043 - Day Tripper - Elaine Caswell

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Song - Day Tripper

Artist - Elaine Caswell

Original Version Recorded October 16, 1965

Roger And Dave Version Recorded: September 4, 2009

Vocals - Elaine Caswell

Ukulele - Roger Greenawalt

Cello - Nathan MacCormack

Everything Else - David Barratt

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste, Brooklyn

Arthur Schopenhauer said that every action in the universe was driven by The Will; broadly speaking, the ceaseless desire to live. But this, he argued, left us swinging pointlessly between suffering and boredom. The only escape from the tyranny of The Will was to be found in art, and particularly in music.

Arthur was, of course, wrong.

Music, more than anything else, is an act of The Will.

The writing of Day Tripper is an example of this. After an exhausting touring schedule from 1962 - 1965, The Beatles needed a hit for the Christmas market. They were tired and irritable. But you would never know it from listening to their recording of Day Tripper.

This is the sound of a confident band. At the top of their game then as much as Lionel Messi or Alex Rodriguez are today.

The song begins with a simple yet deadly riff. The form is a modified 12 bar blues. The harmony singing is celestial and effortless. The drumming is adequate. The tambourine is, as usual, obscenely loud.

Day Tripper is a true Lennon & McCartney song with the chorus and the riff by John and the verses by Paul. No time for them to argue about which is the best part. They had to go for it quickly and they did and it was brilliant.

The phrase "day tripper" was a typical play on words by Lennon: "Day trippers are people who go on a day trip, right? Usually on a ferryboat or something. But it was kind of . . . you're just a weekend hippie.”

This was of course a snipe at Paul who was the only Beatle not to have done LSD at that point. Typically though, McCartney was the first to publicly announce that he had tripped. That was a rare Paul PR disaster. The same thing happened when the band broke up. Paul was the last one to quit and the first one to alert the media. That was a PR coup coinciding with his first solo release.

So who are today’s Day Trippers?

Buddhists. The most selfish, self centered navel gazing narcissists Roger And Dave know are likely to describe themselves as Buddhists. Leave aside the fact that Buddhism is a homophobic hierarchal authoritarian fantasy. The concept of reincarnation is as pernicious and evil as the concept of hell. No, it’s not enough to blow sunshine up the ass of the Dalai Lama while suffering away here on earth; you will additionally be punished or rewarded in your next life depending on your obedience now. And is the Dalai Lama elected? No. He got there the old fashioned way, like a Dupont or a Rockefeller. He was born that way. What a sad sick fairy tale.

Mothers. We’ve gone into this before. Selfishness masquerading as self-sacrifice. Why don’t they help all the worlds’ children? No, just direct genetic replicants need apply for Mom’s generosity. Here’s some advice Mom’s. Stick to cats.

Patriots. The farther away from the battlefield, the more ignorant one is of one’s own national history, the less actual knowledge, influence or education they have, the more likely that that person is patriotic.

Green Sustainable Do-Gooders. Roger And Dave heartily agree with the late great George Carlin. The Earth is in no danger whatsoever from People. It will be spinning around long after we are all gone. It is humanity that is in peril. And frankly, who cares? The Green Do-Gooders do not give a damn about future generations; they don’t even give a damn about their own generation. What they do care deeply about is being admired and rewarded right now by the other members of their baboon troop for being so caring and decent. (See Al Gore in his 30,000 square foot mansion). It’s all a cynical publicity stunt.

Anyone Who Disagree With Anything Roger And Dave Think, Say, Or Do. These people are philistines and dilettantes.

The universe began when Roger And Dave were born, and will end when we murder/suicide each other in a pay per view television event held on the space station, with all revenue going to a Patriotic Buddhist Charity For Sustainable Motherhood owned and operated by our direct descendants.

Back to the song.

One way you can tell a good tune is by how it’s been covered. Special mention should be made for Otis Redding’s Stax version where he sweats, screams, and cries his way through the song with little respect for the original melody or lyrics. Very proto-Roger And Dave. We also enjoy Jimi Hendrix’s speed crazed guitar abuse version.

The Roger And Dave version features the sultry Elaine Caswell. It is slow, slippery, and illicit. Elaine’s love object has disappointed her. She wanted more, but her partner was not able to deliver.

Bad girl but not bad enough. Bridge and Tunnel indeed.

Dandelion Wine's Nathan MacCormack’s cello is a monstrous sex-toy of vibrating bends, pulsating where you least expect it and want it most.

Strings playing the blues are like a posh girl talking dirty.

Perfection.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Elaine Caswell has made a lot of people look good including Joe Jackson. Cher, Bette Midler, Gov't Mule, Rev. Al Green, Ronnie Spector, Dolly Parton , Meat Loaf and Cyndi Lauper.

In addition she has sold a lot of products including Sears, Dr. Pepper, Chrysler-Plymouth, Pontiac, Pepsi, AT&T, Burger King, Kellogg's and Folgers.

You may have seen her on your television set on The Late Show With David Letterman, Saturday Night Live or Late Night With Conan O'Brien or heard her on the theme song for the NY Mets before every game.

She sang at Madison Square Garden with Mick Jagger at the post 9/11 Concert for NYC, the National Anthem at Shea Stadium, Budakon with Cyndi Lauper.

But her crowning glory was circumnavigating the globe in her hand made catamaran while wearing only leopard-skin 6” heels.

042 - And I Love Her - Shake Anderson

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Song - And I Love Her

Artist - Shake Anderson

Original Version Recorded February 25–27, 1964

Roger And Dave Version Recorded: August, 2009

Vocals - Shake Anderson

Ukulele - Roger Greenawalt

Everything Else - David Barratt

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste, Brooklyn from an original recording by Shake Anderson.

For best results play And I Love Her on repeat on your audio player while reading this essay.

ABOUT THE SONG

And I Love Her is a Paul McCartney ballad from the soundtrack of The Beatles debut feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. It is the first of several masterpieces he wrote for his then girlfriend, Jane Asher. From 1963-1968, Paul and Jane were the “It’ couple of what became swinging London.

There is some dispute about John Lennon helping to write the middle eight. I don’t buy it, And I Love Her reeks of McCartney’s worldview; the protagonist is cunning and confident with women.

The companion John Lennon ballad from the same soundtrack, If I Fell, is tellingly, vulnerable and insecure. If I Fell begins, “If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true, and help me understand? ‘Cause I’ve been in love before and I’ve found that love is more, than just holding hands.” That’s Lennon to a tee, complex and contradictory, eliciting a promise of monogamy from some poor girl while simultaneously threatening to leave her if she doesn’t go beyond hand holding. That is, if she doesn’t go all the way.

Conclusion: And I Love Her is all McCartney.

The melody is glorious. The first line is “I give her”. It’s low in Paul’s vocal range, but then he suddenly swoops up on the word “all”, effortlessly, like a choirboy. He then sings” my love”; the word love being the highest note of the verse melody, signifying its importance.

Second line, first verse. “And if you saw my love, you’d love her too.” Again the word love is the same highest note as the previous line. And the lyric displays McCartney’s characteristic cockiness with chicks, he flatters Jane while pointing out to all his male listeners out there in the movie and radio land that he’s got the hottest girl and they don’t.

Verse two. “She gives me everything, and tenderly. The kiss my lover brings, she brings to me.” “Everything” is clearly sex, coitus, copulation. Hot stuff for its day, no wonder he throws in the innocuous verb “kiss” to throw the parents off the scent. But rest assured, the kids knew what he meant. Eventually. By Woodstock.

The groove is Latin Lite. George plays a lovely hook on classical guitar, which has nylon strings instead of the steel strings of an acoustic guitar. It’s sends the message “Look, we’re being sophisticated and tasteful here”.

The overall vibe is very Mad Men/Hugh Hefner, closing in for the kill. She’s taken her sweater off but the bra is still not quite unfastened. It will take mood music to seal the deal.

There is one glaring arranging error that disrupts this otherwise flawless production.

And I Love Her begins in the sky blue bright key of E major. Harmonically, it is deceptive, the chords initially go back and forth between F sharp minor and C sharp minor, signifying sadness, before the sun comes out and resolves to the tonic, E major. E major hits precisely on the word “love” in the phrase “And I love her”, again reinforcing in a chordal way, the primary importance of the word, “love” Amazingly, McCartney emphasizes this word melodically and harmonically within the first 30 seconds of the song. Quick work.

All is well until the classical guitar solo. But not for the usual reasons. George Harrison’s early solos were fraught with peril, he reportedly suffered from performance anxiety in the studio, a tendency that bored the more musically accomplished Beatles waiting around for him to get take 27 right. No, something even more terrible, and utterly atrocious happens.

For the first, and last time on any Beatle recording, they do a jump modulation. It must have been George Martin’s idea, Lennon and McCartney’s self taught yet impeccable taste would have precluded such a vulgarity. But there it is, right at the top of the solo, every single instrument suddenly switches from the sky blue bright key of E, with all it’s friendly cheerful chiming open strings, to the turgid, dark plum, dour key of F.

This is heresy to Roger and Dave. I know all you civilians out there (non-musicians) are scratching your heads thinking “big deal.” But it is a very big deal. Keys are not simply interchangeable, they have definite moods. That’s why all the classical geezers were so particular about what key a given piece was written in; so particular that they would often put the name of the key in the title.

If you’re not sure what a sudden jump modulation sounds like, see any song by Brittany Spears or Christina Aquillera circa 1998-2003.

The jump modulation is a cheap hack trick used to increase the excitement of a song that probably sucked in the first place. We shun this device. It’s like suddenly putting a 20^th century city-scape behind the woman in the Mona Lisa instead of the bucolic Italian landscape that is actually there.

It’s just wrong.

