Tag Archives: the beatles

#1178: The Beatles – Sexy Sadie

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Beatles fans know there was a point where things for the band would never be the same again. Well, more than a few points, to be fair. The death of their manager Brian Epstein in August 1967 is one that can be brought up. But for the purpose of this post, I’ll bring up another. The trip to India in 1968. Before they left, they made ‘Hey Bulldog’ and ‘Lady Madonna’. According to their engineer, everyone seemed to be in great spirits. The group went to India for their Transcendental Meditation course under the tutelage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Then they came back to the UK, began work on what became the White Album, and as we all know, they weren’t liking each other quite as much anymore. A few things happened on that India trip, one in particular was the inspiration behind the song in question today.

‘Sexy Sadie’ was originally titled ‘Maharishi’. John Lennon wrote the song and had every intention of releasing it under the original name before George Harrison implored him not to and provided the alternative title. While on the TM course in India, Lennon heard through the grapevine that the Maharishi had been making moves on some of the female students, acting in a very un-Maharishi way. Turned out this may have not even been true and was just a rumour started by a hanger-on of the band. Nevertheless, Lennon was angered and immediately disillusioned, completely lost faith in whatever he felt he was being taught and wrote the song in response. Lack of better words, it’s a diss track. So whenever the phrase ‘Sexy Sadie’ is said, just replace it with ‘Maharishi’ and you gain a little more understanding.

I really enjoy the way John Lennon sings this track. Think it may be one of his most underrated performances. The vocal melody’s one that continuously rises and fall, contrasting between his falsetto and his natural voice, stretching out syllables and elongating vowel sounds seemingly with little effort. And alongside you get the backing vocals of him, McCartney and Harrison throughout, piping up with “wah-wah-wahs” and “see-see-sees”, culminating in the part where they all sing the last line, which in turn falls into the song’s outro. That was also meant to be much longer, by the way. Must have been edited down for space on the LP. You can hear the track’s unedited ending section below. Would have been cool if it was left in, but the song’s great all the same. And that’s White Album out of here. No more songs to come. But click on the little “white album” tag below and you can read about all the songs I like from there.

#1143: The Beatles – Run for Your Life

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I don’t care what anyone says. I really like this song. The Beatles’ ‘Run for Your Life’ has gained a bit of a stink amidst the Internet community in recent years. People hear the song’s first line and are immediately shocked. Appalled. “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man.” Gasp. “What? Oh, my God.” Then come the rest of the lyrics that detail this girl’s low survival rate at the hands of the song’s narrator who will kill her if she even dare tried to leave him. It strikes a chord. Then add in the whole ‘John Lennon beat women back in his day’ statement (which is true and is bad, but the guy’s dead – can’t get any more cancelled than that) and people have a field day with criticising it. Then there’s the argument that it doesn’t bring the most satisfying end to the band’s Rubber Soul album. That’s a notion I would be fine with agreeing with if I cared that much.

The track was the first to be recorded for the album in October 1965. Not much is known of how John Lennon came to write the words, but the opening line (stated in the above paragraph) was taken from the Elvis Presley song ‘Baby Let’s Play House’. I assume that everything that followed was made just to match the tone of that source of inspiration. Backing up the threatening lyrics is an upbeat performance by the four band members. Lennon’s vocal performance is one that I thoroughly enjoy too. He’s backed up by the harmonies of McCartney and Harrison on the choruses, which aid in building that sort of tension within the song, that’s then resolved in the slide guitar and rhythm guitar riff that arrive after each iteration. A piercing bluesy guitar solo adds the icing on the song’s cake. In the end, George Harrison really liked ‘Run for Your Life’. Lennon not so much. He would later state that it was his least favourite Beatles song. In fact, I’d probably say the reason the track was chosen as the album closer was because he thought it was the worst one out of all the songs they’d recorded for the album, rather than thinking it would be a good way to finish things off.

I dunno. I think at the end of the day, it’s just a song and shouldn’t be taken so literally. I mean, are there people living today who could very much hold the values and ideals held by the narrator of the song? I wouldn’t doubt it. And that sucks. But at the same time, it’s so outrageous coming from the Beatles that you almost sort of have to laugh at it. Is Lennon writing about himself? Don’t think you can objectively say no. But I think once people learn about Lennon’s history, they hear the track and judge the dude’s character solely based on it. A whole hypocrisy argument comes in because Lennon was the peace guy, even though this song was written years before he became the figurehead of that specific movement. Maybe it’s me who’s making a big deal out of all of this. I’m just writing about what I’ve seen, I swear. Whatever view you may hold on it, I’m gonna carry on listening regardless.

#1137: The Beatles – Rocky Raccoon

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When I first heard ‘Rocky Raccoon’ by the Beatles for the first time, I want to say I had a reaction that was very similar to this YouTuber’s. Coming up as the third round in that animal “trilogy” on the White Album after ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Piggies’, it had me thinking this song was going to be a song about a raccoon. Interesting to say the least, but we’ll see how it goes. Then Paul McCartney comes in with the exaggerated Southern drawl in the introduction. I thought it sounded too silly. I made fun of it a bit, was ready to dismiss the whole thing entirely. But then, McCartney starts singing for real, and I was sort of spellbound. I don’t think I realised that I liked the song that much until I started singing it spontaneously a period of time afterwards. Goes to show, you’ve got to give every song a chance.

