Help!The Beatles

Now it moves onto the more colourful bit of Beatle History. You can hear it coming as they depart from the more Rock and roll kinds of songs, where the form is almost all the song, and instead there’s all those great Barbershop harmonies coming through whenever they can. I wonder how much that’s to do with four-track recording…I’m going to guess that EMI had access to better machines than that…maybe it’s to do with four people in a band then…anywhere, somewhere between tracks and bands I always think in terms of one lead voice and three backing voices…wonder if that came from here.

Anyway, the first half of the songs on this album come from the film, much sillier that A Hard Day’s Night which was more sly than silly. “You’ve got to hide your love away” is famously described as Lennon does Dylan…but it’s so much better. John Lennon can sing, and the flutes at the end that have nothing to do with the rest of the song (I love it when songs do that)(. And a George Harrison song that doesn’t drone and drear its was to its end…and I hate to say it, but most of the McCar5tney songs on this album are pretty crass…The Night Before, Another Girl…my favourite on the first side is still “You’re gonna lose that girl;”, I don’t know if it’s the backing, the bongos or the piano (probably the piano) but it kills me still. OK, Ticket to Ride. Maybe this is John Lennon’s best album…, all the best ones here are his. Knowing these songs so well from the movie you can’t (or I can’t help) seeing the “video” that goes with each song. This is the part of the film in the snow, so the song feels crisp and shiny…and I don’t know how much of that is to do with visual memories of that or the tambourine (described recently in a pub by some-one as the magical instrument that immediately makes any song brilliant).

I remember seeing a clip of the Beatles singing this on some documentary, and they sing it live, sitting in armchairs and it sounds almost exactly as it does on the record, and some important talking head saying that that’s the mark of an amazingly tight band. I’m sure I wrote some essay about that experience when I was at Sharples, and my English teacher/form teacher Mr Diamond (who I understand now was a pretty hard-core socialist and smoked cigars) disagreed with me, saying it was the mark of an amazingly boring band who couldn’t be bothered to do anything new or different. On a performance level, I disagree as I know the difference between a recording voice and a singing live voice (I used to prefer singing live, I think I prefer recording now, I’m currently interested in the little cadences and subtleties of sing/speaking into the mic…), but I sort of agree somewhere…maybe if you’re singing live you’re performing your own cover version of your own song (that’s presupposing that the record is all, and this was the decision the Beatles began to move towards…is it this album that begins to introduce session musicians that would eventually lead to a philharmonic orchestra and rendering touring impossible?) you need to do something very different. In the same way you’d do some thing very different from a cover of some-one else’s song…

The songs on the second half seem to get a little lame…that terrible “It’s only love” and a country cover to begin with. In fact there’s a strong country feel to it. I’ve never understood country. I believe some of them are supposed to be witty (alright, I quite like some Dolly Parton) but largely it leaves me cold and furious at the same time. As if there’s something desirable about being illiterate. All the lyrics seem a bit crap here. There’s a lovely one (pretty trite/universal lyrics…brilliance is local, David Byrne knew it…) called “Tell me what you see” which I like very much. Lennon and McCartney sing together in unison sometimes, sometimes in harmony the others. It’s a cliché to say that the fulcrum of the Beatles was the interplay between the two main songwriters but it’s true, and helped me develop my vertical/horizontal idea of music. Lennon being vertical (if their works were scored classically, the interest would be shown going down the staves with chord changes shifting under a static melody) and McCartney being horizontal (a travelling melody over staid chords).

I must interrupt this to shout with joy because it’s “I’ve just seen a face” – is it countrified? I have no idea but it’s wonderful. Anyway. To think of the horizontal/vertical dichotomy in terms of each composer’s main instrument (rhythm guitar and bass respectively) adds more foundation to it, in that the rhythm guitar is more concerned with changing chords and the bass more with moving the piece forward. Lots of piano on McCartney/s part too, and in quite a boogie-woogie/dance hall style too. If Lennon had a literary heritage and McCartney an Elgar/Duke Ellington one, then that also makes sense, as you always get the sense (outside of nice little parochial lyrics that are incredibly English) that McCartney’s words are kind of there to mark time between the tunes. And all of pop music history shifts back and forth between that as a guitar vogue (rock and roll) gets overtaken by a piano-led vogue (Spector-stylee girl groups/Merseybeat stuff/Procul-Harum harpsichords rule/trippy psychedelic stuff/camp 20s knock-offs /glam rock/disco/punk /electro pop/stadium rock/dance/grunge/more girl-boy groups/Britpop/R&B/fucking emo…)

Then it finishes with Dizzy Miss Lizzy. Fucking hate it.

