Just like little girls and boys/Playing with their little toys...

The other day I was hanging out at the town library, visiting my Mom (she works there), and scanning the shelves, and happened across a remarkable little book titled Who Were the Beatles? by Geoff Edgers- part of a young readers-geared "Who were/was..." series. The simplistic, yet adequate and even clever in their way illustrations are by Jeremy Tugeau. See the samples below- first, of young George with his Mom and his first guitar, and next, a scene most likely meant to be from the White Album sessions, when Yoko first started insinuating herself into the Beatles' studio.

Since it's aimed at preteens, much of the Fabs' convoluted, sometimes odd, sometimes messy history is omitted- but given how much that is written about them these days adopts two postures: cynical or fawning, it has a refreshing lack of both as it assays their history that I found charming.

Which is not to say that uncomfortable topics aren't included: John's murder, his "lost weekend", George's chafing at being the odd man out, the breakup of the group and why, John and Paul's sniping at each other in the papers- all are there.

For example, here's the description of John's lost weekend:

By the mid-1970's, John Lennon was still one of the most famous people in the world, more so than the other Beatles. Was he happy? No.

He was still a young man- only in his thirties. Yet he'd spent so much time in the spotlight. He never seemed at ease with himself, even at home. His marriage to Yoko Ono was breaking up. John was afraid it would end up in divorce, just as his first marriage had. Eventually, Yoko asked John to move out. He agreed, though he didn't want to. John began to drink too much. He also took drugs. He started hanging out with people who only wanted to go to parties. He got into fights. His music suffered.

Of course, this is © Edgers. I'd take issue with that last statement, but see what I mean? Even though it's not 100% accurate (no mention of Harry Nilsson or May Pang, which would muddy the picture, I suppose), the lack of snark, hipper-than-thou posturing and mean-spiritedness won me over completely.

I've read a lot of books about the Fabs over the years, but very few of them left me with a good feeling about them. This one did. I guess, in these troubled times, that that is a hell of a thing.

(Reposted from a 2007 entry on my LiveJournal. I figured that many didn't see this over there, and I'm thinking I might put a few more LJ posts up over here, just for the sake of keeping this blog active.)

A posthumous BSBdG today for JOHN WINSTON ONO LENNON, who would have been 68 today if not for, well, you know.

From 2005, here's a list of favorite solo Lennon tracks. I should probably revise it someday.

Pic courtesy of the fab and gear Beatle Photo Blog.

誕生日おめでとう!

Bacardi Show Birthday Greetings are in order for good old RINGO STARR, who turns 68 today.

My fave Ringo songs list.

I would be remiss if I didn't interrupt the deafening silence around here and let the day expire without passing on a Bacardi Show Birthday Greeting to the old master chef himself, SIR JAMES PAUL McCARTNEY, looking every bit his 66 years these days...and that's all right.

Here's my now three-year-old list of favorite McCartney and Wings tracks. I don't think I'd add anything from albums released since, although I did like "Fine Line" from Chaos and Creation and "Dance Tonight" from Memory Almost Full. In fact, I thought the latter was a pleasantly surprising, strong collection of songs.

You'd think that people would have had enough of Paul McCartney; I look around me and I see it isn't so. Oh no. (I never get tired of that joke. "We KNOW", I hear you all say.)

Picture ganked from the outstanding BEATLE PHOTO BLOG, your source for unique, interesting Fabs snaps and fart jokes.

How did two rights make a wrong?

I posted this a few days ago on the LJ and got no response...so I figured what the hell, I'll post it here and see if anyone reacts. 

I have no answer for you little lamb
I can help you out 

But I cannot help you in 

Sometimes you think that life is hard 

And this is only one of them 

My Heart is breaking for you little lamb I can help you out
But we may never meet again
La La La La La La La La 

Dragonfly fly by my window
You and I still have a way to go
Don't know why you hang around my door 

I don't live here any more
Since you've gone I never know
I go on, but I miss you so
Dragonfly don't keep me waiting
When we try, we'll have a way to go
Dragonfly, you've been away too long
How did two rights make a wrong
Since you've gone I never know
I go on but I miss you so
In my heart I feel the pain
Keeps coming back again
Dragonfly fly by my window (I'm flying can't you see me I'm flying)
You and I can find a way to see
Dragonfly, the years ahead will show 

How little we really know
Since you've gone its never right 

They go on the lonely nights

Come on home and make it right 

My heart is aching for you little lamb 

I can help you out But I cannot help you in 

La La La La La La La La (repeat) 

_____________________________________________ 

These are the lyrics to the song "Little Lamb Dragonfly", from Paul McCartney's 1973 release Red Rose Speedway. In my opinion, Speedway isn't one of Paulie's stronger efforts, sorry to say, although I do find myself enjoying its modest charms from time to time.

The official story of "Dragonfly", a melodically lovely if somewhat precociously arranged track that concludes side one of the vinyl LP, is that Macca was inspired to write it after the death of a sheep on his farm. OK, fair enough- but I was listening to this cut for probably the 5,000th time this afternoon when it struck me that this song could be interpreted as a reconciliatory mash note to his former Beatle associate John Lennon, and/or the "Beatles" as an entity. 

From what I gather, this song was written sometime in 1970 or '71 and recorded during the sessions for his Ram album of that same year. It's been documented that the year or two immediately following the breakup of the Beatles was not a particularly happy time for Paul- I've read that he said he felt unhappy, adrift and directionless, and seeing how he was always the most driven of the Four, this is understandable. Relationships with his erstwhile bandmates were strained as a result of all the personal and legal bullshit, and none more so than with Lennon. In fact, John was publicly angry about what he perceived as attacks and comments of a personal nature, in the form of Ram tracks like "Dear Boy" and "Too Many People", with its "Too many people/preaching practices/don't let them tell you what you want to be" line. This led to a lot of spatting, mostly in the form of angry letters in music publications and barely concealed song lyrics, a la John's vitriolic "How Do You Sleep".

However, if my suspicions are true, "Dragonfly" is a lot more wistful and heartfelt. Paul is seeming to take on the persona of the "lamb" in this song, singing reassuring words to himself, reminiscent of "Hey Jude". John could be seen as the "dragonfly", reflective of his caustic nature, and in a more general sense the collective "Beatles" could be represented by the insect's fleeting, darting nature. As with the "and though they will be parted, there is still a chance that they will see" line from "Let it Be", verses like 

Dragonfly fly by my window (I'm flying can't you see me I'm flying)
You and I can find a way to see
Dragonfly, the years ahead will show
How little we really know
Since you've gone I never know
I go on but I miss you so
In my heart I feel the pain 

Keeps coming back again 

 

certainly seem to me to express similar sentiments. And in this fashion, a modest, mostly overlooked track from one of McCartney's more dismissed releases, if I'm correct in my theory, is suddenly transformed into a low-budget "Let it Be" for the solo years, taking on a whole new gravity and dimension in my ears and head. And yes, through its forlorn sentiment, my heart as well. What do you think? Am I totally off base here?

Sending out a posthumous BSBdG today to GEORGE HARRISON, who would have been 65 years of age.

10 of my favorite Harrisongs, both solo and with the Beatles, in no particular order and subject to change at the drop of a Krishna consciousness button:

Apple Scruffs, from All Things Must Pass
Within You Without You, from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Old Brown Shoe, B-side to "The Ballad of John & Yoko", appears on Past Masters Vol. 2
Simply Shady, from Dark Horse
Be Here Now, from Living in the Material World
Don't Bother Me, from With The Beatles
Something, from Abbey Road
Life Itself, from Somewhere in England
Behind That Locked Door, from All Things Must Pass
If I Needed Someone, from Rubber Soul

I need to expand this to 25 someday.