‘Rocky Raccoon’ isn’t about an actual raccoon, by the way. Doesn’t stop me from imagining these anthropomorphic creatures acting out the song’s storyline. Set in the Wild West with those cowboy hats and everything, very clear imagery. Anyway, that’s what the song is importantly, a story. It’s pretty much spelled out in the lyrics. The titular character checks into a hotel to get revenge on a man (who calls himself Dan) who’s ‘stolen’ his girlfriend. The girl’s name is Lil McGill, but everyone knows her as Nancy. Rocky Raccoon challenges Dan to a showdown. Dan shoots him quick on the draw and Rocky loses. Rocky recovers miraculously fast and goes back to the hotel to lick his wounds. And at points of this storytelling come some jumpy, upbeat honky-tonk piano breaks (provided by George Martin) to really tie the pieces together.

I don’t know how Paul McCartney does it. The melody used throughout his so simple, but so memorable. Almost like a lullaby. Shouldn’t be surprised as the guy’s pretty much a master of melody, so much so it left a lot of his peers and bandmates stumped. But a song with a name like ‘Rocky Raccoon’ could go badly so easily. Good thing it was McCartney who wrote it. Also without it, we wouldn’t have Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy. That’s a movie series I’m not very keen on myself. But what I’m getting at is that its influence and legacy goes out farther than just music. The track is very Paul, but you’ve got to hand it to the other bandmembers for their contribution the song’s sound. George Martin’s aforementioned piano performance livens up proceedings, and to reinforce the country-western vibe, John Lennon provides a harmonica part for what would be the final time on a Beatles recording.

#1087: The Beatles – Rain

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The story of how I came to know ‘Rain’ by the Beatles is short and very, very simple. Back in 2009, I downloaded the 2006 LOVE remix album – one that introduced me to a lot of Beatles tracks before I went ahead and sought out most of their proper discography. On the version of ‘All You Need Is Love’ that closes that album out, little splices of other Beatles songs come in during the repeated ‘Love is all you need’ mantra. A harmonised ‘Rain, I don’t mind’ came in at about 2:53 seconds in. I liked the little refrain. I typed in ‘rain i don’t mind’ into Google, ‘rain i don’t mind beatles’ came up as the autocomplete option. The music video was the first search result. And that was that. I was already on a Beatles kick as it was, and now another hit was added to the collection.

‘Rain’ was written by John Lennon and recorded by the band during the sessions out of which came Revolver in the summer of 1966. As any Beatles fan will know, the track didn’t appear on that LP. It had already been released as the B-side to ‘Paperback Writer’ months earlier. Now, you hear the term ‘B-side’ and you automatically think, “Well, it’s probably not that good than all the other songs that made the album, or the track on the flip side.” But every Beatles fan will tell you you’re wrong and that ‘Rain’ is actually one of the band’s best and one of their most underappreciated because of the ‘B-side’ status. There’s nothing to deep about it, Lennon sings about how the weather shouldn’t affect the way we think, particularly when it rains, and that it’s our minds that bring us up or down no matter how things are when you look at the sky in the morning. If there is something deep there, I’ve yet to see it. Seems to be a what you see is what you get situation. But Lennon was doing a lot of drugs in that time, so anything’s possible.

Apart from the fact that is just an outright solid tune, melody and the rhythm working together perfectly, there’s a bunch of other aspects about it that separate from those other songs that you’ll hear from day-to-day. Like how the band actually recorded the backing track (guitars and drums) at a much faster speed before it was slowed for the vocals and bass guitar to record over it. Lennon also took great pride in being the first person to incorporate backwards vocals into a song, something he was motivated to do after getting high one night and mistakenly putting a reel of tape on the wrong way round and being astounded by what he heard. Even though Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr didn’t necessarily play together on the song, the former overdubbed his bass guitar later as I said, the two are still locked in unison, providing one of the best rhythm section performances in the Beatles catalogue. Starr was particularly proud of his drumming. When you witness the speed at which he did it, you can see why. I think this song’s great. Gotta say I prefer this version of the video though.

#1036: The Beatles – Piggies

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Here it is. Everybody’s favourite George Harrison song from the White Album. Only kidding. I’m quite sure that ‘Piggies’ brings about some polarizing opinions. Some may think it’s fine. Others will probably turn to you and say they can’t stand the thing. If you were to ask me, I would gladly listen to this track a hell of a lot more than ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, which would be something of sacrilege to many, many people. I’ve just never been able to get into it. I mean, it’s all right. A bit melodramatic for me. The Anthology 3 version’s beautiful though. If Lennon and McCartney got their solo acoustic songs on the double album, then ‘Gently Weeps’ should definitely have been Harrison’s time to shine.

But anyway. ‘Piggies’, yes. The track’s another one of Harrison’s spiteful compositions made in order to make a commentary on an aspect of society. He first did it with ‘Taxman’ in 1966. While that was a satirical comment on, well, how much money was taken from him through taxes, ‘Piggies’ arrives as a biting piece on the rich in general. Harrison paints a picture of a world wherever everyone exists as pigs. The little (poorer) piggies are scrounging around, trying to make ends meet. The bigger (rich) piggies are ignorant to what goes on ‘below’ them as they strut around in their ‘starched white shirts’, and what Harrison suggests is that these bigger piggies need a smack to make them see sense.

Is the imagery a bit too on the nose and obvious? I mean, I guess so. But you couldn’t say that the musical shifts and the melodies aren’t interesting at the very least. The track goes with a great baroque and regal approach, led by a grand string arrangement courtesy of the main man George Martin and a harpsichord – which also has its own little solo – played by engineer Chris Thomas. It’s a track littered with totally unexpected moments. The movement and key change from those opening verses to the “In their sties…” middle part should have no right sounding as good as they do. There’s that little riff that plays after the “They don’t care what goes on around” lyric, which always sounds good to my ears. And for whatever reason, just when you think the song’s finished, Harrison comes in with a monotone ‘One more time’ before the strings blare out this rousing flourish to properly finish it off. I’ve come so used to it I can more or less say the phrase at the exact time Harrison says it. But it would certainly leave some people scratching their heads.