#1343: The Beatles – Tell Me What You See

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Hey, everybody. Merry Christmas. Hope you all get what you want and have people around you for this time of year. This blog keeps rolling on, and today’s featured track is ‘Tell Me What You See’ by The Beatles. Not a very festive one in itself, but I don’t think there ever has been one whenever a post for this is up on this day. This and George Harrison’s ‘You Like Me Too Much’, both on the Help! album, are two songs that I honestly think are deemed as forgettable by a lot of Beatles fans with no sort of pushback to the opinion. The latter I’ve always thought was just okay too, personally. But I do remember hearing ‘Tell Me What You See’ and thinking it was really, really nice the first time I heard it. Paul McCartney himself described it as ‘not one of the better songs’, more or less saying it was good because it was needed to fill up the side of an album. And I get it, the guy’s done a lot of other stuff that you can unanimously agree trumps this one. But, I mean… it’s got less plays than ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ on Spotify, and I know people hate that one. Make it all make sense to me.

I like the overall vocal dynamic that happens throughout the song. John Lennon sings the first line with McCartney’s harmony over the top. McCartney responds with the second line. This call-response occurs for the next two lines, and then they both sing the melody in unison for what Genius labels as the bridge, where the song’s title is mentioned. This is done again for the next verse, which then culminates in the “Telll meee whaaaat yoou see” refrain – very cathartic – which is followed by the resolving electric piano that brings everything back around and, eventually, closes out the entire song itself. What’s the song about? Another love one, no doubt. Looking deeper into it, I think it captures a relationship that’s just about starting and is a reassurance from the narrator that, no matter what happens, they will be there for the other person involved. There’s no need for them to be afraid and keep their eyes shut, because the narrator will be there to make them happy and take those doubts away when they open their eyes. It’s an uplifting sentiment. And I don’t think there’s an act behind it. So that’s a thumbs-up from me.

Well, uh, I guess that’s all I have to say about it, really. The track was mainly written by McCartney, both he and Lennon said so once upon a time, and we all know how good he is at getting a memorable melody down. ‘Tell Me What You See’ is filled with a lot of those. At least, I think it is. The people who don’t care for it as much would think otherwise. But I think people should start caring for it. There’s this video for a remix of the song done by the user who uploaded it. Says there’s a lost George Harrison harmony that’s revealed in it, referring to the middle “tell me what you see” vocal during the refrains. You can hear it pretty clearly in the original recording anyway. It also might not be George Harrison. So, you know, just think about that before going into that link. So those are my thoughts on this tune. This is probably the most anyone’s thought to written about it for a long time, so I hope this does some justice.

#1342: Arctic Monkeys – Teddy Picker

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Imagine it. It’s 2007, you’re a young 12-year-old picking up the new Arctic Monkeys album from Woolworths after a day in school. Then you spin around a few times and 18 damn years have passed. It’s maddening putting a number to that amount of time. Woolworths is long gone. World has changed, for the better or worse is up for argument. But Favourite Worst Nightmare is still that 12-song packaged burst of energy created by that young band from Sheffield who made it big only a year prior and were now the indie kings in the country. That album is still my favourite by them. A large, large majority will do a 21-gun salute for Whatever People Say I Am… for understandable reasons. But I’ve always thought Favourite Worst Nightmare is where the band sounded their most tight, in the pocket, and slickest without the carry on they’d incorporate from about AM onwards. Plus, the songs are damn good too.

‘Teddy Picker’ is the second song on Favourite Worst… To tell the truth, I can’t remember how I felt about the song the first time I heard it. It’s sandwiched between opener ‘Brianstorm’, which was released as the exciting, anticipation build-up single and played on the television constantly. Knew it like the back of my hand before I had the CD in my hand. And with third song ‘D Is for Dangerous’ I have a very clear memory of thinking the CD was skipping during a particular moment. I’m sure I thought ‘Teddy Picker’ was just all right initially. But it wouldn’t have been until I’d listened a few more times to really appreciate it. And once you do, it’s pretty hard to forget. It’s got even more listens on ‘Brianstorm’ on Spotify, which I find surprising. But I can I guess why, and I’ll suggest it’s because it sounds pretty damn cool. The riff, Alex Turner in general with that kind of speakerphone effect on his vocal. I think it has some of his best lyrics. The overall tone of it all. I don’t know what producers James Ford and Mike Crossey did to make the track sound so good, but they got the job done.