Oh, by the way, George's Wikipedia entry has this annotation:

Harrison started a rumor that he was born on 24 February as a joke. All reliable sources show his birth date as 25 February.

You know you can always rely on Wikipedia for the facts. Regardless, I don't know for sure about the veracity of this one way or the other, so until I am convinced otherwise I continue to cite 2/25. Here's a copy of his birth certificate, which appeared as part of a trade ad for his 1976 LP Thirty-Three and One-Third.

Something I'm looking forward to this year is May Pang's new book, Instamatic Karma!, a collection of photos taken by Pang during her 1973-75 time spent with John Lennon.

Even though my Beatle admiration has taken its share of hits over the last few years (but never my admiration for the music), I still remain fascinated by not only the group years but the solo years as well, and none more so than Lennon's so-called "Lost Weekend". On her MySpace blog, Pang posted a link to a Daily Mail spotlight on the book, with a short interview and several heavily watermarked advance photos (as you can see above). Here's the link, check it out!

I also went back to look for the review I wrote of Pang's memoir Loving John, and was amused to read the comments- boy, talk about a "Woodwork Squeaks" scenario!

You may have heard about today, which marks the 40th anniversary of what I'm assuming is the final session for John Lennon's 1968 mix of the song "Across the Universe". Apparently NASA's going to commemorate this by beaming it out into the void, and when you go to the website for this anniversary observation, you get the following:

Monday, February 4th 2008 is the exact 40th anniversary of the Beatles recording their anthem of universal peace - "Across The Universe" - in 1968.

To mark the occasion, Beatles fans worldwide are invited to play that Beatles song at the same time of day - creating a harmonic convergence around the globe.

And the Beatles' universal message will NOT be restricted to Planet Earth!

The US Space Agency NASA will play a major part in the celebrations by beaming the song "Across The Universe" literally Across The Universe!

NASA is going to transmit the Beatles tune from a satellite antenna directly into outer space! And it will do this at the exact same time as fans Across The World are playing "Across The Universe"!


Well, that's lovely, I'm sure. But it's just WRONG. "Across the Universe" is FAR from an "anthem of universal peace". Just because celebrated peacenik Lennon wrote it, doesn't mean it's anything of the sort. They've totally misinterpreted the words. In fact, if you read the lyrics closely, you will find that it's a completely self-absorbed and solipsistic song about the creative process, Lennon's to be precise, and reflects the 1968 vibe of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's teachings more than anything. The "universe" he's reaching out to is entirely within his own headspace.

That doesn't mean I won't play the song at 6 PM CST tonight if I'm able- and I wonder if they want the original, which featured Yoko on BV's and recorded flying bird noises, or Phil Spector's 1970 Let it Be remix, or the 2005 Let it Be...Naked mix, or David Bowie's cover from Young Americans, or...aw, ta heck with it. Doesn't matter. Just shows to go ya how silly Beatlemania can be these days, and sometimes I can sympathize with the haters, I guess.

Posting has dropped off a bit, yeah I know, but I've been spending my time wisely I think; I've been reading. Specifically, I've been reading a spate of books that I have acquired for Christmas, as I posted about the other day, and none has been as interesting as one of the few fresh takes on the well-worn saga of the Beatles: Stephen Gould's Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America.

As this NY Times review states:

"Gould aims to meld the three primary, often distinct strands of Beatle bibliography — biography, music appreciation and pop sociology — into a single volume, a mother ship of Beatles books, with, as the subtitle implies, a special emphasis on the divide between the country that gave them birth and the country that arguably loved them best."

And that's true- one of my favorite Beatle books is musicologist Tim Riley's Tell Me Why, in which he deconstructs the musical output of the Fabs via the nuts and bolts of how the songs were put together in regards to the actual notes-on-paper, and Gould does a fair amount of that here. But as Timothy White did in his book about the Beach Boys, The Nearest Faraway Place, he also takes a look at the phenomenon from a sociological viewpoint as well, and while sometimes he does diverge a bit into areas that I don't really care about too much, this is often fascinating and is quite the antidote for the last few Fabs-related works I've read, which often concerned themselves with warts-and-all portrayals of these four men, and not always in a flattering fashion. It's not that I don't want to know that George was a self-absorbed dick to not only Pattie Boyd but just about everyone in his orbit in the early 1970's, or John was borderline psychotic and a mean, nasty drunk, or Paul was often a prima donna and mistreated his co-workers/bandmates while they were making music that I love, but the little part of me that still wants to hero worship a wee bit gets very sad with every revelation. Even sturdy old Geoff Emerick, the visionary engineer whose sonic innovations helped the sound of the Beatles during their most fruitful years, couldn't resist telling tales out of school about the Fabs' asshattery. Gould's book, so far, has been a refreshingly "just the facts" take- even though he and I differ in general opinion of many songs.

It's kind of a dense read so far, though- I'm only just now up to the Rubber Soul era. Unless the rest of the book totally devolves into sludge, I think, though, that I can recommend this unequivocally to those, like me, who have an interest in the music and not so much the dirt.

Anywho, I did start the new Spinner Rack Junkie today, and sincerely hope to get it posted this week.

I now interrupt what has apparently turned into yet another blogging hiatus to observe what would have been JOHN LENNON's 67th birthday.

Surprisingly Rock 'n' Roll-heavy favorite song list, as of 2005.




If you're still bothering to visit, please bear with. I'll "get back" (ouch) in the saddle eventually.

----------------
Now playing: Flo & Eddie - Flo & Eddie Theme
via FoxyTunes

I see via the indispensable WhatGoesOn.com where EMI/Capitol is/are releasing four classic Apple-era Ringo Starr albums, Sentimental Journey, Beaucoups of Blues, Ringo, and Goodnight Vienna, in digital format later this month. Anything which gets the solo Fabs on iTunes is all right with me, and while I already own the near-classic Ringo on CD, I wouldn't mind cherrypicking from the other three. Now, if only they'd make George's Dark Horse available...

Also, I see where the above-pictured compilation CD will be released as well, along with a bonus DVD with some cool stuff included. Here's the tracklist:

PHOTOGRAPH: THE VERY BEST OF RINGO STARR (CD & Digital Album)

1. Photograph (1973)
2. It Don't Come Easy (1971)
3. You're Sixteen (You're Beautiful And You're Mine) (1973)
4. Back Off Boogaloo (1972)
5. I'm The Greatest (1973)
6. Oh My My (1973)
7. Only You (And You Alone) (1974)
8. Beaucoups Of Blues (1970)
9. Early 1970 (1971)
10. Snookeroo (1974)
11. The No-No Song (1974)
12. (It's All Down To) Goodnight Vienna (1974)
13. Hey Baby (1976)
14. Weight Of The World (1993)
15. A Dose Of Rock 'N' Roll (1976)
16. King Of Broken Hearts (1998)
17. Never Without You (2003)
18. Act Naturally (with Buck Owens) (1989)
19. Wrack My Brain (1981)
20. Fading In and Fading Out (2005)

PHOTOGRAPH: THE VERY BEST OF RINGO STARR (Collector's Edition) CD/DVD

1. Sentimental Journey (1970 promotional film)
2. It Don't Come Easy (1971 promotional film)
3. Back Off Boogaloo (1972 promotional film)
4. You're Sixteen (You're Beautiful And You're Mine) (1973 promotional film)
5. Only You (And You Alone) (1974 promotional film)
6. Act Naturally (with Buck Owens) (1989 -- music video)
7. Goodnight Vienna (1974 -- promotional film for album)

