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I liked the quote mentioned about the Beatles being "proof of the existence of God": "It transcends everything. It’s much bigger than four kids from Liverpool.

I liked the quote mentioned about the Beatles being "proof of the existence of God": "It transcends everything. It’s much bigger than four kids from Liverpool. For me the Beatles are proof of the existence of God. It’s so good and so far beyond everyone else that it’s not them." I hadn't heard that one before. I think what the Beatles did can be called "riding the wave of fortune" or "being on a roll", but they somehow did it year after year instead of just a few times, like most people manage to.

criddell 3y ago
> year after year I was surprised the first time I heard they recorded as a band for only 7 years. Their last album is so different from their first album, I find it astounding to think about what they accomplished and how much they grew in that time.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Their last albums are not only different from their first album, they are different from their mid period. Personally, my interest wanes after Magical Mystery Tour because one can’t hear the drugs any more, and it was the psychedelic element which made that, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper so great for my ears.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tomcam 3y ago
  And they had been together as a band for about seven years before they recorded.
ElFitz 3y ago
> but they somehow did it year after year instead of just a few times And without ever learning to read or write sheet music. It’s just trivia, but it never ceases to amaze me.
- tomcam 3y ago
  All four of them had keen ears, and could pick up anyone’s songs, almost effortlessly. That was thanks to their years playing 8 hour shifts in Hamburg. In their later work much of the time they didn’t know the names of the chords they were playing. And they didn’t really write down much at all. It’s very hard for me to reconstruct in my head how they could’ve created some of those crazy harmonies without at least scribbling down a bunch of note names.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    I think some people have a better head for it than others. I have a friend who at the age of 13 would learn songs on guitar by playing them back in his head while he sat in school during the day, and then go play it in the evening. I had nowhere near that kind of ability, with about the same number of hours of music training up to that point in our lives.
    - tomcam 3y ago
      I think I’m in your camp, but how much better would we be if we played music for a full shift every night, every summer?
- sambapa 3y ago
  The most important Beatle could - George. George Martin of course.
chasd00 3y ago
I don’t know a lot about the beetles but wasn’t the song strawberry fields forever what finally drove The Beach Boys drummer insane? Like he had spent so much time/effort on a new kind of music and the beetles just blew past him and all his work. Iirc he said that song was everything he dreamed of and it just poured out of the beetles effortlessly.
- southwesterly 3y ago
  Also, weren’t the drums in Strawberry Fields backwards?
  - gizajob 3y ago
    No
- 2bitencryption 3y ago
  The story you're thinking of is about Brian Wilson, the creative force behind the Beach Boys and one of the only real artists of the time who could arguably be considered a peer of The Beatles. Personally I've never seen a really strong source for that story, only anecdotes. I think it's an oversimplification to say "Strawberry Fields" made Brian Wilson insane. Instead, he was in a mental decline already. The pressure of "Brian Wilson is a genius" was getting to him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wilson_is_a_genius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wilson_is_a_genius There's a similar story with stronger sources, though. If you want to know about Brian's state of mind around that time, listen to his song Heroes and Villains. Basically, Brian worked on this song like it was his magnum opus, trying to reach the level of Sgt. Pepper. Quoting from Wikipedia (sue me): > For Wilson, the single's failure came to serve as a pivotal point in his psychological decline, and he adopted the song title as a term for his auditory hallucinations. > In the September/October 1967 issue of Crawdaddy!, journalist and magazine founder Paul Williams wrote that the song "originally had a chorus of dogs barking, cropped when Brian heard Sergeant Pepper, and was in many ways - the bicycle rider - a far different song."[39] > Wilson held onto the final mix of the song for about a month. On the evening of July 11, 1967, he was told by his astrologer (a woman named Genevelyn) that the time was right for the record to be heard by the public. Without informing Capitol, Wilson called his bandmates and, accompanied by producer Terry Melcher, traveled by limo to personally deliver a vinyl cut of the record to KHJ Radio.[72] According to Melcher, as Wilson excitedly offered the record for radio play, the DJ refused, citing program directing protocols.[77][78] Melcher recalled: "Brian almost fainted! It was all over. He'd been holding onto the record [and] had astrologers figuring out the correct moment. It really killed him. Finally they played it, but only after a few calls to the program director or someone, who screamed, 'Put it on, you idiot!' But the damage to Brian had already been done."[79] And this is all the tip of the iceberg. To have an even better understanding, you'd need to listen to the Smile! sessions, and the eventual 2004 "completed" recording of Smile!. Personally, I think Brian was a genius (well, is; he's still alive, though not looking too good these days, sadly). But unlike The Beatles, who were four friends with an unbelievably tight bond (even after their breakup), Brian had no one else in the Beach Boys who could match him. And I think it was a weight on his shoulders, and that combined with the drug use (and likely a stroke at some point, which is obvious if you ever hear him speak post ~1968) brought his downfall.
daniel-cussen 3y ago
[dead]
tomcam 3y ago
It’s also proof of the existence of Liverpool. In modern times it’s hard for us to understand how musical that area was in the 1910s-1950s. Paul’s dad was a musician with pretty wide interests, but more to the point, there were music halls everywhere. Regular people just banged out songs on the piano day after day in many of the homes there. Before skiffle and rock ‘n’ roll there was vaudeville, plenty of it. It was an incredibly musical culture.
- n42 3y ago
  Does anyone know where I can learn more about this microcosm?
  - tomcam 3y ago
    That’s a great question. I had to learn about it indirectly, gathering bits and pieces from novels of the time and offhand mentions in Beatles biographies.
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    Search for Vaudeville and Music Hall. They were the Victorian precursors of pop, with their own superstars, top-selling writers, and classic songs - now mostly forgotten. There's quite a bit of Music Hall in McCartney's songs. (Lennon called it "That granny crap.") One of the reasons copyright exists in the form it does is because many Victorian houses had pianos. Without recording technology there was a huge, incredibly profitable market for sheet music of light classics and music hall hits that could be played at home. There's also a series of books by Simon Napier-Bell, who used to be a famous (notorious) pop manager in the 70s to 90s. Three of them are hilarious and frequently disturbing autobiographies and comments on the business. The fourth is Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay, an almost academic account of the music business from the early 18th century. There are some real surprises, and also a lot that's surprisingly familiar.
    - tomcam 3y ago
      Can't wait to read these, thanks. Your answer was so much better than mine!
temporallobe 3y ago
I’ve thought about their composition skills a lot though the years, being a musician myself. I’ve come to the conclusion that they are more than the sum of their parts. After they broke up, each of them were still pretty good and popular artists, but the magic was gone. None of them were particularly virtuosos on their instruments either, but, TOGETHER, there was a catalyst between them that sparked pure songwriting gold, and each of them knew exactly how to add to the song to make it just right. Add to that Martin’s genius of production and his own musical talents, and that’s what made them magical. As I watched in this series kind of fumble their way through some of the compositions, I initially often thought the ideas were less than stellar, but then I witnessed the magic of them building the song, together, eventually molding and shaping it into something beautiful. I’ve been in bands myself and have experienced some of this myself, and also imagine many other bands work that way, but The Beatles had an extra spark most others did not. Only a few other bands in history have had that spark and you could really feel it, e.g., Nirvana, Queen, Led Zeppelin, early Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd. I don’t think we’re likely to ever have that kind of magic in popular music ever again.
- strunz 3y ago
  Paul was most certainly a virtuosic bass player, and both he and John could be called virtuosic singers. At least by rock music standards.
  - polishdude20 3y ago
    Hearing actual virtuoso bass players, I'd say Paul isn't really a virtuoso. A lot of his bass lines are very simple. He's more of a piano player than a bass player.
    - strunz 3y ago
      Virtuoso does not mean "plays a lot of notes". Music isn't an olympiad. Paul is virtuosic in his creativity and originality, note choices, rhythms, tone, as well as playing many complex parts in relation to the rest of the song.
    - 3y ago

criddell 3y ago

> year after year I was surprised the first time I heard they recorded as a band for only 7 years. Their last album is so different from their first album, I find it astounding to think about what they accomplished and how much they grew in that time.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Their last albums are not only different from their first album, they are different from their mid period. Personally, my interest wanes after Magical Mystery Tour because one can’t hear the drugs any more, and it was the psychedelic element which made that, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper so great for my ears.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tomcam 3y ago
And they had been together as a band for about seven years before they recorded.

ElFitz 3y ago

> but they somehow did it year after year instead of just a few times And without ever learning to read or write sheet music. It’s just trivia, but it never ceases to amaze me.

tomcam 3y ago
All four of them had keen ears, and could pick up anyone’s songs, almost effortlessly. That was thanks to their years playing 8 hour shifts in Hamburg. In their later work much of the time they didn’t know the names of the chords they were playing. And they didn’t really write down much at all. It’s very hard for me to reconstruct in my head how they could’ve created some of those crazy harmonies without at least scribbling down a bunch of note names.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  I think some people have a better head for it than others. I have a friend who at the age of 13 would learn songs on guitar by playing them back in his head while he sat in school during the day, and then go play it in the evening. I had nowhere near that kind of ability, with about the same number of hours of music training up to that point in our lives.
  - tomcam 3y ago
    I think I’m in your camp, but how much better would we be if we played music for a full shift every night, every summer?
sambapa 3y ago
The most important Beatle could - George. George Martin of course.

chasd00 3y ago

I don’t know a lot about the beetles but wasn’t the song strawberry fields forever what finally drove The Beach Boys drummer insane? Like he had spent so much time/effort on a new kind of music and the beetles just blew past him and all his work. Iirc he said that song was everything he dreamed of and it just poured out of the beetles effortlessly.

