Tom Hartley

Written by: Lennon-McCartney Recorded: 30 May; 6, 10, 11, 20, 21 June 1968 Producers: George Martin, John Lennon Engineer: Geoff Emerick Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US) Availabl...

Wild Honey Pie is one of a few fragments and (charitably) “experiments” found on the White Album that escaped the Beatles’ normally rigorous quality control. A symptom of the way, by 1968, they were increasingly working independently of one another and producer George Martin.

To create something really good you cannot afford to censor your ideas before they take shape. Normally the band and their producer worked together, amazingly quickly, to select and shape the very best of their ideas, often improving them beyond recognition. That didn't happen with Wild Honey Pie.

While Wild Honey Pie was Paul McCartney’s independent work, the next track (my second least favourite - according to the algorithm), was largely John Lennon’s...

212: Revolution #9. Another experimental piece from the White Album. Not so much a song but more of a sound collage. www.beatlesbible.com

Revolution 9

Written by: Starkey Recorded: 5, 6 June, 12, 22 July 1968 Producer: George Martin Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Ken Scott Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US) Available on: The Beatles (...

Maybe it really is a purposeful work of art connecting with Yoko Ono’s visual work and avant garde composers like Stockhausen, but if so Revolution #9 doesn’t really connect with me, although I admit it does have a unique, dark and unsettling texture...

Lennon perhaps still thought he had to prove that the Beatles were not the loveable mop-top teen idols they had been taken for. Fine: Revolution #9 is the very opposite of pop and as accessible as James Joyce - we’ve got the message!

However, I think the real genius of the Beatles was the way they redefined popular music. And Revolution #9 is a step too far from “popular” and “music” for me.

As the Beatles started to work independently of one another during 1968 I wonder if there was a bit of a passive-aggressive “F*ck You” in the decision to include them on the album? ‘If you're going to insist on "Revolution #9" then I'll insist on “Wild Honey Pie”’ (and so on)?

211 Don’t Pass Me By is unusual in being written by Ringo (there is only one other Starkey song in my list, plus a few more where he is credited as co-writer or arranger).

It’s another song on the White Album that IMO would not have made it past quality control in the earlier stages of the Beatles career. It's part of a bigger pattern with the album and maybe the inclusion of this one helps shed light on that bigger picture.

Why don't I like it? For me, Don't Pass Me By has a dull melody, poor lyrics and an unpleasant lo-fi sound. I particularly dislike the modulation (Leslie speaker?) on the piano. Ringo is playing piano and Paul is playing drums. www.beatlesbible.com

Don’t Pass Me By

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?

Don't Pass Me By is not a great song, but I can kind of understand why it made it onto the album - this is a bit speculative, but I guess Beatles supernerds have already thought about it, and maybe I picked it up from some book or other (I have read a lot of Beatles books over the years) ...

Having watched Get Back it’s obvious that Ringo played a central role in the band’s success and creativity, well beyond his brilliant drumming and distinctive singing. He has a unique warmth, humour and patient gravitas and a kind of inspirational presence.

I also sense (maybe wrongly) that his almost relentless optimism is a big part of whatever alchemy drove the Beatles to keep on improving year after year.

In Get Back you can really feel him defusing the tensions and pulling everything together. It’s fascinating and not coincidental, in my view, that his musical role as drummer parallels his role in the Beatles' intense friendship.

However, at some stage during the recording of the White Album he’d had enough of defusing those tensions and left the band between the middle of August and the beginning of September 1968.

Don’t Pass Me By had been recorded before this in July, but you can well imagine that when the time came to pick songs for the album's release in November, no one would have had the heart to tell Ringo that his song really belonged on the cutting room floor.

... especially given the vital role he played in keeping the band together. The inclusion of his song would help show how much he was valued, and through royalties it might not have been purely symbolic.

Thank God he did come back because we’d have missed out on some truly great Beatles’ music if he hadn't. In the next set of posts I'll consider one more song that might have been omitted from a tighter White Album, on why they weren't omitted and why, as a whole, the album sounds so bleak to me.

The next song is the last in a run of four from the White Album at the bottom of my list. The ranking system I used is based on several ratings for each song combined in a complicated way. I fiddled about with the scheme a bit and was never really happy with the ordering.

