Original version recorded June 15, 1965.
Roger 3.0 version recorded April 20, 2011.

Olivia Mancini: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn, NY.

Essay by Roger Greenawalt.

About the Song

“I get high when I see you walk by.”

The year I was 30 I decided to drive out to the Pennsylvania woods with my dad and his enormous extended family to go deer hunting. The season is brief, just a few days a year beginning on the the Monday after Thanksgiving. Any longer and the massive volunteer army of Pennsylvania Hunters would exterminate the species.

No women are allowed at camp. You are not supposed to talk about anything that happens there back in the real world. It is a haven of masculinity. I was hoping for a soulful Robert Bly-like male bonding experience. But guys don’t really talk about shit, we do shit together. Actually there was plenty of talk. 99% of which consisted of variations of “Have you seen the deer, is the deer dead yet?” Mainly we saw no deer, so the entire affair resembled a Beckett play.

I did see some does (Doe a deer a female deer, first note of the scale) the first morning, and was struck by what a shock of excitement, what a primal thrill it was to be a hunter in sight of prey. You can’t shoot does though, only bucks (male deer, money). So nothing happened. More Beckett.

I was walking through the forest later with my Uncle Bump and my Uncle Cork. Bump is 80 now, but because he was a clumsy toddler, he is still known 78 years later as Bump. Bump’s little brother Cork never stops talking.Hence, Cork, as in “Put a cork in it!” Bump and Cork were in their 60′s at this point. I turned to Uncle Cork and said to him;

“Golly Cork, I sure got excited when I saw the deer this morning. Does that feeling ever go away?” and he said,

“No son, you never get blase about seeing deer, it’s just the same as seeing a pretty girl. The feeling never goes away”

Now that was news to me. I just assumed old people, being gross and decrepit themselves, stopped being sexually attracted to people, that fancy was a function of youth. But now that I’m 50, I am here to tell you, that thrill of an accidental passing glance of one pretty person in a giant crowd of duds is what you live for. It’s true. I get high every time a pretty girl walks by.

And I always will.

Lennon hated this song. I think he was being hard on himself. Not for him the easy rhyme, the tossed away line. And at first glance, as prose alone, this song does not carry much water. But mirrored with the chords and melody and rhythms, it evokes an understated elegance.

There is a lovely opposition in the arc of the melody against the simple and true statement of the opening line.

“I get high” is a drug pun, ten points for that. And you would expect that line to rise in pitch, high is up after all. But the melody does not ascend, it cascades downward against a melancholic harmonic twist on the third (Flat 7 Major) chord creating a wistful and honest mood. Because yes, love is grand, it is a many splendored thing, but it robs one of your independence, of any hard earned singular autonomy; Love gives the other horrible power over you. And odds are it will end badly. At my age the reminders are constant, the message unmistakable, everything is temporary.

The connecting line and rhyme, “My oh my”, is cringing, I will give you that. Pure filler, lazy, icky.

“When you sigh my my insides just fly, butterfly.” Ouch. OK that is just awful also. Lennon does not get much weaker than this.

“Why am I so shy when I’m beside you?” Good question and good sounding, lyrical. The shyness is fear of rejection. Or even worse, once you are accepted, the shyness is the walking on eggshells negotiating the minefield of your lover’s mercurial moods. Especially when the only thing that will cheer her up is for you to disappear. Forever.

“It’s only love and that is all.” I like that lyric. and it is so hard loving you, whoever you are. The person that holds your heart in their hand might be a monster. You never can tell.

The second verse is in conflict with itself. “Is it right that you and I should fight every night? Just the sight of you makes nighttime bright, very bright. ” Ouch squared. Rhyming bright with bright? Weak. And once you establish that you are fighting, can’t we get some sex or violence going in here? A better second line in this verse would have been
“Then we make up till the morning light, very bright.” Because only two things can happen after the fight. You either have make up sex or eventually you break up.

There is plenty of love and rain in Beatles songs and not nearly enough mayhem, sex, and violence. Oh, and I’m still waiting for the Hotel Room Orgy 8 millimeter Beatles home movies to surface. They must be out there somewhere, those boys had every gadget.

It’s Only Love has aged badly in part due to shitty production. The acoustic guitar track, usually Lennon’s domain and typically solid as a locomotive, is double tracked and messy. The second guitar is not just unnecessary, it’s out of tune. Wince. George’s tremolo is not enough of a quality sound to hang the hook on. John’s double tracked vocal in the chorus is not tight rhythmically with itself. The bass is barely audible. Ringo plays a good part in the verse, but he should have come up with a variation in the chorus instead of leaving it to the tambourine to supply rhythmic drive.

The Roger 3.0 version of It’s Only Love gets back to basics, we have stripped the song down to it’s strong fundamentals. The chords and melody are lovely, our rendering stark and abandoned. Olivia Mancini has a plaintive voice, you can hear a lifetime of hurt inside her. But she’s broken a few hearts in her time too. Enjoy Darlings, we have some great tracks coming up in the weeks ahead.

Beatles freak Olivia Mancini plays guitar and sings in her band that just cut an EP with Roger Greenawalt. For show dates and info: www.oliviamancini.com.

Original Version recorded February 25, 1964
Roger 3.0 Version recorded March 27, 2011

Ken Murray: Vocals, Baritone Ukulele
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Bass, Programming

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn, NY.

Essay by Roger Greenawalt.

About the Song

I Should Have Known Better with a girl like you, that I would love everything that you do…

What I mainly like about you is how much you like me. And apparently you are attractive, sexually. And you talk like a baby. And you are a sociopath. Perfect. I should have known. Better.

I used to busk all the time on the streets of Boston. Just like Leah Siegel years later but not nearly as accomplished. My big trick was making up songs about the people walking by while wearing a ski mask. Troubling. That is, I would get in trouble, people would get pissed off or embarrassed, but sometimes I would make friends and they would give me money and drugs.

People just instinctively know to give drugs to musicians. How do they know this? I heard a funny line from a friend recently, to wit;

“Drinking for a musician is like stretching to an athlete.” So true.

My other big busking trick was to sing Beatles songs in Bringlish, Flinglish, or Gringlish. Here’s I Should Have Known Better in Bringlish;

“Bry, Brould of known Bretter with a girl like Brew. That I would Brove every Bring that you Brew. And I Brew, Bray Bray Bray, and I Brew.”

Flinglish;

“Fly, Flould have Flown Fletter with a Flirl like Flew. Flat I would Flove every Fling that you Flew. And I Flew. Flay Flay Flay. And I Flew.”

Fleople would flop and fling along. Flots of flun, and I would flake good floney.

After that I got a job delivering booze for Bauer Wines on Newberry Street. My job was literally to drink and drive. Good times.

Anyway, I think of I Should Of Known Better as the end of the Beatles Early Period. This was recorded the same month of their triumphant Ed Sullivan Show appearances and concurrent conquering of America. They were the biggest act of any sort in the world, by a large margin. Up until this point the writing of Lennon and McCartney was very focused on the creation of hit songs. As a record producer I often remind ambitious young artists that the most creatively accomplished and influential band of all time began in earnest trying to come up with hits. And not only that, but hits are GOOD. They are better than songs that are not hits. Because music is not subjective. All people in all periods of history in every walk of life, if exposed to say She Loves You, Hey Jude, or for that matter Poker Face, will like it. It’s like chocolate, or a pretty face. No explanation necessary.

But the Beatles, soon after the apex of their fame, took another path. Influenced by Bob Dylan and Pot, a more broadly ambitious agenda was brought to their writing. ISHKB was one of the last formulaic let’s make this a hit boys track.

The early Beatles tracks are riddled with harmonica. It was, along with their hair, and characteristic vocal harmonies, one of their essential gimmicks. Harmonica begins their very first single, Love Me Do, and it begins I Should Have Known Better too. Lucky for us Lennon was easily bored. He got sick of shit quickly. But not before turning on the whole world to lots of cool shit.

This song is really simple. Too simple. it’s really not that good. But it is a catchy fucker. The double track vocals are messy, they would not survive modern Pro Tools scrutiny. I wonder why McCartney didn’t sing on it? He would have sounded awesome on the long high note at the beginning of the verses.

John probably didn’t let him.

Listening on headphones high above Michigan I am busy as usual holding the scareplane up in my mind. Which makes me think, what is holding this rather spare track together? The glue is the length, that is, the decay of the reverb on the double tracked vocal. That is the sky that the song is floating in.

We just hit a pocket of rough air. I was saying to Alison Clancy the other day, that whatever you do during turbulence IS your religion. Right now I am dissolving a Xanax under my tongue while listening to The Beatles. I feel better already. And, for the record I am Rastafarian. All bass players are.

The climax of the song is the propriatorial “And when I ask you to be mine…” where Lennon breaks into falsetto. Falsetto was increasingly going to be his signature move, the tough guy showing vulnerability technique. John was an insecure guy, in a way that all bullies are. A bit annoying. And this whole song is annoyingly insecure. I wanna go back in time to EMI Studios and say “Dude stop whining about that bad toothed English bitch you are a god damn Beatle for fuck’s sake. Grow a pair.”

But that young dead mother who abandoned him is gonna trump my good imaginary advice every time.

John’s right hand, his rhythm guitar playing, is The Beatles secret groove weapon. This tune would not function without it. He plays guitar like a drummer, accenting the one and the backbeat. I love his guitar playing, listen carefully to the phrasing, it has all the confidence that the lyrics lack.

The Roger 3.0 version of I Should Have Known Better features Ukulele Impressario Ken “Bari” Murray. Ken is the organizer of th NY Uke Fest happening as I write this, May 5 to 7, 2011, at The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. Get your lazy asses down there if you are in the tristate area, say hello to Ken, and tell him how much you like his freaky rockabilly Roy Orbasonic singing. I think he is awesome, and I am proud to call him my friend. Also here’s a little shout out to our own Linda L., would you please come home from the hospital already? Bad things happen to good people there.

Oh, and Drug Bearshit, enjoy my stolen property while you can. It Won’t Be Long Now.

KEN BARI MURRAY took on the task of organizing the New York Uke Fest in 2009. With the help of many people and good fortune, the event turned out to be a success. As a native New Yorker, Ken wanted to be sure that the City continued to host this global eventPlans are underway now to hold the Fest at Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in 2010. In addition to his efforts with the Uke Fest, Ken has completed his 8th album, Four Seasons. One of the songs on this CD, called Oh Andy, Andy, resulted from his participation in several Andy Warhol exhibitions during 2010, such as the one pictured here. Ken has also founded the Uke Hut, a venue for live ukulele music in the heart of New York City. When not playing uke, Ken likes to spend time in Hakone hot baths!

Roger 3.0 Version recorded March 27, 2011; original version recorded April 11, 1966.

Andrew Vladeck: Vocal, Slide Banjo, Lead Guitar
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Bass, Drum

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn.

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

Europe, 1966. You could feel it in the air. There was something rotten in Denmark. And Germany, France, Italy, England…The men in charge, and they were all men, just seemed not to get it anymore. Hitler had been dead for 20 years. You couldn’t blame the bad vibe on him forever. Europeans standing between Cowboy America and Cruel Russia and all their nukes on hair trigger were in an impotent and untenable position. How could you cheer for an agenda of mutually assured apocalypse? Where is the chivalry in incinerating an entire city in seconds?

Patriotism was a joke. Jesus was boring. School was for suckers. Even Gods like the Kennedys were seen to be only urge driven primates whose heads could explode at any moment.

And yet, we humans can not give up on the group, so hard wired are we to belong. It is encoded in our very DNA to be insecure. We are born lonely. Connection is a craving. Look around you at everyone typing furiously on their phones. Belonging to the digital cloud is just the latest manifestation of the baboon troop, of the high school clique, of our entire society. This is our nature. To follow. Like sheep. Except the brave first few who say no. The Beats in the 50′s. The Beat Groups of the 60′s.

To escape successfully is just another way to lead. And in Europe in 1966, the leaders weren’t the old men who had killed Hitler and built the atomic bomb. It was now The Beatles and The Rolling Stones who led. People in 2011 look and act a lot more like George Harrison than Charles DeGaulle. We live in The Beatles’ world. Every deep breathing hipster with a yoga mat owes George Harrison a debt of gratitude. He and a few Hindu Entrepreneurs like the Maharishi got there first. Now You Too can be enlightened. Just do what WE SAY. Be like us. Say goo goo ga ga over and over again. Get some of that new improved spirituality.

Deep thoughts are the corpse rotting in the shallow grave of pretension. These days all things Hare Krshna makes me cringe, but in 1966, this was hot, occult stuff. Magnified by acid, enlightenment seemed attainable. Kids had something cool to believe in again. And vitally, all the cool kids were doing it. And no one will ever be as cool as The Beatles again. Mystery no longer exists. Fame has evolved into a self immolating vortex of cruelty, where all The Lindsays Go Sheening. We know too much.

Love You To was the leading edge of the new sensibility. Maybe there is more to life than money? Perhaps pitiless competition is not necessary in every sphere of human existence. The free market may not be the most enlightened way to organize 7 billion people. Love You To is one of the first sparks in this debate over meaning that the 60′s represents today. This battle is still being fought all around us. Rupert Murdoch, Rich Arabs, and the cops stand steadfastly against the 60′s. Hell, in North Korea they just stopped counting after 1950, they never even had a 60′s. But the 60′s are here to stay. everyday, somewhere in San Francisco, there is always a girl with flowers in her hair singing Be Her Now for the first time. She we lose her virginity on ecstasy while loud music is playing. The Summer Of Love is now a permanent niche subculture of associated sustainable and illegal products. Powered by drugs, wind, yoga and sunshine, Hope is a billion dollar Shepard Fairey poster on the Berlin Wall. We believe in Chai Latte paid wirelessly by an iPhone designed by Banksy.

