Tag Archives: the beatles

#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.

#838: The Beatles – Michelle

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Story goes that, in his younger days, Paul McCartney would go to parties, pretend he was French and perform a song with his acoustic guitar with a fake accent to woo the ladies. In his own words, his goal never came to fruition. But many years later when he was in the Beatles and recording Rubber Soul, John Lennon reminded him of that fake-French song and told him to work on it so it could be a new number for their album. The result is ‘Michelle’, a love song cherished by many and probably a reason why a lot of people out there have the same name.

For a long time, I mean a long time, I didn’t care about this track. Thought it was just a soppy love song, “I love you, I love you”, yeah, yeah, okay McCartney. Didn’t give it much thought. And it suffered from the terrible instruments-in-one-ear-vocals-in-the-other mix that the whole album had. Didn’t make the listening experience much better. Then I made my own mix using the Beatles Rock Band stems that you can find online with a quick google, and I suddenly liked it a lot more. I’m still not into the lyrics that much, but there’s a swing and coolness in its delivery that’s undeniable.

I find myself listening more to McCartney’s bass line that rings and climbs and falls and sometimes mirrors the ‘ooh-ooh’ backing vocals by Lennon and George Harrison. Those elements really add to the smoky nightclub feel which I think the track is going for. That smooth solo that comes in during the middle is pretty slick too. All of these aren’t really given their props in the album mix. Now if I could share my mix, you’d probably like the song a lot more. But that’d just be too long of a process. So I’ll share the mix from the Rock Band game instead.

#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.