The Worst Of George Harrison

 

Hi there folks, the good news is that I have started work on the next post, but sadly it's not finished yet. So here's a video I put together a while back but buried in the post as I was convinced EMI would yank it off the net as soon as I put it up. But it's still there. So just in case you missed it, here's a genuine remix of All You Need Is Love. The stems (which I think were created for the rock band game) are doing the rounds online and there in all it's grisly glory is George's violin track. Enjoy. If you can.

Why Wasn't Brian Wilson As Successful As Lennon and McCartney?

No other band is more frequently mentioned as the Beatles songwriting equals as the Beach Boys (the Rolling Stones debate rages over who was edgier, cooler or more 'authentic'). Beatles Songwriting Academy focuses not just on how we can write great songs like the Beatles but how can we be great writers? One way to tackle that is to look at someone who had the biggest chance of matching their genius and yet sadly failed. Having just finished I Just Wasn't Made For These Times: Brian Wilson and the Making Of Pet Sounds. I present my findings here.

Similar and Different

Broadly speaking the Beach Boys were rawer and less well formed at the start of their recording career. Mike was 20, Al and Brian were 19, Dennis was 17 and Carl was under the legal limit for just about everything at 15. The band were signed just before the Beatles but unlike The Beatles, who had endured a punishing apprenticeship in performance in Hamburg and the North of England, they had no live experience whatsoever. Neither band had a massive amount of songwriting experience prior to being signed (despite the self generated hype that Lennon & McCartney had already written 100 songs). But from the outset The Beach Boys were more prolific, (releasing three albums per year to The Beatles two) but with less quality (the classic album Shut Down, Vol. 2 features two covers, one fake argument and a drum solo!) and more original tunes (The first two Beatles albums have six covers a piece).

However, where the Beatles were a totally self contained songwriting unit with three world class writers, from the earliest times Brian Wilson collaborated mostly with outside writers (usually lyricists). In fact the first album without outside help (other than a Christmas album) was Smiley Smile, the band's 12th studio album. Even the legendary Pet Sounds album was co-written almost entirely with Tony Asher, an advertising copywriter with no songwriting experience. Previous collaborators included radio DJ, Roger Christian, which perhaps shows that Brian, like Lennon and McCartney, didn't hold lyrics in too high a regard.

One thing Brian and his English nemeses had in common was that they stopped touring prior to creating their groundbreaking work. In Brian's case the band continued to tour without him while he concentrated on writing and recording. Is touring the enemy of songwriting? (discuss).


Why wasn't he as successful?

However you compare the bands' early pop single/teen sensation form and however you rate Pet Sounds/Smile vs. Rubber Soul/Revolver/Sgt. Pepper it's beyond argument that Brian's explosive originality was cut short while The Beatles went from strength to strength and continued to release many quality songs well into their solo careers. Why did Brian crash and burn in such a spectacular fashion?

1) Without Equals

There's a phrase in Christianese 'unequally yoked' that borrows the imagery of a team of oxen plowing together. They have to be a similar size and strength or they won't be able to work together effectively without strain. Dennis Wilson himself admits “There wasn't one person in the group who could come close to Brian's talent” (p.13).

The Beatles were largely equals. 40 years on, try posting “Lennon (or McCartney, or Harrison) was the real songwriting genius in the Beatles” then sit back and watch the debate rage. But no one argues over who was the genius in the Beach Boys. (Here's a fun thing. Try typing "Mike Love is a ..." into google). Even as a band, George and Ringo were totally capable of fulfilling the vision of every song (not withstanding Paul's periodic descents into controlfreakery). In contrast Pet Sounds was almost completely a Wilson solo album. The Beach Boys played on one track, and sang on only 13 of the 36 minutes, much of it backing vocals. One of the stand out tracks, 'Caroline No' was even released as a Wilson solo single.

2) Lack Of Support

Being first among equals isn't a problem in itself. Think of the many visionaries who have thrived in bands and out of them. Springsteen, Waits, Sting, Dylan, Bjork, Van Morrison, Kate Bush. What destroyed Brian's usefulness was that those around him gave him little or no support when they failed to catch his vision but still considered themselves his equals.

On hearing Pet Sounds for the first time, band mate Al Jardine said “[We were] dismayed – and that would probably be an understatement” (p.166). Record label producer (and armchair psychotherapist?) Nik Venet said “I thought Brian was screwing up. He was no longer looking to make records, he was looking for attention from the business. He was trying to torment his father with songs his father couldn't relate to, and melody structures his father couldn't understand" (p. 186). Mike Love quotes Capitol Engineer Karl Engemann as saying “even though he like Pet Sounds a lot, he asked if we couldn't make more records like the old stuff” (p.186). The label as a whole showed a similar lack of vision when they killed the album's chances of charting higher by rush releasing Best Of The Beach Boys a mere two months after Pet Sounds.

Wilson biographer David Leaf sums Brian's predicament up pithily “When you're on the edge, you need to know that if you jump, somebody will catch you. And sadly, despite all he had accomplished as an artist, he just didn't have that kind of support in his life” (p.208).