Love You To is the first major Western Pop Song to be based on a third world classical form. It’s like Shakespeare doing Kabuki. This alone makes it noteworthy. Duly noted. Lennon and McCartney are not on this song. From this we can deduce what the inner circle thought of Love You To.

Each Day Just Goes So Fast. You turn around it’s Past. You don’t get time to hang a sign on me.

That is not a terrible lyric. The pun of passed and past is nice. “Each” is a yucky sounding first word. “Today will go so fast%2

Roger 3.0 Version recorded March 13, 2011; original version recorded 1969.

Esther Ku: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Recorded Live On The Beach in front of Ken Murray’s house, Palm City Florida.

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

Sometimes you do things in bands that are exercises in group solidarity which come at the expense of absolute quality control. Maybe the rhythm guitarist is not really a good enough musician to be in the band. Plus he’s fat and dresses badly. But he owns the van, has a kick ass PA, and his sister is super hot. So not only is he in the band, he needs to take a featured extended solo at some point in the middle of the second set. And hard as this is for an art snob like me to admit, living human beings are ultimately more important than the grim pursuit of abstract solipsistic creative excellence. And apparently, other people actually exist. They must be cared for. And fed.

So in a sense, Ringo Starr, by dint of being such a great hang, solid drummer, and possessing a winning, self deprecating, and appealing personality, in a sense, owned the van. His following and status demanded a bone be thrown his way on every album. That he had bandmates who were the best composers of popular song ever with the best most believable voices ever makes the comparative weakness of his contributions in both areas all the more acidly clear.

Bone throwing explains the existence of the very worst Beatles song, a Ringo original, Don’t Pass Me By, from The White Album. Another thrown boner, Octopus’s Garden is right up there, a close contender for Beatles song with the highest what the fuck cringe factor. And to be fair, by being about an animal and having a borderline retarded and simple melody and chord structure, it does function as serviceable children’s entertainment. O.G. is dumb enough for a toddler to comprehend. But for me it is such a drag, that along with Maxwell’s Silver Hammer it is occupying space on what is otherwise the most accomplished and advanced Beatle Album, Abbey Road. SO HERE I AM ON AN AIRPLANE FLYING TO SXSW WRITING ABOUT THIS PIECE OF SHIT IN 2011. The drag that never dies.

Heading to the Bible Belt reminds one that The Beatles in their way have a lot in common with Jesus. Not just the superficial truth that art and science now replaces the explanatory and transcendent function that religion formerly occupied in Western Society, that is true enough and is becoming truer everyday. The essential similarity between Beatles and Jesus is that the reaction to their respective brief ministries has been so crucial and important to the lives of millions. It is the ongoing perpetual influence of a scant few years work that is the real miracle.

OK I’ve put the tune on repeat until this essay is done. Why don’t you put on headphones and listen along with me on repeat. Go ahead take a minute.

Darlings one note, if you are listening along on headphones, always put the side with the wire on your left ear. It matters what is left or right, as much in music as in English.

Here’s a question. When did the trope of tremolo become the sound effect for watery? Underwater sound is weird in a different way in real life, it does not exhibit tremolo. And yet tremolo is universally accepted as the water effect. What was the first usage of this? Similarly, we in the studio racket describe reverb or echo on an element as “wet”. Here again, water does not create reverb, it is hard, large physical spaces, churches and mountains that create natural echo. This has nothing to do with water. These and other technical questions trouble me on a regular basis.

Let’s listen tougher. I do like the actual bubbling liquid sound design. That is ahead of it’s time. The production is slick, as is true on every Abbey Road song. The background harmonies in verse two are superb, their entrance is the best moment. John’s voice in falsetto, his emerging signature vocal sound, is predominant. Now an alternative version of Octopus’s Garden is playing, marginalia from one of the Anthology records. I really don’t want to listen to this version, but it is instructive. Stripped of the excellent pop production this song just stinks. It’s dirty old man creepy to boot. No charm whatsoever.

OK thank god we are back on the Abbey Road version. Great piano sound, very Rocky Raccoon. Busy bass, so typical of McCartney on this album, he really was full of himself. Awesome, but full of himself. The squishiness of the snare drum splat is so satisfying, the kick drum is pretty thin, but present and clear. The entire drum kit is compressed hard, probably on a Fairchild. Very unnatural, and beautiful. Good guitar sound and part at the top. Lucious reverb on the vocal, left channel arpeggio guitar also wet, and very chorusy. John’s tremolo vocals in the bridge pan from left to right and back again. Sounds should move around more in mixes, they have souls, they have free wills, they should be free too and explore the world like us. Not just sit in the right speaker because they were born there. Or because you are trying to emulate the sound of a real world room as opposed to just getting on with making loudspeaker paintings and accepting the reality that you are in an magical imaginary electronic sonic landscape where anything can happen. Another concept that the Beatles team basically invented.

I love English, there are so many funny words in English. Like OCTOPUS.

I also love the story about the Paul The German Octopus who correctly predicted the winner of last The World Cup. So early Internet Era. That is to say, the current era. And you know what is an also an Octopus’ Garden?

Alison Clancy’s* mouth!

* major early internet era star, front person of Electric Child, post modern dance pioneer, circa 2011-2069.

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Esther Ku is a comedian, actress, and musician. Ku recently wrapped filming on The Cookout 2 with Ja Rule, Wendy Williams, Charlie Murphy, Vivica Fox, and Faizon Love. For more on Ku, click here.

Casey Shea: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Recorded outside in the rain on my iPad while busking on the corner of 27th Street and 6th Avenue. So I cannot really say that this track is “produced”.

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

Darlings:

We, and by we I mean World Civilization, owe Patty Boyd Harrison Clapton Whatever Her Name Is Now a huge debt of gratitude. She really has had a lot of great songs written about her. It is a close call whether this song, Something, or Layla by Eric Clapton is the greater achievement. They are both Epic in scale. There really must have been something in the way she moved.

Patty is the hero of a story I like to tell girls who are talented and beautiful but are stuck with some sort of subpar pathetic guy in a dead end relationship. Because girls, while not good, while nowhere near good, universally think of themselves as completely good. This goodness is manifested by a close accounting of the transactional relationships in which they bestow physical affection. A girl can be selfish, dishonest, catty, vicious, grumpy, and manipulative, but as long as they don’t fuck their boyfriend’s best friend they consider themselves good. Their goodness is self perceived as a direct function of the withholding of affection. Mostly this tool is wielded against the current boyfriend. No sex unless you XYZ. But turning down other guys is lots of fun too. Empowering.

I feel bad for girls. Not as bad as I feel for myself, but bad nonetheless. Girls have to constantly calibrate how long to keep talking or interacting with a handsome or talented or rich guy before dropping the BoyFriend Bomb. Factoring into this calculation is whether or not it is time for a growth spurt. Or even more seriously, a Complete BoyFriend Upgrade.

