Tag Archives: the beatles

#1362: The Beatles – This Boy

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Oh, look at that, another Beatles track. I don’t make up how these things go, I’m just following the list. When it comes to ‘This Boy’, I don’t think I heard the actual Beatles recording first, but rather the instrumental version of it known as ‘Ringo’s Theme’. That plays in the background during a scene in A Hard Day’s Night where Ringo Starr walks around London on his own. You see, back in 2009, you could watch an upload of A Hard Day’s Night on YouTube with no problem, except it was separated into a number of videos because of the 10-minute duration limit the site used to have. But I don’t think it would have been too long after that I did listen to the tune as The Beatles originally did it. Was in my Beatles phase, which if you’d like to know more about I did a whole post on that. Eventually I came round to the Past Masters compilation, where ‘This Boy’ can be found on the collection’s first disc.

That compilation is made up of the singles and B-sides The Beatles released in the eight years they were around for, the first disc containing those from 1962 to 1965 and the second, 1965 to 1970. ‘This Boy’ was a B-side, released as the companion piece to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ – the track that got the band their first US number one and kicked off the years of Beatlemania hysteria. A smart move having the energetic rocket on side of the vinyl and the slower ballad on the other. I’m sure it was a calculated one. They get to show off their range with two very different songs. While ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ has a narrator that’s very much in a relationship, ‘This Boy’ contains a sadder one who wants to be in a relationship again, specifically with the girl they were once with who’s now with another man. ‘That Boy’. The narrator is in his feelings, singing the words he wants to say to the girl, but can’t, watching from afar as she goes about her business. He waits in the wings, ready to swoop in and take her back when ‘That Boy’ messes up, which ‘This Boy’ is convinced he will sooner or later.

The Beatles were usually a very good band on the vocal harmony front, and there’s probably no other song of theirs that showcases those better than this track right here. Well, actually, maybe ‘Because’. But ‘This Boy’ is up there too. John Lennon takes the lower range, singing the main melody. Paul McCartney provides the higher backing harmony, and George Harrison’s bridges the gap in the middle. You just have to listen and admire. Things ramp up a gear when Lennon forces his way to the front with the “Ohh, annnd this boy…” bridge, the big vocal serenade moment of the track, before an audible edit where two takes were spliced together takes us back to the quieter final verse like that moment never happened. The three vocalists repeat the song title alongside a swooning guitar line as it trails off into silence. A nice, little wistful number. George Harrison was a fan of it. John Lennon must have liked it himself, as he tried to rewrite it a couple years later resulting another B-side, ‘Yes It Is’. That’s something for another day. The band play it at the Washington Coliseum in 1964 below. The crowd go wild.

#1361: The Beatles – Think for Yourself

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Seeing as we’ve had a few last representatives on the blog lately, I had the thought the same would apply for ‘Think for Yourself’ on The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. It’s not the case. There are two songs left I’ve yet to cover. Have had a lot of love for the album for years now, but it didn’t start out that way. Back in 2009, when I was going through a massive Beatles discovery phase, it was announced that Rubber Soul was to be one of three full Beatles albums used as DLC on The Beatles: Rock Band, alongside Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road. The last two I understood. But being the Revolver fan I was, I didn’t understand why it was shafted for this “Rubber Soul“, which I hadn’t yet heard but thought couldn’t possibly be better. I write all this to say my first experience with the album was, I’m very sure, through watching the Rock Band “dreamscapes” for each song on YouTube. Had to admit, Rubber Soul, solid choice for the game. I’m still Revolver all the way, generally.

Rubber Soul is usually seen as the album where the Beatles turned from boys to men and stepped up their game in terms of songwriting. The Lennon-McCartney train kept on rolling. George Harrison had his imposed two-song per album quota, which started proper on Help!, but the point stands when considering he contributed ‘If I Needed Someone’ and today’s subject, ‘Think for Yourself’, the fifth song on Rubber Soul. In his autobiography, Harrison couldn’t recall much regarding the inspiration behind the tune, but said his intention was to “target narrow-minded thinking”. And it may also have something to do with the British government. Overall, it is about not wanting anything to do with another person, leaving them at that fork in the road where they go one way and you the other because you can’t support the things they stand for. And for a song inspired by those kinds of sour situations, it still manages to be catchy as anything.

For me, it’s all about that fuzz bass guitar, played by Paul McCartney, that plays the role of lead guitar in the track. It was an unprecedented move recording a bass guitar through a fuzzbox, as well as including that fuzz-affected bass alongside the standard one. It’s a process one wouldn’t think twice about now, but in November 1965, this was a crazy, crazy idea. The results are very nice. That downward scale played by the basses during the verses, you’ll know what I mean if you listen to the track, swiftly followed by the emphatic harmonies of the three vocalists during the verses make up the best seconds of the entire tune. It’s a little steamroller of a number. The verse flows into the chorus which flows into the verse, and so on, until it ends. No bridge, no instrumental break. And sometimes that’s all it takes. There’s a 15-minute audio clip of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison recording overdubs. Lennon and McCartney, working on a Harrisong, don’t take it all that seriously. Go ahead and have a listen.

#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.

#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.

#1193: The Beatles – She’s a Woman

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I inadvertently ended up hearing The Beatles’ ‘She’s a Woman’ by listening to an entirely different song of theirs. When the video for ‘The Night Before’ was playing on VH1 Classic, there was a little moment during it where the action is taken away from the band momentarily and switching to a random character who is somewhere underground and listening to another Beatles song on the radio. Then the scene changes to the band playing the original song as normal. That other song was ‘She’s a Woman’. However long it took me to get to hearing it in full is a duration of time that I can’t remember. My old, old computer would probably still show the original date and time I downloaded the Past Masters compilation it can be found on. I could get back to you on that with a definite answer.

‘She’s a Woman’ was recorded during the time the sessions that would result in the band’s Beatles for Sale album. Released in the December of 1964, it was the second LP of theirs to be given to the masses that year after having unveiled A Hard Day’s Night five months prior. From what I’ve seen, …for Sale isn’t considered to be one of the band’s best works. Mainly because of a reliance on cover material, a result of the constant touring and lack of time John Lennon and Paul McCartney had to write anything original. But even when they did, they ended up with songs like this. Although credited under the usual ‘Lennon-McCartney’ tag, ‘She’s a Woman’ was fully written by the latter and was conceived as an idea in McCartney’s head, demonstrated to the other three members and completed as a Beatles recording all in one day. It was eventually released as the B-Side to Lennon’s ‘I Feel Fine’, when that was chosen to be the standalone single preceding the album’s release.

The track contains one of the most-disliked rhymes to be found in any Beatles song. At least from the opinions I’ve seen on Reddit. People can’t seem to stand the ‘presents/peasant’ occurrence in the first two lines. That’s usually followed by another user talking about what ‘peasant’ meant during the ’60s. And I look on and laugh because I couldn’t really care less about it. I guess it’s an obvious rhyme. But there aren’t many “smart” rhymes you can get to follow ‘presents’. But anyway, I’ve always considered it to be a very solid song. Got a nice groove to it with John Lennon providing those rhythm guitar stabs on the upbeat. Contains some nice little piano fills by McCartney that echo the vocal melody. And he sings in a completely different way than you’ll find he usually does in other songs. Sounds like an entirely different person almost. You could probably say the song’s portrays some dated opinions in regards to how women treat men in a relationship perhaps? It’s a product of its time, though. I wouldn’t stop listening to it.