Tag Archives: the beatles

#812: The Beatles – Martha My Dear

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Not so long after John Lennon finishes wailing about happiness being a warm gun on The Beatles’ White Album comes ‘Martha My Dear’. The track is virtually a solo Paul McCartney venture. He plays all the instruments on there bar the violins, trumpets and all the other ‘classical’ instrumentation. Those were arranged by the band’s producer George Martin. The song is also notable for being about McCartney’s dog who he owned at the time. I’ve seen that a lot of people don’t take it seriously for that reason and jokingly categorise it under the ‘granny shit’ label that Lennon had reportedly said about some of McCartney’s material.

But really, I think it just goes under the list of great songs that the man wrote. Another great melody as per usual. And that piano run is hard to play. I’ve tried. There’s a lot of skipping and jumping from note to note while trying to maintain the timing. I’ve also liked how the song always keeps moving and changing. McCartney sings along with the piano and violins for the first verse/chorus(?), then the horns come in for the “hold your head up” section to add some oomph, and then takes off with the “take a good look” bridge. It’s hard to label the song’s parts. There’s not really a chorus because the piano lick is kind of the main refrain of it. It’s just one nice melody after the next, with a nice instrumental walk-in-the-park section.

So a guy just wanted to write a song about his dog. There’s no problem with that. Have you seen the pictures of Paul and Martha? It seems that they were very close. A lot of credit has to go to George Martin on this one too. His arrangement for the additional instruments make this track a lot more dramatic than it has any right to be. This would be the beginning of Side 2 if you were listening to it on vinyl. I think I’ve got to say that that side may be my favourite on the double album. The run from ‘Martha My Dear’ to about ‘Rocky Raccoon’ is one of their strangely gratifying moments on any of the band’s albums.

#779: The Beatles – Lovely Rita

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That’s right. It’s another Beatles song. That’s the way it goes sometimes. There’ll be that rare time when two consecutive songs will be by the same artist/group in this thing. Though this might not have been the case for this particular instance if it happened a few years ago. I really didn’t like ‘Lovely Rita’ for a while. Every time Paul McCartney came in with that ‘Luh-vly Rita, meter maIIIID’ line it was an instant skip. There was something that was too sweet and upbeat that didn’t sit right with me, and its original 1967 mix didn’t do it much favour either. I would much prefer ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ or ‘Fixing a Hole’ to it. But then there came a time when I listened to Sgt. Pepper in full one day and came to really like the song. It’s weird how that can happen.

No one really knows how or why Paul McCartney wrote this song. There is a story that he got a parking ticket from a traffic warden which gave him the inspiration, but he denied it even though he did say that the woman ‘looked like a Rita’ to him. There’s also a theory that he heard the term ‘meter-maid’ for the first time while in America, and just the combination of those words set him off. Whatever the origin is, the result is a throughly enjoyable song. There’s nothing wrong with a very upbeat track once in a while. And while, I guess, I used to solely focus on McCartney’s vocals on there I never paid attention to the fantastic groove that the song is held on thanks to his walking bassline. That’s really the main musical element that should be paid attention to, then everything else falls into place. John Lennon and George Harrison’s backing harmony vocals work wonders and producer extraordinaire George Martin plays the piano solo in the middle. It’s all a very joyous occasion.

Thank goodness that the 50th Anniversary Remix of Sgt. Pepper. was released in 2017. I think there are a lot of people who’ve got rid of the initial 2009 remasters that contained the dated 60s mixes. I’m still so used to them though so I listen to them regularly, though there’s no denying that the reissue is much better. Below is the song’s original stereo mix.

#778: The Beatles – Love You To

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The Beatles’ Revolver is an album that I’ve admired for so long now, it’s hard to recall when I had that ‘eureka!’ moment where I suddenly enjoyed each of its fourteen songs or even how I felt when I listened to the album for the first time. I know that I did go through it initially in 2009/10 when I was on my Beatles discovery phase, but I don’t think it was an album that struck me as a special one on the first listen. Through subsequent listens each track slowly became a lot clearer in terms of rhythm and melody and all that good stuff, but I have the feeling that George Harrison’s second song on the album ‘Love You To’ was one that I had to get my head around.

