← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Robbie
Thread ID: 14730 | Posts: 26 | Started: 2004-08-16
2004-08-16 23:01 | User Profile
[url]http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/lennon.htm[/url]
2004-08-17 05:43 | User Profile
..Chapman was the patsy. Lennon was getting ready to come out strong against Reagan. His just released album had 5 cuts that went top 10, first time ever.
2004-08-17 14:06 | User Profile
Lennon was a degenerate pinko - good riddance. I have to use a mouthpiece to keep my teeth everytime I hear "Imagine". His talents, while certainly remarkable, where merely secondary to his fame. He was, formost, a creation of the entertainment hype machine. Without it, he would be just another starving artist in London. The wealth and fame he revealed in and lusted after turned out to be his demise. Careful what you wish.
2004-08-18 03:03 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Oklahomaman]Lennon was a degenerate pinko - good riddance. I have to use a mouthpiece to keep my teeth everytime I hear "Imagine". His talents, while certainly remarkable, where merely secondary to his fame. He was, formost, a creation of the entertainment hype machine. Without it, he would be just another starving artist in London. The wealth and fame he revealed in and lusted after turned out to be his demise. Careful what you wish.[/QUOTE]I think the Beatles had some degree of talent and a certain natural wit. Also like a lot of pop icons their political stances were mostly airs. Lennon reportedly said during the immigration investigation to interviewers that he really wasn't a radical, and that he didn't personally believe in any of the causes he sang about. :lol:
So the Beatles were a typical example of how middling talent get's hyped into stardom, more through moxie and ambition as through talent. And another thing strikes you singularly about the Beatles rise. Look at some of the names that are prominently associated with them. Their first manager - Bernie Epstein, their last manager, Herb Klein, their last producer - Phil Spector, Paul McCartney's late wife - Linda Eastman whose father changed his name from Epstein......
I'm not certain if the pop music industry is as jewish as the film industry, but I wouldn't be surprised if its pretty close.
Anyway, this was a curious topic for a Vdare article. I really don't see the angle why it interests us. Maybe Brimelow wants to see more of his countrymen get here, even crass, pompous, pseudo-leftists like Lennon, but it makes me see things the opposite way.
2004-08-18 06:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Oklahomaman]Lennon was a degenerate pinko - good riddance. I have to use a mouthpiece to keep my teeth everytime I hear "Imagine". His talents, while certainly remarkable, where merely secondary to his fame. He was, formost, a creation of the entertainment hype machine. Without it, he would be just another starving artist in London. The wealth and fame he revealed in and lusted after turned out to be his demise. Careful what you wish.[/QUOTE]
I agree that Lennon's talents were amazing.
Some of his lyrics will long be remembered as some of the more innovative things produced in 20th century English.
IMHO.
He also wrote some fantastic melodies. As did Paul McCartney, and so together they were just unbeatable.
But he was no philosopher, but who in their right mind would expect him to be?
He was a pretty damned good poet.
Walter
2004-08-18 07:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]I agree that Lennon's talents were amazing.
Some of his lyrics will long be remembered as some of the more innovative things produced in 20th century English.
IMHO.
You really think so? I can't really think of a good example. His lyrics only stood out from the abysmal backdrop of where they came from, which was US rythem and blues.
I think there though there was something there. I think the Beatles real talent was sort of popularizing the common cockney witticisms, familar to Brits but a little novel to Americans. In fact some of their best songs, like "Dirty Maggie May" weren't theirs at all, but old folk ballads.
He also wrote some fantastic melodies. As did Paul McCartney, and so together they were just unbeatable.
Actually the two worked seperately.
But he was no philosopher, but who in their right mind would expect him to be?
Well they put on pretensions of being so in their latter phases. Which is what killed the group IMO, the pretensiousness they developed, admittedly not uncommon to pop super celebrities.
But it ultimately kills them. Imagine for instance Britney Spears starting to try to write serious feminist lyrics. (Where are you antiYuppie? :lol: )
He was a pretty damned good poet.
Yeh. Even better poets than Beethoven. (With apologies to Ringo Starr :lol:)
2004-08-18 07:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]You really think so? I can't really think of a good example. His lyrics only stood out from the abysmal backdrop of where they came from, which was US rythem and blues.[/QUOTE]
As just one example, check out these brlliant little gems from I Am The Walrus:
[QUOTE]Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye. Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess, Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun. If the sun don't come, you get a tan From standing in the English rain.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower. Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna. Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.[/QUOTE]
Seriously. His facility with the English language is really breathtaking here. It's not great epic poetry, but for lyrics - just having fun with the way English sounds - it has few peers of which I'm aware.