Jane and Paul were ultimately unable to work it out. As Paul’s ego grew uncontrollably, Jane understandably became more and more disgusted with him. And as great as McCartney is and was, the truth is, he was simply not good enough for Jane Asher.

But Roger And Dave are.

We don’t beg often, but…we’ve written a letter. A very special letter. If you know Jane Asher, live near her, work out at the same gym as her, are the nanny for her godchild, or just see her pass by on the street occasionally, do see that she gets this.

Dear Jane,

There comes a time when even two strong, determined men must consider, if not admit defeat.

It has been a long, long…long time since you brutally broke up with Roger and Dave that Tragic Tuesday, leaving us weeping in the rain outside of your tasteful Chelsea flat. We miss that flat. And all the magic we made there together.

As we stumbled home that evening in tears, it never occurred to us that this many years later, you would not have returned a single, solitary, one of our phone calls. Or emails, letters, text messages, faxes, notes nailed to your front door, and poems attached to the legs of carrier pigeons.

And no Jane, legal documents like restraining orders don’t count.

Several years ago this would have been inconceivable, that you, our one true girl, would have forsaken us. When we were young we would waltz and rumba in dimly lit tunnels as shining white stallions would carry wagons of our love to be washed off and then smelted down into fine pieces of exquisite jewelry, which we would place secretly upon the perfection of your alabaster body as you gently slept.

Until that fateful day that you told us to get out.

We believed a love like ours, could never die. We still believe.

Oh, the endless, sleepless nights in the Roger and Dave circular bed, worrying and wondering. The languid, lonely days, unable to rise, staring at ourselves in the large oval mirror on the ceiling. This cannot stand. We must rekindle the sacred flame that is our passion; to prove once and for all, that everything we’ve lived and dreamed for, shall not die in vain.

So, Jane Dearest, it comes to this. If you doubt that we no longer love you, remove that doubt. Our love is deep. Too deep to be destroyed by the mere passage of time. Remember, forever love, that the time is always now.

Come home Jane.

We Love You.

Roger and Dave

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sam “Shake” Anderson, started recording and touring at age nine. A bassist/guitarist/singer/songwriter/producer. Shake has worked with artists as varied as Bruce Hornsby, Static Major, Steve Cropper, currently nominated for a grammy with Felix Cavalieri, Earth,Wind & Fire, Aretha Franklin, The Indigo Girls, The Spice Girls, Curtis Mayfield, Aliyah, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. He spent six years as musical director for soul music legends "The Impressions".

Shake has also worked with a great variety of Christian artists such as Crystal Lewis, Annointed, Bryan Duncan, Israel Houghton and New Breed and Avalon.

Anderson, learned the most about life when an illness stopped him in his tracks. He was told he would never perform again and had several months to live. Life as he had known it was over. While spending more than nine months in the hospital and being told he was dying he learned who he really was—not Shake as the world called him—but Sammy Louis as his doctor's referred to him.

This crisis in his life taught him what was really important. Shake overcame all the odds and rebuilt his life. These songs—chapters—are stories about making mistakes, learning lessons and rebirth. Shake says about Stories from Sammy Louis—“once you've been to the edge the middle don't matter.”

041 - Dig A Pony - Megg Farrell

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Song - Dig A Pony

Artist - Megg Farrell

Original Version Recorded: January 22-30, 1969

Roger And Dave Version Recorded: August 20, 2009

Megg Farrell: Vocals, Backing Vocals, Toy Piano, Bass Drum.

Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Bass, Sound Design.

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn.

ABOUT THE SONG

Here are some John Lennon reminiscences about this composition, Dig A Pony.

1972: "I was just having fun with words. It was literally a nonsense song. You just take words and you stick them together, and you see if they have any meaning."

1980: "Another piece of garbage."

Wrong on both counts John. Dig A Pony is a really good song. The lyrics are not obscure, nor are they non-sensical upon close examination.

Roger and Dave see two opposing styles of writing emerging during this  turbulent period in John's career and personal life. Let's give these two dichotomous characters who are fighting it out for control of Lennon's brain each a name.

  

One is Cult Leader. The other is Primal Lover.

Cult Leader sings songs like Revolution, and Come Together. . 

Primal Lover does Don’t Let Me Down, and I Want You.

What makes Pony particularly perspicacious is that Cult Leader sings the verses while Primal Lover sings the choruses.

The first word of the first verse is “I”. There are six short verses in the entire song. All six begin with “I”.

Each “I” is held for seven notes. And it’s such a beautiful seven note melody that it really only needs one vowel stretched out to get the effect. 

Now the lyrics get going. Verse one:

“I dig a pony,

Well you can celebrate anything you want,

Well you can celebrate anything you want,

Ooh.”

This is John talking about his 1968 present. Getting a pony is a classic kids dream gift. But I think by pony he means Yoko. She’s his favorite thing and after all his life is up to him and he can celebrate anything he damn well pleases. But he’s not oblivious, the bad reaction by all the people around him to Yoko is blatant and he’s angry about it. Rightly so.

Verse two. Now John talks about his past. How did he get into this predicament? He got there through a confluence of factors, firstly by founding The Beatles. Then he displayed a terrific will to power, and a fierce competitive drive. He also had rare artistic talent, and strategic situational savvy. And finally he also was very, very lucky, always in the right place at the right time. He had Mo and Jo. Hence these boastful lines:

“I do a road hog.

Well you can penetrate any place you go,

Well you can penetrate any place you go,

I told you so.”

Verse two’s got a lot of change of meaning compared to verse one considering that the only differences between them are the middle lines. Celebrate/penetrate, thing/place, want/go. Just putting those words in order is poetry:

Celebrate thing.

Penetrate place.

Want?

Go.

The chorus references two other Lennon songs from this period. Pony goes; “All I want is you.” That is very close to the chorus of I Want You She’s So Heavy. The song Because from Abbey Road is also referenced in the chorus of Dig A Pony. John demands “Everything has got to be just like you wanted to.” Why? 

“Because”.

Which is the explanation a bully gives his victim.

Verse three; John puts Paul in his place. “I pick a moon dog”. Johnny And The Moondogs was the name of a proto-Beatles group. John picked Paul to be in that group. Now suddenly Paul is all uppity and hamming it up for the movie cameras and being way too bossy for the number two guy. “Well you can radiate everything you are.” Sure, like radioactive poison, you can expose yourself to millions of people. This verse sounds like John expressing bitterness towards Paul, while thinking to himself  "Go ahead, run the band, I've had it, I'm leaving."

Verse four, the attacks are less veiled. “I roll a stoney, well you can imitate everyone you know.” Lennon is on record as saying that The Rolling Stones copied everything The Beatles ever did, and he has a point. He’s basically saying that in this verse. But by mentioning The Stones at all, he is tacitly acknowledging them as his peers.

Verse five. “I feel the wind blow. Well you can indicate everything you see.” This is a direct attack on his only other peer, Bob Dylan. Bob’s first and biggest hit was Blowing In The Wind. And a valid criticism of Dylan’s writing is that it’s filled with long lists of extraneous and extravagant detail at the expense of lyricism. And to say someone only “indicates” instead of “feels’ is a big insult to actors and other types of “authentic" artists.

The last verse is a lament about the annoying realities of partners and accountants and taxes and divorce and lawyers just litigating Lennon’s entire reality into oblivion. “Well you can syndicate any boat you row.” As if people were making money off of him singing “Row row row your boat, gently down the stream.”

Fantastic lyrics.

John performs another magnificent bloodstained vocal, not unlike Don’t Let Me Down. Even when he’s a bit pitchy, it works. Paul’s higher backing vocal is excellent. The way he climaxes on a hi falsetto note on the word “you” in the chorus is spine tingling. The song begins and ends with a funky, rather long but catchy guitar riff that is pretty tricky to play.

Pony was recorded on the rooftop of Apple Records. It was their first live performance since they terminated touring in 1966. There is a false start in this song, which we faithfully reproduce on our version in honor of the Unintended Beauty of Accidents. What caused the hiccup is unclear: if you watch the clip, just as they are getting ready to count in the song, you see Ringo blowing cigarette smoke out of his mouth, or maybe it was just his breath in the cold London winter air. There is a hesitation and you see him bending over. The performance concludes with Lennon saying "Thank you brothers. Hands getting too cold to play the chords".

This was one of John's only new contributions to the Let It Be album. Across the Universe had been written over a year before. Even though they had rehearsed and recorded Dig A Pony dozens of times, an assistant had to hold a clipboard in front of Lennon with the lyrics on it during the rooftop recording. John had a secret. He knew he was leaving the band and every minute that he didn’t pull the trigger and tell the others was another small agony for him. Yet the voluminous outtakes of the Get Back/Let It Be album also reveal a lot of funny, jokey remarks from John. He just couldn’t help it; he was a genuine natural wit, even in a depressing situation. He was the kind of guy who would have cracked a clever remark on the gallows.

The  Roger And Dave version of Dig A Pony features the fractured fairy tale world of Megg Farrell. Usually the use of toy pianos and other otherwise innocent and childish instruments like the ukulele create a happy place. But there is no joy in Meggville. The Pony is rabid. The cartoon sound effects are kind of creepy. Periodically, long forgotten vaudeville theatrical props from an overstuffed backstage locker come tumbling to the floor. It looks like Hansel and Gretel are not technically invited to dinner. 

They are dinner.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

20 year old Megg Farrell lost it in several countries.

In the last year she has played shows to great acclaim in Paris, Dublin, North Carolina and Buenos Aires.

As a first call ukulele player in New York City she has appeared on recordings of Adam Green and The Pierces but now it is time for her to shine on her own right.

After a brief sabbatical in Paris last spring she composed her song cycle: Ghost Party, a series of recordings detailing young love, loss and longing for those across the sea to be released on Rex Records this fall.

