The Beatles - A Guide for a Twit.

[Gordon Moore]

My new bestest best mate Adam has convinced me that it is high time that I sat down and listened to .... The Beatles yeaaaaaahhhh, clap clap applause.

It is rather strange isn't it how one can go through life and never have actually sat down with each of the Beatles albums in turn and yet here I am at the age of 47 and a half and I've never done that. Of course I've heard many of the Beatles tracks and I've got the blue and red compilations, but we all know that an album is different. It's hopefully put together and crafted as a whole and is a snapshot of its time.

So with some guitars and my banjo by my side I have this morning been listening and playing to Please Please Me and With The Beatles.

I have to say that I Saw Her Standing There is an excellent introduction to an album. I do have a few technical questions. Firstly who is playing what? I of course recognise the drums, but is it McCartney's bass playing that de dum dum dum dum de dum dum dum dum, with Lennon playing the chords on top. What amplification did they use, any effects? And what (if I have this correct) is Mr Harrison doing? (I am really ignorant, I know it's unforgiveable, but...). Who plays the harmonica? This is hardly ever mentioned (in my hearing) yet is an essential part of their sound.

When I listen to it (and try to play it) I'm thinking about the context in which it was released. What else was being played at the time, did it just blow everyone away with its originality or was it just an excellent example of the current genre. I think it is coming from Rock n' Roll, another genre I am woefully ignorant of. I hear Country in it as well, but not the blues? Am I really being a twit!

The tracks I really picked up on on the first album are Love me Do, Twist and Shout and I Saw Her Standing There, but I'm wondering if this is because I'm so used to them and not to the others. I have spent an hour or so trying to learn the riff to Twist and Shout, it's really hard to get a clean tone and picking. Quite a lot of the tracks seem formulaic and trite. I suppose that just reflects the style of the times - Chains for instance. It's the moments when they hit a rock riff that seems to lift them - e.g. in the ComeOn, Come On bit in Please Please Me, it's the edge they get, then it goes all wishy washy. Fun though.

Love Me Do is just brilliant. Simple chords, but what they do with them...brilliance. And that little vibrato in the harmony on Pleaeaease. I get the Dayna Effect shiver with it. And that descending chord progression on Do You Want To Know A Secret is really catching, though I'm not sure about it as a song, lot's of ideas, but some confusion?

I pick up echoes of Crowded House in There's A Place, (of course it's the other way round, but you know what I mean) This song is growing on me.

The second album I didn't find as strong, although there are some obviously good tracks, but seems more "pop" like. There are some really good ideas - Don't Bother Me is cool, but then loses it half way through. Were there a lot of pressures on them to be commercial? Or was it the usual second album pressure to come up with the goods.

I was stunned (not in a nice way!) by McCartney's Till There Was You - Wings in embryo.

I love the intro to Money...though I do have a predilection to the Flying Lizzards? version.

I'd be interested in what others might say about this. I know I could go and research on the internet, but I thought it might be interesting. As Adam said to me, how fortunate to be able to listen to the albums for the first time - he's right.

[Adam Blake]

Nice one Gordon! I'll refrain from answering all your questions in depth as I fear other Forum-ites would come and "get" me. It's Johnny playing harmonica, Ring on the drums, Macca on bass and George playing the twangly bits on guitar. Oh, and er, yes, "I Saw Her Standing There" was as tough as it got on record in Britain in February 1963.

[uiwangmike]

It's Johnny playing harmonica, Ring on the drums, Macca on bass and George playing the twangly bits on guitar.

I used to hear (and I'm sure others did) that John Lennon's harmonica intro on Love Me Do was inspired by Delbert McClinton's on Bruce Chanel's Hey Baby. In DMcC's Wikipedia entry, I find

A persistent urban legend holds that McClinton taught John Lennon to play the harmonica, resulting in the sound heard on The Beatles' hit "Love Me Do"; the two did meet, but Lennon already knew how to play the harmonica.

I'd never heard this, and of course, it does not preclude the possibility that John Lennon was influenced by hearing the record.

