The four original Beatles songs on the "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack: Are they classics or are they duds?

In any case, I love all those tracks.

"it's all too much" is good, the other two are meh.

"Hey Bulldog" would have been an incredible track on an alternate, rock-oriented, single-disc White Album. The piano riff's badass, and if my ear is remembering correctly, Paul's bass playing is pretty fabulous too. Guitar bits are kind of hammy but basically rock, and the Beatles don't get nasty nearly enough. "You think you know me but you haven't got a clue!"

"Only A Northern Song" should have been used on Pepper instead of "Within You, Without You" (or, better: instead of "She's Leaving Home")... it's a bit thin on ideas and possibly too literal for psychedelia but the sounds are fun. Which version is it that has the "You're correct, there's nobody there / And it's only there's no one there"? lyric? George doesn't usually go in for just complete weird abruptness like that, and it's a kind of spooky surprise...

It took me a few years to really come around on "It's All Too Much," but now I'd have to rank it as one of my favorite George songs...kind of the flipside of I Am The Walrus, take the overproduced psychedelic barrage and instead of a terrifying bad trip you get an overwhelmingly good one. The reverberating drums, the beefed-up keyboards, the wacky horns, the chanting vocals ("toOO much! toOO much!"), the backwards-echoed nonsense.. it's a monster. I think this is where a lot of the Elephant 6 people got on board, for better or worse... how long is this song anyway? What's the longest Beatles song? This? Anyway, it's great, should have been the b-side to something or other. It's a weird thing with the Beatles - I would imagine more fans at this point have gotten around to the Past Masters discs than to the Yellow Submarine album (in either form) and so it's arguable that these four songs are the most obscure Beatles recordings published during their time as a band. I guess maybe some of the early stuff has also slipped off the map, Beatles For Sale especially...but I'm rambling considerably.

"Why are there so many little Georges(spinning into the sky from George's opned skull)?"

"Umm...that's just what they do."

I second all the love for "Hey Bulldog."

"Only A Northern Song" makes me hate George like "Glass Onion" makes me hate John.

Are your fricking KIDDING ME? I don't know what records you're listening to. Paul has great, energetic bass parts in just about every late period George song, is continually present BELTING OUT harmony parts, and can be heard whooping and shouting in the background on "Savoy Truffle" and "Old Brown Shoe."

Perhaps too energetic; I'm with George regarding Paul's too-busy bass on "Something." But you are right, Tim, about "Old Brown Shoe."

not quite. northern songs was the company that the beatles sold their publishing to when they were young lads, and this, then, was just another george song to make a little extra pocket money for SOMEONE ELSE'S publishing company. it was meant as a joke, though clearly there's a bit of resentment underneath that joke.

Lots of love for "It's All Too Much," and it's worth noting that Three Dog Night (or rather, whoever wrote the song) completely nicked that riff for "Family of Man."

And I'd say "All Together Now" is no less fun or less memorable than "Yellow Submarine" itself.

So -- All-Around Classic.

checking my own facts: john and paul each owned a piece of northern songs, along with brian epstein and dick james. but george did not. which is to say, SOME of the beatles were making publishing money off george's songs, but not george himself.

Also see: every other guitarist who has ever written a song and had a bassist play something other than the basic chord notes.

Heck, I'd settle for it.

Also see: every other guitarist who has ever written a song and had a bassist play something other than the basic chord notes.
Ah, the bass player's point of view.

Has anyone heard the Patto, no, Boxer, cover of "Hey Bulldog"? And, was that song on The Beatles' Rock and Roll Music comp?

SIDE A

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
With a Little Help From My Friends
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Fixing A Hole
Getting Better
It's All Too Much

Side B

For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
When I'm 64
Lovely Rita
Good Morning, Good Morning
Sgt. Pepper's Reprise
A Day In The Life

See? SEE???? By subbing It's All Too Much in for She's Leaving Home and Within You Without You, you get an album that's more rocking, more psychedelic, AND less mannered and precious! I bet there wouldn't be half as many "sgt pepperz iz overr4ted" type threads if that'd been the track listing. Plus, you can use the spare tracks to beef out Magical Mystery Tour and make it a proper album.

