100 Songs - The 1960s

  1 Beatles "A Day in the Life"
  2 Bob Dylan "Like a Rolling Stone"
  3 Kinks "Waterloo Sunset"
  4 The Who "I Can See For Miles"
  5 Rolling Stones "Jumpin' Jack Flash"
  6 Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"
  7 Them "Gloria"
  8 Jimi Hendrix Experience "All Along the Watchtower"
  9  Bobby Fuller Four "I Fought the Law"
 10 Roy Orbison "Oh Pretty Woman"

 11 Byrds "Eight Miles High"
 12 Procol Harum "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
 13 Small Faces "Tin Soldier"
 14 Beach Boys "Heroes and Villains"
 15 Easybeats "Friday on my Mind"
 16 Four Tops "Bernadette"
 17 Buffalo Springfield "For What It's Worth"
 18 Lovin' Spoonful "Summer in the City"
 19 Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels "Devil with a Blue Dress"
 20 Sam & Dave "Soul Man"

 21 Box Tops "Neon Rainbow"
 22 Spencer Davis Group "I'm a Man"
 23 Miracles "Tracks of my Tears"
 24 Neil Young & Crazy Horse "Cinnamon Girl"
 25 Left Banke "Walk Away Renee"
 26 Steppenwolf "Born to be Wild"
 27 Van Morrison "Brown Eyed Girl"
 28 Kingsmen "Louie Louie"
 29 Creedence Clearwater Revival "Green River"
 30 Elvis Presley "Suspicious Minds"

 31 Flying Burrito Brothers "Hot Burrito #1"
 32 Dusty Springfield "Son of a Preacher Man"
 33 Cream "White Room"
 34 Yardbirds "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago"
 35 Del Shannon "Runaway"
 36 Dion "Runaround Sue"
 37 Peter, Paul & Mary "500 Miles"
 38 Sam Cooke "A Change Is Gonna Come"
 39 Dave Clark Five "Over and Over"
 40 McCoys "Hang On Sloopy"

 41 Otis Redding "Try a Little Tenderness"
 42 Gene Chandler "Duke of Earl"
 43 Animals "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"
 44 Ronettes "Be My Baby"
 45 Searchers "When You Walk in the Room"
 46 Supremes "Where Did Our Love Go"
 47 Zombies "She's Not There"
 48 Four Seasons "Let's Hang On"
 49 Lou Christie "Lightning Is Striking Again"

 50 Paul Revere & the Raiders "Just Like Me"
 51 Count Five "Psychotic Reaction"
 52 Donovan "Mellow Yellow"
 53 Nashville Teens "Tobacco Road"
 54 Merilee Rush & the Turnabouts "Angel of the Morning"
 55 Stevie Wonder "I Was Made to Love Her"
 56 Brenton Wood "Gimme Little Sign"
 57 Ad Libs "Boy From New York City"
 58 Shocking Blue "Venus"
 59 Young Rascals "You Better Run"
 60 Aretha Franklin "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)"

 61 Bee Gees "New York Mining Disaster 1941"
 62 Bobbie Gentry "Ode to Billie Joe"
 63 Buckinghams "Don't You Care"
 64 Doors "Soul Kitchen"
 65 Hollies "Carrie Anne"
 66 Hombres "Let it All Hang Out"
 67 James Brown "Cold Sweat"
 68 Moby Grape "Omaha"
 69 Love "Alone Again Or"
 70 Lulu "The Boat That I Row"

 71 Mamas & Papas "Twelve Thirty"
 72 Marvelettes "The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game"
 73 Martha & the Vandellas "Jimmy Mack"
 74 Nilsson "1941"
 75 Pink Floyd "See Emily Play"
 76 Johnny Rivers "Secret Agent Man"
 77 Tommy James & the Shondells "I Think We're Alone Now"
 78 Ugly Ducklings "Gaslight"
 79 Balloon Farm "A Question of Temperature"
 80 Wilson Pickett "Mustang Sally"

 81 Jay and the Americans "This Magic Moment"
 82 Chambers Brothers "Time Has Come Today"
 83 Manfred Mann "Pretty Flamingo"
 84 Walker Brothers "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore"
 85 The Band "Up on Cripple Creek"
 86 Sly & the Family Stone "Everyday People"
 87 Music Machine "Talk Talk"
 88 Impressions "People Get Ready"
 89 Robert Knight "Everlasting Love"
 90 Turtles "Happy Together"

 91 Jackie Wilson "Higher and Higher"
 92 Bob Seger System "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man"
 93 Simon & Garfunkel "Mrs Robinson"
 94 Neil Diamond "Holly Holy"
 95 Fontella Bass "Rescue Me"
 96 John Fred & His Playboy Band "Judy In Disguise"
 97 Merle Haggard "Sing Me Back Home"
 98 Question Mark & the Mysterians "96 Tears"
 99 Troggs "Wild Thing"
100 Melanie "Lay Down"

100 Songs - The 1950s

Matthew Elmslie, philosopher and baseball fan, has been engaged in a pointless but fun Twitter project wherein he lists 100 - notable? favourite? - songs from a particular decade. The main caveat is that no artist can be represented more than once. You see his list, you want to make your own. That's how these things work.

The one song per artist limit places me in a considerable quandry when it comes to the 1950s - Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy, and the immortal Little Richard are all I need, in this world and the one to come, and could easily provide me with 100 songs. But I did my best to rise to the occasion.

The 1950s

1 Chuck Berry "Johnny B. Goode"
2 Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls of Fire"
3 Elvis Presley "Mystery Train"
4 Little Richard "Tutti Frutti"
5 Buddy Holly "That'll Be The Day"
6 Gene Vincent "Be Bop a Lula"
7 Eddie Cochran "Summertime Blues"
8 Howlin' Wolf "Smokestack Lightning"
9 Everly Brothers "Wake Up Little Susie"
10 Lloyd Price "Stagger Lee"

11 Bo Diddley  "Who Do You Love"
12 Carl Perkins "Blue Suede Shoes"
13 Hank Williams "Ramblin' Man"
14 Richie Valens "La Bamba"
15 Muddy Waters "Mannish Boy"
16 Frank Sinatra "I've Got You Under My Skin"
17 Fats Domino "Blueberry Hill"
18 Ray Charles "What'd I Say"
19 Little Willie John "I Need Your Love So Bad"
20 Big Bopper "Chantilly Lace"

21 Johnny Burnette Trio "The Train Kept A'Rolling"
22 Patsy Cline "Walking After Midnight"
23 Sonny Boy Williamson "Don't Start Me Talkin'"
24 Big Joe Turner "Shake Rattle and Roll"
25 Dell Vikings "Come Go With Me"
26 Vince Taylor "Brand New Cadillac"
27 Johnny Cash "I Walk the Line"
28 Coasters "Young Blood"
29 Elmore James "Dust My Broom"
30 Tennessee Ernie Ford "Sixteen Tons"

31 Duane Eddy "Rebel Rouser"
32 Chuck Willis "Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes"
33 Lefty Frizzell "Long Black Veil"
34 Drifters "Money Honey"
35 Buddy Knox "Party Doll"
36 Cadets "Stranded in the Jungle"
37 Harry Belafonte "Jamaica Farewell"
38 Slim Harpo "I'm a King Bee"
39 Jay Hawkins "I Put a Spell On You"
40 Eddie Fontaine "Nothin' Shakin' But the Leaves on the Trees"

41 Sam Cooke "You Send Me"
42 Dion & the Belmonts "A Teenager In Love"
43 Dale Hawkins "Susie Q"
44 Judy Garland "The Man that Got Away"
45 Conway Twitty "It's Only Make Believe"
46 Link Wray "Rumble"
47 Ricky Nelson "It's Late"
48 Ronnie Hawkins "Forty Days"
49 Roy Orbison "Ooby Dooby"
50 Louvin Brothers "The Angels Rejoiced in Heaven Last Night"

51 Johnny Ace "Pledging My Love"
52 Chan Romero "Hippy Hippy Shake"
53 Bobby Day "Rockin' Robin"
54 Frankie Ford "Sea Cruise"
55 Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers "Why Do Fools Fall In Love"
56 T.Bone Walker "The Hustle Is On"
57 Tommy Edwards "It's All in the Game"
58 Bobby Darin "Mack the Knife"
59 Huey Smith "Rockin' Pneumonia"
60 Kingston Trio "Tom Dooley"

