Music Videos Of the Week - November 29, 2024

"Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" by John Lennon and Elton John (studio and live versions)  (Go to the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - November 17, 2023

 "Mind Games" by John Lennon (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - April 1, 2022

"Nutopian International Anthem" by John Lennon (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - September 10, 2021

"Imagine" by John Lennon (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - October 9, 2020

"Gimme Some Truth" by John Lennon  (Go to the link in the upper right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - February 21, 2020

"Instant Karma!  (We All Shine On)" by John Lennon (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.) 

Because It's Good

That's why the Beatles recorded a song John Lennon wrote to a backward chord sequence for Abbey Road.

"Because" came out in a flash of inspiration and was written in a flash.  John was at home with Yoko while she was playing the piano.  And not show tunes or avant-garde pieces - classical music, specifically "Moonlight Sonata" by Ludwig van Beethoven (below).  Yoko, you understand, is a more talented musician than you think; she's actually a classically trained pianist.  (She just can't sing.)

John thought that the melody was intriguing, and he thought he'd like to write a song with a melody like "Moonlight Sonata," but rather than just write lyrics to a familiar classical tune, he asked Yoko to play the chords in reverse order to see how it sounded.  The moody melody that emerged led John to write simple, philosophical lyrics that, like "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", didn't waste time with verbosity.  The message of "Because" was clear - the world is amazing, love is old and new, and love is all.  (And love is you.)

The Web site Culture Sonar has also noted how the words of "Because" are typical Lennon wordplay.  The world turns, so John sings about how it turns him on, and the wind blows, so he sings about how it blows his mind.  The sky is blue, and being blue, John sings, makes him cry.  Even with his simplest lyrics, John knew how to come up with something clever and witty.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney recorded a basic rhythm track with John on guitar and Paul on bass, with George Martin playing the distinctive electric harpsichord that characterizes the song.  But George Harrison contributed the instrument that makes "Because" majestic - his Moog synthesizer, which you already know about.  He created some wonderfully monumental riffs in the bridge, and he accents the melody in the coda with a light-touch solo like a pastry chef delicately frosts a cake.  Ringo Starr also played on "Because," but his contribution was not recorded.  He tapped on a drum to keep the others in rhythm and on time.  "Ringo was our drum machine," Martin later said.

The fullness of "Because" comes through on the vocals, John, Paul and George harmonizing like in the old days and sounding much like how Crosby, Stills and Nash were sounding with their own three-part harmonies on their 1969 debut album.  But the three Beatles had their vocals triple-tracked, hence the harmonies on "Because" - recorded in Abbey Road Studios' cavernous Studio One - were nine-part harmonies.  Hey, nine was John's lucky number! :-) 

Excepting "I Me Mine," which Paul, George and Ringo recorded in January 1970 to complete Let It Be, "Because" was the last song the Beatles began in Abbey Road Studios.  By the time they were done with it on August 5, 1969, all that was left to do was finish for Abbey Road other songs already begun.  It was a fine way to bring the album toward its conclusion, with such a stately and solid performance that was the closest to classical rock that anyone ever came. Even the art rock bands of the 1970s couldn't surpass it.

Beethoven would have been proud. :-)        

Music Video Of the Week - July 26, 2019

"Give Peace a Chance" by the Plastic Ono Band  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

"The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" - Fifty Years

It was on this day in 1968 that the Rolling Stones filmed their television special "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus," an extravaganza of some of the best performers in sixties rock (and Yoko Ono) that would not be aired for twenty-eight years.

The Stones, like the Beatles, had not toured since 1966, and concluded as the Beatles had done that for as long as they were unable or unwilling to return to the concert stage, television was the most immediate vehicle on which to perform.  Mick Jagger came up with the idea of combining rock and roll performances with circus acts in tandem with Pete Townshend of the Who and Ronnie Lane of the Small Faces, whose respective bands were both to be part of the special.  (The Small Faces ultimately bowed out.)

Up to this point, rock and roll specials had had mixed results.  A year earlier, the Beatles had bombed with their Magical Mystery Tour film on the BBC, which led NBC in the United States to cancel its American airing, whereas Elvis Presley had just made a miraculous comeback with his Christmas special in America (relax, I'll get to that), which, in an ironic twist, aired on NBC.  The Stones' show, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was superior to the Beatles' movie and was also on par with Elvis' TV special in terms of excitement and energy.  Alas, a good deal of that energy did not come from the Stones themselves.

The TV-special film that finally got out is in fact an edited, one-hour document of the evening's best performances.  Jethro Tull begins the festivities with "Song For Jeffrey," from their debut album, and though Ian Anderson's vocal is the only live element of an otherwise mimed performance - they were the only band in "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" that did not play live - Anderson's idiosyncratic stage persona makes their appearance memorable.  (The guitarist here is future Black Sabbath member Tony Iommi, a stand-in for Mick Abrahams, who had quit Tull and would be permanently replaced by Martin Barre.)  Then the Who (below) perform an explosive rendition of their mini-opera "A Quick One While He's Away" to an enthusiastic studio audience.

Marianne Faithfull, who performs Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin's "Something Better" to music on a backing tape, rises to the occasion with a heartfelt delivery, while a performance of "Ain't That a Lot of Love" from bluesman Taj Mahal (the only American on the bill) just plain rocks.  But not as much as a performance from the one-off supergroup John Lennon had assembled, the Dirty Mac (below), which was comprised of Lennon and Eric Clapton on guitars, Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums, and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass.  Their rendition of Lennon's Beatles song "Yer Blues" is a blistering, crunchy rock performance, and their jam with Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis is good.  Well, it could have been great, actually, if not for Yoko Ono crashing it and vocalizing all over the place.  In between all this are special circus acts, with the odd clown (including Stones bassist Bill Wyman in a clown suit) popping up here and there.

The Rolling Stones close the show with a massive set of songs from their latest LP release, Beggars Banquet, as well as "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and an early and pointed version of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," culminating with a fiery take on "Sympathy For the Devil."  (They say good night with a take on "Salt Of the Earth.")  But the set was deemed inferior to what had come before, with the Who's appearance remaining the best performance of the night.  The long delay in getting the show set up between acts - filming took fifteen hours into the following morning - had sapped the energy of the Stones, and the pathetic performance of a thoroughly stoned Brian Jones didn't help matters any.  When the Stones saw the result of their efforts, they shelved the whole project rather than risk disappointing their fans as much as the Beatles had with Magical Mystery Tour.  They didn't want to be seen being outdone by the Who on their own special.

Lindsay-Hogg returned to the project in the early nineties, but it wasn't until footage thought to be lost was discovered by director Michael Gochanour and producer Robin Klein, who were able to complete the film.  Shown at the 1996 New York Film Festival in October of that year, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was aired in America on the cable music channel VH-1.

Watching it years after it was made, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" holds up rather well, capturing the essence and the headiness of late-sixties rock culture, at a time when the music was dominated by the British but still deeply rooted in black American blues.  (The circus acts featured have their charms too, and a little intrigue - top model Donyale Luna, who was in competition with Naomi Sims at the time for laying claim to being the first top black fashion model, served as the fire eater's assistant.)  As Rolling Stone writer David Dalton wrote in the film's opening titles, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was from a time when it seemed that rock and roll would "inherit the earth."  In 1996, with most of the film's participants having become less relevant and rock itself having begun its long, steady post-grunge decline (still in progress in 2018, with VH-1 having since gone hip-hop), the spirit and the commitment the Rolling Stones and their guests had to the music came through (and they still do).

And yes, the Rolling Stones may have been sub-par compared to the Who or John Lennon, but, good grief, it's still the Stones as we know them - which, as Dave Marsh wrote, is no small thing.  Their set shows a band ready to get back on the road and prove themselves as the great live performers they knew they could be.  The Stones in fact were beginning their ascent to their peak of live performance, with their best and most exciting shows yet to come.  For all of their war-weariness, the Stones look determined to pick up where they left off after drug busts and studio isolation forced them off the concert stage and after their poorly received album Their Satanic Majesties Request cast doubt in their abilities.  Remember, the Stones made this film to support Beggars Banquet; they were more ready to rock than they realized. Janet Maslin of the New York Times summed up their fighting spirit by praising the "sleek young Stones in all their insolent glory presiding over this uneven but ripely nostalgic show."  But their fighting spirit would sadly exact a price - their decision to fire group founder Brian Jones, who would drown in his own swimming pool seven months later.

If the Stones are to be faulted for anything, perhaps it's for trying too hard. Ian Anderson offered this interesting observation years later: "I was there, and they were pretty good when they were rehearsing.  But they just did too much, and I think Mick Jagger sang himself out. When it came to the crunch, the Who just came in and did a few songs, did what they normally do and - crash, bang - the Stones, who had been rehearsing and working at it for ages, felt perhaps a little overshadowed by the energy of the Who."  But all of that work still seems noble when looking back from today, when so much pop music is not so much played as it is manufactured. "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" represents an incredible period of music, live performance, and attitude that will likely never be replicated.

Music Video Of the Week - September 7, 2018

"Mind Games" by John Lennon  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Look For the Girl With the Sun In Her Eyes

Continuing with a look at some of the songs on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for that album's fiftieth anniversary, I turn to "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds."