Here’s the story. Patty Boyd was just about the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen. So pretty it hurt. While still a young teenager she was given the sorts of opportunities only given to the very pretty. Modeling, acting, being pursued by powerful older men. If she had a thought in her head there is scant evidence. We only have this story, and it is telling.

George Harrison, while in many ways the most sane of the Beatles, and the most suspicious of the motives of those attracted to his fame and fortune, was nonetheless assiduous in regards to the collection of every single perk and penny associated with his peculiar position. Foremost amongst these many prizes was constant fulfillment of every sexual fantasy. After all, The Beatles, unlike the Royal Family, had earned their place atop British Society. They were in time to surpass the Windsors and become a new type of universal royalty, built like all glory, upon their personal fame. Thus they were entitled.

Patty Boyd was one of many pretty young things plucked from obscurity to decorate the set of The Beatles first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. These girls were literally props. Their job was to either scream or stare dreamily at the boys. Their personal motivation was to be seen by other girls in close proximity to the most desirable boys on earth. This is the theater that girls most care about, being seen by other girls with something that all the other girls want. What is the point of consumption after all, if it is not conspicuous? That would be beside the point. Because actually landing the alpha male, particularly a young alpha male, is agony. As Patty would discover.

George, overworked and overstimulated, saw Patty prancing around the set. It was not anything unique about her that struck his fancy, it was her remarkable physical resemblance to his personal fantasy figure, Bridget Bardot. Same body, same hairdo. Blonde. Bombshell. Being who he was, that is entitled, George luridly invited Patty to come to his trailer. Even if she had not been engaged at the time, which she was, this crude advance was unlikely to succeed. After all, she knew exactly how pretty she was compared to other girls, and had some idea of what that prettiness was worth on the open market. She knew a lot about clothes, hair, shoes, makeup, and personal hygiene. And, she knew exactly what boys want.

You know what? There are too many cute girls in this fancy coffee shop where I am writing in March 2011. I can not concentrate. I have to now pack up my stuff and go back to the studio and sit alone while playing Something over and over again as repetitive catholic punishment until I am done. I am currently one hour and 44 minutes past my self imposed deadline. And why did this not get done last night? Because of a girl.

George had acquired the admirable personality trait of perseverance through his grim pursuit of guitar. You really have to practice for a long long time before you no longer suck. And like guitar, the prettiest girl is a hard nut to crack. The guitar is naturally good at sounding bad, the pretty girl is naturally good at saying no. It takes work. So George kept trying with Patty. And he kept being rebuffed. He was not used to that. And as Patty’s social training had instilled in her, this repeated refusal did succeed in driving up her value in George’s mid 20th Century mind. Not that this was a specific plan of hers, this was simply how she treated every man, in every situation. Standard behavior.

Ultimately George came up with the clever idea of inviting Patty out to dinner with John and Cynthia Lennon. This was a proper date with chaperones. She could remain good while being seen by every girl in the world sitting at a table with not one but two Beatles. That she was much prettier than the insecure Cynthia Lennon made the entire transaction completely sweet. Without saying a word, just by being the prettiest at the table, Patty could put down an actual Beatle wife. Which would make her the top girl in the world.

A month later Patty Boyd was living with George Harrison in their brand new mansion in the stockbroker belt. When asked by a reporter how she was able to justify in her mind leaving her perfectly nice fiancé for a pop star she had just met, she replied with these immortal lines.

“I was loyal, not stupid.”

May those words be carved into her tombstone.

Casey Shea spent a handful of years fronting rock bands in Tallahassee and Nashville before setting out for New York City in January of 2004 to focus on a solo career. A gifted performer with undeniable charm, Casey delivers his songs in a unique way that earns him an audience’s devotion…think Bill Murray meets John Lennon. Melody drives diverse songwriting that is at once quirky and heart wrenching, and the result is a rare treat that is both musically gratifying and raucously entertaining.

The charismatic front man has built a six piece band around his solo material where influences such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Beck and Tom Petty shine through in an original sound with an uncommon familiarity right off the bat.

Currently, Casey is keeping busy touring and playing premiere New York City venues as a solo artist and with his band. In June, 2010, he released “Love Is Here To Stay,” the full band follow up to his self recorded solo debut, “Take The Bite.” He has since returned to the studio with the band for his third full length album to be released on Family Records in 2011. For more information, visit caseysheamusic.com.

Carole Rowley: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY.

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

“Here, There And Everywhere” is the quintessential Paul McCartney song from the quintessential Beatle’s album, Revolver.

A gem of a tune, a delight to listen to, and a pleasure to play. It is almost perfect. Not bad for a 23 year old.

Right from the top we get John, Paul, and George singing 3-part harmony “oohs and aahs” together on one mic. Angelic.

Even though vocal harmony is the Beatles best known effect, there are not too many instances where they actually sing 3-part harmony. More typical is for one vocalist to sing lead with a two-part harmony response.

“Here, There and Everywhere” starts off G to B minor, falls out of the key altogether to B flat, hangs there, then does a sneaky A minor/D major resolving to G. Paul sings “to lead a better life” over the first two chords, followed by “I need my love to be here” over an out of nowhere tension chord. He’s unhappy without her around, he’s lost his G spot, wallowing in a pathetic B-flat pity party. Not for long.

McCartney cheers up quickly, as usual.

There’s a nice pun on the downbeat. Paul sings “Here” just as the chord resolves to G, the most at rest chord in the key, the tonic. We also call the tonic chord “Home”. So “Here” is literally “Home”. There’s no place like it.

Verse one starts on G and goes right up the key stepwise, about the brightest and most optimistic of all chord progressions. The melody is euphoric and leaps boldly up. Reinforcing the mood is a choirboy delivery in the highest vocal range of any performance by McCartney. I defy any normal man with descended testicles who’s never been a member of Journey to sing this song full voice. Even Paul has to go into falsetto on the stratospheric final note. The air is thin in Heaven.

“There” begins verse two. It’s a simple and clever construction, using one word of the three-word title to begin each verse. Catchy. Ever the salesman, Paul always gives the listener a fighting chance to remember the name of the tune.

It’s hard to believe that a song this good doesn’t even have a chorus. Instead we get two middle eights, which we would now call bridges. The chords are cunning, a one beat F7 drops us into B flat major. Aha! That’s the nowhere chord from the intro. It wasn’t a nowhere chord, it was foreshadowing. We now explore the melancholy key of G minor. You know you’re a goner when your love object begins to have terrible power over you, when you can’t think of anything else, when it is agony to be separated. This section really expresses that vulnerability beautifully. The D7 chord happens twice; first it goes to G minor, next time it goes to G major, on the word “Everywhere”. Nice maneuver. All’s well that ends well. Another verse, into bridge two. The bridge repeats exactly. He’s young, still a little worried.