She has now taken Ghost Party and re-worked it with director Shirley Kaplan to perform at the Ensemble Studio Theatre on October 30th/31st.

040 - Mother Nature's Son - Big Tree

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Song - Mother Nature's Son

Artist - Big Tree

Original version recorded August 25th, 1969

Roger And Dave Ukulele Version recorded July 23rd, 2009

Morgan Heringer - Vocal

Kaila McIntyre-Bader - Vocals

Tom Tierney - Guitar

Luke Bace - Bass

Colin Fahrner - Drums

Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studios, Brooklyn

ABOUT THE SONG

The European journey to the East in search of enlightenment had been around long before Herman Hesse, but only became a cultural phenomenon when The Beatles embarked on their personal pilgrimage to India in early 1968, hence paving the way for countless unwashed hippie dropouts on drugs to follow.

That journey marked the creation of spiritual tourism and the beginning of the end for The Beatles. After eight years of touring, recording and mass media attention, they needed a break. George managed to persuade the other three to find Nirvana in Rishikesh with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

It didn’t turn out as planned.

Ringo was the first to break ranks and head home for that rare English delicacy, Beans On Toast. John and Paul were not far behind, suspecting the Yogi of behaving creepily with fetching female members of their party. All of this was monitored by ranks of press and TV reporters huddled outside the compound.

Not the best situation in which to find enlightenment. But happily for we, the avid listeners of the future, it was a great environment for songwriting.

John & Paul wrote at a phenomenal rate in India. Nearly all of The White Album, sizable portions of Abbey Road and some of J&P’s early solo records were written during this period. One lecture in particular by the Maharishi was the genesis of two songs. Child Of Nature by Lennon, which later metamorphosed into Jealous Guy, and Mother Nature’s Son by McCartney.

These two songs are an interesting contrast of styles. John as usual writes directly from his own experience. He’s not really interested in other people’s point of view. He doesn’t do fiction. Paul does. As one can see below from their solo album covers Lennon reveals, McCartney conceals.

On Mother Nature’s Son, Paul pretends to be a country boy laying in a field of grass by a mountain stream. In real life he was from Liverpool, where, like Brooklyn, Nature has been eradicated successfully.

McCartney is often accused of being twee and banal compared to Lennon’s brutal and realist approach. But the genius of The Beatles is that these two opposing views of the world reveal a far deeper truth than either view separately. The paradox is the meaning.

The recording of Mother Nature’s Son took place in August of that year. Outside of the studio Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were shot. Soviet tanks were crushing Czech protesters in the streets of Prague. The Tet Offensive convinced Walter Conkrite that the war was lost. South Africa’s apartheid Government seemed secure. The Chicago Police Department was using war protesters for baton practice. Students and factory workers in Paris were defending the barricades against the army, in a quixotic quest to control the means of production. Chairman Mao had gone insane and his Cultural Revolution was devastating a generation.

By all appearances, Humanity was in the throes of a very serious suicide attempt. Civilization was a threat to itself and others.

Retreating into Nature makes total sense in this context. But this song is not about that. Mother Nature’s Son deals with creating inner peace, via contemplation of the Natural World. It’s about freeing your mind. That or getting stoned and looking at all the pretty flowers.

Frankly, Roger and Dave are deeply suspicious of The Natural World. We suspect the planet has a sinister agenda. Nature, red in tooth and claw, wants one and only one thing.

She wants us DEAD.

McCartney trusts nature a bit more. Maybe that’s why Paul has a big farm in Scotland and R&D never leave Brooklyn.

It took twenty-five takes to get the basic guitar and vocal of Mother Nature’s Son, displaying Macca’s exemplary work ethic. George Martin’s understated brass arrangement is reminiscent of The Colliery Brass Bands of Northern England. The guitar part is exquisite and was sampled to great effect by DJ Danger Mouse on the autobiographical mash-up masterpiece December 4^t.h. DJDM created this piece, and the entire album it is part of, using only samples from Jay-Z’s Black Album mixed with samples from The Beatle’s White Album. Black + White = Grey. Hence Danger Mouse named his version The Grey Album.

Best album title of the last 10 years.

Disloyally, Lennon’s mercurial drinking buddy, Harry Nilsson (pictured left), covered Mother Nature’s Son. As this was at the height of John’s Anti-McCartney/I Hate The Beatles era, he must have been pissed.

The Roger And Dave version features the pensive sounds of Big Tree. We've switched up the form a bit and begun with the chorus. It also rocks at times. Big Tree features two girls who vocalize and three boys playing with each other, which like Fleetwood Mac and Swedish Nature Films, is the best of all possible configurations.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Big Tree is an angular pop band for naturalists. These five good friends have created a sound that taps into organic folk, greasy blues, ambient rock and modal jazz. Based in New York, Big Tree's mix of urban and natural soundscapes create a dynamic and elegant style that is more than habit forming.

bigtreesings@gmail.com

myspace.com/bigtreesings

039 - The Word - Radigan

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Song - The Word

Artist - Radigan

Original version recorded November 10, 1965

Roger And Dave Ukulele Version recorded August 2, 2009

Terry Radigan, Vocal, Guitar, Bass, Piano

Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Guitar

David Barratt - Piano

Produced by Roger and Dave at Shabby Road Studios, Brooklyn

ABOUT THE SONG

The Word is pivotal song for The Beatles and John Lennon in particular. It marks the transition of the word love being used as a weapon to posses an individual, (Run For Your Life, I’ll Get You) to a more universal, all encompassing love of existence.

How did John Lennon make this transformation?

Was it through hours of study of ancient texts?

Did he have access to a wise guru who imparted the knowledge of the ages upon him?

Was he visited by a Flaming Pie?

No.

All he did was drugs.

Users of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide otherwise known as LSD or acid often experience a dissolution between themselves and the "outside world". See

http://www.maps.org/w3pb/new/1962/1962_linton_2052_1.pdf

There is little doubt that Lennon experienced something like this before writing The Word.

President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs in 1969. Unfortunately the war had been lost several years earlier. Surrender was finally acknowledged by Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Control Policy on May 13, 2009, when he announced that The Administration would not use the term "War on Drugs," in future as it was thought to be counter-productive. Many believe that this will lead to the full legalization of narcotics in the 3rd or 4th Obama administration.

Roger And Dave stand firm that drugs should not be legalized as it will lead to decreased quality and a substantial rise in price.

Enough politics, back to the music

The song itself is a re-worked 12 bar blues not unlike Dr Robert or Little Child. Musically they could write this kind of song in their sleep, which they often had to do due to the touring, recording, promotional schedule of 1964/7 .

Ringo is is extremely tasteful and the usual horribly loud tambourine is nowhere to be heard. We may be mistaken but it sounds like there are two bass parts on this recording. On the left Channel a simple part follows the bass drum while on the right a more McCartneyeque riff twists and turns it’s way through the song.

The most druggy element of the recording is performed by the least druggy of humans. George Martin plays a distorted harmonium that references the indian influences that were to become standard during the next few years of Beatle recordings.

The Word was, of course, love.

The Beatles used the word Love 613 times in the lyrics of their songs. Strangely this is the same number of commandments in the Old Testament.

Coincidence? We think so.

The word “Beatles” was used only once in all of their songs but as you can see by the graphic insert that they used one word more often than any other by a very wide margin.

Sing the word - the word is YOU. Used a massive 2,262 times in Beatles songs.

Don’t believe us? Count them yourselves at

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfc8fkhx_6dwph4nc6

When J&P finished the song they wrote out the lyrics and decorated them with psychedelic imagery and gave them to John Cage for his 50th birthday. JC liked this gift so much that he threw it in a waste basket.

Sorry... That was a lie.

That should have read John Cage liked this gift so much that he reprinted it in his book “Notations.”

Our recording features the stylish Terry Radigan. Terry wore a very tasteful Stella McCartney jacket at the 1st Beatles Complete On Ukulele Festival last year and we expect her to blind us with her fashion sense whenever she appears.

This is the second version of The Word that we recorded. To try and catch the atmosphere of the original Beatles recording we added weapons grade LSD to her camomile tea. This was an error. Terry mistook Roger’s cat for The Angel Gabriel then knelt down and started worshiping it on the studio floor. She kept repeating that she knew the secret of the Magic Potato and demanded that we see the wisdom of the Eternal Bass Firestorm.

All we could salvage from this recording was her repeating the mantra “Obamaobamaobama” which you can hear distantly in the left speaker of the version we present to you today.

Enjoy!

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Some would say that Radigan sings like a bird, which is true because she is one. Not some delicate, fragile thin boned lark or hummingbird, more like a Sulawesi Goshawk or Nankeen Kestrel.

Focused, graceful, deadly.

She sings of love from the cradle, to the altar, from the divorce courts, to the grave, referencing the Great American Songbook, Nashville and Detroit.

Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill and others have covered her songs but none sing them with emotional precision of the author

hear more of her work at: www.reverbnation.com/radigan

Inquires: unmanageable@mac.com

038 - I Am The Walrus - The Newspaper Taxis

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Song - I Am The Walrus

Artist - The Newspaper Taxis

Original version recorded September 5, 1967

Ukulele version recorded - July 25, 2009

Vocal - Robert Brandow

Drums - Tyler Land

Bass - Sgt. Hank Semolina

Keyboards - Brian August

Ukulele - Roger Greenawalt

Piano Solo - Chatterbox The Cat

Produced by Roger And Dave at Shabby Road Studio and The Abattoir Of Good Taste, Brooklyn

ABOUT THE SONG

This is a tough one.

Walrus was inspired by a fan letter written in 1967 by 16 year old Stephen Bayley.

