- Video Game Publishers Face Pressure To Recover In 4th Quarter (Wall Street Journal)
- Canadian psychedelic Beatles album auction sparks international excitement (Vancouver Sun)
- Take a 'Magical History Tour' of Beatle hot spots in LA (Signal)
- Toronto collectors sell one-of-a-kind Beatles records (CBC.ca)
- 'Beatles Re-Bastered' (Philippine Star)
- Beatles fans slam use of song in Blackberry ad (Belfast Telegraph)
- The Beatles: Rock Band (Zergwatch)
- Groupie lifts the lid on the excesses of the Beatles and Rolling Stones (Telegraph.co.uk)
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Beatles News
"Oh! Darling" Lyrics
by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
As Released by the Beatles (1969)
Oh darling, please believe me, I'll never do you no harm.
Believe me when I tell you, I'll never do you no harm.
Oh darling, if you leave me I'll never make it alone
Believe me when I beg you - ooo - don't ever leave me alone.
When you told me you didn't need me any more
Well you know I nearly broke down and cried.
A - when you told me you didn't need me any more
A - well you know, I nearly broke down and died.
Oh darling, if you leave me, I'll never make it alone.
Believe me when I tell you, I'll never do you no harm.
Believe me, darling.
A - when you told me - ooo - you didn't need me any more
A - well you know I nearly broke down and cried.
A - when you told me you didn't need me any more
A - well you know, I nearly broke down and died.
Oh darling, please believe me, I'll never let you down.
Oh believe me darling
Believe me when I tell you - ooo - I'll never do you no harm.
As Released by the Beatles (1969)
Oh darling, please believe me, I'll never do you no harm.
Believe me when I tell you, I'll never do you no harm.
Oh darling, if you leave me I'll never make it alone
Believe me when I beg you - ooo - don't ever leave me alone.
When you told me you didn't need me any more
Well you know I nearly broke down and cried.
A - when you told me you didn't need me any more
A - well you know, I nearly broke down and died.
Oh darling, if you leave me, I'll never make it alone.
Believe me when I tell you, I'll never do you no harm.
Believe me, darling.
A - when you told me - ooo - you didn't need me any more
A - well you know I nearly broke down and cried.
A - when you told me you didn't need me any more
A - well you know, I nearly broke down and died.
Oh darling, please believe me, I'll never let you down.
Oh believe me darling
Believe me when I tell you - ooo - I'll never do you no harm.
"Bad to Me"
"Bad to Me" is a song written by John Lennon, credited to Lennon/McCartney, that Lennon wrote for Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas. They released the song in 1963 and it became their first #1 UK hit. Paul McCartney was present during the recording session at Abbey Road Studios. The single would be released in the USA the following year, and become a top-ten hit in that country, reaching number 9.
Bootlegs exist of John Lennon's original demo of the song, which was recorded circa May 1963.
The song was also recorded on the 2003 album From a Window, a set of 17 songs that Lennon and McCartney gave to other artists.
Single by Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas
B-side: "I Call Your Name" (Lennon/McCartney)
Released: 26 July 1963
Recorded: 26 June 1963 (both sides)
Genre: Pop music, Beat music
Label: Parlophone R5049
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
Bootlegs exist of John Lennon's original demo of the song, which was recorded circa May 1963.
The song was also recorded on the 2003 album From a Window, a set of 17 songs that Lennon and McCartney gave to other artists.
Single by Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas
B-side: "I Call Your Name" (Lennon/McCartney)
Released: 26 July 1963
Recorded: 26 June 1963 (both sides)
Genre: Pop music, Beat music
Label: Parlophone R5049
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
Did the Beatles Ever Win a Grammy?
Yes, the Beatles won several (11, to be exact) Grammys over the duration of their career. These included the following:
Paul McCartney became the only group member to accept one in person when he showed up at the 1971 Grammy Awards ceremony (where for the Beatles won for Let It Be):
- Best New Artist: The Beatles (1964)
- Best Performance By A Vocal Group: A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles - George Martin, producer (1964)
- Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Performance, Male: Paul McCartney - "Eleanor Rigby" (1966)
- Best Album Cover / Package: Revolver - The Beatles - Klaus Voormann, artist (1966)
- Song Of The Year: "Michelle" - The Beatles (1966)
- Album Of The Year: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles - George Martin, producer (1967)
- Best Contemporary Rock 'N' Roll Recording: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles - George Martin, producer (1967)
- Best Album Cover: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles - Peter Blake & John Haworth, art directors (1967)
- Best Engineered (Non-Classical) Recording: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles - Geoff Emerick, engineer (1967)
- Best Engineered (Non-Classical) Recording: Abbey Road - The Beatles - Geoff Emerick, engineer (1969)
- Best Original Score Written For A Motion Picture Or TV Special: Let It Be - The Beatles
Paul McCartney became the only group member to accept one in person when he showed up at the 1971 Grammy Awards ceremony (where for the Beatles won for Let It Be):
Friday, October 30, 2009
Beatles News
- Beatles fans lash out as hippie anthem used in ad (Independent)
- Lennon's youth gets dull telling in "Nowhere Boy" (Reuters)
- My days of excess with the Beatles and the Stones (Daily Mail)
- Beatles Finally for Sale Online … on BlueBeat? (Wired News)
- In step with the Beatles (The Age)
- Are these the rarest Beatles albums ever? (guardian.co.uk)
- London marks 1000-day countdown with portraits (USA Today)
"Think For Yourself" Lyrics
by George Harrison
Original Manuscript (1965)
(1)
I've got a word or two to say
about the things that you do ...
You're telling all those lies, about the good things
that we can have if we close our eyes.
---- do what you want to do
go where you're going to ...
think for yourself 'cos I won't be there with you
(2)
I left you far behind, the ruins of the life
that you have in mind.
And tho' you still can't see, I know your mind's made up
you're going to cause more misery.
--- chorus.
(3)
Although you're [sic] mind's opaque, try thinking more
if just for your own sake.
The future still looks good, and you've got time
to rectify all the thinks [sic] that you should -----
chorus ----------
As Released by the Beatles (1965)
I've got a word or two
To say about the things that you do.
You're telling all those lies
About the good things
That we can have if we close our eyes.
Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
I left you far behind
The ruins of the life that you have in mind
And though you still can't see
I know your mind's made up
You're gonna cause more misery.
Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
Although your mind's opaque
Try thinking more if just for your own sake.
The future still looks good
And you've got time to rectify
All the things that you should.
Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
Original Manuscript (1965)(1)
I've got a word or two to say
about the things that you do ...
You're telling all those lies, about the good things
that we can have if we close our eyes.
---- do what you want to do
go where you're going to ...
think for yourself 'cos I won't be there with you
(2)
I left you far behind, the ruins of the life
that you have in mind.
And tho' you still can't see, I know your mind's made up
you're going to cause more misery.
--- chorus.
(3)
Although you're [sic] mind's opaque, try thinking more
if just for your own sake.
The future still looks good, and you've got time
to rectify all the thinks [sic] that you should -----
chorus ----------
As Released by the Beatles (1965)
I've got a word or two
To say about the things that you do.
You're telling all those lies
About the good things
That we can have if we close our eyes.
Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
I left you far behind
The ruins of the life that you have in mind
And though you still can't see
I know your mind's made up
You're gonna cause more misery.
Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
Although your mind's opaque
Try thinking more if just for your own sake.
The future still looks good
And you've got time to rectify
All the things that you should.
Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
Think for yourself
'cos I won't be there with you.
Ravi Shankar
Pandit Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শংকর, "Pandit" is honorific) (born April 7, 1920) is a Bengali Indian sitar player and composer. He is a disciple of Baba Allauddin Khan, the founder of the Maihar gharana of Hindustani classical music, and the father of Grammy-award-winning singer-songwriter Norah Jones and sitar player Anoushka Shankar.Ravi Shankar is a leading Indian instrumentalist of the modern era. He has been a longtime musical collaborator of tabla-players Ustad Allah Rakha, Kishan Maharaj and intermittently also of sarod-player Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. His collaborations with violinist Yehudi Menuhin, film maker Satyajit Ray, and The Beatles (in particular, George Harrison) added to his international reputation.
He has received many awards throughout his career, including three Grammy Awards and an Academy Award nomination. In 1999, Ravi Shankar was awarded the Bharat Ratna award, India's highest civilian honor.
Personal life and education
Ravi Shankar was born in Benares, India. His family originally hails from Narail, Jessore district, East Bengal, now in Bangladesh.
His first wife, sitarist Annapurna Devi is the daughter of his teacher, Ustad Alauddin Khan. They had a son, Shubhendra Shankar (1942-92), who was also a musician.
Shankar later had two other children, singer Norah Jones in 1979 with Sue Jones and sitarist Anoushka Shankar in 1981 with Sukanya Shankar. Shankar is also the brother of dancer and choreographer, Uday Shankar, with whom he started giving stage shows as a child artist. He is the uncle of Indian musician Ananda Shankar and of the Indian dancer and actress Mamata Shankar. It is worth noting that despite popular belief, the Tamil violinist L. Shankar is not related to Ravi.
Musical career
Ravi Shankar has been on stage from the age of 10 and has been all over the world as a dancer and a musician. He first performed publicly in India in 1939. He finished his formal training in 1944 and worked out of Mumbai (Bombay). He began writing scores for film and ballet and started a recording career with HMV's Indian affiliate. He became music director of All India Radio in the 1950s. From 1946 onwards he began to compose original music for films. Some of his most noted scores include the ones for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy and Richard Attenborough's Gandhi. He also composed the tune for Saare Jahan Se Achcha.
Ravi Shankar then became well known to the music world outside India, first performing in the former Soviet Union in 1954 and then the West in 1956. He performed in major events such as the Monterey Pop Festival and at major venues such as the Royal Festival Hall.
Already performing in major concert halls all around the world, Shankar, having attained pop cultural fame, was invited to play venues that were unusual for a classical musician, such as the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey, California, with Ustad Allah Rakha on tabla. He was also one of the artists who performed at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, and with George Harrison was one of the organizers of The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, in an attempt to raise awareness of the growing crisis (see 1970 Bhola cyclone, Bangladesh Liberation War and 1971 Bangladesh atrocities carried out by West Pakistan Army) that was occurring in East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) at the hand of West Pakistan Army where Shankar's family origins lay. It was Ravi Shankar who asked George Harrison for his help to raise funds for Bangladesh. Ravi Shankar & Friends co-headlined Harrison's 1974 tour of North America with mixed reviews. His final working album with Harrison was on a 1997 album, Chants of India, where Harrison developed an interest in chant music. After his colleague's death on 29 November in 2001, following a long fight against cancer, Shankar, his daughter, Anoushka, along with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Billy Preston, among many others attended the Concert for George in London, where Shankar dedicated the memorial to Harrison.
Shankar has been critical of some facets of the Western reception of Indian music. On a trip to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district after performing in Monterey, Shankar wrote,
“ I felt offended and shocked to see India being regarded so superficially and its great culture being exploited. Yoga, Tantra, mantra, kundalini, ganja, hashish, Kama Sutra? They all became part of a cocktail that everyone seemed to be lapping up! ”
In 1969 he published an English language autobiography, "My Music, My Life".
Always ahead of his time, Shankar has written two concertos for sitar and orchestra. His 3rd concerto will be given its debut performance by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and his daughter Anoushka Shankar.The piece is scored for solo sitar and orchestra consisting of piccolo, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, timpani, 2 percussionists, harp and strings. In the first two concertos, Shankar doubled as composer and soloist. For his third concerto, commissioned by Orpheus, he calls on his daughter Anoushka Shankar, a leading sitar player of her generation and a rising world music star. To meet the challenge of notating Indian musical concepts in Western notation, Shankar enlisted the Welsh conductor David Murphy to help transcribe the work into an orchestral score. The concerto begins with an energetic orchestral overture, introducing the exotic musical language of sinuous melodies, shifting rhythms and drone notes. Unlike typical Western concert music, which derives much of its momentum from harmony and key relationships, Indian music builds intensity through melodic and rhythmic elaboration. Call-and-response passages offer special insight into the translation of the sitar's sonorities into an orchestral idiom.