His reference to Poe speaks to this, I think. He's saying "relax, it's okay so long as it sounds good!" And I agree.
Walter
2004-08-18 08:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]As just one example, check out these brlliant little gems from I Am The Walrus:
Seriously. His facility with the English language is really breathtaking here. It's not great epic poetry, but for lyrics - just having fun with the way English sounds - it has few peers of which I'm aware.
His reference to Poe speaks to this, I think. He's saying "relax, it's okay so long as it sounds good!" And I agree.
Walter[/QUOTE]Well I guess there are different standards for poetry, and its really rather subjective. The pseudo-profoundity of the later Beatles phase did have a certain incisive wit, which by the standards of our day may seem quite inspired.
The Beatles certainly achieved, by their degree of success, an ability to experiment probably unparalleled in music, and to their credit, they at least did something with it. Even though, like you note, it certainly isn't great epic poetry. It is simple poetry exploiting the natural sounds and potential of the english language, the same way experts in many other languages do. But really a lot of what I might call haute pop culture, i.e. like Seinfeld's witticisms, does. Where pop culture fails it seems to me is in the ultimate philosophical vacuity at its core.
I'll admit for a time Beatle music among other forms of pop culture held my interest, but in the end this ultimate inner vacuity I find tiresome.
2004-08-18 19:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]
I'm not certain if the pop music industry is as jewish as the film industry, but I wouldn't be surprised if its pretty close. [/QUOTE]
The music industry is completely jewish dominated, moreso in management than talent, but then again when I found out that Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction was actually born Norman Peretz, I knew then that my own musical aspirations were facing a largely dim future and that being jewish and having jewish connections is a MUST in the music industry.
As we all know MTV is a jewish born and bred and maintained entity. Alan Freed(man) was the first rock n roll DJ, usually credited with coining the name "rock 'n roll". Tin Pan Alley in 1930's NYC was all jewish show tune writers who eventually evolved into rock n roll promoters and managers.
As I've debated on other forums concerning the music industry, when the jews realized that Rock bands, starting with the Beatles on thru the early '80's, could easily draw 100's of 1000's, even millions of White people together ---- through various forms such as concerts, benefit shows, and record sales, or even local scenes nationwide ---- thereby representing a challenge to government rule, indoctrination and especially censorship, the plug was pulled on Rock. Rock has been dead since the late '80's, rendered flaccid and conformist by the powers that be.
This VDare article succinctly demonstrates in John Lennon's plight that YOU don't get the platform to speak directly to the MASSES until you've been approved by the powers in government and the jewish media. Many folks I've debated thought me nuts to say these things but I feel I'm closer to the truth than their arguments of "you just have to work hard to make it in music" or "artists who make it just persisted and were discovered or rewarded for their talent". Yea, sure.
PS, I like John Lennon. His music is even more appealing now then when I was younger. I liked McCartney too. Harrison made some great post-Beatles songs. I thought the Beatles were magical together and a little lost when solo. The Beatles had musical talent and a great delivery. Yes, seriously overproduced, but nonetheless, the songs still can carry a crowd if stripped down to nothing but an acoustic guitar and a voice.
2004-08-18 22:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Oklahomaman]Lennon was a degenerate pinko - good riddance. I have to use a mouthpiece to keep my teeth everytime I hear "Imagine". His talents, while certainly remarkable, where merely secondary to his fame. He was, formost, a creation of the entertainment hype machine. Without it, he would be just another starving artist in London. The wealth and fame he revealed in and lusted after turned out to be his demise. Careful what you wish.[/QUOTE] this is a piece of shit. goodby assholes
2004-08-18 22:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=TexasAnarch]this is a piece of shit. goodby assholes[/QUOTE]Aha. A closet Marxist-Lennonist uncovered :lol:
2004-08-19 03:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=TexasAnarch]this is a piece of shit. goodby assholes[/QUOTE]
Now that was completely uncalled for :glare:.
2004-08-19 04:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]The music industry is completely jewish dominated, moreso in management than talent, but then again when I found out that Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction was actually born Norman Peretz, I knew then that my own musical aspirations were facing a largely dim future and that being jewish and having jewish connections is a MUST in the music industry.
As we all know MTV is a jewish born and bred and maintained entity. Alan Freed(man) was the first rock n roll DJ, usually credited with coining the name "rock 'n roll". Tin Pan Alley in 1930's NYC was all jewish show tune writers who eventually evolved into rock n roll promoters and managers.
As I've debated on other forums concerning the music industry, when the jews realized that Rock bands, starting with the Beatles on thru the early '80's, could easily draw 100's of 1000's, even millions of White people together ---- through various forms such as concerts, benefit shows, and record sales, or even local scenes nationwide ---- thereby representing a challenge to government rule, indoctrination and especially censorship, the plug was pulled on Rock. Rock has been dead since the late '80's, rendered flaccid and conformist by the powers that be.
I don't really know how much the rock world ever was a serious challenge to "government rule, indoctrination and especially censorship". The ideology of rock was always just the rather smug radical chic of the 60's, without really too much substance. But it is interesting to view the growth of the Beatles philosophy and attitude, as influenced by their jewish management.
After all the whole public image of the Beatles as cute cuddly British kids was basically a creation of Bernie Epstein. He was the one who got them to throw their original Hamburg black leather outfits in the trash can and dun suits and ties in the so-called "smartening-up" process. Not hard to see part of his motivation there. :caiphas: :wink:
It is also interesting to note that when the Beatles shed this school boy image in the psychodelic era, fairly close to the time they lost their manager Epstein through death, they did also lose their media invulnerability. That era is generally regarded as a time when the Beatles, without "good management" often made bumbling fools of themselves. That is, until good old hard-headed New York Jew Herb Klein came in to miraculously save the day.
PS, I like John Lennon. His music is even more appealing now then when I was younger. I liked McCartney too. Harrison made some great post-Beatles songs. I thought the Beatles were magical together and a little lost when solo. The Beatles had musical talent and a great delivery. Yes, seriously overproduced, but nonetheless, the songs still can carry a crowd if stripped down to nothing but an acoustic guitar and a voice.[/QUOTE]
It is no hidden fact that the demise of the Beatles can pretty well be laid at the hands of the two leading Beatle wives, Ono and Eastman/Epstein. The Beatles were always sort of a creation of the tension between the provocativeness personality of Lennon and the musically gifted but persoonally pedestrian McCartney. The White Album showed the new Beatles. Lennon writing nothing but songs like "Happiness is a Warm Gun" with McCartney mainly writing songs like "Ob-la-de, Ob-la-da".
Sort of a perfect illustration of the difference between Eastman and Ono, but the same in that they both made carcicatures of their respective husbands musical weaknesses and personal eccentricities, and them off on musical directions they were never able to recover from. Call it the multicultural mediated destruction of (rock) group cohesion.
2004-08-19 13:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust] It is no hidden fact that the demise of the Beatles can pretty well be laid at the hands of the two leading Beatle wives, Ono and Eastman/Epstein.[/QUOTE] Exactly, just like it was tension between David St. Hubbins' girlfriend and Nigel Tuffnel that almost broke up Spinal Tap.
Seriously, though, the Beatles will not stand in the pantheon with Eliot or Pound as 20th century poets, but as long as you take them for what they were, (a rock/pop band) then they were pretty darn great.
2004-08-19 13:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Aha. A closet Marxist-Lennonist uncovered :lol:[/QUOTE] Okie, this is a terrible, terrible joke. A terrible, wonderful joke. :wink:
2004-08-19 14:43 | User Profile
Here's another that just slays me:
[QUOTE]Creme tangerine and montelimat A ginger sling with a pineapple heart A coffee dessert--yes you know its good news But you'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle. [/QUOTE]
That Savoy truffle must have been something special.
2004-08-19 14:51 | User Profile
The Beatles sucked. Sorry.
Give me some Hank, Lefty or Monroe.
:thumbsup:
2004-08-19 14:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]The Beatles sucked. Sorry.
Give me some Hank, Lefty or Monroe.
:thumbsup:[/QUOTE]
Off the subject, but I just viewed the [URL=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000A02WZ/qid=1092927271/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/104-3387119-4901502?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846]Three Pickers [/URL] DVD with Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs and Ricky Skaggs.
It's great.
Both Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs should be bronzed and placed in the Smithsonian - they're national treasures. Ricky Skaggs is great, too.
2004-08-19 17:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Here's another that just slays me:
That Savoy truffle must have been something special.[/QUOTE]You're really a sucker for pseudo-profoundity aren't you?
Actually I think that song was a Harrison number anyway, so John Lennon's green card case is immaterial. But the only people that really thought it inspired were druggies like Manson's groupies seeking occult inspiration.
2004-08-20 05:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]You're really a sucker for pseudo-profoundity aren't you?
Actually I think that song was a Harrison number anyway, so John Lennon's green card case is immaterial. But the only people that really thought it inspired were druggies like Manson's groupies seeking occult inspiration.[/QUOTE]
Oh, I don't think it's profound at all. It's just for fun. Ogden Nash wasn't profound, but he's a blast to read.
For that matter I don't think Poe had anything terribly profound to say, but man he sure could say it. I just enjoy their facility with the English language. Joyce had a lot of playful things like this that just light up my soul but that don't carry a lot of philosophical weight.
I checked the authorship of "Savoy Truffle" and you're right, that is officially a Harrison thing, but it smacks of John Lennon to me. Lennon said in an interview that he worked very closely with Harrison on a number of things. "Here Comes the Sun" has Lennon's fingerprints on it, as does "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", both of which are said to be written by Harrison.
IMHO, of course.
This thread caused me to look up the words I didn't understand in those two song, and it turns out it's nearly all of it! Here are my findings:
First, from I Am the Walrus:
[I]Semolina [seh-muh-LEE-nuh] 1. Durum wheat that is more coarsely ground than normal wheat flours, a result that is often obtained by sifting out the finer flour. Most good pasta is made from semolina. It is also used to make gnocchi, puddings and soups and in various confections. See also wheat. 2. Similarly ground grains are sometimes referred to as "semolina" but with the grain's name attached--corn semolina, rice semolina, etc. [/I]
[I]PILCHARD (in earlier i6th century forms pylcher, pilchar; of unknown origin; the Fr. piiseir is adapted from Eng.), Clupea pilchardus, a fish of the herring family (Clupeidae), abundant in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coasts of Europe, north to the English Channel. Sardine is another name for the same fish, which on the coast of Britanny and Normandy is also called cclan or celeren. [/I]
He was talking about some sort of fish/pasta dish I guess. He totally goes for the gross out though when he goes from that to "custard dripping from a dead dog's eye." A rotten thing to do to the reader, esthetically speaking.
Those are the only two I found clear definitions for. I think that "crabalocker" is purely fanciful.
The "Savoy Truffle" food references involve some guess work.
[U]Ginger Sling [/U] - I think that this is a drink of some kind. There is a Ginger Swing, and perhaps it's related - or maybe Ginger Sling just a fanciful derivative of it, a cross between a Ginger Swing and a Singapore Sling. Here's the reciepe for a Ginger Swing: Ingredients: 1 1/2 oz Blue Curacao (Bols) Fill with Ginger ale Mixing instructions: Pour curacao over ice in a highball glass, then fill the rest of the way up with ginger ale.
[U]Montelimat[/U] - I couldn't find anything for a "montelimat" - but I suspect its a sort of nougat candy from the Montelimar area in France.
[U]Savoy Truffle [/U] - This French connection might also explain the "Savoy" truffle, about which I also found nothing. It's also some sort of nougat/chocolate sweet.
Sound good?
A coffee desert is always good news!
Walter
Here are the lyrics to the Savoy Truffle song: [QUOTE] Creme tangerine and montelimat A ginger sling with a pineapple heart A coffee dessert--yes you know it's good news But you'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle.
Cool cherry cream and a nice apple tart I feel your taste all the time we're apart Coconut fudge--really blows down those blues But you'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle.
You might not feel it now But when the pain cuts through You're going to know and how The sweat is going to fill your head When it becomes too much You're going to shout aloud --Creme tangerine.
You know that what you eat you are, But what is sweet now, turns so sour-- We all know Obla-Di-Bla-Da But can you show me, where you are?..
Creme tangerine and montelimat A ginger sling with a pineapple heart A coffee dessert--yes you know its good news But you'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle. [/QUOTE]
Here are the lyrics from I Am the Walrus (goo goo ga joob!)
[QUOTE]I Am The Walrus (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) Lead Vocal: John Lennon
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together See how they run like pigs from a gun see how they fly I'm crying
Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come Corporation teeshirt, stupid bloody Tuesday Man you been a naughty boy You let your face grow long I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob
Mister City Policeman sitting Pretty little policemen in a row See how they fly like Lucy in the sky, see how they run I'm crying, I'm crying I'm crying, I'm crying
Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye Crabalocker fishwife pornographic priestess Boy you been a naughty girl You let your knickers down I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob
Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun If the sun don't come, you get a tan from Standing in the English rain I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob goo goo goo goo joob
Expert textpert choking smokers don't you thing The joker laughs at you? Ha ha ha! See how they smile, like pigs in a sty See how they snied I'm crying
Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna man You should have seen them kicking Edgar Alan Poe I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob goo goo goo joob Goo goo gooooooooooo jooooob[/QUOTE]
2004-08-20 16:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Oh, I don't think it's profound at all. It's just for fun. Ogden Nash wasn't profound, but he's a blast to read.
For that matter I don't think Poe had anything terribly profound to say, but man he sure could say it. I just enjoy their facility with the English language. Joyce had a lot of playful things like this that just light up my soul but that don't carry a lot of philosophical weight.
You don't think "The Raven" was profound? As to Joyce, "Finnegan's Wake" certainly had a gradiose sceme to it, which is acknowledged and fascinates many writers, whatever you ultimately think of Joyce as a philosopher.
I checked the authorship of "Savoy Truffle" and you're right, that is officially a Harrison thing, but it smacks of John Lennon to me. Lennon said in an interview that he worked very closely with Harrison on a number of things. "Here Comes the Sun" has Lennon's fingerprints on it, as does "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", both of which are said to be written by Harrison.
IMHO, of course.
Actually that does make sense. It sounds like the other White Album songs of Lennon, rather obviously provocatively influenced by Ono. The philosophical tendency of all these songs sees to be a lot of pseudo-Freudian sadomasochistic suggestiveness, such Helter Skelter, Sexy Sadie, Bungalow Bill, and Cry Baby Cry. In the spirit of 60's Marcusian radicalism.
The technique is fairly simple, as explained by Schaeffer. One takes an over simple metaphor, like a cup of coffee, and puts a sexual suggestion/innuendo in it (such as in paragraph 3 of "Savoy Truffle"). Making one think the whole thing is about much more than a cup of coffee.
Maybe it is art in the modern sense. Of course a lot of modern art is (unlike what you say about Joyce) truly of the dilletante. The art of Picasso comes to mind. And I can't help recall the clever dismissal in Mein Kampf of modern art, "the inner vision of lunatics"
It is this kind of suggestiveness that fascinated Charles Manson so much, and why he explained his whole killing orgie in the terms and phaseology of White Album songs.
That's why to a certain extent we, in the western tradition, evaluate art not only in terms of the emotioniveness and depth of philosophical vision of work, but also of the merits and virtue of this emotiveness and depth of vision. That's where modern art and culture comes up short, and why I don't waste much time on it. It's not because it lacks a certain degree of cleverness, which like Beatle songs, it sometimes does.
He was talking about some sort of fish/pasta dish I guess. He totally goes for the gross out though when he goes from that to "custard dripping from a dead dog's eye." A rotten thing to do to the reader, esthetically speaking.
Like I say not just typical Lennon, (which with Yoko went over the edge) but typical modern art/philosophy. Which is what makes it basically ignoble.
2004-08-20 19:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Semolina [seh-muh-LEE-nuh] 1. Durum wheat that is more coarsely ground than normal wheat flours, a result that is often obtained by sifting out the finer flour. Most good pasta is made from semolina. It is also used to make gnocchi, puddings and soups and in various confections. See also wheat. 2. Similarly ground grains are sometimes referred to as "semolina" but with the grain's name attached--corn semolina, rice semolina, etc.
PILCHARD (in earlier i6th century forms pylcher, pilchar; of unknown origin; the Fr. piiseir is adapted from Eng.), Clupea pilchardus, a fish of the herring family (Clupeidae), abundant in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coasts of Europe, north to the English Channel. Sardine is another name for the same fish, which on the coast of Britanny and Normandy is also called cclan or celeren.
He was talking about some sort of fish/pasta dish I guess. [/QUOTE]
Semolina in the British context meant (and still means) a milk pudding made with aforementioned sifted fine flour, which has the consistancy of wallpaper paste. Pilchards are cheap and smelly tinned fish, often eaten on toast as a light meal.
Both were common working class foodstuffs which had a certain naffness even back in the 1960s. Sorry if you think he was being profound, Lennon was just writing infantile nonsense!
2004-08-21 04:39 | User Profile
Point you cannot dispute : Take away Paul McCartney, and the Beatles would have never been on anyone's map. Paul MADE the Beatles. He taught Ringo how to play drums. George was a poor guitarist, and John Lennon would have spun his wheels for a few years then winded up as a dishwasher or bartender. Comparing the Lennon songs to the McCartney songs, the rift in talent and emotion is IMMESUREABLE.
