Fab Foundations # 47: “Self-Made Man”

(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)

Song: “Here Comes the Sun”
Album: Abbey Road
Release Date: September 1969

One big take home for me from the Beatles Anthology autobiography is a common thread among John, Paul, George, and Ringo regarding how little each of them gained from their formal education. Come to think of it, this was also the case for several of the other musicians I’ve written about in these blog pages, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Keith Richards. I suppose this goes with the territory: If you are a young aspiring rocker, musical ambitions are likely to clash with studies, particularly if you’re in a fledgling rock band.

I thought about this over the past week as I homed in on “Here Comes the Sun” as my topic-song of choice for this entry. The reason formal schooling came to mind was the story behind the song, whereby George Harrison played hooky on a Beatles meeting to visit his close friend Eric Clapton on the first warm spring day of the year after a long, cold, hard, London winter. There he wrote “Here Comes the Sun”. The Beatles were splintering at the time (1969) and their meetings were as often about business affairs as they were about music. Harrison was fed up, feeling like he was going back to school, which he detested. I imagine he pondered over a morning cup of tea: “a sunny day outside vs an indoor room filled with tension?”.  It appears to have been a no-brainer decision.

I think we all can relate to blowing off commitments for an early spring day in the sun. I recall doing this on a handful of occasions in my undergrad years, electing to skip the elective in order to head to the school quad for some soccer dribbling with a friend or to the courts for a game of hoops (or to the frig for a beer).

One particular blow-off memory was early in my career with the US Geological Survey (USGS) when a great friend, Bob Mainguy, decided to make a last-minute Boston pit stop on his way from Paris to New York City on a business trip. Bob arrived on a Sunday afternoon. We soon connected with another great friend, Mac, and then the three of us promptly headed down to Mac’s cottage on the ocean in the village of Humarock (part of Scituate), Massachusetts.

After celebrating the night away on the breeze-blown deck, we crashed, and a few hours later awoke to a beautiful late-spring Monday morning, complete with the sound of crashing surf. All of us were supposed to gear up for heading to our respective work commitments on that weekday, but this weather and this locale were too special to pass up. One by one, we called into our offices to literally “blow off” the day. We were howling listening to each other. I was last and when the admin person (a great Korean Vet who has long-since retired) answered the phone I said “Henry, I’m calling in to blow off the day”. He said, “you mean, take a vacation day”. I said “no, I’m blowing it off!” (much laughter from Mac and Bob in the background). Henry chuckled and said “well, alright then, I’ll put you in as “blowing off the day”.  (I did eventually chalk it up as annual leave).

Hooky was something George Harrison was very familiar with in grade-school. He did a lot of it in his formative years, often with Paul McCartney (and later with John Lennon too). George was the youngest of the Beatles, and so would end up missing the most schooling when John and Paul got serious about taking the band on the road. And yet, despite his lack of a formal education, Harrison grew up quickly; arguably faster than just about every other rock musician of his day.

In relation to this, there’s a scene in the Martin Scorsese biopic movie George Harrison: Living in the Material World that really grabbed me. One of the many interviewees in the film is Astrid Kirchherr, a lifelong friend of the Beatles from Germany, who they met in Hamburg during their ‘residency’ at several nightclubs there in the early 60s. Kirchherr, who hailed from Hamburg, took a number of priceless early photos of the band. She would end up falling in love with one of the then-Beatles, Stu Sutcliffe, who would die not long after of a brain hemorrhage (Stu had left the Beatles to stay with Astrid in Hamburg after his bandmates were forced to leave the country for a variety of reasons, and so Sutcliffe was with Kirchherr when he died).

Anyhow, Stu Sutcliffe was very tight with John Lennon, who struggled mightily when his best friend had passed away (this tragedy following the death of Lennon’s Mom only a few years earlier). In the Scorsese film, Astrid Kirchherr tells the story of when John and George came back to Hamburg to visit with her around that time. As she tells the story, a photo she took of Lennon and Harrison is presented to the movie-watching audience. It shows a downtrodden John Lennon sitting in a chair (it may have been Stu Sutcliffe’s art chair) with George Harrison standing over him. Kirchherr remarks in the interview that Harrison was very solemn that day and that every ounce of his energy was geared to his compassion for John Lennon and his commitment to be there for him in that moment. She points out his demeanor in the photo, in order to support her claims. I could see this too (image attached).

George Harrison was only 19 years old at the time and yet, wisdom was already deeply ingrained.  

