Tag Archives: The Beatles

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 19 Helter Skelter

The-Beatles-Helter-Skelter

“I was in Scotland and I read in Melody Maker that Pete Townshend had said: ‘We’ve just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock ‘n’ roll record you’ve ever heard.’ I never actually found out what track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going,  just hearing him talk about it. So I said to the guys, ‘I think we should do a song like that,  something really wild.’ And I wrote Helter Skelter.

You can hear the voices cracking, and we played it so long and so often that by the end of it you can hear Ringo saying,’I’ve got blisters on my fingers’. We just tried to get it louder: ‘Can’t we make the drums sound louder?’ That was really all I wanted to do – to make a very loud, raunchy rock ‘n’ roll record with The Beatles. And I think it’s a pretty good one.”
– Paul McCartney (Anthology)

“Umm, that came about just ’cause I’d read a review of a record which said, ‘and this group really got us wild, there’s echo on everything, they’re screaming their heads off.’ And I just remember thinking, ‘Oh, it’d be great to do one. Pity they’ve done it. Must be great — really screaming record.’ And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasn’t rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, ‘Oh well, we’ll do one like that, then.’ And I had this song called “Helter Skelter,” which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, ‘cuz I like noise.”
– Paul McCartney (Radio Luxembourg)

Other posts in this series

“Helter Skelter” is written by Paul McCartney, and recorded by the Beatles on their eponymous LP The Beatles, better known as The White Album. A product of McCartney’s deliberate effort to create a sound as loud and dirty as possible, the song has been noted for both its “proto-metal roar” and “unique textures” and is considered by music historians as a key influence in the early development of heavy metal.

The first version was a 27 minute jam that was never released. During the July 18, 1968 sessions, The Beatles recordedthe long version, which was much slower and less intense than the album version. Another recording from the same day was edited down to 4:37 for The Beatles Anthology, Volume III.

“…the first time the Beatles recorded the song at Abbey Road, they got so caught up in its heavy, screeching fury that they jammed on for more than ten minutes on one version, over twelve minutes on a second, and an epic, yet still tightly played, twenty-seven minutes on a third. On September 9, the night they taped the version of ‘Helter Skelter’ heard on the record, they held the length down to four and a half minutes but went just as wild, both on tape and off. Ringo’s impassioned scream, ‘I’ve got blisters on my fingers,’ was caught on tape, but had the Beatles also been filming a video that night, it would have shown George setting fire to an ashtray and running around the studio, wearing it on his head like a crown of fire.”
-Mark Hertsgaard (A Day In The Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles)

The Beatles – Helter Skelter:

Continue reading The Beatles 40 best songs: at 19 Helter Skelter

August 6 in music history

August 6: The Beatles released “Help!” in 1965 (read more)

.. 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_Beatles-Help_-Frontal
 Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.  Memphis_Minnie_Portrait_Walls_MS
Willie Lee Brown (August 6, 1900 – December 30, 1952) was an influential blues guitar player and vocalist. He partnered with other notable blues musicians such as Son House and Charlie Patton, and had a great influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Brown is considered one of the main pioneering musicians of the Delta blues genre.Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, he learned the guitar as a teenager. During his music career he was best known as a side player performing mostly with bluesmen Son House, Charlie Patton, and Robert Johnson. He had recorded four sides for Paramount Records in Grafton, Wisconsin in the 1930s, which were subsequently released on78rpm discs. The second time he recorded was with Son House accompanying him in three 1941 Library of Congress recordings. Brown briefly joined House in 1952 in Rochester, New York, but soon returned to Tunica, Mississippi where he died the same year.He was mostly known as an accompanist rather than a soloist, although he did record three high rated solo performances. His recorder songs were “M & O Blues,” “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor,” and “Future Blues”. He disappeared from the music scene during the 1940s together with Son House, and died before the first blues revival started. Willie_Brown_-_grave
 Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States of America dedicated to a single artist.  andy_warhol
 Willie Nix (August 6, 1922 — July 8, 1991) was an American Chicago blues singer and drummer, active in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, in the 1940s and 1950s.  willie nix

Spotify Playlist – August 06

August 5 in music history

August 5: The Beatles released “Revolver” in 1966 (read more)

The Beatles had initiated a second pop revolution – one which while galvanising their existing rivals and inspiring many new ones, left all of them far behind.
~Ian MacDonald (Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties)

….. Either way, its daring sonic adventures and consistently stunning songcraft set the standard for what pop/rock could achieve. Even after Sgt. Pepper, Revolver stands as the ultimate modern pop album and it’s still as emulated as it was upon its original release.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