Bridge two resolves into the title of the song, sung over the verse chords. This is a pseudo-chorus, but only happens for four bars at the very end. A whole world inside a two-minute, twenty-six-second Faberge Egg of musical genius.

Well, technique is all well and good, but inquiring minds want to know; “Who did he write this song about?” The answer is, the same girl who inspired “And I Love Her” on the upside and “We Can Work It Out” on the downside.

Jane Asher.

Va-Va-Va-Voom!

Jane bore a striking resemblance to John Lennon’s mother, Julia. McCartney has often reported how attractive John’s mother was. Let us not consider this subject any further.

Jane had been a child star and met The Beatles while doing a celebrity interview with them in 1963. She and Paul were soon an item. So much so that McCartney moved into her parent’s house, sleeping in an attic room usually reserved for music lessons. Jane’s father was a prominent doctor and broadcaster, and her mother was a music teacher who taught George Martin, the Beatle’s producer, how to play oboe.

Despite having written three bestselling books, Jane Asher is the only Beatles insider who has never written about them for publication. Selfish bitch. Spill.

Paul thrived in the heady intellectual atmosphere of the Asher family. His social transformation from feral vagabond gypsy musician into billionaire philanthropist peer of the realm is largely due to their crucial early influence.

The recording of “Here, There and Everywhere” is not a total success. The electric guitar is noodly and over emphasizes the backbeat, interrupting the flow of the melody. The drum set seems out of place completely and reinforces the backbeat along with the guitar, conflicting even more with the melodic rhythm.

A better solution would have been to play a gentle strumming acoustic guitar, and only use electric guitar for the charming bridge solo part. And hand percussion like shakers or bongos instead of a full drum kit.

At least there is no incredibly loud tambourine.

Another problem is Paul’s double tracked lead vocal. To double one’s own lead vocal was something that had not been technically possible till the mid 50′s. Like many fairly new techniques, (Autotune, Vocal Sampling, Guitar Effects) it tends to be overused in it’s early years.

While the Beatles had thousands of hours of live singing experience, doubling their own voice was something that could only happen in the studio. And a lot of the early Beatles tracks with doubled vocals are botched, not tight, particularly the ends of phrases. So too on “Here, There And Everywhere”. There are extra “s” sounds and other inaccuracies at the end of various lines. This song is hard to sing and would have been better not doubled. Also, a doubled vocal affects the meaning of pronouns; it is weird for two voices to say “My” instead of “Our”.

The Beatles are using a very limited number of multitracks in this period, only four. Not a lot of room. This leads to the worst technical botch on the tune. During the second bridge, McCartney’s doubled vocal drops out right when the little guitar figure comes in. This was probably done for track maintenance reasons, but the result sounds bad, like something essential has disappeared. Then the doubled voice mysteriously comes back in on the last verse. Makes no musical sense, especially in such a rigorously logical composition.

Can’t win ‘em all.

Carole Rowley is a singer, songwriter, and recording artist in New York. She has worked on over seventy commercial productions, including radio IDs, theme songs, cartoons, and film scores. Her songs have been recorded by Whitney Houston, Bob James, and Tiffany Evans, to name a few.

Brent Carter: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

The Long And Winding Road is a valedictory of unrequited love. A devotional from Paul McCartney to John Lennon. It is the best kind of beauty, a useless beauty, a beauty dashed against the rocks uselessly. The love of your love of your life is never coming back. Which makes this piece so poignant, so beautiful, so tragic, and true.

The Long And Winding Road, along with Hey Jude, Let It Be, and Maybe I’m Amazed, comprises the soulful heart of Paul McCartney’s awesome songwriting achievement. These pieces, The McCartney/Negro Spirituals, were composed circa 1968-1971, the period of maximum turmoil, anger, pain and frustration for him professionally. The band was dying, against his will. To co-create this unprecedented juggernaut of fame, fortune, and power, and then to have that platform snatched away from you by a sullen, unstable partner on heroin, must have been a terrible experience. It wasn’t fair. In his mind, I am sure McCartney, like many spurned lovers before him, felt as if he was doing his best, unable to realize that the harder he pressed for action, commitment, and cooperation, the faster and more completely Lennon withdrew from him. To John, it came down to a gut determination. Paul was just too uncool to hang around with anymore.

Paul McCartney, just wasn’t, and still isn’t, cool. A musical genius? Yes. An entertainment business visionary? True. But cool? Not cool. Paul, like Sally Field, cares desperately, too desperately, about being liked. Caring what people think is patently uncool. Kurt Cobain was cool. Keith Richards is cool. They didn’t and don’t give a fuck. Paul McCartney, not cool.

But boy oh boy can he write. And sing. And play. This song is amazing. The chord progression is wondrous, hovering between minor and major, achingly sad and pretty. Paul nails the Celtic sense of beloving the beauty of the world through a mist of tears. The original (superior) Phil Spector orchestration featuring a female chorus in the sky-high soprano register evokes Grand Opera in its utter pathos. This is a great unrequited love dying here; I’m talking serious love died in vain. The love affair between Lennon and McCartney is one FOR THE AGES. And what they made together, like all magic, was inexplicably bigger than both of them. So we mourn, and celebrate.

“The Long And Winding Road, that leads, to your door, will never disappear.” This is so typical of the spurned lover. Everything he says is wrong; it is the opposite of true. The Long And Winding Road may lead to a door, but that door is marked Exit. Your love must disappear. This is what love does. Love is not about the lover at all, it is an awareness. It is all in your mind, like 99.999% of life. The lover is just a prod, a pole to react against, or a hole to dive into, which helps you remember things that are always true anyway, with or without them.

“I’ve seen that road before, it always leads me here, leads me to your door.” There is a subconscious flaw here, a telltale tiny mistake where McCartney stops believing his own lies for a split second. There is no road, it does not exist, everything is over. He is pretending to himself and for public consumption, putting on the reflexive brave PR face. The flaw is the word “that”. He should say, “I’ve seen this road before it always leads me here.” But he says that road; a road over the rainbow somewhere, not the road he is on…here we see the soggy truth leaking through a wet tissue of lies. And in the end it makes me like and pity Paul all the more, he is unable to admit the most basic elemental truths about a painful situation. So human, so weak, so real, so forgivable.

“The wild and windy night, that the rain, washed away, has left a pool of tears.” That is just exquisite. The rhythm of the melody is so pensive, so halting, melodically the line ends in tension, the repeating w words wild/windy/washed trailing into the l sounds of “left a pool” and the watery imagery of “rain, washed”, connecting to tears works on a every level. This sentence is like real life too; it ends in “tears”. It is a good description of a final fight. I wish there were witnesses to Lennon and McCartney’s private arguments and most vicious cutting remarks to each other as they broke up. How close did Lennon come to punching him? Did it get physical? I can’t help but think that Lennon just toyed with him. Like a cat with a mouse.