First 14 songs, I have no complaint. Included in this number is the wonderful B-side of "It Don't Come Easy"- "Early 1970", and I even agree with the inclusion of the mostly-wretched Ringo's Rotogravure's best cut, "Hey Baby". You'd think that there would be room for Journey's "Bye Bye Blackbird", but that's the way it goes. But it gets REAL problematic for me with #15- two tracks from Rotogravure and none from Ringo the 4th is way too many and way too few. Plus, here was a chance to get another track from 1981's damn good but unfortunately out of print Stop and Smell the Roses besides "Wrack My Brain", the album's single. It's a great track, but there are two or three others that would have been a better fit than "King of Broken Hearts", like "Attention", which should have been a big hit. I realize that to be inclusive, they needed to put a lot of comparatively recent Ringo on there- and "Weight of the World" and "Never Without You" are good choices. I would rather have seen the bouncy, fun "Mr. Double-it-up" or "La De Da", instead of "Fading in and Fading Out", which I've only heard once and wasn't impressed. Oh well. There's some great stuff on the DVD, though- the "Only You" clip (if it's the one I've seen) is Ringo and Harry Nilsson (in bathrobe) on top of the Capitol building, fun, the cover of "Act Naturally" with the great Buck Owens is fun, and I'm not sure that I've seen all the other ones (I think I've seen "Back off Boogaloo", but I forget)- but they sound great. I think I'd get a copy just for the DVD, a first for me!

No, this isn't a repeat of my Sgt. Pepper post.

I have no idea if anyone else has linked to this, but to commemorate the anniversary of that album's release, the Sun updated Peter Blake's classic cover with current stars and noteworthy (if Britcentric) personalities, and none other than Uncle Stan the Man Lee was included among that number. See if you can find him!

Go here for a complete list of who's who.

I was 7 years old in 1967, so frankly, I have no real recollection of when I first became aware of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band. I knew the Beatles, sure- you may recall me writing, at some point or another, about how one of my earliest childhood memories was seeing the Fabs on Ed Sullivan, and my parents' bemused reaction, and that fabled copy of Meet the Beatles that my Aunt Lavana owned, but didn't like nearly as much as I did, and she wound up giving it to me because I was constantly playing it on her record player when she wasn't at home. Both my parents worked, y'see, so I stayed days with my father's parents before I started school, and my Aunt lived at home with them for a while. Beatles merchandise was everywhere; mostly in the form of bubblegum cards, which I bought as often as possible, and while I didn't own any records myself (save for that Meet the Beatles), I always loved hearing their songs on the radio or at older neighborhood kids' houses, and seeing the occasional TV appearance, including the Saturday morning cartoon series, which I never missed. Looking back, I'm amazed that Lennon's "More popular than Jesus" remark didn't become a sore point with my parents, especially my devout Baptist father; but then again, they always encouraged me (mostly) to read all kinds of things and listen to all types of music, so perhaps they got the gist of what John was saying, if they even thought about it all that much.

Anyway, I digress.

I believe it was sometime early in 1968 when I got my first copy of Sgt. Pepper; I had read things here and there in the newspaper, and had read a long article in the World Book Year Book about the Summer of Love, especially the music, and of course Pepper's was a big part of the piece. I was very curious by then, and had already had a few LPs bought for me, mostly of the kids' stories variety- I recall a spoken-word Legend of Sleepy Hollow-Tell-Tale Heart album, as well as a Jonny Quest LP and a few music 45s. So one day, when I was in Bowling Green shopping with my Mom at a Big K store, I made my move, and asked her to buy it for me. When I got it home, I listened to it constantly- at eight, of course I couldn't really judge it like I would now or compare it to what I had heard before, but I could tell that it was just different than the likes of "Eight Days a Week", "She Loves You", or "I Feel Fine"- it was operating in a different dimension, a more imaginative and more visual one which I thought was very exciting. I remember spending hours playing with another recent acquisition, a Frustration Ball, and listening to Pepper's, trying to pop the little balls in the little cups while Indian sitars and music hall clarinets played in the background.

But of course, I grew up, and as I got older I got a progressively better grip on just what exactly the Four Lads were all about...and even though I was too young to be affected by the Summer of Love and the impact it made, my fandom was cemented throughout the late 60's and 70's, when they went their own ways and made their own individual sounds. While I came to love all their albums, from Magical Mystery Tour to the great Revolver to Abbey Road and beyond, Pepper's still maintained a special place in my listening routine. I owned it on 8-track, eventually acquired a new vinyl copy, and when CDs became easily available in the 1980's, I made Pepper's the very first compact disc I ever bought on its 20th anniversary, 1987.

So to make a long post longer, I thought that here on the 40th anniversary (since I still can't legally download the mp3's), I'd take Pepper's track-by-track and share my opinions and comments on each of its songs.

And I hope I don't sing out of key.

SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND: The opener establishes the feel and connective thread of this not-quite concept album; it's not like all these songs are related per se, but the concept is a group of tunes performed by a fictional band. I've always liked the chunky guitar riff (probably McCartney) and the funky rhythm that Ringo plays in this song; sometimes it's a shame that the sound effects and cute conceits take over, but the song is so cheerful that it doesn't matter. Jimi Hendrix did a decent cover of this song live, and if I'm not mistaken a version came out on one of his posthumous LP releases.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS: Ringo's genial showcase, with its almost-mock humility, plays perfectly into Mr. Starkey's strengths. Some classic lines ("What do you see when you turn out the light/I can't tell you but I know it's mine") and a strong melody. Cocker's slowed-down blues version was good, but it didn't eclipse this.

LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS: At 8, of course I had no idea about the LSD rumor, which was convincingly shot down by Lennon over twenty years ago. I responded to the wonderful Lennonesque wordplay more than I did the meandering melody, as I recall, and that remains true today. This song had a really nice showcase in Yellow Submarine. That said, if you ask me, of all the Pepper songs this one has dated the least gracefully.

GETTING BETTER: Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but of all the Pepper tracks this one sounds the most like it would have fit on Revolver seamlessly. The bopping, cheerful melody belies the self-hating Lennon lyrics. British roots-rock band Gomez did a really nice cover of this, some of which was used by GE in commercials for a year or so.

FIXING A HOLE: This one probably would have fit in on Revolver, too, but its jazzy shuffle might not have set easy. This is a track which I didn't care for so much at first, but years and years later I've begun to enjoy it more and more, especially the middle section where a guitar riffs over a Macca-sung "hey-hey heyyyy".

SHE'S LEAVING HOME: Probably my least favorite track on the album, but it's still very strong melodically and the "Sheee-ee...is leeeeea-ving....hooo-ooome" interludes are touching. Harry Nilsson did a decent cover, and I think I sometimes prefer Bryan Ferry's take on the mostly forgettable All This and World War II 2-LP set to the original. Go here to see the trailer for that bizarre, and little-seen film. I didn't know until just a couple of weeks ago that George Martin didn't score the strings! Apparently he wasn't very happy about it either...

BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. KITE: Another one in which I liked Lennon's wordplay, mostly copied verbatim from a circus poster. Catchy melody and imaginative aural collages make this one unforgettable. Took on a whole new dimension years later when I watched George Martin sitting at the mixing board and pushing sliders up and down to demonstrate how many sounds were in the mix while listening to the backing tracks they put together on a FOUR TRACK RECORDER in a documentary made to coincide with the 20th anniversary. It aired on Disney Channel, believe it or not.

WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU: George's sole songwriting contribution is very misunderstood, and often gets dismissed when considering this album. Sure, it's full of the then-trendy Indian instrumentation, and as such is very dated as well...but you don't forget the melody easily, the lyrics are among the best, and certainly among the truest, that George ever wrote, and the middle instrumental section, where symphonic strings glide in and among the tablas and sitars, is made of genius. It's become one of my absolute favorite Pepper tracks.

WHEN I'M 64: More twee McCartneyisms; litle did we know he would make a solo career out of this sort of thing. Still, it's a nice tune, 8-year-old me got a kick out of hearing the "Vera, Chuck and Dave" part, and it's still very catchy. It also got a clever showcase in Yellow Submarine, and on a personal note, I'll never forget one evening at the Baker Street Cafe, back when I used to play guitar on open stage nights there, in which someone sat down at the piano and started to play this song...and I was the only one who knew all the words so I got to sing it. It got me and the piano player a nice hand and I got a couple of beers bought for me out of the deal. Good times.

LOVELY RITA: This is probably the most overlooked track on Pepper, probably for good reason; it doesn't really sound finished to my ears. The extended heavy-breathing fadeout that takes up the last minute or so of the song would seem to bear this out. Still, the lyrics are clever, and it's catchy in that way that only Macca can do catchy. The great Roy Wood did a disappointing cover on the aforementioned WWII album.

GOOD MORNING GOOD MORNING: Lennon typically denigrated this one (and another favorite Fab cut of mine, "Cry Baby Cry") as "gobbledygook" in interviews later in his life, but I've always thought that he was dead wrong and was too self-depricating in this case. Inspired by TV commercials, and ostensibly about being self-absorbed as well as the communication gap that often exists between people, it benefits from a wicked McCartney guitar lick in the middle. Again, like "Rita", the animal sound effects at the end would seem to signify that they didn't know how to end it otherwise, but it serves as a great segue to...

SGT. PEPPER'S REPRISE: Which is just a short-and-sweet rock-out return to the opener, and I've always loved how they run the "SgtPeppersOneandOnlyLonelyHeartsClubBand" line together towards the end. The Beastie Boys sampled the Ringo drum lick which begins this on Paul's Boutique, to great effect.

A DAY IN THE LIFE: Lots and lots of brilliance going on here, possibly the most seamlessly stitched-together of all the songs that Lennon and McCartney wrote in piecemeal fashion together...or if the stitches show, the garment as a whole is impeccable. So influential, you still catch writers and musicians using several of the lines and ideas put forth here. For the comics fans among you, it was either Steve Gerber or Mike Friedrich, I forget, which worked the "4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire" into a Son of Satan story in Marvel Spotlight in the 70's. Again, in that documentary I mentioned earlier, I was greatly amused to find out that when they were recording the part where they come back in after the classic ascending orchestra section, they had the late Mal Evans counting down to keep the musicians on cue, and then an alarm clock rang to let them know when the time had come. The clock stayed in, Mal didn't. One of Lennon's best vocal performances.

FEW SECONDS OF GOBBLEDYGOOK AT THE END: This wasn't on the US LP release, so I didn't hear it until I got the CD. Don't know how I ever made it without experiencing it.

And that's it. I think Pepper's is certainly a landmark album, and deserves (mostly) the praise it's received over the decades. Personally, I don't think it's the best Beatle album- for my money, Revolver remains their creative apex. Pepper's is perhaps just a little too self-consciously arty to be perfect, and the weakest cuts on Revolver are better than "Lovely Rita" or "She's Leaving Home", which gets cut by "For No One" if nothing else. Still, it's a great record just the same, and will hopefully sound as good forty years from now as it did four decades ago.

Today would have been GEORGE HARRISON's 64th birthday. RIP, George.

For a list of my favorite Harrisongs (that should probably be longer) and a cool pic of Nelson Wilbury from about 1975, go here.

Heroes
Jill Sobule, Robin Eaton
Why are all our heroes so imperfect
Why do they always bring me down
Why are all our heroes so imperfect
The statue in the park has lost his crown

William Faulkner drunk and depressed
Dorothy Parker mean, drunk and depressed
And that guy in Seven Years in Tibet turned out to be a Nazi
The founding fathers all had slaves, the explorers slaughtered the braves,
The Old Testament God can be so petty

Paul McCartney jealous of John, even more so now that he's gone
Dylan was so mean to Donovan in that movie
Pablo Picasso cruel to his wives
My favorite poets took their own lives
Orson Welles peaked at 25, ballooned before our eyes
and he sold bad wine

Heard Babe Ruth was full of malice
Lewis Carroll I'm sure did Alice
Plato in the cave with those very young boys
T.S. Eliot hated Jews, FDR didn't save the Jews
All the French joined the resistance after the war
Raymond Chandler drunk and depressed
Tennessee Williams drunk and depressed
Think I'll just get drunk and depressed.

Just finished reading the memoir that May Pang wrote with Henry Edwards back in 1983, originally titled Loving John, but retitled John Lennon: The Lost Weekend upon its rerelease in 1992, why only God knows. And y'know what? It was a dismaying and depressing experience.

Now don't get me wrong here- I know that Lennon was not perfect, and he often went out of his way to remind us of that very thing almost every chance he got. And as someone who has read everything he could get his hands on about all the Fabs (except the Goldman book- more on that later), I was fairly knowledgeable about the quirks, foibles, and misadventures that they chose to make public. But even as steeped in Beatlelore as I am, I wasn't quite prepared for this account of the emotional dysfunctionality of not only John but Yoko as well.

As the title suggests, Lost Weekend is Pang's first-hand account of about 18 months (and a few years after that, encapsulated) in Lennon's life, from the period that began with the recording of the Mind Games album, and ending in 1975 when Lennon returned to Ono and sequestered himself in the Dakota. Pang was working for ABKCO, the Allen Klein- helmed management company which managed Apple and the Beatles' affairs for a few years in the late 60s and 70s, when she was assigned to work with John & Yoko, assisting them with the filming of some of their early 70s avant-garde movies. The pair took a liking to her because she was able to surf the wave of craziness that always accompanied them, so she was soon assigned to handle their affairs full-time. That dynamic changed one day, according to Pang's account, when Yoko approached her with a proposition: She and John had grown distant, and were considering a trial separation; Yoko asked May to become Lennon's mistress and keep an eye on him. At first, she says, she was reluctant and didn't want to get involved in J&Y's problems, but John (who had taken a shine to her) wouldn't take no for an answer and in spite of her better judgment, she soon was accompanying John everywhere, and they fell in love. She went out to Los Angeles with John when he wanted to get Phil Spector to produce an album of oldies for him; and the pair eventually took up residence in a series of apartments and houses loaned by friends. Didn't take long for things to go insane after that- the sessions for what eventually became the Rock 'n' Roll album, with Spector at the helm (John just wanted to kick back and sing, and let Phil do the rest with his famous "wall of sound), soon devolved into a drug-and-liquor-fueled melee, and one thing this book makes clear is that the late Mr. O'Boogie was not someone that should be encouraged to drink alcohol to excess. It made him a paranoid, infantile, raving, violent maniac more often as not, and there are several accounts of housewrecking and violence towards Pang and others. We get detailed accounts of the chaotic and booze-soaked next year and a half, as John literally behaves in Jekyll-and-Hyde fashion- when sober, he and Pang are happy as can be whenever they're together; only the constant phone calls from Yoko, checking up on John, mar their life together...but when John's out drinking with the likes of Harry Nilsson and Jesse Ed Davis (Pang had little use for the late guitarist), anything could happen, from the notorious heckling incident at the Troubadour to a violent interlude in a Palm Springs hot tub in which Nilsson saved Pang's life, and a brutal housewrecking in a house formerly owned by record producer Lou Adler. Eventually, Lennon and Nilsson decide to work together on an album and begin to dry out and settle down. John and May stick together through thick and thin, and for the first time in years John seems happy and eager to record music, even to the point of planning a trip to New Orleans to record with Paul McCartney during his Venus and Mars sessions. But late in 1974, Ono decides that this has gone on long enough, and summons John back to the Dakota, ostensibly for a "smoking cure", and the upshot of this is that he returns to Pang, disconcerted and ready to break off their relationship. What happened that caused Lennon to return to his wife is a mystery. Perhaps she tied John to a chair and forced him to listen to "AOS", who the hell knows. Anyway, Pang is left to get on with her life, now single, still in love with the ex-Beatle, and now out of a job and on top of that, dealing with her apparent blackballing in the industry by Ono. And the kicker is that John still continues to see Pang on the sly, until he eventually retires from the public eye in 1977. The rest of the book details her few and far between encounters with John until his murder in 1980, her job search, and her eventual relationship with T.Rex and Bowie producer Tony Visconti.

