The Beatles

[tooxshort]

i dont think there's a way to change your mind, so I'm stepping aside on this subject. =P

[Breezy18]

Revolution comes to mind, but I think most of the controversy came from Lennon's stuff, some of which was post Beatle. Personally, I don't care for the Beatles. There was a time that I listened to it. I even remember where I was, what I was doing and what time of the day it was when I heard that John Lennon had been shot. But now, it just leaves a dry taste in my mouth.

[Breezy18]

Also I think Ratfish and tooxshort are right. It was a different time. What WAS controversial then, may not seem it now. And the references are pretty vague and they are not in every song. Perhaps some of the controversy was created from their actions and opinions more so than their songs though, now that I think about it.

[Zekk_T_Strife]

Well, cause I hear songs like "Hard day's night", "Help!", "Twist and Shout" and I can't find a single thing that would EVER have been controversial. Help me out here. What kinds of things might they have sung about that was controversial. If it was just their opinions and actions that were that would put me at ease seeing as how I know nothing about that nor do I plan on learning anything about it. Just curious to see what piqued the curiosity of so many to love them. (Again, another drunken response, pardon me).

[tooxshort]

ok i'll step in and say that the songs you listed were their "mop top" poppy stage music ... the later music is a lot more deep ... A Day in the Life was in there ... I believe that was the first song to ever say "I love to turn you on." Little things like that ... you gotta remember that before the Beatles came to the US, the best selling album was by the Singing Nuns or whatever ... hahah

[Zekk_T_Strife]

I won't deny that what I've heard is just the poppy songs. But of course that's what you hear first on the radio and stuff then if you like it you look deeper and get the album. But what I heard of the Beatles sucked elk boner so I never looked into any of their deeper stuff. I'll hafta see what I think of their later stuff but I may already be set in my current bias, who knows.

[Ratfish256]

"I am the Walrus" is a great song. I also like their early stuff though. Pretty much any song off of Sgt. Peppers will have some sort of message. Take Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Origonally the band denied that it had to do with LSD, but recently Paul came out and said that it was infact about LSD.

[Zekk_T_Strife]

LSD is a wonderful creation.

[Breezy18]

Origonally the band denied that it had to do with LSD, but recently Paul came out and said that it was infact about LSD.

He did? I didn't hear about that. You know, I heard that a lot of their stuff was written while under the influence. "Tangerine trees and marmalade sky"? That song just does not make sense. It HAS to be the influence of a drug.
I agree with toox...that music Zekk listed WAS very candy flossish. Had a good beat, the kids could dance to it. That's about it. But the later stuff was fun to decipher. Yeah. The good old days..........
Hey Ratfish......"Semolina pilchard, climbing up the eiffel tower.
Elementary penguin singing hari krishna.
Man, you should have seen them kicking edgar allan poe.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob.
Goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob g’goo."
What does it mean? What does it mean????

[Ratfish256]

Stonlen from [url]http://www.morethings.com/music/beatles/walrus.html[/url]


SONG TITLE: I AM THE WALRUS

PERFORMER: THE BEATLES

SONGWRITER: JOHN LENNON / PAUL MCCARTNEY

YEAR OF RELEASE: 1967

COMMENTS: When I was about 5 or 6 years old a dog died on the lawn of an unoccupied house down the block. No one could be bothered to dispose of the carcus, so it lay there decomposing for months, maybe a year. The hide and flesh rotted away in the summer sun, eventually exposing the ribs and the skeleton. It lay there until it became mere sand, and even the flies lost interest in it, right there a few feet off the road.

The sight and the stench of that former puppy made a big impression on my sensitive young soul. I had heard of "death," but here was the basic raw truth. The implications of that experience for humans did not escape me.

Although I would not have begun to have words for it at the time, the Beatles songs of John Lennon were my first major artistic experience of existentialism. "A Day in the Life" is the other most obvious example. The emotional spectrum of this level of experience was broken up in a psychedelic prism, separating and recombining strains of anxiety, sadness and maybe - hopefully - acceptance or, more truly, weary fatalism.

This record is both experimental and simultaneously incredibly morbid. Either of these attributes will usually be more than sufficient to prevent a song from becoming a hit. "I Am the Walrus" was and continues to be a very successful pop song. Thinking about the structure, the lyrical content, the bizarre orchestral palette and the gruesomeness of this recording, this popularity seems like more incredible testimony to the extraordinary charismatic power of John Lennon than anything I can say.

The existential harshness comes from both the lyrics and the tune. The "yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye" of course pretty much directly invokes my earliest childhood jolts of existential awareness. The images range from the grotesque to the merely banal, which may be worse. The two notes forming the basis at the start of the verses ("I am he as you are he...") were supposedly inspired by the paranoiac anxiety caused by police sirens in the street below where Lennon sat one heavily stoned night.

The lyrics are a senseless random jumble, in one sense, but really also inspired dream logic. They were images of banality mixed with despair, linked by emotional association rather than linear logic. Chaos defies logical explanation.

We are led through this graveyard, however, by a guide with a sure sense of his own soul. This is what gives meaning to all the chaos. There is a beautiful organizational structure to the melody developing up from the two notes to the full swirling leaps of "I'm crying, I'm cry-y-ying." He organizes the chaos to explain his own anxieties. This is what makes it livable.

That pretty much sums it up. You really have to hear to song to understand it though.

[tooxshort]

Their "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album put a lot of images in my head ... It's not something you can "swing" to, but it's definitely something that was made to be listened to. "Strawberry Fields Forever" started their transition from dance hall music to music that was meant to be listened to. To HEAR color ...

[Breezy18]

...music that was meant to be listened to. To HEAR color ...

wow! What a great way to describe it, man. Their music was, what was that word they used in the sixties? Psychedelic! Yeah. Can you dig it?