For my next blog entry (several weeks down the road), I’ll be writing about memories related to John Lennon’s life and death (it will be 40 years this coming December 8^th when he was killed in cold blood). Here I’d like to reserve some thoughts on Harrison’s life and death (although much about his life has already been written in these pages, so I will keep it short), the latter of which occurred on November 29, 2001. Beatle George was only 58 years old when he died (my age now). It was the 2^nd of a triple blow in 7 months’ time of deeply-felt events beyond my immediate sphere of connections (the first was 9/11 and the third would be John Entwistle’s passing in early 2002). For myself - and I am sure many others - it was about as bad a stretch as what we are all going through now in 2020.

My recollection of hearing the news of George Harrison’s death is not as intense as it was when I heard the news of John Lennon’s death, most likely because I had experienced another 20 years of life in the interim. My hearing the news was just prior to walking my daughter to school on a mild late-fall day. As the case with Lennon’s death, I internalized that news for the most part. If I had someone to commiserate with at the level I needed, I would have. But that was not the case, which was ok by me. Sometimes the best way to mourn is on your own (although, I must say commiserating was not a problem a few months later, when John Entwistle died, and that worked out too, in a far different way).

Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney visited George Harrison two weeks before his death. By all accounts, it was Harrison who kept the conversation lively, upbeat, and at times, hilarious.  George Harrison has never shied away from death. Give a listen to his songs “All Things Must Pass” and “Art of Dying” and you certainly would agree. In fact, I’ve often gotten the sense that Harrison was looking forward to death (in one interview near the end of his life, he stated something to the effect that his only sad reflection was in leaving his son Dhani behind at such a young age).

George Harrison’s 2^nd wife Olivia Harrison (who he was committed to from the mid-70s to his passing) claims that the brutal stabbing of her husband by an intruder into their London home in 1999 ultimately led to his untimely death (Harrison was stabbed in multiple locations including the lungs, one lung of which collapsed; the official reason for death was lung cancer). That would mean that two Beatles were slain by crazed individuals … a head shaking thought when you consider the fact that the Beatles core message was love. Olivia Harrison comes across as a very peaceful soul in any interview I have ever seen of her, and like her husband, in tune with a solid faith. In another poignant part of the Scorsese film Olivia states that when her husband died, the room lit up in an amazing, spiritually-felt glow. I believe her.

I remember the news when Pattie Boyd (George Harrison’s first wife) married Eric Clapton (Harrison’s close friend) in 1979. What was memorable about this wedding for me was that Harrison played guitar at the reception. This says a lot about George Harrison’s take on life.  From what I have read, the love triangle hurt Harrison to the core, but he was able to overcome that hurt to be there in, what would be for most of us, a very awkward situation. Harrison was able to do that because he was always living in the present, vs the past or future.  He was able to do this because of his faith.

My good friend and colleague, Mike Major (who receives these weekly entries) first presented the modern-day video “Here Comes the Sun” to me early in this Fab Foundations year: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQetemT1sWc ). It’s a fantastic video (I only wished I was able to use it for my original “Gem Videos” series 12 years ago), with numerous photos taken by Linda McCartney, most of which took place at John Lennon’s London Tittenhurst Park estate. It would prove to be the band’s last photo-op.  There is also some creative animation in the video, including the Beatles feet prancing across Abbey Road (see the 1:10 mark of the video).

George Harrison was a self-made man. All the Beatles were, really. The four of them overcame the lack of formal education and privilege to become one of the most successful rags-to-riches stories in history. And of the four, Harrison may come down in history as the Beatle who made it happen the most. He did this by finding afterlife in life.  And maybe one could argue, by playing a little hooky too.

- Pete

Fab Foundations # 46: “Where Beatles and Beetles Converge”

(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)

 Song: “Mother Nature’s Son”
Album: The Beatles
Release Date: November 1968

In my decade or so of Music and Memory blog writing, I routinely have found myself maintaining a yearlong running document of loose notes in relation to the musician/band-focus of that given year. Occasionally when I am hard up for an idea, I dip into it. Seeing as I’m on the home stretch now with my Fab Foundations series, the related notes doc is pretty much tapped out. There are a handful of remaining bullets though, some of which have lingered in that doc since the beginning of the year. At this stage, I’m pretty sure that at least a few of these will never see the light of day in terms of fleshing them out (such as this one: “George’s stage fright”).