61 Isley Brothers "Shout"
62 Jerry Butler "For Your Precious Love"
63 LaVern Baker "Jim Dandy Got Married"
64 B.B. King "Three O'Clock Blues"
65 George Jones "White Lightning"
66 Clarence Henry "Ain't Got No Home"
67 Mickey & Sylvia "Love is Strange"
68 Hank Ballard "Work With Me Annie"
69 Platters "The Great Pretender"
70 Monotones "Book of Love"

71 Little Walter "Mean Old World"
72 Clyde McPhatter "Without Love"
73 Lowell Fulson "Reconsider Baby"
74 Clifton Chenier "My Soul"
75 Cadillacs "Speedo is Back"
76 Silhouettes "Get a Job"
77 Wilbert Harrison "Kansas City"
78 Five Royales "Think"
79 Barrett Strong "Money"
80 Five Satins "Still of the Nite"

83 Jimmie Rodgers "Honeycomb"
81 Marty Robbins "El Paso"
82 Danny & the Juniors "Rock and Roll is Here To Stay"
84 Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats "Rocket 88"
85 John Lee Hooker "I'm in the Mood"
86 Barbara Pittman "I Need a Man"
87 Mello Kings "Tonite Tonite"
88 Crows "Gee"
89 Chantels "Maybe"
90 Dee Clark "Hey Little Girl"

91 Champs "Tequila"
92 Little Anthony & the Imperials "Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop"
93 Crests "Sixteen Candles"
94 Flamingos "I Only Have Eyes For You"
95 Skyliners "Since I Don't Have You"
96 Chips "Rubber Biscuit"
97 Bobettes "Mr Lee"
98 Dubs "Chapel of Dreams"
99 Billy Ward & the Dominos "Sixty Minute Man"
100 Fireflies "You Were Mine"

Country Music, Episode 8

Don't Get Above Your Raisin' (1984-1996)

Country music is very much a living thing, and none of the episodes since the first one have tried to cover a period longer than 12 years. Still, 1996 is an odd place to end the story, with a three minute slide show standing in for the last quarter century, years in which there have been some significant developments. The blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks alone seems hugely important - they were the most popular country act in the world when it happened. One would also have thought that the collapse of the entire record industry might have some ramifications. Ending where he does, Burns gets to show country music as bigger and more alive than ever, as people like Garth Brooks move units in quantities no one had dreamed possible. It was just a mirage, of course. It was the great CD boom, the rising tide that lifted all the boats, until the internet put an end to it all in the years after 1999. Burns does note the disappearance of independent radio, as the corporations and the bottom lines take charge. In years to come this would lead to the complete disappearance of women from country radio, which is also pretty significant, but also outside the series' purview.

Country music has always been wildly sentimental, of course. The fact that it has always been willing to go to a point where it is just shamelessly corny is what has always kept an old rocker like myself at arm's length. Burns piles on the sentiment with a shovel in his closing episode. I suppose that's partially because that's where country music would want him to go - but it's also because he doesn't really have any major new artists to hang build his conclusion around. That's just the luck of the draw, but it left Burns with people like Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire. They all have their virtues, and they're all nice people - but none of them are artists of the stature of Merle Haggard or Dolly Parton. The fact that they're all nice people probably should have been a clue - artistic greatness and overall niceness don't go hand in hand all that often. I mean, Dolly Parton really is a sweetheart, but she also wasn't going to let anything get in the way of fulfilling her ambitions.

The 21st century would see Taylor Swift, who certainly started out as a country singer, become the world's biggest pop star. In time Swift would show herself to be just as ambitious as Dolly and maybe even as talented, albeit in a completely different way. We would see what can only be described as an explosion of enormously talented women making music rooted in country. Some truly major artists, more than worthy of carrying Hank Williams' hat, are among them. I personally nominate Miranda Lambert. The music is even more alive today than Burns lets on. But country music has always been obsessed with what's come before, and the series ends with a shot of Maybelle Carter. But that's OK, too. She surely deserves it.

Country Music, Episode 7

A tremendous episode, the best in the series. The title suggests we're going to be covering the "outlaws" movement of the 1970s, which was something that always smacked just a little of music industry hype. The "Outlaws" album may have been the biggest selling record in country music history, the genre's first ever million-seller - but it was never a real album. It was a compilation of loose ends slapped together by RCA in response to what Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings had already set in motion.

