Posts
Since I enthusiastically agree with his choice for the worst song (in fact, I would say it was one of the worst contributions by anyone claiming to be a recording musician), I am reprinting his entire list here. I must also admit that I wholeheartedly agree that the so-called White Album should have been a one-disc effort with all the crap removed.
Here's McCormick's list:
1. Revolution 9 (The Beatles aka The White Album)
Start with John and Yoko’s nearly nine minute avant-garde sound collage, once pored over by hippies for hidden meanings. What it really means is that you shouldn’t try to make music when you’re stoned out of your brain.
2. Only A Northern Song (Yellow Submarine soundtrack)
“If you’re listening to this song / You may think the chords are going wrong” admits George, on a dreary, tuneless, quasi-psychedelic paean to The Beatles publishing company that proclaims its own laziness: “It doesn’t really matter what chords I play, what words I say”. But it bloody well does.
3. Your Mother Should Know (Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack)
Soft-shoe music hall whimsy from Macca. One of his child friendly numbers that John always hated (others include "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" and "Maxwell’s Silver Hammer"), this has the added disadvantage of starting with a simple idea and not taking it anywhere.
4. Mr Moonlight (Beatles For Sale)
Here’s one your mother might know, and wish she didn’t. A waste of Lennon’s roaring vocal opening, this is an extraordinarily silly cocktail lounge style cover with cheesy harmonies and a hammy organ solo.
5. The Inner Light (B-side, available on Past Masters)
Droning Indian mysticism from George. “Without going out of my door / I can know all things on Earth”. Yeah, right.
6. I’ll Get You (B-side, available on Past Masters)
Uninspiring Lennon-McCartney Merseybeat workout that seems like an exercise in getting to the chorus. Unusual for an early Beatles b-side, nobody else even bothered covering it.
7. Honey Don’t (Beatles For Sale)
Rockabilly classic that they allowed Ringo to sing with more enthusiasm than skill from an album on which you can almost hear the band’s exhaustion at the madness of Beatlemania.
8. Long, Long, Long (The Beatles aka The White Album)
George created some beautiful songs, but he could really get on a minor chord downer sometimes. A boring song about ennui. Which, you could argue, is conceptual perfection.
9. Blue Jay Way (Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack)
George barely stirs himself from marijuana torpor to provide a tuneless account of a dinner party in his house in L.A.
10. Don’t Pass Me By (The Beatles aka The White Album)
Ringo’s first attempt at solo songwriting, it should have been his last. Country chaos, that includes the immortal couplet: “”I’m sorry that I doubted you, I was so unfair / You were in a car crash and you lost your hair."
11. Savoy Truffle (The Beatles aka The White Album)
As glorious as The White Album is, it's questionable whether they had enough really great songs to make it a double. Here George fills the gaps with a little ditty about the contents of a box of chocolates. It’s basically a song about the munchies from the marijuana mystic.
12. Octopus’s Garden (Abbey Road)
Ringo trying to replicate the childish underwater joys of Yellow Submarine, but only succeeding in ruining the otherwise perfect Abbey Road album.
13. Maggie Mae (Let It Be)
During increasingly acrimonious recording sessions, The Feuding Four release tensions with a sudden burst of a dirty scouse folk song. Not their finest moment.
14. You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) (B side, available on Past Masters)
We can play out with another stoned farrago of a comedy song. You should only be grateful that I didn’t include "What’s The New Mary Jane" from Anthology.
No comments:
Post a Comment