(Personal reflections
inspired by Beatles songs)
Song: “Long, Long,
Long”
Album: The Beatles
Release Date: November
1968
Continuing my White Album review song by song, here I tackle side 3.
If you have not already done so, I suggest reading the introduction to Fab
Foundations # 4 as a prelude to this entry ( https://pete-gemsandbeyond.blogspot.com/2020/01/fab-foundations-4-going-back-to-white.html ) seeing as it explains my personal introduction to the White
Album on Christmas Day as a young teenager many years ago. Side 2 is tackled in
Fab Foundations # 15 ( https://pete-gemsandbeyond.blogspot.com/2020/04/fab-foundations-15-going-back-to-white.html ).
My great friend, Mac and I attended a packed Berklee Performance
Center in Boston on January 28, 2014 to watch local Rock musicians and Berklee
faculty perform The White Album in its entirety (complete with orchestra pit, a
rock-band section of the stage, and a parade of lead singers). It was extremely
well done - invoking a sense of passion for the music by all who participated -
and was something that I never thought I would see performed by anyone. In
other words, it was special.
Side 3 was a highlight that evening because the general feel of
that side fit in extremely well with the raucous mood of the event. Afterall, three
of the songs on side 3 are among the hardest rockers on the entire album
(“Birthday”, “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey”, and
“Helter Skelter”) and two others are HEAVY (“Yer Blues” and “Sexy Sadie”). The remaining two songs (“Mother Nature’s
Son” and my favorite on Side 3 “Long, Long, Long”) are serene, beautiful and
impassioned, which was needed to give the Berklee crowd a bit of a reflective
break from the fever pitch that was playing out all around us with the other 5
songs during that stretch of the magnificent White Album performance.
What follows is my critique of Side 3 of the White Album, track by
track. As the case with the other 2 related entries, the main songwriter’s
first name is in parenthesis (who needs a last name with this band?):
White Album, Side 3 (of 4)
“Birthday” (Paul). There
are but a small handful of modern musicians/bands who have made big-event-days-of-the-year
their own through song to these ears. Let’s see, off the top of my head there’s
the Grateful Dead with “U.S. Blues” (4th of July) and Arlo Guthrie
with “Alice’s Restaurant” (Thanksgiving). And then there’s the Beatles, who
pull this off with 2 big-event songs; the already-covered “Your Mother Should
Know” (Mother’s Day) and of course “Birthday”. If the Beatles “Birthday” could contribute
to a laying down of the weary tune that is “Happy Birthday” for the foreseeable
future, we would all be the better off (although in the Steeves family we do
spice up that old refrain with some improv and a classic add-on tag).
I love all the vocals in this song, lead and otherwise. There’s the early Paul McCartney slightly faded
count from 1 to 8 (which makes “Birthday” perfect for any kid turning 8-years
old). The song really begins to soar midway through when John Lennon takes the tension-building
lead for a short spell, singing the threepeat “Yes where going to a party
party”, after which the buildup is released in the music and with Paul McCartney
singing “I would like you to dance” several times. McCartney’s singing here
is filled with celebratory bravado and a touch of lunacy. The ladies in the studio
that evening, Yoko Ono and Patti Boyd Harrison chime in too, responding to
McCartney’s request with a lovely and ethereal soprano-pitched “Birthday”. All this gives the song a feel of live
immediacy. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that studio session.
When daughter Charlotte and son Peter were younger this song would
be cranked to the max on the mornings of their birthdays. From that moment it
was 3 minutes of frenzied spinning and twirling of them in the air - while
singing myself - which would leave me exhausted by the end of it. This breathless
state was of no matter to the kids, who would insist I do it again… and again. I
obliged as long as I could bear it, often finding my second and third winds (finding
that new burst of energy was less of a problem the years they turned eight
years old).
“Yer Blues” (John). As
the case with the transition from “Martha My Dear” to “I’m So Tired” on side 2,
we hear another major mood swing here.
But again, in the uniquely wonderful and strange ways of the White
Album, it works. “Yer Blues” is the second song on the album where John Lennon
is expressing the trauma and pain of being parentless (the first, “Julia”). Here we hear some of the most personal gut-wrenching
lyrics in all of Rock and Roll (Pete Townshend’s “Empty Glass” also comes to
mind).
