This video is everywhere else, but what the heck, I may as well add it here too.
Category: Beatles
Colbert Kids Say the Darndest Things
Joshua knows his Beatles!
John Oliver as Paul McCartney, the equivalent role that Eric Idle played in The Rutles. Further proof that Oliver is, as I have always suspected, Idle’s bastard son!
Mom’s Favorite Beatles Record
I missed getting this post done in time for Mother’s Day, but here it is anyway. The “double A-side” single “Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane” was a familiar sound in my house in 1967. Not only was it played frequently on Musicradio 77WABC, one of my sisters had the record. The world had changed quite a lot in the short three years since the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show!
One time when I was playing the record (without permission), my mother stopped and listened. Then she said, “This is the most original and creative music I have ever heard.” Her offhand comment has always stayed with me as a favorite memory. Six months later she threw out my comic books, which is my least favorite memory!
Audio from the original Capitol mono single that my mother heard is below, followed by the restored music videos that were released in HD a couple of years ago.
Here’s something to consider. This is the Strawberry Field Manor that was a fixture for John Lennon when growing up.
Thanks to his Aunt Mimi taking him in after he was abandoned by his parents, John did not have to live there, as it was an orphanage that began accepting boys in the 1950’s. Here is the Dakota Building, where John spent his final years, and where Yoko still lives.
Tune In for Two Bucks!
For now, the Kindle edition of Mark Lewisohn’s magnum opus “Tune In: The Beatles, All These Years” is available for only $1.99. Who knows for how much longer at this low, low price?
Sculptress of Sound
Once again I turn my attention to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. BBC Radio 4xtra is repeating a 2010 feature on workshop creator Delia Derbyshire. One point about Delia’s incomparable interpretation of Ron Grainer’s Doctor Who theme that seems obvious, but isn’t mentioned, is that one of the sounds is evocative of a Ben Franklin glass harmonica. The programme is also available on this YouTube video.
A few years after this documentary was produced, Paul McCartney revealed that he had a great interest in the Radiophonic Workshop, and had even made a point of meeting Delia, with the intention of trying an electronic backing to “Yesterday.” Nevertheless, the most experimental Beatles production to be released isn’t by Paul, but is John Lennon’s “Revolution 9.” One of Delia’s recordings in the documentary, with voices and a heartbeat, sounds as though it could have been an inspiration for Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”
Deaf Lennon, Dudley, (and Norm)
At the request of Dudley Moore, John Lennon made several appearances on “Not Only… But Also,” a mid-60’s BBC-TV show by Moore and his “Beyond the Fringe” partner Peter Cook. On November 20, 1964, Lennon and his pal Norm Rossington, from “A Hard Day’s Night,” joined Moore in filming a visualization of John’s poem “Deaf Ted, Danoota, (and me).”