Whatsoever Wednesday

Testimonial Tuesday

Monday Minutiae

On a Beatles forum I sometimes post on, there is a thread about our favorite "little things" from the songs. These are some of *my* favorites - if you want to read the whole thread, you can find it here .

1. In "Hey Bulldog" when they sing "big man" and Ringo says "Yup!"


2. The chatting and barking at the end of "Hey Bulldog".


3. After the third time Paul sings the line "Why Don't We Do It In The Road", when he says "hmm?" (maybe he's saying "mmm", but I like to picture him with a naughty face saying "hmm?")


4. Towards the end of "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" when Paul screams in a really high pitch "WHY don't we do it in the road?"


5. In "If You've Got Trouble" when Ringo says "Aw... rock on... anybody."


6. The count-in to "Taxman" when George counts slow, Paul coughs and John counts real fast in the background.


7. All the "hey la's" at the end of "Hello Goodbye".


8. In "What Goes On", Ringo sings "Tell me why" and you can hear someone say in the background (I assume it's John) "I'll tell you why!"


9. In "Obla-Di, Obla-Da" after Paul sings "...lets the children lend a hand" you can hear George saying "arm!" and John saying "foot!"


10. John's whistling at the end of "Two Of Us".


11. The way George sings "something", "lacking" and "whacking" in "Piggies".


12. George saying "One more time" at the end of "Piggies".


13. In "Don't Pass Me By", you can hear Ringo counting the beats until the drum fill - at the drum fill, he says "oop" and John says "Give it more".


14. Right after the opening of "Lovely Rita" when John goes "ahh".


15. The perverted moaning at the end of "Lovely Rita".


16. In "Dig A Pony", the part where they sing "because" in a really high pitch, then Paul sings "Woo!" and John goes "Ahh!"


17. On "I've Got A Feeling" - "Oh yeah (oh yeah) that's right!" Then right after that, "Oh no! (NO) Oh no!"


18. In "I've Got A Feeling" the whole verse of: "All these years I've been wandering around the world, Wondering how come nobody told me, All that I was looking for was somebody who looked like you." (Paul's voice in this part almost makes me love him even more than I love George, but not quite)


19. Then in the verse after that, when he sings "I've Got a Feeling" and it sounds like he's trying not to laugh.


20. Then of course, the last line in "I've Got A Feeling": "oh my soul... it's so hard."


21. In "For You Blue" when George very unenthusiastically says "go Johnny go" during John's solo.


22. In "For You Blue", George's little laugh after he says "Elmore James got nothing on this baby!"


23. The "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah" at the of "All You Need Is Love".


24. At the end of "I Feel Fine" you can hear Paul in the background barking like a dog.


25. John's background vocal in "Yellow Submarine", especially the line "in our yellow!" then his crazy laugh.


26. John's little "aahs" before the last two choruses in "Ticket To Ride".


27. That one "yeah" at the end of "It Won't Be Long" when Paul's voice cracks.


28. At the end of "Helter Skelter" when Ringo yells "I've got blisters on my fingers!"


29. In "Old Brown Shoe" - the two times during the song where John yells out "hey!"


30. John's vocals in "Twist and Shout" - I know it's because he had an awful cold, but it's sexy.


31. John's groan in "A Hard Day's Night".


32. John's "mmmm.." when he sings "A Hard Day's Night".


33. The way George says "Tchaikovsky" in "Roll Over Beethoven".


34. When John yells "Great!" in "Polythene Pam".


35. The "oh, look out!" at the beginning of "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window".


36. I love how Ringo's voice is the one that you hear above the rest in "Carry That Weight".


37. On the anthology version of "Something", when George sings "you're asking me will my love grow.. I don't know, I don't know.. da-dum dum dum dum dum".


38. John growling "come on, come on" the third time around on "Please Please Me".


39. Ringo's "ahh.. Rock on, George, one time for me" in "Honey Don't."


40. Paul laughing as he sings the line "writing 50 times" in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer".


41. The "ah-oh-hold me" in "Eight Days A Week".


42. John's desperate "Yeahhhhhhhh" in "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" followed by an almost inaudible shout by one of the other Beatles in the background, just before they launch into the final repeating riff.


43. In "Norwegian Wood", the chuckle right before "so I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair".


44. On "Good Day Sunshine" when Paul sings, "She feels good" it sounds like John says, "yes!" which makes Paul laugh slightly when he then sings, "She knows she's looking fine".


45. George's moans at the end of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".


46. The "twist it" "what?" "twist it" "ah" "shake it" at the beginning of "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)".


47. John saying "bye" as Paul is counting in on "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)".


48. George saying "band.. band... bandband" at the end of "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)".


49. George's accent on "Northern Song": "it doesn't really matter what clothes I wurr or how I furr or if my hurr is brown..."


50. "Got the wrong chord, f-ing hell" in "Hey Jude".


51. How you can tell Paul wants to laugh on the last couple of lines of "When I'm 64", right after he sings "mine forevermore".


52. John's deep voice during the line in "And Your Bird Can Sing": "When your bird is broken, will it bring you do-o-own.."


53. Anthology version of "Rocky Raccoon" - "Meantime, back on the table!" Paul making the gunshot sound, "sminking of gin" "however" - everything about that version, really.


54. Paul's "aaahh" right after he sings "of good Rocky's revival" in "Rocky Raccoon".


55. The way George says "secret" in "Do You Want To Know A Secret"


56. The humor in "Young Blood".


57. The way George counts "one, two" before beginning the last verse of "Within You, Without You."


58. Paul at the end of "I Want To Tell You": "I've got tiii-iiii-iiime"


59. I like how John's pick touches one of his guitar strings at the end of, "Act Naturally", causing the string to go, "Zzzzzing!".


60. When Paul almost fails a high note in the harmony of "If I Fell".


61. The laugh at the end of "Within You Without You".

And for those of you who made it this far, here is a video of the Beatles "Every Little Thing":

Sunday Silliness

Sex-Appeal Saturday!

Hanging out all pink and naked, but who here would tell him to put that tongue away?

Fretful Friday

Sun King has always been pretty low on my list of Beatles songs that I enjoy and truthfully, I usually skip right past it to get to Mean Mr. Mustard. But this past week, I have spent way too much time on Youtube listening to different Beatles songs with isolated guitar tracks and was surprised to find that one of my favorites is Sun King. It's really a beautiful song, guitar-wise. I have a new appreciation for it, for sure.

I had videos with each instrument in the song isolated - guitar, bass, organ, drums, etc. but the user who posted the videos to youtube got his account removed and all my links were broken. If I ever can find them again, I'll re-post. In the meantime, I have a gorgeous isolated guitar track here:



and here are the isolated vocals - I love that you can hear the background vocals so well and the harmonizing is quite beautiful:



(forward it to about 1:00)

Thought for Thursday

"Peace is a very good thing, and salmon is very good when it's smoked."
~Sean Lennon (Age 7)

Whatsoever Wednesday

also, I have the exact same copy of that book!

Testimonial Tuesday

A very young and very soulful Bono (along with the rest of the U2 boys) singing Help more along the lines of how John originally wanted it to be sung. Such a beautiful version of this song.

Monday Minutiae

In the Beatles movie "A Hard Day's Night" the word "Beatles" is never spoken.

Sunday Silliness

Sex-Appeal Saturday!

Sometimes, what I find sexy is not what other people find sexy. Take the song "Not Guilty", for example. People may look at me with raised eyebrows and ask "What on earth is sexy about this song?" To that, I reply "What isn't sexy about it?!"

George's unassuming voice thinly veiling his most aggressive lyrics to date, presumably directed at the Lennon/McCartney boys, letting them know exactly what he thought of his two-songs-(tops)-per-album allotment - who doesn't get weak at the knees with this stuff?

Surely I'm not the weird one here.

What I don't understand, even more so than people not finding this song sexy, is that the Beatles recorded over 100 (yes, ONE HUNDRED) takes of this song and not ONE of them was deemed worthy to be on the White Album? Really?

Revolution 9 was considered (and chosen, no less!) over this song for the White Album? Really? Who was working Quality Assurance that day?

Really, you picked Revolution 9 over this?

Well, it didn't make the White Album, but it totally made my blog for Sex-Appeal Saturday, which is almost as good. ok, not really.