I was stunned (not in a nice way!) by McCartney's Till There Was You - Wings in embryo.

It was a curious choice of song - after 76 Trombones, the best known number from The Music Man. Another oddity in the Fab4's early repertoire was A Taste of Honey, which had been done by crooners for a few years. I saw the Rita Tushingham film recently, and was expecting to hear the song at some point, but it wasn't there.

[Dayna]

I've been hearing Beatles songs since I ws a little kid. My Mom & Uncle played their records & played them on the radio, since my Mom was very young when she had me. There are more songs I'd like to hear someday.

I actually like them better now that I'm older, than when I was a kid. I like the different mixtures in their music a lot.

[NormanD]

In the light of recent discussions elsewhere, I'm not sure if it's good form or not to address your questions by referring you to a book...... (where's a smiley when you need one?)

If you haven't already read it, I think "Revolution In The Head: The Beatles' Records And The Sixties" by Ian MacDonald is by far the best book on the subject. This is the only one of his music books I've read and it got me to re-evaluate my views about The Fabs, and listen to what they were doing and how they were doing it. In truth, I'd grown quite bored with them due to over-familiarity and the need I had to distance myself from the ready-made soundtrack they had become. They had become a compulsory social nostalgia if you were old enough to have lived though their heyday, and if you were a kid in primary school it was their tunes that were in the class song book.

MacDonald's book discusses every one of their songs (including the covers) and discusses what's going on, so the questions about who plays what are addressed. His analysis, and use of music theory, is detailed but understandable to the lay person. What makes the book especially involving is contained in its sub-title "....And The Sixties" as the music is shown in its social and historical context. Of course, their music was of its time - as all music must be - and The Beatles' role in contributing to social change needs to be acknowledged. Here, this contribution is not over-exaggerated, as it all too often is.

Do others here have a view on this book?

[Des]

It's essential reading for any Beatle fan of course, though some of the 'facts' in it are still disputed by some. Great fun to dip into as well.

[Gordon Moore]

You mean I've got to read something other than the one true book!!!! Oh okay then, I'll have a hunt for a second hand translation printed in the 17th century and translated from the original Fabbish.

And then there is a Hard Day's Night! Wow, what a peach of an album. It is head and shoulders above the first two. Something happened! That opening G11 chord - I looked it up :) They moved on in an amazing way. Never realised before how much they had matured. Anyone care to offer their reactions as to how they felt when it first came out? Am I right in thinking this? Told you, I'm a twit! hehehe - C'mon Charlie and Adam, since when have you cared what the others think, I care what you as an afficionado have to say - I'll read the book later. But I'm in the moment and my fingers hurt from playing the guitar today.

John's voice also seems to have further developed that gravel...

How can you distinguish Johns and George's playing. Did John just basically strum? Okay, okay, I'll get the book Norm. :) edit: ordered, £10 inc p&p Amazon - not bad.

[Adam Blake]

Far and away the best Beatles book. The only one you really need.

[Gordon Moore]

So today, after going and buying a new amp (Line6 Spider III 75Watt for those who care), I put on the next Fab album - Beatles For Sale. What the h**k was going on there then? Okay okay I'll wait for the book...

Skiffle and Rock n Roll. Great fun to play, but seriously?

I do like some of the covers though, I must be a secret rock n roller and don't even know it. Honey Don't is cool, I love the Buddy Holly song Words Of Love and even have the intro down pat now (at 70% speed that is). It is different from the tab published on the internet - don't those guys actually listen to the songs? Mind you I did have to listen to it at 25% speed for a hundred times before I got it. (I use Transcribe! if anyone is interested.)

Eight Days a Week seems to be the only Beatle's song with any depth. No reply is of course a nice song. Every Little thing is okay, but not convincing, same with What You're Doing and I'm a Loser (though one picks up what is to come in the future from this song).

Did John want to wreck his voice with the Noddy Holder intro to Mr Moonlight? One can hear the vocal cords tearing apart!

