Tag Archives: Paul McCartney

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 36 “All My Loving”


the-beatles-all-my-loving-1964-16
Lennon expressed his esteem for the song in his 1980 Playboy interview:

“ LENNON:”All My Loving” is Paul, I regret to say. Ha ha ha.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: Because it’s a damn good piece of work. … But I play a pretty mean guitar in back.”

The complicated rhythm guitar is probably the reason that John left the deep singing part (in the last verse) to George, he simply couldn’t do both.
Cynthia Lennon believed John wrote it for her, but in fact Paul (the writer) probably had Jane Archer in mind when he wrote the lyrics.

We should also pay attention to Ringo’s great drumming, it has a very distinct and difficult to copy, latin style. It add a sophisticated rhythm to a song that without it would much more ordinary pop/rock, this is evident on the Live at the BBC  album were he plays an ordinary 4/4 rhythm. It gets a more rock’n roll feel but loses a bit of it’s uniqueness, I think.

Continue reading The Beatles 40 best songs: at 36 “All My Loving”

Today: Elvis Presley released “Suspicious Minds” in 1969, 44 years ago

elvis-presley-suspicious-minds-1969-6

We’re caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Recorded between four and seven in the morning, during the landmark Memphis session that helped return the King to his throne, “Suspicious Minds” — the final Number One single of his lifetime — is Presley’s masterpiece: He sings so intensely through the fade-out that his band returns for another minute of the tear-stained chorus.
~rollingstone.com

Together with “Mystery Train” this is my fav Elvis song (although not this version).

Suspicious Minds:

From Wikipedia:

B-side You’ll Think Of Me
Released August 26, 1969
Format 45 rpm record
Recorded January 23, 1969
Genre Soul, pop
Length 4:22 (3:28)
Label RCA
Writer(s) Mark James
Producer Chips Moman and Felton Jarvis

Suspicious Minds” is a song written by American songwriter Mark James. After James’ recording failed commercially, the song was handed to Elvis Presley by producer Chips Moman, becoming a number one song in 1969, and one of the most notable hits of Presley’s career. “Suspicious Minds” was widely regarded as the single that returned Presley’s career success, following ’68 Comeback Special. It was his seventeenth and last number-one single in the United States. Rolling Stone later ranked it #91 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Background

Elvis Presley’s recordings in American Sound Studio were a direct consequence to ’68 Comeback Special, that interested Chips Moman in produce recordings to the new style of Presley, making his comeback to the Memphis musical scene, by recording rock,gospel, country, rhythm & blues and soul. George Klein, local Memphis dj & close friend of Elvis’ suggested he record at the studio.

American Sound Studio session

“Suspicious Minds” was a product of January 23, 1969 session, that took place between 4 am and 7 am. It took eight takes to produce the final song that was later overdubbed by Presley the same night. Also in the same were recorded “I’ll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)”, “Without Love (There Is Nothing)”, and “I’ll Be There”. on August 7, was again overdubbed to stereo and mono in Las Vegas, where the final master was produced. The song is noted for its change of Rhythm, in the Bridge section, from 4/4 to a slower 6/8 and back again to the faster 4/4 rhythm. The first verse repeats over and over again, until it completely fades out, it features a bass guitar, organ, strings, trumpets, trombones, and drums. Session producer Felton Jarvis made the unusual decision to add a premature fade-out to the song starting at 3:36, mirroring the way Presley used to perform it in his live Las Vegas stage act. The fadeout lasts for about 15 seconds before fading back in, conveying a message of relationship in the song. Future Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux sang backing vocals on the track.

Best version (alt.take7 – “Platinum – A Life In Music”):

Elvis Presley Suspicious Minds Live That’s The Way It Is 1970:

Live 1973 – Aloha Hawaii:

Album of the day – Suspicious Minds: The Memphis 1969 Anthology (1999):

Other August 26:

Continue reading Today: Elvis Presley released “Suspicious Minds” in 1969, 44 years ago

The Beatles: Profiles, albums, lists & other

beatles and george martin 1963

This is a collection of published posts @ JV including videos, lists & other stuff related to  The B.
It will be updated along the way..

 

The Beatles 40 Best Songs – A Countdown

Albums:

Profiles:

Other:

Check out:

 

Today: A Hard Days Night by The Beatles was released in 1964

A_Hard_Day's_Nigth

“We were different. We were older. We knew each other on all kinds of levels that we didn’t when we were teenagers. The early stuff – the Hard Day’s Night period, I call it – was the sexual equivalent of the beginning hysteria of a relationship. And the Sgt Pepper-Abbey Road period was the mature part of the relationship.”
– John Lennon (1980)

A Hard Day’s Night is the third album by The Beatles; it was released on July 10, 1964. The album is a soundtrack to the A Hard Day’s Night film, starring the Beatles. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. This is the first Beatles album to be recorded entirely on four-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes.

HDN

In 2000, Q placed A Hard Day’s Night at number 5 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 388 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The soundtrack songs were recorded in late February, and the non-soundtrack songs were recorded in June. The title song itself was recorded on April 16.

“…but A Hard Day’s Night is perhaps the band’s most straightforward album: You notice the catchiness first, and you can wonder how they got it later.

The best example of this is the title track– the clang of that opening chord to put everyone on notice, two burning minutes thick with percussion (including a hammering cowbell!) thanks to the new four-track machines George Martin was using, and then the song spiraling out with a guitar figure as abstractedly lovely as anything the group had recorded.”

– Tom Ewing, Pitchfork

A Hard Day’s Night (Paris, 1965):

japan_a_hard_days_night_lp-580x572

I saw the movie before I bought the album, and the pictures roll before my eyes as I listen to the album. The film is a masterpiece and so is the album.
a-hard-days-night movie

“Considering the quality of the original material on With the Beatles, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Lennon & McCartney decided to devote their third album to all-original material. Nevertheless, that decision still impresses, not only because the album is so strong, but because it was written and recorded at a time when the Beatles were constantly touring, giving regular BBC concerts, appearing on television and releasing non-LP singles and EPs, as well as filming their first motion picture. In that context, the achievement of A Hard Day’s Night is all the more astounding.”
– Allmusic (Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

It was my first Beatles album, and even if it has lost it’s top spot on my Beatles list, I love it dearly. It always makes me happy when i put it on.

John Lennon was the main contributor to the album. He wrote A Hard Day’s Night,  I Should Have Known Better, Tell Me Why, Any Time At All, I’ll Cry Instead, When I Get Home and You Can’t Do That.

He also wrote the majority of If I Fell and I’ll Be Back, and wrote I’m Happy Just To Dance With You with McCartney.

I Should Have Known Better (my favorite song on the album):

That doesn’t mean that Paul McCartney was  left off the record. He wrote the  ballads Things We Said Today plus And I Love Her , and lets not forget the lovely single Can’t Buy Me Love.

Can’t Buy Me Love:

As always the lines blur on some of the songs, but there are a lot of indications that this was the way the songs were composed, or rather, who wrote the songs.

“When we knew we were writing for something like an album John would write a few in his spare moments, like this batch here. He’d bring them in, we’d check ’em. I’d write a couple and we’d throw ’em at each other, and then there would be a couple that were more co-written. But you just had a certain amount of time.”
– Paul McCartney

A Hard Day’s Night is classic album that is a true testament to their collaborative writing powers, and, man, they had become a tight band!

– Hallgeir

Sources: Wikipedia, Allmusic, Pitchfork, John Lennon Interview with David Sheff in 1980, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (book)

Today: Bringing It All Back Home (48) & Please Please Me (50)

Bob Dylan - bringing it all back home

 

the beatles please please me

Bringing It All Back Home” is not included in the “Music Calendar post” … It has a separate post (part of the “Bob Dylan Albums” series):

..now let’s focus on The Beatles debut album..“Please Please Me” released 50 years ago today!

….they were a group with the luck to meet opportunities, the wit to recognize them, the drive to seize them, and the talent to fullfil them. Please Please Me is the sound of them doing all four.
~Tom Ewing (pitchfork.com)

#1 – I Saw Her Standing There 

Wikipedia:

Released 22 March 1963
Recorded 11 February 1963,
EMI Studios, London
Genre Rock and roll, pop
Length 32:45
Label Parlophone
Producer George Martin

Please Please Me is the debut album by the English rock band the Beatles. Parlophone rush-released the album on 22 March 1963 in the United Kingdom to capitalise on the success of singles “Please Please Me” (No. 1 on most lists but only No. 2 on Record Retailer) and “Love Me Do” (No. 17).

Of the album’s fourteen songs, eight were written by Lennon–McCartney (originally credited “McCartney–Lennon”), early evidence of what Rolling Stone later called “[their invention of] the idea of the self-contained rock band, writing their own hits and playing their own instruments”. In 2012, Please Please Me was voted 39th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.

beatles-w-album-please-please-me

…It’s a blueprint of everything the Beatles would ever do, mixing up doo-wop, country, R&B, girl groups, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and Tin Pan Alley into their own exuberant sound. John and Paul sang the openhearted originals “Ask Me Why,” “There’s a Place,” and “I Saw Her Standing There.” Ringo shouted, “All right, George!” in his gender-flipped cover of the Shirelles’ ultrafemme “Boys.” All four Beatles sang and played with total emotional urgency, holding nothing back, knowing their first shot at getting out of Liverpool could have been their last. You can hear John completely blow out his voice in the last track, “Twist and Shout.”
~Rollingstone.com

#7 – Please Please Me

Beatles Please Please Me

Recording

In order for the album to contain fourteen songs (the norm for British 12″ vinyl pop albums at that time was to have seven songs on each side, while American albums usually had only five or six songs per side) ten more tracks were needed to add to the four sides of their first two singles recorded and released previously. Therefore, at 10:00 am on Monday, 11 February 1963, the Beatles and George Martin started recording what was essentially their live act in 1963, and finished 585 minutes later (9 hours and 45 minutes). In three sessions that day (each lasting approximately three hours) they produced an authentic representation of the band’s Cavern Club-era sound, as there were very few overdubs and edits. Optimistically, only two sessions were originally booked by Martin—the evening session was added later.

beatles and george martin 1963

The day ended with a cover of “Twist and Shout”, which had to be recorded last because John Lennon had a particularly bad cold and Martin feared the throat-shredding vocal would ruin Lennon’s voice for the day. This performance, captured on the first take, prompted Martin to say: “I don’t know how they do it. We’ve been recording all day but the longer we go on the better they get.

#14 – Twist and Shout

Track Listing

All songs written by McCartney–Lennon, except where noted.

Side One

  1. “I Saw Her Standing There”
  2. “Misery”
  3. “Anna (Go to Him)” (Arthur Alexander)
  4. “Chains” (Gerry Goffin, Carole King)
  5. “Boys” (Luther Dixon, Wes Farrell)
  6. “Ask Me Why”
  7. “Please Please Me”

Side two

  1. “Love Me Do”
  2. “P.S. I Love You”
  3. “Baby It’s You” (Mack David, Barney Williams, Burt Bacharach)
  4. “Do You Want to Know a Secret”
  5. “A Taste of Honey” (Bobby Scott, Ric Marlow)
  6. “There’s a Place”
  7. “Twist and Shout” (Phil Medley, Bert Russell)

beatles please please me album back

 

Personnel

According to Mark Lewisohn:

The Beatles
  • John Lennon – lead vocals, background vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, harmonica, hand claps
  • Paul McCartney – lead vocals, background vocals, bass guitar, hand claps
  • George Harrison – background vocals, lead vocals on “Chains” and “Do You Want to Know a Secret”, lead guitar, acoustic guitar, hand claps
  • Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine, maracas, hand claps, lead vocals on “Boys”
Additional musicians and production
  • George Martin – producer, mixer, additional arrangements, piano on “Misery”, celesta on “Baby It’s You”
  • Norman Smith – audio engineer, mixer
  • Andy White – drums on “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You”

The Beatles

Reception

  • Please Please Me hit the top of the UK album charts in May 1963 and remained there for thirty weeks before being replaced by With The Beatles. This was surprising because the UK album charts at the time tended to be dominated by film soundtracks and easy listening vocalists.
  • In 2012, Please Please Me was voted 39th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. It was ranked first among the Beatles’ early albums, and sixth of all of the Beatles’ albums, with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club BandRevolver,Rubber SoulThe Beatles (The White Album) and Abbey Road ranked higher.
  • Rolling Stone also placed two songs from the album on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: No. 139, “I Saw Her Standing There”, and No. 184, “Please Please Me”.
  • According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic, “Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh”, the covers are “impressive” and the originals “astonishing“.

Full album (UK Mono) from youtube:

Other MAR-22:

Continue reading Today: Bringing It All Back Home (48) & Please Please Me (50)