My Thoughts on songs 21-30

 Another double tracked Lennon vocal (at least on the chorus).  I was always a bit curious why there's no harmony by Paul.  In fact, there's not much bass hear either.  So I'll christen this John's earliest solo recording.  Such a simple song; only 1:59 long and every other word seems to rhyme with "I".  As I think this through I'm not sure why I've rated this song so high...there's really very little going on other than John's voice.  It's his tender voice with some rasp on the chorus.  I like when John talks about how shy he can be because I know that's he's NOT shy.  So I think I like this song because it exposed a side of John that I didn't really here before.  It's similar to "Hide Your Love Away" in that sense.  It's John being insightful, romantic, Dylan-like, charming, soft, playful (listen to the way he says "bright" at the 1:04 mark) and  minimalistic.  He doesn't add any words that don't add to the story...his story that he tells us late at night.  In fact this song seems as if it's sung just to us.

I like the guitar being the percussion with the accents.  There was a great deal of accent percussive guitar on the Rubber Soul album and in retrospect it's one of the most endearing qualities of this album.  There's very little treble on John's voice...it almost sounds like they made a mistake on the equalizer and forgot to add the high end.  Even the acoustic guitar lacks the high end.  In contrast, the accent guitar is full of treble.  I, sigh, high, bye, my o my, butterflies, why, beside, inside, shy, fight (he makes it rhyme), right, site, bright...sounds like LOVE.  Only Love. 

 Such a great ending thought and reflection on the past.  It's wonderful that Ringo gets the nod on his vocal being the most predominant and I don't know why.  Maybe it's just that it sounds a little strained, maybe forced.  I would love to hear the conversation within the studio that lead to Ringo's vocal most noticeable.  It's clearly out of Ringo's range on the "Carry" note but it works.

So the obvious meaning of the lyric is quite apparent; it's Paul's admission that "we were great" and the four of us are going to have much to live up to....for a long time.  I wonder if he really knew that carrying that weight of fame/success would indeed last their lifetime (and to their offspring also).  As I listen to this over and over, I realize that this is not even a song...it's just a one liner that had to be said and squeezed into the final cut on the final album.  The transition with horns into the charming Paul vocal which is quite sad; he breaks down during the celebration.  Seems to me that he is sad that it's over despite what was said in the press at the time.  So this is not really a song; just a statement of fact that is poignant enough to be somewhat of a closing statement by the fab four. 

 Most everything in this song sounds tired.  The opening guitar, the snare, John's vocal...especially John's vocal.  Another stellar vocal by John, sung with so much feeling and emotion.  This is truly one of his great performances.  Was this song heroin at work.  Luckily I don't know the answer to that.  Ringo was one of the few drummers who wanted to read the lyrics of a song before he played and this song is a fine example of how a drum can sound like the lyric...very tired.  John sounds so pissed off and angry when he calls Sir Walter Raleigh a "stupid get".  I don't know the Liverpool slang here but being a stupid get is obviously not good.

So this song comes in high on my list because it's just so interesting.  I don't think this is a great song but it does such a compelling job at telling a story.  Again I come back to mood of this song and how the instruments tell the story.  It would be a boring song without the vocal but the title would stand even lacking the vocal.  John's scream "I'm going insane" is so perfect.  The song hints at a breakdown and it's truly disturbing to hear John's yell, but that contributes to a wonderfully crafted song.
 

 We all talk about the brilliant feedback to start the song but it never really sounded like feedback to me.  To me, I hear a note and a guitar pick buzzing on the string.  I love the sound of the guitar.  I always tried to imitate this sound by playing the strings up on the neck of the guitar.  Surprisingly, besides the guitar sound, the first thing that pulls me in are the drums.  We hear a brand new Ringo playing a unique part that is somewhat ramba and latin in feel.  His ride cymbal is an interesting twist that was very advanced for the early 60's.

