hit singles

Imagine one more Beatles album, it isn’t hard to do

Posted on by brucehhackett

In 1969, after ten whirlwind years together living their lives in a bubble, touring and recording, The Beatles were just plain sick and tired of each other.

They were no longer giddy 19-year-olds, they were married 29-year-olds.  They’d done it all — world tours, movies, an incredible run of #1 hits and albums, 220 songs in all.   They’d rewritten the rules on the impact that music could make on popular culture.  But they were spent, and you couldn’t blame them for deciding to call it a day.

But… what if?

Just for fun, let’s pose this question:  What if Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr had taken a well-needed break — six months, nine months, maybe a year — and then reconvened to assemble one last fabulous album?

Take a good look at the singles and albums each Beatle member released in the 18 to 24 months immediately following the band’s breakup.  There are some really outstanding tracks to be found there — some of them obvious hits, others less well known — but they stand up pretty damn well when compared to the songs the Beatles wrote and recorded as Beatles in 1968 and 1969.

As good as these first solo songs might have been, there’s little doubt that they would have sounded even better mixed together in a compelling sequence.  Let’s face it, a McCartney song usually sounds better when followed by a Lennon song rather than another McCartney song — and vice versa, of course.  Add in the great stuff Harrison was writing at that time, and you’ve got the ingredients for an outstanding album.

(By way of comparison, consider how much better Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young songs sounded when you could hear them shuffled together instead of hearing a dozen Nash songs, or a dozen Stills songs, etc., on individual albums.)

For the sake of argument, let’s agree that a fantasy “Lost Last Beatles Album” would in fact have been a double album, with two dozen tracks.  To qualify for inclusion, the recordings would have had to be written and/or released in 1970 and 1971, the first two years after the breakup.  And in the interests of fairness and reason, let’s also agree that Paul would get eight tracks, John would get eight, George would get six, and Ringo, not remotely in the same class as the other three songwriters, would get two.

Selecting which tracks should make the cut is a very subjective thing, to be sure.  I have my favorites from “McCartney,” “Ram,” “Plastic Ono Band,” “Imagine,” “All Things Must Pass” and the singles of that period — some were huge hits, while some were deep album tracks you may not recognize.  I’ve arranged them in an order I think would segue nicely, despite the broad range of styles, tempos and arrangements.  Think of “The White Album” and its eclectic cornucopia of different influences.

For what it’s worth, here are my choices and sequence of songs. Follow along on the Spotify playlist at the end.

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“Give Peace a Chance”

Lennon’s simplistic chant, recorded in a Montreal hotel room with an acoustic guitar and tambourine and a chorus that included John and Yoko, Tommy Smothers and other hangers-on, is the obvious choice as the album’s opener.  No doubt he was pleased when it was adopted by peace demonstrators during antiwar rallies of that time, but he couldn’t have known how iconic and lasting the song would still be many decades later.

“My Sweet Lord”

This lush production by Phil Spector, which stands in stark contrast to the previous track, merges George’s overt spiritual lyrics with a joyous melody and a chorus of voices that sent the song to #1 in a dozen countries.  The fact that Harrison was later successfully sued for “unconsciously plagiarizing” from the 1962 girl-group hit “He’s So Fine” takes nothing away from the track’s sheer brilliance.

“Every Night”

One of my favorite solo Paul tracks is this compelling tune from his “McCartney” debut LP.  Its lyrics hint at the problems he was having coming to grips with the dissolution of the Beatles, when he fell into a bad habit of drinking heavily and staying in bed…and yet, the music is upbeat, bright and memorable.

“Oh My Love”

Lennon was primarily known for his rockers, but he was certainly capable of writing tender ballads as well.  This delicate love song to Yoko from the “Imagine” album tugs at the heartstrings in the same way as “Julia,” his ode to his mother from “The White Album.”

“It Don’t Come Easy”

This likable song from Spring 1971 features Ringo on vocals and drums, plus an all-star cast (presaging his “All-Starr Band” concert tours of more recent years) including Stephen Stills, Klaus Voorman, Jim Keltner, Ron Cattermole and Gary Wright.  Although it’s known as Ringo’s song, the track is largely the work of George Harrison, who produced it, arranged it, played guitar on it, and co-wrote it with Starr, but never took a songwriting credit for it.