Pang pulls no punches in her accounts of the behavior of Mrs. Lennon; It's always been fairly apparent to anyone who's cared to pay attention that she could be manipulative and eccentric; but in this book she's portrayed as a scheming harpy, constantly manipulating John through labyrinthine head games and deceit; sometimes hateful and cruel, sometimes impish and flighty, sometimes giggling like a maniac when confronted with the latest accounts of infidelity or drunken mishaps- in the context of Pang's account, it's easy to see how she could have wormed her way into Lennon's head as she saw a way to further her ambitions on the coattails of one of the most famous men in the world, then become unhappy and jealous as her art was greeted with indifference and tolerated only because she was John's wife. One could easily see her suggesting to John that the other Beatles were jealous of him, that he was the only true artist of the four, and they were holding him back. Even the separation which brought Pang into the picture was apparently a plan of Yoko's to further her career as a musician and an artist; she had become infatuated with Mind Games guitarist David Spinozza and had taken up with him, and had played several solo dates in New York while Lennon was in California. I had always been inclined to give Ono the benefit of the doubt in her role as an artist and John's companion; I have enjoyed a lot of her music, and she has done her share of innovative things in her performance art. I even rationalized her role in the Beatles' breakup; John was, after all, a grown man and the other Fabs were growing tired of the grind as well, except perhaps McCartney. I still think that you could no more point to Yoko as the one who "broke up the Beatles" than you could blame Woodstock for showing George that he didn't have to play second fiddle anymore and had the respect of the Band and Bob Dylan. But my higher-than-many regard for Yoko has taken a serious hit.

John, for his part, behaves erratically throughout the whole book; unable to cut the cord with Yoko, insecure, unpredictable, paranoid, jealous, violent when drunk...even though Pang loved John deeply and in spite of everything, one still can't help but wish after a while that she would pack her bags and get the hell out of LA when nobody's looking. It's never been a secret that Lennon was equal parts good and bad, and he was always quick to remind us all of this when he had the opportunity- but nobody, but nobody (except for the surviving Beatles, and maybe not even then) will be able to understand or appreciate what this man had been through. Still, I suppose I just wasn't quite prepared for the Lennon we get here- he's very hard to admire or even like as he behaves boorishly, even when he wasn't intoxicated. I don't think this was May's intent- she's always quick to point out John's good side as often as the bad, but she doesn't paint a very flattering portrait of the man she loved either.

Pang, for her part, portrays herself as the longsuffering, levelheaded victim; often she seems too good to be true as she deals with the Lennons and their insanity. Even though she cops to what she's doing, essentially sleeping with a married man, and admits to some drug use, she mostly comes across as the center in the eye of a rock'n'roll hurricane. Some of John's drinking buddies she gives more slack than others; sometimes she has no use for Nilsson but seems to like him more towards the end, and recognized his musical talent from the start; and it's a fact that he did sober up and get his life in order not long after his time with John in LA. The other Fabs pass in and out of the narrative as well- Paul shows up a few times to re-connect with his former bandmate and friend, and usually Pang describes these meetings in with a humorous tone, even getting a dig in at Linda McCartney, the American girl who acquired a clipped English accent when she married a Beatle. George is described as having a love-hate sort of thing going on, and this comes to a head during his disastrous 1974 tour, when John offers to make an appearance during his two New York shows and Harrison angrily declines, seething with resentment and spite. Eventually they reconcile, but the encounter is telling. Ringo is treated nicely, apparently he's always likable. She doesn't seem to know what to think about Phil Spector, whose predilection for firearms and chaos has taken a recent nasty turn. I give her account more credence than the likes of Albert Goldman; she was there and didn't have to rely on second-hand, often bitter sources, and doesn't seem to have a particular axe to grind one way or the other, except perhaps towards Yoko. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but after this book's over I found myself wishing that John could have remained with Pang, could have kept his enthusiasm for making music, and could have somehow found contentment and happiness. And perhaps, in caring for his son and his eventual comeback before his death, he did...but we'll never know.

I picked this up looking for insight on a period of John's (and Nilsson's) life which has always fascinated me, and certainly got more than I bargained for. To say I'm a bit disheartened after reading this wouldn't be unfair- and it's going to be a while before I dig out Mind Games, Fly, Feeling The Space, Pussy Cats, or Walls and Bridges and give them a listen. Of course, all these events took place over 25 years ago, and hell, this book is 22 itself. My copy was released with an added coda in 1992. It doesn't really matter, I suppose, what John was like as a person in the end; the music is what we should remember him by. But I'm afraid it's gonna take me a long time to listen with pleasure. As George once wrote, "It's All Too Much".

And now...without warning...that long awaited and oft-threatened Special Solo Beatles edition of Johnny B's Mondo Vinyl-O! in which I take twelve long-playing vinyl recorded albums and write a paragraph or so about them. This was precipitated by my acquisition of a new turntable several months ago after about two years without a functioning one, and the subsequent vinyl playing orgy that ensued. I figured I might as well write about it, and I did. This time out, I've decided to hold forth about solo Beatles records, of which I have several and of which several find their way onto the rotating platter quite often. So roll up, roll up...

