Re: Meatus...
Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 1:11 am
Coming first to Jonone's point. I wasn't getting at McCartney. I definitely see both points of the argument. Since very early in the bands career up until roughly the Help! album, Lennon was the driving force of the group, and 10 out of the 13 Lennon/McCartney collaborations on the album were written by him. Around about Rubber Soul & Revolver the partnership was still fairly equal, though still operating as seperate composers they were bringing in roughly the same amount of material as each other. But around this point McCartney started edging ahead of Lennon in terms of getting his songs on A-Sides of singles & from Sgt. Peppers.... onwards he was the driving force of the band. There is absolutely no doubt that the band would have split up after Revolver if it wasn't for Paul. And they definitely would have imploded after Pepper if it wasn't for Paul. But from the others point of view, particularly Harrison, then Lennon. They saw McCartney as a school master, and a stickler for getting songs "just so". They felt they had worked so hard and achieved all their fame to allow them more time to work on things and other projects. And for more relaxation in the studio. McCartney ever the perfectionist in the studio, would not or could not allow this to happen. But without him the group would have lost much of their focus. Let's not forget that a mere 3 days after finishing recording on Sgt Peppers which took the band almost 6 months to record he had the group back in the studio recording the title track to a film he had thought up called 'Magical Mystery Tour'. He wanted to crack on straight away so as not to give the others anytime to come up with anything else outside the group. The film was messy, his only idea was that the film would be about the band taking a Charabanc trip on a bus. He had no script & drew a big circle on a piece of paper and filled in sections of ideas he had (like a pie chart) of what they would film. McCartney ended up the de facto director, but anyone could fill in a section of the circle with an idea and it would be filmed (ie Lennon's idea of being a waiter & serving a fat lady spaghetti with a shovel). But both Lennon & particularly Harrison enjoyed filming the movie. And were as shocked as McCartney by the critical backlash the film received. Remember McCartney's ego was such that he insisted on Michaelangelo Antonioni visiting his home while he was filming 'Blow-up' and showing him his own 35mm films! But yes certainly, without McCartney, they wouldn't have made as much work and we would have definitely lost out on "The White Album", "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be".
McCartney announced that he was leaving The Beatles before Let It Be was released and he released his solo album "McCartney" a full month before Let It Be. This was to get his album out first & get it ahead on sales and to show that when Let It Be was released it was by a defunct band. Instead of giving interviews for the album, he sent out copies of the LP with cardboard Q&A's to the press of general questions they would want to know. Stating "he did not know whether the groups break-up would be temporary or permanent".
From the Beatles break-up till the 80's Paul & George did have nothing to do with one another. They never spoke or where in the same room together. Though publicly, there was a bigger fued with John and Paul. John was genuinely angry that Paul had ended the group as he had wanted to. Then John accused Paul of writing songs about him on "Ram", specifically the songs "Too Many People", "Dear Boy" and "3 Legs" and having a photo on the sleeve of 2 beetles having sex or as Lennon put it "1 beatle fucking another beatle in the ass". Which McCartney later confirmed were aimed at John. In reply to this John mocked a photo of himself in the "Ram" cover photo on an insert of his "Imagine" album, though instead of holding a Ram he was holding a Pig as he sais "Paul is nothing but a pig". And he recorded the scathing attack on McCartney "How Do You Sleep?" which included the lines "So Sgt. Peppers took you by surprise? You better see right through your mothers lies". "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead" (referring to the "Paul Is Dead" controversy). "The only thing you done was Yesterday/And since you've gone you're just Another Day" which is a reference to McCartney's song "Yesterday" and his 1st solo single "Another Day". As well as the line that McCartney claims upset him the most "The sound you make is Muzak to my ears" referring to Lennon's ascertation that McCartney composed "Elevator Music". The chorus was also originally "How Do You Sleep, How Do You Sleep you Cunt!" Before being changed to "How do you sleep, How do you sleep at night?" This is the sessions for the album "Imagine" which Harrison played on that you are referring to, he played on the tracks "Oh My Love", "Oh! Yoko", "I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier", "Crippled Inside", "It's So Hard", "How?", "Gimme Some Truth" and "How Do You Sleep". He plays a fantastic solo on "Gimme Some Truth" and possibly the greatest solo of his entire career on "How Do You Sleep". That is one of the things with that song, although its particularly scathing, its such a good song. Easily in Lennon's Top 5 solo recordings. Harrison also played on Lennon's "Instant Karma" single and wrote and played on Ringo's