“Long-Haired Lady”

McCartney claimed his wife Linda helped him write and arrange the majority of the songs on “Ram” and she received public credit for having done so, although many observers were skeptical of how much she actually contributed. In any event she was certainly the “long-haired lady” who inspired this track, and that’s her providing backing vocals. McCartney used members of the New York Philharmonic to flesh out the arrangement with strings and horns.

“Awaiting On You All”

Harrison conceded 30 years later that producer Phil Spector went a bit overboard with his echo-y “wall of sound” approach on the “All Things Must Pass” LP, mentioning this song in particular.  Musically, “Awaiting On You All” is one of the better tracks, with a rollicking rock structure and lyrics that tout the spiritual benefits of chanting, a favorite Hare Krishna activity.

“Instant Karma”

Lennon had this to say about this early 1970 single: “I wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and released it for dinner.”  Indeed, the song was written and recorded the same day, and it was in the shops and on the radio only ten days later.  The track takes a sardonic look at celebrity, stardom and ego and how the public can turn on you in, well, an instant.

“Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”

Some critics disliked this song when it came out, dismissing it as a too-cutesy piece of McCartney fluff.  But listen closely and you’ll hear impeccable production, two very catchy tunes smooshed together, inventive special effects and an irresistible Paul melody line and vocal performance that took the song to #1 in the US.

“Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)”

This track gets my vote as the sleeper from Harrison’s sprawling double album.  The titular Mr. Crisp refers to the British noble gentleman who built the enormous Gothic mansion in the English countryside that George bought in 1970 and lived in until his death in 2001.  A haunting and relentless piano part, combined with a marvelous vocal delivery, resulted in an engaging track that is a welcome addition to the Harrison canon.

“Jealous Guy”

John actually wrote this one in 1968 in India when it was known as “Child of Nature,” featuring an entirely different set of lyrics and an acoustic guitar-based melody.  By the time he resurrected it during the 1971 “Imagine” sessions, he had turning it into a dreamy, piano-based number with words that confessed the jealousy and rage that had infected his attitude toward women in his earlier days.  Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music had a minor hit with their cover version of the song a decade later.

“The Back Seat of My Car”

To my ears, I think this dramatic, gorgeous number is one of Paul’s finest moments as a solo artist.  His ability at composing, arranging and singing a grand production like this one is just about unparalleled.  Take a listen to the swirling vocals, lavish strings and horns, and a structure that dips in and out of hard rock and balladry.  It served as the thrilling finale on “Ram” in 1971.

“What Is Life”

The follow-up single to “My Sweet Lord” was, in some ways, even more catchy and memorable, and provided ample proof to the public that George’s songwriting had truly come of age.  The all-star cast who played on the session — Ringo, and a killer horn section — are heard in full bloom, thanks again to Spector’s all-encompassing production.

“Love”

One of Lennon’s loveliest ballads, recorded with just his close-mic’ed voice and acoustic guitar, with a delicate piano part handled by producer Phil Spector. It’s the most tender track on Lennon’s overwhelmingly raw “Plastic Ono Band” album. He had considered it as the first single but unwisely chose the startling “Mother” instead. “Love” was later recorded by such disparate artists as Barbra Streisand, The Dream Academy, Shirley Bassey, Beck, and The Lettermen.

“Too Many People”

The opening tune from “Ram” has some fine guitar work and vocals from Sir Paul, with Linda on harmonies.  The lyrics have been interpreted as critical of John’s involvement in various social causes of that era, and Paul also scolds him for throwing away the great thing the Beatles had together (“That was your first mistake, you took your lucky break and broke it in two…”)

“Back Off Boogaloo”

Starr’s interest in glam rock and friendship with Marc Bolan are reflected in this repetitive rocker, recorded in late 1971 and released in early 1972.  The track features Ringo’s martial drumming attack, great slide guitar by George, and able help from Gary Wright on piano and Klaus Voorman on bass and sax, and it was catchy enough to reach #9 in the US and #2 in the UK.

“Another Day”

Paul’s breezy song about the drudgery of another working day stands in stark contrast to the one John had written and released months earlier (see below).  This single from early 1971 was the first McCartney tune to be credited to Paul & Linda McCartney, a seemingly innocent labeling that had legal ramifications later when the record company and the lawyers got involved.  Sigh.

“Working Class Hero”

One of John’s most powerful songs, but not heard much at the time of release, mostly because of the two f-bombs he dropped in the lyrics.  His blunt tribute to the plight of the blue-collar worker became the go-to favorite among the dozen stark, harrowing tracks on his 1970 “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band” solo debut album (known to many as the “Primal Scream” album in reference to the radical therapy he underwent earlier that year).