There was no filtering in John Lennon’s music, which reflects his
personality. Lennon was an artist
through and through, to the degree that non-artistic endeavors that most of us
take for granted as being part of our daily lives, such as fiscal responsibility
or being tactful and prudent appear to have been completely foreign to him. Oddly,
this was one of his many endearing qualities and it was what made him brilliant
at his craft.
John Lennon performed “Yer Blues” in a concert setting of sorts, just
around the time the White Album came out. He did this at the one-off Rolling
Stones Rock and Roll Circus event (this filmed event was not released by
the Rolling Stones for decades due to them being disappointed in their own
performance). At that event, Lennon
enlisted a super band to perform with him: Keith Richards on bass, Eric Clapton
on guitar, and Mitch Mitchell on drums. It’s strange watching Lennon on stage
with other musicians besides the Beatles, which got me thinking that one thing
he and Paul McCartney had in common was that both appear to be - at least to some
degree - loners. George Harrison and
Ringo Starr were friend magnets but McCartney and Lennon would ultimately rely
on their soul-mate wives (Linda McCartney and Yoko Ono) for deep friendship (to
push this point a bit; I often read quotes where McCartney says things like ‘we
were friendly with so and so” where Harrison would say it more like ‘Brian
Jones was my friend’. Lennon himself rarely commented on friendships).
A sense of this sort of isolation permeates throughout “Yer Blues”.
One thing that this song has in common with “Birthday” is that live
immediacy. I imagine that what we hear when
we listen to “Yer Blues” is precisely how those in the studio heard it on the
day it was produced. No overdubs, no corrections. A pure, unadulterated live sound.
“Mother Nature’s Son” (Paul).
Ever since I was a very young lad, I’ve been an animal lover. This song contributed to me rounding out that
love of animals to the rest of the natural world. John Denver would later master the art of
celebrating the Earth’s splendors in song, but here we hear one of the earliest
ruminations on the topic in the rock genera.
Given a fresh spotlight, I would think “Mother Nature’s Son” could
reemerge out of the wilderness as a theme song for this day and age, seeing
that one thing I’ve noticed a lot of these past few Covid months is kids out
and about on bicycles, in yards playing, and even in the woods. It reminds me
of the 70s. I was unequivocally an
outdoor kid way back when, and so were all of my friends. In such an environment,
you would never know when a chance encounter with nature would lead to a bit of
enlightenment. It may have been some bizarre
bug making its way up a tree trunk, or a parade of ants making their way along
the crack in a sidewalk, or a baby bird scurrying through the yard having
fallen out of its nest, or a giant snapping turtle emerging out of the edge of
a field, or a sprout shooting its way out of an acorn. You have to give these
encounters a chance though, and the only way to do that is get outside.
It was clear with the White Album that the Beatles had moved on
from the 1967 psychedelia that was Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. The stripped down feel of this album has proven
to thrive the test of time much better than its kaleidoscopic predecessors. There’s
a rootsy honesty that emanates in the music, which can be taken literally when
it comes to “Mother Nature’s Son”.
“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” (John). When
I first got into this song, I had no idea it was about John Lennon’s
relationship to Yoko Ono. I simply thought Lennon had a pet monkey. The lyrics were relatively inconsequential to
me though. I was much more intrigued by the pace and pulse of the song.
The best parts of this song are the spontaneous ones. There are Paul
McCartney’s background “Whoo”s throughout, which are great, but the best
of the spontaneity comes near the end of the song including all the staggering “come
on, come on” lyrics that the entire band chimes in on. My favorite moment
though is the quick John Entwistle-esque 3-second bass run that McCartney plays
during that stretch. It may have singlehandedly opened my mind up to that instrument,
which I have since picked up myself.
“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide” takes me back to the comment I
made earlier (for “Yer Blues”) about the pure artist in John Lennon. He actually explains it pretty well in these
lyrics. Lennon was if anything about as honest and open as they come (brutally
so at times). Here we hear him complaining a bit that this level of honesty was
not always being reciprocated by others around him… even by his bandmates. This is a sentiment to contemplate in our own
lives. Is there such a thing as too much truthfulness when it comes to a
relationship? I’m of the growing belief that there is not.
