The Beatles

[Stato]

An admirable demonstration that you can't be expected to understand if you weren't there. Thank you.

You'll be happy to tell me what it was like when you saw the Beatles live then...

 

[Icy Gull]

You'll be happy to tell me what it was like when you saw the Beatles live then...

My wife saw them and could hardly hear a thing for the screaming. They gave up touring because of the non stop screaming at concerts didn’t they?

I have most Beatles albums and still enjoy listening to all of them

 

[maltaseagull]

Its all subjective of course. For me the lines:

"This is my street and I'm never gonna leave it
And I'm always gonna to stay here
If I live to be ninety-nine
'Cause all the people I meet
Seem to come from my street
And I can't get away
Because it's calling me (Come on home)"

send a shiver down my spine every time, summing up the dilemma of generations of post war working class children who moved into the middle classes through education or success. Its the repeated theme of work by Jack Rosenthal, Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter, Alan Sillitoe, Hanif Kureshi, Seamus Heaney. The feeling of being part of, and yet simultaneously outside of, your childhood, home and family, the feeling of being drawn and yet repelled by what was once yours and is now gone. The longing for an unrecoverable childhood, the attraction and the fear of settling for a life of security, but foregoing ambition. It's a key theme of 'Citizen Kane', of 'The Godfather'. Actually, framed in terms of an obsession with coming to terms with father figures, it is a key theme in a good part of Hollywood cinema, yet few writers have ever said it so succinctly and with such sympathy for the previous generation.

It's mine, and I can't get away. Yes, that about covers it.

By the way, does NSC have a pseud's corner? Asking for a friend.

I think you should start your own corner. Definitely qualified
I am too shallow for those thoughts. I just enjoy without going so deep.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

That would be true, but I said that the song was 'seemingly' upbeat and throwaway. I don't agree with everything that Paul Morely has to say, but remember appreciating his argument that one of the things that can make a great pop single is hiding the adult, the dark or the profound within something that seems to be insubstantial and carefree. It can speak deeply of the period between childhood and the adult world when pop music seems of most importance to us.

I simply don't view the observation that:

"No one in the world ever gets what they want,
And that is beautiful,
Everybody dies frustrated and sad,
And that is beautiful"

as either accurate or adult. Some people get want they want, some people don't. Some people die in hospital with no idea where they are, some people get handed a diagnosis and go from being perfectly happy to dropping dead 2months later. This isn't beautiful, for most people it's crap, and emotional maturity comes from learning to deal with that.

In any case, if your lyrical message is completely ignorable for most listeners, then sticking a few lines in the middle of an apparently cheerful and shallow song is nothing more than a parlour game or a self-indulgent joke. Off the top of my head I'd point to something like Pulp's Disco 2000 (good pop-rocker, lyrically heartbreaking) or I Can't Decide by Scissor Sisters (overtly cheerful melody, straightforwardly about somebody considering murdering their partner) for this actually done well, because in those songs the music either supports the lyrics or directly contradicts them.

To go back to Eleanor Rugby, it's very explicitly about people who's lives have passed them by, and now live through routines that are essentially pointless but provide them with meaning. It is blunt, but also accurate and, if you choose to dwell on it, rather devastating.

 

[Stato]

My wife saw them and could hardly hear a thing for the screaming. They gave up touring because of the non stop screaming at concerts didn’t they?

That was my mum's complaint. She and her friend wanted to hear them, but couldn't.

As you can probably guess, I was more interested in asking her what Roy Orbison was like. She couldn't remember. They only went because The Beatles were supporting. I'm not sure they even stayed for Roy. He was, according to Presley, the greatest rock'n'roll singer ever, but he wasn't going to be winning the affections of teenage girls in the mid sixties. I remember seeing him on an old repeat of 'The Wheeltappers and Shunters Club' on late night TV a decade or so ago. To think that he was turning a quid on the club circuit in the seventies reminds me a bit of last week's thread about Radostin Kishishev playing a season for us at the Withdean.

 

[Stato]

I simply don't view the observation that:

"No one in the world ever gets what they want,
And that is beautiful,
Everybody dies frustrated and sad,
And that is beautiful"

as either accurate or adult. Some people get want they want, some people don't. Some people die in hospital with no idea where they are, some people get handed a diagnosis and go from being perfectly happy to dropping dead 2months later. This isn't beautiful, for most people it's crap, and emotional maturity comes from learning to deal with that.