“That Would Be Something”

When “McCartney” was released in April 1970, listeners were stunned by the home-recording production quality of most of the tracks, especially when compared to the glossy sheen heard on The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” only seven months earlier. All instruments were played by Paul, and the songs sounded more like demos than finished tracks. “That Would Be Something” is a fun, mostly inconsequential ditty that somehow stands up 55 years later.

“All Things Must Pass”

The warm, practical philosophy George preaches in the title track of his 1970 album still holds up very well today, and could be considered timeless (“Daylight is good at arriving at the right time, it’s not always gonna be this grey, all things must pass away…”).  The Beatles made a few half-hearted attempts at recording this in early 1969 but gave up, so George kept it for himself.  Probably a good move.

“Imagine”

Probably the most impactful song by a solo ex-Beatle.  A very simple piano melody, a strong yet lovely vocal performance from John, and lyrics that offer an uncompromisingly utopian view of society without boundaries, rules, dogma or war. It became his signature song, and lives on after his death as an anthem for peace.

“Maybe I’m Amazed”

This is the one that surprises most people when they learn it’s not a Beatles song but in fact a McCartney solo track.  It came out in April 1970 on the “McCartney” solo debut, right in between the release of the final Beatles singles, “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road.”  Paul’s piano melody, heartfelt vocal and fiery lead guitar that carry this ode to wife Linda would have sounded right at home on either the “Let It Be” or “Abbey Road” LPs.

“Isn’t It a Pity”

Some observers have interpreted the lyrics to this repetitive yet mesmerizing hymn as George’s farewell message to his fellow Beatles (“Isn’t it a pity, now isn’t it a shame, how we break each others’ hearts and cause each other pain…”).  But George said it was meant to be more of a universal pang of regret about how the people of the Earth can’t seem to get along peacefully.  Phil Spector’s huge production and long fade-out give the song perhaps more grandeur than was appropriate, so George also included a scaled down, almost unplugged version of the song elsewhere on the album.

“God”

This track would make an excellent coda to this imagined album, much in the same way “The End” served the same role on “Abbey Road”…although this one offers a far less satisfying emotional feel.  In “God,” Lennon rattles off a list of people and institutions he no longer believes in, including Elvis, Dylan (“Zimmerman”) and, finally, Beatles.  “The dream is over,” he sings with finality, making it abundantly clear that there will be nothing more forthcoming from The Fab Four.

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What the hell does that even mean?

Posted on by brucehhackett

It’s a funny thing, how songs we’ve heard a thousand times, songs we’ve sung along to, songs we’ve heard performed in concert, have lyrics that include words we probably don’t understand, but we sing along with them anyway.

There are plenty of examples of songs with lyrics we “mis-hear” — we think they’re singing A when in fact they’re singing B — but I’m talking about lyrics that include words we simply don’t recognize.  They’re unusual, esoteric, rarely used.  But they’re right there in the chorus of a #1 song, so we just go along with them.

Artists didn’t start including lyrics on the album sleeve until the late ’60s/early ’70s, and many bands simply couldn’t be bothered, or wouldn’t pay the extra bucks required to reprint them.  So we simply weren’t sure what we were hearing.  And there was no Internet to check to find out exactly what the words were. Until now.

Today, readers, we’re going to solve some age-old questions.  We’re going to provide definitions for words you’ve been singing since you were young but never really wrapped your head around.

Just so you can hear these words again in the context of their songs, there’s a Spotify playlist at the end.

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“You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte…“

From Carly Simon’s huge hit “You’re So Vain” in 1972, this line perfectly describes the behavior of the vain egotist who is far more interested in how he looks than in anyone or anything around him.  But what of this term “gavotte”?  It’s a French word for a flamboyant folk dance, wherein the dancer holds one hand aloft with the other on the hip in a very showy display that aptly suits the “it’s all about me” attitude of the vainglorious person described in the song.  (And by the way, who is the song about?  For many years, Simon steadfastly refused to say, but recently admitted that the second verse is about her dalliance with actor Warren Beatty.  The rest, she says, is a composite of several other egotists she knew.)