I listened to this three times today, because I couldn't decide between my three and four star rating. Three stars it was in the end, but only because not all the songs I liked were original.

And before anyone shoots me, please remember I said I was a Twit!

:)

Oh and if this forum is getting a bit "me me me" - sorry, I'm just in the zone at the moment.

[Ray the Red]

As a Beatle fan from the States, my conception of the first 6 or 7 albums is probably different from yours, thanks to Capitol’s cannibalization of them. Your With the Beatles is my Meet the Beatles, which opens with I Want To Hold Your Hand and then jumps into I Saw Her Standing There. It closes with Not a Second Time. Meet the Beatles is actually a pretty coherent album, with only one cover – Til There Was You. In one case, and I admit this is heretical, I like one of the Capitol alterations. I’ve Just Seen a Face seems more at home on Rubber Soul than on Help. Of course, Capitol was skimming off some of the songs so they could create more Beatle albums, and therefore generate more sales.

So I’m still used to the American versions, as contrived as they are. I now have the cds, which restores things to their natural order, but when I play them I’m still off-put by the song order – such is the relentlessness with which I played those Beatle albums when I was a kid in the seventies.

One thing that still bugs me – I may have forgotten the story, but I believe the 33 1/3 Rubber Soul includes a false start in I’m Looking Through You. It was eliminated on the compact disc.

[Rob Hall]

One thing that still bugs me – I may have forgotten the story, but I believe the 33 1/3 Rubber Soul includes a false start in I’m Looking Through You. It was eliminated on the compact disc.

This is from:

http://www.norwegianwood.org/beatles/di ... p/soul.htm

"I'm Looking Through You

basic recording- 10 Nov 1965
additional recording- 10,11 Nov 1965
master tape- 4 track
mono-mixed: 15 Nov 1965
stereo-mixed: 15 Nov 1965, Re-mixed for the Rubber Soul CD in 1987.

The stereo mixes fades earlier than in mono. The USA stereo "Rubber Soul" version begins with two false starts on guitar, evidently trimmed off the original UK stereo mix(1965). The CD mix (1987) moves Paul's vocal closer to the center. At 1:34 the second note of the third "blat blat" (organ?) suddenly is mixed center instead of to the right like all its other notes, on CD (1987) only"

[Adam Blake]

Now that's Beatle anoraking above and beyond! I'm impressed.
I haven't been joining here as much as I'd like to have done (yes, ok, I've been sitting on my hands) because I am aware that this is supposed to be a World Music forum but if you lot want to talk about the Beatles (as you obviously seem to) then who am I to desist?

It's fun to see your virginal impressions, Gordon. It's well acknowledged that "Beatles For Sale" was a retrograde step. The Fabs were knackered is all. They'd been on the road and recording without a break for three years straight. They were all Beatled out. But I love "No Reply" and "I'm A Loser". I think they're Grade A Beatle songs. Lennon's vocal on "Rock and Roll Music" is just superb, and Macca's vocal on "Kansas City" is almost as good. They SWING on that so well too. Best straight rock'n'roll band we ever had.

Alright, I'll shut up now.

[Ray the Red]

Adam, and to think that they were churning out a couple of albums a year, and that often their best songs were released separately as singles. I'm still amazed by that seemingly paradoxical mix of quality and productivity. Nothing against U2, who may be the biggest bad today, but they've released two albums of new songs in this decade. In seven years the Beatles practically squeezed in their entire career.

[Rob Hall]

It was a different world entirely back then.

[Gordon Moore]

Help! What a storming return to the premiership. What a peach of an album. Almost every song is superbly crafted, and some are so playable on the guitar even by me, not of course recognisably :(

I keep playing it over and over.

Act Naturally? Oh well! However, I really like: You Like me Too Much and Tell Me What You See is really interesting with the melody. I sensed Simon & Garfunkle on: I've Just Seen aFace, but they came later I think?

And a great storming ending to rock n roll with Dizzie Miss Lizzie

Wonderful