We're obviously reading it differently. I interpret it as saying that death is the great leveller. Even the likes of a Rupert Murdoch, who has used his massive wealth and power to bend the world to his will is going to die wanting something that he didn't get. Citizen Kane again: I won't do the spoiler, but if you've seen the film, you'll obviously know.

I don't like Eleanor Rigby because I see it as manipulative and shallow. McCartney invents someone, kills her off and has nobody come to her funeral all to wring an emotion out of the listener. The rich young pop star looking at ordinary old people and imagining that they must be lonely because their lives, of which he knows nothing, are not as glamorous or fulfilled as his sticks in my craw. Compare that approach to something like John Prine's 'Hello In There', a song that seeks to give voice to its subjects, not to patronise them. 'Show, don't tell' is the screenwriter's maxim. It applies to songwriting too. I don't want a songwriter to say 'I saw a thing. It was sad. You should be sad too.' That's sympathy, not empathy.

 

[Icy Gull]

We're obviously reading it differently. I interpret it as saying that death is the great leveller. Even the likes of a Rupert Murdoch, who has used his massive wealth and power to bend the world to his will is going to die wanting something that he didn't get. Citizen Kane again: I won't do the spoiler, but if you've seen the film, you'll obviously know.

I don't like Eleanor Rigby because I see it as manipulative and shallow. McCartney invents someone, kills her off and has nobody come to her funeral all to wring an emotion out of the listener. The rich young pop star looking at ordinary old people and imagining that they must be lonely because their lives, of which he knows nothing, are not as glamorous or fulfilled as his sticks in my craw. Compare that approach to something like John Prine's 'Hello In There', a song that seeks to give voice to its subjects, not to patronise them. 'Show, don't tell' is the screenwriter's maxim. It applies to songwriting too. I don't want a songwriter to say 'I saw a thing. It was sad. You should be sad too.' That's sympathy, not empathy.

I am no McCartney fan but I think you are taking POP music much too seriously

 

[Stato]

I am no McCartney fan but I think you are taking POP music much too seriously

Dancing about architecture.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

We're obviously reading it differently. I interpret it as saying that death is the great leveller. Even the likes of a Rupert Murdoch, who has used his massive wealth and power to bend the world to his will is going to die wanting something that he didn't get. Citizen Kane again: I won't do the spoiler, but if you've seen the film, you'll obviously know.

That is how I read it, I just don't accept the sentiment. It's obviously true that everybody dies in the end and everybody will be, to some extent, unfulfilled, it isn't true that this happens to the same extent for everybody. And in any case, ultimately it's the life that leads up to the death, and what we leave behind, that matters.

I don't like Eleanor Rigby because I see it as manipulative and shallow. McCartney invents someone, kills her off and has nobody come to her funeral all to wring an emotion out of the listener. The rich young pop star looking at ordinary old people and imagining that they must be lonely because their lives, of which he knows nothing, are not as glamorous or fulfilled as his sticks in my craw. Compare that approach to something like John Prine's 'Hello In There', a song that seeks to give voice to its subjects, not to patronise them. 'Show, don't tell' is the screenwriter's maxim. It applies to songwriting too. I don't want a songwriter to say 'I saw a thing. It was sad. You should be sad too.' That's sympathy, not empathy.

Ultimately the Prine song does the same thing, the songwriter projects their view of how the elderly live, he just does it in first person rather than from the perspective of an observer. He also spends over twice as long on it to a melody that I literally can't remember less than 5minutes after hearing it, but that's another matter.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar
When the dawn begins to crack
It's all part of my autumn almanac
Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow
So I sweep them in my sack
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac
Friday evenings, people get together
Hiding from the weather
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns
Can't compensate for lack of sun
Because the summer's all gone
La-la-la la la la-la la-la la-la la-la
Oh, my poor rheumatic back
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac
La-la-la la-la la-la la-la la-la
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac
I like my football on a Saturday
Roast beef on Sundays, all right
I go to Blackpool for my holidays
Sit in the open sunlight
This is my street and I'm never gonna leave it
And I'm always gonna to stay here
If I live to be ninety-nine
'Cause all the people I meet
Seem to come from my street
And I can't get away
Because it's calling me (Come on home)
Hear it calling me (Come on home)
La-la-la la la la-la la-la la-la la-la
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac




La-la-la la-la la-la la-la la-la
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
Bop-bop-bop-bop-bop, whoa!
Bop-bop-bop-bop-bop, whoa!
Bop-bop-bop-bop-bop, whoa!

