Tag Archives: mother

#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.