song "Photograph" himself, Lennon & McCartney all wrote songs for Ringo's album "Ringo" With Harrison writing 3 tracks, McCartney composing 1 and Lennon composing 1 track "I'm The Greatest" which Starr, Lennon & Harrison all played on together provoking furious Beatle reunion rumours. McCartney also played on his composition on the album "Six O' Clock" making this the 1st time all 4 Beatles had appeared on the same album since the split. After the release of the "Imagine" album and specifically "How Do You Sleep?" Paul wrote a reply on his Wings "Wildlife" album called "Dear Friend" which is such a beautiful song and questions how they had come to this point in their relationship, whilst attempting a reconciliation. This song shows that McCartney is not the emotional lightweight that many people think he is. Lennon's antipathy towards McCartney cooled, especially as you rightly pointed out that McCartney was right about Allen Klein. And during Lennon's "lost weekend" apart from Ono, McCartney and him recorded at the Record Plant in LA. May Pang who was Lennon's lover at this time reportedly has the results on tape! They were also friendly from 1975 till Lennon's death in 1980. They also spent the day together on April 24 1976 in New York and in Lennon's apartment in the Dakota just a month after Paul's dad died. They spent some time reminiscing and playing guitar and watched Saturday Night Live were Lorne Michaels parodied the Million dollar offers they were getting for Beatles reunions saying he would pay them $3000 to perform. Lennon and McCartney both confirmed they almost went to the studio as a gag, but decided not to. Lennon also says of their relationship post '75 "That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, 'Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.' He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door". All through this time Harrison still wasn't talking to McCartney. Harrison and McCartney were reunited on Harrison's tribute song to Lennon after his death "All Those Years Ago" and again at Starr's wedding to Barbara Bach. Following which they were friendly again until 1986 when Harrison, Starr and Ono all sued McCartney. Only for the pair to be reunited again at the "Free As A Bird" session and subsequent "Anthology" project. Though some of the scenes on "Anthology" at Friar Park are rather frosty, with the 2 of them together. And they were supposed to record 3 new tracks for the "Anthology", "Free As A Bird" for Anthology 1, "Real Love" for Anthology 2 and an un-named 3rd track of Lennon's which Harrison vetoed as he didn't like the other two!
As for Allen Klein you are dead right, after Brian Epstein died the running of Apple was left to his assistant Alistair Taylor. But the Beatles had a majority say over everything and wasted money on Apple Films, The Apple Boutique, Apple Electronics and Zapple. The only thing that made money was Apple Records. Thats when they decided to get Allen Klein in, though Paul was against it preferring Lee Eastman, who was Linda's Father. The other Beatles vetoed that by saying he would be biased for you against us. With a 3 to 1 vote it should have meant Klein was giving the nod, so McCartney left Apple and signed with Eastman, the other 3 went with Klein. And Taylor was fired and replaced with Neil Aspinall. The other Beatles sacked Klein in the 70's and took him to court. McCartney now vindicated conveniently forgot that he proposed Allen Klein to take over as their manager in 1966 when he got the Rolling Stones a ?2 million advance from Decca. The "smelling like an Alley cat" line came from a song called "Steel & Glass" from Lennon's 1974 album "Walls & Bridges" which is about Klein and a sort of sequal of "How Do You Sleep" using the same string melody only this time played on horns.
The Stones still rue signing with Allen Klein and Klein's company ABKCO own all of the Stones material from 1964-1970 from "The Rolling Stones" up to "Get Your Ya-Ya's Out" and ABKCO and Rolling Stones records own shared copyright to the songs "Wild Horses" and "Brown Sugar". Because of this, i'm not sure if many of you know, but in the 60's albums released by bands in the UK were released with different track listings, less tracks, with singles added to them, so the labels could eek out extra albums in the States. When in the 80's CD became popular US Beatles albums like "Beatles Today!" "Beatles 65", "Beatles VI", "Yesterday...And Today" were discontinued and the UK versions became the Universal versions, ie the proper track configurations. Not so with The Stones, because Klein owns them, he released all the US versions and discontinued the UK versions. Thats why you can buy "The Rolling Stones Now!" and not "The Rolling Stones No.2" and you get "December's Children (And Everybody's)" and "Flowers" plus the US configurations of "Out Of Our Heads" and "After-Math" which are totally different from the original UK versions.
McCartney announced that he was leaving The Beatles before Let It Be was released and he released his solo album "McCartney" a full month before Let It Be. This was to get his album out first & get it ahead on sales and to show that when Let It Be was released it was by a defunct band. Instead of giving interviews for the album, he sent out copies of the LP with cardboard Q&A's to the press of general questions they would want to know. Stating "he did not know whether the groups break-up would be temporary or permanent".
