Music and Memory: 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)