Bayley wrote that a teacher at his school (also Lennon's alma mater) Quarry Bank in Liverpool, was analyzing Beatle lyrics in English class. This amused Lennon immensely and he set out to write a nonsense song to defy analysis. The irony is that John, despite wanting to confuse critics, writes very clearly about what is going on in his life in September 1967.

Sex. Drugs. Death.

The deathly tone is set by the recent fatal overdose of Brian Epstein, the man besides the Beatles themselves, most responsible for their success. This is a genuine grief report distorted by psychedelic drugs.

John feels guilty because he's alive and Brian is dead.

John feels guilty because he gets to keep all the money and fame.

John feels guilty because John does not get to die.

Yet.

All of this is hidden in a macho lad way masked by a shameless cleverness exercise.

Line one is just the drugs talking. Synesthesia. Feeling no difference between self and other. Records are released on Corporation T-Shirts on Stupid Bloody Tuesdays. Yellow Matter Custard, dripping from a Dead Dog's Eye, Crabalocker Fishwife, Pornographic Priestess, boy you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down.

Sex is Death.

Death Is A Joke.

The lyric is a hairs-breadth away from plagiarism. When Dave was smaller than Tom Cruise there was a charming rhyme that was often sung in his Dagenham playground:

Yellow matter custard, green slop pie,

All mixed together in a dead dog’s eye,

Slap it on a butty ten foot thick,

Then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick.

Sound familiar?

The bridge is just another song entirely, in another key. B. Awful shiny key.

Sitting in an English garden on a cloudy day. The Beatles constantly mention rain because it always rains in England.

Back to the chorus:

"I am the egg-man

They are the egg-men

I am the walrus

Goo goo g' joob"

Lennon is making up a new name for himself, Walrus, because after acid he is now a different person, and his mission as received via acid is to destroy his ego.

Unfortunately this is very difficult to do when you are a rich and famous egomaniac.

Alternatively "I am the eggman" could be a reference to an Animal named Eric Burdon, who was reported to have cracked eggs upon his mistresses in an erotic manner.

Semolina Pilchard is a pun on pudding and detective Sgt. Pilchard of the Drugs Squad. He became famous for busting rock stars. He later went to prison himself for fabricating evidence. Lennon hated cops. His mother was killed by an off duty cop driving drunk, PC Eric Clague. He was never charged.

Elementary Penguin singing Hare Krishna is a put down of the Maharishi or Allen Ginsberg, take your pick. Probably Ginsberg because he ends up kicking Edgar Allen Poe, another poet.

Once at a poetry lecture attended by John and Yoko, Ginsberg said, “Poetry is best read naked,” then removed his clothes and hung a hotel notice, “Do Not Disturb,” on his penis. The Lennons left in disgust. But not disgusted enough to repeat the trick shortly thereafter for the cover of Two Virgins.

Our boy Bayley, the former obsessive fan letter writer, is now the architecture and design correspondent for The Observer. He describes himself as a cultural critic.

The ending of Walrus is frightening and desperately beautiful. The melody goes up, the bass goes down and never the twain shall meet. They get further and further apart, never to meet again.

I think after this period Lennon was only ever able to pretend to be sane.

The Roger and Dave version, which begins at the end, features the mysterious and enigmatic Newspaper Taxis.

Some say they are renegade corporate-robber barons, some say they are degenerate night club impresarios.

All we know is they occasionally show up at Shabby Road plug in their instruments and channel a sound from a far off time and place.

The piano solo is by the world famous Chatterbox The Cat. Chatterbox is an accomplished pianist, she swoons and rubs her face against cellos and she stands on her back legs and prays for greenies. Here's a video of her in action. She's a murderer.

The Newspaper Taxis have agreed to be the house band at The 2nd Annual Beatles Complete On Ukulele Festival this December 5th and 6th at n8 in Williamsburg. CLICK HERE for more information.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

One day the crowd being one Robert, one Hank, several Brians and a Tyler, too, were sitting around the haüsfrau when an unruly man came down on a smoldering muffin - which didn't help at all. But they painlessly dusted themselves awful and then, looking east (there was such a thing back then) the muffin shouted: "Henceforth you shall be the Newspaper Taxis, with an X and two P's, I think."

Of course, this caused great excrement amongst the four, who hastily ordered a fifth - and almost missed it all.

Insipid, they said "bestbuy" to the charred muffin, picked up their instruments and struck a mighty "E" chord...until it struck back. So they tried "Walrus" instead, until it was Finnish. And now they all have lucky faces, even today they do, and we hope you will too, at:

www.newspapertaxis.com.

037 - Within You And Without You

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Song - Within You Without You

Artist - Spottiswoode

Original version recorded January 28, 1967

Roger And Dave Ukulele Version recorded June 16, 2009

Spottiswoode - Vocal

Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

David Barratt - Wall of Noise

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste, Fort Greene, Brooklyn

ABOUT THE SONG

Does a human being contain a unique soul that is controlled by an external creator, or is all matter expressions of one consciousness?

Roger and Dave don’t bother themselves with such trivial questions, but in 1967 George Harrison did.

While Paul, and to a lesser extent John, were busting bullets and sweating balls constructing what many consider to be The Greatest Pop Album Ever Made (TM), George was “chilling out” and “getting his head together” and “figuring shit out” etc.

And who could blame him?

George Harrison was born into a stuffy dull-thinking, Irish Catholic family in boring black and white post-war Liverpool. He had, with very modest talent, stumbled into the middle of the world’s biggest cultural phenomenon since Hitler.

By age 21 he was more famous than the Pope but less famous than Ringo.

That kind of experience can drive you mad. It drove Harrison to a shop called “India Craft” in London where he bought an inexpensive sitar. His interest in Indian culture and Hinduism grew quickly. Hanging out with Norah Jones’s dad and other assorted gurus followed, mixed in with a lot of weed and psychedelics and before you know it there are Indian influences all over The Beatles recordings. This culminated with GH dragging the band to India, which is where they really started hating one another.

According to Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick there was lots of eye rolling when George played the song on guitar. As was often the case John and Paul were too busy to contribute to the track but George Martin put in a lot of extra effort and studio time to make it work. Maybe he pitied Harrison or maybe he was getting back some of the control he had lost to J&P on their recordings.

The backing track was recorded at Abbey Road by Indian musicians who where respected so much by The Beatles that they were not credited. We have hunted through the inter-web to find and acknowledge these players with little luck. Please forward their names to us should you know them.

To deaden the sound and make everyone more comfortable, throw rugs were placed all over Studio 2. One would expect that since the Beatles were the biggest selling act in the world they would want to make the guest musicians comfortable, but this was still Austerity Britain, so moth-eaten crappy carpets were the order of the day.

Five stars to George Martin and the London based string section on this recording. They had very little, if any, training in eastern music but do an excellent job picking the swoops and swirls. Also to Geoff Emerick, who's close mic techniques made sure one could hear the bowing of each instrument clearly.

Roger and Dave approve of the chord structure in Within You Without You. There are no chords in Within You Without You.

In our ukulele version we have slowed down the tempo and added the violence of twenty seven guitars distorting and resonating over one chord. The Explorers, SG’s , and Les Pauls falling over one another droning and aching while The Legendary Spottiswoode finds himself floating in nothingness.

He is tuning himself into the light of God, which he is anyway. He was distracted by material things for a moment but now he is part of one big ukulele consciousness. Everything is going to be just fine.

Sorted!

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Spottiswoode, described as a “genius” and a “downtown ringleader” by The New Yorker, is an Englishman who has been on the New York scene for just over a decade. His songs have been covered and recorded by numerous East Village and Williamsburg musicians, and featured in a variety of mainstream and independent films.

However, Mr. Spottiswoode’s proudest accomplishment is the more than decade-long personality cult known as Spottiswoode & His Enemies. Since their January 1998 New York debut at the Mercury Lounge, Spottiswoode has somehow been able to hold together seven of New York’s finest musicians, put out a string of acclaimed records, perform residencies at New York’s best clubs, play Lincoln Center, tour the country, cross the ocean… all with a band that doesn’t even like him.

www.spottiswoode.com

036 - Don't Let Me Down - Craig Greenberg

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Song - Don’t Let Me Down

Artist - Craig Greenberg

Original version recorded January 28, 1969

Roger And Dave Ukulele Version recorded June 30, 2009

Craig Greenberg - Vocal

Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger and Dave at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn

ABOUT THE SONG

How does it feel to be let down?

That moment when the person who is the centre of your life says “Honey there is something we have to talk about”.

When you find your business partner has bought a condo in Florida on expenses without telling you.

When your spouse turns up at your parents 40th wedding anniversary wasted, telling your sister for the twenty-first time what a slut she is.

John Lennon’s early life had a few moments like that.

He was let down by his mother Julia. She gave up the position of mother in everything but name to leave him with her sister Mimi. Later she moved in with her lover without inviting John to live with them. He really got the message then. And finally, in the summer of 1958, she had the temerity to walk in front of a drunken driver without saying goodbye to John.

Alf, his father who chose the dancehalls and vaudeville palaces of Liverpool over his family. The man who asked five-year-old John to choose between Julia or him. John chose Alf Lennon twice but as his mother walked away kinder-john began to cry and chased her.

It didn’t matter anyway, John ended up with his Aunt Mimi who hated John’s music almost as much as she hated his mother.

He was let down by the fame and power he so desperately craved as a young man. He thought the Holy Grail of celebrity would protect him from his childhood pain. He was wrong. It was even more empty than his parental relationships.

It was no wonder that when he met the woman he believed could protect him from whatever he thought the world could throw he was panicked. This love was more dangerous than than any drug he was taking. He could not afford to lose this savior.

Lennon sounds like a desperate child on this song. The voice raw even by Lennon standards. I can’t think of him sounding more vulnerable and desperate. Here was a man stripped bare, begging.