What we get is far richer and deeper. It begins with Dolly Parton and George Jones, two great country voices both somewhat trapped by their circumstances. Parton had long outgrown her dependence on Porter Wagoner, her mentor and discoverer. Jones was trapped, as always, by his own demons and madness. By the end of the episode, Parton has broken any chains that held her back and become a pop star while remaining a country icon. Jones never in his life made a move that didn't have something to do with country music. His story in this episode ends with his comeback hit "He Stopped Loving Her Today," which is just another excuse for us all to ponder the utter miracle of his voice, one of the true Seven Wonders of the known universe. Another generation of performers begins to emerge, including Hank Williams Jr (always a little overrated) and the magnificent Rosanne Cash, for whom no praise is sufficient.

But the heart of the episode develops out of Burns' dive into the nascent Texas songwriter circle of the early 1970s. The late great Guy Clark himself appears, explaining how it all happened, and Burns has dug up footage of the gang of singers and players that gathered around Guy and Susanna Clark, including a very young Rodney Crowell as well as the great doomed eccentric Townes Van Zandt. Meanwhile, in California, Gram Parsons is giving a folksinger named Emmylou Harris a crash course covering everything he knows about country music, which is considerable. And in Nashville, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings have both reached the point of despair when it comes to Music City ever being able to make anything of their work. All these threads and more (including some Burns doesn't even have time or room to bring up) end up coming together in a simply stunning climax built around "Pancho and Lefty", Van Zandt's most famous song, and as great a song as anyone could ever write.

Burns didn't dive quite as deeply as he could, but I don't mind. This story already runs 130 plus minutes. I myself think it's fairly significant that Emmylou Harris signed with the Warner/Reprise group when she started her solo career. Warner/Reprise really had no country catalog  at the time - the genre was dominated by Columbia (Johnny Cash, George Jones) and RCA (Chet Atkins, Dolly Parton, Charley Pride) and both companies had by this time developed something of an assembly line approach to turning out country product. Warner/Reprise was the rock label, and while they assigned a producer (Brian Ahern, who had recorded Anne Murray) they gave Harris the same kind of autonomy - and budget - they were giving their other artists. They did tell her she needed a hot band, and presumably because they didn't know how things were done in the country music field, they actually gave her the money to assemble one.

So Harris put together her legendary Hot Band. It was built around the session pros Gram Parsons had borrowed from Elvis Presley's touring band,  including the great James Burton, and augmented by young hotshots like Rodney Crowell (who would marry Rosanne Cash - man, these circles will never be unbroken) and Ricky Skaggs. Warner/Reprise hadn't given Parsons the type of support that would pay for those guys. But they knew, like everyone else, that Parsons was a drug-addled fuckup. Harris was the grown-up who'd kept the Parsons show and tour from crashing into the ditch. Waylon Jennings was with RCA and Willie Nelson was with Columbia, and both had been struggling to find their way, having been locked inside the Nashville factory for more than a decade. Now working from deep in the heart of Texas, they had by now secured for themselves the same kind of artistic license Warner/Reprise had given Harris. Harris' debut album, Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" and Jennings' "Dreaming My Dreams" were all released during the first six months of 1975. RCA's "Outlaws" hodge-podge would follow in January 1976.

Country Music, Episode 6

Episode six strikes me as the weakest of the series so far. It starts off promisingly enough, with George and Tammy, but bogs down soon afterwards. Far too much time and attention is given to Kris Kristofferson, a fairly minor songwriter. But Kristofferson can be made to fit into Burns' overall agenda, which here is political rather than musical. Burns wants to show the divisions in American society during these years and how they were reflected in country music. Then he can end on the usual high note, with the generations coming together in song. Well, maybe it's just me - this is history I'm old enough to remember, history I already know rather well. It's the first episode where I didn't learn anything new.

Country Music, Episode 5

The tangled and tragic relations between black and white people in America has been one of the themes of pretty well every documentary Ken Burns has ever made, whether his subject is war, music, or baseball. Burns, a good liberal, is always looking for a redemption story if he can find one, something to help us cope with the horror history too often provides. And so tonight Charley Pride gets far more attention than I think an artist this minor should warrant. But - and this is some "but" - the reason Pride is a minor artist has nothing to do with his singing and everything to do with his skin colour. His remarkable voice got him in the back door of Nashville. But his complexion severely limited the songs he was able to sing. Pride himself notes that he couldn't be singing about "Mary, hair of gold." No tom-catting songs from this fella. Pride built his career on the blandest material available. It worked - he had 30 number one hits, he's in the CMA Hall of Fame, a member of the Opry. We should never, never hold his career choices against him. You can only regret what he might have been.

