Monthly Archives: October 2020

#779: The Beatles – Lovely Rita

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That’s right. It’s another Beatles song. That’s the way it goes sometimes. There’ll be that rare time when two consecutive songs will be by the same artist/group in this thing. Though this might not have been the case for this particular instance if it happened a few years ago. I really didn’t like ‘Lovely Rita’ for a while. Every time Paul McCartney came in with that ‘Luh-vly Rita, meter maIIIID’ line it was an instant skip. There was something that was too sweet and upbeat that didn’t sit right with me, and its original 1967 mix didn’t do it much favour either. I would much prefer ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ or ‘Fixing a Hole’ to it. But then there came a time when I listened to Sgt. Pepper in full one day and came to really like the song. It’s weird how that can happen.

No one really knows how or why Paul McCartney wrote this song. There is a story that he got a parking ticket from a traffic warden which gave him the inspiration, but he denied it even though he did say that the woman ‘looked like a Rita’ to him. There’s also a theory that he heard the term ‘meter-maid’ for the first time while in America, and just the combination of those words set him off. Whatever the origin is, the result is a throughly enjoyable song. There’s nothing wrong with a very upbeat track once in a while. And while, I guess, I used to solely focus on McCartney’s vocals on there I never paid attention to the fantastic groove that the song is held on thanks to his walking bassline. That’s really the main musical element that should be paid attention to, then everything else falls into place. John Lennon and George Harrison’s backing harmony vocals work wonders and producer extraordinaire George Martin plays the piano solo in the middle. It’s all a very joyous occasion.

Thank goodness that the 50th Anniversary Remix of Sgt. Pepper. was released in 2017. I think there are a lot of people who’ve got rid of the initial 2009 remasters that contained the dated 60s mixes. I’m still so used to them though so I listen to them regularly, though there’s no denying that the reissue is much better. Below is the song’s original stereo mix.

#778: The Beatles – Love You To

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The Beatles’ Revolver is an album that I’ve admired for so long now, it’s hard to recall when I had that ‘eureka!’ moment where I suddenly enjoyed each of its fourteen songs or even how I felt when I listened to the album for the first time. I know that I did go through it initially in 2009/10 when I was on my Beatles discovery phase, but I don’t think it was an album that struck me as a special one on the first listen. Through subsequent listens each track slowly became a lot clearer in terms of rhythm and melody and all that good stuff, but I have the feeling that George Harrison’s second song on the album ‘Love You To’ was one that I had to get my head around.

When listening to Revolver for any new Beatles follower, ‘Love You To’ will stick out immediately. Well, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ too, but definitely ‘Love’ because the band aren’t playing as a group. It’s more George Harrison and a lot of Indian musicians with Paul McCartney on backing vocal and Ringo Starr on the tambourine. It’s a real trip, but it’s merely a sign of the musical headspace Harrison was in at the time. He had fallen in love with the sitar and the music of India in general, and wrote this song in order to showcase his new interests. Experimentation with LSD may also have played a part in his new influences. It’s a song in the key of C and I’m sure that’s the only chord the song stays on throughout. That is known as a drone, for anyone who may be getting into music theory or something.

The song is of the the existential/philosophical type judging by its lyrics. Harrison, who was only 22 going on 23 when he wrote it, goes on to sing about how time’s going too quickly, how life is short and how people can be quick to take advantage of you if they get the chance. But while this is all going on, he just wants to make love as much as he can with the time he has. I’ve sometimes wondered why the track is titled ‘Love You To’; the phrasing doesn’t make sense and even so, the phrase doesn’t appear in the lyrics. If it was called ‘Love to You’ it would be a different story. Though I’ve realised now that it may be a play on the words ‘Love Me Do’, the very first Beatles single out only four years earlier. So strange but commendable how much the group changed it that time.

#777: Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

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Surely, this is a song that everyone knows. I was tempted to just write ‘classic’ on this post and call it a day, leaving some sort of poignant message by doing so. Then I realised that would be a bit lame. A bit pretentious too. This’ll probably be a short one, though. As much as I like ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, it is a fantastic song and gone through the ages as one of the best of all time, I don’t think it’s had the greatest effect on me personally than it probably has for millions of people out there. I do appreciate it a lot, though. There’s a lot of greatness in its subtlety and weariness.

The track was released as a single in June 1980, a month after Joy Division’s frontman Ian Curtis committed suicide. The music video is the only official one they did, and was filmed just a few weeks before the tragic event. This song is the first of the band’s I’d ever heard; its music video played on a channel somewhere (maybe Q TV, most likely MTV2), and for a while was the only one I listened to. Maybe it was because Curtis looked so despondent on the microphone. I also didn’t know that Joy Division were held in such high regard. I was a young boy at that time.

I think the only major point in my enjoyment of the track is that the ‘Permanent Mix’ that was released on a compilation in 1995 is my go-to version. That’s just the one I’ve been accustomed to for all this time. It’s the version that’s played in the video above. A lot of people prefer the original 1980 release. That’s fine. The main difference between the two is that the mix is a lot fuller in the ’90s reissue. There’s also a nice acoustic guitar outro added in there too. It’s the same song at the end of the day.

#776: Wolfmother – Love Train

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Every time I hear ‘Love Train’ by Wolfmother I’m reminded of the times when it was the band’s new single and its video was making the rounds for the first time on MTV2 in the UK. 2006 was the year. Wolfmother seemed to come out of nowhere when the group’s video for ‘Dimension’ was also played endlessly on that channel. That was the first ever song of theirs I heard/watched and I guess its fair to say that became a bit of a fan. They wore their 70s hard rock influences on their sleeves but the music was amazing. I got their album as a result; I haven’t gone through it in a while.

After ‘Dimension’ and ‘Woman’ were released as singles, ‘Love Train’ followed. It wasn’t as commercially successful as its two predecessors but showed, at least to me, that they could be just a bit versatile and could lay on the funk on their music if they wanted. ‘Train’ is carried by this groove and riff that I’m sure probably came from some jam the band were doing in their spare time. The lyrics aren’t very substantive and I’m sure the music is meant to be the main thing to focus on, but from what I can hear the narrator hasn’t been in the game for a while and is looking to get back to it some time soon.

There are a load of copies of Wolfmother’s first album which have a totally different tracklist to the one I own, and that don’t have this song on there. The record was initially released only in Australia in late 2005; I guess either the band didn’t finish the song in time for it to be included, or they hadn’t even thought of it in between the time they released the album in their home country and its international release. Whatever happened, ‘Love Train’ exists, I’m glad it does, the music video you can see up there.