Not unlike his stalker songs (Run For Your Life, It Won’t Be Long, I’ll Get You) there is a tremendous will at work here. He will not be let down again.

Many people, including Roger & Dave, have had less than complimentary things to say about Yoko Ono but it can not be denied that she has always fiercely protected what she sees as The John Lennon legacy. It is very easy to ridicule her pretentious art, tuneless caterwauling and hyper-naive politics but she has never let him down.

Phil Spector decided that Don’t Let Me Down was not good enough to be on the Let It Be album. Spector was of course insane. This is one of Lennon’s best performances.

Special mention for Billy Preston who plays piano like both Paul and John do in their dreams.George’s lead fills are perfect compliment to Preston’s piano, Ringo hits his mark but this song is all about the vocal delivery. Singers are begging to sing it at The 2nd Annual Beatles Complete On Ukulele Festival with good reason.

Don’t Let Me Down wins a Roger and Dave award for excessively cruel lyric writing

“I’m in love for the first time”

How do you think Cynthia Lennon felt when she heard that? Julian ?

Let down?

Our minimal solo ukulele version features Craig Greenberg.

Who is Craig singing to?

He never told us and we are far to polite to ask, but whoever it is in for a torrid time. That amount of desire and need is a lot to handle.

Some of our productions have been getting a little grandiose as of late so we decided to go back to a stripped down ukulele and voice arrangement.

An old ukulele will never let you down.

Enjoy.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Craig writes songs. Has done so for some time. The early ones were so so, but the new ones have been pretty good. Some have even been considered great!

Craig sings those songs in a voice all his own.

Everyone who’s seen him perform can attest to seeing his lips move.

Craig performs on piano and guitar, and is known for being quite proficient on both.Some assume he’s had far more musical training than he actually had.

He loves hearing that.

Craig’s lyrics sometimes uplift, sometimes forewarn, sometimes scathe, sometime pull on your heart strings, and sometimes just sound darn snappy.

Some think Craig may not be taking this bio thing seriously enough.

Craig is undecided.

Other tidbits:

-*Craig once made a woman in Spain cry from his rendition of the song “Let it Be”. This is a good thing says Craig

-*Craig is currently at work on his 2nd EP, to be released by end of 2009.

-*Craig has sat in with Jackson Browne on several occasions, and worked or performed with: Jane Wiedlin (the Go Go’s), members of P-Funk, the Animals, and the Violent Femmes.

www.myspace.com/craiggreenberg

www.craiggreenbergmusic.com

www.cdbaby.com/craiggreenberg

035 - Ill Get You - Golden Bloom

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Song - I’ll Get You

Artist - Golden Bloom

Original version recorded July 1, 1963

Roger And Dave Ukulele Version recorded June 6, 2009

Shawn Fogel: vocals, guitar, drums

Roger Greenawalt: ukulele, drum programming

Shank Bone Mystic: bass, keys, banjo, soul vocals

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn

ABOUT THE SONG

And Now Darlings, a reading from what our main benefactor was persuaded to pay $5,000 for what is thought to be The John Lennon’s Secret Diary…

“December 8, 1960. Arrive outside of C’s house at the usual 5 AM. Observe her father leave for work 12 minutes later. Dave the Milkman arrives 5:21, lingers in kitchen with Mum for 23minutes. They kiss goodbye on the lips for 7 seconds. Light goes on in C’s bedroom window at 6:08 AM. C is wearing dark blue pajamas with a red heart pattern. She then stands in front of the full length mirror, rubs her eyes, and brushes her hair precisely 89 strokes, no doubt lying to herself that it was exactly a hundred strokes. 6:19 C goes downstairs to WC. Back upstairs by 6:24. Undresses.

(Dedacted). She choses the lacy black bra today. 6:43, I leave my primary observation post to wait down by the corner where I “accidentally” bump into C at 6:49 while walking to school. Accompany C for 11 minutes, we speak of skiffle, pudding, cats and Elvis. Leave C at her school at 7:00. Proceed to meet Paul and smoke fags till 11.”

The grim determination. An inability to accept defeat. The relentless attitude of the winner. This is central feature of the mind of John Lennon and I’ll Get You is one of the many pieces that display his Napoleonic will to power. Did he know how big it all would get? Certainly not.

Lennon had a very complicated relationship with power. He was drawn to and horrified by it. His whole career could be seen as a tragic dance with it that ultimately ended in his own assassination. But without his ferocious drive all of the Beatles nonsense would never have happened.

I’ll Get You does sound like a bit of a rush job. You can almost hear George Martin saying “Ok boys that’s good enough let’s get some tea before the canteen closes eh?” Even so I love this song for abiding sentimental reasons, it was on the first album I ever owned, The Beatles Second Album, which was released in America in 1964.

In England I’ll Get You was the B side to their best selling single ever, She Loves You. This is more revealing.

The A side features the consummate Beatle hook “Yeah Yeah Yeah”. Like the famous haircut this was a common way to describe the Beatles in 63/64. The B side, I’ll Get You similarly starts out “Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah Oh Yeah. But there is a big difference between these songs.

She Loves You is a very dishonest song. It is about a guy talking to another guy. He’s giving the guy advice about a getting girl they both know. Now if you know anything about guys, this makes no sense whatsoever. Men do not help each other get girls, they compete against each other to get girls. Either the girl is fat and John’s sister, which I doubt, or there is an ulterior motive going on here. He’s lying to the guy and telling him to pursue the unattainable alpha girl so that he will leave alone the beta girl who John actually wants.

John always picked the beta girl. Until an alpha girl picked him.

I’ll Get You is who he really was, he was just going to get you. And so he does. In song, many years later.

Our version features the the most affable man on earth. He will seduce you with charm and skill. He has talent, good looks and the ability to light up a room. Roger and Dave advise you to sleep with Shawn Fogel any opportunity you get. You can trust him. He will never let you down.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

web: www.goldenbloom.net

myspace: www.myspace.com/thegoldenbloom

publicity: www.greenlightgopublicity.com/clients/?client=goldenbloom

twitter: www.twitter.com/goldenbloom

Golden Bloom - Fan the Flames - out August 18th, 2009!

"a sunny slice of Americana-tinged rock'n'roll" -SPIN

"redolent of mid-period Wilco" -MAGNET

"an absolute must-hear pop album of 2009" - FensePost

"the Indie rock album of the summer" -Tuneraker

"an indie-pop gem" -Microphone Memory Emotion

"easily one of the best records I have heard this summer" -Ryan's Smashing Life

034 - Revolution#9 - Dave

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Song - Revolution #9
Artist - Dave

Original versions recorded May-June 1968
Roger And Dave Ukulele version recorded January 15 2009

Dave - Vocals, Guitars, Drums
Mrs. Barratt - Vocals
Harry Feeney Barratt - Bass
Roger Greenawalt - Ukulele

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste - Fort Greene Brooklyn.

For best results put Revolution #9 on repeat while reading this essay.

ABOUT THE SONG

Is Revolution #9 a song?

Debatable.

Your mind wants so badly to impose order upon otherwise random events. Predicting the future is how we survive. But Revolution #9 is completely unpredictable. And while the mood of menace and doom is unmistakable, it’s tough to discern a story arc. It has the nervous feeling of a long drawn out druggy non sequitur. Oh it is long, almost 9 minutes. An eternity. This is what makes this piece so itchy, so scratchy.

R#9 is a howl of hostility. Hostility towards pop music, and hostility towards his partners, the other three Beatles, and their worldwide audience. It is practically an ad saying “Go Away I Hate You.” But it was too late by 1968; John Lennon was never going to be not famous. There was nothing he could do.

We know that Revolution #9 began as the coda to Revolution Take 20 that recently leaked online. Some guitar effects and Lennon singing “alright” survive from that version. But this is no longer a song in the conventional sense. We are dealing with pure sound design. Sound design is usually associated with movies and television. Revolution #9 would make a fantastic soundtrack.

R#9 was made not with musical instruments, but with loops of magnetic tape. This is a logical, Germanic conclusion to the problem of making loudspeaker paintings with tape recorder as efficiently as possible. So what we hear are lots of disparate parts that repeat in groups of 2/3/4 etc…determined by the physical limits of tapes held around capstains and pencils in real time while mixing. Crazy unrepeatable stuff. Cool.

The emotional purpose of the piece is clear, it was meant to freak everybody out. Evidently, John Lennon’s self-appointed job in 1968 was to freak out his band and the entire world. It worked. He sure scared me. And my parents. And Nixon. It was suddenly easy to be anti-Beatle in a White Republican way that wasn’t true before. The drug bust didn’t help. Being a junkie didn’t help. The naked Two Virgins record cover, the greasy long hair, the proto reality show of John and Yoko doing Bed Ins, didn’t help.

Freak out accomplished. Job well done. 60’s over.

Let’s just examine the sonic episodes (loops) in order and see if any order emerges. Start your player now. We’ll listen together.

The intro phrase is noir dystopic late night jazz piano accompanying a detached technician who gets stuck during his count down to Armageddon. He keeps repeating “Number 9, Number 9, Number 9.”

Two orchestral loops start, it’s mostly woodwinds and talking and piano again. Lots of backward stuff. Then Intense strings, back to woodwind loops, and a grandiose tympani/cymbal crash loops. I like the talking, “a little bit older and a little bit slower.” Truly frightening female/horror laughing sound effects. Followed immediately by babies murmuring, then Indian guitar. Creepy stuff.

All the greats are sampled Sibelius, Schuman, Beethoven. We have often wondered if The Beatles paid any sampling fees for those uses.

