Worst Beatles song on Past Masters

Apologies for 2 in 1 day, but frankly I'm greedy and have been dying to talk about this release.

The German songs are pointless, rather than bad, so I'm voting for You Know My Name (Look Up The Number). Everything else here is brilliant.

Wow - reading that back, I really sound like Geir.

I've got little interest in most of the first disc, but Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand stands out as being particularly inessential, and also, from an audio point of view, just sounds pretty rubbish even remastered.

The opening four songs on disc two are probably my favourite four Beatles songs, and I have played them to death over the last 2 weeks. That the rest of the disc is pretty fucking awesome too is just a big fat bonus.

Is anyone gonna heavily diss You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)?

x-post; you do!

I really like the opening bars of Look Up The Number, and while it's clearly a throwaway piece of nonsense, I quite like it. Maybe just cos it's where I assume Vic & Bob got the "club style" singing for Shooting Stars from.

Maybe just cos it's where I assume Vic & Bob got the "club style" singing for Shooting Stars from.

I assumed they got it from Billy Connolly

... hold on though, didn't Dave Lee Travis, or some other Radio Fab DJ, used to have a Pub Singer bit in his show?

And did that sound like Lennon on YKMN(LUTN)?

It was Steve Wright!

http://991.com/newGallery/The-Legendary-Pub-Singer-I-Sink-Them-My-Wa-465642.jpg

I'm sure there's a Bonzos song with some pub singing going on as well

"Across the Universe" is horrible and gets my vote. It's John at his worst.

I'm sure it all began with "Stars on 45 pints" by Star Turn.

C'mon! Paul McCartney as a Male Stripper called "Denis O'Bell", why not?

.. and a posthumously released sax solo by Brian Jones!

I loved the German versions, we were out there at the time!

Man, everyone was out there in those days

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JzUx44lr8WA/SMXaS5-Fc0I/AAAAAAAADzA/MOCvuVbYBPs/s400/Hippies%5B2%5D.jpg

Yeah, gotta go with "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand." It's utterly pointless, the German pronounciation is terrible, and the couplet "O du bist so schön/Schön wie ein Diamant" is bad even by the standards of their worst lyrics.

"YKMNLUTN" is the best song on here WTFuckinflippetyfuck!

That is a joke, right?

Anyway.

Paperback Writer might be my favourite Beatles song. I assume I'm pretty much alone in this.

Can we talk about Rain's bassline, drum fills, and backwards coda, and can we also talk about the tightness, tautness, emotional maturity, and textural delicacy of We Can Work It Out, a finer genuine Lennon / McCartney collaboration than A Day In The Life?

I don't know why but until recently I always assumed that Paperback Writer was Lennon. Presumably it was the reference to Lear.

Paperback Writer might be my favourite too. Top 3, for sure.

Yeah.

Nick, you heard the 'long' version of "She's a Woman" right?

I would have expected 'Ballad of John and Yoko, The' (er) to walk this

Bad Boy, if not the German tracks. YOu Know My Name is great, so is Ballad of John and Yoko.

Why? It's the Nerk Twins! (re; Ballad of J&Y)

(One and only gig venue, the Fox and Hounds pub in Caversham, Reading, Berkshire)

I would have expected 'Ballad of John and Yoko, The' (er) to walk this

Uh, y' what? I mean I don't like it much either, but there's worse on here.

If they'd only polled a-sides.

Then again, Hello Goodbye?

Voted for Get Back!

...because the beatles just don't convince me as a blues-rock band.

Never got the love for Paperback Writer/Rain personally (Nick, you're gonna hate me even more for this). I do prefer PW, but both of these are kind of the straight-ahead rock songs that in my mind went on to inform the likes of Oasis etc, whereas I'm more of a Geirist Beatles fan of orchestras and silly noises (hence why I like stupid songs like Mr Kite etc). Plus I don't like songs English about rain as a rule.

Holy shit what's "straight-ahead" about "Rain?"