Ringo many years after the Beatles split summed them up as “just four guys who loved each other”. Pre-acrimonious split they displayed such a unity of purpose that the Stones dubbed them a 'four-headed monster'. In Parlophone/EMI they had a label that wouldn't have dared to tell them what to release, so long as they released something. In George Martin they had a producer who recognised their talent and was prepared to let them experiment even if he didn't quite get it. And in Brian Epstein they had a manager who, for all his failings, genuinely loved them (and in more than a physical sense). This never seems to have been Brian Wilson's story. The Beach Boys manager was Brian's abusive father and failed songwriter Murry Wilson.

3) Unable To Cross Over

If Brian didn't get enough support from the band for his pioneering work, the American public seemed pretty clueless too. From the outset the Beatles managed to cross boundaries of age and class. Even before Lennon and McCartney really hit their groundbreaking stride highbrow music critics were fawning over their 'aeolian cadences'. McCartney won 11 Ivor Novello (songwriting) awards before he was 25. They were embraced by everyone from small children to the royal family, from the gutter press to the BBC and endlessly discussed by religious and psychological pundits. By contrast The Beach Boys seemed to be teen sensations, unable to grow up. In many of Wilson's songs (like Wouldn't It Be Nice) the singer is a kid looking forward to being an adult. When I'm Sixty Four has a similar point of view but with a much older head on it's shoulders. The Beatles started as street wise young adults and grew up quickly.

4) Poor Visuals

Beatles album covers were trend-setting and iconic, the B&W With The Beatles, The wonky Rubber Soul, Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper forever changed the way album covers were perceived. How many Beach Boys covers can you remember?

Mike Love says “[Paul McCartney] mentioned that we ought to take more care with our album covers. Paul was the mastermind behind the Sgt. Pepper album cover, which was detailed and brilliant. Ours...was a photo taken at the San Diego Zoo.” (p.183). And what are 'Pet Sounds'? Tony Asher says “I thought it was a goofy name for an album – I thought it trivialized what we had accomplished” (p.182).

The Beatles made music video an art form. Even within trainwrecks like Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour there are stone cold classics videos like the roof top performance and I Am The Walrus. If you've ever watched the promos contained on the Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary Edition you'll see excruciatingly amateurish home movies that make the average YouTube video seem like Spielberg.

5) Low Tolerance For Drugs

Brian couldn't take his drugs. Which is a big statement when you're contrasting him with someone who called a board meeting to announce he was Jesus Christ in the middle of an acid-induced meltdown. But where Lennon merely went on to making a lousy album with Yoko before leveling out. Wilson didn't bounce back. Ever. Once again, there was no one who was really there to support him.


So how can you maximize your potential as a songwriter? Get a good designer and stay away from drugs. But above all, a songwriter needs people around him/her who understand and support their gift.

Buy I Just Wasn't Made For These Times: Brian Wilson and the Making Of Pet Sounds

Trudy Pitts & Pat Martino - Not A Second Time

Here's the first in an occasional series of Beatles covers that you wouldn't want to hear more than once! Trudy Pitts & Pat Martino playing a track which sounds like THEY haven't heard it more than once - Eleanor Rigby Enjoy!

 

Bettye LaVette - Even Better Than The Real Thing?

I've not been able to do much Beatles related stuff this week as I've been scoring string parts for my upcoming mini album. Sorry! But I'm hoping to have a post on Brian Wilson vs The Beatles next week and then continue with I've Got A Feeling. In the meantime here's the first of two videos. Soul artist Bettye LaVette preaching The Word. Though this is a bit of a poor recording, in my mind she's improved on an average hippy enlightenment track. What do you think?

11:16 Don't Let Me Down

Don't Let Me Down, another addition to the collection of Lennon monosyllabic cries for help directed at Yoko Ono (see also I Want You, She's So Heavy) is curiously effective. It boasts a melody almost exclusively major pentatonic, a grand total of 40 words and 4 chords. The verse and the chorus share a two-chord progression (F#m – E, or ii – I) which is essentially the same as Lennon's Sun King. The ii - I progression is just about the smallest harmonic distance you can move, oddly appropriate for the man once dubbed “probably the laziest person in England”. It's a wonder that Lennon managed to shape anything compelling from this. But he does.

Some of it is superficial (from a songwriting perspective). Harrison's lead guitar is exemplary, mixing in Hendrix/Mayfield style fills, using the chinese-sounding pentatonic and use of fourths. On the bridge he doubles McCartney's bassline in a long syncopated riff that sounds too painstaking to be part of Lennon's original blueprint for the song. Billy Preston also shines, matching George fill for fill.

Lennon's lyrics are slightly dumb, indulging, as he does, in wilfully bad English “She done me, she done me good”, but the passion of the chorus carries the song. That emotion plays out over a wide vocal range from a low C# in the verse, right up to a high A in the bridge (it's LOVE THAT lasts), though revisiting the heights he scaled in Twist And Shout is slightly too much for the Lennon larynx here.

So what, compositionally, is to account for the freshness on display here?

Firstly, the melody is almost entirely pentatonic (except for the previously mentioned high A). The non western vibe is enhanced by the simple ascending (nobody ev...) then descending (...er loved me like she...) walk through the scale at the beginning of the verse. The lack of syncopation adds to the feel making it sound all the more appropriate for a love letter to an Asian woman. But lest we get overwhelmed exotic sounds, landing on the warm, familiar ii (F#m) makes the song instantly sound sultry and soulful.

Secondly, every section begins with an anacrusis - a vocal pick up before the first beat of the section (see Ticket 39). This songwriting tool is most often used by singers who are confident vocally so it's no surprise that the Beatles used it often, from the sublime “hey JUDE” to the ridiculous, “let me take you down cos I'm going TO”. Here we have 'Don't let me DOWN' on the chorus, 'nobody ever loved me like she DOES' on the verse and 'I'm in love for the FIRST' on the bridge. As if to emphasis this phrasing even further the band drops out completely before every single section (Ticket 30).

The most original trick though is the 5/4 bar at the beginning of every verse. We've noted time and again Lennon's habit of cutting out any beat surplus to requirements (Ticket 37). Here we have just the opposite. It seems John has too many words and notes to fit in, so he simply makes the band wait till he's finished. A more conventional mind would have edited the verse to

Nobody loved me like she does...
And from the first time that she done me...

But Lennon was never conventional, and why should he be? In this he's a successor to John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan and hundreds of other early 20th century blues and folk singers, for whom meter was far more fluid affair. I used the same technique, for the same reason, in my song The Soundcheck Song). Maybe you should too.

We'll call this 'ticket' The Lennon Extension (Ticket 52).

Next time we'll tackle I've Got A Feeling...

The Band Who...Kept Expanding

Long Long(er) Long(est)

The ever increasing Beatles running time

Love Me Do (1962) - 2:23
The average pop song in the early 60's was well under 3 minutes. Some bands would even print fake shorter running times on their labels to ensure airplay.

I Saw Her Standing There (1963) - 2:56
Two bridges and guitar solo pushed this bluesy rocker to epic lengths.


You Really Got A Hold On Me (1963) - 3:03
A Smokey Robinson cover pushes the boys over 3 minutes.


She's A Woman (1964) - 3:03
McCartney pens his first B side over 3 minutes


Ticket To Ride (1965) - 3:10
And the first A side. A rave-up outro added 20 seconds


You Won't See Me (1965) - 3:23
It's a slow tempo that extends this album track.


Strawberry Fields Forever (1967) - 4:07
A experimental coda/jam session and post fade out drum solo adds over 1 minute.


Within You Without You (1967) - 5:05
mid tempo song with 30 second intro and over 1 minute instrumental section


A Day In The Life (1967) - 5:35
this time it's fade out piano chords, a dog whistle, then a loop originally recorded in the playout groove of the vinyl disc which add over 1 minute


Hey Jude (1968) - 7:08
3:03 of song plus 4:00 of coda


Revolution No 9 (1968) - 8:22
nearly 81/2 minutes of atonal ego stroking by John and Yoko doesn't really count as a song. 


So the longest Beatles song is -


I Want You She's So Heavy (1969) - 7:48
4:37 song plus 3:10 non fading fade out


 It's interesting that in many of the Beatles fattest songs there's thin song trying to get out. Rather than a truly epic song like Bohemian Rhapsody, from Ticket To Ride onwards we have short songs with something tacked on the end.

Tom Morello on Limiting Yourself

In Blessed Are the Limited I wrote about the power of deliberately reducing your number of creative options, a point I revisited in Blessed Are The Mundane when I noted just how little gear (and coworkers) the Beatles had.

I've found supporting testimony from an unusual source on Graham Cochrane's excellent blog The Recording Revolution - Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello. 'Unusual' because Tom has a reputation for pushing new boundaries and creating new sounds on the electric guitar. And yet he's been using exactly the same guitar rig for over 20 years! He says

I’ve had the same rig since prior to Rage Against The Machine. It’s the same [amp] head. It’s the same cabinet. The newest piece of gear that I have on my board is a pedal that I got in 1991. There’s a sense of comfort in not worrying about gear anymore, I’m [now] going to worry about trying to get sounds and music out of the gear that I have.

In a Feb 2000 interview with Guitar One Magazine Tom said


In order for me to be able to let my musical imagination run to extremes, I like to have a lot of the variables, like gear, locked down. I like to know it's always going to be that amp [and] those effects pedals. It's always going to be these guitars as the cornerstones of the physical end of the music-making. Because that stuff is locked down in place, it allows me the freedom to explore ... just the thought of all that chaos caused by constantly bringing in new gear makes me nervous. 

Graham comments

We might find that it’s actually the gear... that we truly love. Writing and having songs to play and record simply are the fuel for our gear lust.

Whether 'gear lust' is our real motivation, or simply a giant distraction, it's good to take stock of what we actually need, reduce 'equipment drag' to the bare minimum and get back to writing songs!

Read Graham's full article here

Read more on limiting yourself creatively from Nicholas Tozier, Hugh MacLeod and Paul McGuinness
Check out more 'Be-atletudes'