Number 9 again, the guitar from Revolution 1 appears, the sound of men in a fight, John going “right” 3 times, Number 9 again for the third time. I love the car horn car crash crescendo here at 3:14, then there’s Swan Lake on woodwinds, again, the situation is Jazz and standing still, His voice was low, and now we’re at the football game, and it’s all a dream, and Number 9 Technician Guy is back again, the woodwind oboe is back, big applause, a particular problem of his, the dentist means tripping on his first acid trip, right to Swan Lake, car horn, car crash, it’s weird that they talked about Paul being dead when it was John who almost died in a car crash. At 6:06 we get gunfire, and angels singing. It’s mad as a hatter. I like it.

And then it stops with no resolution. Or explanation. Modern, like Beckett. The Watusi, The Twist. Eldorado.

But even in this most experimental of tracks there is a chorus. Who can forget it . “Number 9, Number 9, Number 9”. Try not remembering that voice repeating if you can. It’s an excellent ear-worm that burrows deep in the mind.

R#9 opens with the chorus, just like “Help”.

Several artists had worked in this area before (Stockhausen/Cage/Varese/Nono etc) but Revolution #9’s real power came not from what is was but where it was placed. It was at the end of the most anticipated album of the year by the most important of artists.

Simply by putting something as brutal and uncompromising as R#9 at the end of a pop album changed pop and changed the cultural positioning of experimental music.

Lots of kids were turned onto the avant garde by R#9 including Dave. You can see influences of the layering technique in his works Karito at the UN and Medicino.

As a piece it is interesting but not brilliant, but as for it’s historical juxtaposition it is a work of vision. Naturally Paul hated it. A few years earlier he experimented with tape loops. It was his idea to use them on “Tomorrow Never Knows”. Paul was also the main instigator of “Caravan Of Light” another experimental piece that has yet to see the light of day.

There has been a lot talked about Charles Manson and The Beatles. It has been said that Manson and several of his followers saw R#9 as a direct reference to Revelations 9, one of the more bloodthirsty sections of the Good Book. Charlie has always insisted he was more into Hank Williams than The Beatles. Now he's in the same prison as Phil Spector.

Johns attempt to destroy The White Album’s cohesion adds to it’s dirty perfection. The breadth of the album from the chirpy Oh Bla Di Oh Bla Da to the Hellish R#9 is really breathtaking and is simultaneously the album’s strength and weakness.

Not only is R#9 scary, sexy and insane it is also a lot of fun. There are tons of jokes and faux nursery rhymes. A lot of it reminds me of the British comedian Spike Milligan. “...Then there's this Welsh Rarebit wearing some brown underpants”, could have come straight from The Goon Show.

A lot of people have asked us in a semi mocking, sneery voice “What are you going to do with Revolution 9 then?” Well now you can hear for yourself. Dave took the chorus and turned it into a heavy metal singalong taking some of the finer lyrics and chanting them in his best Stadium Rock Voice. Mrs. Lennon’s part is performed by Mrs. Barratt, the bass by Barratt The Younger. The whole thing is a family affair starring the ukulele.

Enjoy.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Dave
1960 - 1969 Learns to walk, read and chew gum at the same time
1970 - 1979 Plays a lot of cricket, grasps a vague understanding of math, buys a guitar.
1980 - 1989 Enters a recording studio, writes hits for Robert Plant, Jeffery Osbourne and mixes tons of dance music.
1990 - 1999 Pimps himself to a series of corporations to write jingles and film music. Creates the bass player on this track from his own DNA.
2000 - 2007 - Releases several records under the names Yellow Note and Dubchek, retires to Asia for a bit then un-retires.
2008 - Has his work Karito exhibited at the UN General Assembly New York.
2009 - 2012 The Beatles Complete On Ukulele.

033 - Revolution (Live) - La Res

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Song - Revolution

Artist - La Res

Original versions recorded May-June 1968

Roger And Dave Ukulele version recorded July 2009

La Res are:

Lorrell Manning: vocals, bass

John Morris: drums

Dave Riccardi : Guitar
with
Jeff Pierce - Horn

Roger Greenawalt: ukulele

Recorded live at Shabby Road, Produced by Roger Greenawalt

ABOUT THE SONG

Revolution is the song where John Lennon throws down the gauntlet. There are many revolutions going on here, on many levels. The record is spinning out of control, and so is the band and so is the planet.

There are three different versions of this song, let’s talk about them all.

The recently released Take 20 of Revolution is a revelation. At the top, John says, “Take your knickers off and let’s go.” We then hear the slow blues White Album version we are used to, without the horn/guitar overdubs. Eleven minutes later emerges the spine of Revolution No. 9, a pure sound collage piece with little apparent groove. It’s cool to see that Revolution 1 and Revolution 9 were once the same song.

McCartney describes the White Album as “The Tension Album”. Let’s consider the circumstances. Revolution 1 was the first song recorded for what was to become the White Album. The big change here was that John, without informing his partners, decided that his girlfriend, a Japanese Conceptual Artist, with little or no aptitude for music, was now in the band.

This did not go down well. But there she was, in the studio, and not really singing, but speaking along on microphone. Everyone was frightened of John because he was so intense and on junk and scary.

Yoko was oblivious and grandiose. There is film of her talking over the mixes in the control room that day.

“Beatles go faster!” Priceless.

George grew cranky through the session, at one point he angrily yells “It is that!” in response to to a statement of Yoko’s.

Yoko is the little girl at the bottom of the well who sees dead things. “If you become naked.” Really spooky. As a kid hearing Revolution No. 9, I didn’t understand it musically, but the feeling was clear.

Scary. Creepy. Sex and violence.

What if there had been a real worldwide revolution in 1968? It could have started in France.

Let’s say Danny The Red successfully led a million kids to the Elysee Palace and assumed power in France. Like U2 showing up at the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s easy to see the Beatles debuting Revolution live to a million kids in the center of Paris three days later.

It spreads. The Beatles go and play the song in Belgium, West Germany. Austria. Spain. Italy. And each government falls the day they arrive.

These new youth republics would have been viewed both as a threat to NATO/America or as vulnerable by the USSR. They would have needed to unify and find a charismatic George Washington like figure to remain independent. That person could have easily been John Lennon. His reputation was sufficiently messianic. Christ you know it ain’t easy.

He would have been killed then, instead of later.

Imagine John and Yoko as heads of state, doing Bed-Ins For Peace in Moscow and Hanoi in 1968. It’s easy if you try. In real life that’s happening in a small way with the Icelandic Imagine Peace light tower.

John is making his first official overtly political statement in song via a Beatles tune. Typically, he’s cagey and evasive, his natural pose. At this point whether he was political or not musically was academic, he’d already come out against the Vietnam War and claimed to be bigger than Jesus, big stuff in the 60’s.

“But if you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out? In?”

This is the key line in the song. Even though it’s 1968 and revolution is in the air, that is not what Revolution is about. It’ about John breaking up the band and announcing it cryptically, through this song and his subsequent strange behavior. He became the scary older brother who lived in the basement, whose room you were forbidden to enter. He needed to leave and get away for a while. Instead he stayed and freaked everybody out.

The viewpoint of Revolution is that of a non-violent junkie philanthropist. He’s detached in the extreme. Singing while lying on the floor. The song is slow and narcotic in the original version as if the singer was on heroin. When he sings “alright” I’m not necessarily convinced it is. He sounds Koreshy and Mansonic. That’s not good.

The other Beatles complained to John that the original version was too slow. So they did another, sped it up and distorted the hell out of it. This version was the B-side to Hey Jude. It also starts with a scream, a Lennon specialty.

This is the definitive version, it’s much better than the slow blues White Album version, and it was ultimately marketed as a double sided single. But when Hey Jude came out it was just everywhere and hasn’t stopped playing since. The song Revolution, along with the concept of a youth rebellion, had it’s ass kicked by McCartney and the Silent Majority.

Our version of Revolution features the activist musicians of La Res. They are usually dressed like Vietcong on maneuvers. It is an angry rebellion. With ukulele.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

La Res formed in 2007 when its three members got together and decided to create the music they couldn't find on the radio or in the store. Though radically different in personality and musical tastes, the chemistry between the three (K. Lorrel Manning on bass and lead vocals, Dave Riccardi on guitar and noise, and Johnny Morris on drums) is undeniable. This band of mystics has created a massive amount of material in a short period of time and are looking for every opportunity to get it out into the world. Manning's lyrics tend to focus on the deeply personal, political, and/or spiritual, while Riccardi finds every possible way to bring the noise, and Morris the beat. The result is music that is raw, driving, unapologetic and real. In just two years of playing such popular NYC venues as the Mercury Lounge, Pianos, and Webster Hall, the band has become known for their incredibly powerful live shows.

The trio is currently recording its first full-length CD, "Revolution," with legendary producer Roger Greenawalt at the helm. The CD will also serve as the soundtrack to Manning's upcoming feature film, "Happy New Year," which he will write and direct.

www.vivelares.com


www.myspace.com/vivelares

032 - Across The Universe - Krista Crommett

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Song - Across The Universe

Artist - Krista Crommett

Original version recorded February 4, 1968

Roger And Dave Ukulele version recorded February 15, 2009

Krista Crommett - Vocals

Roger Greenawalt - Ukulele

David Barratt - Everything Else

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste - Fort Greene Brooklyn.

ABOUT THE SONG

Imagine it’s 10,000 years from now, on a blue and white planet 10,000 light years away.

Your name is Lent Shown Jinn Noon. You are a hot Jodie Foster-like alien SETI investigator, searching the sky at various frequencies for signs of intelligent life. Your peers pity you for wasting your life tilting at theoretical windmills. Scientists of your species have been searching for 10,000 years, and in all that time…nothing.