SEE?????????

They don't have a lot of songs that get zany like that one.

Maybe "You Know My Name (look up the number).

The others are decent also

The rest? Not too keen on "Hey Bulldog" either, and the others are forgettable to say the least.

all fookin listen mate if you were fookin actually from fookin anywhere near the fookin mersey la then fookin youd no that the beatles were fookin tops mate fookin tops la fookin fab four innit fookin cant buy me love fookin fixin a hole fookin getter fookin better all the fookin time ya CUNT

been listening to this EP a LOT in the car because my 2 year old is into it -- gotta say that mccartney's bass playing in "hey bulldog" is OFF THE HOOK. who told him he could do that!?

I've perhaps noted this before, but "Yellow Submarine" was the only Beatles LP my parents owned. Thus, to this day, scarred for life, "Hey Bulldog" is possibly my favorite Beatles track. And yes, the bass is incredible, in classic rock annals besting "The Real Me."

I've been trying to wrap my head around that bass line for YEARS. Particularly the "you can talk to me" section. It's completely insane.

don't care much for "Only A Northern Song"

yeah that's the weakest one imo (though it still has a pretty wild mccartney bassline!). one thing i've noticed about northern song is how similar parts of it are to arthur lee's songwriting at the time. dunno if george was familiar with Love, but since he was down with the byrds, it's not out of the realm of possibility. only a northern song must be one of the least covered beatles songs ever.

Hey Bulldog/It's All Too Much would have made a great final psychedelic Beatles single.

I always dug "Only a Northern Song," but didn't realize how insanely dependent it is on tape manipulation until I heard the unadorned -- and kind of boring -- version on Anthology.

Back when Mojo did their "101 Greatest Beatles Songs" list, they had Glenn tillbrook do the entry for "O.A.N.S.", wherein he claimed something to the effect that it invented the Rutles in terms of being cheeky with the Fabs then-new legacy.

not that there was ever any doubt...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWGLRaH57YY

I'm I nuts for wanting to hear a mix of Paulie basslines??

Love "It's All Too Much"--one of my 10 favourite Beatles songs. "It's Only a Northern Song" I like fine. "All Together Now" is catchy enough every couple of years. "Hey Bulldog" I've never liked.

xxpost Wow, I've never paid the bass in that song any attention, having it isolated like that though - - y'all are right, this is great shit.

Wow, that's like "Hey Bulldog Dub." I could listen to a whole album of that.

I also like this creepy, haunted version of Lennon alone at the piano:

http://youtu.be/DnMcVUqmUNw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMcVUqmUNw

How could you have heard Hey Bulldog even once and not paid attention to the bass?! How could you hear pretty much any Beatles tune and not pay attention to the bass? McCartney is the greatest rock/pop bassist ever.

the longest Beatles song is "Revolution 9" surely, followed by "Hey Jude".

not quite - "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" longer than "Hey Jude".

"Bulldog" and "It's All Too Much" both awesome songs that aren't as well known as they should be because of their being buried on the YS soundtrack.

"Hey Bulldog" also the *only* Beatles song where a video exists of the song being made in the studio, as heard on the released record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaRz-3DYV7c

except for "All you need is love" obviously.

... and all of "Let It Be" perhaps?

"Yellow Submarine" remains the only Beatles album I've ever owned apart from some rarities compilation that had German language versions of some of their early stuff

... that's "Let It Be" the album of the film of the recording of the album, to be precise

careful wording - "in the studio" - was intentional.

Some of Let It Be recorded live on the Savile Row studio rooftop, which isn't really in the studio. Other songs from that album were recorded in Apple Studios, but there's no extant video of the song on the album (although there sometimes is of another take).

