies

Rocky Racoon

Glass Onion

Tracks from The Beatles

Written by: Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr

Released: 22nd November 1968

Song 178 Celebrating 50th Years of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles

On June 1st, 1967, an album would be released that would change the pop industry forever. I am of course talking about St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. Whether you love or loathe the Beatles the relevance of this record, even in today's music scene, cannot be denied. I haven't hidden the fact that I'm a Beatles geek who believes there is a Beatles' song for every occasion, but forgetting all this, this album should be owned by anyone who loves music.

When the band started writing the album, late 1966,  the press had decided that the Band was in crisis, retiring from touring, not releasing albums every six months, they were obviously heading downwards. Adding to this was the failure for the double A-sided single, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane to reach number one in February 1967,  this surely meant the end of The Beatles!

What the sceptics didn't understand was the masterpiece being created by the Band and George Martin. Free from the need of having to perform tracks live, the foursome were able to experiment. They created St. Pepper's band as their alter ego, allowing them to push the boundaries like never before. When the Beach Boys had released Pet Sounds, the year before, it had made the Beatles stand up and listen, they wanted to be able to explore their musical creativity, it started with Revolver and exploded with this album.

For me, St. Pepper is the coming of age album of the Beatles and is a crossroad between their early albums and their post pepper material.  It is like growing up with your friends, your boundaries and experiences change, whilst the core remains true; fantastic music.   Also, it is impossible to take away from the cultural significance of the album release at the start of summer 1967, the war babies were turning into adults and pushing the boundaries of society. This rebellious nature would be seen with 3 of their songs being banned from the BBC's playlist due to their references to drugs.  It shows how music listening depends on how old you are, I would have never known that Henry the Horse from The Benefit of Mr Kite, was slang for Heroin when I heard the song at the age of 11. Lucy in the sky with Diamonds is infamous with LSD, even though John Lennon maintained the song was inspired by his son's drawing.  Drug induced or not, the album's 13 songs of colourful characters like Lovely Rita, and heartbreaking ballads, She's leaving home, will have you streaming in tears and laughter in equal measure.

If you're never heard the album, promise me you will enhance your enjoyment of it by listening to in its entirety, the songs were recorded without the natural break between them so it is like a string of music, and if possible, listen to it on a record player. Last year, we invested in a record player and without a doubt, it is the best way to listen to music from the 1960s. Even the cat listens when we have records on.

When you listen to it for the second time, it is the production value that you will start to appreciate; from varispeeding vocals to ADT, dampening to building three-dimensional vocals, it is under surprising that this album took nearly 700 hours to record and cost a reported £25,000 to produce. Their first album Please Please Me cost £400. A little increase in though figures. Rumours had it that some of the band weren't as keen as other with all the fancy production techniques, but hopefully hearing their finished album and knowing that it still tops the top albums ever written, made up for any boredom in the studio.

Then when you listen for the third time sit with the wonderful cover in front of you and try to guess all the famous faces on the album selves. Designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth from a stretch drawn by Paul McCartney, there are over 50 famous faces on the front cover. Winning the 1968 Grammy award for Best Album cover, it is instantly recognisable to millions across the world and illustrates the journey of the band, their influences and their heroes to write this album. For me, as I reach my own crossroads to a new decade, the Beatles are part of my cover and their music has shaped who I am.

Thank you, John, Paul, George and Ringo for this album. For giving generations who live after yours, an album that keeps its relevance and music sharpness no matter how old it becomes.

Hear Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club band and enjoy the levels of music.

Released: 1st June 1967,
Written by: Lennon, McCartney & Harrison.
Record label: EMI & Apple

Song 163 - Birthday by the Beatles

It might be an obvious song for me today but this song is relevant to somebody every day of the year, and if you have ever created a birthday mega mix for a friend, this was a great opening track.
Written, of course, by John Lennon and Paul McCartney it was the first song on the third side of their double album, The Beatles, which is more commonly known as the White Album. The White Album was recorded on the 18 September 1968 during a recording session and sees a return to traditional rock and roll style of the early Beatles' music. An interesting fact about this track was credited equally between John and Paul, at a time when, individually, they were all moving in their own musical direction. There has been some debate on whether this is true.

Birthday was never released as a single for the band; but would eventually be released by Paul McCartney as a live track in 1990 and it reached number 29 in the UK chart. Birthday is probably one of the more minor tracks of the Album, which includes tracks like Back in the USSR, Glass Onion, Julia, Blackbird, Honey Pie, and I will.  The list is endless. The White Album was the 9th studio album released by the Beatles in 1968, which followed Sgt. Pepper's Loney Hearts Club Band. The album shows the development of all four member of the band as individual musicians who were beginning to break away from each other. When you look at the album's credits names like Eric Clapton, Pattie Harrison, Mal Evans, Yoko Uno and Maureen Starky, you can see why sometimes the studio seemed very full when they were they were recording between May and November 1968. Most of the songs were written in India and you can hear its influence especially in George Harrison's music.