Yes, there’s been some intriguing, almost organized noise detected in the past few decades, but nothing definite. Never an unmistakably unnatural intelligent transmission. But tonight’s the night, and suddenly a signal is there, loud and clear. You are the one who found it. Because of this discovery, your people will always remember the name Lent Shown Jinn Noon.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/across_universe.html

In 2008, to mark the 50^th anniversary of the first American space flight, NASA beamed a hi-energy radio transmission of The Beatle’s Across The Universe, literally, across the universe. It could plausibly be the first coherent message received by an alien culture.

McCartney, ever the salesman, released a statement;

"Amazing! Well done, NASA! Send my love to the aliens. All the best, Paul."'

Meanwhile Yoko was megalomaniacal and delusional as ever;

"I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets across the universe."

Why didn’t NASA hire me as their expert Exobiotic Beatles Consultant? I am so qualified for that job. But they didn’t. Instead they went and sent the wrong version of the song into outer space. They should have transmitted the Phil Spector produced Let It Be album version, but suicidally, NASA sent the World Wildlife Fund charity version instead.

The WWF version features the caterwauling off key annoying voice of Yoko Ono. If this is the first thing the aliens hear from Humanity, who can blame them for destroying us? It’s too big of a risk to take.

As a song, there is almost nothing wrong with Across The Universe. John Lennon was a recessive hurt son. He wondered why he got such a rotten deal in the first half of his life. He needed more love than most adults to feel OK. He overcompensated wildly. But crucially, he also continually questioned the meaning of his later great fortune. The second half of his life was a dramatic contrast to his childhood, and is explanatory of a lot of his subsequent ill ease with success, a problem that uniquely, Yoko was able to help him overcome. She knew exactly what to do with all his fame, power, and money. And he got to relive the first five years of his life in the last five. Nothing was going to change his world.

Across The Universe is a love song to Yoko. His world was the self-proclaimed Republic Of John And Yoko. And he stayed pretty loyal to this world, in the end.

The verses of Across The Universe are among John’s best pure poetry.

“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup they slither while they pass they slip away across the universe.”

That’s a great line, but one word in particular just floors me. “Slither”.

To use a verb for a snake to describe moving water is just strange, and beautiful. Original, and sexy, like sin.

Maybe if The Beatles had been American they would have written about spaceships. Instead, since it was always raining in Liverpool, Hamburg, and London, they wrote about submarines. They were experts at observing drizzles, puddles, pools, and torrents. They came from a wet world.

This first line is deep, like Loch Ness. I think John’s talking about consciousness, his own consciousness, observing itself, watching the ripples created on the surface of time from everything he says. Words are flowing out like water. This also indicates acid insight, the overwhelming feeling of being completely one and in sync with external reality, and seeing yourself as literally connected to the grass and the trees and the sky, as opposed to the normal everyday state of inhabiting our egos and feeling as if nature is mainly something that is attacking our precious bodies and wants us dead as a door nail.

Mother Nature does want us dead, but not quite yet. We have time to finish the essay.

“Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind, possessing and caressing me.”

Another excellent line, plenty of water imagery, employing paradox, and alluding to heroin, (possess/caress). So on top of the acid awareness we also get narcotic detachment.

Dave’s favorite line in the song is the pre-chorus, “Jai guru deva, om.” Which sounds like Jaw Ga-ru Dave-Ah. It’s the ring tone on his cell phone. The rough translation from Sanskrit is “Worship Guru Dave”.

I like the hook, ”Nothing’s Going To Change My World”. This is what he repeats and what he really means. John had access to every chemical and spiritual trend available, and always ultimately concluded that his own common sense, his own sovereign individuality, was more in touch with the larger truths than all the Gurus and Revolutionaries. He didn’t like armies, cops, or religion. He didn’t like Macho Hippies, Mao, or the extreme left much either.

His general skepticism was incredibly sane. After all the drugs and gurus he remained the same.

Across The Universe ends in Utopia.

“Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns, it calls me on and on, across the universe.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever been that happy. But it’s a lovely thought.

There are multiple versions of this song. Let’s discuss the Let It Be album version. I think it’s the best.

Musically this song is in total subjugation to the melody, the time shifts subtly and the parts are complex. It is still chamber acoustic music though, no drums. This makes it automatically girly and gentle. But Phil Spector lays it on in the mix.

I love the in-tune professional choir and orchestra. The balance of all the elements is coherent. I can understand every word even though they’re tricky. It’s a good production, but so dissimilar to the rest of The Beatles work that it really makes more sense to compare it to Lennon’s early solo work. It’s feels more John and Phil and hired hands than Beatles.

Every sound on the track is phasey. John’s rhythm guitar is the groove, and it sounds like a hi-string or 12-string playing along too, with lots of phasing that evokes tamboura or sitar. The maracas are played perfectly in the chorus. Walrus like cellos get all spooky in the fade out section. John’s vocal is very effected and doubly, and sung fantastically. It’s a more melancholy, yet energetic version of his zombie detached Come Together/Lucy In The Sky voice. There is an angry sadness about this singing. It sounds like someone trying too hard to meditate.

The reputation of Across The Universe is getting bigger and better regarded over the years. Check out Rufus Wainwright’s version, and of course the movie. Best post-Beatle Beatle movie yet.

Our version features the angelic Krista Crommett. She rose from the waters, made her way to Brooklyn and transformed herself into a swirling gothic choir for this recording. The song culminates with the Kristachoir repeatedly singing the name of Dave’s favorite deity.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Krista Crommett spent her formative years as a mermaid swimming and singing in Maine ponds and lakes. She sometimes even braved the frigid sea. A strong sense of wanderlust, boredom, and curiosity led her further south to New York City. Due to lack of peaceful (and sanitary) waterways in which to frolic, she left the water to forge her way on land. Krista has lived in Seattle, Ireland, Long Island, New York City, and Maine. Her recently completed debut solo EP is titled “Private Parade”. It is her siren song.

www.KristaCrommett.Com

myspace.com/kristacollinsmusic

031 - Why Don't We Do It In The Road - Angela Reed

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Song - Why Don’t We Do It In The Road

Artist - Angela Reed

Original version recorded October 9-10, 1968

Ukulele Version recorded May 14, 2009

Angela Reed - Vocal

Kenny White - Keyboards & Guitar

Roger Greenawalt - Ukulele

David Barratt - Keyboards & Rhythm

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste - Fort Greene Brooklyn.

ABOUT THE SONG

The Beatles went to India to find themselves but destroyed their marriages instead. Paul McCartney saw two monkeys spontaneously fucking in the road in Rishikesh, and wished that it could be that easy for people. That’s what this song is about.

India blew their minds, and many great songs came from that. If only there had been the technology to send the Beatles to Mars, or more realistically, the Moon. How much cooler would it have been if 40 years ago, instead of Neil Armstrong taking the first step on the moon, if it had been John Lennon?

But the story here was Paul and John were growing sick of their wives/current girlfriends, and each other.

Why don’t they do it in the road?

The lyric should be changed from "no one will be watching us" to "everyone one will be watching us", and always will be, because we are Beatles. It’s a gravitational field.

There is Bad Karma in the production of WDWDIITR. Paul excluded George and John from the recording of it, reviving sore points going back to Yesterday, and contributing to the overall lack of quality control.

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road is a twelve bar blues, the most boring of all possible three chord progressions, and it never develops. McCartney’s vocals heroically manage to redeem the banality of the tune; with such a good imitation Little Richard vocal in such a fabulous gay exuberant tone that the recording feels preordained and to have always existed.

But it is a blight.

And there it is on The Black Vibe White Album.

It was 40 years ago this month that Beatles ceased to exist. But why did they exist in the first place? Ringo gave a good explanation.

In 1963 England stopped the draft, and started to pay for kids to go to college for free.

The rise of the Beatles and The English Invasion is a direct demographic function of Music and Art students fulfilling their creative potentialiality, instead of an entire generation of young Americans wasting away the prime of their lives in the Army.

If Britain had had the draft The Beatles would not have existed. Britain did have the draft in the 50’s and some of the worst popular music came from those shores during that period. See Tommy Steele, Lita Roza, and the awful Jimmy Young.

America even sent Elvis into the army. I think the test for any civilized country is that you never put Elvis in the Army. But America did, and The King was never the same. Never quite as dangerous, he’d been tamed.

40 years ago this month the Manson family ended the sixties. Today Squeaky is free. Woodstock happened. Dylan ignored it. The Beatles didn’t go. But they were over, the whole decade was over. That was the message of August 69. Death.

There is a grim balance between the August 69 Woodstock Nation, numbered half a million, and the 514,000 American troops serving in Vietnam that same month. America was rich and crazy enough to do both at the same time! Amazing. Tragic.

What if America had sent those 514K boys to Art School instead of Vietnam? What treasures, what masterpieces would we be living with now?

Had Roger and Dave been in charge we would have sent half a million hippies to Vietnam with ukuleles. So much cheaper than M16s.

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road is a song about sex but Paul despite being cute, is not sexy.

Angela Reed is.

She will make you do things that you don’t want to do and then make you realize that you really, really wanted to.

She will leave you in a pool of shame and sweat.

You will feel bad about yourself, with no regrets.

Enjoy her if you dare.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Stats:

Born: March 18, Portland, Oregon

Grew up: Seattle area

Favorites:

Color: blue

Food: Moms home cooking. Wow!

Books: Non-Fiction in general/history, nutrition, religion, human studies,

Wake Up Song: Far by The Longpigs

Album Of The Moment: Gusters Keep It Together

Coffee: Sweet, soy, and ristretto

www.angelareed.com

www.cdbaby.com/cd/angelareed

www.myspace.com/angelareed

030 -Don’t Bother Me - Delaverde

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Song - Don’t Bother Me

Artist - Delaverde

Original version recorded September 11-12, 1963

Ukulele Version recorded May 2009

Vocals - Marlon and Luis

Drums - Anthony Rondon

Guitar - Karen Gonzales

Bass - Durban Laverde

Ukulele - Roger Greenawalt

Fiddling while Caracas burns - David Barratt

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste, Fort Greene, Brooklyn from original recordings made Delaverde in Caracas, Venezuela.

