The Beatles Thread

George Martin for 5th Beatle.

 

That just goes to show how pop groups, even the world's biggest superstars, were expected to pump out product in those days. Two albums a year plus a handful of singles.

Of course the Beatles themselves were among the first to rebel against this, when they took most of a year to do Sgt. Pepper.

But even after that, they knocked out Magical Mystery Tour about Christmas '67, and by September '68 they were done with the massive White Album. Plus they did other singles and were stashing songs away for Yellow Submarine.

Essentially, they were producing an average of about one finished song every week.

 

For anybody interested, WZLX in Boston has a Beattle show on Sunday mornings. I assume it is on the stream. I haven't listened to it in a while. When I did I wondered how the host could find new people to interview and find new angles on all the songs he's played for years (He plays anything related to the Beatles). Might suck for big fans, but as a casual fan it was interesting.

 

They did a lot of covers early on, which made it easier to crank out the first few albums.

Another tidbit I heard on Sirius was that The Beatles Second Album has some Motown songs on it and the record company was negotiating the publishing fees right down to the last minute. They offered 1.5 percent instead of the standard 2. Berry Gordy was fighting with Smokey Robinson about whether to take it, which they eventually did after the record company threatened to leave the songs off all together.

The album was in stores like three days after they caved. They'd already been pressed and packaged, so there was no way they were leaving You Really Got A Hold of Me and Money off.

 

They had a repertoire of literally hundreds of songs they'd been doing back to the days of Hamburg, so they certainly had options. In the Live at the BBC CDs, they roll through dozens of the old chestnuts.

 

I think my favorite part of any Beatles song - maybe any song - is the break or the fill (not sure the correct term) in I've Got a Feeling just before Paul and John come back in to sing their respective parts together. Just a great, fun sound.

 

That's an interesting thing about that period of early 1969. Even as the band was breaking up, and in many ways the John-Paul relationship was really at its nadir with all the management battles, the two of them could still do great songs together, like "Two of Us," and "The Ballad of John and Yoko," which they did together in one afternoon while George and Ringo were off overseas.

 

And it seemed like they were really having fun, but it wasn't to last. Peter Asher or somebody said Hey Bulldog was the last time they all four were in the studio together and all on the same page. You can tell they had a good time doing that one too.

 

I revise my previous take: The Rutles are the fifth Beatle.

 

George has been more popular with me in the past 15 years or so than at any time before that, but I think Lennon will always be my favorite for a variety. George and Paul trade places at No. 2 from time to time. Ringo has always been fourth (or fifth), but at least he unwittingly helped me win a headline-writing contest .

 

McCartney was the most talented.