The other theme running through the series is, naturally enough, the Carter-Cash dynastic line. It is indeed a remarkable thing. It runs from the first stirrings of country music right down through today. That first generation, Mother Maybelle and the original family are long gone, of course. By now the second generation, Johnny Cash and June Carter, have also passed from the scene. But Johnny and June's son John Carter Cash is one of Burns' talking  heads. So is June's daughter Carlene. Both, naturally, have gone into the family business. Johnny's daughter Rosanne is here as well, and in my wilder moments I sometimes think Rosanne is the most talented in the whole family - at the very least, she's the best singer. (Daddy's probably got her beat with the songwriting, although Rosanne's awfully good there as well.) This episode ends with Johnny finally kicking the drugs, getting June to marry him, and recording his triumphant show at Folsom Prison, that made him one of the biggest stars in the world. He's about to get his own network TV show and everything.

We're given a bit of a teaser look at an enormously talented singer and songwriter from the Tennessee mountains - Dolly Parton, of course. I expect she'll figure more heavily in upcoming episodes. The other focus of tonight's show is the incomparable Merle Haggard, as well as his Bakersfield compatriot Buck Owens. Buck tended to sneer at the Nashville establishment and didn't take any of it too seriously, which made him a lot of fun. And Merle - well god damn, it's Merle Haggard. Hag's basic life story is itself an epic of sin and redemption, and one he wrote the songs for himself. Because he happened to be one of the greatest songwriters who ever drew breath.

My only question at this point - we're five episodes in, we're up to 1968... where the hell is George Jones? Ah... he probably just didn't show up. Drunk and disorderly again.

Country Music, Episode 4

Episode four is full of developments, though most aren't all that earth shattering. Hank Williams lit up the sky like a meteor and crashed to earth as quickly, leaving a void in his wake. Elvis Presley merged all the forms of American music he knew, just as country music had in its beginnings. But Presley ultimately leads to a completely new musical genre rather than another branch in the country tree. The popular audience starts to fragment, and with the country audience shrinking, the Bradleys and Chet Atkins commercialize the whole Nashville operation in search of hits. The Nashville sound is born. The best country music of this period comes from two utterly amazing singers - but one of them, Ray Charles, is just visiting and the other, Patsy Cline, dies in a plane crash with her career barely underway. Despite all this, there's "Long Black Veil." It was a brand new song in 1959, but it sounded at least 100 years old. It had everything - sin, death, judgement, a ghost, grief, secrets and a melody that no one could ever forget. She walks these hills...

Country Music, Episode 3

With the third episode, "The Hillbilly Shakespeare," country music finally finds the person who will rise above and beyond the musical genre he worked in, for his time and for all time. By far the most comparable figure to Hank Williams in American music is Robert Johnson, whose story has also passed into myth and legend. The similarities are as striking as the differences. Both were dead before they turned 30. Almost 20,000 people showed up for the funeral of Williams, a white man and a famous star. Johnson lived and died in near obscurity and was buried in an unmarked grave. You can hear Roy Acuff in Williams' music just as you can hear Son House in Johnson's - but both men took their art far, far beyond what anyone in country music or the blues had done before. It was in the songs they wrote, and it was in the grain of their voices. They both sound like men who have looked face to face into something too terrifying to even contemplate. That thing we so often hear in their voices? Barely suppressed panic. Hello, Satan, mutters Johnson. It's time to go. There had never been anything like it, and there's been nothing else like it since. Williams sang hopefully about salvation, but he knew better and you can hear that he knew better. Johnson sang about being pursued by demons and furies, though we have no idea whether this had much to do with his life and times, so much of which is and will remain a mystery. But he was a black man living and working in 1930s Mississippi. He had much to be panicky about. We know much more about Williams: his physical pain, his alcoholism, his psychic torment. But like Johnson, he remains fundamentally inexplicable. Genius, like a thunderstorm, comes up against the wind.

Country Music, Episode 2

Episode Two is where country music goes off the rails. Not the show - the music. By 1933 Jimmie Rodgers was dead, the Carter Family was falling apart, and the Great Depression had devastated the record industry. Into this void rode a cowboy. A singing cowboy. Gene Autry's talents were modest indeed (as Autry himself knew). Somehow he became the biggest entertainer in America, star of stage, screen, and records - and literally hundreds of singing cowboys followed in his wake, a blight on the landscape for more than a generation. There are brief glimpses of life here and there - Bob Wills in Texas, the Monroe Brothers in Kentucky. But it's a world dominated by a god damn singing cowboy. Hank Williams can't get here soon enough.