He has also written violin-sitar compositions for Yehudi Menuhin and himself, music for flute virtuoso Jean-Pierre Rampal, music for Hōzan Yamamoto, master of the shakuhachi (Japanese flute), and koto virtuoso Musumi Miyashita. He has composed extensively for films and ballets in India, Canada, Europe, and the United States, including Chappaqua, Charly, Gandhi (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award), and the Apu Trilogy. His recording Tana Mana, released on the Private Music label in 1987, penetrated the New Age genre with its unique combination of traditional instruments with electronics. In 2002, Ravi composed a piece for "The Concert for George." He did not play at the concert, but his daughter Anoushka led an ensemble of Indian musicians in the piece. The classical composer Philip Glass acknowledges Shankar as a major influence, and the two collaborated to produce Passages, a recording of compositions in which each reworks themes composed by the other. Shankar also composed the sitar part in Glass's 2004 composition Orion.
Ravi Shankar has homes in Encinitas, California and New Delhi, Delhi, India.
Teaching
Some of his well-known students are Kartik Kumar, Chandrakant Sardeshmukh, Guru Pitka, Deepak Chowdhury, Harihar Rao, Amiya Das Gupta, Shamim Ahmed, Partho Sarathy, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Manju Mehta, Shubhendra Rao, Kartik Seshadri, Stephen Slavek, Stephen James, Tarun Bhattacharya, Jaya Bose, and David Murphy. His daughter Anoushka started learning from him at the age of 8 and frequently accompanies him in concerts in addition to her solo performances.
Honors
Shankar is an honorary member of the International Rostrum of Composers. He has received many awards and honors from his own country and from all over the world, including 14 honorary doctorates, the Padma Vibhushan, Desikottam, the Magsaysay Award from Manila, three Grammy Awards, the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize (Grand Prize) from Japan, and the Crystal Award from Davos, with the title "Global Ambassador", to name but some. In 1986 he was nominated to be a member of the Rajya Sabha, India's upper house of Parliament, for six years. In 2002, he was conferred the inaugural Indian Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award. The Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honor, was awarded to him in 1999. In 1998 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize with Ray Charles. He shared an Academy Award nomination with George Fenton for Best Original Score to Gandhi (1982).
Discography
* Three Ragas (1956)
* Improvisations (1962)
* India's Most Distinguished Musician (1962)
* India's Master Musician (1963)
* In London (1964)
* Ragas & Talas (1964)
* Portrait of Genius (1964)
* Sound of the Sitar (1965)
* Live at Monterey (1967)
* In San Francisco (1967)
* West Meets East (1967)
* At the Monterey Pop Festival (1967)
* The Exotic Sitar and Sarod (1967)
* A Morning Raga / An Evening Raga (1968)
* The Sounds of India (1968)
* In New York (1968)
* At the Woodstock Festival (1969)
* The Concert for Bangladesh (1971)
* Raga (Soundtrack) (1972)
* In Concert 1972 (1973)
* Transmigration Macabre (SOUNDTRACK) (1973)
* Shankar Family & Friends (1974)
* Music Festival From India (1976)
* Homage to Mahatma Gandhi (1981)
* Räga-Mälä (Sitar Concerto No. 2) (1982)
* Pandit Ravi Shankar (1986)
* Tana Mana (1987)
* Inside The Kremlin (1988)
* Passages with Philip Glass (1990)
* Concert for Peace: Royal Albert Hall (1995)
* Chants of India (1997)
* Concerto for Sitar & Orchestra with André Previn (1999)
* Full Circle: Carnegie Hall 2000 (2001)
* Between Two Worlds (Documentary-directed by Mark Kidel) (2001)
* Flowers of India (2007)
Films
* Prominently figures in D.A. Pennebaker's classic documentary Monterey Pop
* Performed music for the animated short, A Chairy Tale (directed by Norman McLaren)
* Music Direction Apu Trilogy (directed by Satyajit Ray)
* Composed original score for "Alice in Wonderland" (1966, directed by Jonathan Miller)
* Chappaqua (1966, directed by Conrad Rooks)
* Raga (1971) (directed by Howard Worth)
* The Concert for Bangladesh (1971)
* Music for Gandhi (directed by Richard Attenborough) (Academy Award nomination for Shankar)
* Concert for George (2003)
* Forbidden Image (directed by Jeremy Marre)
* Charly (directed by Ralph Nelson)
* Woodstock: The Movie
* Anuradha- Composed the soundtrack for this 1960 Hindi movie
* Composed for a Brit art film 'Viola', with an album entitled 'Transmigration Macabre'
Bibliography
* Raga Mala (1997) (Autobiography edited by George Harrison)
* Learning Indian music: A systematic approach (1979)
* My Music, My Life (1968) (Autobiography)
* Music memory (1967)
Wikipedia
John Lennon: 1980
By David Sheff / September 8-28, 1980
PLAYBOY: What's an example of a lyric you and Paul worked on together?
LENNON: In "We Can Work It Out," Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you've got Paul writing, "We can work it out/We can work it out" -- real optimistic, y' know, and me, impatient: "Life is very short and there's no time/For fussing and fighting, my friend...."
PLAYBOY: Paul tells the story and John philosophizes.
LENNON: Sure. Well, I was always like that, you know. I was like that before the Beatles and after the Beatles. I always asked why people did things and why society was like it was. I didn't just accept it for what it was apparently doing. I always looked below the surface.
PLAYBOY: When you talk about working together on a single lyric like "We Can Work It Out," it suggests that you and Paul worked a lot more closely than you've admitted in the past. Haven't you said that you wrote most of your songs separately, despite putting both of your names on them?
LENNON: Yeah, I was lying. [Laughs] It was when I felt resentful, so I felt that we did everything apart. But, actually, a lot of the songs we did eyeball to eyeball.
PLAYBOY: But many of them were done apart, weren't they?
LENNON: Yeah. "Sgt. Pepper" was Paul's idea, and I remember he worked on it a lot and suddenly called me to go into the studio, said it was time to write some songs. On "Pepper," under the pressure of only ten days, I managed to come up with "Lucy in the Sky" and "Day in the Life." We weren't communicating enough, you see. And later on, that's why I got resentful about all that stuff. But now I understand that it was just the same competitive game going on.
PLAYBOY: But the competitive game was good for you, wasn't it?
LENNON: In the early days. We'd make a record in 12 hours or something; they would want a single every three months and we'd have to write it in a hotel room or in a van. So the cooperation was functional as well as musical.
PLAYBOY: Don't you think that cooperation, that magic between you, is something you've missed in your work since?
LENNON: I never actually felt a loss. I don't want it to sound negative, like I didn't need Paul, because when he was there, obviously, it worked. But I can't -- it's easier to say what I gave to him than what he gave to me. And he'd say the same.
PLAYBOY: Just a quick aside, but while we're on the subject of lyrics and your resentment of Paul, what made you write "How Do You Sleep?," which contains lyrics such as "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead" and "The only thing you done was yesterday/And since you've gone, you're just another day"?
LENNON: [Smiles] You know, I wasn't really feeling that vicious at the time. But I was using my resentment toward Paul to create a song, let's put it that way. He saw that it pointedly refers to him, and people kept hounding him about it. But, you know, there were a few digs on his album before mine. He's so obscure other people didn't notice them, but I heard them. I thought, Well, I'm not obscure, I just get right down to the nitty-gritty. So he'd done it his way and I did it mine. But as to the line you quoted, yeah, I think Paul died creatively, in a way.
PLAYBOY: That's what we were getting at: You say that what you've done since the Beatles stands up well, but isn't it possible that with all of you, it's been a case of the creative whole being greater than the parts?
LENNON: I don't know whether this will gel for you: When the Beatles played in America for the first time, they played pure craftsmanship. Meaning they were already old hands. The jism had gone out of the performances a long time ago. In the same respect, the songwriting creativity had left Paul and me in the mid-Sixties. When we wrote together in the early days, it was like the beginning of a relationship. Lots of energy. In the "Sgt. Pepper"- "Abbey Road" period, the relationship had matured. Maybe had we gone on together, more interesting things would have come, but it couldn't have been the same.
PLAYBOY: Let's move on to Ringo. What's your opinion of him musically?
LENNON: Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. He was a professional drummer who sang and performed and had Ringo Star-time and he was in one of the top groups in Britain but especially in Liverpool before we even had a drummer. So Ringo's talent would have come out one way or the other as something or other. I don't know what he would have ended up as, but whatever that spark is in Ringo that we all know but can't put our finger on -- whether it is acting, drumming or singing I don't know -- there is something in him that is projectable and he would have surfaced with or without the Beatles. Ringo is a damn good drummer. He is not technically good, but I think Ringo's drumming is underrated the same way Paul's bass playing is underrated. Paul was one of the most innovative bass players ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period. He is an egomaniac about everything else about himself, but his bass playing he was always a bit coy about. I think Paul and Ringo stand up with any of the rock musicians. Not technically great -- none of us are technical musicians. None of us could read music. None of us can write it. But as pure musicians, as inspired humans to make the noise, they are as good as anybody.
PLAYBOY: How about George's solo music?
LENNON: I think "All Things Must Pass" was all right. It just went on too long.
PLAYBOY: How did you feel about the lawsuit George lost that claimed the music to "My Sweet Lord" is a rip-off of the Shirelles' hit "He's So Fine?"
LENNON: Well, he walked right into it. He knew what he was doing.
PLAYBOY: Are you saying he consciously plagiarized the song?
LENNON: He must have known, you know. He's smarter than that. It's irrelevant, actually -- only on a monetary level does it matter. He could have changed a couple of bars in that song and nobody could ever have touched him, but he just let it go and paid the price. Maybe he thought God would just sort of let him off. [At presstime, the court has found Harrison guilty of "subconscious" plagiarism but has not yet ruled on damages.]
PLAYBOY: You actually haven't mentioned George much in this interview.
LENNON: Well, I was hurt by George's book, "I, Me, Mine" -- so this message will go to him. He put a book out privately on his life that, by glaring omission, says that my influence on his life is absolutely zilch and nil. In his book, which is purportedly this clarity of vision of his influence on each song he wrote, he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: Because George's relationship with me was one of young follower and older guy. He's three or four years younger than me. It's a love- hate relationship and I think George still bears resentment toward me for being a daddy who left home. He would not agree with this, but that's my feeling about it. I was just hurt. I was just left out, as if I didn't exist. I don't want to be that egomaniacal, but he was like a disciple of mine when we started. I was already an art student when Paul and George were still in grammar school [equivalent to high school in the U.S.]. There is a vast difference between being in high school and being in college and I was already in college and already had sexual relationships, already drank and did a lot of things like that. When George was a kid, he used to follow me and my first girlfriend, Cynthia -- who became my wife -- around. We'd come out of art school and he'd be hovering around like those kids at the gate of the Dakota now. I remember the day he called to ask for help on "Taxman," one of his bigger songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he couldn't go to Paul, because Paul wouldn't have helped him at that period. I didn't want to do it. I thought, Oh, no, don't tell me I have to work on George's stuff. It's enough doing my own and Paul's. But because I loved him and I didn't want to hurt him when he called me that afternoon and said, "Will you help me with this song?" I just sort of bit my tongue and said OK. It had been John and Paul so long, he'd been left out because he hadn't been a songwriter up until then. As a singer, we allowed him only one track on each album. If you listen to the Beatles' first albums, the English versions, he gets a single track. The songs he and Ringo sang at first were the songs that used to be part of my repertoire in the dance halls. I used to pick songs for them from my repertoire -- the easier ones to sing. So I am slightly resentful of George's book. But don't get me wrong. I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo go on.