There was one lingering bullet though that caught my eye this week. It reads “Beetles prints in the movie Hard Day’s Night”. That’s not a misspell (although it would be in any other Fab Foundations entry this year). No, that indeed is a double-e “Beetles” as in the group of insects; one of the largest and most diverse Orders of life in the animal kingdom. Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure that It’s a term I have not typed all year other than in that aforementioned notes file.

OK, so back to Hard Day’s Night. The scene in the movie that I am referring to is about halfway through, where the Beatles (as in the band) are rehearsing in front of beetles prints (as in the insect). The prints are fantastic and come close to stealing the show for me during that scene, distracting my otherwise regular focus on John, Paul, George and Ringo (and, yeah, Patti Boyd too).

Anyhow, I passed over that bulleted note numerous times over the last few months because it never fit a narrative. But this week a little lightbulb lit up in my mind, because a few lines above that bullet was a far more recent bulleted note suggesting a “Mother Nature’s Son” entry, with a focus on conservation, ecology, and the environment. Could I pull it all together? Heck may as well give it a try….

One of the great fortunes of being a Dad is getting to see what your children end up doing with their lives as they grow up; how they establish themselves in society and in the world in general. Both my daughter and my son - who are now young adults in their 20s - have a tremendous respect for the environment and appear on similar paths to dedicating their lives toward figuring out ways to preserve it. The two of them are coming at it from very different angles though. Charlotte is a biologist, and she is researching the effects of plastics on seabirds for her master’s thesis. Peter is well on his way to getting his undergrad degree in plastics engineering and is already working part time at a small company that has developed a technology which blends conventional plastics with a natural catalyst, essentially rendering the plastic biodegradable.

I envision a potential collaborative between them somewhere down the road.

When I was very young, my parents observed in me an interest in the natural world, particularly wild animals (I believe a key factor in what prompted all of this was tidepools, but I’m sure there were a few other contributing factors as well). The most amazing gift I ever got from Mom and Dad was in 1967, when I was 5 years old. It was a “blue box” of Britain’s LTD wild (“zoo”) animals. These figurines were plastic (go figure) and very well crafted. Included in the set were little-known mammals, such as the platypus, tapir, eland, and okapi. I’ve still got a handful of them today.  Around the same period, I also recall receiving a fantastic series of “Strangest Things” books, each focused on a different group of animals (i.e. “Birds Do the Strangest Things”, “Reptiles do the Strangest Things”, etc.). These books helped diversify my knowledge of the animal kingdom.

Mom and Dad did not stop there though. Within a few year’s conservation factored into the equation. When I was 10, I received a book from my parents called “Twilight of the Animal Kingdom” by Larry Harris, which focused on 22 endangered species such as the California Condor, the Mountain Gorilla, and the Blue Whale. Through this book, I was beginning to understand how mankind can have an adverse effect on the creatures we share the planet with.  Around that time, Dad also got me a subscription to Greenpeace, which I took to heart (one example of this was that for years I had a Greenpeace poster on my bedroom wall that read “Save the Whales. Boycott Japanese Goods”). 

I am forever grateful for my parent’s insights into my childhood heart.

Interestingly enough, the Beatles contributed to my early fascination in the natural world too, and it all pretty much hinged on one song: “Mother Nature’s Son” (“The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” may have factored in there too). Arguably, “Mother Nature’s Son” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMMiXjwhODU ) was the first pop song written overtly about nature (although folk music had always been immersed in it). It certainly predated anything from John Denver and Bruce Coburn. Even Joni Mitchell.  The song is almost entirely a singular Paul McCartney composition (in terms of Beatles contributions), with John Lennon helping out with a few lyrics (Lennon was writing a song around the same time called “Child of Nature”, but that song was never released and eventually was rewritten into his solo effort “Jealous Guy”).

Much has been written about the Beatles pursuing spiritual enlightenment when they made their 1968 retreat to Rishikesh, India, with the Maharishi. George Harrison is front and center, seeing as he was already well on his way to a faith-centric life in the years before Rishikesh.  And he convinced the rest of the band to go to India. Also, of the four Beatles, he and John Lennon spent the most time in India that year. And so, George’s reflections (and to a slightly less degree, John’s) are deserving of the prominence they get in that part of the band’s history (which plays out in Beatles Anthology and many other writeups on the Beatles in Rishikesh).

However, not nearly as much has been written about one particular angle on life in that retreat: Harmony with the natural world. It’s that angle that Paul McCartney appears to have had latched onto the most. “Mother Nature’s Son” was written in Rishikesh. By the 1970s, and through to today, McCartney has been championing animal rights and other environmental causes (also humanitarian ones), and it may have all started with the Maharishi in the foothills of the Himalayas. Indeed, it was that eco-friendly angle on the retreat that truly worked for him.