2004-08-21 15:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Exelsis_Deo]Point you cannot dispute : Take away Paul McCartney, and the Beatles would have never been on anyone's map. Paul MADE the Beatles. He taught Ringo how to play drums. George was a poor guitarist, and John Lennon would have spun his wheels for a few years then winded up as a dishwasher or bartender. Comparing the Lennon songs to the McCartney songs, the rift in talent and emotion is IMMESUREABLE.[/QUOTE]
None of the Beatles members really knew their respective instruments well. Skilled lyric writers and melody craftsman they were, skilled musicians they were not. Their songs completely lack the musical vision and technical execution of later 70's supergroups like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
2004-08-21 16:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Oklahomaman]None of the Beatles members really knew their respective instruments well. Skilled lyric writers and melody craftsman they were, skilled musicians they were not. Their songs completely lack the musical vision and technical execution of later 70's supergroups like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.[/QUOTE] In a sense that is true, but music is a subjective form. You can't gauge it against other forms of music, rather you gauge it against itself, against what it aspires and asserts itself to be versus what it really is. We don't really fault Elvis Presley as a musician because he really never used the guitar except as a prop, or as an actor for that matter because he never played anything but himself. Himself was all that he ever tried to be, and he played and sang like Elvis very well.
By rock standards in many aspects some of the Beatles repetoire undoubtedly was pretty pedestrian for a rock afficiado. I wonder though if the Beatles really aspired to be a pure rock n. roll band. When they were first interviewed, they didn't even call themselves rock, they just said "our sound". Getting caught up in the avant garde Hamburg scene made them downplay the origins and ties of this music, but it is undoubtedly there. Beatle music just doesn't sound like rock n roll, even though they tried to incorporate some of its features.
Liverpool was known for its close knowledge of the American music, and a review of some of the other music playing in America at the time identifies what some of the other influences might have been. I think the similarity between their ballads and some of the vocal harmony groups playing in America like the Kingston trio and even some country groups at the time were quite evident, and I think this is where their sound comes from.
If its a mistake judging the Beatle's music against other rock musicians, I think it is undoubtedly also a mistake to judge its philosophy against that of other artists and poets even of the degraded standards of our present time. The Beatles tried to fulfill their media cast role as pop icons, which they couldn't help occasionally emulating, but it always seemed to me that a lot of their latter stuff was written in a certain tounge in cheek satire of this role. Songs like "I am the Walrus" sort of personify this it seems.
Similarly even Lennon, the semi-official avant-garde/radical chic leader of the group, couldn't quit shed this tongue in cheek view of his role. Such as when he gave his reasons for turning in his knighthood. Something like
"The Bangaledesh famine, the war in Vietnam, and the failure of 'Cold Turkey' to make the top 40." I can't help but view his political music, up to songs like "Imagine", in pretty much this fashion.
2004-08-31 10:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Exelsis_Deo]Point you cannot dispute : Take away Paul McCartney, and the Beatles would have never been on anyone's map. Paul MADE the Beatles. He taught Ringo how to play drums. George was a poor guitarist, and John Lennon would have spun his wheels for a few years then winded up as a dishwasher or bartender. Comparing the Lennon songs to the McCartney songs, the rift in talent and emotion is IMMESUREABLE.[/QUOTE]
Yeah (or should I say "yeah, yeah, yeah?"), that sounds about right to me.
I always saw Paul as the guy who could really right one hit-quality melody after the next - like Bacharach only not as prolific. That's a very rare talent in itself, but I think Paul also had a real drive to MAKE MONEY from the thing. He had considerable managerial talent, and he was sober and level headed - enough to provide a sort of stability such that the enormous talent of the emotionally unstable Lennon could bring forth some interesting fruit. We never would have even heard of Lennon (or Starr or Harrison) without McCartney, IMHO.
It was all down hill for old John after Yoko snapped him up. He reportedly spent years in his Mahattan apartment naked and strung out on heroin - a wealthier version of skid row. Maybe there's a good deal of gossip magazine bile to those reports, but they sound right. He was by all accounts a heroin addict, and they never have pleasant fates.
In sharp contrast, Paul just seems to be breezing through life, doing his projects (including some very off-the-wall stuff), living extremely well. He looks the picture of health. But note that he never wrote a song as great as I Am the Walrus after he broke with Lennon. It was the two together that made the Beatles great, IMHO. And there's really no doubt as to Lennon's talent, love it or hate it.
But hey, I'm a fan, and am willing to forgive a great deal.
Walter