024 - It Won't Be Long - Ben Walker

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Song - It Won’t Be Long

Artist - Ben Walker

Original Version: Recorded July 30, 1963

Ukulele Version: Recorded June 28th, 2009

Ben Walker: Vocals, Piano, Guitar

Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Natalie Barratt: Ben's Long Suffering Mother

David Barratt: Everything Else

Produced by David Barratt at The Abbatoir Of Good Taste and Ben's Bedroom.

It Won’t Be Long is an early Beatle song by John Lennon. It is simple and to the point.

“It won’t be long yea, till I belong to you.”

Not really.

What John actually means is, “till you belong to ME.”

How did the Beatles get to the apex of the tippity-top? And stay there for 40+ years?

Believe me when I tell you, there was a shit load of luck involved. Nevertheless, The Beatles success was in no way an accident. Yes, John, Paul, and George had to be born around the same time and place and meet. They had to get the gig in Hamburg, and succeed there. Brian Epstein, George Martin, and Ed Sullivan, had to be impressed in order. Over time there was less luck, more skill. But where did that first primeval spark of what now in retrospect seems like their inevitable triumph come from?

It came from John Lennon’s head.

He just made it up. He believed it. And it happened.

Certainly it is an open question how much of reality is a function of just believing in it. To look at a girl, like her, and think, “she’ll be mine.” Then God punishes you and grants your wish and now she's your girlfriend. Great.

My personal view is that with total positive thinking and a good work ethic you can affect your life outcome maybe 1% to 2% in you favor. My dad, who is 78, thinks reality is 100% in your mind, that you create the world every moment, simply by observing it. Collapsing the wave.

Maybe he’s right.

There was a ferocious will to power in the mind of Lennon. It’s obvious in the music, and in his life. That is what “It Won’t Be Long” is about. It really doesn’t matter what favor, sexual, chemical, or financial, John wants from you. In the end, you are going to give it to him. Because he will not give up. It is his destiny. And it won’t be long.

The Beatles, while the greatest band of all time, were not perfect. We’ve discussed already how much better it would have been if they were gay and having sex with each other, and writing about it. Similarly, the band was boring visually. They did not move. They did not dance. Their version of the Moonwalk was Paul and George shaking their hair while singing the hi note “woooo” during “Twist and Shout” and “She Loves You”.

That was it. No light show, no stage set, not even a banner behind them that said The Beatles. They basically played off the back of a flat bed truck on second base at Shea Stadium.

Lennon was aware of this problem. It’s why he criticized Mick Jagger for all his “Stupid faggot dancing.” Out of insecurity. If Lennon had lived into the 80’s he would have hated Michael Jackson and his MTV mini-movies. He would have found it threatening, unlike McCartney, the consummate showman, who collaborated and befriended MJ.

Elvis moved. Amazingly. Singing and dancing always go together. They are two faces of the same force, like sex and violence. Why didn’t Lennon learn to move well on stage like his hero, Elvis? Conversely, why didn’t John Travolta circa Saturday Night Fever start singing and become a pop star? It makes no sense.

John may have written the song Instant Karma, but we may now have to face the fact that a major power on our planet is Paul McCartney’s Karma.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s been a vegan for 30 years. Two or three murders per day for thirty years adds up to quite a pile of poultry, pigs and cows. And the mark of someone with good karma is that bad things happen to the people who wrong them.

The break-up of the Beatles was ugly, stupid, and unnecessary. And it was all Lennon’s fault. By doing this, Lennon massively betrayed McCartney. And John dithered away his last 5 years, ultimately putting out a pathetic pussy-whipped final album in 1980. Double Fantasy to me sounds like a prisoner writing love songs to his jailer. Stockholm Syndrome. Very Patty, and Hearst. Citizen Kane, insane.

John became a superfluous celebrity, more valuable dead than alive. Dangerous. Bad.

Lennon massively underestimated McCartney. He got fat and lazy like Henry The VIII. John went crazy in a Caligula-like way. McCartney never did that. Paul never became a junkie, or molested little boys. He had an enviable 30-year marriage. He remains solidly on earth today. Mo and Jo. Getting laid in Amagansett. Getting paid. Grounded. Focused.

Paul is very good at business, possibly the best any living artist has ever been in his lifetime. But he would be massively richer now if he hadn’t befriended Michael Jackson, and stupidly advised Michael Jackson to invest his money in Music Publishing Catalogs. Invest in what you know is great classic Warren Buffett-like financial advice. Roger and Dave's friend Warren knows Coca Cola, and Geico. Paul knew Buddy Holly. That’s what he bought.

Michael Jackson secretly outbidding Paul McCartney for the Beatles catalog is the worst personal betrayal any major artist has ever committed to another major artist. It is Madoffian in its Moral Auschwitz worldview.

There is reason to believe that MJ knew from Paul approximately what Paul was bidding on the Beatles publishing in 1985, in the $40 million dollar range. Paul knew there was another bidder but he didn’t know it was Michael. To buy the Beatles catalog out from under his mentor McCartney, would be like Picasso buying the rights to Matisse. Obscene. And Jackson’s $45 million dollar eighties investment is now 25 years later worth a reputed $1 Billion. Wow.

But look how things turned out in the end. Lennon dead at 40. Jackson dead at 50.

The evidence is in.

Don’t Fuck With Paul McCartney!

You are not going to win. He will kill you, take your life-force and live to be a hundred. It is written in the stars.

There have been some reports that Michael Jackson left the Beatles catalog to McCartney in his will. How fucking delicious would that be! And not to Yoko? We’ll find out soon.

There’s only one Beatle on the best selling album of all time. Thriller.

Paul McCartney.

The King Is Not Dead. Long Live the King.

It Won’t Be Long now, till you belong to him.

Roger and Dave will be there at City Field July 17 to see Paul McCartney do his 2 song Michael Jackson tribute at the climax of his set on ukulele. Roger thinks he’ll do “I’ll Be There”, and “Billie Jean”. Dave expects Paul to sing “Ebony and Ivory” in blackface to show solidarity.

Our version of “It Won’t Be Long” features the multi-talented and charming Ben Walker. We love Ben despite the fact that he is, at this moment, sitting in his bedroom playing “World Of Warcraft,” while he fantasizes about wooing the girl who has rejected him. Of course she has not rejected him at all. Ben is invisible to her because he is always in his bedroom fiddling on his computer. As he progresses to each higher level, Ben leaves her, and reality, further and further behind. His mum has made him a very nice sandwich and wants Ben to re-enter the family. But our hero continues to dive deeper and deeper into a Neverland of his own making. Ben claims “It Won’t Be Long,” but we believe it will be a very longtime indeed...

We are worried.

Ben.

Ben?

Ben???

BEN!!!

Ben Walker is defined by the following hyperlinks:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYP-wBaqQAI (the Twitter Song - Ben's big hit)
• http://ihatemornings.com (a blog about music and social media)
• http://twitter.com/ihatemornings (a very active Twitter account)
• http://facebook.com/ihatemornings (Facebook for the non-Twitterers)
• http://ben.walkerpedia.org (Ben's self-maintained encyclopedia of himself)
• http://secondhead.co.uk/poshcast (three rural oxford chaps having a chinwag)