The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Paul Merton’s Beatles

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Over the last few weeks Fabs fan Paul Merton has been looking at some “what ifs” of Beatledom, namely “What if they’d never broken up? What if they were still playing live? What if they made another album?”

Of course the Afterword did this years ago, but I thought some of you might find this four part Radio 2 series of interest. Tonight’s final episode concludes the second part on the 1974 album that they could have made. Will it compare to the AW’s version? What will @tiggerlion make of it all? Does anyone care?

Link to the series overview in the comments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tvbz5

What does this MEAN?!!

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“…just as Lennon and McCartney had intended”. So where would the two songs slot in? Or will they just be tacked on to the end as bonus tracks? Will anyone want to buy it yet again?

Full text from behind the paywall:

“50 years on: the real Sgt Pepper

It is one of popular music’s seminal albums, has sold more than 32m copies around the world and marked the Beatles’ first embrace of psychedelic culture.

The 50th anniversary of the release of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band this June will be marked with a worldwide re-release — and for fans it will mean at last hearing the album as the band had intended it to sound.

In 1967 the record label EMI poached what John Lennon and Paul McCartney believed to be two of their best songs from the album and released them as a double A-side single, something George Martin, their producer, later described as “a truly terrible mistake”.

The Beatles had wanted Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane as showcase tracks on Sgt Pepper, their eighth album.

Now, according to sources, Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company, has scored a victory: the anniversary relaunch on June 1 will » Continue Reading.

Meeting George – The Somewhere In England Cover Shoot

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I’ve had a request for this story. I’m sure I’ve posted it here before, but it may have been on the old blog and as it’s impossible to search the site, here it is again.

Sometime in early 1981 I got a phone call from a friend who worked as a porter at the Tate Gallery on the south bank in London. “Come ’round the back door when we close tomorrow if you want to meet George Harrison” was all he said. It turned out that Beatle George had booked the gallery after hours for a photo shoot. That’s all I knew.

So, armed with a bag of LP sleeves and related items I turned up at the Tate just as they were closing. I later found out that the boss in charge of the backroom boys, porters and the like had asked if anyone wanted to work back a couple of hours to accommodate George and his party. Most of the long-serving old blokes didn’t want the overtime, but my mate and some of the younger guys jumped at the chance and probably would have done it for nothing.

When I arrived George was already there with his manager » Continue Reading.

The Beatles – All This And World War II

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The ever wonderful Dangerous Minds have come up with a doozy here. Seemingly in 1976 a more misguided Beatles related film than the Bee Gees Sargent Pepper appeared.

It was called All This And World War II and it was archive footage of the war, spliced with war movies with various bands doing Beatles covers over the top. Oddly enough it’s never came out on video or DVD, but it’s on youtube now.

I have yet to watch this, I can only assume it’s awful, but there are Beatles heads here who may well be interested…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ4x_8IiZ90

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/all_you_need_is_war_the_beatles_vs._hitler

I’m worried that Paul McCartney has finally lost it

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Here’s Macca at the recent Desert Trip thing. Admittedly recorded on a fan’s iPhone, but really, that shouldn’t matter – the fact is his singing is pretty awful, out of tune, and you know that he can’t blame the sound mix (by which I mean – if you’re Paul McCartney then you’ll have people who deal with that).

Isn’t it time for him to retire?

And I speak as a major HJH fan, I LOVE him, I was hoping he’d come to Australia again in amongst all his recent world touring. He came in, I don’t know, maybe 1992 or something, when he’d just started accepting he had to do Beatles songs, so he had the technicolour piano and did Magical Mystery Tour etc.

But based on this I think he should retire gracefully.

OOAA of course

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlwgPDWnZQ

Which Beatles book?

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The quite superb AW podcast on the new Beatles film has me of a mind to read a book on Les Fabs. The last one I read was “You never give me your money” (which I enjoyed enormously) and before that “Recolution in the head” yonks ago. What’s a good general purpose balanced perspective? Obviously this is the place to ask.

Lego Yellow Submarine

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It’s the stocking filler that you’ve* been waiting for!

I wonder whether there are any other Lego/pop crossovers that the world needs?

The Miley Cyrus wrecking ball Lego set? The Daphne and Celeste Reading Festival set?

* Says a man that has basically bullied his children into liking Lego so he can buy it.

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii610/BaldySlaphead/beatles_lego_press_640.article_x4_zpslnkty2bj.jpg http://www.nme.com/news/the-beatles/97065

DONOVAN – If only he wasn’t so self-effacing

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From the Donovan Facebook page:

DONOVAN TO RECEIVE RARE JOHN LENNON REAL LOVE TRIBUTE

DONOVAN will be the 3rd Recipient of the JOHN LENNON REAL LOVE TRIBUTE AWARD September 3 2016 in SYMPHONY SPACE New York City. DONOVAN is only the 3rd to receive this special honor in the 35 year history of THEATRE WITHIN’s annual celebration of JOHN LENNON’s work and charities.