As for "All You Need Is Love", sort of. It was recorded live in the studio, with the four Beatles and a hired orchestra playing over a prerecorded backing track, but several overdubs and studio sweetening were added afterwards before the song was released as a single. Wikipedia:

<i>The performance was not completely live: The Beatles, the orchestra, and guests were overdubbing onto a pre-recorded rhythm track mainly consisting of piano, harpsichord, drums, and backing vocals. The full Our World segment opens with the band and company listening to the raw backing track, as commentator Steve Race explained the process in voiceover. The live overdubs seem to include not only lead vocals, orchestra, and the improvised call-and-response, but also bass guitar, Harrison's guitar solo, and a second drum track — which seems to go out of time with the original track during the first few bars. At the beginning of the song, under "La Marseillaise," a tambourine is shaken, but this was mixed out and replaced with a drum roll before the single was released.</i>

Wss gonna say, all that got added post-broadcast was the drum roll.

Since the Studio Quality Outtakes surfaced, I like:

The seven min plus "All you need is love" which starts and finishes with "La Marseillaise", a fanfare at the start, and a cack-handed attempt by someone or other on the guitar..

The long "It's all too much" again six or seven mins

and the five min version of "She's a woman" where they keep going after the fade.

I know there are other 'longer' ones...

Hmm, well suited to EC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzfYo-2R5SM

Alice Cooper, Steve Vai and Duff McKagan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9XawVhxyqA

Ween!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bXBK7o7pc4

Huh, there are all sorts of isolated Beatles tracks. Like, what's the point of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_b_D2TOO6w&feature=related

Still sounds cool, I guess.

There was a page here where someone had placed all the elements of "London Calling" on individual Youtbes there.

Did a nice live remix of my own...

There are isolated tracks of Sgt Pepper out there. "A Day In the Life" is pretty crazy, as you can imagine.

I love some of those albums where everything is polarized in stereo. My favorite version of Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds is the right(?) speaker with just bass and vocals.

I never had Yellow Submarine. I remember the big build-ups when they released them all in 1987 on CD. The first four came out on the same day, Sgt Pepper came out on June 1, its 20 years ago today anniversary. But by the time Yellow Submarine came out, folks were mostly, yeah, I'll just wait for Abbey Road.

The live overdubs seem to include not only lead vocals, orchestra, and the improvised call-and-response, but also bass guitar, Harrison's guitar solo, and a second drum track — which seems to go out of time with the original track during the first few bars.

In the film, Keith Moon can briefly be seen playing alongside Ringo.

hee hee, that isolated bulldog bassline is a treat.
one of those things that reminds you what an enormous talent mccartney was -- just head and shoulders above most of the rock instrumentalists of the time. it's like his guitar solo on "taxman", showcases just how *confident* the dude was.

the bulldog bassline is great indeed.
my favorite macca's bassline is "rain" though. so good.

McCartney's best bassline would make a good poll. I'd vote for Taxman.

indeed. it must have been done already, no ?

and on the subject, Taxman is good but in a way, Rain's is a development on that one, for me !

Once he started using a Rickenbacker (on Rubber Soul), his sound suddenly became more vivid and alive.

And yeah, I'd vote for "Taxman" to. Who knows what the fuck he's doing on the bridge.

sympathy vote for Lady Madonna from me

Offbeat vote for "A Little Help From My Friends" or "Getting Better," in both of which he plays with the harmony and the timing in all kinds of fun ways.

there was some late 90s guitar-pop-rock hit that totally nicked Lady Madonna's main riff for a middle 8 and it drove me crazy whenever I heard it, it was so blatant. does this ring a bell with anybody?

i like his bassline for tomorrow never knows. one note! but the *right* note.

also would cast a "lol" vote for I Will.

apparently I am thinking of Sublime's "What I Got"

ahah, great one "I will" !

ha, i was just about to post about "What I Got!"

Is the "Rain" bassline slowed down, too, or just the rest of the track?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f7D2_jUkqA&feature=related

a reminder of the pure genius of Rain's bassline !

"Only A Northern Song" I think is always underrated, and whenever I hear it, it's very pleasing. I never think of it much, but the past few years I've gotten more into the George songs like "Blue Jay Way" and this one. Funny that he's the lead guitar but during the psych years wrote those songs on organs.