For best results play Don’t Bother Me on repeat while reading the essay.

ABOUT THE SONG

Don’t Bother Me is the first song written by George Harrison and it sounds like it, young and insecure. It is also the first Beatle song written in a minor key, another insight into Harrison’s personality.

Harrison was dour, taciturn guy, even by cynical Liverpudlian standards. Untalkative, rarely cheery, he hid a dry, bitter sense of humor. Harrison did not enjoy most of the aspects of fame. What he liked was music and money. Of the four group members, George and Paul followed the flow of them both most closely.

John and Paul were vastly richer than George and Ringo because of song writing revenue, and George knew it.

It would take George more than 5 years to write a truly great song (Something), but hey, you gotta start somewhere. In the meantime his various second rate contributions to earlier Beatle albums became the basis of a fortune greater than most human beings will ever accrue.

Don't Bother Me is also the first clinically depressed Beatles song, a style of self-pity that John Lennon would make very much his own circa late 64-65. For early Beatles though, Don’t Bother Me is very off message, especially compared to the celebratory teen anthems like She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand that they were then trafficking in.

The lyrics sound like George is lovesick and in need of vacation. He wants Brian, Neil, Mal, and the rest of the world to bugger off so he can concentrate on crying over his current Bridget Bardot-doll fixation. Why doesn't she return his clumsy calls and longing letters?

Unlike Lennon, who in response to this turn of events would stalk, threaten, and blame the girl, George is such a pathetic wuss that he blames himself.

“Since she's been gone I want no one to talk to me.

It's not the same but I'm to blame, it's plain to see.

So go away, leave me alone, don't bother me.”

Not quite eloquent but two points for the internal rhymes.

“I can't believe that she would leave me on my own.

It's just not right when every night I'm all alone.

I've got no time for you right now, don't bother me.”

Who is George addressing here? The hundreds of proto-groupies constantly swarming around?

Complaining about his relentless work schedule? Hoping the girl who dumped him will hear the song and come back to him? Had he temporarily run out of amphetamines and crashed chemically?

My best guess is drugs.

I enjoy snarky English slang acronyms. NVI, (Non-Visible Income), describes someone who mysteriously seems to be living wildly beyond his or her means. SOHF, (Sense Of Humor Failure) is taking something unimportant far too seriously. And my favorite is OPRAH, (Other People Really Are Hell). OPRAH is a worldview that George Harrison would have related to. It must have been a total drag for such a misanthrope to have to deal with so many fucking people every day of his life. Never alone, never anonymous.

I like my job and friends plenty, but the truth is that the happiest hour of my day is spent reading the papers over breakfast by myself in the morning. The key factor here is, the complete and total absence of conversation with other people. What bliss. Don’t bother me indeed.

It would be nice to say something positive about the production of Don’t Bother Me. But there is little to praise here. The Latin-tinged groove Ringo plays makes no sense in the context of this chord progression and tempo. George’s double tracked vocals are botched as usual, and he commits one of the very few crimes against pitch in all of the Beatles oeuvre. Of the doubled vocals singing on the word “me” on the very first line of the song, one is drastically flat. A lot of the vocal doubles are messy rhythmically. I blame the producer. But this is also symptomatic of the scant attention paid to George and Ringo songs compared to John and Paul songs.

George was a fine singer, they just didn’t spend enough time on it that day. Check out his double tracked vocals on Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven from side two of the same album. It’s a great performance, youthful, exciting and sexy. I’ll bet George had sung Roll Over Beethoven hundreds of times live, conversely, Don’t Bother Me, according to our research, was never publicly performed.

He simply needed more practice.

George’s guitar solo starts off imitating the vocal melody and then peters out into nervous noodling. Lennon plays an psychotically loud tambourine on the backbeat. Sometimes he respects the stops in the groove, and other times he doesn’t give a toss and plays right through. You can barely hear the backbeat snare on the drum set over Ringo’s dull but loud open hi-hat playing. McCartney manages to get nothing wrong on the bass. However, this is insufficient to save the recording.

Roger And Dave recently devoured recording engineer Geoff Emerick’s memoir, Here, There, and Everywhere. He describes, we think accurately, Harrison as unfriendly, and their weakest link musically, then goes on to generously praise George’s growth as an artist and producer.

Roger and Dave believe that George flowered more than any other Beatle between 1962-70. Listen to masterpieces like Something or Here Comes The Sun. Compare George’s sublime playing on the later Beatles recordings to the childish noises he was responsible for when the band began. Even more impressive is his journey from selfish boy to spiritual man while under the toxic spotlight of fame. Had you given young Roger or Dave that sort of attention we would have turned out more Kim Jong Il than Hare Krishna.

I'm going through a rather disturbing anagram phase. Here are some rogered anagrams of the name “George Harrison”.

“Gonorrhea Grise”. An elderly man who has survived a social disease.

“Orgies or hanger?” asked the gynecologist.

“A Rogering Horse”. Modesty prevents...

The Roger And Dave version of Don’t Bother Me is our first foreign language escapade. The lyrics to DBM are much better in Spanish than English. It is an honor to have the multi-talented Derban Beatencourt involved with The Beatles Complete On Ukulele.

R&D would love to have more foreign language renditions to include in our epic quest. We already have French and German versions on the way, but we invite Icelandic, Burmese, and especially Ethiopian artists to contribute their oral talents to our endeavor.

Tigrinya caressed by the ukulele is very heaven.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Delaverde are from faraway Venezuela, and have been together for several years. Stylistically diverse, Delaverde respects no known musical boundaries. Their founder, bassist Durban Laverde, has played with many unknown British artists, like Jimmy Page, Manfred Mann, Joan Armatrading, and Mick Jagger, as well as the world famous David Barratt. Anthony Rondon plays drums and percussion, Karen Gonzales is on guitar, and Marlon and Luis, from Los Elfos, supply guest vocals. Delverde is putting the finishing touches on their new album, Delavede Y La Iguana Brass, which features Vicente Frejeiro (Venezuelan Symphonic Orchestra) on trumpet.

029 - Getting Better - Superconductor Music

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Song - Getting Better

Artist - Superconductor Music

Original version recorded March 1, 1967

Ukulele version recorded May/June 2009

Aaron Lyon : Guitar, Bass, Vocals

Roger Greenawalt : Ukulele, Lap Steel Guitar

Isabella Serrano : Extreme Method Acting

David Barratt : Wall Of Electronica

Produced by David Barratt at The Abattoir Of Good Taste, Fort Greene, Brooklyn from original recordings made by Superconductormusic.com, Chico, California.

For best results play Getting Better on repeat while reading the essay

ABOUT THE SONG

Getting Better is a McCartney/Lennon song from that most famous of Beatle’s albums, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The musical idea is primarily Paul’s; consequently, he sings the lead vocal. But we are drawn to the few phrases in Getting Better that stick out like a sore psyche.

Paul proclaims in the chorus “You have to admit it’s getting better, a little better, all the time”. John, answers in falsetto, (the voice of a child), very characteristically; “It can’t get no worse.”

This simple little line is typical not only of John’s cynical Scouse worldview, but also of his seemingly limitless lyricism.

The BBC received pronunciation of these words would be, “It could not get any worse.”

Instead Lennon sings, “It can’t get no worse” which flows better, and scans rhythmically with the melody. It is poetry, not prose, in a paradoxical pose.

Paul is no slacker either on the poetic level. Within just the first five words of the chorus there are two internal rhymes, You/to, admit/it’s. There is tight “t” alliteration with to/admit/it’s/getting/better/little/better/time. The line ending rhyme of “time” and “mine” is slightly strained, but otherwise the writing is strong.

Verse two is tricky, and totally Lennon. “I used to be cruel to my woman I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved.”

How did John convince Paul to sing this? An admission of domestic abuse goes totally against McCartney’s carefully cultivated public image; wife beating is the ultimate atypical topic for him. Paul is a cheerful pusher of positivity, his inclination would have been then, and remains today, to be vague in the extreme concerning any possible embarrassing one legged subjects of any sort.

“I beat her?” That’s a shockingly honest thing to admit, even in the pre-feminist period of The Summer Of Love. Only Johnny Cash of John Lennon’s contemporaries would have been nihilistic enough to say, “I stabbed a dwarf on the beach in Reno for no reason whatsoever just to see how it felt.”

John, a recovering sociopath, seems to have gradually realized by 1967 that his own past abusive behavior was unacceptable. Unusually for such a young and powerful person, he continued to learn. This shows good character. If I had had his level of power and fame by age 23, I am certain I would have become a smug monster. Some may say I have become one anyway.

Musically this song screams McCartney. I like the chorus a lot. It is the same chord progression, I, II minor, III minor, IV, as the verse of Here There And Everywhere.

This is about as happy as chord progressions get. Here There And Everywhere is in the key of G, Getting Better is in the even brighter, perkier key of D.

Roger and Dave, as we have said before, are suspicious of chords. Like the United States of America, we don’t even think chords actually exist. The concept of harmony described by chords is only a lazy mental virus passing from person to person. Multiple moving melodies are all there is. Chords are a fiction. Dave has explored this further in his infinitely long chord-less works Karito and Medicino.

What is so great about the chorus of Getting Better is the static A note played in octaves at the 14th fret (that’s hi) on guitar against the other moving parts. This guitar part is doubled on piano by the end of the song. The tone of the guitar part is awesome; it has a chiming, percussive, bell like quality. Also droning on one note in various spots is an Indian instrument, the tamboura. It provides sustain as well as the buzzing of sympathetic strings, providing a whiff of curry to these otherwise lilywhite proceedings.