“Sexy Sadie” (John). Here
we hear John Lennon lashing out in classic Bob Dylan style. On the receiving end, none other than the
Beatles then-Guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who Lennon ultimately suspected was more
compromised with human weaknesses than the Maharishi was willing to admit. Lennon’s
original lyrics for the song were much harsher than what ended up on record,
thanks to George Harrison, who talked his fellow Beatle out of the worst of the
vitriol (Harrison also disagreed somewhat with Lennon’s conclusions on the Maharishi).
One of my favorite passages in the Beatles Anthology tome
was John Lennon talking about the Beatles 1968 trip to India to study transcendental
meditation with the Maharishi. One comment he makes was that those who were
there (including a number of other famous people such as Donovan, Mike Love,
and Mia Farrow) seemed to be in competition to see who could “get cosmic
first”. Lennon then goes on to say, “what
I didn’t know was that I was already cosmic”. I can relate to that!
There’s nothing that stands out musically regarding “Sexy Sadie”. Don’t
get me wrong, it’s a nice song and all. However, as with many of John Lennon
songs from Revolver forward, his interest appears to be more in what he
was saying and how he was saying it then in the musical accompaniment. And so,
to enjoy this song you need to focus on Lennon’s vocal delivery, which is what
I did from the first time I ever listened.
“Helter Skelter” (Paul). If not for being hijacked by a bad group of
people in California, this song would have the deserved reputation as aptly
describing the mindset of a kid in an amusement park. Can’t you just picture it playing loudly as
you cruise around in the bumper cars, or spin wildly out of control on the tilt-a-whirl
or zero-gravity rides? (I’m thinking
this has occurred for me at least once).
As the case with “Birthday” and “Back in the USSR”, this Paul
McCartney song rocks hard. In this case it’s long too. In fact, the song rocks
so hard and long that, when it finally concludes (after several false endings),
Ringo Starr yells out those famous impromptu words “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!”.
That utterance never gets old. (Side note: can anyone name any other utterances
that made it on a record in the heat of the moment? Two spontaneous utterances I
can think of are “Alright Wilson, pick it” (on Neil Young’s “Losing End”)
and “I saw ya” (on the Who’s “Happy Jack”)).
Being a workaholic and perfectionist, Paul McCartney could push
his fellow Beatles to the limits and beyond at times (another recollection of
this is of his endless takes for “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, which John Lennon
actually blew off). From a fans
perspective we should be grateful for that quest for perfection seeing as “Helter
Skelter” is a fast moving joy of a ride.
“Long, Long, Long”. (George). The Beatles save the best for last on
side 3, at least in my mind. In fact,, I’ll go as far as saying that “Long, Long,
Long” is the most underrated of all Beatles songs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9vUCdfwlgw ). It always slips under
the radar when their music is being rated. One big reason for this is that it
is a deceptively subtle song. The other reason: It’s the only Beatles song that
is explicitly about God, which, unfortunately, many of the counterculture
struggle with. Not me.
Passion shines in “Long, Long, Long”. It’s basically a love song
to God. I thought about this some over the week. At a time when John Lennon was
getting overwhelmed with his love for Yoko Ono, the same thing was happening
with George Harrison, but in a different light. Beautiful things were happening
all around the Beatles camp, but at the same time it was all creating deep
fissures between band members, because none of these developments were interrelated
to the band itself.
Why do I love this song? Well, aside from it being about God, the music,
lyrics and singing in the bridge is exquisite. When Harrison sings “so many
tears I was searching”, so many tears I was wasting, oh, oh!”, I feel it to
my very soul. Listen close to McCartney efforts on the Hammond Organ here too. Beatle
Paul was bonding with his longtime brother in arms. The closing of the song has
a nice touch too. George adds an extra verse “you know that I need you”
that breaks out of the song structure and adds intimacy at the same time. Wonderful.
Well, there you have it; my critique of side 3 of the White Album.
I hope you connect with at least some of my insights. I already look forward to doing the same for
the fourth and final side.
- Pete
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