From the Beatles break-up till the 80's Paul & George did have nothing to do with one another. They never spoke or where in the same room together. Though publicly, there was a bigger fued with John and Paul. John was genuinely angry that Paul had ended the group as he had wanted to. Then John accused Paul of writing songs about him on "Ram", specifically the songs "Too Many People", "Dear Boy" and "3 Legs" and having a photo on the sleeve of 2 beetles having sex or as Lennon put it "1 beatle fucking another beatle in the ass". Which McCartney later confirmed were aimed at John. In reply to this John mocked a photo of himself in the "Ram" cover photo on an insert of his "Imagine" album, though instead of holding a Ram he was holding a Pig as he sais "Paul is nothing but a pig". And he recorded the scathing attack on McCartney "How Do You Sleep?" which included the lines "So Sgt. Peppers took you by surprise? You better see right through your mothers lies". "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead" (referring to the "Paul Is Dead" controversy). "The only thing you done was Yesterday/And since you've gone you're just Another Day" which is a reference to McCartney's song "Yesterday" and his 1st solo single "Another Day". As well as the line that McCartney claims upset him the most "The sound you make is Muzak to my ears" referring to Lennon's ascertation that McCartney composed "Elevator Music". The chorus was also originally "How Do You Sleep, How Do You Sleep you Cunt!" Before being changed to "How do you sleep, How do you sleep at night?" This is the sessions for the album "Imagine" which Harrison played on that you are referring to, he played on the tracks "Oh My Love", "Oh! Yoko", "I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier", "Crippled Inside", "It's So Hard", "How?", "Gimme Some Truth" and "How Do You Sleep". He plays a fantastic solo on "Gimme Some Truth" and possibly the greatest solo of his entire career on "How Do You Sleep". That is one of the things with that song, although its particularly scathing, its such a good song. Easily in Lennon's Top 5 solo recordings. Harrison also played on Lennon's "Instant Karma" single and wrote and played on Ringo's song "Photograph" himself, Lennon & McCartney all wrote songs for Ringo's album "Ringo" With Harrison writing 3 tracks, McCartney composing 1 and Lennon composing 1 track "I'm The Greatest" which Starr, Lennon & Harrison all played on together provoking furious Beatle reunion rumours. McCartney also played on his composition on the album "Six O' Clock" making this the 1st time all 4 Beatles had appeared on the same album since the split. After the release of the "Imagine" album and specifically "How Do You Sleep?" Paul wrote a reply on his Wings "Wildlife" album called "Dear Friend" which is such a beautiful song and questions how they had come to this point in their relationship, whilst attempting a reconciliation. This song shows that McCartney is not the emotional lightweight that many people think he is. Lennon's antipathy towards McCartney cooled, especially as you rightly pointed out that McCartney was right about Allen Klein. And during Lennon's "lost weekend" apart from Ono, McCartney and him recorded at the Record Plant in LA. May Pang who was Lennon's lover at this time reportedly has the results on tape! They were also friendly from 1975 till Lennon's death in 1980. They also spent the day together on April 24 1976 in New York and in Lennon's apartment in the Dakota just a month after Paul's dad died. They spent some time reminiscing and playing guitar and watched Saturday Night Live were Lorne Michaels parodied the Million dollar offers they were getting for Beatles reunions saying he would pay them $3000 to perform. Lennon and McCartney both confirmed they almost went to the studio as a gag, but decided not to. Lennon also says of their relationship post '75 "That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, 'Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.' He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door". All through this time Harrison still wasn't talking to McCartney. Harrison and McCartney were reunited on Harrison's tribute song to Lennon after his death "All Those Years Ago" and again at Starr's wedding to Barbara Bach. Following which they were friendly again until 1986 when Harrison, Starr and Ono all sued McCartney. Only for the pair to be reunited again at the "Free As A Bird" session and subsequent "Anthology" project. Though some of the scenes on "Anthology" at Friar Park are rather frosty, with the 2 of them together. And they were supposed to record 3 new tracks for the "Anthology", "Free As A Bird" for Anthology 1, "Real Love" for Anthology 2 and an un-named 3rd track of Lennon's which Harrison vetoed as he didn't like the other two!
As for Allen Klein you are dead right, after Brian Epstein died the running of Apple was left to his assistant Alistair Taylor. But the Beatles had a majority say over everything and wasted money on Apple Films, The Apple Boutique, Apple Electronics and Zapple. The only thing that made money was Apple Records. Thats when they decided to get Allen Klein in, though Paul was against it preferring Lee Eastman, who was Linda's Father. The other Beatles vetoed that by saying he would be biased for you against us. With a 3 to 1 vote it should have meant Klein was giving the nod, so McCartney left Apple and signed with Eastman, the other 3 went with Klein. And Taylor was fired and replaced with Neil Aspinall. The other Beatles sacked Klein in the 70's and took him to court. McCartney now vindicated conveniently forgot that he proposed Allen Klein to take over as their manager in 1966 when he got the Rolling Stones a ?2 million advance from Decca. The "smelling like an Alley cat" line came from a song called "Steel & Glass" from Lennon's 1974 album "Walls & Bridges" which is about Klein and a sort of sequal of "How Do You Sleep" using the same string melody only this time played on horns.
The Stones still rue signing with Allen Klein and Klein's company ABKCO own all of the Stones material from 1964-1970 from "The Rolling Stones" up to "Get Your Ya-Ya's Out" and ABKCO and Rolling Stones records own shared copyright to the songs "Wild Horses" and "Brown Sugar". Because of this, i'm not sure if many of you know, but in the 60's albums released by bands in the UK were released with different track listings, less tracks, with singles added to them, so the labels could eek out extra albums in the States. When in the 80's CD became popular US Beatles albums like "Beatles Today!" "Beatles 65", "Beatles VI", "Yesterday...And Today" were discontinued and the UK versions became the Universal versions, ie the proper track configurations. Not so with The Stones, because Klein owns them, he released all the US versions and discontinued the UK versions. Thats why you can buy "The Rolling Stones Now!" and not "The Rolling Stones No.2" and you get "December's Children (And Everybody's)" and "Flowers" plus the US configurations of "Out Of Our Heads" and "After-Math" which are totally different from the original UK versions.