My favorite Paul basslines are "Rain", "Hey Bulldog", "Come Together", and the beginning of "Baby Your A Rich Man". I love how his bass on "Come Together" turns a fairly pedestrian Lennon song into something special.

Love that little Sorrow quote in It's All Too Much

Like the melodic bassline in "With a Little Help From My Friends"

beatles nerdery question -- what does george say at the very beginning of all too much? "to ya muh!" ??

"Mother", I always thought.

Alternate view has it George says "I'm Irish" if you play it backwards

I don't know if it's his best, but it's one of my favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f7HdjotWpQ

I thought it was "Sue your mother!"

That bass only Hey Bulldog is just so sick--thanks for posting it. I'm a John person, but I am so in awe of Paul McCartney's musicianship

I love bass only isolations.There's a couple of John Entwitle ones floating around out there that are mindblowing like this one is.

Entwistle

the bass on something is a little too much, it kind of gets on my nerves now.

that's what Georges/she said !

(sorry for the bad joke)
so this thread has turned into a macca's basslines eventually ?
that said, there might already be a proper thread about that, no ? haven't checked...

after a quick search, apparently no thread on that yet...

xp Yep, this one smokes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vQyjVML-oY

As does this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6szTUpJ7vl4

Listening to the YS record now for the first time in ages. God damn, "It's All Too Much" is so awesome.

That bass only Hey Bulldog is just so sick--thanks for posting it.

hoos

Kinda surprised "All Together Now" was recorded during MMT.. The minimal production sounds very White Album IMO.

man, it's been posted before, but for contrast here, what a (great) mess
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oynWTrw0jok

(lennon)

It's funny, a number of good guitar blokes were absolutely hopeless on Bass. Keith Levene of PIL being another, apparently.

I think "All Together Now" et al were originally going to be released as a separate EP before they were grouped into the Yellow Submarine soundtrack.

Wait, this is the first I've ever heard of the bass on "Helter Skelter" being John. The only song in which I'm aware of him playing the bass is "The Long and Winding Road." Where does this come from?

It's funny, a number of good guitar blokes were absolutely hopeless on Bass. Keith Levene of PIL being another, apparently.

I'd argue bass is a much harder instrument to get right. Anyone can make a racket on a guitar, but bass almost always needs to have a groove.

Listening to the YS record now for the first time in ages. God damn, "It's All Too Much" is so awesome.

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, February 9, 2012 10:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Apparently, its Keith playing Bass on "Radio 4" and its not hopeless.

i actually really dig this album -- i've come around to thinking that all four songs are outstanding.

The final mix on 'It's All Too Much' is fucking unreal and completely out there for any '60s pop band. Of all the Beatles psychedelic tracks, this one was up there with 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and 'Revolution 9' on the "wtf?" scale when I first heard it.

I mean, I don't think the final mix brings out the best in the song, but it's such an acid fried mess that still sounds bizarre now. I'd love to have known what people thought of it at the time.

There is a long version I have on bootleg somewhere, it runs for about 7 minutes you should track that one down

It's All Too Much basically invented shoegazing, right?

That and Hey Bulldog are total classic. The other two are fun.

i love George's droney psychedelic organ songs (It's All Too Much, Blue Jay Way, Only a Northern Song)

Every time I see this thread title, I want to join in:

"Yeah.. They Look Like a Duds!!"

i love yellow submarine because george gets _half_ of the original songs on it! i admit that i only ever listen to the steve hillage version of "it's all too much", though.

There's an 8:35 version of It's All Too Much on the Beatles Artifacts box, disc 3 The Psychedelic Years 1966-1967. It's glorious. I've always heard Stereolab in that stabbing synth groove that opens/underlies it.