Sometimes I feel as if my family (Charlotte and Peter, along with my wife Nancy) and I have been on one endless eco retreat. The kids have camped every year of their lives. The woods has always beckoned us. An endless parade of logs and rocks have been turned over in search of critters (on land and in water). An ever mounting list of trails have been hiked. We have been blessed by Cape Cod whales, Newfoundland puffins, Nova Scotia bald eagles, Yellowstone grizzlies, Costa Rican coral reefs, Panamanian sloths, Badlands prairie dogs, California sealions, Boston-Harbor-Island golden snails, streambed hellgrammites, tidepool brittle stars, backyard owls, saltmarsh osprey, low-tide spider crabs, riverine crocodiles, desert lizards, deep-sea dolphins, rainforest howler monkeys….

….and volcanic-rim blue fungus beetles. More on that last one later.

One of the most important developments in our lives in relation to eco retreats has been Charlotte’s love of Panama (where she has lived for a fair-percentage of her recent life, and where she has done most of her seabird research) as well as other parts of Central and South America. As a result of her enthusiasm, the rest of us have headed down there to visit Charlotte on several occasions in order to witness for ourselves what she has been so enamored by. We understand now. That part of the world remains a tropical paradise in many locales and is so worth trying to keep that way.

I suppose if I had to signal out one Rishikesh eco-retreat-like moment for me it would be the precious few days we spent in the Arenal region of Costa Rica 3 years ago. The village of Arenal is named after the active volcano that looms over it (which is very impressive in its fumarole steam emissions). There we stumbled upon a gem of place to stay for 3 nights; a pristine Airbnb on the outskirts of town. The charming quarters were enough of a lure, but it was the owner, Eduardo, and the land that were the real take home messages in the end. Here we got to witness someone truly in harmony with nature. In relation to this, Eduardo and his young family could not have been more gracious hosts.

On the first evening there, Eduardo took us for a tour of his multi-acre property, half of which was orchard and farm and the other half of which was rainforest. It was there I saw my first sloth (three-toed), as well as a prehensile-tailed porcupine and a handful of distinct rainforest birds. What impressed me the most though was how effortlessly Eduardo spotted wildlife and how serene he was. The next morning, he took us on a tour of his orchard. The large variety of fruiting trees were thriving. It was like a Garden of Eden.

Later that second morning, Eduardo took us down the road to his Aunt’s property, an ecofriendly-farm. It was a work in progress (i.e. an immense undertaking), but I was immediately impressed by her earnestness to see it through and her ability to attract others to help her, including a professor from the United States, who was there doing hard labor for the summer.  Eduardo’s aunt then showed us a significant piece of property which she set aside for preservation as virgin rainforest, wherein she had designed a trail system. We hiked it and then settled in for a small breakfast and more discussion with her team of workers.

Our experience in Arenal (and Costa Rica in general) had us convinced to head down to Central America to visit Charlotte for a second go-around, this time in her home base of Panama. A “Mother Nature’s Son” moment that stuck out for me there was in the extinct super-volcano region of El Valle de Anton, where a self-described tour guide took us on a 6 mile hike up a ridge line and onto a spectacular ringed summit around the village. After talking with him a bit early on (through our mutual linguistic barriers), I concluded this young dude did these hikes every day, sometimes two or three times.  He knew his natural surroundings and had a solid answer for all of our bio-centric questions, be they related to flora or fauna.

About halfway around the section of the ancient volcanic rim we were on, a large beetle landed on me. It was brilliant blue, with black spots; a type of blue fungus beetle. It looked familiar. Turns out Charlotte, who is also an artist, had painted it as part of several very cool Panama-inspired art-pieces not long before (images attached).  Now, here I was with that artwork steering me directly in the face for the first (and only) time.

The Panama trip occurred last summer, when I was just beginning to prep for this Fab Foundations series, and so I had the Beatles regularly in the back of my mind. As I steered at that blue fungus beetle, I had both Beatles and beetles on the brain: A convergence of Beat/beet/les. I suppose this writeup brings it full circle.

The Beatles “Mother Nature’s Son” sounds just as it should. The song is a testament to being one with nature. This week two of my favorite pastimes again molded into one.

 - Pete

Fab Foundations # 45: “Where Did That Come From?”

