George Harrison: Search & Destroy

"Here comes the moon" is also great, surprised not mentioned yet?

"Love comes to everyone" is smooth love

― calstars, Friday, October 13, 201

The way he sings the verse-to-melody release in this trance-like lockstep is comforting

<3 Good album!

There's some good stuff on those Harrison records amongst the phoning-it-in dullness.

otm

used to own a tape of "Extra Texture" and had some good times listening to it even if the album is a blur

'You' and 'This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)' are good, even with the chipmunk vocals on the former and the self-referential title of the latter. Tasty Moog bass, though. The rest of the album is a snoozefest, though.

The former Beatle members reference their former band so much in their solo careers it's almost embarrassing.

Always felt that the Dark Horse albums were a big uptick from the last few Apple records. Much better sound and I don't think there are many sub-par songs on 33 1/3 or the self-titled album. Somewhere in England is a little less successful maybe but he comes back nicely with Gone Troppo.

These days All Things Must Pass, Thirty Three & 1/3 and a compilation of the highlights of the rest is all I need.

"Soft Touch" is another really good one on that album that maybe doesn't get mentioned much.

The former Beatle members reference their former band so much in their solo careers it's almost embarrassing.

― more Allegro-like (Turrican)

if i'd been in the beatles i'd sure as hell never let anybody forget it.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/1/12/I_am_not_Spock.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090427182556&path-prefix=en

was there ever a solo beatles tracks poll?

Like anyone would have forgotten it. It's like Billy Corgan telling everyone that he did most of the playing on Smashing Pumpkins records, like yeah we already know and we get it.

if billy corgan talked more about how he did most of the playing on the smashing pumpkins records and less about chemtrails i'd like him better

was there ever a solo beatles tracks poll?

― niels, Sunday, October 15, 2017 9:32 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think there was one scheduled on the ballot poll waiting list, I've no idea where we're up to with that now, though

Like anyone would have forgotten it. It's like Billy Corgan telling everyone that he did most of the playing on Smashing Pumpkins records, like yeah we already know and we get it.

its not like they had a choice when every fan journalist and tv show host asks them when the Beatles are getting back together on a daily basis

it would have been easy as fuck for John and George and Ringo to go on tour and do their Beatles stuff every night, cash in on that. John and George pretty much stopped playing out entirely. Ringo was off hanging w T-Rex. i dont exactly see them wallowing in nostalgia on the contrary it was a bit of an albatross

It's obvious that the Beatles believed their own myth and their own hype. All of them. Including Ringo, and especially Lennon.

its not like they had a choice when every fan journalist and tv show host asks them when the Beatles are getting back together on a daily basis

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, October 15, 2017 6:56 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and this has what to do with their songwriting, exactly?

Lennon's beliefs and feelings about the Beatles and associated hype seemed to change weekly, but he at least professed to think a large segment of their work was crap rushed out to meet deadlines.

Though that may have been prompted by a feeling that the only way to get out from under the Beatles thing post-breakup was to tarnish the myth as much as possible.

god knows what he'd make of his mid 70s period if he were alive today.

When he wrote "I don't believe in Beatles", he was contributing to the myth. You don't even write a line like that unless you believe your own hype. He knew what he was doing.

I feel like a key part of Lennon's story is that much of the time he didn't know what he was doing and was trying to not be miserable. I mean, the myth was already there, and it was pretty much impossible for someone as self-obsessed as Lennon not to engage with it.

As Adam Bruneau pointed out, every interview any of them did after 1970 was “When are you getting back together?” and “Remember when you were on Ed Sullivan?” And I think it’s safe to say no fewer than 95% of their interactions with fans (or hell, even close friends) were/are about their Beatle years. So yeah, it has to do with their songwriting because that’s what their lives were.

As for Lennon believing his own hype, kids brought massive LENNON SAVES banners to some of their 1966 shows, the Klan threatened a terror attack, records were burned, and later, murders were committed based on non-existent secret messages on the white album. Hype (an insufficient term) like that isn’t exactly easy to dismiss (and it’s not as if he didn’t try, saying, “It’s just a rock ‘n’ roll band breaking up, it’s not the end of the world”).

(x-post)

Indeed!

Moving on to the others: McCartney, as amazing as it seems now, initially tried as hard as he could to make a break from the Beatles thing. Yes, there's the songs about Lennon on Ram and Wild Life and a little Beatle hangover on McCartney, but from 1972 up until Tug of War there's not much Beatle-referencing stuff there, unless you count the odd Beatles track played at Wings shows.