What’s the song about? It’s about people wanting fame, getting that fame, and not having a great time once that fame’s obtained. A ‘teddy picker’ is a crane game/claw machine, that being the metaphor for grabbing what you want in order to get that success. So there you go. Hope you can listen to the track with new ears if you’d never considered that before. The track was released as the third and final single from the album in December 2007. The music video is of them performing the song live at RAK Studios in Northwest London. As I usually try to put live performances at the end of these, so I that can count in this case. By that time, I’m sure I’d grown to like the song a lot, but I don’t think I ever considered it as a single. But there the video was playing on MTV2. I wasn’t complaining. The single didn’t do as well in the charts as the two that came before it. Hype for the album had certainly died down as 2007 was getting to 2008. The band were doing just fine. It would take a little while for the next album to come, though.

#1341: Super Furry Animals – The Teacher

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Guerilla was the first Super Furry Animals album I ever checked out. One time, when I was about ten or something, I was watching MTV2 when the video for ‘Do or Die’ came on. That is the second song on Guerrilla and was released as its final single. And I thought it sounded cool. That was in 2005 or something. But life happened, and it wasn’t until seven years later that I remembered the song existed. I revisited it, it sounded as good as I remembered, and I went on to listen to the rest of the album as a result. I have this headcanon that, with the new millennium fast approaching and a little uncertainty in the wind, some artists were compelled to just do some of their most out-there work in the last couple years of the ’90s to leave a mark before the world possibly ended. You check out what albums were coming out around ’98 – ’99 and you might see what I’m saying. Well, Guerrilla always gave me that kind of feeling in that, up to that point, it was certainly their most experimental effort.

On the album, you’ll get a song in the style of calypso (‘Northern Lites’), another made to be one of those novelty hits in the charts that are a little annoying but can’t help but love (‘Wherever I Lay My Phone’), a little dip into electronic, downtempo music (‘Some Things Come from Nothing’). There’s a whole lot of variety. So when ‘The Teacher’ comes along in the album’s final legs, it kind of throws you off just because, since ‘Do or Die’ many tracks earlier, the album hasn’t offered a lot of straight rock and roll, but here it is again with ‘The Teacher’ just in case you forgot that the band could still rock out from time to time. And how well they do it too. With a melody that’s sounds very much like one you’d hear in the school playground back in the day, Gruff Rhys and co take on the perspective of a teacher who wants to quit their job, run away from home and just write songs and be in a band. Until now, I thought it was from the point of view of a young student. It could still very well be both.

Now, this track is a lot of undisputable fun. Gruff Rhys starts the track off by screaming alongside the keyboard, screaming that continues underneath the song while it’s going on, and that energy is matched and never lets up as soon as the rest of the band join in for the first verse. Someone, I think Rhys himself, sings along the main melody an octave higher. There’s generally a lot of high-pitched harmonies and vocal deliveries all around, adding to the manic hyperactivity of the proceedings, which I think is summed up in the “La-la-la-la” refrains. Slotted in between the trippy ‘Door to This House Remains Open’ and the balladry of ‘Fire in My Heart’, ‘The Teacher’ continues the eclectic mixture of styles the entire album builds its ground on. It is a straight rock-n-roller, but in the context of the album it arrives as a sort of refreshing moment. I’m all for it. Listen to Guerrilla, everybody.

#1340: The Beatles – Taxman

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‘Taxman’ would have been the track I heard first when deciding to go thorugh Revolver, having never heard it before, when I was in the depths of a Beatles discovery phase in 2009. Makes sense seeing as it’s the opening song on there. I’m sure I liked it then and there. I honestly wouldn’t be able to recall here how I felt about the song after that initial listen. It feels like it’s been around forever, I’ve heard it so many times since. But I’m sure I would have thought the ‘Taxman’ refrains were an obvious nod to the ’60s Batman theme tune and how similar the song ‘Start!’ by The Jam was to it. I usually see how ‘Taxman’ is talked about in the wider context of the Beatles’ discography. How it, and the rest of Revolver sort of marks a point where they were really blossoming into these fantastic songwriters, more than they were already, but with this newfound edge that clearly separated them from their peers. I mean, I’m sure all of that’s true. Just sounded like a cool song to me at the time.