Hey Bulldog is fantastic, Ringo's drumming on the intro/riff is one of his best moments

awesome Harrison guitar solo on "Bulldog" too ... and McCartney bassline! Great song.

the video for "hey bulldog" is fantastic too. i get the feeling with that song (my second favorite beatles number) that it was one of the last times the beatles played together as a band without being consumed by hatred for each other.

i love George's droney psychedelic organ songs (It's All Too Much, Blue Jay Way, Only a Northern Song)

Long Long Long

It's All Too Much basically invented shoegazing, right?

the manipulated guitar sound of "Rain" was earlier but all this stuff was massively influential. "It's All Too Much" I'd also put alongside "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "The Word" as Beatles proto-electronic pop music. rather than focus on melody these songs are about a central drone of electronically manipulated sound over a repetitive, dance club-oriented rhythm, often including tape loops and looping arrangements. a very futuristic way to make pop in the 60s!

"Hey Bulldog" is great, one of my childhood favorites. love that video. such a glam rock song! has some of those Roxy Music film noir vibes.

i love George's droney psychedelic organ songs (It's All Too Much, Blue Jay Way, Only a Northern Song)

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, February 14, 2017 1:42 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I love it how 'Blue Jay Way' has really mundane subject matter (friends have got lost and the narrator wants 'em to hurry up so he can go to sleep) but the musical backing makes the whole thing sound like the worst trip ever.

When I was 7 blue jay way was really scary to me and along with baby you're a rich man and within you without you it was my childhood favorite Beatles song.

Blue Jay Way is really really weird, The Beatles summoning genres from the future of music (goth, drum n bass, trip hop, chopped & screwed)

I think it's great how the verses and choruses are in different tempos too.

yes and that trippy mellotron outro from "Flying" leading into it is beyond cool.

i listened to Yellow Sub soundtrack last night. that laughing at the end of "Hey Bulldog" is sort of terrifying, John sounds like he is losing his mind (he was daily tripping on acid so he probably was!). love the layers of sound on "Only a Northern Song", there's a track or two of just sound effects w echo floating above the main song and it kind of gets louder as the song goes on. by the end it has that tuning-the-radio-live feel also in "I Am the Walrus". "All Together Now" as always is super fun and catchy. "All You Need is Love" is plodding and lazy though they were asked for an anthem for global TV so i got to give them props for the positive message (and lol off-key back catalog promotion "She loves you yeah yeah yeah!".

Trivia: Flying is one of the very few beatles songs credited to all four of them. It is also a great song to play for sunday morning sex.

Regarding this album: I get next to nothing from it. Hey Bulldog is the only song which I like and even that is too disjointed and predictable to make me want to listen to it.

"It's all too much" feels like a great song badly executed. There's a gem somehwere in there but it feels all so undercooked. They were either drugged out of their minds when doing this one or were too lazy to try to get there. It would be great if all the noodling didn't feel so pointless, I keep waiting for the song to do something interesting and it just lingers... yes it's all pretty melodic and it has some nice wall of sound and trumpets in there but it never gets anywhere.

still, you gotta love that Merseys shout-out

Drone in "doesn't go anywhere" shocker!

we should poll the Best Beatles Drones

tomorrow never knows will take it in a walk.

Trivia: Flying is one of the very few beatles songs credited to all four of them. It is also a great song to play for sunday morning sex.

― dance cum rituals (Moka)

for "very few" read "only"! that's why the residents covered it on their beatles 7". and i like it too. yonin-bayashi does a good version.

I think "12-Bar Original" was also put out with a four-way credit, but... yeah.

"Flying" is very nice indeed. Perfect to chill on a hazy summer day...

Mmm, *was*.

Check out "Christmas Time Is Here Again"

'Only a Northern Song' is my favorite Beatles song. The four originals on this probably constitute my favorite discrete Beatles recorded work, inasmuch as there's nothing I'd drop or change (i.e. no drippy clarinet-driven McCartney songs for pensioners to waltz around their gardens to).

does anyone like the George Martin film score tracks?

I honestly have flipped over to that side once, maybe twice since I switched to the LP circa 2004... they're fine, I think, but pretty far removed from the reasons I'd put on this LP. A shame about the timing really... a little later and it could have had "What's the New Mary Jane?" and "Not Guilty" and probably some other things not issued until Anthology.

Sure.

