![]() The lyrics are like a Brion Gysin/William Burroughs cut up, a whole bunch of images and phrases floating around in a post modern cloud of cultural associations and assonant implications. Which leaves I Am The Walrus, the template for so many Lewis Carroll-esque psychedelic moments. Your Mother Should Know is one of the great McCartney melodies but the song has never sounded entirely finished to me. Again the drums create a discordant dreamscape and a thumping heartbeat as the singer pleads with someone to not be long. Did Paul regard Lennon as the fool? Is this the same guy who was Watching the Wheels 10 or so years later? The self-styled ‘Dean of Rock Critics,’ Robert Christgau thought it was the worst song ever and that it would appeal to Simon and Garfunkel fans and Transcendental Meditators who deserved it.įlying is The Beatles song we always forget, an instrumental that makes a perfect introduction to the druggy Blue Jay Way, George Harrison’s strange LA odyssey. Do we sympathise with the fool, do we pity him, or do we despise him? Lennon later noted “They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool”. The Fool on the Hill is an odd song lyrically. It’s psychedelic, sure, but it’s so English. I’ve always heard bits and pieces of Tommy here. The opening without the vocals sounds like a Link Wray song with strummed chords and an insistent 4/4 beat. The title track, like the song Sgt Pepper invites you into the album in a humorously magisterial way. This was, after all, the extended EP that was originally released in the UK. ![]() It’s psychedelic, sure, but it’s so English.īut let’s take the album on its own merits, the first six songs that they recorded for the soundtrack of the film. Paul’s bass provides a melodic counterpoint to the drums and Lennon’s swinging rhythm guitar keeps it in the rock and roll frame. He’s in a parade, he’s sounding the war drums, he’s simulating an urgent heartbeat. ![]() Anyone who thinks Ringo is somehow the weak link instrumentally in the band should listen to this one on good headphones. George Martin provides a slightly bassy underwater sound that creates the dream like atmosphere evoked in the lyrics. The song has the mystical quality that characterises the Beatles’ best music, and a melody that is timeless. It was inspired by a real orphanage in Liverpool and it is hard not imagine the young near-orphan Lennon looking wistfully at its gates. I think it is John Lennon’s finest moment and one of the Beatles’ best songs. It was a double sided single with Penny Lane that appeared long before Magical Mystery Tour was released. Let’s get Strawberry Fields out of the way immediately. Only the first six songs were originals after all, the others were from 45s and EPs. Perhaps the album seemed like an afterthought, something thrown together to cash in. At this late date it’s hard to imagine how anyone ever found this album disappointing, even though the now largely forgotten TV special that begot it was a total flop. ![]() All of the other Beatles studio albums had five. Magical Mystery Tour had only four stars in the Rolling Stone Record Guide that I studied like a Dead Sea Scroll when I was a teenager. They might be disappointing, but they are records that you need to hear. “ On e thing must be made clear,” he says, “ this is not a series about terrible albums. Each week TONY THOMPSON discusses a ‘disappointing album’: why it’s disappointing, what that means in the context of the band or musician’s career, and what that says about changing critical tastes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |