The Beatles Appreciation Thread

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My favorite Beatles book is The Complete Recording Sessions, which isn't a biography but goes through the genesis of every song in tremendous detail.

The same author, Mark Lewisohn, is in the midst of creating the definitive Beatles biography called All These Years, in three parts, but only the first, Tune In, has been released. I haven't read it yet, but apparently that volume covers their childhood years up to the brink of British Beatlemania. I've heard it's quite exhaustive (and it must be at over 900 pages), so I've been a bit hesitant to try it out. I might wait until the second volume comes out, whenever that happens.
 
gump said:
I'm coming late to this as I didn’t have a chance to watch the series until this weekend. This was so good, I kind of got emotional when it ended. We might neve ever get a similar look at such a significant band (let alone the greatest band of all time) at such a pivotal time. It was thrilling. I'm not sure what Peter Jackson and co. did to make this film look as good as it did, but it was awesome to get such pristine footage of the band. I don’t have much to add beyond what others have already said, but some general thoughts:

1. For all their inability to communicate properly with words at this point, their musical understanding remained unparalleled. From those moments when one of them starts with a riff or underdeveloped musical idea and the others just seamlessly join in (Get Back being the best example), to the dozens and dozens of time when John or Paul just basically start playing an old cover and they all just jump in. It’s quite astonishing to see it happening as it does. Paul and John, in particular, have such a deep musical understanding with each other, they can convey entire sentences with one quick look.

2. A related point: their repertoire is just incredible. It seems as though they can easily play through hundreds of songs on the spot. Laz alluded to how their Hamburg days made them truly professionals, and it’s absolutely true.

3. I was surprised that how many moments of pure joy there were in these sessions. All the old covers. The jokes. The humorous renditions of many of their songs. John and Paul singing Two of Us without opening their mouth. George is the only one who is generally more reserved here, but you can see him enjoying himself several times.

4. It’s so hard not to get into “what ifs” after watching this. The series has this underlying undertone of a Greek tragedy almost: small decisions that take them to the ending we know, but that could have been avoided in an alternate reality. One of these “what ifs” for me is the insane schedule they had at that time. Like, at one point they say that “it has been more than 6 months since we released a single”. LOL. They would have benefitted from Bono’s counsel. I know that the recording industry was quite different then, but they basically just needed more time, I think - solo albums would have helped, but it’s just too intense to spend that much time with other people. They couldn’t recharge between albums.

5. The exasperating character for me was not Paul, contrary to my expectations. He was annoying at times, and lacked the desire or ability to communicate better with George, but you can see it comes from a good place, and that he truly cared about the band. I think joyful is on point when she said that it’s hard to be a musical genius and know that you generally have the right instinct… But the true villain here was Lindsay-Hogg. What an utterly awful, casually racists dude (“we’ll fill that arena with 2,000 Arabs”). The greatest band in the world is disintegrating in front of you and all you can think about is about your stupid idea of taking them to a coliseum in Tripoli, or what kind of film they will make? And then he comes up with THAT film? Fuck that guy.

6. This series is worth it for the Get Back inception scene alone. It gave me chills, really. I can’t say it better than the New Yorker review, so here it goes:



Really great stuff. It made me wish to have more of this types of films. Imagine getting something like this for the Achtung Baby sessions.

A question for the Beatles specialists here: what’s the best Beatles book to read? I have seen conflicting suggestions, and would appreciate some ideas to remain in this world a bit longer.
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Wait, what? Referring to people who speak Arabic living in Tripoli as "Arabs" is racist? It was an incredibly dumb idea but racist? Enjoyed the rest of your post but this had me scratching my head.
 
ImOuttaControl said:
Wait, what? Referring to people who speak Arabic living in Tripoli as "Arabs" is racist? It was an incredibly dumb idea but racist? Enjoyed the rest of your post but this had me scratching my head.
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the vast majority of people who live in Tripoli (in 1969 and now) aren't Arabs. they're Libyans by nationality and primarily Berber in terms of ethnicity. so the "2000 Arabs" line might not be racist per se, but it's undoubtedly extremely ignorant. it's somewhat along the lines of saying you're going to hold a concert in Washington DC and fill the stands with thousands of Anglo-Saxons.

i personally found lindsay-hogg's bit about doing the concert at a children's hospital "but not one for really sick kids" to be far more problematic.
 
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DaveC said:
the vast majority of people who live in Tripoli (in 1969 and now) aren't Arabs. they're Libyans by nationality and primarily Berber in terms of ethnicity. so the "2000 Arabs" line might not be racist per se, but it's undoubtedly extremely ignorant. it's somewhat along the lines of saying you're going to hold a concert in Washington DC and fill the stands with thousands of Anglo-Saxons.

i personally found lindsay-hogg's bit about doing the concert at a children's hospital "but not one for really sick kids" to be far more problematic.
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Yes his ideas all-around were just stupid. I'd forgotten about the children's hospital! According to a quick search though, Arabic is the official language of Lybia and is also the majority ethnic group wirh various forms of Berber are minority vernacular. Point being I don't see the comment as racist.
 
Surely you understand that in that context his reference to “2000 Arabs” was pejorative, with an undertone of exoticism that matched, in his view, the ambiance of an open air amphitheater in a faraway land. And that there is a history of white people looking at Arabs as exotic folk, as in, say, Lawrence of Arabia? Why not say simply 2000 people?
 
help! is an incredible album, but one of the worst musical decisions the beatles (or whoever was responsible) ever made has to be putting dizzy miss lizzy at the end and not closing the album with yesterday.

by far the most jarring transition in their whole catalogue :huh:
 
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Dizzie Miss Lizzie rules but almost any other spot on the album would have made more sense for it.
 
Those early albums weren't necessarily known for their sequencing. I think A Hard Day's Night is better than Help! but even that one ends with I'll Be Back and feels like there should be another song after it.
 
I've said something along these lines before, but if I could ask Paul McCartney anything, I'd want to know where the singles and b-sides would best fit on the respective albums they were pulled from, so I could make at least partially-authentic custom playlists, with the knowledge that Lennon's input wouldn't be available (though I'm not sure who tended to decide the order).

It actually pains me to think of how these great albums could have been even better, because most of the time, those non-album tracks are among the sessions' best songs.
 
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^^^ Can't believe this one-two pun(ch) wasn't acknowledged. :sad:


Anyway, has anyone been digging into the Revolver Super Deluxe set? I couldn't afford this one, will hopefully pick up a used copy in the future. In the meantime, I've "found" it elsewhere. Stereo mix sounded great, wondering if there's any improvement on the Mono mix from 2009. But next I'm checking out the session outtakes, which I've heard great things about.
 
I just got the two disc set, as that includes some cool takes, and I can check out the rest online.

I’ve been waiting 23 years for Revolver to be remixed, when we first got a taste of how it could be with the Yellow Submarine release. It’s been a long time coming.

And yeah, it sounds fantastic. Cleaning up the stereo separation and adding overall clarity to the vocals - quite amazing.

I still have to go through the outtakes.
 
my head is filled with things to say

i feel hung up and i don't know why

i don't mind

i could wait forever, i've got time
 
So, how are we feeling about this upcoming new, "last" Beatles song "Now and Then"?

As I understand it, it's John's vocal from 1978(separated from the original piano using AI...this is apparently why this song didn't get done with "Real Love" and "Free As A Bird" for the anthologies, because they couldn't separate John's vocal from the piano back then), George's guitar from the anthology sessions, and Paul/Ringo's parts are new(I think?).

Both John and George's families have approved and are promoting it.
 
namkcuR said:
So, how are we feeling about this upcoming new, "last" Beatles song "Now and Then"?



As I understand it, it's John's vocal from 1978(separated from the original piano using AI...this is apparently why this song didn't get done with "Real Love" and "Free As A Bird" for the anthologies, because they couldn't separate John's vocal from the piano back then), George's guitar from the anthology sessions, and Paul/Ringo's parts are new(I think?).



Both John and George's families have approved and are promoting it.
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As long as everyone is on board, I have no issues at all
 
namkcuR said:
As I understand it, it's John's vocal from 1978(separated from the original piano using AI...this is apparently why this song didn't get done with "Real Love" and "Free As A Bird" for the anthologies, because they couldn't separate John's vocal from the piano back then), George's guitar from the anthology sessions, and Paul/Ringo's parts are new(I think?).
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They also had trouble with the tape because of a loud hum that was compromising the sound, which the other tracks didn’t have. Eventually they got frustrated with doing more on it and the song was never completed.

Per the official announcement, it also sounds like Paul redid the piano part.

https://www.thebeatles.com/announcement

In 2022, Paul and Ringo set about completing the song. Besides John’s vocal, “Now And Then” includes electric and acoustic guitar recorded in 1995 by George, Ringo’s new drum part, and bass, guitar and piano from Paul, which matches John’s original playing. Paul added a slide guitar solo inspired by George; he and Ringo also contributed backing vocals to the chorus.

In Los Angeles, Paul oversaw a Capitol Studios recording session for the song’s wistful, quintessentially Beatles string arrangement, written by Giles Martin, Paul and Ben Foster. Paul and Giles also added one last, wonderfully subtle touch: backing vocals from the original recordings of “Here, There And Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Because,” woven into the new song using the techniques perfected during the making of the LOVE show and album. The finished track was produced by Paul and Giles, and mixed by Spike Stent.

I’ve heard John’s demo before, but will be very interested to hear how they tie all these parts together. I don’t know if it’ll be an epic result. But if it’s along the lines of the Anthology tracks, I’ll probably be a happy camper, since I always thought those were solid considering.
 
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