I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

"dig a pony" is so dope

i decided to try out the '69 glyn johns mix from the let it be box and boy this sucks

Dig a Pony was a very very slow grower for me --- when i first got LiB as a teen I found it kinda boring, didn't like the texture, verse wasn't melodically hooky or headsticky (for me), etc. but it's been one of the biggest earworms for me this past week, so i guess that's a good index of how much my listening tastes have evolved!

We had the blue album on vinyl. I listened mostly to the first LP, it seemed "kid-friendly" while the second LP had a gritty "adult" feel that intimidated me a little (at 6 or 7).

Love “Dig A Pony,” always have. And watching Get Back, I’m reminded that editing out the “all I want is you” after the riff/before the verse was a very smart move (on the part of Lennon or Spector, not sure who made that decision). “Dig A Pony” is probably my favorite song on the Let It Be record, for that matter…or maybe neck-and-neck with “I’ve Got A Feeling.”

pro-Pony here and also surprised that people could not (ahem) dig it

i read one of the worst beatle songs threads on here recently, and got a sense that maybe people didn't like the "just another stodgy 70s rock band" feel of get back/don't let me down/pony/i got a feeling

"just another stodgy 70s rock band" could never have made "i've got a feeling"

yes sorry not endorsing that POV at all - i like all those songs - but trying to understand the objections

I also didn't know people didn't dig Dig a Pony, which I like a lot

Will never buy into Maxwell's Silver Hammer apologia, goofy peepee poopoo baby crap

It just occurred to me: the difference between "Maxwell" and "Octopus" is the difference between Paul and George as producers.

Harrison is the only one who selflessly produced other acts. He lived to jam! He wanted to make new acts comfortable! And "Octopus" sounds like a quietly painstaking production.

otm

Octopus is a much better song. Simple, memorable melody that's not trying too hard, nice little guitar figure. (though it would be hard to try harder then Maxwell's Silver Hammer the most try-hard song in history)

wouldve been great to hear Buck Owens cover Octopus Garden, just as a fun reversal since Ringo did act naturally— i can totally picture buck singing octopus

One of my earliest musical memories, if not my earliest, is going on a field trip in 2nd grade to a state park and seeing a puppet show which included "Here Comes the Sun". I remember being very affected by the song and telling my parents about it when I got home and my parents explaining who The Beatles were. "The Talk", if you were.

xpost can totally hear Buck Owens doing OG

right!? its such a happy Buck-y kinda tune

Dig a Pony would be all-time for the Beeee-cause alone.

Re: Rocky Racoon...I can't get past Paul's faux cowboy accent. Mick Jagger seems a lot better at it.

And if he sang Get Back in a more rock voice, a la Back in the USSR I'd like that tune a lot better instead of that kermit-sounding shit

id like to be
under the sea
with goofy peepee poopoo
baby crap

And our friends are all aboard
goofy peepee
baby crap

i'll cop to being a 'dig a pony' skeptic', didnt hate it but it always sounded like forgettable filler to me. after hearing it 275 times in the doc, i'm sold, it rocks.

is there a thread for country covers of beatles tunes? gene clark did a killer version of dount let me down

Harrison is the only one who selflessly produced other acts.

Yep. When Paul produced Badfinger’s “Come And Get It,” they said, “Um…can we play the song the way we play it?” Paul shut that down: “That won’t be a hit. Do it my way.”

And then Mal Evan's produced their next single which pissed all over Come and Get It. And it continued with Harrison producing the one after that. Everyone at Apple had a go.

So much unnecessary Rocky and Maxwell slander! I live for Paul’s silly songs

same!! i like the simplicity, remind me of nursery rhymes… plus i think most of his sillier songs were in my childhood singing books at school so i was indoctrinated v early to love them :D

Next these people are coming for Honey Pie, aren’t they?!