We all know the story.  John Lennon rode over in his chauffeured limousine to his son Julian's nursery school to pick him up, and there was Julian with a painting he did in class, showing a little girl wearing sparkly orbs and surrounded by stars. When John asked Julian what his painting was supposed to be, Julian said, "It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds."  John loved it and wrote a song about it, thus engaging in the art of ekphrasis - bringing a piece of fine art to life in music and/or verse (and one could argue that "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!," though based on a commercial poster, was yet another form of ekphrasis). 

When "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" came out on Sgt. Pepper, fans immediately saw the acrostic spelled out by the first letter of each noun in the song's title - "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" - and immediately thought the song was about an acid trip.  As for John Lennon's explanation of how the title was prompted, well, no one was going to buy that.  

Except that the elder Lennon was telling the truth. And here's a picture of the younger Lennon's art work to prove it.

It may be the most valuable piece of refrigerator art ever conceived. :-)

Not only was the painting real, so was Lucy.  She was one of Julian Lennon's nursery school classmates, and by all indications, Julian liked her a lot.  Why else would he immortalize her in a painting?  And I'm sure he thought she was cute.

In fact, she was.  Below is Lucy O'Donnell, Julian Lennon's first muse.    

It's worth noting that John Lennon's song characters were almost always real people.  Lucy, Mr. Kite, Dr. Robert, Bungalow Bill, Polythene Pam . . . all were based on folks John knew or learned of in his travels.

Lucy herself remembered the painting.  "I remember Julian and I both doing pictures on a double-sided easel, throwing paint at each other, much to the horror of the classroom attendant," she said in 2007.  "Julian had painted a picture and on that particular day his father turned up with the chauffeur to pick him up from school."

But what of "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" itself?  The song is musically unique in that the verses are in three-quarter time with the choruses in a 4/4 time signature.  A good deal of the verses are chordless, and the melody abruptly shifts keys, going from A major in the verses to B♭ (B-flat) major for the pre-chorus, and G major for the chorus.  Performed mostly with an organ and a Leslie-speaker-filtered guitar riff played by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, respectively, "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" also features an Indian tamboura that gives it a more exotic flavor, topped with a really spaced-out John Lennon vocal.  No wonder people thought the song was about LSD.

I've always loved this song for having such literary words, and when someone finally got around to asking John Lennon if the lyrics were, umm, pharmaceutically inspired, John replied that the lyrics were inspired by Lewis Carroll's writings, which meant that John inadvertently answered yes.  Carroll was a heavy drug user, explaining why "Alice In Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" were so trippy.  But John couldn't have known that when he read those books as a boy.  And who cares?  A land of tangerine trees under marmalade skies with cellophane flowers of yellow and green growing so incredibly high certainly sounds like a wonderful paradise.    

The song would become a favorite of Beatles fans and make its way into popular culture in unforeseen ways.  A human fossil discovered in 1974 in eastern Africa, projected to be almost four million years old, was named Lucy because one of the paleontologists at the fossil excavation site was playing the song on a cassette tape.  That same year, Elton John covered "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" for a single that, apart from greatest-hits compilations, is not included on an Elton John album (paradoxically, the original Beatles version is an album track that was never commercially released as a single); Elton's cover went to number one in the U.S., and it featured John Lennon himself on guitar and backing vocals.  And a short time after the release of Sgt. Pepper, New Orleans rocker John Fred listened to the song and misheard the title as "Lucy in disguise," the misheard chorus subsequently producing a parody song called "Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)" . . . but that's another story.

(Less well known is Lindisfarne's parody, "Alan In the River With Flowers," written by Lindisfarne leader Alan Hull.)  

The story of "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds," however, does not have a happy ending.  Lucy O'Donnell - who got married as an adult and became Lucy Vodden (her adult photo is above) - eventually came down with lupus and died of the disease in 2009 at the age of 46.  Julian Lennon, who had reconnected with his old friend, wrote a new song for her, simply called "Lucy," and recorded it with his friend James Scott Cook and American songwriter Todd Meagher, releasing it soon after.  The proceeds of the record's sales go to lupus charities in Britain and America.

"Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" still remains an astonishing song and a worthy part of the Beatles' canon. 

Review - 'The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years'

It has been said - I'm sure - that the last thing we need is another Beatles documentary.  Ron Howard's new movie looking at the concert-tour era of the Beatles' career blows that nonsense out of the water.