Country Music, Episode 1

The first episode does an excellent job of showing that while country music may have eventually evolved into something like "blues for white people" it certainly didn't start that way. More than any other American musical form, country music began as the great melting pot where traditional folk ballads brought over from the British Isles got all tangled up with the African-American blues traditions, Mexican canciones from the border, German polkas, popular songs from Tin Pan Alley and who knows what else. If you listen to traditional music recorded before the Great Depression - and I've done a lot of that - you realize there's no way of knowing if the singer is black or white. The lines had yet to diverge. This would all change in time, and I trust the rest of the series will explain how. (It's going to involve politics, demographics, economics, and geography - and race will be involved every step of the way.)

It's also noteworthy that country music has no one to fill the role of founding genius, the way Louis Armstrong does in the history of jazz. Maybelle Carter comes closer than anyone, but it's not the same. Louis Armstrong was a born showman who wanted to perform for as many people as he could; Maybelle Carter was a wife and mother who never wanted to leave her Virginia mountain home. But she's as important as Chuck Berry. She developed a new way to play the freaking guitar. Anybody who picks up an acoustic and progresses past strumming a G chord will soon be doing stuff Maybelle Carter invented, whether they're aware of it or not. 

So the development of this music is a little more evolutionary, like the blues - as opposed to practically springing from the brow of a giant like Armstrong.

Nick Cave says...

...when I write a song and release it to the public, I feel it stops being my song. It has been offered up to my audience and they, if they care to, take possession of that song and become its custodian. The integrity of the song now rests not with the artist, but with the listener.

I think this is exactly right. Any work of art worthy of the name finds some kind of escape velocity. It breaks free of the person who created it and carves out a life of its own. The "author" is ultimately just a name that gets attached to it, the way we attach "Homer" to The Iliad, "Beethoven" to the C minor symphony, or "Robert Johnson" to Cross Road Blues. This has always been the way art works upon us.

This applies easily and naturally enough for music, and literature, and painting. But other art forms, film in particular, make the question more complicated. I'm not much of a Michael Jackson fan, but I can certainly listen to "Billie Jean" with pleasure. But I can't watch the video, because I just can't look at the guy without getting creeped out.

Macca's Birthday

Paul McCartney is 77 years old today. So first, let us all give thanks for his very existence. All our lives would have been very, very different, and not nearly as much fun, had he never been born. Let us next contemplate the weird fact that the last two decades have easily been the most interesting and rewarding patch of his musical life since... well, since the days of that old band that made him famous all those years ago. The man's been on fire since about 1998. It's by far the longest winning streak of a life that is not exactly without accomplishment. How did this happen?

Well... Linda died. It's my theory that for almost 30 years, from around 1970 til the end of the century, Macca's life was sufficiently rich, sufficiently fulfilling, that his work didn't quite have his full attention. He made some great music along the way, from time to time - he was still Paul McCartney, folks - he just had other priorities. But Linda died, and the kids have grown up and left the nest. He's been giving his day job more of his energy ever since.

McCartney's spent the last couple of decades cultivating his legend and tending to his legacy. His days of resisting it are long past. He wears it onstage now like a comfortable garment, effortlessly. (It's not really effortless, by no means, but Paul's always made everything look easy). He's taken care to make sure we all know that, contrary to the shallow take, he was always the Beatle with the real taste for the avant-garde. Which is more or less true, I suppose. But that doesn't matter nearly as much as the other thing that always made him special in his old band. Which would be his enormous curiosity about all music in general, and his undying interest in modern pop music in particular. Lennon and Harrison both lost almost all interest in contemporary pop music once they'd thoroughly routed the competition, right around 1963, and neither ever had much interest in anything that came afterwards. McCartney has remained eternally curious, and eternally competitive.

So even though today McCartney himself is as irrelevant as any other 70 year old to what's happening at the top of what passes for today's top of the pops, that curiosity and interest in what's happening right now is undiminished. Why wouldn't it be? No one has ever grasped more completely the profound truth at the heart of all silly love songs. Which is that they aren't silly at all. Who cares what the idiots say? The man is a miracle, and he always has been. Live forever, Paul. Thanks for everything. Happy birthday.