PLAYBOY: Didn't all four Beatles work on a song you wrote for Ringo in 1973?
LENNON: "I'm the Greatest." It was the Muhammad Ali line, of course. It was perfect for Ringo to sing. If I said, "I'm the greatest," they'd all take it so seriously. No one would get upset with Ringo singing it.
PLAYBOY: Did you enjoy playing with George and Ringo again?
LENNON: Yeah, except when George and Billy Preston started saying, "Let's form a group. Let's form a group." I was embarrassed when George kept asking me. He was just enjoying the session and the spirit was very good, but I was with Yoko, you know. We took time out from what we were doing. The very fact that they would imagine I would form a male group without Yoko! It was still in their minds. . . .
PLAYBOY: Just to finish your favorite subject, what about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit?
LENNON: I don't want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: Because they're always rip-offs. I haven't performed for personal gain since 1966, when the Beatles last performed. Every concert since then, Yoko and I did for specific charities, except for a Toronto thing that was a rock- 'n'-roll revival. Every one of them was a mess or a rip-off. So now we give money to who we want. You've heard of tithing?
PLAYBOY: That's when you give away a fixed percentage of your income.
LENNON: Right. I am just going to do it privately. I am not going to get locked into that business of saving the world on stage. The show is always a mess and the artist always comes off badly.
PLAYBOY: What about the Bangladesh concert, in which George and other people such as Dylan performed?
LENNON: Bangladesh was caca.
PLAYBOY: You mean because of all the questions that were raised about where the money went?
LENNON: Yeah, right. I can't even talk about it, because it's still a problem. You'll have to check with Mother [Yoko], because she knows the ins and outs of it, I don't. But it's all a rip-off. So forget about it. All of you who are reading this, don't bother sending me all that garbage about, "Just come and save the Indians, come and save the blacks, come and save the war veterans," Anybody I want to save will be helped through our tithing, which is ten percent of whatever we earn.
PLAYBOY: But that doesn't compare with what one promoter, Sid Bernstein, said you could raise by giving a world-wide televised concert -- playing separately, as individuals, or together, as the Beatles. He estimated you could raise over $200,000,000 in one day.
LENNON: That was a commercial for Sid Bernstein written with Jewish schmaltz and showbiz and tears, dropping on one knee. It was Al Jolson. OK. So I don't buy that. OK.
PLAYBOY: But the fact is, $200,000,000 to a poverty- stricken country in South America----
LENNON: Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
[Ono rejoins the conversation.]
PLAYBOY: On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000 and----
LENNON: We never admitted anything.
PLAYBOY: The Post said you had.
LENNON: What the Post says -- OK, so we are rich; so what?
PLAYBOY: The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You're supposed to be socialists, aren't you?
LENNON: In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell -- if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers.
PLAYBOY: Whatever your politics, you've played the capitalist game very well, parlaying your Beatles royalties into real estate, livestock----
ONO: There is no denying that we are still living in the capitalist world. I think that in order to survive and to change the world, you have to take care of yourself first. You have to survive yourself. I used to say to myself, I am the only socialist living here. [Laughs] I don't have a penny. It is all John's, so I'm clean. But I was using his money and I had to face that hypocrisy. I used to think that money was obscene, that the artists didn't have to think about money. But to change society, there are two ways to go: through violence or the power of money within the system. A lot of people in the Sixties went underground and were involved in bombings and other violence. But that is not the way, definitely not for me. So to change the system -- even if you are going to become a mayor or something -- you need money.
PLAYBOY: To what extent do you play the game without getting caught up in it -- money for the sake of money, in other words?
ONO: There is a limit. It would probably be parallel to our level of security. Do you know what I mean? I mean the emotional-security level as well.
PLAYBOY: Has it reached that level yet?
ONO: No, not yet. I don't know. It might have.
PLAYBOY: You mean with $150,000,000? Is that an accurate estimate?
ONO: I don't know what we have. It becomes so complex that you need to have ten accountants working for two years to find out what you have. But let's say that we feel more comfortable now.
PLAYBOY: How have you chosen to invest your money?
ONO: To make money, you have to spend money. But if you are going to make money, you have to make it with love. I love Egyptian art. I make sure to get all the Egyptian things, not for their value but for their magic power. Each piece has a certain magic power. Also with houses. I just buy ones we love, not the ones that people say are good investments.
PLAYBOY: The papers have made it sound like you are buying up the Atlantic Seaboard.
ONO: If you saw the houses, you would understand. They have become a good investment, but they are not an investment unless you sell them. We don't intend to sell. Each house is like a historic landmark and they're very beautiful.
PLAYBOY: Do you actually use all the properties?
ONO: Most people have the park to go to and run in -- the park is a huge place -- but John and I were never able to go to the park together. So we have to create our own parks, you know.
PLAYBOY: We heard that you own $60,000,000 worth of dairy cows. Can that be true?
ONO: I don't know. I'm not a calculator. I'm not going by figures. I'm going by excellence of things.
LENNON: Sean and I were away for a weekend and Yoko came over to sell this cow and I was joking about it. We hadn't seen her for days; she spent all her time on it. But then I read the paper that said she sold it for a quarter of a million dollars. Only Yoko could sell a cow for that much.
[Laughter]
PLAYBOY: For an artist, your business sense seems remarkable.
ONO: I was doing it just as a chess game. I love chess. I do everything like it's a chess game. Not on a Monopoly level -- that's a bit more realistic. Chess is more conceptual.
PLAYBOY: John, do you really need all those houses around the country?
LENNON: They're good business.
PLAYBOY: Why does anyone need $150,000,000? Couldn't you be perfectly content with $100,000,000? Or $1,000,000?
LENNON: What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, "Get rid of the possessions of the mind." Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right? If I walk away from one house or 400 houses, I'm not gonna escape it.
PLAYBOY: How do you escape it?
LENNON: It takes time to get rid of all this garbage that I've been carrying around that was influencing the way I thought and the way I lived. It had a lot to do with Yoko, showing me that I was still possessed. I left physically when I fell in love with Yoko, but mentally it took the last ten years of struggling. I learned everything from her.
PLAYBOY: You make it sound like a teacher-pupil relationship.
LENNON: It is a teacher-pupil relationship. That's what people don't understand. She's the teacher and I'm the pupil. I'm the famous one, the one who's supposed to know everything, but she's my teacher. She's taught me everything I fucking know. She was there when I was nowhere, when I was the nowhere man. She's my Don Juan [a reference to Carlos Castaneda's Yaqui Indian teacher]. That's what people don't understand. I'm married to fucking Don Juan, that's the hardship of it. Don Juan doesn't have to laugh; Don Juan doesn't have to be charming; Don Juan just is. And what goes on around Don Juan is irrelevant to Don Juan.
PLAYBOY: Yoko, how do you feel about being John's teacher?
ONO: Well, he had a lot of experience before he met me, the kind of experience I never had, so I learned a lot from him, too. It's both ways. Maybe it's that I have strength, a feminine strength. Because women develop it -- in a relationship, I think women really have the inner wisdom and they're carrying that while men have sort of the wisdom to cope with society, since they created it. Men never developed the inner wisdom; they didn't have time. So most men do rely on women's inner wisdom, whether they express that or not.
PLAYBOY: Is Yoko John's guru?
LENNON: No, a Don Juan doesn't have a following. A Don Juan isn't in the newspaper and doesn't have disciples and doesn't proselytize.
PLAYBOY: How has she taught you?
LENNON: When Don Juan said -- when Don Ono said, "Get out! Because you're not getting it," well, it was like being sent into the desert. And the reason she wouldn't let me back in was because I wasn't ready to come back in. I had to settle things within myself. When I was ready to come back in, she let me back in. And that's what I'm living with.
PLAYBOY: You're talking about your separation.
LENNON: Yes. We were separated in the early Seventies. She kicked me out. Suddenly, I was on a raft alone in the middle of the universe.
PLAYBOY: What happened?
LENNON: Well, at first, I thought, Whoopee, whoopee! You know, bachelor life! Whoopee! And then I woke up one day and I thought, What is this? I want to go home! But she wouldn't let me come home. That's why it was 18 months apart instead of six months. We were talking all the time on the phone and I would say, "I don't like this, I'm getting in trouble and I'd like to come home, please." And she would say, "You're not ready to come home." So what do you say? OK, back to the bottle.
PLAYBOY: What did she mean, you weren't ready?
LENNON: She has her ways. Whether they be mystical or practical. When she said it's not ready, it ain't ready.
PLAYBOY: Back to the bottle?
LENNON: I was just trying to hide what I felt in the bottle. I was just insane. It was the lost weekend that lasted 18 months. I've never drunk so much in my life. I tried to drown myself in the bottle and I was with the heaviest drinkers in the business.
PLAYBOY: Such as?
LENNON: Such as Harry Nilsson, Bobby Keyes, Keith Moon. We couldn't pull ourselves out. We were trying to kill ourselves. I think Harry might still be trying, poor bugger -- God bless you, Harry, wherever you are -- but, Jesus, you know, I had to get away from that, because somebody was going to die. Well, Keith did. It was like, who's going to die first? Unfortunately, Keith was the one.
PLAYBOY: Why the self-destruction?
LENNON: For me, it was because of being apart. I couldn't stand it. They had their own reasons, and it was, Let's all drown ourselves together. From where I was sitting, it looked like that. Let's kill ourselves but do it like Errol Flynn, you know, the macho, male way. It's embarrassing for me to think about that period, because I made a big fool of myself -- but maybe it was a good lesson for me. I wrote "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out" during that time. That's how I felt. It exactly expresses the whole period. For some reason, I always imagined Sinatra singing that one. I don't know why. It's kind of a Sinatraesque song, really. He would do a perfect job with it. Are you listening, Frank? You need a song that isn't a piece of nothing. Here's the one for you, the horn arrangement and everything's made for you. But don't ask me to produce it.
PLAYBOY: That must have been the time the papers came out with reports about Lennon running around town with a Tampax on his head.
LENNON: The stories were all so exaggerated, but. . . . We were all in a restaurant, drinking, not eating, as usual at those gatherings, and I happened to go take a pee and there was a brand-new fresh Kotex, not Tampax, on the toilet. You know the old trick where you put a penny on your forehead and it sticks? I was a little high and I just picked it up and slapped it on and it stayed, you see. I walked out of the bathroom and I had a Kotex on my head. Big deal. Everybody went "Ha-ha-ha" and it fell off, but the press blew it up.
PLAYBOY: Why did you kick John out, Yoko?
ONO: There were many things. I'm what I call a "moving on" kind of girl; there's a song on our new album about it. Rather than deal with problems in relationships, I've always moved on. That's why I'm one of the very few survivors as a woman, you know. Women tend to be more into men usually, but I wasn't....
LENNON: Yoko looks upon men as assistants. . . . Of varying degrees of intimacy, but basically assistants. And this one's going to take a pee.
[He exits]
ONO: I have no comment on that. But when I met John, women to him were basically people around who were serving him. He had to open himself up and face me -- and I had to see what he was going through. But ... I though I had to move on again, because I was suffering being with John.
PLAYBOY: Why?
ONO: The pressure from the public, being the one who broke up the Beatles and who made it impossible for them to get back together. My artwork suffered, too. I thought I wanted to be free from being Mrs. Lennon, so I thought it would be a good idea for him to go to L.A. and leave me alone for a while. I had put up with it for many years. Even early on, when John was a Beatle, we stayed in a room and John and I were in bed and the door was closed and all that, but we didn't lock the door and one of the Beatle assistants just walked in and talked to him as if I weren't there. It was mind- blowing. I was invisible. The people around John saw me as a terrible threat. I mean, I heard there were plans to kill me. Not the Beatles but the people around them.