Fretful Friday

This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Thought For Thursday

Interview, Henley-On-Thames, Oxfordshire, 1982

"Just certain things happened in my life which left me thinking 'What's it all about, Alfie?' and I remembered Jesus said somewhere 'Knock and the door shall be opened' and I said (knock, knock) 'Hellooo!' It's very difficult. From the Hindu point of view each soul is potentially divine, the goal is to manifest the divinity. The word yoga means union and the union is supposedly between the mind, the body, and the spirit, and yoga isn't lying on nails or standing on your head. I mean, there's various forms of yoga and they're all branches on one big tree. The Lord, or God, has got a million names, whatever you want to call him, it doesn't matter as long as you call him, Jesus is on the mainline, tell him what you want. Going back to self-realization, one guru said he found no separation between man and God, saving man's spiritual unadventurousness, and that's the catch, everybody's so unadventurous. We're all conditioned, our consciousness has been so polluted by the material energy it's hard to try and pull it all ways in order to really discover our true nature. Every one of us has within us a drop of that ocean and we have the same qualities as God, just like a drop of the ocean has the same qualities as the whole ocean. Everybody's looking for something and we are it. We don't have to look anywhere--it's right there within ourselves."

Whatsoever Wednesday

In addition to all those other instruments, the Beatles played a mean air guitar.

Monday Minutiae

39 Working Titles of Beatles Songs

This Song - Started Out As:

• 
  
  Cry For A Shadow- Beatle Bop


• 
  
  I Saw Her Standing There- Seventeen


• 
  
  Thank You Girl- Thank You Little Girl


• 
  
  I'll Get You- Get You In The End


• 
  
  It's Only Love- That's a Nice Hat-Cap


• 
  
  I've Just Seen A Face- Auntie Gin's Theme


• 
  
  Yesterday- Scrambled Eggs


• 
  
  Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)- This Bird Has Flown


• 
  
  Think For Yourself- Won't Be There With You


• 
  
  Eleanor Rigby- Daisy Hawkins


• 
  
  Love You To- Granny Smith


• 
  
  She Said She Said- Untitled


• 
  
  Good Day Sunshine- A Good Day's Sunshine


• 
  
  I Want To Tell You- 1: Laxton's Superb 2: I Don't Know


• 
  
  Tomorrow Never Knows- 1: The Void 2: Mark 1


• 
  
  Penny Lane- Untitled


• 
  
  With A Little Help From My Friends- Bad Finger Boogie


• 
  
  Within You Without You- Untitled


• 
  
  A Day In The Life- In The Life Of...


• 
  
  Hello Goodbye- Hello Hello


• 
  
  Flying- Aerial Tour Instrumental


• 
  
  The Inner Light- Untitled


• 
  
  Only A Northern Song- Not Known


• 
  
  It's All Too Much- Too Much


• 
  
  Happiness Is A Warm Gun- Happiness Is A Warm Gun In Your Hand


• 
  
  Don't Pass Me By- 1: Ringo's Tune (Untitled) 2: This Is Some Friendly


• 
  
  Revolution 1- Revolution


• 
  
  Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey - Untitled


• 
  
  Long Long Long- It's Been A Long Long Long Time


• 
  
  Good Night- Untitled


• 
  
  Two Of Us- On Our Way Home


• 
  
  Dig A Pony- All I Want Is You


• 
  
  For You Blue- George's Blues (Because You're Sweet and Lovely)


• 
  
  The Ballad of John and Yoko- The Ballad of John and Yoko (They're Going To Crucify Me)


• 
  
  Oh! Darling- Oh! Darling (I'll Never Do You No Harm)


• 
  
  I Want You (She's So Heavy)- I Want You


• 
  
  Sun King- Here Comes The Sun-King


• 
  
  She Came In Through the Bathroom Window -Bathroom Window


• 
  
  The End- Ending

(from The Beatles Book of Lists by Stephen J. Spignesi)

Also, on this date in 1964, the Beatles held the top 5 spots on the American singles chart. 1 through 5 respectively were: Can't Buy Me Love, Twist and Shout, She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand and Please Please Me.

The Beatles also have 15 songs in the Top 100, and positions 1 and 2 on the Billboard album chart.

The Beatles also become the only artists to have three consecutive No. 1 songs ("Can't Buy Me Love" took over the No. 1 spot from "She Loves You," which succeeded "I Want to Hold Your Hand.")

Yay Beatles!

Sunday Silliness

Who on this earth would think that four charming, insanely adorable and wonderfully British grown men having a silly pillowfight in their hotel room would be creepy? No one reading THIS blog! Right?!

Sex-Appeal Saturday!

Yee-haw!












This is quite possibly the most beautiful picture ever taken of George:



And just for good measure, George's cowboy-son Dhani:



and Paul, just because this picture was way too adorable not to post: