The Beatles are now on every streaming service. Sort of makes the arguments from some of today's artists against streaming seem silly. All the biggest names in the history of music are pretty much already available. I believe artists should get paid, but the issues most have with streaming services like Spotify are really fights they should be having with their record labels. But whatever, there's always going to be a fight over this sort of thing I guess. It happened when CD's came about and later with iTunes. It happens with everything. Then it just sort of becomes accepted.
One complaint about The Beatles streaming is that they are only including the original Let It Be, as far as I can tell. I prefer Let It Be. . . Naked, the version they released in 2003. Paul never liked the original's overproduction by Phil Spector and I totally agree. The Naked version is stripped down and features a different track list with different takes and edits. In particular, I always hated "The Long and Winding Road" until I heard it without all the strings and orchestration it doesn't need. Also, Naked brings in "Don't Let Me Down" which is one of my all time favorites. Let's hope at some point they decide to add this version to streaming. Also missing, so far is the Anthology series which gathers tons of outtakes, alternate takes and miscellaneous bits. I would also like to see the full mono and stereo albums offered side by side. But maybe I'm just a dreamer.
Anyway, here's a list of my favorite Beatles songs. I could probably edit it down further or go the other way and add more. It's the fucking Beatles.
If you're paying attention, you know I'm not against poppy music at all. I wind up gravitating to some arguably teeny bopper type shit at times with no apologies. Hell, you can't be a Beatles fan without doing so, really. Poppy music is a fine balancing act to get right, though. This week, I finally really listened to someone who is actually getting it right, no matter what they say (foreshadowing). You see, in an effort to get Shayera into music that she would want to play, we've been listening to what she likes and that's suddenly Taylor Swift. And you know what, there are some pretty decent songs in her catalog.
I had never really listened to her at all, so I've never been a hater, though I question some of the dubious things she's said regarding Spotify and trademarking some pretty standard phrases she used in a song. But I also know she writes all her stuff and takes charge of her career. So no matter what, I had a level of respect for her I can't have for some other pop stars of today. This week had me listening to songs like "Red,""Stay Stay Stay" and "Never Getting Back Together" (that last one is Shayera's jam, by the way) long after the music stopped playing. Apparently Red is Shayera's favorite album. I'll be getting her 1989 for Xmas (maybe even on vinyl), since that wasn't available on Amazon Prime for free. There are much worse things she could be listening to. No, fuck that, this needs no qualifier. Plus, if it encourages her to pick up the guitar, I'm all for it.
So, having said all that, here's a truly random collection of songs. I've just been mostly listening to the 3 albums left in my top 10, trying to figure out the order. I think I have it, now so stay tuned for that. It might surprise some of you. No, Taylor Swift isn't one of them. Maybe next album, though, you never know.
I could probably pick any Beatles song at random, label it perfect, write it up and few people would question it. Likely because few people would read it, but that's neither here, nor there, nor everywhere (see what I did there?). But there's one Beatles song that I can say without a doubt has had the most lasting, evolving power over me. It's somehow a little scary and inviting, confusing and comforting. It's perfect and Don Draper knows it, no matter how dismissively he stops it (its effect on him is clear in the finale).
I remember when that episode aired, and he was placing the needle, I knew from the location of it what was coming. I have a long history with this song. I think I was always aware of The Beatles as a kid because I listened to the local oldies station, Magic 102.7, a lot, but they never played this. So I was familiar with the mop top, boy band era, really. This song came into my consciousness when I was around 11 or 12 watching PBS one night when they played the documentary The Compleat Beatles. I only vaguely remember specific details that have since sort of just congealed in my mind into a mass of gelatin Beatles facts that I somehow just know now, but I do remember vividly hearing this beat and seagull squawking and being a little bit shocked by it.
Like any healthy 12 year old, I was pretty naive about drugs so talk of the Fab Four getting high, on acid of all things, was eye opening and held a certain darkness that I couldn't deny was attractive. Sure, there was talk of meditation and India and all that, but drugs, man. Let's not kid ourselves. If I remembered anything from that film, I never forgot that song or the album it came from, Revolver. And a few years later, when I was 14, I bought my first Beatles album and second ever CD and it was that very album.
The thing is, by that time I had gotten confused and thought this song was called "Doctor Robert" so I was momentarily disappointed while playing the album the first time. I remember going right to "Doctor Robert" and expecting that beat and saying "damn it." So I said fuck it, and just played the album from the start instead. And I loved every song, but it wasn't that droning voice and those sounds that seemed to be coming from space. It wasn't that dark thing that called to me, which only now do I really understand as the call of Rock n Roll and humanity and the universe. Each song was just a song in comparison. And then. . .
Could it be? YES. YES IT WAS! THE SONG! It was wrapping itself around me in my room and I did just as it asked: turned off my mind, relaxed and floated on this wave of I wasn't even sure what. On some level I was afraid my parents would come in and angrily take this drug music away from me. But how could you not play this loud? Or on headphones? That day and over the years I played the hell out of this album, and particularly this song . . . sober. I'm positive it's engraved in my synapses. And then. . .
