Johnny Moon asked:


Sadly I’ve found that many people think of The Beatles only as the band that sang songs such as “She Loves You” & “Can’t Buy Me Love.” While these simple early tunes are great and have lasted the test of time. It’s The Beatles more artistic, experimental songs that I feel are their real legacy. They are the songs that are still inspiring thinking musical artists nearly 40 years after they last recorded together.

These seven songs were The Beatles at their most experimental. Not all of these songs are among their best (although some certainly are) but they are all a cherished part of The Beatles back catalog to me.

#1 “What’s The New Mary Jane”

This song which features only John Lennon, George Harrison and Lennon’s soon to be wife Yoko Ono. It was not actually released until The Beatles Anthology 3. It was intended for The Beatles incredible 1968 double album known as The White Album (it was actually self titled.) It was not included due to time constraints.

The song features a simple piano part, bizarre lyrics, and insane sound effects. The last 4 minutes of the song is basically just spacey sound effects. It’s definitely one of those songs that’s quite hard to describe with words. It’s definitely a real trip.

#2 “Revolution #9″

This 8 minute track was included on The White Album and has probably become The Beatles most infamous track. Many **** it. Some love it. Count me among those that loves it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t listen to it every time I put the album on, it’s not that kind of track. But when I do listen to it, I still find it fascinating.

#3 “Tomorrow Never Knows”

Incredibly the last track on Revolver, “Tomorrow Never Knows” was actually the first song recorded for the album. I think that’s incredible as the song, even 42 years later, still sounds like the future. With lyrics from the book The Psychedelic Experience (which was based upon the Tibetan Book of the Dead), backwards guitars, insane sounding tape loops, this was a song that sounded thousands of years removed from the mop top hits of just 2 years previous.

#4 “Wild Honey Pie”

This is a strange little song which was completely sung and performed by Paul McCartney. It just consists of the refrain “Honey Pie” and some bizarre sounding guitars.

#5 “I Am The Walrus”

Possibly The Beatles most perfect weird psychedelic song. It’s endlessly listenable as there are so many layers to it that one can literally hear something they’ve never heard before even on their 1000th listen.

This was The Beatles at the peak of their “studio as an instrument” phase and it’s still inspiring countless experimental rock musicians to this day. Forget “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” it’s all about “I Am The Walrus.”

#6 “Strawberry Fields Forever”

If “Strawberry Fields Forever” isn’t quite as weird as “I Am The Walrus,” it’s probably even more perfect. It’s a truly brilliant song and much like “I Am The Walrus” it’s the an amazing example of the “studio as an instrument” aesthetic that The Beatles perfected in 1967.

#7 “Within You Without You”

I feel this song often gets short shrift. And yes, it’s very experimental. A “pop” song with an all Indian instrumental? Sure there was “Love You To” & “The Inner Light” before, but this one took it to the next level. I think it’s a brilliant song that fits on Sgt. Pepper perfectly. It’s a trip through some bizarre carnival and you have to make a stop in India while you are there, of course.



Danny

David Bowley asked:


The Beatles’ legacy as a concert attraction, during their harried passage from nightclubs to baseball stadiums, is distinguished primarily by the deafening screams of female fans overcome by the group’s very appearance.

Consequently, the Beatles began to indulge their creative energies in the studio, layering sounds and crafting songs in a way no one had attempted before. The Beatles phenomenon didn’t truly kick in until “Please Please Me,” which topped the British charts in early 1963. This was the prototype British Invasion single: an infectious melody, charging guitars, and positively exuberant harmonies.

The Beatles are the best-selling musical group in history. In the United Kingdom, The Beatles released more than 40 different singles, albums, and EPs that reached number one, earning more number one albums than any other group in UK chart history.

The Beatles slipped into every Soviet flat, on tapes, just as easily as they assumed their place on the world’s stages. They did something that was not within the power of Solzhenitsyn or Sakharov: they helped a generation of free people to grow up in the Soviet Union. The Beatles were placed at the forefront of the psychedelic movement, which is interesting given they only really made one genuinely psychedelic album. In fact this is hardly even an album in the purist sense as it, in fact, consists of two EPs tacked together - the songs from their psychedelic romp ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ and a collection of single releases and b-sides from the surrounding period.

Lennon had begun recording with his second wife, the avant-garde conceptual artist Yoko Ono, and McCartney formed the successful soft-rock group Wings with his wife, Linda. Harrison and Starr also recorded solo albums. Rumours that the Beatles would reunite persisted for a decade until Lennon was murdered in New York City in 1980. “Lennon” he said quietly, and Lennon turned. At that instant, Chapman fired five bullets into the rock star, hitting him in the chest, back and left arm.

Lennon’s reading of The Passover Plot showed him that culturally rich narratives were strung together from assortments of details. It followed, therefore, that the artist’s task is merely to provide the details; the consumers of the art object can be counted on to weave the narrative.

Lennon is often depicted by artists in full hippie garb: long hair, jeans, and wire-rimmed glasses. He sits cross-legged on a park bench with one arm on the armrest and the other on the back of the bench. Lennon released a corrosive set of songs with his new wife, Yoko Ono, and McCartney went on to form a band, Wings, that turned out a fair number of commercially successful recordings in the 1970s. Starr and Harrison, too, initially had some success as solo artists. Lennon and Ono’s Two Virgins (with its full frontal and back **** cover photos) was released the same month as The Beatles and stirred up so much outrage that the LP had to be sold wrapped in brown paper.

The Beatles have been an inspiration for those who take the long and winding road to freedom.



Nicole

brokenspeakers asked:


I read Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and with its title and the certain “appearances” of the Beatles’ song in the novel, Norwegian Wood is obviously significant to the book. I just don’t get the connection and the title’s significance to the novel.

Karl