It may have been Lennon's death, but I'd say from Tug of War onwards the Beatle references came back in McCartney's work - slowly at first with 'Here Today', the re-recordings on Broad Street and stuff like the 'My Brave Face' and 'This One' videos, before totally kicking into fucking overdrive from Flaming Pie onwards...

So yeah, it has to do with their songwriting because that’s what their lives were.

No it doesn't, though. The two aren't related at all. Just because you get asked a question in an interview, it doesn't automatically mean you must write about it. If they were that keen to move on and create something distinct, they wouldn't have bothered being so self-referential.

Even Harrison, bless him, as wounded as he was from the Beatle years (which enabled him to form supergroups, put out a wad of spotty records and let him get away with not being bothered about touring) couldn't resist throwing the Beatles references about!

There's references galore on almost all of his albums.

Just because you get asked a question in an interview, it doesn't automatically mean you must write about it. If they were that keen to move on and create something distinct, they wouldn't have bothered being so self-referential.

I don't know if I'd ever watched that 1980-era footage of John and Yoko walking around Central Park until a few years ago or so, but sure enough, as soon as someone recognizes him, it's the Beatles question and it's ten years later.

Except it wasn’t a question in an interview; it was many questions in every interview, of which there were many, in addition to every fan they happened to encounter.

It still doesn't mean you have to write about it! McCartney actually didn't for a very long time, and he would have kept the Beatles going forever if he could have done. Harrison was all "I'm having a better time playing with Dylan and hanging out with Clapton" etc. etc. yet he could be as bad as Lennon for slipping Beatles references into his work.

What are those songs apart from "Living in the Material World?"

(And obviously "When We Was Fab" much much later)

"All Those Years Ago" I suppose

If the Stones had split up after Exile on Main Street you can bet people would have been asking them when they're getting back together constantly too. Plenty of bands have had to endure that. There's still, incredibly, people asking Paul Weller if The Jam are ever gonna reform. Don't see him writing songs about that. Will The Smiths reform? Don't know, but don't see Morrissey writing songs about it.

'Isn't It a Pity?', 'Run of the Mill', 'Sue Me, Sue You Blues', 'Living in the Material World', 'This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)', 'Here Comes the Moon', 'All Those Years Ago', 'When We Was Fab' ... I could go on...

'Wah-Wah', there's another...

If the Stones had split up after /Exile on Main Street/ you can bet people would have been asking them when they're getting back together constantly too. Plenty of bands have had to endure that. There's still, incredibly, people asking Paul Weller if The Jam are ever gonna reform. Don't see him writing songs about that. Will The Smiths reform? Don't know, but don't see Morrissey writing songs about it.

I didn't know "Isn't It a Pity" and "Run of the Mill" were so specifically about Beatle relationships. It actually puts a little more meat into "Run of the Mill" for me, personally. But those are great songs anyway. "Wah-Wah" too.

iirc, “Isn’t It A Pity” dates from the Revolver sessions. George possibly rewrote some lines in 1970.

I don’t believe the Jam nor the Smiths had an equivalent effect on popular culture that the Beatles did. Nor were the fan bases of either band a fraction of that of the Beatles.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, October 15, 2017 8:26 PM (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We're not talking about, measuring or comparing a bands effect on popular culture. We're talking about people being asked a question in an interview and the effect of this on their songwriting.

xxpost:

At least on Dark Horse he had Clapton making off with wife and falling off the wagon to think about - even if the former only got onto the LP in the form of new lyrics on 'Bye Bye Love' ... He should have waited until his throat had healed, though. I'd have far more time for that record if I could put up with the singing.

Originally I think we were talking more generally about the reasons why the ex-Beatles would choose to write on Beatle-related themes and addressing your criticism of that.

Yes, that too!

We're not talking about, measuring or comparing a bands effect on popular culture. We're talking about people being asked a question in an interview and the effect of this on their songwriting.

there have been other musicians before and since the beatles who had the same kind of enormous social impact, but i don't know of any of them who made that impact as part of a collective entity. it doesn't make a lot of sense to ask michael jackson if michael jackson is ever going to get back together, and as tremendously famous as the beatles were individually, they were and always will be dwarfed by "The Beatles". it's not the sort of thing one can "move on" from, any more than someone can "move on" from being the american president.

Imagine if Bob Dylan had broken up.

Yeah he might have had someone going through his trash or something...

There's that great passage in Chronicles where he talks about once seeing a magazine cover that featured some multi-headed monster with, I think, his head and Kennedy's and, I don't know, Castro or something. That's what he had to deal with.