DONOVAN as the main artist that night, will perform an extended hour of music and will sing many of John’s songs including those Donovan helped John write from the tuition he gave John in India when they were studying TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION. DONOVAN taught John a finger-style guitar method in India and a set of UNIQUE DONOVAN CHORD STRUCTURES which opened up a new horizon of songwriting for John, and John wrote DEAR PRUDENCE, JULIA and other John songs on THE WHITE ALBUM. Donovan also helped John write JULIA. Paul and George also received the tuition in India and they wrote BLACKBIRD and WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS, among other songs. GEORGE HARRISON in THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY video said, “DONOVAN IS ALL OVER THE WHITE ALBUM”.

Donovan says, “It was a pleasure and amazing to see the new » Continue Reading.

Late Vintage

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The two most romantic stories in art are surely the Young Gun(s) from Nowhere Change Everything With their Debut; and the Late Vintage: or the Gang Get It Together, Despite all they’ve /he’s/she’s been through, for One Last Time.

From Shakespeare’s Late Plays to Kurosawa’s Ran and Matisse’s cut-outs there’s been a poignancy and mystique attached to final works that seem to possess a simplicity and clarity that can only have been achieved after a substantial creative career. Often they allude or overtly deal with the vexed problem of Leaving The Stage, age and mortality – or conversely are a joyous celebration of what made them so Insanely Great in the first place.

The Beatles, as in so many other ways, set the rock template here with Abbey Road – when they asked George Martin to make one last record with them ‘the way we used to do it’ after the mess of the Let It Be sessions and the experimentalism of The White Album. David Bowie of course made what might be the most astonishing Late Vintage albums ever with The Next Day and Blackstar.

I’ve recently been listening to the last two Sonic Youth albums, Rather Ripped » Continue Reading.

On Caring

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I read with interest the two recent ‘Beatles’ threads and the playful dispute between HPS and Johnny C. One of the more intense moments (though still playful, I think) was the remark from HP about caring: ‘who cares’. The obvious rejoinder was issued: clearly HPS did and does. It is always fascinating (to me, at least) about why we care about these matters. I have rarely posted here; I used to do a little at the old place and I had a habit of making negative remarks about the Australian cult band The Go-Betweens; I did so partly out of bewilderment about intensity of the love for the GOBs and the intensity of my own dislike. My dislike reached fever pitch when Robert Forster was a guest on the Podcast and delivered one of the most embarrassingly inept performances I had ever heard from a highly regarded professional (tuneless non-singing, the most rudimentary guitar playing and bad lyrics). My post about this certainly resonated with some and before long the standard complaints were out: it was ‘my opinion’ and that ‘there are more important things’.

I have wondered about this notion of importance for a while. People who speak » Continue Reading.

The Beatles Did It First

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Just to cheer up my good friend @h-p-saucecraft, here’s a thread dedicated to the countless things the Beatles did before anyone else in the pop world.

Here’s just a few to kick things off:

First song with a FADE-IN – Eight Days A Week First use of feedback – I Feel Fine First LP without the band name on the cover – Rubber Soul

http://i.imgur.com/4B01EOQ.jpg

Mr Ernest O’Follipar vents his spleen

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I don’t know what’s funnier, the fact the the RAH reacted so seriously or that their representative had a name that sounds like it was invented by Dr Winston O’Boogie.

Or that I overlooked the date of the article…

http://www.royalalberthall.com/about-the-hall/news/2015/april/royal-albert-hall-was-furious-over-beatles-lyric-newly-discovered-documents-reveal/

Who will be the 90s musically?

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After the sad events of this year I would like to propose the following are their decades musically: 1960s – The Beatles 1970s – David Bowie 1980s – Prince

Disclaimer: this is an arbitrary exercise and should not be taken as any final assessment of stature. But…

Their imperial periods are all neatly within these decades. We do cut off just before Scary Monsters…and there is the late rally, but pretty well DB is the seventies. I’ve been thinking who else can rival Prince for the 80s crown? Really only three: Jacko, Madonna and Springsteen. Jacko – two albums – two monsters yes – but hardly an imperial period. And you lose Off the Wall. Madonna – her best work straddles the mid-80s to 2000 – as strong in the 90s as the 80s Prince – you have to lose Diamonds and Pearls, the squiggle album – er that’s about it. Otherwise in the 80s we get 9 albums in 10 years almost all of which are of the highest possible quality. Springsteen – lots of great stuff over four albums (River, Nebraska, USA, Tunnel of Love) but like Madonna he’s as good in other decades.

So two questions:

» Continue Reading.

The HJH as TCV

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According to this report in The Independent (see the link at the bottom of this post), this is the second time the Fabs have turned down the opportunity to star in The Jungle Book. Our beloved lads as Them Crooked Vultures? No way!

Good on them I say! Look at what they wanted them to do last time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6erYeJjoI

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-jungle-book-director-tried-to-get-paul-mccartney-and-ringo-starr-to-cameo-a6969346.html