(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)

Song: “Rain”
Album: Released as a B-side single
Release Date: May 1966

My first 4 years of schooling were at St. Mary’s, a parochial Catholic school in Franklin, Massachusetts. When St. Mary’s closed at the end of my 4^th year (I believe due to financial reasons), many of us students transitioned to public school for the first time. My 5^th-grade teacher was Mr. Carrol, no doubt the most dry-witted instructor I have ever had. Mr. Carrol was quite a departure from the nuns I’d had for teachers to that point. There were a handful of us post-St. Mary’s students in his class that year.

During the first week of class, Mr. Carrol surprised us with a pop-penmanship quiz. After everyone had handed it in, he started scrolling through our writeups, while giving us the occasional deadpanned glance over his spectacles. After what seemed like an eternity of deafening silence, he finally spoke: “The St. Mary’s kids who have joined our school system have such wonderful penmanship. Would you all raise your hands so the class can see who you are”. Six or seven of us rose our hands. Mr. Carrol then stared directly at me and in a stone-faced manner stated “well, there are always exceptions to the rule”.

I chuckle now as I reflect, but that comment set the ground rules for a confrontational year between me and Mr. Carrol (which also contributed to my longer-term non-conformist ways). He had a point though. My penmanship is not something to write home about (pun intended).  It clearly has something to do with the way I hold the pen/pencil. There are likely other factors at play too. Whatever. I’ve never lost any sleep over it.  The inelegant style works for me, and I’m pretty sure it works for most who have been on the receiving end of my writing efforts, Mr. Carrol notwithstanding.

Once in a blue moon though (which just happened this past Halloween night… hopefully you caught it), something consumes me, and my penmanship becomes…. not my own. Indeed, it’s something else entirely. It transcends me. The strokes look eloquent, and flow magnificently from letter to letter, sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph. Every curve and straight line is precise. The style of it all even looks different. In fact, if someone, such as a store clerk, were to match signatures – me vs. ‘Penmanship Me’ - they might be suspect. I’ve never been able to understand how this happens. When I have it, I have it for an entire day.  And then, poof, it’s gone for who knows how long, and I’ve turned into a calligraphy pumpkin again.

I’m guessing this type of thing happens to all of us from time to time; those rare occasions when we feel something or someone has taken over our body, mind, and/or soul, allowing us to do certain things at a level that we are not normally all that proficient at.  Another example in my own experience of this is the extremely-rare day when I feel as if I can jog forever on my routine trek around the block. Another is when I feel in complete harmony with everything around me. Yet another is when I’ve quite suddenly anticipated something just before it happens.

What does all this have to do with the Beatles? Well, as I began preparing for this Fab Foundations entry by watching the MTV-like Beatles video “Rain” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK5G8fPmWeA ), I thought about something Ringo Starr once stated about his drumming for the song: “I know me. I know my playing. And then there’s ‘Rain’”. And as I listened to this Revolver-era ditty this week (released as a B-side single), I could actually hear what he meant. Ringo’s drumming clearly sounds different, even to these novice percussionist ears. Where did that come from? I suppose it’s the same place my once-in-a-blue-moon penmanship comes from.

In recognition of these otherworldly moments in life, I thought I’d compile a list of some of the most profound musical moments in Beatles recordings. I’ve done this sort of thing with the other 2 bands that I spent a year on for this Music and Memory website; the Rolling Stones (Stepping Stones - 2012) and the Who (Under the Big Top - 2016) (the other 2 series were centered on solo artists - Neil Young and Bob Dylan - and compiling a list like this for them did not make as much sense).

After a solid year of listening to a singular band, you tend to collect an elevated mental list of musical highlights (or maybe even a warped one 😉). At least that is the case for me. With the Stones it was a lot of fun, because there have been a total of 7 excellent full-time band members over the years, as well as a number of other support musicians who had quality highlight moments of their own on the plethora of Stones recordings. It was much harder with the Who, because for the most part it was just the 4 of them (pretty incredible when you think about it), and there was so much to choose from…almost too much.

The fun level was somewhere in-between with the Beatles as I reflected on their Tower-of-Song this week (the Beatles had accompanying support too, though not nearly as much as the Stones). A big reason for the slightly-diminished fun-level of diagnosis (in relation to the Stones) is that much of the Beatles excellence is in the ensemble effort (all 4 of them as one), including the singing and instrumentation. In that light, less individuality stands out. But there are definitely some gems (including the collective).

