Tag Archives: John lennon

The Flaming Lips plays The Beatles

flaming lips

The Flaming Lips are very respectful of their psychedelic roots. They have covered Pink Floyd’s classic album ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ in its entirety (also releasing it in a limited edition). They have also covered whole albums of King Crimson and The Stone Roses (!).

Our favorite modern-day psychedelic surrealists,  has also covered another of the late Sixties’ most popular psychedelic band, The Beatles on several occasions. It fits them, they’re good at it and we have “dug up” several examples. There has long been a rumor (or maybe more than a rumor) that the Flaming Lips will cover the entire Sgt. Pepper album.

They have a very strong leaning towards John Lennon, he is after all seen as the more “psychedelic” songwriter in The Beatles.

I could not find Tomorrow Never Knows, even though I know they have played it…

Enjoy!

fl_sl

The Flaming Lips and Sean Lennon – Lucy in the sky with diamonds (Letterman):

Continue reading The Flaming Lips plays The Beatles

October 9: John Lennon was born 75 years ago

 “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
~John Lennon

From the Liverpool docks to the red light Hamburg streets
Down in the quarry with the Quarrymen.
Playing to the big crowds
Playing to the cheap seats
Another day in your life on your way to your journey’s end
Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John
~Bob Dylan

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
― John Lennon

Continue reading October 9: John Lennon was born 75 years ago

September 26: The Beatles released Abbey Road in 1969

beatles abbey road

Released 26 September 1969
Recorded 22 February – 20 August 1969,EMI, Olympic and Trident Studios,London
Genre Rock
Length 47:23
Label Apple
Producer George Martin

Abbey Road is the 11th studio album released by the English rock band The Beatles. It is their last recorded album, although Let It Be was the last album released before the band’s dissolution in 1970. Work on Abbey Roadbegan in April 1969, and the album was released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom, and 1 October 1969 in the United States.

Abbey Road is widely regarded as one of The Beatles’ most tightly constructed albums, although the band was barely operating as a functioning unit at the time. Despite the tensions within the band, Abbey Road was released to near universal acclaim and is considered to be one of the greatest albums of all time. In 2012, Abbey Road was voted 14th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. In 2009, readers of the magazine also named Abbey Road the greatest Beatles album.

Continue reading September 26: The Beatles released Abbey Road in 1969

September 11: John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the Dick Cavett Show 1971

Redirecting to a newer version of this post….

September 11:  John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the Dick Cavett Show 1971

John Lennon and Yoko Ono made their first appearance on The Dick Cavett show on September 11, 1971 to present their new work. They do small-talk and jokes around. They discuss John Lennon’s evolving career. It is mostly a PR-job: showing some film clips and Yoko plays a track from the album Fly.

John Lennon is the star here, as always, and Cavett sometimes has problems following Lennon’s constant stream of wittiness.  Lennon had just released the Imagine album in the U.S. (Sept.9,1971), which climbing the charts. The “Imagine film” is at the end of the show.

– Hallgeir

August 6: The Beatles released “Help!” in 1965

The_Beatles-Help_-Frontal

.. a big step forward, exploring doubt, loneliness, alienation, adult sexual longing, acoustic guitars, electric piano, bongos, castanets, and the finest George songs known to man. … Help! was utterly ruined in its U.S. version, which cut half the songs and added worthless orchestral soundtrack filler, so it’s always been underrated. But Help! is the first chapter in the astounding creative takeoff the Beatles were just beginning: the soulful bereavement of “Ticket to Ride,” the impossibly erotic gentleness of “Tell Me What You See,” the desperate falsetto and electric punch of “You’re Going to Lose That Girl.”
~rollingstone.com

…. the album’s masterpiece is McCartney’s brooding, deceptively simple chamber-pop ballad “Yesterday.” …  it’s compositionally complex, one of the first major pop songs to draw directly from classical music, juxtaposing acoustic guitar with a string quartet, shifting from minor to major chords. It set the stage for one of the most groundbreaking and innovative periods in The Beatles’ career, not to mention pop music in general.
~Mark Kemp (pastemagazine.com)

From Wikipedia:

Released 6 August 1965
Recorded 15–19 February, 13 April, 10 May& 14–17 June 1965,
EMI Studios, London
Genre Rock
Length 34:20
Label Parlophone
Producer George Martin

Continue reading August 6: The Beatles released “Help!” in 1965