In the end you can’t rationally order something that is multidimensional. Songs have lots of different qualities and they can be good or bad for different reasons. What seems important at one moment might seem unimportant in another context...

Ranking songs or any kind of art is not just difficult, it’s crazy. The whole point is to make something unique and original. To rank them is to miss that point...

Still it’s useful to deal with things one at a time and the ordering creates a bit of mystery and tension. Which brings us to...

210 Why Don’t We Do It In The Road. This is a short and simple song that seems promising but unfinished. www.beatlesbible.com [It's worth reading the @beatlesbible.bsky.social entries for each song: lots of interesting quotes and background as well as linking to the recordings.]

Written by: Lennon-McCartney Recorded: 9, 10 October 1968 Producer: Paul McCartney Engineer: Ken Townsend Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US) Available on: The Beatles (White Album)...

The Analogues - The Beatles' White Album (Full Performance)

Like the preceding tracks in this run of four from the White Album it is the result of the Beatles working separately on individual, fragmented ideas.

This one is Paul McCartney’s with Ringo contributing extra drums, but no involvement from John or George who were working on other tracks at the same time.

Coming in at less than 2 minutes, it has only a simple lyric “Why don’t we do it in the road? No one will be watching us, why don’t we do it in the road?”

Inspired by seeing monkeys’ uncomplicated mating, the song is deliberately unsophisticated but it has a certain energy.

Maybe it’s just me but it seems to share DNA with the much stronger Helter Skelter which had been recorded a little earlier and was fleshed out as a proper song but has a similar direction.

I’ve picked 4 songs in a row from the White Album, and even taking into account the quirks of my ranking system and the sheer craziness of attempting to rank art at all, I can’t deny that it is far from my favourite Beatles album. And yet it is very popular, so maybe I am wrong.

To me the album feels bleak and much less coherent than either their earlier work, or their swansong, Abbey Road.

Grief: Their manager Brian Epstein had died suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving them rudderless. Epstein had been a trusted friend and the core of the Beatles very exclusive inner circle.

He had taken care of business matters allowing the Beatles to focus on the music and he had played a critical part in their rise to fame. But he had been increasingly marginalized as the Beatles stopped performing live and focussed on increasingly elaborate approaches to recording.

Lennon’s mental crisis: “I’m so tired, I haven’t slept a wink”, “I need a fix cause I’m going down”, “I feel so suicidal”. Lennon looked to be in a psychological turmoil, embarking on an overwhelmingly intense relationship with Yoko Ono.

This relationship overshadowed his partnership with Paul and over the course of the next few years would abandon his family, demolish his Beatles persona and then gradually rebuild a new identity around her.

By 1970 he wrote explicitly (in the song God): “I don't believe in the Beatles I just believe in me, Yoko, and me, and that's reality. The dream is over.” That process began in 1968 during the recording of the White Album.

Tension: Ono started coming to recording sessions, stoking tensions with the other band members who had hitherto worked as an exceptionally tight-knit and exclusive team.

Musically they still had plenty of ideas, but they were often working separately and going in different directions. Ideas were incomplete and unfinished.

Given that the mild-mannered Ringo, George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick had all left at different times during the sessions, it sounds as if the studio may have become a rather toxic workplace.

Fragmentation: The Beatles experimental approach to recording probably peaked in 1967 with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band which had more complex arrangements, orchestral instrumentation and effects and more overdubbing than any previous album.

Whereas their earliest records had essentially used the 50s approach of recording a performance that took place in a single take, the Beatles and their producer and engineers were pioneering a new techniques.

This approach meant that the four band members were not always involved in every song, and when they were, they might not play concurrently but adding layered overdubs. Because they were not always working together the Beatles were starting to go in different directions musically.

Paul enjoyed working in the studio and the process of bringing complex productions from imagination to life. He was increasingly introducing classical and music hall influences including new instruments.

The other Beatles, especially John and George did not enjoy the artificiality of the approach and tended to prefer a more stripped down sound, with in Lennon’s case more focus on the words and rhythm, and less on melody and sonics.

Harrison was writing strong songs but struggling to get Lennon and McCartney to take his contributions seriously. These artistic differences were starting to undermine the band’s previously rock solid unity.

Spiritual dissatisfaction and division: they had been to study meditation in India, and had very different and not wholly positive experiences at the ashram. Paul and Ringo were unimpressed and left early.