“Many times I’ve been alone and many times I’ve cried. Anyway you’ll never know the many ways I’ve tried.” This is the bridge and only makes sense if the singer understands that the relationship is over. This is another short burst of reality bursting through the fog of denial.

“You left me standing here, a long long time ago. Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door.” Pathetic. Poor bastard. So broken hearted.

McCartney’s name will be known, should our species survive, on distant worlds not yet discovered millions of years hence. This is his undying glory. His work will get to Andromeda by being half of the greatest artistic partnership the human race has yet produced. But his undying shame, his constant albatross, is that he was much the lesser of the two. He will remain alive alone with this awful knowledge, as he has these thirty years gone, and for the next ten or twenty he has left on earth.

In the end, all we have is life and death. John is dead and Paul is not. Why does John always get shot in 1980 and why does Paul always live well into the 21st century?

Paul Is Not Cool Enough To Kill.

The New Improved Roger Version of The Long And Winding Road features the mighty voice of Brent Carter. Brent Carter is a national treasure. He has sung with everybody. He can sing anything. I love it whenever he comes over to record. Never less than stunning. We don’t do it enough. You know how you can tell when someone is really really really good? They are always excellent. And fast. This was done in two takes, each drastically different. We kept the second one. Ten minutes tops.

Emily Zuzik: Vocals
Nico Resurrecti: Dominatrix Vocal
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Everything Else

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

It is a strange coincidence that “Hold Me Tight” was released on the same day that the 35th President of The United States became a saint via the medium of Kodak Home Movie. A youtube star 45 years before youtube.

Hold Me Tight is typical Early Beatles.

The tune features an incredibly precocious vocal melody over a swinging American Rhythm and Blues form. Fabulous harmony. But critically, Hold Me Tight is marred by insipid innocuous non-threatening male expressions of affection, designed to elicit the slightest of squeals from a twittering Tween. Lyrically typical of the songs Lennon and McCartney were writing at the time, our Hero is not even getting to first base. Hold Me Tight. I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I’m Happy Just To Dance With You. Young girls like to be liked. But not too much. Don’t go too far.

Musically this song is a success. Lyrically, embarrassing.

What’s going on here?

The contrast between the Beatles STD-riddled, licentious and voluptuous pill popping real lives, and the lyrics of their early teenage puppy love songs, was vast. I believe this cognitive dissonance was a central facet of their initial appeal.

Similarly, The dichotomy between current events circa 62-63 and songs like Hold Me Tight was exceedingly drastic.

October 1962. Two puny primates, Khrushchev and Kennedy, saw fit to bring the entire planet and 3.5 billion years of evolution to the brink of Biocide. This, in defense of their vulgar and temporary philosophies/nation states. Luckily the world didn’t end suddenly during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And it was luck. Pure luck. In yet another powerful instance of Instant Karma, both K and K were gone from power by 1964. Russia got Brezhnev. The West got Beatles. Who won?

We the living must be grateful that humanity now has the luxury to gradually eradicate itself via climate change. Unless another comet hits. Any moment now.

These silly Beatle love songs were a welcome gin and tonic for tense times.

If any people were ever expecting an imminent apocalypse, it was the English in the early 60’s.

German ballistic missiles had rained down on London in the rather recent past. As if British weather hadn’t been bad enough already. But instead of existential oblivion, a weary nation took The Pill, shopped on Carnaby Street, stared at Twiggy, and listened to The Beatles. What a miracle. A miracle of happiness.

There is nothing miraculous about Hold Me Tight, or many other early Beatle songs.

The marvel is that they wrote songs at all. That changed everything.

Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Elvis. Not songwriters.

I feel a vague and hazy sense of the worldviews of the non-writing singers. Billie is tragic, Judy is heroic, yet damaged, Frank is menacing, but romantic, Bing is kindly, world weary and aloof, etc… but I’m not really sure. Maybe they were just good actors.

With the Beatles I feel no uncertainty of viewpoint. In the case of Lennon, no matter how Joycian and non-sensical he tries to be, he cannot help revealing himself completely. His oeuvre is wholly non-fiction, either reporting, or autobiography.

McCartney meanwhile, dabbles in fiction, and conceals himself, except in his choice of fictional characters. Eleanor Rigby and Lovely Rita are as real as Huckleberry Finn. Lady Madonna is half real/half fake. Martha My Dear is fact. He loved his sheepdog. But like Clinton he has a fatal character flaw, Wanting To Be Liked Too Much. While Lennon, prefiguring Andy Kaufmann, could actually enjoy and cultivate unpopularity, playing the villain with relish.

The reason I feel I know the Beatles as people, is that they wrote their own songs. Sure Hank and Woody and plenty others wrote their own material before the Beatles. But that was the exception. After the deluge of Beatlemania, it became the rule. It became a function of credibility. The struggle between songwriters and performers continues to this day.

The various self-proclaimed geniuses, under whose leadership the music business has collectively committed suicide over the past generation, believed, not wrongly, in craft. They believed that if the 10 best songwriters worked with the same 7.5 producers and the same most popular 5 mixers and the same legendary 2.5 mastering engineers with the same interchangeable rotating cast of divas, that all technical problems could be solved. They imagined a Disneyworld of Music. The making of hits, the fantasy of pop, could, and should be manufactured in an orderly, predictable, and profitable manner.

Which creates the Inauthenticity Dilemma.

I don’t believe one word that comes out of the mouth of Beyonce. Or Mariah. Or Christina, or Justin, or Timberlake. All I see is ferocious technique and grim, Borg-like ambition. But I do believe every word from Pete Doherty. And John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Cause they wrote it.

That’s not to say that as record producers who also write, we at Roger And Dave are not occasionally faced with charismatic, competitive vocalists, who insist on performing their own “ideas” no matter what. There is a downside when Hansen starts writing. Some people, like Judy, Bing, and Billie should not write. They should emote.

We all know what happens when actors start writing their own parts. The Lincoln assassination. The Reagan administration. (Oh, let’s throw a bone to Shakespeare. He was an actor after all. I suppose he could write. A bit.)

The music business didn’t suddenly get stupid. It’s always been stupid. The business in the modern form dates to the 1840’s, with the confluence of 3 emerging technologies. Those were, the telegraph, the steamboat, and steam driven printing presses.

By 1847, Stephen Foster could write Oh Susanna in Pittsburgh on Monday, get a thousand copies printed by Wednesday; ship them by Steamboat to New Orleans, by Saturday. Telegraph reports in New Orleans would attest to the song’s popularity in Pittsburgh. People were singing Oh Susanna from sheet music in Louisiana by Sunday. The other big hit that year was a poem by E.A. Poe, The Raven. Million sellers both. The authors got nada. The publishing tycoons prospered.

An entire business model was built upon the selling of sheet music. Every middle class American home had a piano and a mother or daughter who could read music. This was everyday entertainment in the pre-electronic era. That there was a much higher percentage of musical literacy in the population 100 years ago, compared to now, is our loss.