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“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitas rising up through the air…“

When Don Henley was fashioning the lyrics to Don Felder’s melody that became The Eagles’ 1977 signature song “Hotel California,” he chose to employ “colitas,” a term he’d heard a couple of Latino road crew members using.  Not to be confused with the intestinal disorder colitis, the word was at first thought to be some sort of desert flower, and Henley liked the way the word sounded rolling off his tongue.  But he liked it even more when he realized it was a Mexican word meaning “little buds” — specifically, small buds from marijuana plants.  In a song that summarized the hedonistic sex-and-drugs lifestyle of Los Angeles in the late ’70s, it was a clever inside joke.

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“Some people call me Maurice, ’cause I speak of the pompitous of love…”

Steve Miller has made a career of lifting musical and lyrical passages from other songs, claiming “artistic license” to keep the copyright lawyers at bay.  For the #1 hit “The Joker” from 1973, Miller used “pompitous” from an old ’50s tune by Vernon Green called “The Letter” (no relation to the #1 Box Tops/Joe Cocker hit from 1967/1970), which includes this line:  “Oh my darling, let me whisper sweet words of pizmotality and discuss the puppetutes of love.”  Let’s ignore “pizmotality” for now, and focus on how Green has said he coined the term “puppetutes,” meaning “a secret paper-doll fantasy girl who would be my everything and bear my children.”  Apparently Miller mis-heard “puppetutes” as “pompitous,” and it has since become a minor pop culture reference — there’s even a 1996 Jon Cryer movie called “The Pompitous of Love.”

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“It’s no use, he sees her, he starts to shake and cough, just like the old man in that book by Nabokov…”

Before becoming a founding member of The Police, bassist/songwriter/singer Sting had been an English teacher, and he knew of professors who had unwisely pursued trysts with underage schoolgirls. He thought the topic might generate a provocative set of lyrics for a rock song, and “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” went on to become one of the group’s biggest hits (#1 in England, #10 in the US, in 1980). Sting was also well aware of the famous 1955 novel “Lolita,” written by Russian author Vladimir Nabokov, which covered this same taboo subject, so Sting managed to insert the author’s name into the lyrics.

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“Back to back, sacroiliac, spineless movement and a wild attack…”

Blondie, led by singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, is considered one of the pioneers of New Wave coming out of New York in the mid-’70s, incorporating a mixture of punk, disco, pop, reggae and funk. In 1980, after they’d registered three #1 singles on US pop charts, Harry and Stein put together their first attempt at hip-hop with “Rapture,” using a disco beat with lyrics delivered mostly in a rap format. The words describe a crowded hip-hip dance floor in the Bronx (“face to face, dance cheek to cheek”), and in the first section, Harry sings the lyrics, mentioning “back to back” and “spineless movement.” Most pop music listeners are perhaps unfamiliar with the term “sacroiliac,” but it’s the name given to a pair of joints connecting the base of the spine to the hip bones, absorbing shock and transferring upper body weight to the legs. Pretty important on the dance floor!

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“He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich, and he said, I come from a land down under, where beer does flow and men chunder…”

I always thought “vegemite” was just a word manufactured by Men At Work songwriter Colin Hay for a verse of his band’s 1983 #1 hit “Down Under.”  But no, vegemite is a real thing, at least in Australia.  It’s a sort of edible paste (think liver paté) made of brewers yeast, vegetables, wheat, and spices.  Aussies regularly slather it on toast, hide it in pastries, or make whole sandwiches out of it.  Sounds questionable to me, but it’s quite popular there.  It’s not a term you’re likely to hear in the States anytime soon… “Chunder,” on the other hand, is a fabulous verb you’d think the college fraternity crowd would have adopted by now.  It’s a synonym for throwing up.

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“I see a little silhouette of a man!  Scaramouche!  Scaramouche! Will you do the fandango?…“

Who, or what, is Scaramouche?  No one seemed to know when Queen first released the epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” on its “A Night at the Opera” album in 1975.  Devotees of Italian opera and comedic theater knew very well, but your average rock ‘n roller didn’t have a clue.  Scaramouche, as it turns out, was a fictional clown character often seen in “Punch and Judy” puppet theater, a simple-minded fop who would be socked in the face or beheaded for his idiotic comments.  Songwriter Freddie Mercury said he chose to include the name in the song because he liked the way it sounded — memorable and bombastic.  (And “fandango,” by the way, is a lively Spanish dance involving castanets and tambourine.)

