Hey folks. Myself and StevenC have started a new podcast about, are you ready for this, THE BEATLES. We are launching today and in future weeks will cover such topics as Help! & Magical Mystery Tour – the forgotten albums, January 3rd 1970, Beatle Books and more! So here’s a list of links to all the usual podcast-y places. Enjoy!
APPLE PODCASTS
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast/id1462587848
SPOTIFY
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6bbngJK9Vhf3evaJaaGx48?si=L7KdGjgsSnW0rWOpbhX30A
WEBSITE
http://beatlespod.libsyn.com/website
RSS FEED
http://beatlespod.libsyn.com/rss
STITCHER
https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=400396
OVERCAST
https://overcast.fm/+R-acTxxl0
While your enjoying your elevenses, what not listen and subscribe to Nothing Is Real, out now!
APPLE PODCASTS
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast/id1462587848
SPOTIFY
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6bbngJK9Vhf3evaJaaGx48?si=L7KdGjgsSnW0rWOpbhX30A
WEBSITE
http://beatlespod.libsyn.com/website
STITCHER
https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=400396
OVERCAST
https://overcast.fm/+R-acTxxl0
PODBEAN
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-bcf44-61bbce3
PODCAST ADDICT
http://podplayer.net/?podId=2368655
DrJ says
Ahhh, I seem to have copy and pasted twice and now I can’t edit it. How embarrassing.
John Walters says
Subscribed !
fentonsteve says
I’m a bit behind, what with numerous Bank Holidays, so I’m late doing my “first week of the month” tedious database mangling, and now I have something to listen to while I work. Hurrah!
minibreakfast says
There’s a new We Buy Records out today too, once you’re done with the Fabs.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/wemadethis/webuyrecords-s01e05
fentonsteve says
You’ve missed this month, but a new CBVD episode for June 3rd would be laverley.
minibreakfast says
It would be a miracle.
John Walters says
Subscribed !
dai says
That’s a crowded area. Good luck!
Moose the Mooche says
Two blokes chuntering about Norman Rossington?
Sold!
Vulpes Vulpes says
Forgive me.
I use iTunes (spits, washes mouth with carbolic) in order to subscribe to and stash oodles of podcasts which I subsequently burn onto CD-Rs that then go in the car. From time to time I binge listen to “In OurTime”, “Inheritance Tracks”, “DID”, “The Afterword Podcast” and so on.
I’d love to add your podcast to my list for future enjoyment.
However, when it comes to adding a new subscription to my growing multi-terabyte iTunes database, I look at a long list of URLs like that in the OP and shudder. W(here)TF do I start? How do I point iTunes at one of those?
I should point out that I am an IT professional by trade, but iTunes reduces me to gibbering ineptitude in nanoseconds.
Twang says
Why do you use (spit, gob) iTunes? I use a nice app called Podcast Addict which is lean and mean and you can choose whether to download or stream, auto cleanup etc. Plus lots of other features like a delayed start to cut out tedious preamble etc. I am Apple free for podcasts now.
dai says
BeyondPod for me (on an Android phone)
Vulpes Vulpes says
Inertia and laziness, probably. I shall investigate alternatives forthwith.
The Good Doctor says
Vulpes click the Apple link above it should offer a ‘subscribe’ button.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast/id1462587848
But yeah, iTunes is the pits man. Try MusicBee
Vulpes Vulpes says
Nope, just a “Listen in iTunes” button, no mention of subscribe. But then, I’m using firefox, which seems to have ingested military grade hallucinogens recently, and randomly restarts itself when it isn’t frozen in the headlights of HTML5. So maybe that’s what’s missing. Won’t use Chrome or IE or Edge, so maybe I should try Opera, if that’s still alive. Sigh. Matbe I’ll just put a Beatles CD on.
Twang says
If you use itunes just go to the store and search for it and subscribe there.
The Good Doctor says
Cool. Beatle Brain of Ireland! Subscribed.
ruff-diamond says
Just wait until you hear his “Jeff Lynne was the best producer they ever had” hot take…
Steven C says
That episode has been … ‘lost’.
slotbadger says
Looking forward to this!
Neela says
Also looking forward to more on, say, Bowie.
Martin Hairnet says
All the best for the podcast. Theme tune is great, and gets more interesting at the end.