I'm beginning to think I disagree with dog latin on absolutely everything

Honestly, I think we've heard these songs so many times before that many of us take their pure musical invention for granted. If "Rain" was played on the radio for the first time today, it would blow a lot of people's minds. At the very least, it would still sound like nothing else around.

There really aren't any songs worse than Balladofjohnandyoko on this.

Protip: spelling it like that makes it seem even worse!

i love ballad of john and yoko

and "you know my name" is honestly one of my favorite tracks on here! i do all the weird voices to my wife and she hates it (she likes the song tho)

YOU
you KNOW
you KNOW you know my name heuhh heuhh heueehhh

& yea the opening bars are awesome

"hevvehh Hevvehh!"

haha

okay i think i should do a poll on the different parts of this song

I was thinking this too!

Someone needs to edit the Anthology 2 version bits into the stereo mix off Past Masters...

Get a room.

As for Rain begetting Oasis, I'll write more about this in the evening, but it's one very small facet of Rain that begat one very small facet of Oasis, and it's not an important facet of either.

"Hey Jude". Massively overplayed (even for the Beatles), and it's 7 minutes long.

Yeah, but every generation's gotta have their "Dry The Rain"...

Is "Hey Bulldog" on any of these remasters? It was never on an album proper, if I remember.

It's on the mono Past Masters and the stereo Yellow Submarine.

this poll should have been split up between the two discs (as should the white album tbh, sorry for being so CD-centric).

It's hard for me to think of Past Masters as one disc, too.

Worst: Love Me Do
Best: We Can Work It Out (on some days the best Beatles song ever)

You know my name isn't meant to be taken seriously, but it's still not a good Beatles song. that said, i love the opening 30 seconds

Hey Jude is the worst fucking thing ever. You are The Beatles, greatest band ever or whatever and people will be singing along with you at Live Aid or in telly commercials whatever you write- at least make it something cool and not reduce your legacy to na na na na na na soft rock epic bullshit.

I'm totally with Nick on Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out/Paperback Writer/Rain as possibly the best Beatles songs. Hell, possibly the best four songs ever put next to each other on record, unless there is somewhere Ante Up is repeated 4 times in a row.

We Can Work It Out is just fucking astonishing. I never, ever tire of it.

Great things about Paperback Writer: the bassline dropping in; the BREAKBEAT; the vocal tail off / effect in the harmonies, especially in the middle section when it anticipates the psychedelic moves the band would make very soon; the guitar sound for that riff; the incongruity of the lyric; the fact that it's over in 2:12 and packs in more tune than Oasis' entire career; the delirious, irreverent sense of fun and joy that the Frere Jacques backing vocals give it; the pure exhilarating thrill of hearing a really tight band play together really fast, loving every second.

Good grief, what a tune.

you know my username (look up my email)

Reasons Rain has no connection to Oasis: the bassline, the bassline, the bassline; the drums, the drums, the drums; the lyric, which directly address the experience of the psychedelic, talks people through it, but is also directly addressing 'just' the different attitudes of the two protagonists in the band (Paul hides his head when it rains; John ducks into the shade when it shines).

Other things that make it great: the backwards spun vocals in the coda, which Lennon assumed was a synthesiser or whatever, and was delighted to find out was his own voice, backwards; the moment just as the band break through the last of the main song body into the coda, when guitar and bass fall together into this really brief, brutal groove.

Amazing tune. Wish I'd discovered it at 14 like most of the other Beatles stuff and not 20 when I thought I was past them.

Oasis are a English rock band that formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by..

Well yes, and Liam obviously copped his entire singing style off one single Lennon phrasing in Rain, but Oasis have never, ever, ever got close to it; in fact are so far away from it in every way that their earlier name and Liam's nasally melodic droned growl really ought to be discounted as a giant fucking red herring.

Best thing about Paperback Writer is that Paul blagging that he has a thousand pages and he'll be writing more. I've tried nanowrimo and sir, you are talking bullshit. You've blatently got 4 pages, got bored and typed "How long is Ringo going to take boiling the kettle?" 6000 times.