I remember, for a very long time, I didn't have this album on CD due to the expense and then I was given it for my birthday by my sister and brother-in-law as I had been apparently dropping hints about owning it, but I wasn't aware that I had been doing this.  Then friends of mine gave me a book all about the the album, which is just a perfect companion to the album. I think I now have three copies of the albums, both in Mono and Stereo. If you have the chance to listen to this album do as this it is a remarkable piece of art; but I will bet that you'll know songs from the album without even listening to it.

Listen to the Birthday track here

Cheers to everyone who has a birthday today.

Song 101 - Abbey Road by the Beatles

Never ask me to name my favourite Beatles song, but my favourite Beatles Album is Abbey Road. Released in September 1969, for me, there is not one track on that album which isn't worthy of being part of the jukebox and here's why:

In the autumn of 1990, when I was 13, my family was involved in  putting on the local village pantomime Dick Whittington and it was decided that Octopus Gardens would make a great song for when Dick is traveling to the palace to get rid of the rats. To get the music for the track, we borrowed the album from a family friend and being a Beatles fan back then, I tapped the whole album and from that moment, my appreciation for the Beatles took a whole new level.  I think up to this point, my knowledge of Beatles music was mainly due to a tape of their 1962-1964 music.

Where do I start with what makes it so fantastic? One,  the album contain tracks written and song by all four of them, you have Harrison's Something and Here's comes the sun,  Starky's Octopus gardens; together with Lennon and McCartney's classics as Come together, Because and You never give me your money. Two, the second side is a melting pot of magical melodies that weave into each other, it isn't an album to put onto a random mix as you miss the sheer beauty of the composition. Three are the characters in the songs, you have the series killer in Maxwell's Silver Hammer; Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam; and the man in Come Together who has to be good looking cause he is so hard to see. Then outside the characters there is a mixture of heart warming and heart breaking songs, which perhaps reflect the mind state of four friends who had reached the end of their time together. For a 13 year old girl with an over active imagination, it had everything and it has never failed to inspire me and I am a wee-bit older now. Have I sold it to you yet?

Lets go through the tracks: Side 1.

Come together 
A brilliantly simple track sung by John Lennon, it is its simplicity that makes it perfect. Having listened to this album so many times, this song for me strikes a happy chord. A number of other artists have covered this, and it was on the HELP album for the War Child Charity where Paul McCartney played with Paul Weller and Oasis on the cover. You can't help thinking that John Lennon would have been part of that album too if he had been around. It was released as a double A-side single with Something, which is track two on the album.

Come together, sung live by John Lennon in New York

Something
Possibly the best song George Harrison wrote whilst he was a Beatles, this love song refers to the relationship with his first wife Patti Boyd, who he had met on the film A Hard Day's night. Boyd would go on to be the inspiration for the song Wonderful Tonight, Layla and Bell Bottom Blues written by Eric Clapton, her second husband. Something gave the Beatles their 18th number one in the US surpassing Elvis Presley and won an Ivor Novella award for Best song musically and lyrically in 1969.

Something by the Beatles

Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Sung by McCartney, all you have to do is listen to the lyrics of this song and they tell you the story of Maxwell.  Paul described Maxwell's Silver Hammer as "my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does, as I was beginning to find out at that time in my life. I wanted something symbolic of that, so to me it was some fictitious character called Maxwell with a silver hammer."

Maxwell's Silver Hammer

Oh! Darling
Another song sung by McCartney, he worked for a week to make sure his voice wasn't too clear on the track. This track is heavy influenced by the Rhythm and Blues music of New Orleans.

Oh! Darling by the Beatles

Octopus's Garden
Ringo would normally get to be lead vocal on one track of an album, Octopus Gardens was performed and written by him after taking a two week holiday with his family and developing an interest in Octopus. Sometimes the inspiration is easy to see.

Octopus Garden, live version sung by Ringo Starr

I want you (She's so heavy)
For the last track of side one, Lennon takes back the lead vocal role for this gritty number. I actually miss my taped version of this song as you could hear the needle lift of the record right at the end of the music. Lennon wrote this number about his love for Yoko Uno and is one of the longest Beatles tracks ever lasting 8 minutes and containing only 14 words. Touching on the world of heavy metal, it one of the last track the Beatles recorded together as a band in September 1969.