People in the Beatles camp thought George Harrison had finally made a song worthy enough to begin a Beatles album, and so ‘Taxman’ did, and on it Harrison sings about the audacity the British government had in the mid-’60s to impose a supertax on the people with the highest taxable income in the country. The Beatles were four of those people, and they each were liable to give away 95% of their income to the taxman, hence the “one for you, 19 for me” lyric and Harrison’s general annoyance exuded in the song. Harrison further reinforces the preposterous nature of the titular taxman, who would tax the street, the seat, the heat, and your feet, if they could, for all the people who drive, sit, get too cold and go for leisurely walks. It’s quite comical how it’s written, I’m thinking Harrison felt the same way about the whole tax situation – but there’s definitely a seething undertone to it all, which makes it all the more emphatic of the political critique it is.

Online, you’ll find many a video detailing how the group recorded it and all the technicals. This one does, going into a dive as to who does the two count-ins you hear at the beginning of the song. For what it’s worth, before I saw it, I thought it was George doing the loud count-in and Paul McCartney doing the buried one. Now I think it’s Harrison doing both. Notable highlights in the song that I’d like to shine a light on is McCartney’s rapid-fire guitar solo about halfway through. It’s like a machine gun the way it comes out of the gate. It may also be out of frustration out of having to do it because Harrison couldn’t get the solo down himself. But that’s just my theory. His bassline isn’t too bad either, particularly those licks he pulls out during the middle eight. So, really, on a Harrison song, McCartney manages to take the spotlight somehow. And I just like the overall biting tone to that stabbing rhythm guitar that blasts the chords throughout. Got some real grit to it. And thankfully, the 2022 mix of it (above) did a good job of preserving all those things, just making it easier for listeners of the here and now. Or the here and now of 2022.

#1339: The Who – Tattoo

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It’s really come to this. The last song to represent The Who Sell Out in this series. It’s been a ride with that one, with a track from that album appearing in the ‘A’ section way back when. ‘Fun’ isn’t a word you’d use to describe a lot of albums by The Who, but if there was one that could be, Sell Out would probably be it. You’ve got the light radio concept throughout, a toe dip into that style of album before Pete Townshend fully went into the deep end for Tommy. Lighthearted songs with topics ranging from the importance of deodorant to baked beans to Scrooge-type characters. And it’s a showcase of the harmonies vocalists Roger Daltrey, Townshend and John Entwistle could execute, which kind of went away as the albums came along. And listening to the studio banter in alternate takes in that Super Deluxe Edition seem to show the bandmembers having a few laughs or so during the sessions. It sounds like a good time. Sell Out‘s still a bit of a overlooked album in the Who discography, but those who know really know.

‘Tattoo’ is the fifth song on The Who Sell Out and a very plainly told story about a boy and his brother who go to the parlor to get some tattoos to prove their manhood. The dad beats one brother, the mum beats the other. There’s no deeper meaning that what’s sung to you in the lyrics. I kind of remember hearing this one for the first time, on this old website called we7.com, back in the summer of 2010. The way Daltrey was singing, the subject matter, the nothing-left-to-interpretation-ness of it all. This was a very unusual song by The Who, very unlike anything you’d expect by them. It all sounded a bit silly to the 15-year-old I was then. Especially that “rooty-toot-toot” ending. Seemed like they were sort of making fun of what they were singing about. I can’t remember when the change happened that I suddenly saw the light, but I must have done because I can firmly say ‘Tattoo’ is one of my favourites on the entire album. The way Daltrey sings it is really a plus because of how un-Daltrey it is. Those descending harmonies by Townshend and Entwistle at the end of the choruses… just beautiful. Glorious stuff. And I feel like a mention to drummer Keith Moon occurs in a lot of Who posts I do on here, but he takes a backseat on ‘Tattoo’, which lets all the melodies really sink in.

So everyone, if there’s a lesson to be learned today, it’s to listen to The Who Sell Out. Myself, I’ve never been into the 2009 reissue / 2021 Super Deluxe Edition which I think use the original mix as it was from 1967. The 1995 Remix/Reissue, which is listed as being released in 1967 on Spotify and the like, was the edition that I listened to first and that I think contains the best mix out of all the re-releases that have been around. I’m sure that’s the version I’ve hyperlinked above, with the 23 tracks on there. It’s a damn shame that whoever split the songs for the remix of on streaming did a bad job, with the radio adverts playing at the beginning of songs rather than the end, because I feel each song would probably have a lot more plays if the alternate was the case. I did go through a period wondering whether I liked ‘Relax’ or not. By the time I was writing the R’s, I didn’t. But now I do again. So I’ll give that a mention. And the alternative version of ‘Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand’ with Al Kooper on organ. Much prefer that to the actual album version, actually. So, yeah. Wave bye to Sell Out, everybody.