southwesterly 3y ago
Also, weren’t the drums in Strawberry Fields backwards?
- gizajob 3y ago
  No
2bitencryption 3y ago
The story you're thinking of is about Brian Wilson, the creative force behind the Beach Boys and one of the only real artists of the time who could arguably be considered a peer of The Beatles. Personally I've never seen a really strong source for that story, only anecdotes. I think it's an oversimplification to say "Strawberry Fields" made Brian Wilson insane. Instead, he was in a mental decline already. The pressure of "Brian Wilson is a genius" was getting to him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wilson_is_a_genius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wilson_is_a_genius There's a similar story with stronger sources, though. If you want to know about Brian's state of mind around that time, listen to his song Heroes and Villains. Basically, Brian worked on this song like it was his magnum opus, trying to reach the level of Sgt. Pepper. Quoting from Wikipedia (sue me): > For Wilson, the single's failure came to serve as a pivotal point in his psychological decline, and he adopted the song title as a term for his auditory hallucinations. > In the September/October 1967 issue of Crawdaddy!, journalist and magazine founder Paul Williams wrote that the song "originally had a chorus of dogs barking, cropped when Brian heard Sergeant Pepper, and was in many ways - the bicycle rider - a far different song."[39] > Wilson held onto the final mix of the song for about a month. On the evening of July 11, 1967, he was told by his astrologer (a woman named Genevelyn) that the time was right for the record to be heard by the public. Without informing Capitol, Wilson called his bandmates and, accompanied by producer Terry Melcher, traveled by limo to personally deliver a vinyl cut of the record to KHJ Radio.[72] According to Melcher, as Wilson excitedly offered the record for radio play, the DJ refused, citing program directing protocols.[77][78] Melcher recalled: "Brian almost fainted! It was all over. He'd been holding onto the record [and] had astrologers figuring out the correct moment. It really killed him. Finally they played it, but only after a few calls to the program director or someone, who screamed, 'Put it on, you idiot!' But the damage to Brian had already been done."[79] And this is all the tip of the iceberg. To have an even better understanding, you'd need to listen to the Smile! sessions, and the eventual 2004 "completed" recording of Smile!. Personally, I think Brian was a genius (well, is; he's still alive, though not looking too good these days, sadly). But unlike The Beatles, who were four friends with an unbelievably tight bond (even after their breakup), Brian had no one else in the Beach Boys who could match him. And I think it was a weight on his shoulders, and that combined with the drug use (and likely a stroke at some point, which is obvious if you ever hear him speak post ~1968) brought his downfall.

daniel-cussen 3y ago

[dead]

tomcam 3y ago

It’s also proof of the existence of Liverpool. In modern times it’s hard for us to understand how musical that area was in the 1910s-1950s. Paul’s dad was a musician with pretty wide interests, but more to the point, there were music halls everywhere. Regular people just banged out songs on the piano day after day in many of the homes there. Before skiffle and rock ‘n’ roll there was vaudeville, plenty of it. It was an incredibly musical culture.

n42 3y ago
Does anyone know where I can learn more about this microcosm?
- tomcam 3y ago
  That’s a great question. I had to learn about it indirectly, gathering bits and pieces from novels of the time and offhand mentions in Beatles biographies.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Search for Vaudeville and Music Hall. They were the Victorian precursors of pop, with their own superstars, top-selling writers, and classic songs - now mostly forgotten. There's quite a bit of Music Hall in McCartney's songs. (Lennon called it "That granny crap.") One of the reasons copyright exists in the form it does is because many Victorian houses had pianos. Without recording technology there was a huge, incredibly profitable market for sheet music of light classics and music hall hits that could be played at home. There's also a series of books by Simon Napier-Bell, who used to be a famous (notorious) pop manager in the 70s to 90s. Three of them are hilarious and frequently disturbing autobiographies and comments on the business. The fourth is Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay, an almost academic account of the music business from the early 18th century. There are some real surprises, and also a lot that's surprisingly familiar.
  - tomcam 3y ago
    Can't wait to read these, thanks. Your answer was so much better than mine!

temporallobe 3y ago

I’ve thought about their composition skills a lot though the years, being a musician myself. I’ve come to the conclusion that they are more than the sum of their parts. After they broke up, each of them were still pretty good and popular artists, but the magic was gone. None of them were particularly virtuosos on their instruments either, but, TOGETHER, there was a catalyst between them that sparked pure songwriting gold, and each of them knew exactly how to add to the song to make it just right. Add to that Martin’s genius of production and his own musical talents, and that’s what made them magical. As I watched in this series kind of fumble their way through some of the compositions, I initially often thought the ideas were less than stellar, but then I witnessed the magic of them building the song, together, eventually molding and shaping it into something beautiful. I’ve been in bands myself and have experienced some of this myself, and also imagine many other bands work that way, but The Beatles had an extra spark most others did not. Only a few other bands in history have had that spark and you could really feel it, e.g., Nirvana, Queen, Led Zeppelin, early Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd. I don’t think we’re likely to ever have that kind of magic in popular music ever again.

strunz 3y ago
Paul was most certainly a virtuosic bass player, and both he and John could be called virtuosic singers. At least by rock music standards.
- polishdude20 3y ago
  Hearing actual virtuoso bass players, I'd say Paul isn't really a virtuoso. A lot of his bass lines are very simple. He's more of a piano player than a bass player.
  - strunz 3y ago
    Virtuoso does not mean "plays a lot of notes". Music isn't an olympiad. Paul is virtuosic in his creativity and originality, note choices, rhythms, tone, as well as playing many complex parts in relation to the rest of the song.
  - 3y ago