I Had a Dream

So I'm having a nap before going to work. And I dreamed... I was going to work, because sometimes it just sucks to be me. And I'm taking a cab, for some mysterious reason. And we all stop - because apparently this is a group outing - at some place to get a coffee. (Someplace around Roblin Blvd and Dieppe oddly enough - I guess we were taking the long, long way). And I'm there and I notice the cab has driven off. With my coat and knapsack inside it. Oh brilliant. I turn to the guy next to me, explain my predicament, and wonder if he caught the name of the cab company. He's got the cab number and the name of the company (the Janie Jones Cab Company? In my dreams, is everything named after a song by the Clash?) And then I wake up....

And then follows that 20 or so seconds of confusion, as I continue to wrestle with this problem... and then I gradually realize that none of it is real, it was just a dream, just my brain messing with me. Always an excellent realization!

The White Album, Remastered

Of course I'm listening to the new stereo mix of the White Album. You know me, folks! The Beatles did involve themselves heavily in the mixing process (at least from "Revolver" forward), but it was the mono mixes that took all their time and attention and were always done first. The stereo mixes were an afterthought, and were typically banged out in a couple of hours at some later date, by George Martin and the engineer. And because this would always represent an entirely new process (you can mix down from stereo to mono, but you can't do it the other way round) we often ended up with some very odd things. The most notorious of those would be the ending to "Helter Skelter" - the mono version, overseen by McCartney, doesn't have the track fade back in after the original fade-out, to conclude with Ringo's famous scream about the blisters on his fingers. That only happens on the stereo mix which was done three weeks later. Evidently Martin and Emerick had simply forgotten what they did on the original.

Giles Martin's work on the White Album isn't quite the stunning revelation his work on Sgt Pepper was last year - get it, now - but it's well worth while anyway. The sound seems crisper, especially the electric guitars, and it's startling to better hear some of the details on a record you've listened to for... well, for fifty freaking years. The piano on "Glass Onion," the acoustic guitar on "Piggies." It's the Beatles, it sounds great. What else do you need to know?

Can't Help Falling In Love

Presley's talent was so vast that actually applying it seemed almost excessive. What did he have to prove? What material could possibly be worthy? And if this talent was actually applied, in all its force and power, the result would be utterly shattering, and probably lead to a total rupture of the space-time continuum. Which is pretty well what actually happened when he was 20 years old, with something to prove, and he did apply that talent.

So consider what he does here. The song is as lame a piece of cheese as could possibly be imagined and Elvis certainly doesn't apply himself to this. He merely breathes upon it, and creates a miracle, out of crap he found by the side of the road.

Friday the 13th

I ain't superstitious, but...

I had a really shitty day on Friday the 13th once, and I've been just a little cautious the last 30 or so times it's rolled around.

And oh yeah. I must put my right sock and shoe on before the left. This is not negotiable. If my right shoe should fall off by accident, I must immediately remove the left one as well, so that the situation can be properly corrected. I've been doing this since I was a teenager, I'm still here, so obviously it works.

And I will leave the room if anyone proposes to read my horoscope. I don't think that's superstitous, though. I think it's just common sense.

But black cats? They're adorable. I love them, even if they are minions of Satan.

She Loves You

The Beatles spent the first half of 1963 gigging relentlessly over the north of England, spending lots of quality time riding in Neil Aspinall's van. They had wrapped up their final Hamburg engagement at the end of 1962 and spent the first two days of the year travelling, from Hamburg to London, and from London to Aberdeen for their first performance of 1963. Their performance in Aberdeen on 3 January was the first of 137 live appearances over the first six months of 1963. They took a two day break in February - they drove down to London to record their first album, in a single 15 hour session. They took another day in March to record their third single, "From Me To You", and they took two weeks off for a breather at the end of April.

 On 26 June, they were riding to Newcastle when Paul had an idea for a song. They needed a song. They already had a session booked for the following week to record their fourth single. Paul had one idea, something about voices answering the singer with "yeah yeah yeah." He and Lennon sat down in a Newcastle hotel room before the show to write it and it went off in a different direction, as often happens. The band did the Newcastle show and drove back to Liverpool the following day. After presumably getting reacquainted with the wife and his two month old child, Lennon came over to Paul's house on Forthlin Road. They finished the song there, and played it for Paul's dad, who thought it was nice although he wasn't too keen on the "yeah yeah yeah" part. The band had to head back up north to Leeds for a show the next day, and then it was down the coast for a show in Great Yarmouth two days later, on the 30th. From there it was down to London for the recording session on the 1st of July.

