Today I was idly strolling through the streets of Bari in Italy, as you do, and popped into what looked like an interesting shop where a familiar guitar riff was playing. “Bugger me” I thought, “I know this” – and sure enough the fab sound of young Paul blasted through the speakers –
“My love don’t give me presents – I know that she’s no peasant”
I mean I know he was a young lad, and “she was just seventeen – you know what I mean” wasn’t exactly great, but a few years later we had faces kept in a jar by the door and newspaper taxis appearing on the shore
What are your shabbiest Fab lyrics?
You’re in Bari! Dude! My hometown! (Well, was for 20 years till I moved down the coast to Monopoli). Done the old town? Good, innit? Order the antipasto della casa wherever you go.
I love it! Second visit! Yeah the old town is wonderful, despite the other tourists. Any suggestions for a free day tomorrow?
I’d say: A train to Monopoli, wander around the gorgeous port, check out the beautiful cathedral, get lunch at Pierino l’inglese in the old town, walk it off by wandering around the old town. (All within ten minutes walk from the station.) But I would say that, I’m biased.
Ps. Monopoli Cathedral’s probably closed at lunchtime (1-4.30). But it might not be. It’s well worth a visit when open.
Pps. You shoulda seen the old town of Bari 30 years ago. None of the bars or restaurants that are there now. No tourists. Even the locals from Bari wouldn’t go there for fear of being robbed.
Monopoli, eh?
Have you won second prize in a beauty contest yet?
I can only think of one Beatles song that mentions a London Monopoly Board destination. Do you know what it is, readers?
Phew! I had no idea I’d lit such a powder keg!
You can all relax, I will reveal the answer soon.
Is it The Snowman by Aled Jones?
Did they do a cover version of Take A Chance On Me
(possibly recorded with the aid of a time machine)
All I am saying is…no it’s not that one.
@Black-Celebration – I think we give up…
I most certainly haven’t given up. I haven’t even mentioned David Sylvian yet.
How did your day go, Mousey? (If I may call you Mousey.)
Is it Anna (Do not pass Go to him )?
The answer I am thinking of is The Ballad of John and Yoko.
“the man in the Mac said you have to go back – they didn’t even give us a chance.” For a long time yesterday I couldn’t think of any more but then overnight We Can Work it Out popped into my head.
We Can Work It Out mentions Community Chest!? I never knew that.
Has to be Run For Your Life.
Well I’d rather see you dead, little girl than to be with another man
Which was stolen from Baby, Let’s Play House, Elvis Presley’s version.
I Saw Her Standing There is a great lyric! Worst is probably Ringo’s “You were in a car crash and you lost your hair …”. (Don’t Pass Me By).
Why don’t we do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road?
No one will be watching us
Why don’t we do it in the road?
(Repeat)
I think Paul had just sort of given up at that point
Hello Goodbye – lyrically a song for George, Zippy, Geoffrey (RIP) and Bungle rather than the other Fab Four? Doesn’t stop it from being a great song though.
Your Mother Should Know troubles me lyrically – if the song was a hit before the mother was born, why should she, in particular, know it? She’d have every right to say “I’m sorry, I don’t know that one – you see it was hit before I was even born, so…”
I look at you all, see the love that lies sleeping,
While my guitar gently weeps.
I look at the floor and, quite frankly, it’s a right state cos the bloody dog’s traipsed mud everywhere and Joyce, who usually comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, hasn’t been this week cos her kid’s got chickenpox or something. Where was I? Oh yes…
While my guitar gently weeps.
If there was ever a line which was only meant to be a peacekeeper until something better came along it’s ‘I Look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping.’
The line from I Saw Her Standing There is brilliant – I know exactly what he means!!
How about..
Love, love me do,
you know I love you,
I’ll always be true,
So pleee….eee…eese, love me do…..?!
Number nine, number nine, number nine…
All of those, while silly or lazy, at least make sense. However, I give you: The movement you need is on your shoulder. I mean, WTAF? Paul makes great play of John telling him that the placeholder lyric is perfect; personally I think Lennon was taking the piss.
I don’t think Lennon would ‘take the piss’ where a big Beatles single was involved – he cared far too much and was happy to defer to Macca when required. It is a nonsense lyric at face value, but it somehow works! Frankly, a lot of lyrics don’t bear examination as poetry.
Could the movement you need is on your shoulder, be just a shrug?
Earlier there’s the line Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders
Shrug it off and forget about it.