Yeah, right. Nothing against Ray Davies but that is hardly classical poetry.

When it came out I though he was singing "Yes, yes, yes, with a dustbin on my back"

My one and only 'scuse me while I kiss this guy' moment

As for the Beatles, I loved them at the time (64 to 70) but the less now said the better. There is a general tendency to over intellectualise pop music. Sometimes something resonates, sometimes it doesn't. I'll be the first to admit that what I like is stuff I like because I like it, and I don't imagine it justifies deconstruction. And the classic fallacy is to deduce, when you find that lots of people like the same thing as you, that it must consequently be 'superior' in some way.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

You'll be happy to tell me what it was like when you saw the Beatles live then...

Again you miss the point.

 

[Stato]

Again you miss the point.

The point was 'You don't know if you weren't there.'

Apparently 'there' was being anywhere in the world, but not at a Beatles gig.

I know I'm being snarky, but arguing that a view is invalidated by date of birth is meaningless.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

When it came out I though he was singing "Yes, yes, yes, with a dustbin on my back"

My one and only 'scuse me while I kiss this guy' moment

As for the Beatles, I loved them at the time (64 to 70) but the less now said the better. There is a general tendency to over intellectualise pop music. Sometimes something resonates, sometimes it doesn't. I'll be the first to admit that what I like is stuff I like because I like it, and I don't imagine it justifies deconstruction. And the classic fallacy is to deduce, when you find that lots of people like the same thing as you, that it must consequently be 'superior' in some way.

Is there? Most music writing seems to consist of quoting a few lyrics and claiming they're either crap or insightful as appropriate, with zero discussion of the actual music (primarily because describing why one riff or melody is catchier or more resonant than another is actually quite difficult).

I think it's just as common to decide that the fewer people like the same thing as you, the better that thing must be, because it's clearly too out there or intellectually elevated to be understood by everybody else. And indeed, vice versa.

 

[jakarta]

While I have huge regard for their place in music history, I can't say that any of my CD collection includes any of their stuff.

My 1960's was Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine and the Pink Floyd. 70's was Hawkwind, Gong, Zappa, Can and Faust.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Is there? Most music writing seems to consist of quoting a few lyrics and claiming they're either crap or insightful as appropriate, with zero discussion of the actual music (primarily because describing why one riff or melody is catchier or more resonant than another is actually quite difficult).

I think it's just as common to decide that the fewer people like the same thing as you, the better that thing must be, because it's clearly too out there or intellectually elevated to be understood by everybody else. And indeed, vice versa.

I was thinking more about the people who wax lyrically about the poetic genius of the tone deaf Dylan and the musicality of that sawn off ponce, Mozart, while sneering at the majesty of The Ramones.

It happens. Trust me, it happens.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

I was thinking more about the people who wax lyrically about the poetic genius of the tone deaf Dylan and the musicality of that sawn off ponce, Mozart, while sneering at the majesty of The Ramones.

It happens. Trust me, it happens.

Oh, you mean twats.

Carry on

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Oh, you mean twats.

Carry on

Yes. Those are the little blighters. They don't know much about music, but......

They know what they like! And they like Quality.

Their favourite confectionary is Quality Street.
Their favourite comedian is The Two Ronnies, and
Their favourite TV programme is Blanketty Blank.
Fact.

(sorry, in addition to my insistance that musical taste is a personal issue, I am also a Massive Snob. Can't help it. But whether or not one chooses to be a masisive snob is a perfectly reasonable matter of personal choice )

 

[Nitram]

Aside I did the Strawberry Field visit while in Liverpool for the game, worth going if you are a Beatles fan.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

Yes. Those are the little blighters. They don't know much about music, but......

They know what they like! And they like Quality.

Their favourite confectionary is Quality Street.
Their favourite comedian is The Two Ronnies, and
Their favourite TV programme is Blanketty Blank.
Fact.

(sorry, in addition to my insistance that musical taste is a personal issue, I am also a Massive Snob. Can't help it. But whether or not one chooses to be a masisive snob is a perfectly reasonable matter of personal choice )

I'm pretty sure I've written on here before, there's no point in slightly holding an opinion.

Edit: now that I think about it, I think I was claiming that anybody who doesn't like Oasis is an idiot at the time

 

[Machiavelli]

I'm pretty sure I've written on here before, there's no point in slightly holding an opinion.

Edit: now that I think about it, I think I was claiming that anybody who doesn't like Oasis is an idiot at the time

Quoasis doesn't do it for this idiot