Anyone who votes for "You Know My Name..." should be flayed alive and fed to school of very angry hammerhead sharks.

if the poor soul is already flayed alive, why bother feeding him to the sharks?

to quote the sheriff of nottingham/alan rickman: BECAUSE IT HURTS MORE

"Bad Boy" - just ahead of "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" and a couple of the "Long Tall Sally" EP tracks.

I love 'Bad Boy', Geir - I'm starting to think you know nothing

Well yes, and Liam obviously copped his entire singing style off one single Lennon phrasing in Rain, but Oasis have never, ever, ever got close to it; in fact are so far away from it in every way that their earlier name and Liam's nasally melodic droned growl really ought to be discounted as a giant fucking red herring.

Well, personally, I have always wondered why they have never covered "Rain", for exactly the reasons you mention.

But of course, the Gallaghers (Liam in particular) are just not intelligent enough to do the additional stuff that really made "Rain" such a great track. Parlophone were kind of cowards for not making it the A-side (or at least a double A-side single), but "Paperback Writer" is of course a great song too. Other than "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever", that would be their best twoofer (and, yes, I am aware of "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out" being really strong, but it doesn't quite match those two. Same about "Hello Goodbye"/"I Am The Walrus".

(x-post)
but the beauty of those tracks Geir mentions is they aren't as overplayed (and part of the reason why I've always liked Oldies But Goldies, Hey Jude and Rarities)

I always thought this early Radiohead jam sounded like a tribute to Paperback Writers in some ways:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4inS8uNxmsE

i'm coming round to "rain" now, after sicko's posts and also after watching the video a bwun of times...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0DXofRHh9Q&feature=related

he's right about the drums - and the bass!

I love their style there. Especially George - like on Ed Sullivan, there're a couple of looks to camera that are very cool

the paperback writer video is like the opposite - everyone looks kind of uncomfortable, with expressions as if to say "but we're miming! this is ridiculous!". John looks especially nonplussed.

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

I'm sure this wasn't the case though, I'm sure they were all having a bloody great time.

I will hear no slagging of the "Long Tall Sally" tracks. Every song on that EP is a gem, and "Slow Down" may be the best cover they ever did.

"You Know My Name" I find quite poignant for all its gibbering ridiculousness - a snapshot of an (increasingly rare) occasion when they could still bear each other's company and generate some laughs, even if it probably took a truckload of drugs to make it happen.

Oasis never did a cover version of "Rain", because they are not blatantly going to copy the Beatles like that. i.e. it'd sound 100% like the beatles, so why bother?

Whereas if they do a cover of Paul Weller's "Carnation", it ends up sounding like "Rain".

Oh yeah, Paul Weller did a version of "Rain" didn't he?

Well, I still think that Oasis cover would have been kind of interesting.

(Insert OTT overfuzzed guitar turned to 11)

When the sooon shyaynes they slip into the shyaaaaaaaaaaaayde
And sip their lemonyaaaaaaaaaayde
When the sooon shyaynes
When the sooooooon shyaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyynes

"Rain" probably was judged unworthy of A-side status because it slows down progressively, and ... well ... because "Paperback Writer" totally fucking cooks! I'd forgotten with just what vim it trucks. Howza! They probably were never better as a rock band than that year, yes?

^ Geir, sometimes you're hilarious. And once in a while, as above, even intentionally so.

Hysterical. I can hear it now!!

this thread bein' left behind.

I had 'Rain', 'Paperback Writer', 'Day Tripper' and 'We Can Work It Out' on a loop before I went out this morning, and it's obvious why 'Rain's a b-side - it's just not as good as the others. Sorry that's not particularly insightful or anything, but there you go.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0a/Heyjudealbum.jpg

I just wanna say^

Ringo's so diddy, isn't he? I don't think of him as diddy.

Ringo also looking very "did the photographer ask me to stand here so I could be CUT OFF THE PICTURE?!"

He's basically Lonely Guy Just Thinking Baout Things there...

john's a fucking mess in that picture. that whole photo shoot is fascinating

Yeah, not a good look for John there.

What's above the door in that photo? Where are they?