It’s a rich field, but this is a big turd in a wider crap song:
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking
Even Noel Gallagher might wince at that one.
A protest against the ill-treatment of farm animals, innit.
Ob la di
Ob la da
Life goes on
Oh Oh Oh life goes on
It plumbs depths of banality few can dive down to.
Ob la di, Ob la da is allegedly the secret mantra The Maharishi gave them to chant when they went to stay with him. They were not supposed to reveal it to anyone.
After the Mucky Yogi made his lunge at Mia Farrow and they all left the ashram in disgust, they decided to use it to name a song.
This is the beauty of The Afterword – revelation of something I’d never heard before (the mantra, not the lunge at Mia Farrow).
It’s still unbelievably banal.
On the mantra’s I have read that everybody is supposed to be given their own, personalised mantra, but there are in fact only about 30 of them. Hence the need for secrecy.
Obladi Oblada wasn’t a mantra, it was a catchphrase if London-based Nigerian musician Jimmy Scott- Emuakpor, Who McCartney knew.
Jai Guru deva Om from across the universe was a mantra of Lennon’s though.
And the crowd went crazy when he sang it in Montreal last month …
“For your sweet top lip I’m in the queue”
to rhyme with
“Babe, I’m in love with you”
And shoe. And zoo.
Pathetic, George.
But. I think that song is (*adopts falsetto voice*) “Real-lay, real-lay coool.”
It certainly is. I’m an original LPs kind of chap, so no mono remastered box sets here. However, recently got Past Masters to plug a few gaps and it’s got some delightful stuff on there, not least Old Brown Shoe: a diffident George vocal, lovely bass runs, terrific Ringo, and of course the wonderfully concise little guitar solo (*kisses fingers, gourmet style*). That “tack” piano (Lennon?) though..
How about;
“You think I’m soft in the head,so find someone softer instead pretty babe”
from “If You’ve Got Troubles” unreleased until “Anthology 2”
And then before the guitar break we get Ringo saying “Rock on anyone!”
Time hasn’t been kind to this:
I got something to say that might cause you pain
If I catch you talking to that boy again
I’m gonna let you down
And leave you flat
Because I told you before
You can’t do that.
The lyrics are a bit iffy yes but George’s 12 string guitar playing is a belter on this track
What a load of cobblers many of these are. It’s almost like they weren’t expecting the lyrics to be analysed in detail 50 years later. What were they thinking?
Some of their early ones on Anthology 1 that they ended up giving away to other Liverpool acts weren’t that much cop, i.e. Like Dreamers Do
I saw a girl in my dreams
And so it seems
That I will love her
and also Hello Little Girl
I send you flowers but you don’t care
You never seem to see me standing there
I often wonder what you’re thinking of
I hope it’s me and love love love
Hello Little Girl was the first song John wrote, which perhaps could be an excuse.
That’s true
I might go for Dig a Pony – that one has always felt a bit ‘will this do’ but then I don’t think Lennon was trying that hard during the Let It Be sessions
Then again he had quite a few distractions at the time – getting married, bed-in’s, sitting in bags, buying Tittenhurst, peace, smack etc
After a few minutes of portentous finger-wagging in ‘Love You To’, George finally relents and wearily acquiesces to the listener: “I’ll make love to you. If you want me to.”
I have never listened to lyrics.
The voice is just another instrument to me when I listen to a song.
Next maybe worst Ramones lyrics?
Re: Ramones lyrics:
“Hanging out on Second Avenue
Eating chicken vindaloo
I just want to be with you
I just want to have something to do
Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, well alright!”
(“I Just Want to Have Something to Do”)
This is certainly an interesting one. As far as I can see, the singer wants to spend some time tonight with his lady friend. Fair enough. And what does he do as the ideal preparation for this? He eats a chicken vindaloo.
In my experience, this is not advisable. It’s just a bad move. Surely you must agree with me, Afterworders?
If you’ve just consumed a ROCKING HOT VINDALOO CURRY, your loved one will probably not be too keen on moments of intimacy. it stands to reason.
And then, a few hours later, things can get a little … tumultuous in one’s digestive system after the said rocking hot curry. Again, this will hardly endear you to your loved one.
What on earth was Joey Ramone thinking?
No worse than the song where the Harlem mother has bought a gaily-coloured plastic bag, brings it home and spends the whole night making grooves in it for her child, discovers that she’d grooved it badly, in fact hadn’t worked it out, so in her rage shakes all night etc etc
Third verse, different to the first…