Worst Beatles song on Revolver

Yellow Submarine was in the charts and on the radio when I was four - and oh, how I loved it. Especially the "full speed ahead captain!" bit in the middle, and the bit where the cheeky little fella repeats the lines. All very stimulating to a four-year old's imagination.

Rigby - because I'm mean and don't want to hear about some lonely old lady 10x a day.

Would it be possible these days for a mass audience pop group to put out an album as eclectic as this? I mean, from Yellow Submarine to Tomorrow Never Knows, with a half-dozen other genres in there as well.

zelda - i pine for this kind of thing too. seems that a lot of albums these days concentrate on consistency, working on ploughing a very distinct furrow, which is great - but a lot of my favourite albums throughut history, Beach Boys' "Smiley Smile", The Boo Radleys' "Giant Steps", Aphex's "I Care Because You Do" and of course "Revolver"; are real genrific hopscotchers. Who's doing this kind of thing these days?

Aphex's "I Care Because You Do"

rly?

Faith No More put out some incredibly diverse albums in the 90s.

Also Basement Jaxx.

Generic hopscotching is one of the reasons I've always rated Kevin Ayers so highly.

Funny you should say that, one of the biggest complaints I've read about Joakim's new album is that it "hopped about genres too much" - that kind of thing is frowned upon these days. :-(

Aphex's "I Care Because You Do"

rly?

― Mark G, Wednesday, 23 September 2009 15:24 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You ask rly?, but at the time it felt incredibly eclectic. I listened to it the other day and admit it has dated somewhat and maybe something like Druqks would be a better example these days. But you've got the harsh industrial beats of "Come On You Slags", experiments like "Ventolin", and this is all juxtaposed with more melodic/ambient material like "Alberto Balsalm" and some of the last few tracks.

I'm sure there are bands out there being eclectic, but there's more emphasis these days on a consistent sound, even if it's one that evolves from album to album. Maybe back in 1966, the genres hadn't been set so much in stone, so the situation was more fluid. Maybe Revolver didn't sound so eclectic then as it does now, when we have all the different genres nailed down.

I have "Druqs" but not "I care", just wondered...

re aphex: not wanting to derail too much, but "I Care" is one of his best. as i say, it works more as a document now as opposed to something that will blow yr mind. it's the album that falls between his early techno/ambient era and his later drill'n'bass/acid stuff but doesn't really rely on any of those styles. as such it's his least predictable record.

inconsistency is more difficult to grasp and to market, ergo it is frowned upon

maybe replace inconsistency with "eclecticism" there

Anyone with foolish reservations about "Here There And Everywhere" should listen to the Emmylou Harris version.

Agreed. The Harris version is so poor that it enables realisation of how good the original is.

Eleanor Rigby

tax man because as my mother says, at this point they were way too young to be singing right wing lyrics

This is nutty, but I love "Good Day Sunshine" because, as the piano gradually gets louder, the drums kick in, and the cymbals echo backwards until the vocals explode, it approximates the feeling of a drug coming on.

true, the tax rates for high earners were pretty astronomical back then

Yeah but as Harrison said later "It's a song that goes regardless if it's the sixties, seventies, eighties or nineties,there's always a taxman.".

Here is a picture of Harrison's house that he bought after paying all that tax.
http://images.francisfrith.com/c10/450/34/henley-on-thames_H73303.jpg

Also it's the f-ing opening track, the big opening statement. It's always pissed me off ,probably because, you know, it's quite good apart from the sentiment.

Dude, you like paying taxes? I dont.

its an honor and a privelege. I like roads and schools and environmental regulations

I mostly ignore the sentiment and think of it as a Monty Python sketch ie about a humorless/evil British taxman in a bowler hat

Only one option. And it stars Ringo.

Or just think about it as a normal working man in a ridiculously high tax place like Chicago or New Jersey getting gouged, while some corporate behemoth like Exxon makes record profits while paying no tax. I can get behind that anti-tax sentiment.

That house above is utterly ludicrous.

Not too up with my history, but wasn't there some ridiculous tax inflation thing that happened in the mid-60s and sparked at least a couple of "tax" songs, "Sunny Afternoon" being another?

― dog latin

i think "sunny afternoon" is tongue in cheek, complaining that he has to relax in a mansion instead of sail in a yacht.

The top tax rate in the UK until the late seventies was 95 percent. You don't have to be Attila the Hun to think that a touch excessive. But yes, 20somethings moaning about how much tax they pay does leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

i've always just thought of "taxman" as the bewildered song of a working-class kid who is suddenly rich and just as suddenly and completely to his surprise discovers that in his bracket, the government gets 95 percent of his money. which is a pretty high number, you have to admit. plus, '60s youth sentiment was broadly anti-government, so it wasn't like he was thinking, "i'm helping to pay for schools and the national health service." more like, "what evil things are you evil fucks doing with my money?"

also, how great is paul's guitar solo on that?

We already had the tax argument on the George Harrison thread, guys!

Yep, despite the slightly dodgy subject matter, Taxman is obviously one of the best songs on Revolver!

Yeah, "Taxman" is no "The Trees" off 2112.

This is nutty, but I love "Good Day Sunshine"

Not nutty. Top 3 songs on the album. Anyone who hates it hates life.

The Trees is on Hemispheres.

"the government gets 95 percent of his money. which is a pretty high number, you have to admit."

"Pretty" high??? yeah, i'd admit that.

"The Trees" is a great song too.

When I first heard that song around freshman year of high school, I interpreted it as this radical call to arms to destroy the upper class "by hatchet, axe, and saw."

Haha awesome

I knew the tax thing was ludicrous, but 95%??? Wow. And rich Americans freak out if someone talks about making them pay an extra 2%.

it was a 95% marginal rate, right? as in, not 19/20ths of your total income, but 95% of everything over a certain figure.

yeah, marginal. and i'm not sure where the top bracket was set. but i imagine that the beatles topped it by a good bit, so a lot of their income would have been at that rate.

what's more obnoxious to you people, George being a greedy fuck ("Taxman") or inventing the rock-n-roll-as-celebrity-charity meme (the Concert for Bangladesh)?

I mean George is basically the template for pop-star-as-philanthropist

Love You To

Yeah, super obnoxious: trying to raise money for starving people. The bastard!

I refer you to Morrissey's comments about We Are the World

I mean George is basically the template for pop star who made awful albums coasting on his reputation.

it was a 95% marginal rate, right? as in, not 19/20ths of your total income, but 95% of everything over a certain figure.

― goole, Wednesday, 23 September 2009 19:09 (3 hours ago) Bookmark

And NOBODY paid that much. I refer you to the house photo once again. And check out the houses the other fab three bought in the mid-60s. None of them were even remotely suffering in any way whatsoever from their onorous tax bill. Whoever heard of a scouser paying tax anyway.

Also, Bill, yes, I'm quite happy to pay taxes.

I heard recently that the band (as in "and the band begin to play") bit was taken from an old 78.

Now that would be an interesting track to track down.

This is another one I'll give a pass too. I'd probably vote for "Yellow Submarine" as my least favourite, but "worst song" seems too strong. And I know Ringo follows these boards, and the one person in the world whose feelings I don't want to hurt are Ringo's.