PLAYBOY: How did that news affect you?
ONO: The society doesn't understand that the woman can be castrated, too. I felt castrated. Before, I was doing all right, thank you. My work might not have been selling much, I might have been poorer, but I had my pride. But the most humiliating thing is to be looked at as a parasite.
[Lennon rejoins the conversation.]
LENNON: When Yoko and I started doing stuff together, we would hold press conferences and announce our whatevers -- we're going to wear bags or whatever. And before this one press conference, one Beatle assistant in the upper echelon of Beatle assistants leaned over to Yoko and said, "You know, you don't have to work. You've got enough money, now that you're Mrs. Lennon." And when she complained to me about it, I couldn't understand what she was talking about. "But this guy," I'd say, "He's just good old Charley, or whatever. He's been with us 20 years...." The same kind of thing happened in the studio. She would say to an engineer, "I'd like a little more treble, a little more bass," or "There's too much of whatever you're putting on," and they'd look at me and say, "What did you say, John?" Those days I didn't even notice it myself. Now I know what she's talking about. In Japan, when I ask for a cup of tea in Japanese, they look at Yoko and ask, "He wants a cup of tea?" in Japanese.
ONO: So a good few years of that kind of thing emasculates you. I had always been more macho than most guys I was with, in a sense. I had always been the breadwinner, because I always wanted to have the freedom and the control. Suddenly, I'm with somebody I can't possibly compete with on a level of earnings. Finally, I couldn't take it -- or I decided not to take it any longer. I would have had the same difficulty even if I hadn't gotten involved with, ah----
LENNON: John -- John is the name.
ONO: With John. But John wasn't just John. He was also his group and the people around them. When I say John, it's not just John----
LENNON: That's John. J-O-H-N. From Johan, I believe.
PLAYBOY: So you made him leave?
ONO: Yes.
LENNON: She don't suffer fools gladly, even if she's married to him.
PLAYBOY: How did you finally get back together?
ONO: It slowly started to dawn on me that John was not the trouble at all. John was a fine person. It was society that had become too much. We laugh about it now, but we started dating again. I wanted to be sure. I'm thankful to John's intelligence----
LENNON: Now, get that, editors -- you got that word?
ONO: That he was intelligent enough to know this was the only way that we could save our marriage, not because we didn't love each other but because it was getting too much for me. Nothing would have changed if I had come back as Mrs. Lennon again.
PLAYBOY: What did change?
ONO: It was good for me to do the business and regain my pride about what I could do. And it was good to know what he needed, the role reversal that was so good for him.
LENNON: And we learned that it's better for the family if we are both working for the family, she doing the business and me playing mother and wife. We reordered our priorities. The number-one priority is her and the family. Everything else revolves around that.
ONO: It's a hard realization. These days, the society prefers single people. The encouragements are to divorce or separate or be single or gay -- whatever. Corporations want singles -- they work harder if they don't have family ties. They don't have to worry about being home in the evenings or on the weekends. There's not much room for emotions about family or personal relationships. You know, the whole thing they say to women approaching 30 that if you don't have a baby in the next few years, you're going to be in trouble, you'll never be a mother, so you'll never be fulfilled in that way and----
LENNON: Only Yoko was 73 when she had Sean.
[Laughter]
ONO: So instead of the society discouraging children, since they are important for society, it should encourage them. It's the responsibility of everybody. But it is hard. A woman has to deny what she has, her womb, if she wants to make it. It seems that only the privileged classes can have families. Nowadays, maybe it's only the McCartneys and the Lennons or something.
LENNON: Everybody else becomes a worker-consumer.
ONO: And then Big Brother will decide -- I hate to use the term Big Brother....
LENNON: Too late. They've got it on tape. [Laughs]
ONO: But, finally, the society----
LENNON: Big Sister -- wait till she comes!
ONO: The society will do away with the roles of men and women. Babies will be born in test tubes and incubators....
LENNON: Then it's Aldous Huxley.
ONO: But we don't have to go that way. We don't have to deny any of our organs, you know.
LENNON: Some of my best friends are organs----
ONO: The new album----
LENNON: Back to the album, very good----
ONO: The album fights these things. The messages are sort of old-fashioned -- family, relationships, children.
PLAYBOY: What's an example of a lyric you and Paul worked on together?
LENNON: In "We Can Work It Out," Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you've got Paul writing, "We can work it out/We can work it out" -- real optimistic, y' know, and me, impatient: "Life is very short and there's no time/For fussing and fighting, my friend...."
PLAYBOY: Paul tells the story and John philosophizes.
LENNON: Sure. Well, I was always like that, you know. I was like that before the Beatles and after the Beatles. I always asked why people did things and why society was like it was. I didn't just accept it for what it was apparently doing. I always looked below the surface.
PLAYBOY: When you talk about working together on a single lyric like "We Can Work It Out," it suggests that you and Paul worked a lot more closely than you've admitted in the past. Haven't you said that you wrote most of your songs separately, despite putting both of your names on them?
LENNON: Yeah, I was lying. [Laughs] It was when I felt resentful, so I felt that we did everything apart. But, actually, a lot of the songs we did eyeball to eyeball.
PLAYBOY: But many of them were done apart, weren't they?
LENNON: Yeah. "Sgt. Pepper" was Paul's idea, and I remember he worked on it a lot and suddenly called me to go into the studio, said it was time to write some songs. On "Pepper," under the pressure of only ten days, I managed to come up with "Lucy in the Sky" and "Day in the Life." We weren't communicating enough, you see. And later on, that's why I got resentful about all that stuff. But now I understand that it was just the same competitive game going on.
PLAYBOY: But the competitive game was good for you, wasn't it?
LENNON: In the early days. We'd make a record in 12 hours or something; they would want a single every three months and we'd have to write it in a hotel room or in a van. So the cooperation was functional as well as musical.
PLAYBOY: Don't you think that cooperation, that magic between you, is something you've missed in your work since?
LENNON: I never actually felt a loss. I don't want it to sound negative, like I didn't need Paul, because when he was there, obviously, it worked. But I can't -- it's easier to say what I gave to him than what he gave to me. And he'd say the same.
PLAYBOY: Just a quick aside, but while we're on the subject of lyrics and your resentment of Paul, what made you write "How Do You Sleep?," which contains lyrics such as "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead" and "The only thing you done was yesterday/And since you've gone, you're just another day"?
LENNON: [Smiles] You know, I wasn't really feeling that vicious at the time. But I was using my resentment toward Paul to create a song, let's put it that way. He saw that it pointedly refers to him, and people kept hounding him about it. But, you know, there were a few digs on his album before mine. He's so obscure other people didn't notice them, but I heard them. I thought, Well, I'm not obscure, I just get right down to the nitty-gritty. So he'd done it his way and I did it mine. But as to the line you quoted, yeah, I think Paul died creatively, in a way.
PLAYBOY: That's what we were getting at: You say that what you've done since the Beatles stands up well, but isn't it possible that with all of you, it's been a case of the creative whole being greater than the parts?
LENNON: I don't know whether this will gel for you: When the Beatles played in America for the first time, they played pure craftsmanship. Meaning they were already old hands. The jism had gone out of the performances a long time ago. In the same respect, the songwriting creativity had left Paul and me in the mid-Sixties. When we wrote together in the early days, it was like the beginning of a relationship. Lots of energy. In the "Sgt. Pepper"- "Abbey Road" period, the relationship had matured. Maybe had we gone on together, more interesting things would have come, but it couldn't have been the same.
PLAYBOY: Let's move on to Ringo. What's your opinion of him musically?
LENNON: Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. He was a professional drummer who sang and performed and had Ringo Star-time and he was in one of the top groups in Britain but especially in Liverpool before we even had a drummer. So Ringo's talent would have come out one way or the other as something or other. I don't know what he would have ended up as, but whatever that spark is in Ringo that we all know but can't put our finger on -- whether it is acting, drumming or singing I don't know -- there is something in him that is projectable and he would have surfaced with or without the Beatles. Ringo is a damn good drummer. He is not technically good, but I think Ringo's drumming is underrated the same way Paul's bass playing is underrated. Paul was one of the most innovative bass players ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period. He is an egomaniac about everything else about himself, but his bass playing he was always a bit coy about. I think Paul and Ringo stand up with any of the rock musicians. Not technically great -- none of us are technical musicians. None of us could read music. None of us can write it. But as pure musicians, as inspired humans to make the noise, they are as good as anybody.
PLAYBOY: How about George's solo music?
LENNON: I think "All Things Must Pass" was all right. It just went on too long.
PLAYBOY: How did you feel about the lawsuit George lost that claimed the music to "My Sweet Lord" is a rip-off of the Shirelles' hit "He's So Fine?"
LENNON: Well, he walked right into it. He knew what he was doing.
PLAYBOY: Are you saying he consciously plagiarized the song?
LENNON: He must have known, you know. He's smarter than that. It's irrelevant, actually -- only on a monetary level does it matter. He could have changed a couple of bars in that song and nobody could ever have touched him, but he just let it go and paid the price. Maybe he thought God would just sort of let him off. [At presstime, the court has found Harrison guilty of "subconscious" plagiarism but has not yet ruled on damages.]
PLAYBOY: You actually haven't mentioned George much in this interview.
LENNON: Well, I was hurt by George's book, "I, Me, Mine" -- so this message will go to him. He put a book out privately on his life that, by glaring omission, says that my influence on his life is absolutely zilch and nil. In his book, which is purportedly this clarity of vision of his influence on each song he wrote, he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: Because George's relationship with me was one of young follower and older guy. He's three or four years younger than me. It's a love- hate relationship and I think George still bears resentment toward me for being a daddy who left home. He would not agree with this, but that's my feeling about it. I was just hurt. I was just left out, as if I didn't exist. I don't want to be that egomaniacal, but he was like a disciple of mine when we started. I was already an art student when Paul and George were still in grammar school [equivalent to high school in the U.S.]. There is a vast difference between being in high school and being in college and I was already in college and already had sexual relationships, already drank and did a lot of things like that. When George was a kid, he used to follow me and my first girlfriend, Cynthia -- who became my wife -- around. We'd come out of art school and he'd be hovering around like those kids at the gate of the Dakota now. I remember the day he called to ask for help on "Taxman," one of his bigger songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he couldn't go to Paul, because Paul wouldn't have helped him at that period. I didn't want to do it. I thought, Oh, no, don't tell me I have to work on George's stuff. It's enough doing my own and Paul's. But because I loved him and I didn't want to hurt him when he called me that afternoon and said, "Will you help me with this song?" I just sort of bit my tongue and said OK. It had been John and Paul so long, he'd been left out because he hadn't been a songwriter up until then. As a singer, we allowed him only one track on each album. If you listen to the Beatles' first albums, the English versions, he gets a single track. The songs he and Ringo sang at first were the songs that used to be part of my repertoire in the dance halls. I used to pick songs for them from my repertoire -- the easier ones to sing. So I am slightly resentful of George's book. But don't get me wrong. I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo go on.
PLAYBOY: Didn't all four Beatles work on a song you wrote for Ringo in 1973?
LENNON: "I'm the Greatest." It was the Muhammad Ali line, of course. It was perfect for Ringo to sing. If I said, "I'm the greatest," they'd all take it so seriously. No one would get upset with Ringo singing it.
PLAYBOY: Did you enjoy playing with George and Ringo again?
LENNON: Yeah, except when George and Billy Preston started saying, "Let's form a group. Let's form a group." I was embarrassed when George kept asking me. He was just enjoying the session and the spirit was very good, but I was with Yoko, you know. We took time out from what we were doing. The very fact that they would imagine I would form a male group without Yoko! It was still in their minds. . . .
PLAYBOY: Just to finish your favorite subject, what about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit?
LENNON: I don't want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: Because they're always rip-offs. I haven't performed for personal gain since 1966, when the Beatles last performed. Every concert since then, Yoko and I did for specific charities, except for a Toronto thing that was a rock- 'n'-roll revival. Every one of them was a mess or a rip-off. So now we give money to who we want. You've heard of tithing?
PLAYBOY: That's when you give away a fixed percentage of your income.
LENNON: Right. I am just going to do it privately. I am not going to get locked into that business of saving the world on stage. The show is always a mess and the artist always comes off badly.
PLAYBOY: What about the Bangladesh concert, in which George and other people such as Dylan performed?
LENNON: Bangladesh was caca.
PLAYBOY: You mean because of all the questions that were raised about where the money went?
LENNON: Yeah, right. I can't even talk about it, because it's still a problem. You'll have to check with Mother [Yoko], because she knows the ins and outs of it, I don't. But it's all a rip-off. So forget about it. All of you who are reading this, don't bother sending me all that garbage about, "Just come and save the Indians, come and save the blacks, come and save the war veterans," Anybody I want to save will be helped through our tithing, which is ten percent of whatever we earn.
PLAYBOY: But that doesn't compare with what one promoter, Sid Bernstein, said you could raise by giving a world-wide televised concert -- playing separately, as individuals, or together, as the Beatles. He estimated you could raise over $200,000,000 in one day.
LENNON: That was a commercial for Sid Bernstein written with Jewish schmaltz and showbiz and tears, dropping on one knee. It was Al Jolson. OK. So I don't buy that. OK.
PLAYBOY: But the fact is, $200,000,000 to a poverty- stricken country in South America----
LENNON: Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
[Ono rejoins the conversation.]
PLAYBOY: On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000 and----
LENNON: We never admitted anything.
PLAYBOY: The Post said you had.
LENNON: What the Post says -- OK, so we are rich; so what?
PLAYBOY: The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You're supposed to be socialists, aren't you?
LENNON: In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell -- if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers.
PLAYBOY: Whatever your politics, you've played the capitalist game very well, parlaying your Beatles royalties into real estate, livestock----
ONO: There is no denying that we are still living in the capitalist world. I think that in order to survive and to change the world, you have to take care of yourself first. You have to survive yourself. I used to say to myself, I am the only socialist living here. [Laughs] I don't have a penny. It is all John's, so I'm clean. But I was using his money and I had to face that hypocrisy. I used to think that money was obscene, that the artists didn't have to think about money. But to change society, there are two ways to go: through violence or the power of money within the system. A lot of people in the Sixties went underground and were involved in bombings and other violence. But that is not the way, definitely not for me. So to change the system -- even if you are going to become a mayor or something -- you need money.
PLAYBOY: To what extent do you play the game without getting caught up in it -- money for the sake of money, in other words?
ONO: There is a limit. It would probably be parallel to our level of security. Do you know what I mean? I mean the emotional-security level as well.
PLAYBOY: Has it reached that level yet?
ONO: No, not yet. I don't know. It might have.
PLAYBOY: You mean with $150,000,000? Is that an accurate estimate?
ONO: I don't know what we have. It becomes so complex that you need to have ten accountants working for two years to find out what you have. But let's say that we feel more comfortable now.
PLAYBOY: How have you chosen to invest your money?
ONO: To make money, you have to spend money. But if you are going to make money, you have to make it with love. I love Egyptian art. I make sure to get all the Egyptian things, not for their value but for their magic power. Each piece has a certain magic power. Also with houses. I just buy ones we love, not the ones that people say are good investments.
PLAYBOY: The papers have made it sound like you are buying up the Atlantic Seaboard.
ONO: If you saw the houses, you would understand. They have become a good investment, but they are not an investment unless you sell them. We don't intend to sell. Each house is like a historic landmark and they're very beautiful.
PLAYBOY: Do you actually use all the properties?
ONO: Most people have the park to go to and run in -- the park is a huge place -- but John and I were never able to go to the park together. So we have to create our own parks, you know.
PLAYBOY: We heard that you own $60,000,000 worth of dairy cows. Can that be true?
ONO: I don't know. I'm not a calculator. I'm not going by figures. I'm going by excellence of things.
LENNON: Sean and I were away for a weekend and Yoko came over to sell this cow and I was joking about it. We hadn't seen her for days; she spent all her time on it. But then I read the paper that said she sold it for a quarter of a million dollars. Only Yoko could sell a cow for that much.
[Laughter]
PLAYBOY: For an artist, your business sense seems remarkable.
ONO: I was doing it just as a chess game. I love chess. I do everything like it's a chess game. Not on a Monopoly level -- that's a bit more realistic. Chess is more conceptual.
PLAYBOY: John, do you really need all those houses around the country?
LENNON: They're good business.
PLAYBOY: Why does anyone need $150,000,000? Couldn't you be perfectly content with $100,000,000? Or $1,000,000?
LENNON: What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, "Get rid of the possessions of the mind." Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right? If I walk away from one house or 400 houses, I'm not gonna escape it.
PLAYBOY: How do you escape it?
LENNON: It takes time to get rid of all this garbage that I've been carrying around that was influencing the way I thought and the way I lived. It had a lot to do with Yoko, showing me that I was still possessed. I left physically when I fell in love with Yoko, but mentally it took the last ten years of struggling. I learned everything from her.
PLAYBOY: You make it sound like a teacher-pupil relationship.
LENNON: It is a teacher-pupil relationship. That's what people don't understand. She's the teacher and I'm the pupil. I'm the famous one, the one who's supposed to know everything, but she's my teacher. She's taught me everything I fucking know. She was there when I was nowhere, when I was the nowhere man. She's my Don Juan [a reference to Carlos Castaneda's Yaqui Indian teacher]. That's what people don't understand. I'm married to fucking Don Juan, that's the hardship of it. Don Juan doesn't have to laugh; Don Juan doesn't have to be charming; Don Juan just is. And what goes on around Don Juan is irrelevant to Don Juan.
PLAYBOY: Yoko, how do you feel about being John's teacher?
ONO: Well, he had a lot of experience before he met me, the kind of experience I never had, so I learned a lot from him, too. It's both ways. Maybe it's that I have strength, a feminine strength. Because women develop it -- in a relationship, I think women really have the inner wisdom and they're carrying that while men have sort of the wisdom to cope with society, since they created it. Men never developed the inner wisdom; they didn't have time. So most men do rely on women's inner wisdom, whether they express that or not.
PLAYBOY: Is Yoko John's guru?
LENNON: No, a Don Juan doesn't have a following. A Don Juan isn't in the newspaper and doesn't have disciples and doesn't proselytize.
PLAYBOY: How has she taught you?
LENNON: When Don Juan said -- when Don Ono said, "Get out! Because you're not getting it," well, it was like being sent into the desert. And the reason she wouldn't let me back in was because I wasn't ready to come back in. I had to settle things within myself. When I was ready to come back in, she let me back in. And that's what I'm living with.
PLAYBOY: You're talking about your separation.
LENNON: Yes. We were separated in the early Seventies. She kicked me out. Suddenly, I was on a raft alone in the middle of the universe.
PLAYBOY: What happened?
LENNON: Well, at first, I thought, Whoopee, whoopee! You know, bachelor life! Whoopee! And then I woke up one day and I thought, What is this? I want to go home! But she wouldn't let me come home. That's why it was 18 months apart instead of six months. We were talking all the time on the phone and I would say, "I don't like this, I'm getting in trouble and I'd like to come home, please." And she would say, "You're not ready to come home." So what do you say? OK, back to the bottle.
PLAYBOY: What did she mean, you weren't ready?
LENNON: She has her ways. Whether they be mystical or practical. When she said it's not ready, it ain't ready.
PLAYBOY: Back to the bottle?
LENNON: I was just trying to hide what I felt in the bottle. I was just insane. It was the lost weekend that lasted 18 months. I've never drunk so much in my life. I tried to drown myself in the bottle and I was with the heaviest drinkers in the business.
PLAYBOY: Such as?
LENNON: Such as Harry Nilsson, Bobby Keyes, Keith Moon. We couldn't pull ourselves out. We were trying to kill ourselves. I think Harry might still be trying, poor bugger -- God bless you, Harry, wherever you are -- but, Jesus, you know, I had to get away from that, because somebody was going to die. Well, Keith did. It was like, who's going to die first? Unfortunately, Keith was the one.
PLAYBOY: Why the self-destruction?
LENNON: For me, it was because of being apart. I couldn't stand it. They had their own reasons, and it was, Let's all drown ourselves together. From where I was sitting, it looked like that. Let's kill ourselves but do it like Errol Flynn, you know, the macho, male way. It's embarrassing for me to think about that period, because I made a big fool of myself -- but maybe it was a good lesson for me. I wrote "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out" during that time. That's how I felt. It exactly expresses the whole period. For some reason, I always imagined Sinatra singing that one. I don't know why. It's kind of a Sinatraesque song, really. He would do a perfect job with it. Are you listening, Frank? You need a song that isn't a piece of nothing. Here's the one for you, the horn arrangement and everything's made for you. But don't ask me to produce it.
PLAYBOY: That must have been the time the papers came out with reports about Lennon running around town with a Tampax on his head.
LENNON: The stories were all so exaggerated, but. . . . We were all in a restaurant, drinking, not eating, as usual at those gatherings, and I happened to go take a pee and there was a brand-new fresh Kotex, not Tampax, on the toilet. You know the old trick where you put a penny on your forehead and it sticks? I was a little high and I just picked it up and slapped it on and it stayed, you see. I walked out of the bathroom and I had a Kotex on my head. Big deal. Everybody went "Ha-ha-ha" and it fell off, but the press blew it up.
PLAYBOY: Why did you kick John out, Yoko?
ONO: There were many things. I'm what I call a "moving on" kind of girl; there's a song on our new album about it. Rather than deal with problems in relationships, I've always moved on. That's why I'm one of the very few survivors as a woman, you know. Women tend to be more into men usually, but I wasn't....
LENNON: Yoko looks upon men as assistants. . . . Of varying degrees of intimacy, but basically assistants. And this one's going to take a pee.
[He exits]
ONO: I have no comment on that. But when I met John, women to him were basically people around who were serving him. He had to open himself up and face me -- and I had to see what he was going through. But ... I though I had to move on again, because I was suffering being with John.
PLAYBOY: Why?
ONO: The pressure from the public, being the one who broke up the Beatles and who made it impossible for them to get back together. My artwork suffered, too. I thought I wanted to be free from being Mrs. Lennon, so I thought it would be a good idea for him to go to L.A. and leave me alone for a while. I had put up with it for many years. Even early on, when John was a Beatle, we stayed in a room and John and I were in bed and the door was closed and all that, but we didn't lock the door and one of the Beatle assistants just walked in and talked to him as if I weren't there. It was mind- blowing. I was invisible. The people around John saw me as a terrible threat. I mean, I heard there were plans to kill me. Not the Beatles but the people around them.
PLAYBOY: How did that news affect you?
ONO: The society doesn't understand that the woman can be castrated, too. I felt castrated. Before, I was doing all right, thank you. My work might not have been selling much, I might have been poorer, but I had my pride. But the most humiliating thing is to be looked at as a parasite.
[Lennon rejoins the conversation.]