Harrison looks about 50 there. He was probably 26 at most.

are there any PM songs with him banging on the piano that don't get old after the 2nd listen? (lady madonna prompted this)

'Golden Slumbers'. 'You Never Give Me Your Money'. Probably others.

^^ I'm not the only one confused by all the poll threads I see.. ;-)

What's above the door in that photo? Where are they?

Last ever photo session, at John Lennon's estate - Tittenhurst, 22 August 1969.

Damn, nearly forgot that album existed and I owned a copy - "Hey Jude" on the spine, "The Beatles Again" on the label

Great things about Paperback Writer:

This could easily be a thread in itself. I'd add particularly the way Paul says "Paperback WRYterrrr" at the end up against all the backing vocals - just sounds really fucking cool.

This should have been two separate polls though - I definitely bought these two CDs at lengths apart from each other and got to know them individually, so this is very weird to address as a whole. I think "Lady Madonna" is the only thing I'd skip if it came on right this second - everything else is fucking fantastic.

While the content of this set (these sets) is d=clearly unfuckwithable, is it the BEST way to experience these songs in 2009? Could another solution for all the non-album songs have been found? Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out as bonus cuts on Rubber Soul, with Paperback Writer and Rain on Revolver, for example?

I've wondered about that. It would kinda hurt the flow of the albums IMO, the finality of something like "Tomorrow Never Knows" and then suddenly Paperback Writer after it...ehh.

I was thinking that with respect to Rubber Soul in particular - whether it might be that rare thing, a single album that'd've made a better double. Its main problem for me is the length, it's neither short enough to be punchy nor long enough to ebb and flow. The quality is so good that it'd be a crime to cut four songs from it. But add, say, six more and it might ramble enough to be a little White Album.

The problem being what to add - 'Day Tripper' and 'We Can Work It Out' are too good and would overshadow it, and there's not so much else that would fit. Some things from Beatles for Sale maybe, but I certainly don't want the albums rearranged to that extent.

I’ve always had a soft spot for "Don't Let Me Down." I love the groove, Billy Preston's rolling electric piano lines, Lennon's anguished vocal, and the directness of the lyrics, well just everything about it really. The song's far, far better than "Hey Jude." And if we're going to do Soviet-style analysis of Beatle's photos shoots and film performances, then check out the rooftop concert footage from 'Let It Be.' I love the sheer joy John and Paul take in each other's performances, George even cracks a smile when John sings, "the first time she done me" and throughout the song John and Paul exchange nods, glances, that say they're having a blast, which is remarkable when you consider how much they couldn't stand the sight of each other by the end of 'Let It Be.’ It sounds like a sappy cliché, music overcoming all personal differences, but for a few fleeting moments on that rooftop it did.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Unsurprised by the results, and a little bit saddened at the lack of overall votes and discussion; which cements my feeling that the Past Masters approach isn't the best way to manage this catalogue of work - some of their absolute best material is on here, their biggest singles and most innovative songs, and yet people don't seem to be excited about it. Why not?

There so many Beatles polls right now! It got wearying to try to monitor and participate in all of them. That's a pity for me b/c this (Past Masters) is the collection of Beatles songs I return to the most (prob. b/c my first non-radio intro to the Beatles was the Hey Jude EP). Secondly, it might have been better to poll each disk separately. Too many choices makes for worse discussions, I think.

It was issued as two cds back whenever and worked really well that way

There's not really 'a thing' to talk about here - this isn't a body of work, it's just random selections from a body of work. Also, the 'worst song' format is brilliant for the albums where there's a consistently high level of quality, so you really have to think hard to justify why 'Good Morning Good Morning' is worse than 'Getting Better'. Whether 'Sie Liebt Dich' and 'Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand' is worse doesn't really matter though - it's not like 'We Can Work It Out' is going to sneak up on the rails.

Should this have maybe been a "best song" poll?

I was thinking about making a "Beatles As & Bs" playlist with all the key ones on, SFF and Penny Lane as well as those here.