It would be impossible to write about this song without at least touching on my psychedelic experiences. Let's just say I had many. And I guess because in the mid 90s acid made some kind of comeback, there was much music that was supposed to cater to tripping. There was the whole neo- hippie thing going at the time, but I wasn't into Phish or that kind of stuff. I was more drawn to the electronic noises that seemed to capture the same sort of thing The Beatles were doing in this song. Whenever I was tripping, every noise, or silence, or the rushing wind, or the white noise in a room, would somehow morph into a beat, a pattern, a series of transitions into each other like some hallucinatory DJ was mixing reality for me and at the same time, the DJ was me. It was glorious and it always took me back to "Tomorrow Never Knows." While tripping, this song opened up new layers and meaning and colors and sensations that to this day I remember and feel, fondly, every time I hear the song.
It's ultimately about the music.
Anyone that's ever tripped will tell you that there really is no accurate way to describe it and that's because your brain just sort of folds and unfolds everything from time and space to sound and vision so language just fails. But this song, it doesn't fail. It gets it. And maybe John was writing about meditation and the sounds and the feeling are meant to be spiritual not psychedelically influenced. At the end of the day, I say it's the same thing. I say it's all about an alternative mind state and opening those doors. Mine were already opening thanks to this song, it's just the acid sort of blew the door off the hinge. But it was four dudes from Liverpool that started my trip in a perfect way, with a perfect song.
I finally loaded my music library onto Google Music. I don't think I'll be switching to Google, only because I do like the interface, music discovery and social features better on Spotify, but it's nice to be able to stream my Beatles and other obscure garage and shit. So I guess I just have two music apps now. What are you gonna do?
So I accidentally deleted this week's playlist and had to create a new one. I tried to more or less capture what I had before. It is what it is. Not much else to say about it, really. Just some songs.
This was originally posted exactly 3 years ago on my Tumbr on July 30th, 2012. It's now been 15 years and it's now Four of Us, but the journey continues.
The Fab Four
Two Of Us - The Journey
Is there anything The Beatles can’t teach us? I could literally pick any random song of theirs and write a post on it that would be long and meaningful, both musically and emotionally. But when I first started the music blog, over a year ago, I knew I’d be writing this post. I was just waiting for the right time and, honestly, the courage to let my guard down enough to write it and put it out there.
I’m currently sitting in a hospital with my mom. I won’t get into details, she’s doing much better. I mention this for context only, because around 10 pm last night, while I was sitting here with my mom, alone, hating being an only child, my wife texted me “oh shit, Happy Anniversary.” We both forgot that 12 years ago yesterday was the day we got married. We’re not the type to make a thing out of it. Anyway, that made me think it was time for this post, which I guess is the biggest deal I’ve ever made out of our anniversary.
The Beatles’ "Two Of Us" could be about a marriage beginning (Paul and Linda) or a divorce (Paul and John), but to me, it’s much more specifically about me and my wife and our travels through the world, through our lives, through time itself. I first realized this a few years back, the first time I had to travel for work alone. It was the first time we would be apart for any period of time, and one day, while driving, I heard the song and got all choked up. We had traveled a lot in the time we’d been together, and regardless of where we went, it has always been our time. This trip wouldn’t be the two of us, Sunday driving. It would just be me, missing the harmony that makes the song so beautiful.
The fact that the song is a metaphorical travelogue of past adventures, makes it easy for this to make one nostalgic. The specifics of those journeys in the song don’t matter. For me, it’s about making those memories that are longer than the road that stretches out ahead, and while that line might imply an ending, it also implies a depth and a bond that is stronger than anything you might encounter going forward. To me, it’s about how my wife and I, through the good and bad we’ve been through together, will always be on our way home, together. And now that there’s three of us and soon to be four, we include our children in that journey, but at the core, it’ll always be the two of us, partners, co-conspirators, burning matches and lifting latches, and always going home.
It’s easy, funny, and often true to complain and joke about our wives, our marriages, but in the end, at least for me, our compatibility, our love, our sense of humor, our shared joys and pains, our constantly deepening bond, is exactly what this song makes me think of, appreciate and get emotional about. I don’t always, or ever, say any of these things, because I think living it is more important than saying it, but now its here written down, for the world to see. Happy!!?
Everyone knows how much I love my Spotify Premium. So it may come as a surprise to hear that I'm considering a breakup. One feature I always liked was the ability to load songs that Spotify didn't already have into a local playlist on your phone and then be able to listen to a mix that would include such obscure little bands like The Beatles, for example. This was even one of the main reasons I had for switching from iPhone to a Galaxy, so I could put in an SD card and load tons of music without worry. Well, Spotify's latest desktop apps have made this impossible because they aren't reading local files properly and when they do, they did away with the ability to search them. At this point I'm not even sure how much music I have on my local hard drive because it won't even count it properly.
So I'm looking at Google Music as my next option. I have to stream because I listen to too many odd things and I need to be able to explore at will. I can't be held back by preset stations or any sort of limitation. Google lets you upload up to 50, 000 songs into the cloud to stream from anywhere, using the Google Play app. I'll be giving this a try very soon to see how it works. I don't know. Spotify does seem to have better social and discovery features, but it may just be a matter of getting used to it. We'll see.
In the meantime, here's this week's Spotify playlist. Once again, I was listening to Serial all week, which I finished so this is an ode to that podcast. It's about murder, guilt, innocence, suspicion, lies and general complexity. I think all humans want to be heard and understood and not getting that can be frustrating. I still don't know what side I come down on in the case, but I'll go into that over at the other blog this weekend maybe, so stay tuned. For now, listen to Reasonable Doubts.