And so, without further ado, here are those personal highlights:

• Paul’s droning bass on said “Rain"
• Ringo’s drumming on the bridge to “Something”
• George’s bass playing on “Oh, Darling!” (yes, that is George, not Paul)
•  Patti Boyd and Yoko Ono’s angelic background vocals on “Birthday”
• Paul’s opening piano on “Martha my Dear”
• Paul’s opening piano on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
• George’s lead guitar solo on “Old Brown Shoe”
• Chris Thomas’s piano during the bridge of “Long, Long, Long”
• John’s lead vocals on his solo song “How?”
• Ringo Starr’s drumming at the end of “Good Morning” (he actually sounds a bit like Keith Moon here)
• John’s chord-changing rhythm guitar playing on “All My Loving”
• George Martin’s piano playing on “In My Life” (which is sped up to sound like a harpsichord)
• John, Paul and George’s hilarious gargling-underwater backing vocals during the bridge to “Octopuses Garden”
• George’s lead guitar solo on “Octopus’s Garden”
• Ringo’s drumming during the John singing parts on “A Day in the Life” (the beginning and end of the song)
• Paul’s bass during the second verse of “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”
• John’s lead-guitar playing on “Get Back” (yes, that’s a rare John lead – vs. George)
• Paul’s flashy bass run near the end of “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey”
• John’s lead vocal on “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”
• Ringo’s lead vocal on his solo song “Photograph”
• The sounds effects and banter during the bridge to “Yellow Submarine” (“Full speed ahead Mister Boatswain, full speed ahead….”)
• George’s lead vocal on “Something” (particularly the bridge)
• Paul’s lead vocal on “You Won’t See Me” (it sounds like the inspiration for Feargal Sharkey’s lead vocals with the Undertones)
• The golden silence on “Don’t Let Me Down” before John starts singing the bridge “I’m in love for the first time….”
• John, Paul, and George’s triple harmony on “Because”
• John’s eerie Moog synthesizer buildup during the extended instrumental portion of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”
• The one-take, triple-lead-guitar-tradeoff between Paul, George and John during the bridge of “The End”
• The hilarity that is the entirety of “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)”
• Paul’s bass playing on “Don’t Let Me Down”
• George’s guitar work on his solo song “My Sweet Lord”
• Paul’s intense vocal delivery on “Back in the USSR” – with John and George backing - when he sings the part “Back in the US, Back in the US, Back in the USSR”
• The back and forth between John’s “Yeah” and George’s guitar at the end of “Come Together”
•  Paul’s manic “I would like you to dance / take a cha-cha-cha chance / I would like you to dance” on Birthday
• John’s lead vocals on “Across the Universe”
• Paul’s lead vocals on “Lady Madonna”
• George’s lead vocals on “Taxman”
• Ringo’s lead vocals on “Don’t Pass Me By”
• George’s sitar on “Within You Without You”
• Ringo’s drum roll on “Strawberry Fields” after John sings “living is easy with eyes closed”
• John’s guitar feedback at the beginning of “I Feel Fine” (first ever feedback on a rock song)
• The vocals (lead and backing) during the bridge to “Dear Prudence” (John lead, George and Paul backing)
• Ringo’s drumming on “She Said She Said” (another ‘blue moon’ moment for him)
• The “Wall of Sound” that is George’s solo effort “Wah Wah”
• George Martin’s score for Paul’s solo effort “Live and Let Die”
• Eric Clapton’s lead guitar on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
• George’s guitar riff on “And I Love Her”
• The banter at the tail end of “Hey Bulldog”
• The orchestra build up transitioned to the singular piano (and alarm clock) entering the bridge on “A Day in the Life”
• John’s piano playing on his solo song “Imagine”
• The ensemble build up as “Get Back” commences
• Billy Preston’s keyboard playing during the bridge to “Get Back”
• George’s guitar solo on his solo song “Beware of Darkness”
• When John sings “Who on earth do you think you are? A superstar? Well, all right you are!” on his solo song “Instant Karma”
• When George sings “You’re asking me will my love grow, well I don’t know. I don’t know” on “Something”
• When Paul sings “Hey Jude, don’t let me down, she has found you, now go and get her” on “Hey Jude” (likely referring to John and Yoko)
• When Ringo sings “The head nurse, she blew in, just like a tornado. When they started dancin’, I jumped off the table” on his solo song “Oh My My” (likely referring to his extended hospital stays with a variety of ailments in his childhood and adolescent years)
• The enthusiasm in John’s vocals, singing “Just Like Starting Over” (having returned to the studio after a 5-year hiatus)

 

-        Pete