I did a version of "Hey Bulldog" for one of the ILX comps, and used the intro from the first track on side 2 as an, um, intro.

I think "12-Bar Original" was also put out with a four-way credit, but... yeah.

― tales of a scorched-earth nothing (Doctor Casino)

well it was either that or an 0-way credit :)

I'd rather listen to side one of Yellow Submarine and Magical Mystery Tour over Sgt. Pepper's

It's like you just held a mirror up to my Beatles-related feelings.

magical mystery tour will always be my favorite

If it weren't for the plodding wheezy blahness of "All You Need Is Love" squatting at the end of a side on each of these I'd be right there with y'all.

It's not a favourite of mine, but I think it works well as an LP closer.

magical mystery tour is not an lp.

it is in America

ok, magical mystery tour is an lp iff "i'm only sleeping" is not a track on _revolver_.

The MMT lp is canon now; it's in all the reissues and box sets (which are otherwise the UK tracklistings).

The vocal melodies in "Blue Jay Way" are fucking awful.

The whole song is fucking awful. And "All Together Now" is bollocks too btw.

You know what's fucking awful? You know what's fucking awful? Do you want me to say it?

Don't make me say it, guys.

When The Beatles albums were issued on CD in 1987, they chose to go with the UK versions and compiled the remainder into the Past Masters LP's. Except for Magical Mystery Tour, for which they retained the US config. The correct choice, IMO.

Everyone is mis-spelling "incredible" regarding 'Blue Jay Way'

MMT is awesome, got the double 7" version recently

George's "don't be long/don't belong" pun sounds like something John might have written.

Haters of "All Together Now" need to spend more time with 3-year-olds.

does anyone like the George Martin film score tracks?

― his eye is on despair-o (Jon not Jon), Friday, February 17, 2017 7:47 AM (seven hours ago)

"Pepperland" is a gorgeous piece of music.

I love the George Martin score

Just looking at something I wrote about Yellow Submarine Songtrack when that came out and I said that the new mixes of "Only a Northern Song" and "It's All Too Much" were two of the most appealing. Want to hear those again.

I did a version of "Hey Bulldog" for one of the ILX comps, and used the intro from the first track on side 2 as an, um, intro.

― Mark G, Friday, February 17, 2017 10:05 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That intro's one sweet segue.

https://soundcloud.com/ilx-beatles-comp/alsatian-davies-hey-bulldog

Ahhh I should pull out the ILX Beatles album tomorrow, I remember there being some really cool shit in there.

I dig the verse melody of Blue Jay Way but if I had to knock anything about the song it's that for me the chorus melody is droney in the bad way, just kinda blah and I feel like the arrangement and backing vocals are audibly struggling to add interest. Not something that really bugs me, but yeah, sometimes George only had 1/2 to 2/3 of a great song in hand, and while the others would usually throw down great playing regardless, it doesn't seem he got much real songwriting help in the way of John and Paul hooking each other up with a missing bridge or a rhyming line. (Not that there was much of that going on by this point either, mind you.)

it doesn't seem he got much real songwriting help in the way of John and Paul hooking each other up with a missing bridge or a rhyming line. (Not that there was much of that going on by this point either, mind you.)

the story of George's life. Even George Martin acknowledged this was the case -- and he didn't help much either.

In the '80s Paul asked George about collaborating; George basically told him to go fuck himself, asking why suddenly after 20+ years he finally deemed George worthy of writing with.

a lot of MMT (the soundtrack section, not the stuff added on for the U.S. album) feels kind of half-baked to me, like they couldn't be bothered to finish some of these songs. the title track feels like they came up with 30 seconds' worth of a song and then went "eh, fuck it." i like the mood and feel of blue jay way but it's undermined by the dorky lyrics. even more polished tracks like your mother should know and the fool on the hill have some pretty lazy lyrics. ("they don't like him, the fool on the hill" sounds like a meaningless placeholder line that paul never bothered to replace with a real one.) i am the walrus is the only one that feels like they're firing on all cylinders.

i should add that i at least kind of enjoy all of these tracks, they've got a spooky and unique ambience that feels unique among beatles songs, but the tightness of the songwriting from revolver or even most of sgt pepper isn't there.