Obv. these songs would have sat better as bonus tracks on the individual CDs, and I think this purist way of not wanting to alter the original albums with additional tracks is a bad one.
Yep, there are lots of great tracks here, many of them among their very best work, but also more filler than on most of the albums. I would say the second half of the second CD is generally pretty much forgettable.

Should this have maybe been a "best song" poll?

I was thinking about making a "Beatles As & Bs" playlist with all the key ones on, SFF and Penny Lane as well as those here.

That album was called "1".

Maybe xp, but it's been nice to have the 'worst song' series and I can live with a couple of duds. A Beatles POX though, I don't know how I'd even go about attempting that.

Adding these songs to the ends of their respective albums would've been a very bad thing, imo. Geir is wrong.

Geir: a; the remastering on that album was awful, and b; it didn't feature the b-sides or any of the singles that didn't chart at no. 1, so is incomplete.

And yeah, adding songs at the end of album would have been wrong; especially with Revolver, Abbey, and Pepper, where you have such definite closing tracks.

i think geir is otm. this has been a pretty shoddy rerelease in all terms other than audio quality. they should have done 2cd sets and junked 'past masters' and the anomalous 'magical mystery tour'.

i mean if yall *like* paying a tenner for half-an-hour's music in order to preserve the "integrity" of beatles for sale...

Geir: a; the remastering on that album was awful, and b; it didn't feature the b-sides or any of the singles that didn't chart at no. 1, so is incomplete.

― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 28 September 2009 09:56 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That "1" album was not remastered on purpose, as they had just started on the remaster programme, and regarded it as a 'last outing for the non-remastered versions that were the real hit versions' etcet.

I paid 20 quid - mono box set - and don't regret a penny of it.

Aye; they just pumped the volume up without doing anything to it. I sold it when these came out. The remastering on the Yellow Sub Songtrack was better, but there was also some minor remixing there, too. I've got rid of that as well.

Will we see some more Beatles compilations now, with the remastered material? Or is this it?

no, the beatles catalogue will never again be repackaged.

You can make them all yersel, now!

The only thing left, as far as I know, are the "Yesterday and Today" and "Revolver" USA editions. (is there another "USA only" mix? I'm assuming "Hey Jude" the album was just the usual versions)

Oh and there's those "rarities" like the Penny Lane with the extra trumpet ending, etc...

The remastering on the Yellow Sub Songtrack was better, but there was also some minor remixing there, too.

Not just minor. They did completely new stereo mixes, with more in the middle than on the original mixes.

Themed compilations would be interesting. I wouldn't buy them but, yknow: The Beatles - Ballads, The Beatles - Nursery Rhymes, The Beatles Pschedelia, The Beatles Bloozrock Shite collection, etc etc.

Well, there was "The Beatles Rock and Roll", "The Beatles Ballads", "The Beatles Love Songs" and "The Beatles at the Movies"

So, "The Beatles Movie Medley" remains the only non-collected and non-remastered etc, track.

Ha yes, I'd forgotten that they really existed!

Were those released in England too? I'd always assumed it was just Capitol records doing what they do best.

That "Rock and Roll" one had spectacularly ugly album art (but it was cool how they turned "Got To Get You Into My Life" into a #7 single, 10 years after the fact)

http://991.com/newGallery/The-Beatles-A-Collection-Of-B-221107.jpg

I'll see you http://www.earthwaverecords.com/pictures/albumimg/b/a0114409.jpg

and raise you a http://www.earthwaverecords.com/pictures/albumimg/b/a0114409.jpg

haha, never seen that one. I kinda like it! The Rock n Roll one was brought up on another Beatles thread -- it is truly amazing in its badness.

dammit, I meant http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8c/At_the_hollywood_bowl.JPG/200px-At_the_hollywood_bowl.JPG

http://www.curiopete.com/images/beatles-love-songs-yellow.JPG
remember seeing this one in the used bins. not horrible, but still pretty craptastic.

