SlagA
Monday 20th July 2009 4:23pm [Edited]
Blackwood
5,335 posts
Re: the songs tiff - The Beatles sniped amongst each other for a good few years. Apart from verbal swipes, there were also some clever musical references involved.
Harrison's Wah-wah is an early example, where he makes clear the Wah-wah isn't a guitar effect.
Yep, Too Many People, Three Legs, and Dear Boy were the first of Macca's snipes coupled with a photo of two beetles copulating on the Ram cover. Macca's digs were typically concealed in a subtle but sly manner. Lennon understood the sentiments though the message went past many listeners at the time.
Lennon replied with How Do You Sleep?, which was humiliatingly transparent to the world. He reinforced this with a free album postcard of him holding a pig by the ears to imitate (and comment on) the RAM album photo of Macca holding a ram by the horns. The version of How Do You Sleep? on the Imagine film is even more vitriolic. That Harrison and Ringo played on it was possibly more insulting to Macca.
Macca made a concilliatory move on Let Me Roll It - a great song from Band on the Run. Here's a live version ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P2MOrWrsk8 ) At 30 seconds in, there's a great little run.
Lennon clearly understood the olive branch being offered and accepted: as you can hear in Beef Jerky from Walls and Bridges, Lennon's album following Band on the Run. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjteOLCIa-E - Listen to 0:42 on. Lennon uses the same run (as Macca's Let Me Roll It) throughout Beef Jerky. It's also an instrumental, which is a) a clever way to echo the sentiments of Let Me Roll It where Macca says he has no words to explain how he feels and b) Lennon kinda says the war of words is ended.
The Let Me Roll It run is in turn lifted from Lennon's awesome Cold Turkey so that Lennon would realise the song was a message aimed for him. Lennon himself most likley thought so too, as Cold Turkey -> Let Me Roll It -> Beef Jerky. The rhyming of CT with BJerky seems too neat and Lennon loved playing with words.
Apart from colluding in How Do You Sleep?, it is thought that Ringo (more than Harrison, who was equally as angry with Macca as Lennon) was the person who advised John to tone down the rehearsal version to the still bile-filled album version. Luckily, Lennon paid heed. Ringo did a charming and very witty non-snipe called Early 1970 from the Don't Come Easy sessions. Each verse dealing with his pals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTqQ_uxR42I Good ol' Ringo - Love and peace indeed.
Quote: Kenneth @ July 20 2009, 12:19 PM BST
Have you got all the bootlegs then? The Anthology releases, followed by the advent of Napster, prompted me to download every Beatles bootleg I could find. Some great versions of many songs before 'final takes' and some good stuff that was never released.
Sour Milk Sea is awesome - What's the New Mary Jane is cool although I wish Yoko would belt up - And many of Harrison's songs from All Things Must Pass were given short thrift by L and M, despite holding their own against any other new Beatles' song during rehearsal sessions.
Got a lot of boots, still looking for more, mainly interested in unreleased rather than alternate takes. Although alternate takes around 66-68 are staggering, in that they show how a simple arrangement evolved into a complex masterpiece.