Tag Archives: the beatles

My iPod #287: The Beatles – Doctor Robert

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Near the end of the album “Revolver” is “Doctor Robert”, one of the more normal sounding songs on it. What I mean is, it’s just the four guys playing their respective instruments. No violins, sitars, tambouras, backward guitar solos. It’s a standard rock song. Now I know there’s “Tomorrow Never Knows” or “Eleanor Rigby”…… “Here, There and Everywhere”, those are usually the ones that people would say are their favourite tracks from “Revolver”. “Doctor Robert” is mine… say what you wanna say.

Carried along by a durable rhythm section and a crackly, rough guitar by Lennon for the verses, “Doctor Robert” is the perfect advertisement for…. a doctor. Day or night, Doctor Robert will be there anytime. He does everything he can. The song’s based on a real doctor. Actually, there are contradicting ideas on who Doctor Robert actually was. It is ‘most likely’ about a doctor who dosed some of the members with amphetamines in his Vitamin B injections. You didn’t think this song was about the hard-working doctors who save most lives on a daily basis. Ohh no. What would be the fun in that.

Yeah, the track’s a whole big nod to drugs and stuff. A really nice track, though. When the lead guitar rings in at the last moments in the second verse, the chorus begins with on-point, choir-like vocal melodies between John, Paul and George and a heavenly B chord provided by a harmonium, you feel like everything’s going to be okay.

Surrounded by the other tracks, “Doctor Robert” seems like the least interesting one on “Revolver” but it is moments like that one which remind us that at the most unusual times the group could pull the rabbit out of the hat and amaze us with their magic.

My iPod #272: The Beatles – Dig a Pony

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Time for a post methinks. I arrived back home for the Easter holidays, but as soon as I did I was out again to meet up with friends at Stratford. It was getting to eleven at night when eventually set foot in my house, and therefore there was no song to talk about yesterday.

Here is one now. It’s “Dig a Pony” by The Beatles, on their last album “Let It Be“, a weird love song written and sung by John Lennon.

The “Let It Be” film is a miserable one. That was the first one I watched when I began to avidly research The Beatles and listen to their songs, which is weird because it’s the last one they did. It used to be available in parts on YouTube, but apparently isn’t anymore. The majority of it focuses on the four guys improvising some tracks in studios at a time when relations between all of them weren’t so friendly anymore. This was a real day in the life of The Beatles – not the one that was dramatised and played up for “A Hard Day’s Night“. It is a much harder watch in comparison.

That is until the band go up onto the rooftop for a spur-of-the-moment performance, the one which would turn out to be their last live one as a group. They deliver the songs to almost perfection, one after the other with great enthusiasm and finish with a witty remark by Lennon, providing a heartwarming close to the film. One of the songs they did on the roof was “Dig a Pony”, and that live performance is the same thing you hear on the album itself.

I dug “Dig a Pony” (hehehe) as soon as I heard the chorus for the first time. I thought it was the best song in that film. The leaping guitar work of the riff is one that is hard to forget, and the licks that George Harrison throws in at various points are wonderful too. But that moment when Lennon belts out the poignant lyric “All I want is you” with all his might – you can see just how much power he gets into the phrase. And with the wind blowing in his hair….. Man…. what a guy.

Here it is if you wanna see it.

My iPod #256: The Beatles – Dear Prudence

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“Dear Prudence” is the second track on the first disc of The Beatles’ self titled album from 1968. It was one of many to be written by John Lennon when the group visited India earlier in the year for a meditation course, in order to get away from all the added attraction the band brought onto themselves the previous year. Many people joined the band on their visit and would be entertained by the group whenever there weren’t any lectures occurring, but there was one who would retreat back to their room, meditate some more and barely keep in contact with anyone. That person was Prudence Farrow, this was John’s message to her.

That’s just a bit of background info.

I became a huge Beatles fan in late 2009. Around the time the new album remasters and The Beatles: Rock Band came out, coincidentally. I downloaded (almost) every Beatles album as I was awed at just how consistently good their songs were, even as they changed through the years.

If only I was typing this to you from the computer back home, I could tell you when I actually first downloaded “The Beatles” and therefore listened to “Dear Prudence” for the first time. I can’t remember if I had seen its dreamscape from the game before listening to the whole album, or vice-versa……. It’s nothing to dwell upon, really.

I don’t think I’ve typed anything that would have convinced you to listen to the song. I’m not able to tell you just how good this song is with the less-than-satisfactory vocabulary I have.

It is one of Lennon’s best – a beautiful and timeless track.

My iPod #248: The Beatles – A Day in the Life

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“A Day in the Life” is the grand finale of The Beatles influential 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Many consider this to be the greatest song the group did, and see it as the pinnacle of the experimentation the four guys had been undertaking during the mid 60s.

2007 was its 40th anniversary, and it was of an immense deal that the cast of Eastenders did a cringeworthy tribute of it for Comic Relief (take some time to think before you go to this) and a whole bunch of other bands (from Stereophonics to The Fray) got together to do a cover album as a tribute too. But it was two years later in 2009, when I first listened to the album and therefore the song. I did not think that it was worth all that fuss. I found out that it was. It’s still not my favourite of theirs though.

In terms of the track… I think I was looked at its article on Wikipedia one time (God knows why) and the overwhelming detail it listed about “A Day” – its background, the dates it was recorded on, the crescendos of the brass, the combination of Lennon and McCartney’s separate song ideas, the almighty piano chord at the end – it made me think I was missing out on a song of epic proportions. I had to listen to it.

Funnily enough, I didn’t care for it so much the first time. I was thirteen. This opinion has changed. It is one of the greatest album closers ever.

My iPod #225: The Beatles – Cry Baby Cry

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Uni work starts again from tomorrow until April. Can’t wait. Early wake ups three times a week and sitting through two hour lectures on a Friday. What could be better.

Never mind. Life goes on.

“Cry Baby Cry” may be another track out of the many on “The Beatles” that some consider to be filler. On the contrary I think it has as much worth as “Dear Prudence” and “Glass Onion” on the track list, even if it is not as highly regarded as the former or as continuously questioned as the latter.

“Sing a Song of Sixpence” always comes to mind when I hear this song, seeing as many words in that nursery rhyme are found in the track. A king is there, a parlour is mentioned, a queen and so on and so forth. But this track does not have a cheerful melody like that rhyme. In fact, this is the total opposite of what a nursery rhyme should be.

The descending phrase from E Major to G Major within the verses mixed with some minor chords along the way, John Lennon’s light and barely double tracked vocal and that harmonium in the introduction make this track very moody and quite saddening to listen to. It makes it even worse knowing that it’s the last time you hear Lennon’s voice on the album.

The actual track ends before it switches to Paul McCartney with a guitar singing “Can You Take Me Back”, which makes it even weirder and creepy. Then the next track “Revolution 9” starts and it goes all over the place from there.