Monthly Archives: July 2021

#865: The Beatles – Mother Nature’s Son

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Another Beatles-related post. I can’t help how these things turn out. But I won’t apologise. Those people made some good songs. Today’s comes from when they were still together, but also during a time when the cracks in their relationship began to show. ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ was made when the group were making what became their double album, released in November 1968. At the point of the recording of the song, relationships between the four guys had got to a point where they would record songs individually in different studios. ‘Mother Nature’s’ was one of those; Paul McCartney recorded all the parts to the song by himself. The track’s inspiration did come from a source of positivity, I think.

Earlier in 1968, the Beatles went to India for some courses in Transcendental Meditation. In a particular session, the Maharishi gave a lecture that inspired Paul McCartney and John Lennon to write two separate songs. Lennon’s, entitled ‘Child of Nature’, was demoed, then left on the shelf, and then a few years later became ‘Jealous Guy’. ‘Mother’ was McCartney’s. To be fair, I do think the latter’s was just a bit better. Lennon’s tune was good, but the words could have been better. And he proved they could be later on.

So on what is essentially a solo Paul McCartney song, he provides the usual sweet, sweet melody with some vocalized ‘do-do-dos’ and ‘yeah-yeah-yeahs’ in there, over a bit of an intricate acoustic guitar arrangement. Though to make it fuller, you’ve got two trumpets and two trombones played by some musicians who never got their credits on the album sleeve. McCartney sings about being a poor, young, country boy who’s one with nature, the environment, and goes around making people smile with his music. A lot of natural imagery conjures up in his lyricism (fields, daisies, the sun, you name it), and I guess you can never beat a wordless chorus from time to time. They’re certainly very memorable. My favourite part is probably the ending acoustic solo in the right channel that slides into the last iteration of the song’s title to close the whole thing out. There’s a jazzy tinge to it which I think gives it some edge, and it segues nicely into the next track where things get a bit crazier. A lot of mood shifts happen on this album.

#864: John Lennon – Mother

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John Lennon – a complicated individual, I think it can be said. I’m not in the huge wave of people who declare him a monster every time his name is mentioned. But he did go through some shit. His mum was killed outside of his home when he was a teenager, and his dad left the family and only returned when he became famous. Those two things pretty much set him off for life. Those events are enough to mess any kid up. But being thrown into the spotlight as a member of the biggest music group in the world, I’d have to assume he had to put those events behind him somehow. It wasn’t until the Beatles split and he had all the time in the world with Yoko Ono, that his mum and dad came to the forefront of his writing. And fair to say, at that point in time (1970), John was a bit pissed off with everything.

A common thread on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is Lennon’s feelings of being let down by the people he once looked up to when he was younger. And that album begins with the subjects from which most of his pain stemmed from: his parents. ‘Mother’ starts it all off with an ominous funeral bell that tolls slowly. In the middle of the forth toll, Lennon’s voice erupts with a wail accompanied by Ringo Starr’s drums and Klaus Voormann’s bass guitar. The first verse concerns his mother, the second his father, and the third verse sees Lennon warn the listener to not follow in his footsteps. Maybe because he had tried to hide his hurt underneath his wit for all those years, I’m not so sure myself. And god, does he sing every word so honestly. The vocal melody’s sort of all over the place in terms of the scales and leaps from one note to the other. It’s like there’s not one syllable in a word that stays on one note. Such an engaging listen, earnest and so, so real.

Then comes the “Momma, don’t go/Daddy come home” ending, which I have to say actually frightened me a bit when I heard it the first time in 2010 or so. Sounds innocent enough when Lennon first sings that. But as the song continues, that singing gradually turns into guttural screams that properly distort the microphone he’s using. He starts to play lower down on the piano during this coda too which gives the whole track a darker tone and feel. I feel like all of this is a method to make the listener feel as uncomfortable as possible, particularly those in 1970 who still wanted some good old Beatles music. I think he succeeded with this goal. A couple months back, the album was re-released in this huge package with new mixes and demos. A raw mix of the album version that removed its fade out and the echo-effect on Lennon’s vocal’s on there, and I might even like that one better.