 Beatles-Revolver
 Sammi Smith (August 5, 1943 – February 12, 2005) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Born Jewel Faye Smith, she is best known for her 1971 country/pop crossover hit, “Help Me Make It Through the Night”, which was written by Kris Kristofferson. She became one of the few women in the outlaw country movement during the 1970s.  sammi smith
 Luther Monroe Perkins (January 8, 1928 – August 5, 1968) was an American country music guitarist and a member of the Tennessee Three, the backup band for singer Johnny Cash. Perkins was an iconic figure in what would become known as rockabilly music. His creatively simple, sparsely-embellished, rhythmic use of Fender Esquire, Jazzmaster and Jaguar guitars is credited for creating Cash’s signature “boom-chicka-boom” style.  Luther-Perkins
 The Stooges is the self-titled debut studio album by American rock band The Stooges, released 5 August 1969 on Elektra Records. Two songs, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “1969”, were released as singles and the album peaked at #106 on the Billboard album charts. It is widely considered one of the best proto-punk albums. With Ron Asheton’s walls of distortion, and distorted wah wah solos, textures and power chord riffs, it is also considered to have had an impact on hard rock.  StoogesStooges
 On August 5, 1951, after a Sonny Boy Williamson II recording session, Elmore James recorded “Dust My Broom” at Ivan Scott’s Radio Service Studio in Jackson, Mississippi. James, who provided the vocals and amplified slide guitar, is accompanied by Williamson on harmonica, Leonard Ware on bass, and Frock O’Dell on drums. The recording studio had not made the transition to tape technology, so the group was recorded direct-to-disc using one microphone. It was the only song recorded by James; Trumpet’s McMurray felt that his other songs were not suitable for recording  OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Spotify Playlist – August 5

The Beatles’s “Come Together” covered by Springsteen, Joss Stone, Joe Cocker, Aerosmith, and more..

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“It was a funky record – it’s one of my favorite Beatle tracks, or, one of my favourite Lennon tracks, let’s say that. It’s funky, it’s bluesy, and I’m singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I’d buy it!”
~John Lennon (Playboy interview, 1980)

The Beatles recorded “Come Together” July 21, 1969.

We had a post here at JV yesterday: July 21: The Beatles recorded Come Together in 1969, and it got me thinking that there might be some great cover versions of this classic around..

We have to start with the original version (off course):

One comment over at our FB page suggested that Lennon’s live version from MSG, NYC in 1972 was even better than the original.. I tend to disagree, but it is a great version.

Continue reading The Beatles’s “Come Together” covered by Springsteen, Joss Stone, Joe Cocker, Aerosmith, and more..

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 20 Paperback Writer

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Paperback Writer was recorded between 13 and 14 April 1966. It was released 30 May 1966 (US) and 10 June 1966 (UK).

“I think I might have helped with some of the lyrics. Yes, I did. But it was mainly Paul’s tune.”
– John Lennon (Hit Parade in 1972) 

“Paperback Writer is son of Day Tripper, but it is Paul’s song. Son of Day Tripper meaning a rock ‘n’ roll song with a guitar lick on a fuzzy, loud guitar.”
– John Lennon (Playboy, 1980)

“I took a bit of paper out and I said it should be something like ‘Dear Sir or Madam, as the case may be…’ and I proceeded to write it just like a letter in front of him, occasionally rhyming it. And John, as I recall, just sat there and said, ‘Oh, that’s it,’ ‘Uhuh,’ ‘Yeah.’ I remember him, his amused smile, saying, ‘Yes, that’s it, that’ll do.’ Quite a nice moment: ‘Hmm, I’ve done right! I’ve done well!’ And then we went upstairs and put the melody to it. John and I sat down and finished it all up, but it was tilted towards me, the original idea was mine. I had no music, but it’s just a little bluesy song, not a lot of melody. Then I had the idea to do the harmonies and we arranged that in the studio.”
– Paul McCartney (“Many years from now” by Barry Miles)

I love the sound on this single, Paperback Writer/Rain, the bass lines are incredible. The story according to Mark Lewisohn goes that it was John Lennon who demanded to know why the bass on a certain Wilson Pickett record far exceeded the bass on any Beatles records. This single certainly changed that.

“‘Paperback Writer’ was the first time the bass sound had been heard in all its excitement,” said Beatles’ engineer Geoff Emerick in Mark Lewisohn’s book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. “Paul played a different bass, a Rickenbacker. Then we boosted it further by using a loudspeaker as a microphone.

These are the probable credits:

  • Paul McCartney – lead vocal, bass guitar
  • John Lennon – backing vocal, rhythm guitar
  • George Harrison – backing vocal, lead guitar
  • Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine

The Beatles – Paperback Writer (promo):

Continue reading The Beatles 40 best songs: at 20 Paperback Writer