The Beatles: Five Faves by the Fab Four
Note: Because La Sirena said her entire blogroll should consider themselves tagged by the Five Favorite Songs meme (after she was tagged by ParisianCowboy, who was tagged by Indie Rocker Revolution, who was tagged by…you know, keep following this and you’ll find the pot of gold at the end of the Internet…), and because I’m bending the rules too, here are five of my favorite Beatle songs…
Lady Madonna
When the Beatles entered Abbey Road Studios on February 3, 1968, Paul McCartney had recently read a National Geographic article featuring a picture of an African woman suckling her kid with the caption “Mountain Madonna.” McCartney was also nursing an itch to write something with a Fats Domino boogie-woogie piano feel to it. What emerged was Lady Madonna, and yes, that IS Paul singing the lead on this one.
A few nights later, Paul, John, and George all stood around the microphone and recorded the horn solo in the middle of the song, except instead of playing real horns, they cupped their hands and immitated a three-part horn arrangement with their own voices. Later in the evening, on the spur of the moment, they called up a few real saxophone players to add the final touch to the record.
Lady Madonna was released as a single a little over a month later. And later in the same year? Fats Domino recorded the song he helped inspire, and had his own hit with it.
Listen: Lady Madonna.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
Famous for its ambiguous lyrics, both Lennon and McCartney have claimed it as their favorite song from The Beatles (the white album.) Scores and scores of fans agree.
But…what to make of the lyrics? Are they an extended metaphor about sex? Or shooting heroin? Or are they literally about a guy who feels happy when he’s holding a warm rifle in his arms, who feels safe when his finger is on the trigger of that firearm he so dearly loves?
John Lennon wrote the song — actually three separate songs he’d merged into one by the time he brought it into the studio. As if three different songs weren’t enough to cram into a 2 minute - 43 second track, John arranged the music to frequently switch between 4/4, 3/4, and even 6/8 time signatures. It sounds like a mess on paper, but through the speakers, it’s a concise piece of genius.
As for the lyrics: in the book, The Beatles Anthology, John Lennon says it’s a story of three people:
The lilting first section is about an old woman. According to Beatles PR man Derek Taylor, when Lennon was stuck for lyrics for this section, he asked everybody to shout out random things in the studio. Taylor supplied the line, “a lizard on a windowpane,” which made it into the song. The line about the man with “multicolored mirrors on his hobnail boots” referred to a real newspaper account of a pervert who wore mirrors on his boots to look up women’s dresses. The man whose hands were busy working overtime referred to another news item about a pickpocket. And those in England know what most Americans don’t: “making a donation to the National Trust” is a euphamism for taking a dump in the park.
The anxious, fast-paced second section is about a junkie. And what of “Mother Superior”? Well…whether it’s a religious dress, or needle marks, nuns and junkies both wear their habits, don’t they?
The 1950s doo-wop sendup third section is about a man who loves his gun (no metaphor intended.) The boys stayed in the studio from 7 PM till 5 AM finishing off the track, and adding the hillarious “bang, bang, shoot, shoot” backing vocals, sung by John, Paul, and George.
More from Lennon’s 1970 Rolling Stone interview:
I think [producer George Martin] showed me a cover of a magazine that said ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun.’ It was a gun magazine. I just thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you just shot something.
Who knows…maybe Lennon thought somebody who finds happiness in a spent gun is more depraved than perverts or heroin addicts.
Listen: Happiness Is A Warm Gun.
Martha My Dear
Paul McCartney had a sheepdog named Martha. He wrote a song to his dog. Great song, fantastic arrangement. Nuff said.
Listen: Martha My Dear.
A Day in the Life
On December 18, 1966, Tara Browne, a young aristocrat and acquaintance of Paul and John, drove his Lotus Elan through South Kensington at high speed, possibly under the influence of drugs, and proceeded through a red traffic light at the junction of Redcliffe Square and Redcliffe Gardens, then slammed into a parked car and died instantly.