LENNON: When Yoko and I started doing stuff together, we would hold press conferences and announce our whatevers -- we're going to wear bags or whatever. And before this one press conference, one Beatle assistant in the upper echelon of Beatle assistants leaned over to Yoko and said, "You know, you don't have to work. You've got enough money, now that you're Mrs. Lennon." And when she complained to me about it, I couldn't understand what she was talking about. "But this guy," I'd say, "He's just good old Charley, or whatever. He's been with us 20 years...." The same kind of thing happened in the studio. She would say to an engineer, "I'd like a little more treble, a little more bass," or "There's too much of whatever you're putting on," and they'd look at me and say, "What did you say, John?" Those days I didn't even notice it myself. Now I know what she's talking about. In Japan, when I ask for a cup of tea in Japanese, they look at Yoko and ask, "He wants a cup of tea?" in Japanese.
ONO: So a good few years of that kind of thing emasculates you. I had always been more macho than most guys I was with, in a sense. I had always been the breadwinner, because I always wanted to have the freedom and the control. Suddenly, I'm with somebody I can't possibly compete with on a level of earnings. Finally, I couldn't take it -- or I decided not to take it any longer. I would have had the same difficulty even if I hadn't gotten involved with, ah----
LENNON: John -- John is the name.
ONO: With John. But John wasn't just John. He was also his group and the people around them. When I say John, it's not just John----
LENNON: That's John. J-O-H-N. From Johan, I believe.
PLAYBOY: So you made him leave?
ONO: Yes.
LENNON: She don't suffer fools gladly, even if she's married to him.
PLAYBOY: How did you finally get back together?
ONO: It slowly started to dawn on me that John was not the trouble at all. John was a fine person. It was society that had become too much. We laugh about it now, but we started dating again. I wanted to be sure. I'm thankful to John's intelligence----
LENNON: Now, get that, editors -- you got that word?
ONO: That he was intelligent enough to know this was the only way that we could save our marriage, not because we didn't love each other but because it was getting too much for me. Nothing would have changed if I had come back as Mrs. Lennon again.
PLAYBOY: What did change?
ONO: It was good for me to do the business and regain my pride about what I could do. And it was good to know what he needed, the role reversal that was so good for him.
LENNON: And we learned that it's better for the family if we are both working for the family, she doing the business and me playing mother and wife. We reordered our priorities. The number-one priority is her and the family. Everything else revolves around that.
ONO: It's a hard realization. These days, the society prefers single people. The encouragements are to divorce or separate or be single or gay -- whatever. Corporations want singles -- they work harder if they don't have family ties. They don't have to worry about being home in the evenings or on the weekends. There's not much room for emotions about family or personal relationships. You know, the whole thing they say to women approaching 30 that if you don't have a baby in the next few years, you're going to be in trouble, you'll never be a mother, so you'll never be fulfilled in that way and----
LENNON: Only Yoko was 73 when she had Sean.
[Laughter]
ONO: So instead of the society discouraging children, since they are important for society, it should encourage them. It's the responsibility of everybody. But it is hard. A woman has to deny what she has, her womb, if she wants to make it. It seems that only the privileged classes can have families. Nowadays, maybe it's only the McCartneys and the Lennons or something.
LENNON: Everybody else becomes a worker-consumer.
ONO: And then Big Brother will decide -- I hate to use the term Big Brother....
LENNON: Too late. They've got it on tape. [Laughs]
ONO: But, finally, the society----
LENNON: Big Sister -- wait till she comes!
ONO: The society will do away with the roles of men and women. Babies will be born in test tubes and incubators....
LENNON: Then it's Aldous Huxley.
ONO: But we don't have to go that way. We don't have to deny any of our organs, you know.
LENNON: Some of my best friends are organs----
ONO: The new album----
LENNON: Back to the album, very good----
ONO: The album fights these things. The messages are sort of old-fashioned -- family, relationships, children.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
"Octopus's Garden" Lyrics
by Richard Starkey
As Released by the Beatles (1969)
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade.
He'd let us in, knows where we've been
In his octopus's garden in the shade.
I'd ask my friends to come and see
An octopus's garden with me
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade.
We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves.
Resting our head on the seabed
In an octopus's garden near a cave.
We would sing and dance around
Because we know we can't be found.
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade.
We would shout and swim about
The coral that lies beneath the waves (lies beneath the ocean waves).
Oh, what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they're happy and they're safe (happy and they're safe).
We would be so happy you and me
No-one there to tell us what to do.
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden with you
In an octopus's garden with you
In an octopus's garden with you.
As Released by the Beatles (1969)
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade.
He'd let us in, knows where we've been
In his octopus's garden in the shade.
I'd ask my friends to come and see
An octopus's garden with me
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade.
We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves.
Resting our head on the seabed
In an octopus's garden near a cave.
We would sing and dance around
Because we know we can't be found.
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade.
We would shout and swim about
The coral that lies beneath the waves (lies beneath the ocean waves).
Oh, what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they're happy and they're safe (happy and they're safe).
We would be so happy you and me
No-one there to tell us what to do.
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden with you
In an octopus's garden with you
In an octopus's garden with you.
"Bad Boy"
"Bad Boy" is a song written by Larry Williams. It is one of several Larry Williams songs which The Beatles covered during their career. Along with "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," "Bad Boy" was recorded by the Beatles on May 10, 1965, (Larry Williams' birthday) and was originally intended for a solely American release; however, "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" featured on the British Help! album that year. "Bad Boy" was first released on Beatles VI in June 1965. It eventually got a UK release on A Collection of Beatles Oldies in December 1966. It is also available on the 1988 release, Past Masters, Volume One.
The song features John Lennon on lead vocal and rhythm guitar, Paul McCartney on bass, George Harrison on double-tracked lead guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums.
"She Said Yeah" was originally the B-side of the Larry Williams single, and has been covered by The Rolling Stones and The Animals, amongst others.
The Canadian progressive rock band Rush featured "Bad Boy" in a Led Zeppelin-type arrangement during their early live shows. The Cleveland bootleg New in Town features the song, as well as an extended solo from guitarist Alex Lifeson. Vocalist/bassist Geddy Lee introduces the song as being from the Beatles VI album. After 1974, the group no longer performed the song live.
The song, recorded between 1957 and 1958, also appears on the 1992 compilation of the same name.
Single by Larry Williams
B-side: "She Said Yeah"
Released: 1959
Format: 7" single
Genre: R&B
Label: Specialty Records 658 (USA), London HLU 8844 (UK)
Writer(s): Larry Williams
Song by The Beatles
Album: Beatles VI
Released: June 14, 1965
Recorded: May 10, 1965 at Abbey Road, London, England
Length: 2:21
Label: Capitol ST-2358 (US)
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
The song features John Lennon on lead vocal and rhythm guitar, Paul McCartney on bass, George Harrison on double-tracked lead guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums.
"She Said Yeah" was originally the B-side of the Larry Williams single, and has been covered by The Rolling Stones and The Animals, amongst others.
The Canadian progressive rock band Rush featured "Bad Boy" in a Led Zeppelin-type arrangement during their early live shows. The Cleveland bootleg New in Town features the song, as well as an extended solo from guitarist Alex Lifeson. Vocalist/bassist Geddy Lee introduces the song as being from the Beatles VI album. After 1974, the group no longer performed the song live.
The song, recorded between 1957 and 1958, also appears on the 1992 compilation of the same name.
Single by Larry Williams
B-side: "She Said Yeah"
Released: 1959
Format: 7" single
Genre: R&B
Label: Specialty Records 658 (USA), London HLU 8844 (UK)
Writer(s): Larry Williams
Song by The Beatles
Album: Beatles VI
Released: June 14, 1965
Recorded: May 10, 1965 at Abbey Road, London, England
Length: 2:21
Label: Capitol ST-2358 (US)
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
Beatles News
- 'Inside the Fifth Beatle' Explores Fab Four Manager Brian Epstein's Life (Spinner)
- Beatles Drug Arrest Papers Up for Auction (Prefixmag)
- Rock to your favorite Beatles' tunes (Columbus Ledger-Enquirer)
- Macca's film inspiration for song (Mirror.co.uk)
- CD Review: THE BEATLES - 'LET IT BE' (iFMagazine)
Watching Bob Dylan Live: Royal Albert Hall 1965
The first Bob Dylan concert the Beatles attended was at the Royal Albert Hall in London on May 9, 1965. They, along with the rest of the audience, heard Dylan perform the following songs:1. The Times They Are A-Changin'
2. To Ramona
3. Gates of Eden
4. If You Gotta Go, Go Now
5. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
6. Love Minus Zero/No Limit
7. Mr. Tambourine Man
8. Talkin' World War III Blues
9. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
10. With God on Our Side
11. She Belongs to Me
12. It Ain't Me, Babe
13. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
14. All I Really Want to Do
15. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
More on the evening from The Beatles: A Diary:
Afterwards they visited Dylan in his suite at the Savoy Hotel. The four Beatles filed into his reception room, accompanied by keen Dylan fan Alma Cogan, but the atmosphere remained tense until Allen Ginsberg broke the ice by falling off the arm of a settee into John Lennon's lap and asking him if he knew William Blake. "Never heard of him," snapped John but Cynthia spoke up, "Oh John, you liar, of course you have!" and everyone laughed. The rest of the evening was spent nightclubbing.
Watch footage from this concert, including Dylan's comment "the Beatles are here" and a live performance of "She Belongs to Me," from the documentary Don't Look Back here. Below is some outtake footage from the concert, including excerpts of "She Belongs to Me," "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," and "Gates of Eden."
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
"The Fool on the Hill" Lyrics
by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Original Manuscript (1967)
The fool on the hill
sees the sun going down
+ the eyes in his head see the world
spinning
round
Day after day alone on a hill
the man with the foolish grin is sitting
perfectly still. And nobody wants
to know him they can see he's just a fool
As Released by the Beatles (1967)
Day after day, alone on a hill
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him
They can see that he's just a fool
And he never gives an answer.
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
Well on the way, head in a cloud
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him
Or the sound he appears to make
And he never seems to notice.
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
And nobody seems to like him
They can tell what he wants to do
And he never shows his feelings.
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
Oh - oh - oh!
Round 'n' round 'n' round 'n' round 'n' round.
He never listens to them
He knows that they're the fool
They don't like him.
The fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
Oh, round 'n' round 'n' round 'n' round.
Oh!
Original Manuscript (1967)
The fool on the hill
sees the sun going down
+ the eyes in his head see the world
spinning
round
Day after day alone on a hill
the man with the foolish grin is sitting
perfectly still. And nobody wants
to know him they can see he's just a fool
As Released by the Beatles (1967)
Day after day, alone on a hill
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him
They can see that he's just a fool
And he never gives an answer.
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
Well on the way, head in a cloud
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him
Or the sound he appears to make
And he never seems to notice.
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
And nobody seems to like him
They can tell what he wants to do
And he never shows his feelings.
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
Oh - oh - oh!
Round 'n' round 'n' round 'n' round 'n' round.
He never listens to them
He knows that they're the fool
They don't like him.
The fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.
Oh, round 'n' round 'n' round 'n' round.
Oh!
The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles
Edited by Kenneth Womack
From Please Please Me to Abbey Road, this collection of essays tells the fascinating story of the Beatles - the creation of the band, their musical influences, and their cultural significance, with emphasis on their genesis and practices as musicians, songwriters, and recording artists. Through detailed biographical and album analyses, the book uncovers the background of each band member and provides expansive readings of the band's music.
• Traces the group's creative output from their earliest recordings through their career
• Pays particular attention to the social and historical factors which contributed to the creation of the band
• Investigates the Beatles' unique enduring musical legacy and cultural power
• Clearly organized into three sections, covering Background, Works, and History and Influence, the Companion is ideal for course usage, and is also a must-read for all Beatles fans
From Please Please Me to Abbey Road, this collection of essays tells the fascinating story of the Beatles - the creation of the band, their musical influences, and their cultural significance, with emphasis on their genesis and practices as musicians, songwriters, and recording artists. Through detailed biographical and album analyses, the book uncovers the background of each band member and provides expansive readings of the band's music.