I want you (she's so heavy) The Beatles

Side 2

Here comes the sun
Another perfect number for George Harrison and you can imagine yourself being in the back garden with a drink, which is actually where he wrote it in the back gardens of his friend's, Eric Clapton, house. You can hear Harrison's india influence coming through on the track and McCartney sings backing vocals. By putting this as the opening track of the second side, it shows the diversity between the heavy metal style to folk rock.

Here comes the sun - The Beatles

Because
Keeping it mellow, Lennon's vocal on Because, follows on fantastically. The voices of Lennon, Harrison and McCartney are dubbed trice so it sounds as though there is a nine part harmony on the track.  Cited as the favourite track of Lennon and McCartney on the album, it took them more than 5 hours of recording to get the track to a level they were happy with. Much is said about the unhappiness and the tension of recording this album, but there was still a level of dedication to creating the best material they could. I can't find a link to the Beatles' recording on You Tube.

The Medley: You never give me your money, Sun King, Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam, She came through the bathroom window, Golden slumbers, Carry that weight and The End.

Staring with You never give me your money, the medley was put together by George Martin and Paul McCartney. It was an attempted by George Martin to get Lennon and McCartney to think about their music seriously. The first track inspired by the Band's disputes with Alan Kein, leads into Lennon's Sun King, which follows the same vein as Because & Here's come the Sun.  Using the nine-part harmonies with their voices, you could put these three tracks as singles on their own album. As you are starting to feel chilled and the heat from an Indian Summer, The Sun King gives way for Mean Mr. Mustard, a character that was inspired by a news article John Lennon read when he was in India and is another great example of characters The Beatles created in their songs, Mean Mr. Mustard gave way to Polythene Pam, another Lennon's character inspired by a real person he met in Jersey. She's came through the bathroom window, written by McCartney, was also inspired by  a fan who gained entry to his flat through the said window.

You never give me your money

Sun King, Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam, She came in through the bathroom window

The last two tracks, Golden Slummers & The End, for me anyway maybe suggests the end of the band and the fact that these four friends have simply moved in different directions. Although the later years of the band became more difficult with the death of Brian Epstein, the legal fights, I like to think of them as made it very, very big. Perhaps because I have always being able to listen to album in the cultural history surrounding it, has made me think that they they all knew that it was over by the end of the record for the Beatles, and too much is made of the arguments surrounding this album and not enough about the brilliance of it.

Golden Slummers, Carry that weight, The End

Hidden track: Her Majesty
Lovely little track about the Queen.

Her Majesty by The Beatles

I urge you to go out and listen to this album. It maybe three years shy of being 50th year old, but it is fantastic for its age.

Song 100 - Lucy in the sky with diamonds - The Beatles

Song 100 and yes we are back to the Beatles, I wanted to keep along the lines of diamonds and what better song then Lucy in the sky with diamonds, taken from their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I mean how can you not feel relaxed with the opening line: Picture yourself in a boat on river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

Although credited to both Lennon and McCartney, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, is said to be a Lennon led song. John, himself, said that he had been inspired by a painting that Julian (his son) came back with from nursery with the same title, that he painted with his friend, Lucy.

Although in the years since the song was released, many have said the song is about LCD, Lennon and McCartney has both firmly denied this, saying the song had more to do with their love of Alice in Wonderland. Another myth surrounding this record is that it was banned by the BBC because of the apparent meaning of it. This is not true and it was played on BBC radio in May 1967.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds is the third track on the critically acclaimed album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was the Beatles' 8th studio album. Released in 1967, it stayed at the top of the album chart for 27 weeks in the UK and 10 weeks in the US. The album would win 4 Grammys, including best album, which was the first time a pop album had won this award.

Most of the song is in a simple triple metre (3/4 time), but the chorus is in 4/4 time. The song modulates between musical keys, A major for verses, B Flat major for the pre-chrous and G major for the chorus. Lennon sings it over an increasingly complicated underlying arrangement which feature tamboura played by George Harrison, who also plays the lead electric guitar put through a leslie speaker. Then McCartney is playing a counter melody on a Lowrey organ, taped with a special organ stop sounding, like a celeste.

 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band moved The Beatles into a more experimental period with their  music and it is said that the idea of creating the Edwardian band, was to allow them the freedom to explore new music style and influences. The album itself is in the number 3 in the best selling albums in the UK  ever.

The song itself has been covered by a variety of artists. Perhaps the most famous artist was Elton John in 1974, as Elton worked with John Lennon on his version of the song. Elton John would take the song to No. 1 in the US Chart.

To hear about Lucy in the sky;
Lucy in the sky with diamonds by The Beatles


Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released: 1967.