The Beatles – With The Beatles
OK, maybe this is a bit of a cheat, this isn’t an album of mine, it’s one of Jack’s which seems to have turned up on my shelves amongst all the recommending and house-moving he and I appear to take part in every few months or so. But finally I’ve arrived at The Beatles, who I loved feverishly as a teenager, and still are a kind of home in my head where I recognise and know and love.

I did a mini-study of The Beatles catalogue for my A level music, focusing on Sgt Pepper. Actually just writing this I feel rather excited and looking forward to all the Beatle albums yet to come. All the other CDs I’ve written about so far are ones that I own but don’t necessarily know or love as well as others. This seems to be the first clear run of adored music in my collection. As some-one wrote (who? Who?) the connection between amazing music and the letter “B” has never been adequately explained. But back to my A-level study…it managed to split Beatle History into two distinct phases; one where John Lennon dominated, and the other where Paul McCartney did. I adore Paul McCartney and always will; recorders and harpsichords go better in my head than harmonicas and blues. But I do love this album, which comes much more out of the boots & suits end of the Beatles repertoire.

The music’s so black and white…I don’t know if that’s subliminal reactions to the record cover, or memories of watching “A Hard Day’s Night”, which uses a few songs from this album as incidental music. George Harrison’s sole song for this album appears, and it’s such a strange mixture between quite Latino rhythm and a really plodding blues-y feel to it – his earlier songs (before the Indian influence really happened) weren’t that different from his later ones, there must be a connection between Vedic and Mississippi folk (“It’s all folk music ain’t it? I never heard a horse do it yet!”).

I think this album is 1963 (Oh no, the song “Little child, won’t you dance with me? I’m so sad and lonely, baby take a chance etc” – that wouldn’t pass these days…example#2 of the lonely and miserable singer stylings of this time…). I’m working with a very old lady at the minute, and as I only have horrifying experiences of old people in the past, I feel like I have nowhere to start. I’ve begun trying to imagine myself as her, and have worked out what year it would have been when she was my age 27. I think I worked out that she would have been 27 in 1963. I can’t imagine being my age and The Beatles being around, being the biggest hottest greatest fabbest (etc)…it’s hard to continue that train of thought because “Till there was you” appears, and a schmaltzy corner of my soul becomes terribly happy and overrides any kind of sociological thought in this matter. I think it’s the delay and the blues note between and of “in sweet fragrant meadows of dawn…and dew” that kills me. There’s something quite camp about the covers chosen, ditto Besame Mucho which I also love.

Quite a few covers on this album, Mr Postman, and I remember that “Money” and “You really got a hold on me” appear later on. There’s probably further thoughts about the ratio of covers to originals at this time in Beatle history – tours etc…but all the covers are so thoughtfully done. All the Beatle-lore of Mach Shau (so well known from many books and biopics in the crassest possible taste) clearly results in almost automatic brilliance. I picked up enough to see me through lesser pursuits of busking in Bolton and Manchester, and singing endless Dusty Springfield covers in that old Edinburgh sushi bar…

This album always surprises me because it’s very Rock & Roll (in the most traditional sense) and by the time I get through the first side (I knew this album first on vinyl – Therese had them all, dog-eared and fabulous – and I’d play them, limit myself to maybe two or three an evening and use the record player in the music room to sit on one of those mustard-yellow tatty armchairs wearing the headphones and read the front and back covers of the record sleeves endlessly) I’ve fallen in love with it via Roll over Beethoven. I suppose there’s something primitively satisfying (without wishing to sound condescending) in the simplicity, the call and response and the strict patterns that everyone knows, even if the lyrics are trite (and they are). There’s something pretty joyous (I must remember also that I’m really fond of 20-flight rock by Eddie Cochran, for the ridiculous story of the horny young man whose girlfriend lives on the top floor with a broken elevator, so by the time he’s climbed all the stairs he’s far too tired for sex and is increasingly exasperated but continues to make the climb) in it all.

Then it’s “You really got a hold on me”, which I used to sing with Sarah Falzon while we were waiting for the bus in the morning to Sharples High, swaying and clicking to a slow can-can outside Woolworth’s. It’s quite a sexy song really, thrown into sharp relief by the fucking DROSS (and I’m sorry but it’s true) of that stupid “I wanna be your man” (distrust anything that flouts mis-spelling as a positive feature). I’m sure this one is supposed to be The Beatles “do” the Rolling Stones. Sorry, but the Rolling Stones are fucking ridiculous. I’m firmly with the North on this one. Am tempted to skip. I last till the end, with that famous Aeolian cadence like good old Mahler’s song of the earth…oh lovely times.

The Beach Boys
Pet Sounds

I love the way this opens, that meandering little line and then the huge Spector-kinda drums and vocals. I’m so glad the Beach Boys are now a by-word for production awareness, or at least the later stuff, or everything post-this. My proper introduction to them was Wonderful Steve in York who I’ve lost touch with and still miss, and still “check” my own songs out with him while I’m writing them, to wonder what he’d say about it. We sang “Wouldn’t it be nice” at a wee gig at the Grapes in York, before it got flooded and re-done. When I went back to York for a wander around en route back to Edinburgh at a strange time in my life (in the snow, another life), I went to the Grapes, but didn’t go in, just walked past it.

When I started hanging out with Steve, I’d have many afternoons (usually Thursdays) where he and I would sit in his flat, smoking, drinking tea, eating this amazing coleslaw he made (with radishes and walnuts) listening to endless different versions of Beach Boys songs. He had the studio session box set of Pet Sounds, and would talk me through each vocal line, explaining how they all slotted and locked together. There’s a very Baroque feel to the arrangements of the Beach Boys songs which Steve demonstrated to me. The music must always be moving towards something...

Of course the glamorous and tragic story of Brian Wilson’s demise (Steve went to see him in a gig, where the first song was “Staying bed like Brian Wilson” by Bare-naked Ladies, covered by the man himself and all done through that weird halfway smile he has…) adds to the “legend” of this album. When “Smile” was finally released (oh we have a long time till we get to the on No skips though…), there was a documentary about the album, and of course it made reference to this (it’s impossible not to, it’s one of those albums; any writing about pop music requires it). I remember Chris at the time asked if he could borrow the album, but he said it disappointed him, he was expecting something more. I can understand that, so much is made out of the “innovation”, the “ground-breaking” nature of the album, so without knowing the songs and appreciating the mix and arrangement, I don’t think it’s possible to see beyond the l’il bike bell in “You still believe in me” as a marker of this innovation…

Some of these songs were covered by Sofia Van Otter (not too sure of the spelling) and Elvis Costello. Unfortunately it’s one of the many albums an ex-boyfriend mocked until I disposed of it humbly agreeing it was twee and shit. Or, to rephrase it, it’s one of the albums I carry in my mind for when I’m in second hand or cheap shops to reclaim… but the arrangement that was done on that covers album made use of a light operatic voice, and arranged each song in a “Chamber” way, reduction to a cello and a piano; and approaching each piece as if it were Schubert or Delius…it’s almost depressing in a way though, it wasn’t just Dan, I remember reading a lot of reviews of the album at the time saying similar things – as if people are frightened of music out of its usual context. Arrangement is all, and I know I’m a Virgo but it’s still true. As a species we pay so much attention to environment, and to re-imagine a piece we know, but to address it differently, afford to it the gravity normally reserved for dead composers…well it’s wrong isn’t it? The fact remains that the songs are beautiful, the woman’s voice is beautiful, and there’s nothing separating musics from each other apart from ignorance.

The daring involved in such a sweeping orchestral instrumental number in the middle of it all…it is kind of the intermission point – were they thinking in Act 1/Act 2? Now the Sloop John B song…I know this is a kind of sing-along happy song, but it still frightens me. When we were tiny small kids, if our holidays overlapped, or we were ill, we usually had to go along to Therese’s school and sit quietly at the back of whatever class she was teaching. As a result I have a lot of memories of her singing folk songs with her class from these books with green (book 1) and red (book 2) covers, bound with those white spring-things at the side. Songs about the Titanic, about “Oh my lovely Nellie Gray, they have taken her away and I’ll never see my darling anymore”, Henry the Eighth…and the Sloop John B. It sticks in my mind, I’m sure I was ill and felt tired and bored and young and frightened with all those big Salford kids tearing around the place, but the lyrics of abandonment and hopelessness in Sloop John B terrified me, and I still remember the sea-sick feeling of lurching between the lovely music and the horrifying words. I’m sure that’s an aesthetic that stays with me.