I previously had only mild love for Let It Be but man, this documentary leaves you no choice but to love it in the end

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" lyrics are a bit of a shaggy dog story, in that you keep waiting for something interesting to happen, but no, Max just keeps beaning people with his hammer. The (oft repeated) punch line is deliberately groan inducing. The song peaks early; the funniest line is in the opening verse: "Late nights all alone with a test tube/Oh, Oh, oh, oh." The music is one of Paul's baroque whimsical numbers, meticulously arranged, as usual. The marriage of low-brow nastiness and high-brow musical construction makes me think of Zappa. Within the Beatles oeuvre it's in that lineage of "Rocky Raccoon" and "Bungalow Bill". I guess zany black comedy was very much in the zeitgeist in the late '60s, though it works best when the comedy seems a thin veneer over something truly depressing. Its very hard to imagine Paul ever being truly depressed for longer than a few minutes, so the effect is undermined a bit in his hands.

That bit at the end of Part 1 where they work up Let it Be is pretty magical.

I’ve legitimately never understood the widespread hate for Rocky Raccoon, I’ve always heard a vein of legitimate melancholy in it, but it gets tons of hate for being another of Paul’s silly frivolities

Doesn’t belong in the same convo as Maxwell imo

"Rocky Racoon" is more like "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" than "Maxwell's".

And if he sang Get Back in a more rock voice, a la Back in the USSR I'd like that tune a lot better instead of that kermit-sounding shit

I always wondered the origin of Paul's late 60's kermit rock voice and Get Back seems to indicate that it might have come from Canned Heat's "Going Up the County" which they discuss in the 2nd episode. You can imitate anyone you know!

Watching The Beatles cover Canned Heat was really something.

^^^^ yep, pretty sure Paul was trying his own Canned Heat vocal there.

Loved seeing Yoko holding "Beggars Banquet" there

btw I’m kinda named after Paul McCartney
To be fair it’s really just the preamble part of Schlocky Schlockoon that I dislike. The rest is nice.

Maxwell's isn't simple enough! it's not half the song that Octopus's Garden is, OG is easy to learn, easy to sing for anyone, it's a pure song. Maxwell's is 10 lbs. of shit in a 5 lb. sack.

Zappa is actually a great comparison, it's a song that only exists to illustrate how clever the songwriter is, the lowest form of music and art.

i don't think it's too clever or anything, it's just a dreadful tune

paul could make his whimsy nonsense compelling on occasion but absolutely failed there

The Beatles did lots of children's songs, which is a pretty great way of getting people to like your band also.

I was just about old enough when "Yellow Submarine" first came out

I think I may be the only person to have been unenthusiastic about Dig a Pony on this thread. It’s not filler like Dig It or Maggie Mae, but I’m not generally a fan or the Beatles going bluesy and the lyrics leave me pretty cold. Actually, in simple terms, I quite like Dig a Pony but All I Want Is You hurts my head.

loved john raving about seeing fleetwood mac on tv

Oh yeah, that was good. Their reports of what they watched on TV last night are generally a highlight. I hope there are more of them on a 16hr DVD.

is it a huge challop to think 'let it be' is better than 'abbey road'?

Good morning!

I've really cooled on Abbey Rd - it's tainted by a 70s glossiness, particularly the second side. I really like the minimalist direction John went in for after that with the POB album, and that 'classic albums' episode is a good watch after 'Get Back'.

I'm fairly sure that "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" was played on Top Of The Pops a couple of times, as I remember the animation that accompanied it, with Maxwell as a kind of grinning Dennis The Menace-type figure. So I was surprised to discover, a few years later, that it was never a single. Turns out that the animation was originally aired in a Late Night Line-Up TV special that premiered Abbey Road in full (produced by Kevin Ayers' dad, Rowan Ayers). The animation has never been recovered.

loved john raving about seeing fleetwood mac on tv

Was certain he was gonna come in with Here Comes The Sun King the next day after that bit of commentary.

Also warmed to I Dig A Pony after having seen it played a billion times during Get Back.

I saw Let It Be a couple of times many years ago, the first time in a cinema in the 1970s, and I remember thinking both times re "Dig A Pony", "Christ, was this the best they could come up with by then, things were clearly falling apart". But yeah, it sounds alright on the finished album.

is it a huge challop to think 'let it be' is better than 'abbey road'?

― flopson, Tuesday, December 7, 2021 5:33 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I guess so, but I definitely feel this way. Some of the Paul songs on side 2 of Abbey Road feel like they're trying so hard to make a grand final statement that they make me wanna roll my eyes a bit. Let It Be has its share of lightweight material, but "Two of Us," "Dig A Pony" and "I've Got a Feeling" do more for me than anything on Abbey Road.