So anyway, when the sheet music tycoons started hearing about the phonograph, and eventually, discs, they initially thought of this as a fad novelty product to give away to promote their core business, that is, the sheet music business.

Farsighted huh? Kind of like the major labels vis a vis the Internet now.

Because of this history, songwriters have always had a special and separate income from performers. For a performer to also generate his own songwriting income is a potential Bonanza.

There is no way Paul McCartney becomes a billionaire without the songwriting. And he still gets half of all of John’s Beatle songs.

It’s a very interesting and under-discussed topic, that Lennon and McCartney split all of their song writing income 50/50, regardless of who contributed what. They were family, socialist if you will, like U2, who for almost 30 years have functioned on a 1/5th cut between the four band members and their manager on all income, no matter what. What if corporations were run like that?

That’s just crazy, like imagining no religion. Shut up and hold me tight.Tell me I’m the only one. And then, I might…

Our version of Hold Me Tight, featuring the sublime Emily Zuzik, connects the reality to the fantasy of the original.

It’s 3 in the morgen in Hamburg. Your bartender and you have been performing complex scientific experiments with cocktails and your bloodstream for several hours now. A thought occurs. You suddenly have an overwhelming urge to visit Miss Emily.

Miss Emily may be from Köln, she may be from Kansas, she may be from Kenya. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is her leather and her latex. She is thrilling as she brandishes her enormous whip. And you have been a very very very naughty boy. Not wanting to end up like a deceased member of INXS, it is important to hire a professional to supervise your auto-asphyxiation. Miss Emily is here to help. Her insistent command, is as always,

“Right Now.”

Leah Siegel: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

George Harrison was smart enough to know that money and fame is a chimera, that materialism is a dead end. Well, life itself is a dead end.

Is that all there is? Que sera sera?

Sic transit gloria mundi.

So passes the glory of the world. All things must pass.

George craved meaning, which is a rough go when you are a natural born cynic.

But inside the armor of every isolated cynic is a jilted lover of truth. He tried all the world had to offer and kept on looking.

It’s like The Wizard Of Oz, George’s circular spiritual quest.

There’s no place like home. His home was music. That’s why after groupie this and sports car that and Krishna up the ass he ended up a wise and dying man with two ukuleles as his carry on baggage. Why two? Because once you’ve found yourself, the only possible future is other people. He carried two ukuleles in case he met someone else on his plane who could play.

Then they could play. Together.

He was already there. Music is the answer. Music will save you.

Ubi spiritus est cantus est

Where there is spirit there is song.

If I Needed Someone is a song about singing. It’s subject is music. George just didn’t realize it at the time. It would have been better if every word had been “La”. Or, “I don’t need you I have music, music is the best drug in the world. Baby I Love Music.”

Lyrically, this particular tune is totally devoid of spiritual meaning. If I Needed Someone is a slight story about wanting to have an affair but not wanting to have a commitment, emotionally, physically, spiritually, or otherwise.

“Put your number on my wall and maybe you will get a call from me.”

This may be the shallowest line in any Beatles’ song. Translated, it’s saying, “put your number on my speed dial and next time I’m excruciatingly horny you can blow me, you lucky, lucky girl, but right now I’m tapped out.”

Compare the lyrics of If I Needed Someone to Lennon’s Norwegian Wood. They are no match for the emotional complexity of John’s tale of an unsatisfying night of attempted debauchery. George would have happily slept in the bathtub. He wouldn’t burn the house down in the morning either. He’d swallow his disappointment, befitting his role as the runt of the litter.

Tossed off, these lyrics are incidental to the song’s more elemental pleasures. Skillful and tasteful use of 12-string Rickenbacker guitar recalls the breezy West Coast sound of the Byrds, a kind of feedback loop since Roger McGuinn tells the story of running out and getting a 12-string Rickenbacker after seeing George play it in “A Hard Day’s Night.”

While touring America, The Beatles fell in with the Laurel Canyon crowd emerging out beyond the Hollywood Hills. No doubt grateful to get some of Crosby’s great weed, the Beatles became fast friends with the Byrds (who quite cleverly managed to have ties to Bob Dylan as well).

The sound of If I Needed Someone captures the slightly fuzzy but happy spaced-out buzz of someone enjoying the California sunshine, before the inevitable crash and incipient feeling of “Get me the fuck out of here.”

As with most George Harrison Beatle’s songs, the production sounds like an obligation, not a pleasure. When uninspired, The Beatles could always fall back on their signature sound, harmony vocals. The harmonies here are exceptional, and while beautiful, they are a cognitive dissonance. McCartney’s hi note ending the phrases sounds celebratory, and it is, it’s a celebration of McCartney’s voice and his ability to conceive and execute such a hi note. The lyric however, is pure adolescent self-pity, not a party at all.

And when in doubt about the groove, The Beatles had one and only one fallback strategy.

MORE TAMBOURINE.

It sounds like Ringo Starr is hitting the drum set like a pussy, and slamming the tambourine as if had just insulted his sister. It’s hard to listen to.

The stereo production of If I Needed Someone is disastrous. (I’ve never heard the mono). All the vocals are on the right. All the music is on the left. No one would ever do that today, except as some sort of misguided mock tribute to badly mixed mid period Beatles records i.e. how Dave mixed the 1st verse of our version. During the solo, a guitar is placed in the right speaker to replace the silent vocals, along with…

ANOTHER TAMBOURINE.

Good grief.

Aine Duffy: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY

Essay by Roger Greenawalt

About the Song

John is dead, George is dead, and I’m not feeling at all well. Come Together is a song about Death. Death is sexier and bigger than ever. Come Together is a meditation on morbidity; it is apocalyptic, right out of Revelations. The first lyric is “Shoot Me,” a creepy prefiguring of Lennon’s actual murder. We move on to a borrowed line from Chuck Berry, a god like figure to John.

“Here come old flat top He come grooving up slowly.” Well, who the hell is “He?”

“He got joo joo eyeball He one Holy Roller”

“He” is the Old Testament God, joo joo is a pun on Jew and juju, voodoo/blues mojo religion, and Holy Roller is a pun on God/Chuck Berry/Fire And Brimstone Preachers.

“He got hair down to his knees”

God and Jesus both have long hair. So did John. “Got to be a Joker he just do what he please.” This was a reference to the future hit by Steve Miller. (I quoted this song two weeks ago in the bassline of the bridge to Dear Prudence.) God does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Because God can’t die. God is like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, unable to commit suicide. The chorus is “Come Together right now over me.” This is a sex and death pun, describing a simultaneous orgasm in Cowboy Position or more simply, a funeral. John is the corpse in the ground, having been shot at the top of the song, and everyone is at the funeral. They are Over and Above him in the graveyard.