I just learned from reading Allan Pollack that "Blue Jay Way" is not in a Western mode. Pollack says it's a major scale variant with a raised second and a raised fourth. That's true but Harrison also uses the natural second in the chorus.

It's in C, so it's:

C, D, D#, E, F#, G, A, B

Wonder if this was a raga he had been playing.

i am the walrus is the only one that feels like they're firing on all cylinders.

This was the first song they worked on for MMT and the first thing they did after Brian Epstein died. They were in a very weird space where they were universally recognized as geniuses, they thought everything they did was brilliant, and they couldn't have been less certain of their future.

i feel like paul and john had different ways of half-assing it during this period. john wrote one song to every three of paul's and wrote either wrote deliberately lyrics or songs about being too lazy/stoned to get out of bed. paul would barely polish his songs from their original demos and blatantly sing placeholder lyrics. listening to their work in this period and later one really gets the sense of how they complemented each other as songwriters, fixed up each other's weak parts.

pplains, bless you!

Anyway, as regards the TV show..

I remember seeing it back in 1967, we all had sat down to watch it, by the end I was the only one left. I thought to myself "That was good, looking forward to next week's episode"

Can't help thinking I was right

In the '80s Paul asked George about collaborating; George basically told him to go fuck himself, asking why suddenly after 20+ years he finally deemed George worthy of writing with.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, February 18, 2017 2:48 AM (twenty hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As much of a McCartney fan I am, George OTM.

One thing that really annoys me about McCartney is that he goes to great pains to try to distract people from how much of an arsehole he can be, and he fails miserably at this. At least Lennon was upfront about it.

McCartney is a nice bloke, but underneath is a bit of a got.

Lennon was a git, but underneath that was a nice bloke.

Got to hear the Yellow Submarine Songtrack again with the 1999 mixes. The separation really works with "All Together Now," and it ends up feeling more substantial. Won over by its charm again. And "It's All Too Much" is great. The separation of the organ and lead guitar is really nice and the brass sounds great.

That album is really great on the whole.

really, the only dud thing is that there's only four of them.

really really love both george tracks

Context helps. For children's songs, catchy ditties like "Hey Bulldog" and "All Together Now" are more than fine. Just compare them to the "Shark Song" for crying out loud, they sound like Bach in comparison. "It's All Too Much" is pretty decent but sounds tremendous in this company. If there's a dud, it's "Only a Northern Song" which is boring as shit.

I kind of hate “all together now” but the rest are good, some even great.

mccartney song is a bad mccartney song & presages the worst handclappy twee nonsense of later decades
lennon song is a good lennon song: nervy & compelling but kind of unpleasant vibes so i can't love it
harrison songs intriguingly messy & loose in a way this band rarely seemed to let themselves get on record, they suggest a more interesting future than the "let's be a rock and roll band again" we ended up getting with these guys (& so many their contemporaries)

Only a northern song has that stop and start awesome organ, never boring

It was supposed to be his contribution to Pepper's until George Martin said uhhh

it’s so freakin awesome, george Martin produced America what does he know

the tape loop shit is the exact opposite of boring

how is “hey bulldog” a kid’s song?

it’s kind of a nasty rocker

otm

it’s so freakin awesome, george Martin produced America what does he know

― brimstead

"Only a Northern Song"? A travesty. The worst Beatles-era Harrisong.

cause it's lowly midst Harrisongs

how is “hey bulldog” a kid’s song?

How is anything a kid's song? Honestly, I think context defines it more than anything else, and even then there's no easy definition - what a toddler listens to isn't the same as a five or ten year old, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17p49u5M2eE

the tape loop shit is the exact opposite of boring

This. “Only A Northern Song” is the only one that sounds like the film looks. In the late ‘70s pre-VCR days, when you were lucky to catch the movie at a second-run or revival house, or at 2am on a UHF station, “Northern” was the next best thing to watching the movie.