Paul McCartney

RAM (1971)
This was the first proper solo Fabs record I ever owned, and at this point I should send out a shout out to my then-neighbors Grant and Greg Elliott, in whose basement I heard this for the first time. Paulie, a bit taken aback by what he perceived as harsh critical treatment of his first (and probably, after all is said and done, best) solo effort, 1970's homemade McCartney and the slight 45-only follow-up "Another Day", (even though I have personally never seen a review that was less than kind, and I believe that any critical backlash was out of anguish over the dissolution of the Beatles and Macca's role in same) decided to pull out all the stops and really deliver something that would wow the music press and restore his somewhat tarnished rep. Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say, and what Paulie delivered out of his newfound convictions was one odd, patchwork record, both slapdash and overproduced at the same time. Ram is made up partially of song fragments, some stitched together Frankenstein-like with the seams still showing, such as "Long Haired Lady", with nice BVs by Mrs. McCartney and the oddball mega hit single "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", surely one of the most unlikely hits ever-which rest beside Big Production Songs like his bloated, overlong, but nicely scored Beach Boys homage "The Back Seat of My Car", the rocking opener "Too Many People", with a great, nasty guitar sound; and the Buddy Holly love letter "Eat at Home". I like the slight but pleasant acoustic ditty "Heart of the Country", the bluesy rockers "Three Legs" and doo-wopish "Smile Away" (with its vulgar lyric)- among the few times Macca really rocked convincingly on his own. "Monkberry Moon Delight" is catchy despite the utter lyrical inanity. "Dear Boy" is a lovely, forlorn and brief song that alternately pokes fun at and expresses regret to his former songwriting partner in the Fabs. Lennon didn't appreciate all the namechecking, both explicit and imagined on his part, that he received- upon noticing that Paul had attached a picture of two beetles fucking on Ram's collage sleeve, he responded by having a photo made with him standing in a pigpen, holding some unsuspecting swine by its ears which made its way, in postcard format, into the first printings of his subsequent Imagine album, and you probably are aware of his vicious swipe at McC via Imagine's "How Do You Sleep". Nasty letters column exchanges ensued between both parties, and the Lennon-McCartney feud dragged on for over a year before both parties wised up and reconciled. History lesson aside, Ram remains a puzzling, schizo listen. I like its offhand, sloppy feel, and many of the songs are beautiful...but as a whole it becomes too much sometimes because it's produced to distraction and the songs don't always hold up. Still, and maybe because I get a pleasant nostalgia rush when I hear the unintelligible opening lyric and guitar lick of "People", I pull this one out quite often.

VENUS AND MARS (ARE ALL RIGHT TONIGHT) (1975)
Here's another waay overproduced album, but unlike Ram, the songs are constructed in letter-perfect fashion. Every note and lyric in its proper place and right, veddy good, carry on, soldier. This was the follow-up to 1973's Band on the Run, the record which proved to many critics that Macca still had a little left in the tank. It was also the album debut of Wings mark III, probably to this day the most fondly-remembered version of that group, with Jimmy McCulloch on guitar and Joe English on drums. McCullouch, in particular, had set Beatlefans abuzz with his stinging guitar solo in 1974's single "Junior's Farm" and his nice work on the album Paul did with his brother, McGear. Compared to Band, it's almost as tuneful, but not as engaging. It starts out just fine with the demure acoustic title track (reprised on side two), which segues into the big crashing rocksong opener "Rock Show" (a minor hit), which namedrops Jimmy Page and has some eyebrow-raising lyrics about "scoring an ounce" from pothead Paulie. When all the cymbals stop crashing and the pianos stop glissandoing, next up is another pleasant but unremarkable love song called, well, "Love in Song", which illustrated as well as anything what the problem is with this record- there are some high highs, but there's also a lot of derivative tedium as well. "You Gave Me The Answer", for example, finds Paul dipping once more in the same retro well from whence came "Your Mother Should Know", "Honey Pie", and "Gotta Sing Gotta Dance", with about the same unimpressive result. "Magneto and Titanium Man" is catchy, but features some truly dumb lyrics which namedrop Marvel Comics characters and makes me wonder whether Paulie really ever read any of those funnybooks. "Letting Go", for some reason, never fails to remind me of Band's "Let Me Roll It", although the two songs are very different and only share track positioning. Both are said to be written as conciliatory gestures to John. "Letting Go" is definitely the second best song on side one, though. And we get more dullness on side two, including the tedious McCullough composition "Medicine Jar", whose own advice Jimmy, who died of drug and alcohol abuse about three years later, should have heeded; an attempt to redo "Oh Darling", this time titled "Call Me Back Again". It's passable but pointless. "Spirits of Ancient Egypt" is catchy and fast paced, and even rocks a bit, but the overall effect is unremarkable. The highlight of side two has to be the Big Hit Single "Listen to What the Man Said", which features Allen Touissaint somewhere in the mix playing sax (this album was mostly recorded in New Orleans) and is one of my favorite Macca solo songs period. It's somewhat wistful and very likeable. All this music was wrapped in a cleverly realized Hipgnosis studio (you know, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin) sleeve which featured posters galore and illustrations by the great George Hardie NTA, who I would link to in a heartbeat if he had a web site. If I had a scan of everything he's done, I'd create one, I love his illustrations that much.

PRESS TO PLAY (1986)
By 1986, Paul was again hearing about how wretched his recent output had been, such as the soundtrack to the excruciatingly pointless 1984 vanity flick Give My Regards to Broad Street and his good in places but mostly unsatisfying 1982 opus Pipes of Peace, so he, by all appearances, seemed to really make an effort to wow his critics with this record. He enlisted an outside (non-Beatle extended family, cf. George Martin) producer, Chris Thomas, and sacked longtime songwriting partner Denny Laine in favor of 10cc's own "cute one" Eric Stewart, and appeared to take special care with the arrangements and lyrics for each song, even trying to write imaginative nonsensical words a la Lennon in "However Absurd". And for my money, he really succeeded. In fact, I think Press To Play is a very underrated album, and one of the best of any of the solo Beatles' efforts. Well, OK, if that was a 25-album list, perhaps. Songs like the rockish opener "Stranglehold", "Talk More Talk" (another patchwork song, but this time the seams don't show); the title cut (somewhat reggae-ish), "Angry", a hard-edged and punky (well, as "punky" as Macca can be, anyway) workout; "Move Over Busker", which sports funny lyrics and a great melody; and the gorgeous side one closer "Only Love Remains", a nicely produced strings-and-piano thing which could have been bombastic and unbearable in some hands (and indeed, if it had been on Ram or Red Rose Speedway it would have been unlistenable, I'll bet) but gets just the right touch here and should be a more fondly-remembered track than it is. I think that by 1986, people had simply had enough of Paul McCartney and his erstwhile surviving bandmates, and Play's reception was proof of that. Pity, because I think this is a really strong album and well worth rediscovering.