“He say one and one and one is three, got to be good looking cause he’s so hard to see.” This is another dig at Christianity, specifically the Trinity, “He’s” so hard to see because “He” doesn’t exist. And what does the Holy Ghost do anyway. Is it a boy or a girl? Whatever this song is about it definitely is not about “What a great world our elders have made for us let us unquestioningly obey all authority figures.”The message of Come Together is closer to the opposite of that. It’s message is more like “Let’s Come Together And Have Sex on Heroin.”

It was risky to attack authority in the 60’s while having sex on heroin. It’s risky now. People may not remember that The Beatles and Muhammed Ali were the first major celebrities to speak out against the Vietnam War. Ali paid a terrible price for this. John Lennon also ridiculed Christianity, correctly predicting the current secular Europe, and therefore he is a great Atheist Hero, like The Marquis de Sade and Christopher Hitchens. Lennon may be rightly called the first Atheist Saint, (Sainthood technically requiring an early, violent death.)

Come Together, like the rest of Abbey Road, is beautifully recorded. Great simple guitar riff at the top, iconic Ringo tom tom/hi hat drum fill that is also a hook, Lennon attacking the words “Shoot Me” with an echo trail to convey the mood of menace. This is the set up for a horror movie.

The chord progression is a D minor blues. Spooky feeling, complementing the wordy lyrics that are delivered in a sort of detached zombie like religious chant. Our narrator is literally and figuratively deceased. He is not resting. He is a Norwegian Blue.

Paul’s Rhodes piano playing is fantastic; his bass playing supportive and solid. John’s vocal has a very mid-range EQ with delay that sounds old fashioned and retrofuture at the same time.

The solo starts on Rhodes, then George does his usual bendy lots of space guitar solo. McCartney sings a lower harmony on the last 3 verses, which is unusual; he is typically the top voice. Very compressed ride cymbals at the end, long fade out, “Come Together, yeah”

There’s a sort of gurgling choking on blood sound that John does near the fade out, just to keep the creepiness alive. The song went to Number One on the charts in December 1969. It was replaced at Number One by “Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye”. Weird.

It remains sickening to me, still hard to fathom almost 30 years later, that some idiot assassinated John Lennon. That this is the hideous ending of his hero’s journey is so depressing. Everyday I wake up and he’s still dead.

But life goes on anyway. With or without us.

Today we shake our spindly ukulele crippled finger fists and weak damaged limp wrists of anxiety together at Death.

He’s just a one trick Pony after all.

No follow through.

Aine Duffy can be found in 2 seconds on the Internet. She’s amazing and such good fun to be around.

Leah Siegel: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY

About the Song

Blackbird is a Paul McCartney song about Black People from the White Album.

McCartney has said that the song was a reaction to the racial unrest in America in the spring of 1968. After Dr. King was killed, there were riots in over 80 American cities. This is the sort of thing that gives riots a bad name.

Modern gender political correctness did not exist in1968. Black “bird” is like saying black “chick”. Bird is British slang for girls. I wish that slang had caught on in America. Girls are birdlike, small, delicate, nervous, colorful, and beautiful. And they never stop chattering.

Free love was all well and good but Hippie Chicks were still expected to cook and clean and take care of the babies. And pay their own way. The girly revolution hadn’t kicked in yet.

Anysome, back to black.

“Black bird singing in the dead of night,

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.”

This is an amazing first line to a song. Impossible to go wrong after such a strong start. The lyrics sound so good together. Take the K sounds, black/take/broken. KKK. Ha ha ha. Singing/wings. Dead of night/learn to fly. A double paradox. Birds do not sing at night. Broken wings can’t fly. But the key word here is “these”. If McCartney was really writing about black folks, then he would have said, “take your broken wings”. This song is not about people of color, it is about Paul McCartney’s favorite subject:

Paul McCartney.

John Lennon had recently had a near death experience in Scotland. A car crash. His fault, he was driving. With Yoko and kids to boot. They were hurt badly enough to end up in the hospital. This was John’s initial excuse for bringing in Yoko and her bed to the studio. But like many people who have come close to the brink, the experience became a catalyst for a major life change. I’ve been dumped twice by long time girlfriends shortly after the death of a parent. It makes you take stock. In John’s case, the major life change was Yoko and quitting the Beatles. Many of his actions were deliberately provocative from Spring 68, till Fall 69, the last time The Beatles worked together. It didn’t take him long to kill the band.

Paul may not be clever with a capital K like John, but he’s far from stupid. McCartney is a musical and business genius. He knew John was leaving him and he didn’t like it. He wrote the best work of his life during this period to impress John and attempted to assume leadership of The Beatles to save the band, but it didn’t work.

Paul is the one who is singing in the dead of night. He’s the one with broken wings. He is trying to encourage himself to soldier on in the face of disaster. He is only waiting for his moment to arise. He is only waiting for this moment to be free. And what did he end up calling his solo band?

Wings!

The Beatles were not just at the forefront of the Peace Movement, but have impeccable civil rights cred too. Black people made most of the music that inspired them. They toured and played with black artists a lot. When they chose a fifth member for the Get Back album sessions, it was a black man, keyboard virtuoso Billy Preston. And John Lennon was one of the first major western celebrities to have an inter-racial marriage. He was pilloried for this. Just because Yoko was an embarrassing and vulgar narcissistic musical dilettante was no excuse for the many racist and sickening things said about her in the late 60’s. People actually said in print that she was physically ugly. Not true. She is even now a very handsome 70-year-old woman. It’s her personality that is and remains ugly.

Musically Blackbird is inspired by the Andre Segovia transcription of J.S. Bach’s Bouree in E minor. This is one of the most famous classical guitar pieces, suitable for advanced beginners. George and Paul both attempted unsuccessfully to learn Bouree as kids. It has really beautiful counterpoint and the melodies and basslines are usually moving in opposite directions. Blackbird shows some characteristics of Bouree in its oppositional bass and melody structure, but Paul also throws in a Celtic drone, handily using the open G (third) string on every chord. Bach would never have done that. McCartney plays a Martin guitar, and sings in a plaintive, choirboy sort of voice. The vocal is doubled on the chorus. Recordings of real blackbirds are added as sound design. Rhythmically, this is one of the most complex Beatle tracks, the time signature is all over the place, shifting from 2/4 to 3/4 to 4/4. Tricky. The only controversial sound is the click track. I’ve always thought it was a metronome in the left speaker. It is completely isolated from the guitar sound. Wikipedia says the click track is Paul tapping his foot. But then there would be guitar leakage on the foot tapping sound, making the guitar out of phase. The guitar is not out of phase.

Wikipedia is wrong.

Leah Siegel: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Bass, Guitar
Tyler Beckwith: Drums

Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio in Brooklyn, NY

About the Song

The New Improved Roger Version Of Dear Prudence features The Great Leah Siegel. Leah is a genius. She is the best singer I have ever heard, and ever worked with. Her talent is so vast, that it is hard for her to live here on earth with normal people like us and their paltry concerns and abilities. I hope to help the world understand what an important artist is now here among us, and how it is our sacred duty to celebrate her.