Yeah WTF "Hollywood Bowl" was actually an official live Beatles release and they won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

I'd forgotten about that. I've half a memory of the Gallagher brothers citing it as the definitive Beatles album

sorta surprising they haven't tried to put together a more definitive "live in concert" beatles collection. I've heard a few good things that aren't too marred by screams, etc. is there a collection I'm not thinking of?

the bbc one?

jonathan gould says the 'hollywood bowl' album is actually good.

Theres loads of bootleg recordings, of which:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Hbqf2LImoxc/SA4Jtd_bNsI/AAAAAAAAFQk/hLz8TmYGEPI/s400/The%2BBeatles%2B-%2B1965%2B-%2BLes%2BBeatles%2Ba%2BParis.jpg

.. is excellent.

yeah the bbc is great, that might be all that's needed. i've heard the Hollywood Bowl album -- it's mainly just surprising how shoddy the recording is! Sounds ilke it was recorded from the back of the Bowl ...

This Les Beatles A Paris link is still live:

http://beatlesmmt.blogspot.com/2009/06/les-beatles-paris.html

dling now..

The Sweden 1963 show is the best live Beatles ever.

this one? http://www.bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=fst001 or something else ...

Yeah! Reportedly John Lennon's favorite too. Jeez, only 20 minutes long, and most of that is on Anthology 1.

And of course Purple Chick has some wonderful live compilations out there. Maybe Apple just realizes bootleggers got all that covered....

This comp is all-time classic obv but today for the first time I'm really feeling the roughly twenty-month jump from "Rain" to "Lady Madonna," covering the singles that ended up in the album-ized MMT. I don't really know what they could have done that was better but man it's weird to hear this leap from Beatles as hot, live, top-of-their-game mod-psych rock band, to Beatles as nothing-to-prove purveyors of laid-back post-psych genre work and, once you get to Side 4, doughy proto-Classic Rock.

Also am I imagining things or wasn't there a thread polling McCartney's hammy/awesome ad-libs on "Hey Jude"? Google is getting me nowhere.

There was a poll, I think.

haha, i stand by what i said a few years back:

the most depressing transition on any beatles CD has to be the second disc of past masters, when you go from 'rain' to 'lady madonna.' the first four tracks are basically the beatles at the top of their game, just so sleek and confident and gorgeous, basically the coolest band ever, the james bonds of pop music. and then you jump ahead two years and already the band's turned into paul mccartney + three lazy stoners just fucking around in the studio.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 16 February 2013 07:04 (four years ago)

Absolutely; that run from Rubber Soul through to MMT is amazing. Maybe you crop it just before Sgt Pepper if you hate whimsy, but I'm fine with it.

yeah, from "Rain" (one of my favourite Beatles song) to "Lady Madonna" (maybe the song I hate the most from them) is quite a drop !
But it's a bit unfair since there should be "Penny Lane", "Strawberry Fields", "All you need is love", "Baby you're a rich man", "Hello Goodbye" and "I am the Walrus" to bridge the gap... (that said going from "Walrus" to "Madonna" is still a huge quality drop !).

oh I forgot "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby" !

If you could fold in the Yellow Submarine original songs, you'd be onto a massive winner. Imagine sticking Hey Bulldog on Past Masters.

Ha, somehow missed that J.D. post or maybe it entered my subconscious ages ago and finally convinced me!

I think any hypothetical version of Past Masters would have to exclude "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby" as those appear on a "proper" album, but it's interesting to think what their catalogue would look like if the Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine material had ultimately been treated the same as the Long Tall Sally material, not belonging to a "proper" LP and therefore fair game. It'd have to become a three-disc set, but at that point you have basically all of the most important, groundbreaking and smash hit Beatles recordings in one package.

the original yellow sub songs inc hey bulldog are on mono masters!

Huh, never realized that! And all you lose is "Old Brown Shoe," "The Ballad of John and Yoko," and "Let It Be." That's interesting.