• Traces the group's creative output from their earliest recordings through their career
• Pays particular attention to the social and historical factors which contributed to the creation of the band
• Investigates the Beatles' unique enduring musical legacy and cultural power
• Clearly organized into three sections, covering Background, Works, and History and Influence, the Companion is ideal for course usage, and is also a must-read for all Beatles fans
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" Lyrics
by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
As Released by the Beatles (1968)
Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace
Molly is the singer in a band
Desmond says to Molly, girl I like your face
And Molly says this as she takes him by the hand:
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on.
Desmond takes a trolly to the jewellery store
Buys a twenty-carat golden ring (golden ring)
Takes it back to Molly waiting at the door
And as he gives it to her she begins to sing (sing):
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on - yeah.
In a couple of years they have built a home sweet home
With a couple of kids running in the yard of Desmond and Molly Jones.
(Ho ho ho ho ho)
Happy ever after in the marketplace
Desmond lets the children lend a hand (arm - leg)
Molly stays at home and does her pretty face
And in the evening she still sings it with the band, yes.
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on (he he he)
Hey, Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on.
In a couple of years they have built a home sweet home
With a couple of kids running in the yard of Desmond and Molly Jones.
(Ho ho ho ho ho)
Hey, happy ever after in the marketplace
Molly lets the children lend a hand
Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face
And in the evening she's a singer with the band, yeah.
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on - yeah
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on (ha ha ha ha ha ha).
But if you want some fun (ha ha ha)
Take ob-la-di 'b-la-da ((ha ha ha))
Thank you (ooo) (ha ha ha).
As Released by the Beatles (1968)
Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace
Molly is the singer in a band
Desmond says to Molly, girl I like your face
And Molly says this as she takes him by the hand:
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on.
Desmond takes a trolly to the jewellery store
Buys a twenty-carat golden ring (golden ring)
Takes it back to Molly waiting at the door
And as he gives it to her she begins to sing (sing):
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on - yeah.
In a couple of years they have built a home sweet home
With a couple of kids running in the yard of Desmond and Molly Jones.
(Ho ho ho ho ho)
Happy ever after in the marketplace
Desmond lets the children lend a hand (arm - leg)
Molly stays at home and does her pretty face
And in the evening she still sings it with the band, yes.
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on (he he he)
Hey, Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on.
In a couple of years they have built a home sweet home
With a couple of kids running in the yard of Desmond and Molly Jones.
(Ho ho ho ho ho)
Hey, happy ever after in the marketplace
Molly lets the children lend a hand
Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face
And in the evening she's a singer with the band, yeah.
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on - yeah
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on (ha ha ha ha ha ha).
But if you want some fun (ha ha ha)
Take ob-la-di 'b-la-da ((ha ha ha))
Thank you (ooo) (ha ha ha).
Where did the Beatles and Rolling Stones play together in 1963?
The Beatles and the Rolling Stones performed on the same bill on September 15, 1963 at the Royal Albert Hall in London (the entire program featured 11 acts). In addition to playing at the same show (the only time this occurred), the two groups did a photo shoot on the steps outside the rear of the hall. Paul McCartney later recalled: "Standing up on those steps behind the Albert Hall in our new gear, the smart trousers, the rolled collar. Up there with the Rolling Stones we were thinking, "This is it - London! The Albert Hall! We felt like gods!"
"Back in the U.S.S.R."
"Back in the U.S.S.R." is a 1968 song by The Beatles (credited to the song writing partnership Lennon/McCartney but mainly written by Paul McCartney) which opens the double-disc album The Beatles, commonly referred to as The White Album. It segues into the next song on the album, "Dear Prudence."
Overview
The song, which opens and closes with the sounds of a jet aircraft landing, refers to a "dreadful" flight back to the U.S.S.R. from Miami Beach in the United States, on board a British B.O.A.C. aeroplane. Propelled throughout by McCartney's uptempo piano playing and lead guitar riffs, the lyrics tell of the singer's great happiness on returning home, where "the Ukraine girls really knock me out" and the "Moscow girls make me sing and shout" (and are invited to "Come and keep your comrade warm"). He also looks forward to hearing the sound of "balalaikas ringing out."
The title of the song is a tribute to Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." while the chorus pays homage to the Beach Boys' "California Girls." The song also contains a pun on Hoagy Carmichael's and Stuart Gorrell's "Georgia on My Mind." McCartney is singing about the Soviet Republic of Georgia, whereas "Georgia on My Mind" after "Moscow Girls" has been described as being about either or both of the state of Georgia in the U.S. or a woman named Georgia. McCartney thought that when he listened to the Beach Boys, it sounded like California, so he decided to write a song that "sounded" like the U.S.S.R.
In his 1984 interview with Playboy, McCartney said:
Problems in the band
"The Beatles" sessions allowed the four members to work on separate projects at the same time and, as a result, kept tensions to a minimum. However, tempers flared during the recording session on 22 August 1968, and Ringo Starr walked out and announced that he had quit.
"Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence," the first two tracks of the album, were recorded without Starr, with McCartney primarily responsible for the drum parts. McCartney's drums are most prominent in the mix, but both John Lennon and George Harrison recorded drum tracks for the song; these are audible in the left channel of the stereo mix.
Starr returned to the group almost two weeks later on 4 September 1968 when he participated in the filming of a promotional video for "Hey Jude." During a break in the filming of the "Hey Jude" video, Marc Sinden (who appears in the film) recalls Lennon "playing a song on his acoustic guitar. Everyone went ‘Wow’. Filming started before we could ask what it was. When it was later released, we realized it was 'Back in the USSR'."
Credits
* Paul McCartney – vocals, piano, lead guitar, drums, bass, hand claps, percussion
* John Lennon – backing vocals, guitar, bass, drums, hand claps, percussion
* George Harrison – backing vocals, lead guitar, bass, drums, hand claps, percussion
Cover versions
* 1968, Ramsey Lewis covered "Back in the U.S.S.R." on his album Mother Nature's Son along with other songs from The Beatles.
* In 1969, Chubby Checker's cover version charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
* Also in 1969, John Fred & His Playboy Band released it as a single and on their 1970 album Love My Soul.
* In 1979, the punk group Dead Kennedys recorded a live version of the song that was released in 2004 on Live at the Deaf Club.
* In 1987, Billy Joel covered the song on his live-in-the-Soviet Union album Концерт. Since then, Joel continues to perform the song during his concerts.
* Season 7 American Idol finalist Amanda Overmyer performed the song on the show March 18, 2008, and likewise recorded a studio version.
* McCartney included a special version of the song when he and his band played in Liverpool in June 2008. It featured Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl on drums.
* In 2008, The Hush Sound covered the song on July 7, during the first show of their Dance Across the Country Tour at the Diesel Club Lounge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and on the ensuing tour dates.
* Motörhead bassist and lead singer, Lemmy Kilmister, recorded a version for the Butchering The Beatles compilation in 2006.
* In 2009, Elton John and Billy Joel used this in a medley (along with Birthday) for their Face to Face Tour.
Album: The Beatles
Released: 22 November 1968
Recorded: 22, 23 August 1968
Genre: Rock and roll, Surf rock
Length: 2:43
Label: Apple Records
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
Overview
The song, which opens and closes with the sounds of a jet aircraft landing, refers to a "dreadful" flight back to the U.S.S.R. from Miami Beach in the United States, on board a British B.O.A.C. aeroplane. Propelled throughout by McCartney's uptempo piano playing and lead guitar riffs, the lyrics tell of the singer's great happiness on returning home, where "the Ukraine girls really knock me out" and the "Moscow girls make me sing and shout" (and are invited to "Come and keep your comrade warm"). He also looks forward to hearing the sound of "balalaikas ringing out."
The title of the song is a tribute to Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." while the chorus pays homage to the Beach Boys' "California Girls." The song also contains a pun on Hoagy Carmichael's and Stuart Gorrell's "Georgia on My Mind." McCartney is singing about the Soviet Republic of Georgia, whereas "Georgia on My Mind" after "Moscow Girls" has been described as being about either or both of the state of Georgia in the U.S. or a woman named Georgia. McCartney thought that when he listened to the Beach Boys, it sounded like California, so he decided to write a song that "sounded" like the U.S.S.R.
In his 1984 interview with Playboy, McCartney said:
“I wrote that as a kind of Beach Boys parody. And 'Back in the USA' was a Chuck Berry song, so it kinda took off from there. I just liked the idea of Georgia girls and talking about places like the Ukraine as if they were California, you know? It was also hands across the water, which I'm still conscious of. 'Cuz they like us out there, even though the bosses in the Kremlin may not. The kids do. And that to me is very important for the future of the race.”"Back in the U.S.S.R." was released by Parlophone as a single in the UK in 1976. It featured the song "Twist and Shout" on Side B.
Problems in the band
"The Beatles" sessions allowed the four members to work on separate projects at the same time and, as a result, kept tensions to a minimum. However, tempers flared during the recording session on 22 August 1968, and Ringo Starr walked out and announced that he had quit.
"Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence," the first two tracks of the album, were recorded without Starr, with McCartney primarily responsible for the drum parts. McCartney's drums are most prominent in the mix, but both John Lennon and George Harrison recorded drum tracks for the song; these are audible in the left channel of the stereo mix.
Starr returned to the group almost two weeks later on 4 September 1968 when he participated in the filming of a promotional video for "Hey Jude." During a break in the filming of the "Hey Jude" video, Marc Sinden (who appears in the film) recalls Lennon "playing a song on his acoustic guitar. Everyone went ‘Wow’. Filming started before we could ask what it was. When it was later released, we realized it was 'Back in the USSR'."
Credits
* Paul McCartney – vocals, piano, lead guitar, drums, bass, hand claps, percussion
* John Lennon – backing vocals, guitar, bass, drums, hand claps, percussion
* George Harrison – backing vocals, lead guitar, bass, drums, hand claps, percussion
Cover versions
* 1968, Ramsey Lewis covered "Back in the U.S.S.R." on his album Mother Nature's Son along with other songs from The Beatles.
* In 1969, Chubby Checker's cover version charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
* Also in 1969, John Fred & His Playboy Band released it as a single and on their 1970 album Love My Soul.
* In 1979, the punk group Dead Kennedys recorded a live version of the song that was released in 2004 on Live at the Deaf Club.
* In 1987, Billy Joel covered the song on his live-in-the-Soviet Union album Концерт. Since then, Joel continues to perform the song during his concerts.
* Season 7 American Idol finalist Amanda Overmyer performed the song on the show March 18, 2008, and likewise recorded a studio version.
* McCartney included a special version of the song when he and his band played in Liverpool in June 2008. It featured Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl on drums.
* In 2008, The Hush Sound covered the song on July 7, during the first show of their Dance Across the Country Tour at the Diesel Club Lounge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and on the ensuing tour dates.
* Motörhead bassist and lead singer, Lemmy Kilmister, recorded a version for the Butchering The Beatles compilation in 2006.
* In 2009, Elton John and Billy Joel used this in a medley (along with Birthday) for their Face to Face Tour.
Album: The Beatles
Released: 22 November 1968
Recorded: 22, 23 August 1968
Genre: Rock and roll, Surf rock
Length: 2:43
Label: Apple Records
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
Monday, October 26, 2009
"Taxman" Lyrics
by George Harrison
Original Manuscript (1966)
Now let me tell you, how it
will be
There's one for you nineteen
for me - cos I'm the Tax Man
yes I'm the tax-man-.
you may work hard
trying to get some bread -
you won't get it before
your [sic] dead -
cos I'm the tax man - yes
I'm the tax man
You may work hard trying to
get some bread -
You won't make out before your [sic]
dead - cos I'm the tax-man.