Ainsley says
Yup, good luck with it. I always liked the Afterword podcasts you were involved with and the “pilot” sounded good.
Tiggerlion says
Same here. I’m going to have to start having a bath every week!
Moose the Mooche says
Bloody hell, I’ll have to keep moving the coal.
dai says
I am a bit Beatled out podcast-wise. There seem to be hundreds of different ones out there, but will try and listen when I am less jaded.
DrJ says
A new episode came out yesterday, the first full one where we talk about he Help! album. Subscribe, download, say something nice, etc!
(Links At The Top)
Thanks!
Moose the Mooche says
Good. I’ve always found it underrated, I’d be interested to hear what you think.
Tiggerlion says
Great cast. Nice and detailed. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will listen to future episodes. The only thing missing was a discussion of mono v stereo v George Martin’s stereo remix.
I loved the revisionism. My version is Side One as is. They were all in the film, so we are stuck with Paul’s worst song. Side Two has to have Act Naturally. Every Beatles album has to have a Ringo song (A Hard Day’s Night is one song short, remember, and the other albums without a Ringo vocal weren’t conceived as an album as such). Besides, Act Naturally works really well as far as Ringo songs go.
1. I’m Down
2. Act Naturally
3. Yes It Is
4. Tell Me What You See
5. I’ve Just Seen A Face
6. Wait
7. Yesterday
Yes It Is isn’t brilliant but surpasses It’s Only Love. The major problem about using Wait is that it leaves Rubber Soul short. Yesterday works really well as a finale and feels to me, a part of the whole. The track that fits least well is Ticket To Ride.
It’s interesting that The Beatles made their first real rejects since 1962 when recording Help! If You’ve Got Trouble and That Means A Lot are genuine failures.
Really looking forward to the next one fellas. Well done.
NigelT says
I really do disagree about It’s Only Love – I’ve always really enjoyed it ever since buying the album in 1965, so maybe it’s my age!
Tiggerlion says
It’s Only Love is so bad, I could have written it! 😉
The bit I disagreed with on the podcast is the suggestion that the weaker Rubber Soul tracks are worse than the weaker Help! tracks. I rather like Michelle. It has a sweet melody and it introduced me to French at the age of seven. Run For Your Life is very of its time lyrically but quite a jaunty tune. What Goes On is irredeemable though.
Help! has five 10/10 songs in my scoring, three 8s, one 7, one 6, one 4 and two 3s. Rubber Soul has two 10s, three 9s, three 8s, four 7s, one 5 and one 2.
Final score; Help! 97 Rubber Soul 106
Neela says
I give your post 8/10, which makes it as good as Help!.
Tiggerlion says
Thanks. 👍
DrJ says
I appreciate this level of scientific rigour being placed on the “Best Beatle Album of 65” debate.
Tiggerlion says
Thank you. 😉
Mike_H says
So…
For Help! the average score per song is 7.46
For Rubber Soul the average score per track is 7.57
Not very much in it, is there?
Tiggerlion says
*cough*
You mean 6.93 versus 7.57. Both albums are fourteen tracks long.
Mike_H says
I was going by your post up above, where you only rank 13 tracks from “Help!”. Which one did you miss and what is it’s score?
Tiggerlion says
Yes. You are quite right. I forgot Tell Me What You See, which is worth a seven, putting Help! up to 104.
Not much difference then.
Sorry.
Martin Hairnet says
Run For Your Life is quite unpleasant all round. The tune feels simplistic and unfinished and doesn’t convince at all. The lyrics must have raised eyebrows, even in ’65. A foreshadowing of the more considered Jealous Guy six years later, perhaps, but RFYL adds nothing to their reputation.
Mousey says
Enjoyed the solemn discussion! Subscribed
DrJ says
Thank you!
NigelT says
Listened to the Help! one and enjoyed it, thanks. Good points about the track usage on the US versions and other albums, and the fact that the US Help! listeners had all that sitar incidental music thrust upon them is intriguing.
Neela says
How about an episode about beatle books?There are at least ten of those. Maybe even eleven.
@DrJ
@Steven-C
DrJ says
We have a Beatle Books episode “in the can”, so it’s on the horizon somewhere.
Neela says
Nice!
Fintinlimbim says
I thought it was fab.
Subscribed.
When you do the “5th Beatle” podcast, I hope you will include Donovan, who taught them all they knew.
Tiggerlion says
Apologies I can’t comment elsewhere as I am not on Facebook.
These casts are superb. With regard to January 4th 1970 (episode three), I never understood why they didn’t correct Lennon’s bass on The Long And Winding Road. They were happy to prepare Let It Be for a movie-linked album. Why not Winding Road?
Neela says
Yes. This is a proper mystery. Was it because they wanted to stick to the ‘live in the studio’ philosophy? Apart from Spector’s overdubbing in general, I guess. Strange days indeed. Most peculiar, mama.
DrJ says
Not sure of the answer. A guess might be that Let It Be was being readied as a single for the first week of March 1970, so it was more about polishing up a song for single-hood instead of fixing up an album track. TL&WR wasn’t due to be a single in the UK, although they made it one in the US.
Tiggerlion says
Except I Me Mine was never going to be a single either.
Neela says
No, but it hadn’t been properly recorded and still appeared in the movie when George is playing it for Ringo and others. So they needed a version that wasn’t just a demo.
Neela says
You just keep getting better and better. Great work, guys! Looking forward to the 72 minute episode on You Know My Name (extended Ant 3 version, of course).
Thanks in advance!
DrJ says
Aww, thank you. Hoped you liked the books episode.
Mousey says
I liked the books episode but I was a bit surprised by the vitriolic dislike of Philip Norman! I haven’t read his Beatle books so I’m not in a position to argue what you guys said, but I just finished his Clapton bio and I thought it was really good. Informative, well-written and not too judgemental. And, as he points out in a really good why-am-I-doing-this prologue, he was there.
But as always OOAA…
Tony Japanese says
Rather late to the party, but I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the podcast about the Beatles Books.
Aside from borrowing ‘Many Years From Now’ and Ray Coleman’s Lennon biography from the local library in the late 90s, I’d guess that the Beatles Anthology was the first book I read about the band. I definitely bought it when it came out, so it was one of the earliest at least. I have actually read it cover to cover, but it’s impossible to read comfortably.
I’ve bought two copies of ‘Revolution in the Head’ because the first one fell apart after having been read so often. I enjoy it less these days than I used to (i.e. when I naive enough to take his opinions about certain songs as fact) but it is still an essential purchase.
Hunter Davies’ official biography is a pleasant enough read, but suffers from the fact it ends in 1968. I particularly enjoy the chapter about writing ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ – no other book has that access to Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting process.
I’ve never owned a copy of Mark Lewisohn’s ‘Recording Sessions’, but I do have ‘The Complete Beatles Chronicle’, which I’m led to believe is a condensed version. Volume 1 of his biography is an excellent read, though the price has always put me off buying the 2000 page edition.
I have copies of ‘Shout’ and Philip Norman’s biographies on both Lennon and McCartney. They wouldn’t be the first books I’d save in a fire/flood, but I aside from the fact that Lennon takes up most of the story in ‘Shout’, I’ve never really understood the criticism of Norman. Perhaps it’s because Lennon’s story is the most interesting to write about? And there are far worse Beatles books out there.
Another much-maligned Beatles biography that you didn’t mention is Bob Spitz’s one that came out in the mid 2000s. I think it’s brilliantly written and any factual errors don’t take away my enjoyment of the book.
Last year I decided my collection of books needed expanding and bought (among others) ‘The Lives of Lennon’, ‘The Love You Make’ – both of which I’ve read and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ – which I haven’t. I tolerated ‘The Lives’ up until about the point where Lennon ‘retired’ from music and I had to trawl through about two hundred pages of tedious dross to do with Yoko’s occult fascinations, with pages and pages of mundane details about people who don’t feature in any other book written about the Beatles. I don’t mind if Goldman thinks Lennon was a piece of shit, that’s his opinion. But why do I need to know so much about these insignificant people in Yoko’s lives?
dai says
Agree with most of above, haven’t read Philip Norman though (and I won t bother). Two interesting books from early days:
The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away (Allan Williams) – lots of tall stories about Hamburg etc
Love Me Do! The Beatles Progress (Michael Braun) – vital eye witness account of Beatlemania
DogFacedBoy says
Steven C has a completely irrational bias against Norman. Shout is a perfectly good overall bio entertaining told
dai says
That may be true, but I have read so many Beatles books that I am saving myself for Lewisohn’s vol 2 and 3. First part was superb (listened to audio book version).
DrJ says
Whoops, bit late responding to this! It’s been many years since I read Shout! but Norman’s McCartney biography is really poor. Lewisohn’s Studio Sessions is fascinating. Although it’s factual you can see his narrative writing through the entries. All These Years really is an achievement and will last the test of time.
Out of all the podcasts so far, the books one has had the most feedback, there will definitely be a sequel, but not until sometime in 2020.
Moose the Mooche says
Norman’s Lennon book is a fantastic read, notwithstanding his Paul-is-a-sap / George-was-a-miserable-git thesis. I always cite the example of Christopher Hill, whose books (particularly God’s Englishman) are terrific even while they deliberately miss out things that contradict the idea he wants to present. People with an agenda can still write.
DrJ says
Another new episode out today. 51 minutes going through the world about I Want To Hold Your Hand.
APPLE
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast/id1462587848?i=1000446305617
SPOTIFY
STITCHER
https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=63051399&autoplay=1
OVERCAST
https://overcast.fm/+R-afYXPKM
ACAST
https://aca.st/c8eb46
PODBEAN
https://www.podbean.com/ei/dir-dv7b2-69badeb
OTHERS
https://podnews.net/podcast/1462587848
Tiggerlion says
Great work! I’ve enjoyed all of them so far.
I do think Rob Sheffield is unfairly harsh on My Love, though. At the very least, it features a great guitar solo by Henry McCullough.
Ainsley says
Had some travelling to do today so I listened to this one straight away in the car. Brilliant podcast but how the shitting hell do you people know all this stuff!
I presume you have jobs, lives, families etc. I think of myself as pretty knowledgable about Afterwordy-type subjects but I pale into insignificance next to this level of detail.
I mean this a compliment, by the way.
PS – any chance of compressing the sound a bit? Very bassy in a car and occasionally quite hard to hear your glorious lilting voices.
DrJ says
Not sure if anyone is still checking this thread, but anyways…
We recently put up a two-part interview with Beatle Guru Mark Lewisohn. He was very generous with his time, and very interesting.
Find your podcast provider here…
https://podnews.net/podcast/1462587848
John Walters says
Already listened to both podcasts. Terrific listening. Wonder what he did to upset George ?
DrJ says
The abridged version, as far as I know: ML was having a profile written about him for the New Yorker and the reporter wanted to follow him around and see him working in archives. ML got permission from EMI to do this, and when the story came out it wasn’t about ML, but rather about the unreleased Beatles stuff the reporter got to hear. It was seen as a betrayal and he was kicked out of the circle.
Mousey says
I heard Mark say on another podcast (can’t remember which) that George decided to “test his knowledge”, to prove that he didn’t know everything because he wasn’t there. So he asked the name of one of the musicians on Within You Without You and Mark didn’t know, although I think maybe he had forgotten, or was about to do some research on that very subject. Anyway churlish old George said “I told you so”, QED, etc and that was it.
Colin H says
Fantastic stuff, Doc and Steve – I just listened to it all (well, all bar the last two minutes – it stopped at that point. A gremlin?).
I greatly admire Mark’s tenacity and punctiliousness, but also on a more human level it’s intriguing that he has the will to press on despite being shafted by Apple/the Beatles’ members and estates. It’s very difficult indeed to commit large parts of your life to a group of people who have actively dismissed you. When Pentangle members insulted me in print in The Word back in 2007, in the wake of the Sanctuary box set, I walked away from anything to do with them. (I won’t go into detail about the matter here, but there was a Word interview, some lies, a letter from me in the mag correcting the lies, and there the public face of it ended.) It’s only in the past few years that I’ve agreed to help various labels/projects in a semi-detached way (updating old notes for re-reissued stuff, supplying material to new box sets etc.). I do it for the sake of history, which I think is Mark’s motivation. But I have an entire other life, and contributing to Jansch/ Pentangle/ Renbourn appreciation – and I do believe they were musically magical and historically important – is just something I’ll do, when asked, in a very limited, contained way.
NigelT says
What they all said up there ^^^^^. Unmissable podcasting.