Eight Days a Week isn't just one of the best movie about the Beatles ever made - it's the first and only movie to focus on their years as a live band and how the excitement they generated was key to spreading Beatlemania from Britain to America and the world beyond.  New insights from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and archival reminiscences from John Lennon and George Harrison  illustrate how thrilling it was for the band to play live in their early days and invigorating it was to take the world by storm.

As Eight Days a Week progresses into 1965 and 1966, the ennui of touring shows as the Beatles were continuing to advance musically in the recording studio.  Their concerts - rare footage of which offers some astonishing samples of how pervasive and engrossing Beatlemania was - evolved from exciting musical performances to what Lennon called "tribal rituals"; indeed, some of the live music included here is ragged and sloppy.  Eight Days a Week also puts the viewer in the center of the action, with photos and dizzying footage of the group taking the stage, traveling long distances on planes, and dealing with the press.  There are some eye-opening anecdotes, too, like when the Beatles forced racial integration of the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville as a condition for performing there.   Philadelphia TV newsman Larry Kane, one of the many figures interviewed for the movie, traveled with the Beatles and covered them on their 1964 North American tour for the Miami radio station he was working for at the time; his specific memories and documentation of his time with the group are especially revealing.  Even the familiar stories of the Beatles' time on the road, particularly the controversy over John Lennon's statement of the Beatles becoming more popular than Jesus, are seen from a fresh perspective and give a picture of how grueling the road was for the group.  (Also worthy are comments from fans and observers such as Elvis Costello, Whoopi Goldberg, and Malcolm Gladwell.)

Fifty years after their last stadium concert at San Francisco, Eight Days a Week makes clear why the Beatles had to end their concert career, and how rock and roll benefited from their decision to do so; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road couldn't have existed had they continued touring.  Howard's documentary, which ends with a clip of the Beatles in their last public performance from January 1969 on the Apple rooftop for Let It Be, ultimately succeeds in its main purpose; it brings Beatlemania as it played out in the mid-sixties back to life.  You had to be there, but if you weren't, this is the best (and only) way to experience it. 

(Note: During its theatrical run, Eight Days a Week is followed by a remastered, re-edited version of the film of Beatles' 1965 Shea Stadium concert.  It's an astonishing document, showing a confident foursome playing in perfect sync and giving one of their best live shows ever, despite the primitive sound system and the screaming fans. It is more than worth the price of admission.)         

Who Killed John Lennon?

When John Lennon was murdered thirty years ago today, I remember some angry reaction from the British public toward the United States. The general consensus was that the murder could have only happened in America, given this country's lenient gun laws, and that New York, where the murder took place, bore the shame of the murder more than the loss of the victim. Yoko Ono responded by urging non-Americans not to bash the U.S. in reaction to her husband's murder, because "there are cranks everywhere."

Well, Yoko Ono is entitled to her opinion, of course, and she's also free to express it, and I respect her for that, but I'm sorry, I'm with the Brits on this one. Yes, there are cranks everywhere, and the intruder who attacked George Harrison with a knife at his home in England in 1999 proved that, but in America, a crank, like the one who killed John Lennon, was able to buy a gun. The United States has more firearm murders than all the other Western nations put together, and our appalling approach to regulating firearms that allows anyone to buy a gun only feeds the culture of violence in this country. We are a nation that romanticizes firearms, from the beatification of gunfighters in Hollywood Westerns to the braggadocio of hip-hop stars packing heat.

And so, to my fellow Americans, I say this: Our laissez-faire attitude toward guns enabled a psychopath who had no business owning a gun to purchase one, stand outside the Dakota apartment building in New York, and shoot John Lennon in cold blood, in a city Lennon thought he was safe in. We are to blame for his death. We created the conditions that made it possible for someone to shoot him dead. We let this happen.

I was going to hold my tongue on this issue, but then John Lennon always spoke his mind and always encouraged others to do the same. I can think of no better way to remember him.

Imagine That

Because of my ongoing commentary on the election campaign, I'm a little late in commenting on the seventieth anniversary of the birth of John Lennon. While I did comment on Ringo Starr on the day he turned seventy, I did not comment on John Lennon on the day he would have turned seventy. I think those operative words - "would have" - were the earlier reason for my negligence. The fact is, celebrating John Lennon's life while knowing it was cut short is kind of depressing.

There is a lot to celebrate, though. As both the most socially aware and most socially introverted of the Beatles, John Lennon saw things in ways others couldn't fathom. He had grown up alienated from a mother he knew as a friend and raised by his aunt, while he never knew his father. He developed a healthy skepticism toward fame and celebrity, yet took advantage of his own fame to advance his artistic visions and promote different ways of thinking about social issues. Much to his own surprise, John Lennon came to symbolize all of the positive aspects of his generation. He stood for hope, life, brotherhood, and understanding, and it was reflected in his music, from early Beatles singles to later Beatles tunes such as "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "All You Need Is Love" to his solo hits, such as "Imagine."

