I keep trying every couple years or so, and it's always a different catalyst. This time it might have been a blurry late-night Behind the Music John Lennon, the Final Years. Or maybe it was a Ringo infomercial. It's hard to say. No matter, but for some reason I feel compelled to "get" The Beatles, having failed miserably for all these years. I'm getting closer, but I suffered a major setback tonight when my wife insisted I not skip "Imagine." That fucking song has a way of highlighting Lennon as the poster boy of all things "stupid hippie" and everything else that was absurdly naive about the 60s.
I did pretty well a few years back with Revolver and Rubber Soul, but Sgt. Pepper's ended the run. Is that the most overrated album in rock? It sounds like the voice you've spent your whole life trying to suffocate with a camphor-soaked hankie. I always liked the White Album, even in my college days, when we set Let It Be on fire, taped it to a longboard and burned it in the trash can on 45th St. in Newport, screaming "Let it burn, let that fucker burn!" Not to get all druggy on ya, but The White Album is one great fucking acid record, up in the pantheon with Electric Sun or The Pleasure Principle. "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" will make you fuck a light socket, but beware those emergency room bills. I even downloaded some early Beatles for the first time, and some of that sounds more honest. Cloying, but not dripping with pretension. Of course the problem with classic rock is you can't hear the hits anymore. Like the big cliches, all power is gone. Radio saturated the airwaves with the Fab Ones and and left our ears soggy, even if "Hey Jude" and "Yesterday" were dead on arrival.
But the older I get and the further I drift from the old dogma, the better the Beatles sound. They still can't touch the Stones in my personal on-the-bus-off-the-bus trip, but the polarization ain't as great. Hell, I put on John Lennon's Greatest Hits earlier this evening and only fast-forwarded through seven of twenty songs. I'm not sure if that's emotional maturity, middle-age or laziness, but that "Working Class Hero" tune kills. Anyway, I'm just avoiding duties and clearly have little to say. Ya got any personal Beatles' demons to exorcise?
8 comments:
i have always been very stand offish about them, a couple of the bands that changed my mind about writing them off completely were big star and flamin grovvies, check out and your bird can sing. otherwise i prefer solo stuff i guess
I've hated those Beatle fuckers my whole life, but most of that was symbolic. The Stones just seemed like my kind of people, but more importantly, their music is better. I don't know- when you're young, so much of this stuff is knee-jerk. Now, I'm just curious what all the fuss was about, and I can hear it a little better.
I'm never compelled to listen to The Beatles on record just because I feel like I'm just gonna end up hearing them at some point daily. They're everywhere.
When I do hear particular songs or see a cool youtube clip by them, I'm reminded that Lennon actually was a total rocker at heart. McCartney was a step away from old standards pretty much from the jump.
That said, my next $1 bin target is Wings. I feel it's only logical since I conquored Fleetwood Mac and ELO in 2010.
I stand by Rumours and the first record, and the Fleetwood Mac Behind the Music is Shakespeare.
I know what you mean by the ubiquitous nature of the Beatles, but I'm not sure I really listen in the dentist's office or on the radio. It's just there.
Have you heard Roy Wood's Boulders? You might really dig it.
The bit above about Paul mcCartney is dead on. He is rooted in English music hall traditions, which along with Dixieland jazz, is the worst music in the western cannon.
All that said, I took a look at their catalog on Itunes when the Beatles music was made available. Its stunning how much music they chruned out in such a short period of time. 2 lps a year were no big deal. And there are plenty of solid hits throughout.
That said, the Stones win hands down for me, as well. They are just nastier, totally into the blues and chuck Berry licks. My kinda stuff.
Well, Ray Davies is even more rooted in those music hall traditions, and he even celebrates traditional village life while he's oompaing along, so it's probably fair to say it's the sensibility you bring to your influences that matters most.
And didn't John Fogerty crank out a top ten single every time he moved his bowels?
Tried to give a serious listen to their 67-70 2xLP yesterday (the blue one), based entirely on this post. Outside of being struck by how shitty the mix/mastering is ("Greatest Hits" = taking several different sessions and dumbing them down into the same level thus taking life outta shit that originally sounded hot OR making the dull worse), "Ob-la-Di, Ob-la-Da" can not be forgiven. Fuck that fucking song. Goddamn it. IT WON'T GO AWAY.
"Revolution", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Back In The USSR" made me want to boo-gie though. If I actually decide to own any of their records, I'm working backwards.
I'm with ya on Ob-la-di- it's down there with Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Octopus' Garden and Fogerty's unforgivable moment, Down on the Corner.
For the record, Obladi was one of the first songs I 'learned' on guitar, and my teacher was a ninety-year old woman named Priscilla.
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