John Lennon

SOME TIME IN NEW YORK CITY (1972)
Known in some circles as "How To Kill Your Career and Get Kicked Out of the Country". By '72 John had traveled over to the US of A and had taken up residence here, ostensibly so Yoko could search for her missing daughter Kyoko, but also because he was tired of living in and being taxed to death by his native country. As soon as he got here, because of his aggressive peace propaganda campaigning, he became a magnet for every radical, Yippie, free-thinking, anarchistic headcase with an agenda to push and a cause to endorse, and John, as open-minded and eager to please as always, fell right in- endorsing many controversial causes and backing many less-than-desirable fringe dwellers slash pseudo celebrities who were more than happy to have a Beatle in their corner. Some of the causes he espoused were worthy, some less so. Anyway, at some point in the interval after the release of his Imagine album he realized that he was going to have to deliver something to the record company eventually...and hit upon a then-novel idea: he would quickly write and record songs in tandem with Yoko and NYC band Elephant's Memory which addressed the relevant topics of the day, and issue them quickly, newspaper-style, on his presumably receptive mass Beatle audience and anyone else who was enlightened enough to listen. Not the worst of ideas, but he got off on the wrong foot when the initial single, "Woman is the Nigger of the World" dropped the N-word on aghast 1972 radio programmers (even though the word was used in its literal sense, and not as a racial epithet) and barely got played- thus dooming this album, complete with faux-newspaper cover, to die a quick and decisive chart death and ensuring that no one but the hardcore faithful would get the message. This is far from a total disaster, though- Lennon correctly assumed that the crude, bluesy Elephant's Memory Band would add a little roughage to his recipe, Phil Spector is on board to make sure the mix doesn't get too muddy, and while many of the songs have dated badly ("Attica State", "Angela", about Angela Davis) and suffer from näive lyrical sentiment (Yoko's songs in particular have this problem) and heavy-handedness, there are some gems, such as the folky, dobro-driven "John Sinclair", Yoko's berserko "We're All Water", and the album's only masterpiece, John's valentine to his adopted home, the Chuck Berry-ish "New York City". Not long after this came out and bombed, faced with deportation by the hostile Nixon administration, John distanced himself from his radical politics, told the sycophants to get lost, and promptly seperated with Yoko. He then recorded the professional, tuneful, but reserved and lackluster Mind Games, then promptly embarked upon the legendary "Lost Weekend". Also part of the package was a live record that documented an evening which featured John and Yoko and Elephant's Memory playing with Frank Zappa and what was left of the Flo & Eddie verion of the Mothers of Invention, for only a buck more than the standard list price. This particular record is pretty hit and miss, mostly miss, and at least half of it, in this version, features Yoko's trademark avant-garde free-form yowling and screeching, which must have amused Zappa to no end. Roll eyes here. Zappa bitched a lot about this particular record release, in fact...for years after he claimed that J & Y butchered the master tapes, remixing and arranging them to feature the pair at FZ's expense, extending even to the innersleeve in which it came- which was the reproduced cover to the Mothers' 1971 Fillmore East live album on which J & Y scrawled their own graffiti and drew pictures, and so on. If I'm not mistaken, the Zappa people eventually released restored tapes of these sessions on one of the multitudes of posthumous live releases that came out in the 90s. For a buck, the record wasn't bad, but it didn't add much to this album as a complete package.

ROCK AND ROLL (1975)
It was during that Lost Weekend, when he was living in LA, shacked up with Yoko's personal secretary May Pang (at Yoko's insistence- whatta gal) and scarfing down a million and a half gallons of alcohol with Harry Nilsson, Ringo, Keith Moon and anyone else who happened to show up, that John decided to record an oldies album. This was prompted by at least two things- first, a lawsuit by the publishers of Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me", who sued John because someone thought "Come Together" plagiarized it...as part of a settlement, John agreed to record that song and two others from that publisher. Also, a record was due to the company, and John had hardly been busy writing new songs. Plus, at the time it seemed like everyone and their grandmother was recording albums of songs from the 50s and early 60s, like David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, the Band, and others. "Happy Days" fever had just gripped the country, and 50s nostalgia was the thing. So John went in (at the height of his mania) with Phil Spector at the height of his, and between fighting, bickering, drawn pistols, drunkeness, drug abuse and God only knows what else managed to cut maybe a half dozen songs before Spector took off with the tapes and the whole crew was politely asked to vacate the studio premises. Lennon eventually sobered up long enough to record another album, Walls and Bridges, co-produce Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats and not long after, John and Yoko reconciled. Happy about this, and happy abut having survived the Lost Weekend but not especially keen to write an elpee's worth of toons (househusbandry was beckoning, you know), he decided to track down the tapes Spector ripped off and see if there was anything to salvage. There wasn't much. Some of the tracks from those ill-starred sessions did survive and were included though, and it's easy to tell which ones they are because they're easily the dullest on the album! John took these, and recorded newer covers, and released the whole thing in 1975...and this was his last non-greatest hits type record until his big 1980 comeback Double Fantasy. This album is often brilliant, and often pretty humdrum, too. He leads off with a fine cover of Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop a Lula", follows that with his magnificent version of "Stand By Me" (he really sings the hell out of that one), then goes right into a Little Richard/Elvis medley of "Rip It Up/Ready Teddy". He stumbles next on one of the survivors from the Spector sessions, the song which got the ball rolling in the first place, "You Can't Catch Me" which gets a too-long and plodding rearrangement, but quickly redeems himself with a sly and low-key funky horn-driven cover of Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame". Those are the highlights of side one, for me. Side two starts out strong with "Slippin' and Slidin'", which I remember seeing him perform on some awards show...it was set to be the next single after "Stand", but got pulled at the last minute. The rest of side two is fair-to-dull, and one would think that John would have done better by the likes of Buddy Holly ("Peggy Sue") and Larry Williams, who he used to cover excellently in the early Beatles days. I just don't think John's heart was really in this, and the Spector sessions cuts should have probably stayed in the can- but this is really a fine, listenable record, often brilliant. One just wishes it could have had a less troubled birth and had been recorded with a bit more commitment.

MILK AND HONEY (1982)
John Lennon's murder in 1980 made this record more poignant than it was ever intended to be, but it's also a more enjoyable record than its predecessor in my ears, anyway. John wasn't able to help produce it to distraction like he did Double Fantasy, and that keeps the songs honest and even a bit rough around the edges, very unusual for an 80s-produced record. Like Fantasy and Some Time in New York City, it's half Yoko and half John, but by 1980 Yoko had grown as an accessible songwriter and many listeners had grown more acclimated to her quirks. Her stuff is well-crafted and often catchy in its singsongy way (I myself prefer the 70s stuff), but it's John's contributions, as usual, that make or break the record, and it's got some wonderful tunes like "Nobody Told Me", "I'm Stepping Out", and a version of an old Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem, intended as a valentine to Yoko and presented here in little better than a demo version titled "Grow Old With Me" which sounds fragile and so emotionally unguarded that the listener can't help but be moved. There's another demo of this track on the Lennon Anthology set which is even rougher, and I prefer it. It's a heartbreaker. I remember being quite disappointed by Fantasy, then of course shocked and devastated at his murder, then the whole rotten shame of it all was driven home by this collection, which gave us a glimpse of what John had left to offer.

George Harrison

LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (1973)
After his resounding opening solo career salvo All Things Must Pass, George got sidetracked by the Bangladesh concert and other things before finally releasing this, the follow-up, three years later. Living suffers in comparison with its predecessor, simply because it's not as big and ornate and hyperproduced. The songs are all low-key mid-tempo exercises, even the nominal rockers "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" and the title track, and there's nothing which really sticks in the ear. But...each and every song boasts strong melodies and excellent playing, and after repeated listens becomes very enjoyable. Ya just gotta make the commitment first. If you've heard nothing else from LitMW, you've heard its only hit single "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth", a pleasant enough Dylanish ditty with some nice slide work. Other faves of mine include the droning, "Long Long Long"-ish "Be Here Now", which is quite lovely if a little like listening to a meditation lesson; the aforementioned title track, which romps along at about five minutes, has some clever lyrics, and features a couple of sitar passages- which he didn't get around to using again until 1987's Cloud Nine. "That Is All" is a sweet, understated ballady thing with a great melody- and was covered by Harry Nilsson a couple of years later; "Try Some Buy Some", a lecture on the evils of greed and covetousness, was originally written for and recorded by Ronnie Spector, but George decided to recycle it and created a very distinctive swirling calliope-mixed-with-Spector (Phil)-is wall-of-sound ambience. This track, as well as any other, demonstrated the biggest problem with LitMW: every song is immaculately crafted and always listenable, but almost every cut has a dour, scolding, didactic tone- especially on out-and-out sermons such as "The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)" (kinda know right off the bat what you're getting there, dont'cha) with its ridiculous lyric about "The leaders of nations/They act like big girls", The Light That Has Lighted the World", and "The Day the World Gets Round". How much tolerance you have for this sort of thing will directly impact how much you enjoy this album. Me, I suppose I got used to that sort of thing a long time ago- I mean, this sort of thing has been running through Harrison's music as far back as "Don't Bother Me" and "Think For Yourself", so I just concentrate on the melodies and the general sentiment and let all the rest go out the other ear. Kinda like when I used to go to church, heh... Anyway, this record did pretty well, sales-wise, most likely on the good will engendered by Pass...but many regard this as the first in a series of disappointing efforts by the Quiet One.