Sadly, a lot of what Lennon stood for is in short supply these days, and Western civilization has been in this interminable funk for quite some time. The sense of possibility Lennon espoused has long since diminished, and the continuing rise of sociopolitical conservatism in America only underscores that fact. It makes sense that no one has been able to project a positive message the way Lennon and the Beatles did through music, as popular music has grown cynical with each passing year. The rise of MTV in the eighties and its value of style over substance had a lot do with that, coupled with record company and broadcasting company mergers, the co-opting and neutralizing of progressive influences by the mainstream (which led to Kurt Cobain's suicide), and the fragmentation of pop along lines of race and class. And that's not to mention the manufactured pop acts designed for easy profit. N'Sync was the most popular group of the late nineties, but really, does anyone listen to N'Sync anymore? And does Justin Timberlake, as a solo artist, speak for a generation?

Well, people still listen to the Beatles, and even N'Sync faced competition from the Beatles when the Fab Four's 1 album of number-one hits was released in 2000. It pleases and saddens me that people still listen to the Beatles as if they were still a working band. It shows how relevant their message is - Paul McCartney pointed out that their songs never told anyone to leave their parents or cause trouble - but it also shows how no one has been able to come up with a new and equally hopeful message. Pop divas are too busy serving up slutty showmanship. Rappers seem to thrive on everything being in a state of decline. Some performers have tried to co-opt Lennon's legacy by advocating sociopolitically liberal causes, but their schtick does not ring true. They go after relatively safe causes that sound like they've been focus-group tested. And if any performers have a genuinely Lennonesque or Beatlesque message, they're not going to get airplay on corporate radio stations - either because they're demographically irrelevant or their ideas are too offensive to the big media establishments who run the airwaves today. Queen's Freddie Mercury, pointing to the unintelligible banality of pop radio, once famously declared that all we heard was Radio Gaga. Now all we hear is Lady Gaga.

Even if we had a music scene and a sense cultural possibility in 2010 like we had in 1964, the Beatles would still be relevant, as their music transcended the sixties. The fact that we're still upholding the Beatles with so much relevance and reverence in an age when the quality of popular music is so diminished - at a time when it seems that all we need is fear - also illustrates quite clearly how much our culture has not changed since John Lennon last walked among us in 1980.

Time magazine, in eulogizing Lennon that December, declared that a bright dream had faded. To which I would add, it's unlikely to shine again.

The Beatles On CD . . . Again

When the Beatles' catalog was first issued on compact disc in 1987 - seems like a long time ago, huh? - EMI righted a wrong that had long gone uncorrected, restoring the Beatles's first seven albums to the way they had been issued in the United Kingdom (Capitol in the United States padded them out to ten titles). Paradoxically, the Beatles were among the last artistes from the vinyl age to be reissued on CD. And although posthumous releases of previously unreleased Beatles material in the nineties and two thousand zeroes made the most out of the format (especially the Anthology series), the original catalog was never remastered with the most advanced technology, making the audio quality of the 1987 issues seem stale.

Until now. Apple Corps has announced that on September 9, 2009, the entire Beatles catalog will finally be remastered for a new generation of fans. The CDs will be packaged with the artwork from the original U.K. releases (plus the Capitol-compiled Magical Mystery Tour album, which gathered all of the tracks from 1967 outside Sgt. Pepper), along with new liner notes to complement original album notes, rare photos (there are Beatles photos we haven't seen yet?), and, for a limited time, embedded documentary films about each of the original albums. The Past Masters CDs, which gathered the 33 nonalbum tracks the Beatles recorded, will be merged into one.

The albums were remastered by of engineers at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London over four yeas, using the latest recording technology and 1960s vintage studio equipment to maintain the sound of the original releases to ensure the highest fidelity possible. All fourteen albums will be issued in stereo, hence the first four Beatles albums (Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night, Beatles for Sale) will be in stereophonic sound for the first time. The stereo releases will be gathered n a box set along with a DVD compiling the miniature documentaries. A second box set will compile the original Beatles mono releases as well, for those who prefer the mono sound of the earlier records (and truth be told, audiophiles prefer the monophonic versions of the first four albums and the earlier singles).

This is the most ambitious issue from Apple since the Anthology series, maybe even since the original Beatles CD issues. A splendid time will indeed be guaranteed for all. :-)

The release date - September 9, 2009 - is appropriate. It's the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of the century.

John Lennon always considered nine a lucky number. :-)