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“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now…”

Americans were puzzled by this phrase in Led Zeppelin’s 1971 anthem “Stairway to Heaven,” but Brits caught on quickly enough.  Hedgerows are, literally, rows of hedges that were planted intentionally across the English countryside as property borders and, in times of war, as natural barricades to deter advancing armies.  A “bustle” (as in “the hustle-bustle of the crowd”) is simply a commotion. Therefore, if there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, well, you’d best be careful, for it might be an enemy soldier or some sort of angry animal.  On the other hand, perhaps it’s merely what lyricist Robert Plant said in the following line — a servant doing “just a spring clean for the May Queen.”

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“Oleanders growing outside her door, soon they’re gonna be in bloom up in Annandale…”

Steely Dan was notorious for obscure lyrical references, and “oleanders” from the 1973 classic “My Old School” is but one example.  It’s a pretty but toxic flowering plant often used in median strips of highways in the American Southwest because of its hardiness and vivid colors.  Annandale-on-Hudson is a community outside New York City where Donald Fagen and Walter Becker first met while attending Bard College there. Oleanders aren’t likely to grow or flourish in that area, so the songwriters decided to put them there as a sort of absurd contradiction.

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“Colour sky rose carmethene, alazarin crimson, wear your love like heaven…”

From 1965 to the early 1970s, Donovan Leitch enjoyed a very successful career in the US and his native UK as a poet and singer-songwriter, adopting a gently psychedelic flower-child persona. In addition to his skills as a musician and songwriter, Donovan also enjoyed the art of painting. In his trippy single from 1967, “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” (a #23 hit on US pop charts that year), he mentioned a number of dyes and pigments he had run across in his work, deciding “carmethene” and “alazarin” sounded intriguing when used to describe the colors of the sky as sunset approached.

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“Draw me ’round your fruitcage, I will be your honeybee, open up your fruitcage, where the fruit is as sweet as can be…”

When art rocker Peter Gabriel hit his commercial peak in 1986 with his “So” album and worldwide #1 hit “Sledgehammer,” his lyrics were full of double entendres with subtle sexual references.  This lyric is clearly among his most blatant:  “Fruitcage” is, in fact, British slang for female private parts.  So now you know.  And you’ve probably figured out what he means by “sledgehammer” now as well…

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The Beatles — specifically John Lennon — loved to use arcane, vague vocabulary that added mystique and left his songs open to interpretation.  Here are four examples of several he used in his most inventive work.

“Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower…”

“Semolina” are the hard grains left over after the milling of flour.  “Pilchard” is a small, oily herring fish.  In his mostly nonsensical “I Am the Walrus,” Lennon was deliberately writing lyrics that would baffle all the pundits who were trying to find hidden meanings in Beatles songs.  He paired “semolina” and “pilchard” together for no reason other than they sounded interesting to him — although he added years later that “pilchard” is close to “Pilcher,” or Det. Sgt. Normal Pilcher, the London drug cop who zealously slapped drug possession charges on rock stars (including Lennon) in the ’60s.

“Picture yourself on a train in a station with plasticine porters with looking-glass ties…”

“Plasticine,” invented in England in the 1890s, is a type of modeling clay made of calcium salts, petroleum jelly and acids, meant for use by artists who needed their material to stay malleable so they could reshape and reuse it when necessary.  It’s known best in the U.S. as the medium used in stop-motion animation (“claymation”) projects.  Lennon liked it for use in “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” as an adjective describing what some people might look like to someone tripping on LSD.

“Over men and horses, hoops and garters, lastly through a hogshead of real fire…”

A “hogshead” is not a hog’s head at all, but a unit of measure, typically for liquids like wine or distilled spirits but also for food commodities like sugar.  It’s about the size of a large pickle barrel and equals roughly 80 gallons.  In the 1967 “Sgt. Pepper” tune “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” it referred to the size of the barrel ring of fire someone might jump through in a feat of derring-do.

“The man in the crowd with the multi-coloured mirrors on his hobnail boots…”

“Hobnail” is a fastener that was used among cobblers in the design of workboots for the military and farm laborers.  It holds the sole firmly to the shoe and provides traction in uneven soil.  Why “the man in the crowd” in the 1968 song “Happiness is a Warm Gun” might attach multicolored mirrors to his hobnail boots is another matter.  Lennon said he and his schoolmates would sometimes put mirrors on their shoes so they could look up the skirts of unsuspecting females.

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Do you recall any other strange terms used in hit songs that you’ve never quite understood?  Let me know about them, and I’ll see if I can ferret out the hidden meaning behind them.  Although some may have no meaning at all:  Anyone care to take a stab at “Sham-a-lam-a-ding-dong,” “Wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom” or “Goo goo g’joob“?

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