EXTRA TEXTURE (Read All About It) (1975)
This album, which has the distinction of being the last one released on the Apple records label (and appropriately enough, the Apple is now depicted as an eaten-away core), was recorded during a low point, both creatively and personally for George and it's pretty obvious- the Dark Horse album and tour debacle, plus a bout with laryngitis and hepatitis, had taken a lot out of him. The perkiest cut and would-be hit single, "You", was originally intended for Ronnie Spector; when that failed to materialize, George re-recorded the vocals (in a much higher key than one which befits his voice, so it has a very noticable speeded-up effect) and released it himself. It's catchy, but slight. This whole album has a diffuse, murky, shabby quality to it, and although cuts like "Can't Stop Thinking About You" (which, to be fair, could have fit very well on All Things Must Pass) and "The Answer's At The End" have strong melodies, they get bogged down in the malaise that permiates everything here. "His Name Is Legs" (Larry Smith, of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah fame) is kinda clever in a cutesy way, and "Tired Of Midnight Blue" boogies along agreeably if not energetically, but the overall effect of a complete listen to this album is quite enervating, preachy sometimes and depressing. He would go on to do much better eventually, but Extra Texture was a record that probably should have remained in the can. One would be better off looking for the original vinyl issue...it featured a cool die-cut cover which was practically the highlight of this lackluster effort. I cannot tell a lie- I took my Amazon.com review of this album and rewrote it a bit to save a little time. So sue me.

GEORGE HARRISON (1979)
After the career low points of Dark Horse (even though I really like that record) and Extra Texture, George rebounded somewhat with 1976's more upbeat 33 and 1/3, then took three years to deliver this, the enjoyable, if somewhat slight, follow-up. There's a good-vibes feeling throughout the record, probably the result of kindler, gentler George having decided to stop playing the rock star game and concentrate on his home and family. He still can't resist telling us how he feels we should live our lives, but now just shrugs off our skepticism where before it seemed to get under his skin. Everything on this album is a celebration of simple pleasures of his life- his wife, Olivia ("Love Comes to Everyone", "Dark Sweet Lady", "Your Love is Forever"), son Dhani ("Soft Touch"), new hobby auto racing ("Faster"), the Moon on a tropical beach ("Here Comes the Moon", not exactly a sequel to the more well-known Abbey Road song, and probably the most elaborate and lovely track on the record- really overlooked, in my opinion), even the joys of fungal sensory enhancement ("Soft Hearted Hana", a clever 'shroomy soft-shoe). George also reworks the rejected White Album track "Not Guilty", toning down its crashing rock into more of a gentle shuffle more in line with the feel of the rest of the album. There was only one hit single, the cheerful and sprightly "Blow Away", the video of which showed George in all his curly permed glory. Honestly, this will never be an album which goes down in the annals of Beatle history as a landmark or anything- but it is a surprisingly fun listen.

Ringo Starr

BEAUCOUPS OF BLUES (1971)
After doing an album of standards "for his Mum", which I've still never heard, Ringo followed it up with an album of country/western music, featuring some of the cream of Nashville sessionmen at the time like Elvis' drummer D.J. Fontana and the Jordanaires, Charlie Daniels, Jerry Reed, Neil Young stalwart Ben Keith, and others and indulged himself in the same spirit which led to Beatle tracks like "What Goes On" and "Act Naturally". This is not a bad record by any stretch, but it just doesn't leave much of an impression because there's just not a lot of spark in any of the tracks. They're all competently played and sung (Ringo is in pretty good voice, for Ringo) but for some reason the tracks are lifeless. Hard to say exactly why. But still, there is a lot of listenable stuff here including the title track, the more uptempo "$15 Draw", a great honky-tonk workout titled "I'd Be Talking All The Time", and a downbeat anti-Vietnam War song called "Silent Homecoming".

GOODNIGHT VIENNA (1974)
In 1973 producer Richard Perry and all of Ringo's musician friends, including his ex-bandmates, got together and pitched in on a record with Ritchie which wound up being a monster smash hit with critics and the buying public alike, and thirty years later Ringo remains a solid, clever album which hasn't dated badly at all. When it came time to follow it up, Ringo once again turned to Perry and most of the same cast that enlivened Ringo...but sadly, the law of diminishing returns was in full effect and the resulting Goodnight Vienna falls way short of the standard of its predecessor. Plain and simple, the songs aren't quite as good. Which is not to say that this is a bad album, far from it- there's still a definite bonhomie in effect and the fun spirit comes across in nearly every track. John Lennon again contributes a winner, with the rocking title track; Hoyt Axton's "No No Song" is funny and clever, and has great BVs by Harry Nilsson; Ringo covers not only Harry on the string drenched "Easier For Me", but also does very well by Roger Miller on "Husbands and Wives", an example of (in my opinion, anyway) good country-rock as strong as any Gram Parsons or Mike Nesmith song at the time. "Occa Pella" is a horn-driven duet with Dr. John. A pleasant reworking of the old chestnut "Only You (and You Alone)", with more smooth Nilssonian BVs, was the biggest hit, and really the only clunkers were a muddy-sounding collaboration with the then-hot Bernie Taupin-Elton John team, "Snookeroo", and the plodding "Call Me", which pointed to the direction of the next three Ringo releases, which pretty much killed his solo career momentum.

STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES (1981)
Nobody cared anymore when this came out, even Ringo really (a lyric sample: "I'm going crazy with this record business/I want to stop it/You want me to stop it/Everybody wants it to stop"). Crafted from a host of songs that were given to him by his former bandmates, along with Harry Nilsson (his last new songs to see release in his lifetime) Ron Wood, and Steve Stills. Originally titled Can't Fight Lightning, it came out on the fledgling Boardwalk Records (the major labels having long ago passed on any further Starr product), which went belly up soon after this came out, ensuring a quick chart death. But- all things considered, this is a surprisingly good album, featuring great contributions from Paul in particular ("Attention", "Private Property") and Nilsson, who pretty much defines the sound and feel of the record with his reggae-and-steel-drum flavored "Drumming is my Madness" and the charming, if a bit negative title track, along with a reworked "Back Off Boogaloo" done in the style of Harry's long-ago cover of "You Can't Do That", with lots of lines from Beatle songs floating in and out and around the melody. George's "Wrack My Brain" was a minor hit single, which troubled the top 100 if I recall correctly and spawned a video I remember seeing. There's a cover of a Carl Perkins song which Paul produces, probably one that was suggested by Macca's earlier duet with Perkins on his Tug of War album. I don't think this is in print anymore, but if you see it in a used vinyl bin somewhere I strongly suggest you take a flyer on it- it's a very entertaining record and deserved a wider audience than it got. Ringo didn't do another album until he seized upon the All-Starr Band conceit towards the end of the decade.

Whew! That's gonna do it for now. I love to write about the Fabs and all aspects of their careers, and have gotten a lot of pleasure from their solo records, which often get short shrift from critics and writers, so any chance I get to hold forth about them, I take.

But I am done, and so I will Back Off, Boogaloo until a later time. Coming soon- horror comics I have known and loved.