#863: Brakes – The Most Fun

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Brighton-based band Brakes’ first album Give Blood is funny in a way. It contains songs where they suddenly end, just when you were properly getting into their rhythm, or when they’re about to hit some sort of climax. ‘The Most Fun’ is one of them. It’s only a minute and a half, made up of two chords with no choruses or bridges. More one long verse with some periods where there’s no singing for a few seconds.

Vocalist Eamon Hamilton, backed by Matt Eaton (a member of fellow Brighton band Actress Hands), harmonise about the time the gypsies came to town and gave everybody a weekend to remember. Before then, they were just country boys doing usual country boy shit, I guess. But then the gypsie came. They put up a tent, invited everyone in, and it’s fair to say judging by the track’s last few lines that they all had a great time. And after the reveal that nothing was ever the same after those nights, the song ends and the band launch right into the following track. Those first few tracks really keep the album rolling along quite swiftly.

So there’s not much else to say about this one. The first few times I heard it, I did think it sounded more like an interlude more than anything else. But then I started to appreciate the gradual swell and increasing intensity of the music underneath the lyrics, and the almost droning effect that the guitars and vocals brought when combined together. It’s also a very relatable set of lyrics. It’s a nice one. Yeah, it’s short, but it really says all it has to in its time.

The Playlist Update

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Hello again. So remember what I said in that other post where I unveiled the playlist for this place with great pride and a hope that a lot of people would follow it? Well, forget a lot of what is written in there.

In the weekend that just went, I realised that putting every song that I’ve written on here just isn’t that great of an idea. Plus, it slowed my Spotify app down immensely. I’m going to make it a playlist that constantly changes. Instead of all the songs being on there, one song from each letter that I covered so far (A-M) will be on there. Every… let’s say two weeks, I’ll update the list with another set of songs from each letter, and so on and so forth. Kinda like how Spotify do their Discover Weekly/Release Radar playlists. That way I can throw in some songs that I never got to write about too. Not such a bad idea is it? A lot more practical. Hopefully I’ve explained this well. If not, give it a follow and you’ll see what I mean, hardy-har-har.

Again, it’s an idea that’s under construction. But I think it should work well. So there’s the playlist below. All 13 songs on there I’ve written about on here. So have a listen, and have a read too. Why not?

#862: Oasis – Morning Glory

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‘Morning Glory’ is the almost-title track from Oasis’ second album. In a video commemorating the 25th anniversary of that record, Noel Gallagher admitted that he felt there were a lot of songs that sounded unfinished. A lot of them consist of just one verse that’s repeated, a pre-chorus, and the main sing-along chorus. One of those songs he may be referring to include this. In ‘Morning Glory’, the second verse is the same as the first. Every time Liam Gallagher yells ‘well’, it sounds like each iteration is longer than the previous. But one thing’s for sure, this song’s an absolute corker.

In some ways, it precedes what was to come on Be Here Now. Like that album, it begins with distant helicopter blades, radio static and guitar feedback, before launching into this massive wall of barre chords that set the track’s chord progression. Liam Gallagher’s voice on here’s possibly the best thing about it. Has that rasp behind it, but also that power. He puts his all into every line sung, straight from the gut. And again, Noel Gallagher’s lyrics contain that faux-philosophical, somewhat cheeky and nonsensical, but somehow very relatable feel that he excelled at tremendously when Oasis were really on top. I like how he tells us that ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by the Beatles is his favourite tune. He kinda slides it in there. Not as obvious and throwaway like that ‘fool on the hill and I feel fine’ lyric from that other track.

The video’s possibly the way that I came across the track. It’s okay. The band play the song in an apartment, the angry neighbours come around and bang on the door wondering what all the noise is about. Meanwhile, the band play football and generally get up to no good. It’s probably one of the least memorable videos out of the singles from that album. Maybe it was more of an afterthought. The track was only released as a commercial single in Australia and New Zealand after all. But no matter how I feel about the video, it doesn’t stop me from turning the volume loud whenever this one comes on.