A month later, John Lennon recorded the first verse of A Day in the Life, loosely based on the newspaper account of his friend’s accident. To fill in the second verse, he referenced another article about potholes from the January 17th, 1967 Daily Mail:
There are 4000 holes in the road in Blackburn Lancashire, one twenty-sixth of a hole per person, according to a council survey.
There was another article about the Royal Albert Hall in the same paper.
Needing a middle to the song, Paul added a little reverie about his youth school days, waking up, sneaking a smoke on the bus to school.
But, they still couldn’t figure out how to connect Lennon’s two end pieces to McCartney’s middle. So, finally, they pretty much had an entire orchestra go crazy for 24 measures.
The masterpiece was capped off by all the Beatles humming an E major chord. But, then, they didn’t think it had enough punch, so they brought in 3 pianos and, at the same moment, Lennon, McCartney, Ringo Starr, and studio hand Mal Evans all played one of the most famous chords in music history.
Listen: A Day in the Life.
Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End
At his father’s Liverpool home, McCartney spotted sheet music left on the piano by his stepsister Ruth. The sheet music was for a lullaby-styled poem written by Thomas Dekker. McCartney couldn’t read music, so he put his own tune to the words.
Carry That Weight has been interpreted as carrying the weight of keeping the supergroup together, carrying the weight of being the one blamed for the breakup, and carrying the weight of being a Beatle for the rest of their lives.
Perhaps realizing it was indeed the end, the band persuaded Ringo to record his only ever drum solo to kick off The End, then launched into three rounds of successive guitar solos by Paul, George, and John. Although the Beatles came back to the studio to record individual overdubs, The End marked the last time all four of them recorded together as a group.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
Listen: Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End.
P.S. If you made it this far, consider yourself tagged; what’s your five favorite songs?
Read More: The Beatles, Lady Madonna, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Martha My Dear, A Day in the Life, Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, The End, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr
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May 8th, 2008 at 9:04 am
So now I have to join the crowd and list mine. Never liked the Beatles in my youth, but do enjoy them now.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Oh yay, that was fun!!! You listed several of my Beatles favorites there as well. Growing up, my mom owned a Beatles box set of all of their British Apple releases. We listened to them every Saturday while doing our chores.
“And in the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take.”
It’s kind of a personal philosophy of mine.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I didn’t start listening to the Beatle albums until after I was out of college, and then I was just amazed at how much good stuff there was that had never made it to radio airplay, stuff I’d never heard before. Must have been nice between 1964 and 1970, getting a new Beatles album about every 6 months, plus the singles and EPs.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Lately “rediscovered” the Rubber Soul album, some forty years after my older sister first brought it home. Lots of great songs.
May 9th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Beatles rule!
May 29th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Yeah, Beatles rule…definitely.
Rain (Ringo’s fave, too).
In My Life
Don’t Let Me Down
For You Blue
Two of Us (Partly because of the recording session dust-up between George and Paul over how the riff should go.)
(Can’t believe I missed this post. I’ve been delinquent. Good job, Joe (some of your picks would’ve been my picks)).
May 29th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Yer Blues, rather. I plead brain cramp. Damn.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Thanks, Indigobusiness. I think it was George Martin who said they were truly of their time, meaning they were extraordinary people who came along at just the right time and who experienced just the right amount of hard knocks to produce the phenomenon they became. I’m a big fan, and over the years, the more I dig into their music and the stories behind the music via books like Marc Lewisohn’s Complete Recording Sessions, the more I admire and appreciate the gifts the group left us.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:06 am
I think GMartin was right, they were paradigm shifters (or at least the catalyst for it) and made me a believer in the concept. Sort of proved the truth in a collective form of “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”.
I’ve got The Beatles Hidden Archives, and John Lennon Hidden Archives — lots of interesting things left to learn, May Pang’s book included.
Still a bunch of certifiable Beatlemaniacs out there, I reckon.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Mozart and Beethoven still have a big fan base…I figure there will still be Beatlemaniacs hundreds of years from now, too.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I don’t know, Joe, Beatlemania was something all its own, and of its time.
The music lives on, but not Beatlemania.