Lennon returned disillusioned with Harrison when he began to suspect that the Maharishi was not the saintly figure he had seemed. Harrison had reservations but had also been inspired.

Drugs: the Beatles had taken a fair amount of acid in the previous years, but John and Yoko had started using heroin at the time the White Album was being recorded.

Divorce and break-ups: Lennon was divorcing his wife, Cynthia, and McCartney had split from his long term girlfriend on the eve of their engagement, also in 1968.

Overall, the White Album is a brilliant album but one that is imbued with the sound of grief, divorce and tension.

I think you can hear it; there’s a sort of cold, dry, flat tone and texture that affects most of the songs and there are a lot of discordant, jarring sounds (think of the outro to Glass Onion or the intro to Wild Honey Pie or the whole of Revolution #9).

Despite lots of fantastic songs, there’s always going to be something bleak about it for me.

If you like the White Album, you may like this by The Analogues who play the whole album live, note for note. Sacrilege, I know, but IMO this live format brings out some of the energy that is slightly missing from the original. www.youtube.com

YouTube video by Bleu Raven

Written by: Trad arr. Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey Recorded: 24 January 1969 Engineer: Glyn Johns Released: 8 May 1970 (UK), 18 May 1970 (US) Available on: Let It Be John Lennon Anthology Personn...

... Got a bit carried away there. Now where was I?

209: Maggie Mae. www.beatlesbible.com

Maggie Mae

Maggie May (folk song) - Wikipedia

Part of the Get Back/Let It Be project and included on the original Let It Be album, Maggie Mae is best thought of as a short studio out take and not a finished Beatles song IMO...

Because of the Get Back documentary (and its predecessor Let It Be) we now know quite a bit about the circumstances under which it was recorded, and not just in terms of facts - we can see the unvarnished emotional atmosphere and the way the Beatles were working together...

... Albeit through a particular editorial lens. The footage (shot just a few months after completion of the White Album), substantiates the themes that likely drove the fragmentary, bare bones approach apparent in the earlier double album.

1) the Beatles are trying to Get Back to a simpler less elaborate type of recording, and to recapture the more spontaneous way they worked in their early days.

2) there are a lot of tensions between members of the band

3) they put themselves under pressure with a tight deadline (even though they may not have needed to)

4) they struggled to come up with songs of the quality they were looking for (although John & Paul keep overlooking the possibility that George has quite a few good songs)

5) to defuse tension, to procrastinate and to set up a creative atmosphere they often break into rock and roll covers, oldies from their own catalogue and snippets of TV themes etc. for a few bars.

6) Maggie Mae was one of these along with a few other bits included on the Let It Be album, which was eventually produced without full supervision and quality control, after the Beatles had more or less split up.

For all that it is quite a nice song, a tuneful rendition of an old folk song which has apparently been part of the repertoire of the Quarrymen (the school band that Lennon started)...

It's nice to hear them singing in scouse accents and about Lime Street and Liverpool. In the biopic Nowhere Boy, Lennon's mum Julia plays it to him, and I don't know if that's a true story but it's a nice image. en.wikipedia.org

Written by: Lennon-McCartney Recorded: 11, 12, 30 September; 3, 23 October 1963 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Norman Smith Released: 22 November 1963 (UK), 20 January 1964 (US) Available on: With ...

During Let It Be it was George Harrison who walked out (following Ringo, George Martin and Geoff Emerick in the previous project). He was very serious and had to be sweet talked back into the band.

208: I Wanna Be Your Man. www.beatlesbible.com

I Wanna Be Your Man

I Wanna Be Your Man - Wikipedia

In their early days as a live act in Liverpool and Hamburg the Beatles had alternated the lead vocals between John, Paul and George fairly systematically. I guess this made sense as they would play long and energetic shows. Fans had their favourite Beatle, who they wanted to see in the "spotlight".

When Ringo joined the band he would also take a slot from time to time, building on the "Starr-time" segment he had developed in his previous group Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Even then he had been a charismatic live performer who added far more than the typical anonymous drummer.

When they later began making albums, the Beatles continued with the rotation of lead vocals, and this would have been pretty distinctive at a time when most bands had a single lead singer and bands were often named "X and the Ys".

(The Beatles also made more use of backing vocals in the style of American girl bands - IMO the combination of 4 people playing and with 3-4 also singing was a probably big part of their early appeal).

Anyway, the Beatles wanted to make sure their albums and setlists included songs for Ringo, and I Wanna Be Your Man was one of the first originals written for this purpose.

Lennon was fairly disparaging about the song, describing it (in 1980) as "a throwaway". But I take his comments with a pinch of salt because he often contradicts himself and is dismissive about earlier work.

People say Ringo is not the greatest singer, and needed songs (covers or originals) where the melody was simple and within a narrow range. IMO he sings with a lot of character and commitment and some of his songs are highlights for me (e.g., Boys, With A Little Help From My Friends).

That's not the case with I Wanna Be Your Man, where maybe they went too far with flattening out the melody! Still I imagine hearing him sing it live from behind the drums would have been pretty amazing.

It's not the strongest Beatles song, but they thought it was good enough for the Rolling Stones who recorded and released it first. They had a number 12 UK hit with it. It was the first song ever on Top of the Pops. en.wikipedia.org

Written by: Perkins Recorded: 26 October 1964 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Norman Smith Released: 4 December 1964 (UK), 15 December 1964 (US) Available on: Beatles For Sale Live At The BBC On Air...

This gives a yardstick to measure the weaker Lennon-McCartney songs - even songs that they considered disposable could be hits for other artists. So even being 208/213 in my (rather bizarre) ranking system would still have put them around the top 20 at the time.

207: Honey Don’t. www.beatlesbible.com This is another Ringo track, and a cover of a Carl Perkins song from (IMO) the Beatles' weakest pop era album Beatles For Sale.

Honey Don’t

Carl Perkins, George Harrison, Eric Clapton - Medley - 9/9/1985 - Capitol Theatre (Official)

"Weak" being very much a relative term for Beatles albums - they'd have knocked most other artists into a cocked hat, of course.

Ringo was a fan of country music, so Honey Don't was a good fit for him. George Harrison was also a fan of Carl Perkins and was influenced by his guitar playing, perhaps as a result the Beatles covered several of his songs.

Later in life they George and Carl Perkins became friends, and you can see Perkins with George, Ringo, Eric Clapton, Dave Edmunds and others in this YouTube video from an 80s TV show. www.youtube.com Harrison looks slightly awed, I think?

YouTube video by Carl Perkins on MV

Honey Don't (Live At The BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 3rd September, 1963)

The original Honey Don't was an early rockabilly hit recorded at Sun Records (on the B-side of Perkins’ more famous Blue Suede Shoes).

The Beatles would have most likely known it from their teens. Certainly it had been part of their Cavern set in the early sixties, although in those days Lennon sang it. (You can hear his version in this track, from the Beatles at the BBC: www.youtube.com)

YouTube video by The Beatles - Topic

Written by: Perkins Recorded: 1 June 1964 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Norman Smith Released: 19 June 1964 (UK), 20 July 1964 (US) Available on: Past Masters Live At The BBC Personnel Ringo Starr...

In my view, the song (and the official release with Ringo's lead vocal) doesn’t have the strengths typical of the Beatles, although no doubt it would have been an above average album track when compared to other contemporary bands.

For a Beatles record, Ringo’s lead vocal is a bit underwhelming and the melody and lyrics are not in the same league as most of their original songs.

Looking at the track listing for Beatles For Sale it seems as if maybe the Beatles were rushing out songs from their well-practiced live repertoire to fill space on the album.

This came in a natural dip in their songwriting between A Hard Day’s Night and Help! movie soundtracks each packed with innovative originals.

The Beatles were working flat out touring, recording and trying to service their burgeoning global fame having broken through in America.

They were clearly under pressure to produce more recordings even if it meant going backwards. At least that's my interpretation.

206: Matchbox. www.beatlesbible.com

Matchbox

Episode 51: “Matchbox” by Carl Perkins

Like Honey Don’t, Matchbox is a cover of a Carl Perkins song which became part of the Beatles Cavern set in the early 60s.

According to the @beatlesbible.com page it was originally sung by Pete Best, before John Lennon took it over after Best’s sacking. On the recorded version the lead vocal was again taken by Ringo. For me it’s a stronger song and a stronger performance than Honey Don’t.

The original itself has an interesting backstory that is covered in @andrewhickey.500songs.com’s podcast: 500songs.com

Episode fifty-one of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Matchbox” by Carl Perkins, and at the session that turned into the historic Million Dollar Quartet jam sessi…

500songs.com

I think I first heard the song on the Beatles Rock’n’Roll Music compilation album - a post-Beatles hotch-potch, but I think it was cheaper than the Red and Blue albums when I was a teenager. It was originally released on the 4 track Long Tall Sally EP in 1964.

My impression is that the Beatles EPs and singles did not survive the sixties as often as their albums, and so these tracks have tended, in my lifetime, only to be heard in the context of compilation collections.

Growing up I did access to some of my parents’ original LPs and a kind Canadian neighbour once gave me some of her Capitol albums.

Part of the fascination with the Beatles for me is seeing how they evolved over time. This is very clear in the UK albums and less clear in the singles, EPs and US releases, as they tend to be encountered out of sequence and the way the Beatles reserve a different kind of song for singles v LPs.

205: You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) This is a very unusual track and hard to place. Listening to it again I didn’t know what to make of it, and I decided, for a challenge, to write my initial impression before reading the Beatles Bible article or looking it up Wikipedia.

It’s possible these thoughts will have been influenced by some of the many Beatles books I’ve read, so they may not be entirely original...

You Know My Name was the B-side to the Let It Be single. Many bands in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up put inferior, throwaway material, but the Beatles took a generally took different approach and a Beatles B-side is generally to be taken seriously.

However, You Know My Name sounds like a novelty or comedy record. It is quite intentional as a record (unlike some of the “outtake” type material Maggie Mae, or half finished fragments like “Wild Honey Pie”).

It has been properly produced and has a complex arrangement with lots of extra instrumentation. Each section of the song takes a different approach, and the verses are sung in comedy voices.

The initial bars of the intro with piano, drums and bass really sound like something from the Magical Mystery Tour period (for example Baby You’re A Rich Man) and the opening section sounds a bit like a piano-led Beatles record with extra shouting backing vocals.

This then segues into a cabaret themed section with bongos, cocktail bar sounds and a distinctive boomy mock-crooner vocal.

The next section is camp reminiscent of the Round The Horne or perhaps the Goon Show. en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Julian and Sandy - Wikipedia

YouTube video by analogmoose

The song ends with an indecipherable mumbling jazz club verse, introducing vibrophone and sax. The vocal is like a premonition of Reeves and Mortimer crossed with Paul Whitehouse’s “Very, very drunk” character from the Fast Show. www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

Fast Show - Drunk Guy

You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)

The lyrics, such as they are, sound like a joke, albeit an in-joke. Perhaps that is all it is, or perhaps there is some kind of coded message?

This I think would have been one of the Beatles last releases at a time where they were arguing and there were various legal disputes building up, so perhaps it had something to do with that?

George Martin had previously produced comedy records and the Beatles enjoyed things like the Goons and surreal writing, so perhaps it was some kind of tribute to that type of comedy... I will now see if I can find out more and update the thread...

Here is the Beatles Bible page for You Know My Name (Look Up The Number): www.beatlesbible.com

Written by: Lennon-McCartney Recorded: 17 May; 7, 8 June 1967; 30 April 1969 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Geoff Emerick Released: 6 March 1970 (UK), 11 March 1970 (US) Available on: Past Masters ...

Written by: Lennon-McCartney Recorded: 15 August 1968 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Ken Scott Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US) Available on: The Beatles (White Album) Antholo...

Quite interesting reading, and doesn't reveal much in the way of hidden depths - the Beatles had a lot of fun recording it. The missing piece of the jigsaw is that it was recorded quite a while before Let It Be, in 1967 just after finishing Sgt Pepper. The Beatles were looking for new directions.

So that explains the sound which is more Magical Mystery Tour than Let It Be. It seems plausible that it was used as a B-side because the Beatles were not working together and had nothing better or more recent when that single was released around the time of their break up.

204: Rocky Racoon. www.beatlesbible.com

Rocky Raccoon

Written by: Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey Recorded: 26, 28, 29 January 1969 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Glyn Johns Released: 8 May 1970 (UK), 18 May 1970 (US) Available on: Let It Be Personn...

Rocky Racoon is another sort of comedy song/pastiche type of thing and from the White Album. It's a fully developed song - not a fragment. It has some interesting ideas and paints a vivid picture of characters in a Western saloon.

Not my cup of tea, really, but as I get older I increasingly realize that Paul McCartney (who wrote this) is a creative genius in his own right. He has musical and artistic ideas pouring out of him all the time.

Perhaps more than any other Beatle he was able to take the bones of a promising idea and flesh it out completely. Innovative arrangement, production, album cover etc.

To achieve this during the Beatle years he would work up what seemed his most promising ideas, sometimes facing opposition from other Beatles (although he had an ally in George Martin). He had a pretty good track record of creativity (!).

Many of the Beatles peak moments, where they did something truly original and ground breaking can be traced back to McCartney's ideas, often sharpened, edited through the tension with Lennon. Sometimes the veto of the others was also important in creating something more coherent and organic.

Lennon also had some fantastic ideas, but these did not always flow so easily. Perhaps his internal critic was more active, possibly with good reason. When his ideas did meet the threshold they could often be quite honest, revealing and self-critical.

McCartney's songs, by contrast, generally shy away from anything too frank or revealing, although sometimes you sense there is a coded message to or about himself. [There are a couple of possible exceptions, but I think the pattern holds]

Instead he often writes about third person characters and imaginative stories. Eleanor Rigby, She's Leaving Home, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Lovely Rita and so on. In doing so he's keeping himself and his own feelings at a distance.

I think he does this mainly in the service of the musical ideas (melodies, arrangements, sounds); to get these ideas out, finished without too much internal editing.

The other Beatles didn't always like these songs, and I admit that they are hit and miss for me. Rocky Racoon is a miss, because it doesn't sit coherently with the rest of the album and because it's a little too lacking in emotion...

Whereas She's Leaving Home and Eleanor Rigby (both recorded without the other Beatles) tap into universal feelings. They are among McCartney's best lyrics, as well as helping to define the overall tone of their respective albums.

I also think the tension between McCartney's tendency to write feel-good, pastiche and musical hall flavoured songs helped shape Lennon and Harrison's musical instincts allowing them to go beyond the genres they knew as teenagers and as they in turn exerted their influence on McCartney.

So if, like me, you are not keen on McCartney's more quirky fiction/pastiche songs like Rocky Racoon, it's worth reflecting that if he had somehow filtered them out we may also have missed out on She's Leaving Home, Eleanor Rigby and much of the genre-busting invention of the later albums.

203: Dig It. www.beatlesbible.com Dig it is a fragment of a longer jam that the Beatles worked on during the Let It Be sessions (later featured in the Get Back documentary).

Dig It

The Beatles - George Harrison Quits (January 10, 1969)

They run through it a few times, and the various jams were extended to up to 15 minutes, so it seems as if maybe it was considered as something worth developing further for the project.

In the context of the documentary it comes at an interesting point. The Beatles had had a fairly torrid time over the preceding weeks, beginning the project at Shepperton Studios, a huge, bare and cold room that was not conducive to creativity.

Lennon had been very distant and disengaged, and seemed completely stoned at times.

Watching the footage there is a building tension which finally explodes when George Harrison decides to quit the band. Lennon immediately and cruelly responds - “Let’s get in Eric [Clapton].” Appalling.

It is quite troubling to see the response of the other band members - a kind of chaotic out of control jam session heavily featuring Yoko Ono who, to my eye, looks triumphant at the turn of events. youtu.be

YouTube video by AdamBound

youtu.be

In the days that follow there is a very British passive-aggressive family breakdown vibe. McCartney seems deeply troubled by Lennon’s apparent disintegration.

Eventually the Beatles persuade George to return to the project, but in a more comfortable environment which they could control - the Apple Studios in Savile Row.

After a few days Billy Preston joins the sessions (invited by Harrison) and the addition of an enthusiastic outsider seems to bring out the best in the Beatles, lifting their spirits.

Preston was a brilliant keyboard player whose sound perfectly complemented the Beatles, adding another dimension whenever he played with them.

It is noticeable in the documentary that at this stage Lennon becomes more and more involved in the process, and the mood lightens further a few days later when Paul’s girlfriend Linda visits the studio with her daughter Heather.

In the documentary Heather’s presence is another factor in puncturing the tension, and the cloud hanging over the proceedings finally seems to disperse. This coincides with the first attempts at the Dig It jam - a section of which is included on the official Let It Be album.

I think it is the sound of the Beatles working on reconciliation, involving George and encouraging Lennon to participate more fully.

The track is unusual in that it is credited to all four Beatles (although not Preston, whose organ part seems pretty central).

202. Honey Pie. www.beatlesbible.com Having listened again carefully, and after all I said about Rocky Racoon, I feel a bit churlish having ranked this as low as 202.

Honey Pie

Written by: Lennon-McCartney Recorded: 1, 2, 4 October 1968 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Barry Sheffield Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US) Available on: The Beatles (White Al...

23 days until Macca Silly Love Songs You have to admit, responding to all the critics that say you write too many silly love songs by having a huge number 1 hit called Silly Love Songs that asks the question "what's wrong with silly love songs?" is a hell of a flex. youtu.be/ap87QgZKTNw?...

On re-listening it is a charming pastiche, and George Martin’s woodwind band arrangement seems really authentic. Everything has been done carefully, and it sounds as if the Beatles had fun with it.

This is another light-hearted Paul McCartney song which, in this case, vividly conjures up the era of Gracie Fields and Hollywood silent movies.

I was sure I had remembered a touch of a Noel Coward impression in it, but I couldn’t pick it up this time around.

It’s amazing that this is on the same album as Helter Skelter and Blackbird.

This is a matter of taste, but the only reason it is not ranked more highly is that for me a pastiche necessarily feels a bit “inauthentic”, and that in the context of the album it tends to dilute the effect of the more powerful or thoughtful songs.

For a once-in-a-generation bona fide musical genius McCartney has come in for a lot of unfair criticism from people who could not create anything a thousandth as good in a lifetime as he might do in an afternoon. It always drives me nuts. And here am I doing the same thing.

Thankfully he had the perfect comeback, as pointed out here by @paulgcornish.bsky.social: bsky.app

Paul Cornish

@paulgcornish.bsky.social

201: It's All Too Much I think I misjudged this one when putting the ranking together. Listening to it again, it has a lot going for it: it's sonically inventive with a strong distorted lead guitar sound which is more prominent than in other Beatles tracks and a driving, pounding rhythm section.

Musically, it sounds a bit like Harrison's answer to Tomorrow Never Knows or Strawberry Fields. Before I look at the Beatles Bible and Wikipedia, I am thinking it was recorded around the time of the Sgt Pepper sessions or just afterward, and maybe initially rejected as an album track... We'll see...

It's certainly one of the songs I am least familiar with, I may have only listened three or four times before today.

www.beatlesbible.com Ah yes - written under the influence of LSD and describing insights gained through that and confirmed in meditation.

It’s All Too Much

Written by: Harrison Recorded: 25, 31 May; 2 June 1967 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Dave Siddle Released: 17 January 1969 (UK), 13 January 1969 (US) Available on: Yellow Submarine Yellow Submarin...

Religious views of the Beatles - Wikipedia

I was right that it was recorded just after completion of Sgt Peppers.

George Harrison was quite keen on the spiritual aspect of psychedelia. He had begun studying Indian culture at this time and eventually embraced meditation and became a devotee of the Hare Krishna tradition. en.wikipedia.org

Written by: Lennon-McCartney Recorded: 6 June; 4, 11 September 1962 Producers: Ron Richards, George Martin Engineer: Norman Smith Released: 5 October 1962 (UK), 10 January 1964 (US) Available on: Plea...

At the same time he had an irreverent character and felt uncomfortable with anything too pompous, pretentious or earnest.

Later, for example, he would fund the production of Monty Python's Life of Brian, a movie devoted to the mining the humour out of hypocrisy of organized religion.

It's perhaps easier to tread the tricky line between irreverence and reverence with Eastern religious traditions which can often have a light-hearted element, rather than with the Catholicism Harrison was brought up with?

In any event it's quite characteristic that he includes lines like: "All the world’s a birthday cake, So take a piece but not too much" "Show me that I’m everywhere, and get me home for tea"

Overall It's All Too Much is an interesting and inventive song that probably should have been ranked higher!

200: Love Me Do. www.beatlesbible.com

Love Me Do