Worst song on the Past Masters compilations is either one of the German-language translations or one of the covers.

sad @ 7 votes for "love me do", rote everly brothers style but harmonica like cool mersey breeze

Isn't that the lesser "Love Me Do", the one with Ringo on it that got pulled for the hit version w/the session guy?

wiki sez The Beatles with Starr recorded a version at EMI Studios.[16] They recorded Love Me Do in 15 takes. This version with Starr is available on Past Masters

I keep forgetting about 'Love Me Do' ... I don't hate it, but it's not exactly remarkable.

IIRC the Andy White version is only heard on Please Please Me.

It's on 1s, Red, and is the version usually heard on the radio.

I like "Old Brown Shoe." I figure its inexplicable presence on Red is a concession to George.

Its probably the most overlooked Beatles track.

'Old Brown Shoe' is great - it's always nice to hear George in those rare upbeat moments.

Ringo is so great on "Old Brown Shoe," and that guitar/bass unison line in the bridge is killer.

Yup. If 'Hey Bulldog' is the Lennon-McCartney one that got away, then 'Old Brown Shoe' is George's.

It's a cool song - IIRC the mix lets it down a bit? Should pay attention the next time I put it on... in my mind it's one where McCartney has insisted on having his bass WAY too loud in the mix but I could be wrong.

I thought Harrison played bass?

Possibly/probably. I can't imagine that Paul would allow George to essentially dictate his part to him note-for-note.

he did on "Something" -- and was passive aggreesive about it as usual ("Maybe it was George's turn to tell me what to do for once" or some such thing).

Harrison played bass on quite a few Beatles tracks, iirc.

As, Lennon memorably said about McCartney, "Best bass player in the world? He's not even the best bass player in the Beatles".

I thought that line was about Ringo?

In 1980:

Paul is one of the most innovative bass players … half the stuff that’s going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period … He’s an egomaniac about everything else, but his bass playing he’d always been a bit coy about.

j/k, in fact he didn't even say it about Ringo. Sadly.

It's interesting to note that even when the Beatles recorded in different comfigurations they still had that identifiable Beatles sound. 'She Said She Said' has no McCartney, 'I Me Mine' has no Lennon, 'Back In The USSR' has no Ringo and 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' has no Harrison (and Ringo) but they all sound like Beatles tracks.

Never thought of it that way but v true!

he did on "Something" -- and was passive aggreesive about it as usual ("Maybe it was George's turn to tell me what to do for once" or some such thing).

Did he? I remember George saying something about how it was too busy, and later saying, "I should've gotten Willie Weeks to play bass on it."

Harrison played bass on quite a few Beatles tracks, iirc.

He plays bass on "Drive My Car," and Paul plays lead. The main unison riff on the verses was George's idea, as an homage to the arrangement on Otis Redding's "Respect."

xx-post:

Yet, when it comes to their solo careers, it's a different story. McCartney's '70s work often feels like a continuation of Abbey Road, but no other Beatles members are on that stuff. Whereas Ringo, Harrison and Lennon occasionally collaborated and it didn't have a Beatles sound to it.

What comes closest - I'm the Greatest maybe?

"Band on the Run" has none of the other Beatles but sounds most Beatle-esque, from the drumming and bass work to the guitar fills.

Yeah i was thinking of the latter scenario (lennon, harrison + starr)

Lennon solo frequently used the Beatles-y chromatic descending bassline (if I have my music theory right). This one could have been a White Album track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlcOkp6aj_U

Whereas Ringo, Harrison and Lennon occasionally collaborated and it didn't have a Beatles sound to it.

― Working night & day, I tried to stay awake... (Turrican), Monday, February 20, 2017 6:38 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I dunno, I always thought "Back Off Boogaloo" and "It Don't Come Easy" sounded pretty Beatley.

Backing vocalists disqualify "It don't come easy", I'm afraid.

paul mccartney + three lazy stoners just fucking around in the studio.

aka the Best of the Beatles

George's Leslie'd arpeggios and the Savoy Truffle Horns add more Beatleness than the backing vocals subtract.

xp

Best of the Beatles

*QI klaxon*

many x-posts:

Yeah, 'Look At Me' is cut from the same cloth as stuff like 'Julia', which in itself could have been a Plastic Ono Band track.