 So it's quite possible that George and Ringo had never even heard the song before they all assembled at Abbey Road at noon on this day in 1963. It's possible that Lennon and McCartney had shown it to them, before or after a gig, but unlikely. McCartney has said that in those days George and Ringo regularly heard new songs for the first time on the day of the session. They provided their input and made their contributions, which in this particular song were enormous, right there on the spot. "That's how great they were," said Paul. So the band went into the studio with the structure of the song, words and chords. But they had no arrangement. It had never even been played by the band, let alone rehearsed. They had three hours booked to sort all that out, for this song and for the flip side. "I'll Get You" was lined up for the flip side, a song they had already been playing live. They knew what to do with that one. It was this new one, "She Loves You," that they hadn't played. They needed to figure something out. They did.

Ringo kicks it off with a quick flurry on his toms and then... all hell breaks loose. It's like jumping off a cliff, or stepping onto a moving train. Three voices are bawling out the refrain, that unforgettable refrain. The drums are flying all over the place, as rather than lay down a backbeat Ringo responds to and urges on the singers with double hits at the end of each vocal phrase. The band charges through the refrain three times, and then throw in one final "yeah" with an unexpected harmony (George singing a sixth along with the third and the fifth - it was Harrison's idea, and while George Martin thought it was corny, the band insisted). On that last "yeah" Ringo heads for his open hi-hat and finally gives us a backbeat while Harrison sneaks in a quick and ratty little guitar lick. That's the introduction. Eight bars of music, twelve seconds of time. Holy shit.

 John and Paul sing the ascending melody of the first line ("You think you've lost your love") in unison until the very last word, when McCartney suddenly switches to singing a harmony, the third above Lennon's line. George joins in on the harmony for the next line, which ends with the teasing, cocky "yesterday-yay" - and then they repeat this for the next two lines, Paul switching from unison to harmony. On the next line George and Ringo kick in an unexpected accent on the title phrase "she loves you" in the middle of the bar, which McCartney further emphasizes by hitting a low B on his bass (the chord for that bar is G). George ends that line with three carefully apeggioed chords (G, F# minor, and E minor), each just a hair behind the beat so they stand out more, and he ends the verse with a reprise of the guitar lick he'd used to end the introduction.

 Second verse, same as the first. But not quite. We hear the same switch from unision to harmony and back, the same licks and accents - but all played just a touch harder, all leading up to something. Which it is, of course. That opening refrain is going to come back, and heaven knows we've been waiting for it - but just before tumbling into the refrain the three singers would shake their locks and give us that first "Oooh" that would send girls screaming like... nothing since Elvis, anyway. They do that for a full measure and Ringo backs it up with a quick tour of his entire kit. But they don't perform the full refrain - they run through two lines and change it up - "With a love like that" - and then the band stops, on a fucking dime. Absolute silence, for almost the length of a quarter note, and then the voices conclude this modified chorus.

 No other band in the world was capable of this sort of thing, not then, and not for years and years afterwards. There were professional session players who could summon up that level of precision, there were other bands who could generate the same brute force, but there was no one, anywhere in the world, who could do both. At the same time. But why would there be? At this moment in history, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr were by far the most experienced, the most practised rock band in the world. They were inventing the music, and they were inventing the thing that performed the music. They had behind them already almost 300 shows at the Cavern in Liverpool, the five crazed pill-fuelled engagements in Hamburg playing six days a week for as many as eight hours a night, hundreds more shows all over northern England and Scotland. No one knew this kind of music better, no one had been playing it longer.

 Lennon: "...we played straight rock, and there was nobody to touch us in Britain."

 The song is a twist on the form, of course. It's not a love song at all. It's written in the third person, it's a friend giving advice to a friend. It's good news, and the performance has more than enough joy and exuberance to make you feel the good news - but John Lennon's involved, and there's just an undercurrent of "if you don't appreciate this woman, I will." In the six years to come, the band would get much more sophisticated than this, they would get back to this mountain top and many more besides, but they would never get better. Because it doesn't get better than this.

 July 1, 1963.

 Yeah, yeah, yeah.