I've seen the video of John playing this in concert and he does the riff on the seventh fret but I truly doubt that is the way it's played in the studio.  It sounds too clean to be played that way so I wonder if it's really George playing this riff lower on the frets.  The guitar sound is also not that of a Rickenbacker which also leads me to think it's George on his Gretsch. (I'll have to look this up).  (Findings)... The book by Andy Babiuk "Beatles Gear" says that John played a Gibson J160e which is an acoustic/electric guitar and that may be the answer here.  It's such a unique sound and with the pickup on this up on the neck maybe, just maybe, it's this acoustic guitar that plays the opening riff.  I find the clean sound consistent with an acoustic but John's playing is so clean (even up on the 7th fret) that it shows a truly terrific guitarist at work.  So I guess I'll recant saying that George played the riff on lower frets.  For everyone who has not played this riff on an acoustic guitar, please know that this is a remarkable performance by John!  I like that Paul didn't muddy up this song with a bass line that would have surely distracted from the main riff.  Nothing fancy but that's exactly what this song needed...a simple bass line.  So as I listen (over and over) this song is really about this amazing guitar riff.  I've read that this riff was lifted from a late 50's song and while that may be the case, no one could have performed it and molded it in to a memorable song the way that John did.

Not to be discounted on this song are the background oohs and aahs.  Perfectly sung and recorded at just the right level.  Paul's harmony, of course, is perfect as well.  Lastly, listen to the fade out...hear the dogs barking?  Is that the boys playing around?  Apparently they barked quite a bit on some other songs as well....Hey Bulldog comes to mind.
 

 There is something endearing about this song.  It's definitely raw.  The harmony is too far apart.  It was early and the harmony thing was not quite perfected.  They were clearly experimenting with harmony because it's my guess is Paul's harmony was deemed a stronger melody than John's lower part and thus, George Martin mixed Paul to be the lead even though it's John's song.  The only other song that comes to mind where the harmony became the lead vocal is Mean Mister Mustard around the 35 second mark where Paul's harmony over comes John's lead vocal.  I challenge anyone to compare There's a Place to Mean Mister Mustard ever again. 

I'm not sure why I rate this song so high but as I've said before, it's my list and I like this song.  On reflection, this is probably one of the least played Beatle songs.  I'm not sure if I've ever heard this song on Sirius.  Maybe that's one of the things I like about this: it seems to be a hidden, raw, early, unpolished, indication of things to come.  Paul's pure voice is clear at the 54 second mark and is in sharp contrast to John's raspy pine.  We have the harmonica part with lots of echo in the background.  This is not a song for the uninitiated or first time Beatle listeners: you need to have already developed a love for the charm of John and the boys.  You need to picture them in the studio or at the Cavern performing this song.  It's a prime example of a basic (dare I say mediocre) early song that exudes charm. 

 They begin to hit their stride with this performance.  Late 1964 and the confidence is shown here.  A fade-in beginning which has never been done before.  We start to see a touch of potential and disruption to come.  We have a second cliché (after A Hard Day's Night) title here.  Paul did a great job with the walking bass line.  Paul tends to write great bass lines on songs when he is not the lead writer.  The hand claps are instrumental to the feel of this song and to the tempo.  John seems to be holding back a bit on this song.  Witness his understated ad-lib at the 1:30 mark...it seems like a planned ad-lib, almost as if he could have done more but was told to cool it.  Paul's harmony is spot on and begins to reveal a brilliance not heard before in pop music.

With this song and I Feel Fine we start to see that the hit process formula has been discovered.  This song seems to come easy and is certainly flowing (due to the bass line).  The sweet harmony, the hand claps, the sexual undertone, the charm, the clever lyric, the toe-tapping and sing along quality make this an early Beatle classic.

I need to bring up the point about the Beatles singles.  I hope that everyone knows that their singles were not to appear on their albums.  Their idea was that a single was separate from an album and was meant to stand alone.  Prolific, huh?  Later in life, John would suggest that singles should be like newspapers to be distributed daily at the whim of the composer.  Their mid-60s singles seemed to have that quality.  They were rapidly produced (but never shoddy) and seemed to be an indication of where they stood at the time.  John talked about trying to write a song every day.  I think it's amazing that he had the fortitude to write, or at least try to write, a new song every day.  That's why so many of John's songs start with a simple phrase to be spoken by any one of us.  (For some reason I fast forward to his Christmas classic that starts "And so this is Christmas" to punctuate this point.  But clearly anyone of his early songs fit this trademark..."I should have known better", "I don't want to Spoil the Party", "I've got something to say that might cause you pain", "I once had a girl or should I say, she once had me", "Here I stand, head in hand", "When I was younger...", "I think I'm gonna be sad", "There are places I remember", "This happened once before", "Imagine I'm in love with you", "I've got every reason on earth to be sad" to name a few).  In fact, as I look at my favorite John songs, they mostly start with a simple, compelling phrase that begins a story of missed love, longing for love, love gone bad, or outright love.
 

 The first thing that hit me with John's vocal was the low G note he sings on the last line of each verse.  It's the lowest vocal note John ever sang and it's memorable.  He shows a great vocal range on this song.  It's hard for me to think of John Lennon as a loser in 1964.  He was on top of the world yet wrote a song like this.  This is his first attempt at bearing his soul.  Everything before this was fake in the sense that he never opened up his inner feelings.  Here, for the first time, we hear what John is all about beneath the surface...an introspective, at times humble, sometimes lonely, confused about love, and not exactly what his persona portrayed to the world.  This might be the last time we hear his harmonica like this.  It's a crying harmonica that takes us into the lead guitar solo.  

I love Paul's walking bass line during the chorus.  It kicks the song into gear and makes me tap my foot.  He sets the pace and it's very unlike anything we've heard from Paul before.  Paul's bass riff at the 1:11 mark is a fun ad lib.  Ringo's drumming is subdued until he opens up a little on the chorus and certainly on the middle lead part.  Ringo's high hat is crisp as is his snare.  We've come to expect great harmony from Paul and he does not disappoint on this song.  George seems to take his lead from "Act Naturally" in both sound and content.  The song works despite a somewhat out of place lead solo.  

So what I like about this is the vocal and the story of the song.  It's quite simple but doesn't feel contrived.  "Tears falling like rain from the sky" might sound cliche but for some reason when John says it, it sounds natural.  Rhyming frown and clown could be deadly in another song, but here it works. 

 Another charming John song with an amazing harmony...perhaps their best example of a unique early undertaking of counterpart harmony.  Either vocal could be considered the "lead".  Come to think of it, many of their songs have that same characteristic.  The vocal melody shifts back and forth and we hear two lead vocals all at once.  Genius!  I have not counted but John and Paul must have written 20 songs during 1964 all while touring and staring in a movie and releasing 2 albums.  It's almost hard to believe they could do so much in one year.  Talent shines through.

What must George Martin have been thinking?  Did he know what he had in the studio?  What must Ringo or George have been thinking?  How do these guys do it?  It certainly inspired George Harrison to get with it and start writing.  His time was to come.  Ringo was certainly in the right spot at the right time.  That's not to say he didn't contribute to the sound.  In fact he was perfect and it shows on this simple song.  Ringo's tat-tat-tat,tat fits this song perfectly and in some respects sets up each verse.  

I remember giving Beatles sheet music to my father so he could play the songs on piano.  He was always perplexed that the song started with a lead vocal melody before the chords.  At the time, having listened to the songs hundreds of times, it never struck me as awkward, as he seemed to intimate.  But looking back, music wasn't sung this way...until The Beatles.

Sidenote: There's a live performance where John introduces the song and he says this next song is on our new album...It's called "If I Fell....over".  I find it weird that they were always tried to promote their songs as being part of the new album or a new release because what person in the audience didn't know, or already own, the album?  Obviously, Brian told them to promote the albums.  Brian also put them in suits (with no collars) and instructed them to give deep and prolonged bows after ever song.  I thought that was weird too. 

Here's yet another example of how The Beatles did things "out of the box".   The intricate overlapping harmonies are truly special.  I don't remember if this song came before The Beach Boys album "Good Vibrations" but I'm going to assume it did.  I have never thought of the Beach boys as being anything close to what The Beatles were so it's safe to say that Paperback Writer brought the Beach Boys and modern music to a whole nother level.  It's remarkable that The Beatles did this song live!  

So the importance of this song is Paul breaking out and writing a song about something different than his usual songs about love.  All, I repeat, all of Paul's songs to date are about either, losing love (Yesterday, I'm Looking Through You, The Night Before), longing for love (Can't Buy Me Love), goading his love (Another Girl), fixing his love (We Can Work It Out), finding love (I've Just Seen a Face), loving his love (All My Loving, She's A Woman, And I Love Her), or falling in love (I Saw Her Standing There).  I recall hearing an interview about how he challenged himself to write about something other than love.  Well Sir Paul certainly broke out of the "love box" and came up with something unique and then enhanced it with the complex vocal arrangement.  All that is really important but what even stands out more is the aggressive nature of George's lead guitar part and the heaviness of his sound.  There is something dramatically advanced about the sound of this song.  It must be the new sound that Geoff Emerick brought to the studio.  It has a lot of echo, and Ringo's drums are heavy in a way we haven't heard in a pop song.  Paul is now playing his Rickenbacker full time now and the tone is unmistakable and peculiar to Rickenbacker basses.  However,despite me actually owning a Rickenbacker bass, I can't ever get that same sound.

The lyrics stand out...all of them do but this above all..."it's a dirty story of a dirty man, and his clinging wife doesn't understand".  Paul is now entering the John Lennon category in storytelling and I love it.  I quickly searched Google and I absolutely hate some of the suggestions that Google presents...examples:  Did The Beatles write Michelle? or Which Beatles sang Paperback Writer?...ugh.  please take me back to the sixties!

So to sum up, Paperback Writer is Paul's breakout song that hints at what he's capable of and where his writing is going.  This song is a far cry from All My Loving and Another Girl.  1966 is Paul's coming of age year with this song as well as Eleanor Rigby and Here, There, and Everywhere.      

Paul is a really great acoustic guitar player!  His playing starts to stand out on Rubber Soul and this song is a good example.  Let me add that the US version of Rubber Soul is much more cohesive than the UK version.  For those of you that don't know, Capital Records in the United States had the ability to package The Beatles albums as they wished.  It was because Capital Records realized it could be more profitable to only put 12 songs on an album where as the UK generally tried to put 14 songs on an album.  Rubber Soul was the last album that was different.  However, I firmly stand by the fact that the US version and mix of songs is far superior to the disjointed UK version.  It's the only example of Capital doing something better.  Something to keep in mind is that The Beatles, George Martin, and Brian Epstein had the final say in the sound of what they released in the UK but Capital Records often added heavy reverb to their singles.  So The Beatles were usually disappointed with the sound of their US releases pre 1965.  As it became apparent that they were superstars, only then did Capital acquiesce and give full control back to the band.  At one point in the mid 60's there's a story of George hearing the American version of a few songs and him delaying a vacation to stay in Los Angeles to 'fix' what Capital did to their songs.  But I digress...    

I've Just Seen a Face also hints at the country influence that will show up later in Paul's early solo career.  (Heart of the Country).  This song has the influence of John in that it's a story song.  It's the first song by Paul that tells a story, like John would tell.  It's remarkable that Paul tells this story in a frantic pace.  Anyone who has ever written a song will tell you that it's easier to write a slow song and, at 120 BPM, this song feels even faster because he crams so many words into each verse.

As I'm now getting to favorite songs in the 30's, it's going to be more songs by Paul and George.  John dominates my first 30 but now we gradually will see a more even distribution of favorites.

The chorus of this song has always been a bit of a disappointment to me.  It seems a bit trite to rhyme 'falling' with 'calling' in the chorus but so be it.  It works but it really doesn't make any sense.  I get the 'falling' in love part, but the 'calling me back again' is contrived and is only there because it rhymes with 'falling'.  So is she literally calling him back?  Of course not, that would just be silly.  

This song has a special meaning to me because it's the first song by The Beatles that my son expressed amazement over.  I was not even there the first time he heard it so you can imagine how thrilled I was to hear my 13 year old teenager rave about it one day out of the blue.  Thanks Matt.  (RIP)