When listening to Revolver for any new Beatles follower, ‘Love You To’ will stick out immediately. Well, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ too, but definitely ‘Love’ because the band aren’t playing as a group. It’s more George Harrison and a lot of Indian musicians with Paul McCartney on backing vocal and Ringo Starr on the tambourine. It’s a real trip, but it’s merely a sign of the musical headspace Harrison was in at the time. He had fallen in love with the sitar and the music of India in general, and wrote this song in order to showcase his new interests. Experimentation with LSD may also have played a part in his new influences. It’s a song in the key of C and I’m sure that’s the only chord the song stays on throughout. That is known as a drone, for anyone who may be getting into music theory or something.

The song is of the the existential/philosophical type judging by its lyrics. Harrison, who was only 22 going on 23 when he wrote it, goes on to sing about how time’s going too quickly, how life is short and how people can be quick to take advantage of you if they get the chance. But while this is all going on, he just wants to make love as much as he can with the time he has. I’ve sometimes wondered why the track is titled ‘Love You To’; the phrasing doesn’t make sense and even so, the phrase doesn’t appear in the lyrics. If it was called ‘Love to You’ it would be a different story. Though I’ve realised now that it may be a play on the words ‘Love Me Do’, the very first Beatles single out only four years earlier. So strange but commendable how much the group changed it that time.

#761: The Beatles – Long, Long, Long

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Out of the four George Harrison songs that appear on The Beatles’ White Album, I would probably say that ‘Long, Long, Long’ is my favourite out of them. To that you’ll probably wonder, “Well, what about ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps?’“. And to that I’ll answer, I’ve never really enjoyed that track and I think that what ended up on the album pales in comparison to the demo that appeared on Anthology 3. ‘Piggies’, I like quite a bit, and ‘Savoy Truffle’ I feel neither here nor there about. Harrison wrote at least seven songs that could have been included on the double album, but as long as Lennon-McCartney were together he could never get a proper look in. Thankfully, ‘Long, Long, Long’ did make it considering it was one of the last songs the group made during the album sessions.

Coming in after the noisy ‘Helter Skelter’ on the tracklist, ‘Long, Long, Long’ has a much more dynamic approach, leading off with soothing acoustic verses backed by a ghostly organ played by Paul McCartney which are then followed by emphatic drum fills from Ringo Starr at occasional intervals. The song was written during the time the group were in India in the early part of 1968 for their Transcendental Meditation course and, according to Harrison, is about finding God, believing in him, wondering why did took so long to do so and never letting him go now that he has Him in his life. Though if you’re not into that sort of stuff, you can take it as a standard love song.

The band, excluding John Lennon who was doing God knows what somewhere else, pretty much pulled an all-nighter to get this song done. A session outtake that was made available on the 50th Anniversary issue of the album sees Harrison in somewhat high spirits but you can sense the tired atmosphere. He cracks jokes before the take and goes on a rambling monologue as the take leads to nowhere. He also messes up the intro, but gets right into it after a split second. I’ll link that below. It is certainly a song best suited for the night time or when it’s time to sleep, but the ending where every instrument rises to climactic roar is sure to wake you right up again.

#708: The Beatles – Lady Madonna

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So I guess around 2009/2010 would have been the first time I heard ‘Lady Madonna’ by The Beatles. I may have written here and there in the past about how that period was when The Beatles entered my life and how they’ve remained a permanent fixture in my life since. There are plenty of other songs by them that I probably prefer to this one but that doesn’t take anything away from the obvious quality it possesses.

It was February 1968 and the four guys were about to partake in Transcendental Meditation in India, and so they wanted to release a single that would be available for the public for the time they were away. ‘Lady Madonna’ was made and chosen for the A-Side. It was mainly written by Paul McCartney, John Lennon helped with some of the lyrics, and was influenced by the voice of rock and roll legend Fats Domino, a blues instrumental by Humphrey Lyttleton and the Virgin Mary.

‘Lady Madonna’ is led by a fantastic piano hook mirrored by the lead vocal initially, then the fuzzy guitars from Lennon and George Harrison and then a saxophone, played by Ronnie Scott, that takes the centre stage for the solo in the middle of the track. It’s a pleasant composition. McCartney sings very well, as he usually did in those times, and Ringo Starr does his thing on the drums (both with brushes and the sticks). I feel like it foreshadows what was to come on the White Album months afterward. It almost feels like a McCartney solo song. Doesn’t stop it from being good though.