And then God only Knows. When Steve began playing me the Beach Boys, I’m sure I said “Oh yes, I know them”, but only really sat up and listened when this appeared, I’d never heard it before. I’d read about it, but never heard it. Of course I rather fell for Steve within this period, and the song took on other resonances. We did sing it at a few gigs together, but when he got together with a South African born-again Christian, she took offence at us singing it and abruptly we dropped it from the set list. And shortly after fell out of touch, but I still remember him beaming in his flat as the voices and voices and voices tumble over each until the fade-out comes (he hated fade-outs and always told me off for my reverence for the Hey Jude fade-out) before leaping across the room and saying “Let’s play it again!”

I do love the Beach Boys. I’m also grateful for when Van Dyke Parks was unleashed into their world, and everyone else’s as a result. Minus Heroes and Villains. I’m sorry but that’s an awful bloody song. Some of the lyrics here are interesting, but there’s still a boy-girl/boy-girl feel to them, rather than the great and glorious “Come velvet overtaken me, dim chandelier awaken me to a song dissolved in the dark” of Surf’s Up…watching Eurovision last night, and the Top of the Pops special about previous Eurovision entries, we were listening to a guy whose name I can’t remember, but he sang in a rather Tim Buckley way about how lonely and sad he felt…in a similar way “I just wasn’t made for these times” and “In my room” (a different album but which one?) bring in a brooding that’s not related to any rebellious heroics, but just a miserable guy who wants to close the door and have everyone leave him alone…there was a surge of that in the 60s, not now, that’s gone. There’s that neo-liberal optimism. There’s another dissertation waiting to be done – charting the dominant emotions of popular music and comparing them to political events…watching a happily roller-skating couple from 1982, or a trio of green-tights-clad ladies singing happily in 1984 when I know now more and more what was happening in that scary era…are the inane songs a reaction to wide=spread terror and economic chaos, and are the miserable leave-me-alone songs related to increasing social freedoms and rising prosperity? Or is that too simple?

It’s so sad to watch a sweet thing die, could I ever find in you again the things that made me love you then…there’s still a boy-meets-girl flavour of these songs but maybe it’s more about (as some-one said…where did they say it?) the pain of discovery of pain.

Basement Jaxx, The Singles
I’m not too sure about ideologically how a “singles” album fits into the noskipsnoshuffles programme, but this album certainly propelled me towards Temple Meads station with extreme efficiency. Every week as part of my course I have to go to the Bath office, and I still don’t have a clear mental picture in my head of how long it takes me to walk to Temple Meads…music always helps me turbo my way there, and I seem to arrive a good twenty minutes early with plenty of time to sit on the platform and read. Last week I listened to the Hungarian (?)/Japanese song Chris, Hayley and I sang to karaoke in Tokyo last Christmas. This week it’s Basement Jaxx, and it begins with what I suppose is the radio version of Red Alert, there’s a huge difference in the mix between this and the one from the album.

Where did it all begin, the use of bonus re-mixes, or differing arrangements? I’ve probably said before how I was struck by the difference between three different versions of Hyperballad by Bjork, and how when I was a music student I’d wanted to make a different album of Revolver by the Beatles…I’m only sleeping as Dixie, Taxman as a barbershop quartet, And your bird can sing as Classical string quartet…I have always had a fascination with musical arrangements, and noting the difference the arrangement can make. The acoustic/chill-out version of Romeo was a revelation when I first remember hearing it, in Kirstie’s yellow bedroom in Edinburgh, pre-going out music. In my last year at Uni there was a sudden explosion of these “chill-out” albums, that track featured heavily and the trend continued into adult life. There was an amazing song called Daydream in Blue by a group called I-monster which routinely appeared on such things and then vanished.

Anyway, Basement Jaxx steer me to the station, past coloured houses, tall white churches and squares of green in Bristol. I walk past the Jamaican café, the way I used to walk to St Matthias when I worked with all the young badduns…the particular smell of Jamaican cooking still a novelty, I would always lift my head when I walked past the window of the café, and the chef would always wave and say “Good morning” – flick back to the Edinburgh I remember first hearing some of these later tracks (Bingobango, do your thing etc) and switch the scene to those tall grey buildings, all four floors of stern frowning and, crowds of people pushing and shuffling. Certainly no-one smiling. Certainly not me. I wonder where Basement Jaxx come from. OK, I did walk past a number of vagrants on my way, and not everyone was smiling, but the music speaks of a party coming. I notice how autobiographical this is becoming. Maybe there just isn’t that much to write about Basement Jaxx. Good music though.