Yes I'm the tax man -
And your [sic] working for no-one
but me - So Give in to
conformity.
now what I let you keep
for free --
won't take long to get back
to me --
cos I'm the tax man - yes I'm
the tax man --
As Released by the Beatles (1966)
One, two, three, four, one, two.
(One, two, three, four)
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street, ((car))
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat, ((sit))
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat, ((cold))
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet. ((walk))
Taxman.
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
Don't ask me what I want it for (ha ha Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more (ha ha Mr. Heath)
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
Now my advice for those who die (Taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes (Taxman)
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
And you're working for no-one but me (Taxman).
Original Manuscript (1966)Now let me tell you, how it
will be
There's one for you nineteen
for me - cos I'm the Tax Man
yes I'm the tax-man-.
you may work hard
trying to get some bread -
you won't get it before
your [sic] dead -
cos I'm the tax man - yes
I'm the tax man
You may work hard trying to
get some bread -
You won't make out before your [sic]
dead - cos I'm the tax-man.
Yes I'm the tax man -
And your [sic] working for no-one
but me - So Give in to
conformity.
now what I let you keepfor free --
won't take long to get back
to me --
cos I'm the tax man - yes I'm
the tax man --
As Released by the Beatles (1966)
One, two, three, four, one, two.
(One, two, three, four)
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street, ((car))
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat, ((sit))
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat, ((cold))
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet. ((walk))
Taxman.
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
Don't ask me what I want it for (ha ha Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more (ha ha Mr. Heath)
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
Now my advice for those who die (Taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes (Taxman)
'cos I'm the Taxman
Yeah, I'm the Taxman.
And you're working for no-one but me (Taxman).
Sunday, October 25, 2009
"Not a Second Time" Lyrics
by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
As Released by the Beatles (1963)
You know you made me cry
I see no use in wondering why
I've cried for you.
And now you've changed your mind
I see no reason to change mine
My crying is through, oh.
You're giving me the same old line
I'm wondering why
You hurt me then you're back again
No, no, no, not a second time.
Wuh!
You know you made me cry
I see no use in wondering why
I've cried for you, yeah.
And now you've changed your mind
I see no reason to change mine
My crying is through, oh.
You're giving me the same old line
I'm wondering why
You hurt me then you're back again
No, no, no, not a second time.
Not a second time
Not a second time
No, no, no, not a second time
((No, no, no.))
As Released by the Beatles (1963)
You know you made me cry
I see no use in wondering why
I've cried for you.
And now you've changed your mind
I see no reason to change mine
My crying is through, oh.
You're giving me the same old line
I'm wondering why
You hurt me then you're back again
No, no, no, not a second time.
Wuh!
You know you made me cry
I see no use in wondering why
I've cried for you, yeah.
And now you've changed your mind
I see no reason to change mine
My crying is through, oh.
You're giving me the same old line
I'm wondering why
You hurt me then you're back again
No, no, no, not a second time.
Not a second time
Not a second time
No, no, no, not a second time
((No, no, no.))
"Baby's in Black"
"Baby's in Black" is a song by The Beatles, co-written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and released in the United Kingdom on Beatles for Sale and in the United States on Beatles '65.
Composition
AMG described the song as "a love lament for a grieving girl that was perhaps more morose than any previous Beatles song." The song has a 6/8 time signature with a moderate tempo that makes it sound like 3/4 (waltz-time).
Recording
The Beatles recorded "Baby's in Black" on 11 August 1964, the first song recorded for Beatles for Sale.
Lennon and McCartney sang their vocal parts simultaneously through the same microphone. This was done at their own insistence in order to achieve a closer feel to the performance. McCartney was subsequently contacted by their music publisher in 1964 inquiring as to which melody line was the main tune (i.e. Paul's higher or John's lower melody). McCartney later said that he told the publisher they were both the main melody.
Live performances
The Beatles performed "Baby's in Black" live during their appearances from late 1964 until their last tour in 1966, and usually as the third song in their set after "Rock and Roll Music" and "Long Tall Sally." McCartney said they introduced the song by saying, "'And now for something different.' ... We used to put that in there, and think, 'Well, they won't know quite what to make of this, but it's cool.'"
In 1996, a live version of "Baby's in Black" was released as a B-side to the second (and last but one) Beatles "reunion" single, "Real Love."
"Baby's In Black" was also performed at The Beatles' 1965 concert at Shea Stadium.
Personnel
* John Lennon – vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar
* Paul McCartney – vocals, bass
* George Harrison – lead guitar
* Ringo Starr – drums
Cover versions
* In 1965, the Charles River Valley Boys covered "Baby's in Black" on their album of Beatle covers, Beatle Country.
* Rubén Blades covered the song (in English) on his 1992 Grammy-nominated album Amor Y Control.
* Country band Flynnville Train covered the song on their 2007 debut album.
* Natascha Corrigan inserts refrains from the song into her cover of another Beatles tune, "Yes It Is."
Album: Beatles for Sale
Released: 4 December 1964
Recorded: Abbey Road, 11 August 1964
Genre: Country rock
Length: 2:02
Label: EMI, Parlophone, Capitol
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
Composition
AMG described the song as "a love lament for a grieving girl that was perhaps more morose than any previous Beatles song." The song has a 6/8 time signature with a moderate tempo that makes it sound like 3/4 (waltz-time).
Recording
The Beatles recorded "Baby's in Black" on 11 August 1964, the first song recorded for Beatles for Sale.
Lennon and McCartney sang their vocal parts simultaneously through the same microphone. This was done at their own insistence in order to achieve a closer feel to the performance. McCartney was subsequently contacted by their music publisher in 1964 inquiring as to which melody line was the main tune (i.e. Paul's higher or John's lower melody). McCartney later said that he told the publisher they were both the main melody.
Live performances
The Beatles performed "Baby's in Black" live during their appearances from late 1964 until their last tour in 1966, and usually as the third song in their set after "Rock and Roll Music" and "Long Tall Sally." McCartney said they introduced the song by saying, "'And now for something different.' ... We used to put that in there, and think, 'Well, they won't know quite what to make of this, but it's cool.'"
In 1996, a live version of "Baby's in Black" was released as a B-side to the second (and last but one) Beatles "reunion" single, "Real Love."
"Baby's In Black" was also performed at The Beatles' 1965 concert at Shea Stadium.
Personnel
* John Lennon – vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar
* Paul McCartney – vocals, bass
* George Harrison – lead guitar
* Ringo Starr – drums
Cover versions
* In 1965, the Charles River Valley Boys covered "Baby's in Black" on their album of Beatle covers, Beatle Country.
* Rubén Blades covered the song (in English) on his 1992 Grammy-nominated album Amor Y Control.
* Country band Flynnville Train covered the song on their 2007 debut album.
* Natascha Corrigan inserts refrains from the song into her cover of another Beatles tune, "Yes It Is."
Album: Beatles for Sale
Released: 4 December 1964
Recorded: Abbey Road, 11 August 1964
Genre: Country rock
Length: 2:02
Label: EMI, Parlophone, Capitol
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Wikipedia
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 - December 6, 1988) was an influential Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, guitarist and a pioneer of rock and roll whose recording career spanned more than four decades. Orbison is best known for the songs, "Only the Lonely," "In Dreams," "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Crying," "Running Scared," and "You Got It." He was known for his smooth high baritone voice, with a range of at least two and a half octaves. He was rarely seen on stage without his trademark tinted prescription glasses. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1989, he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.Early life and career
Orbison was born in Vernon, the seat of Wilbarger County in north Texas. He was the second son of Nadine Shults and Orbie Lee Orbison. His family moved to Fort Worth around 1943 to find work in the munitions and aircraft factories which had expanded during the Second World War. They moved to the West Texas oil town of Wink in Winkler County, near the New Mexico border, in late 1946.
Music became an important part of Orbison's family life. In 1949, the 13-year-old Orbison organized his first band, "The Wink Westerners," which appeared weekly on radio station KERB in Kermit, Texas. When not singing with the band, he played guitar and wrote songs.
Orbison graduated from Wink High School in 1954, and then attended North Texas State College in Denton, Texas, studying history and English. Meanwhile, The Wink Westerners had some success on local television, and were given 30-minute weekly shows on KMID and KOSA-TV. One guest on their show was Johnny Cash, who advised them to seek a contract with his record producer, Sam Phillips of Sun Records.
Orbison achieved his first recording experience in June 1956 with the rockabilly-style song, "Ooby Dooby," which was written by Orbison's college chums. The record was produced at Norman Petty's studio in Clovis, New Mexico.
Taking the advice that Cash gave him, Orbison and his band drove to Memphis, Tennesee to try their luck at Sun Records. At first, Sam Phillips turned them down, but he eventually agreed to add the band to the Sun roster after hearing a recording the band had made in Clovis. The Wink Westerners were renamed "The Teen Kings."
One of the songs that Orbison recorded at Sun Records was named after his wife, Claudette. Orbison got a big break when "Claudette" was recorded by the already popular Everly Brothers (who were not part of the Sun roster) as the b-side to their No. 1 hit, "All I Have To Do Is Dream."
Overall, the rockabilly and blues sound of Sun's artists brought Orbison little success and his career seemed to be over. Orbison left Sun Records, and found work as a songwriter for Acuff-Rose Music in Nashville. Eventually, he signed a contract with RCA Records. Chet Atkins of RCA Records referred him to Fred Foster, the owner of Monument Records, where he moved after his contract with RCA ended in 1959.
Breakthrough
Songwriter Joe Melson became a big part of Orbison's life. The two met in Odessa, Texas after Orbison heard a song Melson had written entitled "Raindrops," which featured melodic twists and lyrical styling. Orbison soon asked him to write with him, and they created a sound unheard of in rock and roll at the time: the dramatic rock ballad. Fred Foster of Monument liked the new direction and assisted with the writing team's vision. Orbison's second Monument single, "Uptown," was moderately successful in the United States in early 1960. With the release of the follow-up single, "Only the Lonely," which rose swiftly to the top of the charts (#2 in the US, #1 in the UK), Orbison became an international rock'n'roll star. His sixth Monument single, "Runnin' Scared", became a #1 hit in the United States during the spring of 1961. The follow-up to "Runnin' Scared," "Crying," reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 (#1 on Cashbox) later the same year.
Starting in 1963, Orbison wrote many songs with fellow songwriter Bill Dees, including "Oh, Pretty Woman," which may be the most well-known song of Orbison's career, and "It's Over," a UK #1 single in June 1964. Throughout his stay at Monument Records, his backup band was a group of studio musicians led by Bob Moore. The juxtaposition of Orbison's voice against the dynamic, yet uncluttered, sound of the band gave Orbison's records a unique and identifiable sound. He also encouraged Foster to record songs for Virgil Johnson's doo-wop group, The Velvets.
Orbison was a powerful influence on contemporaries such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. In 1963, he headlined a British tour with The Beatles, but by the end of the tour he was playing second fiddle to the Fab Four as Beatlemania gathered pace. John Lennon later claimed that he had joked to Orbison that the Beatles were tiring of opening for him so Orbison agreed to switch, but the audience greeted Orbison with such enthusiasm that the Beatles became concerned that they would not get to perform, and called out to him from backstage, "Yankee, go home." He became lifelong friends with the band, especially John Lennon and George Harrison. Orbison would later record with Harrison in the Traveling Wilburys. During their UK tour together, Orbison encouraged the Beatles to come to the United States. When they toured America in the summer of 1964, they asked Orbison to appear with them, but his schedule forced him to decline.
Unlike many artists, Orbison maintained his success as the British Invasion swept America in 1964. His single, "Oh, Pretty Woman", broke the Beatles' stranglehold on the Top 10, soaring to No. 1 on the Billboard charts and No. 1 on the British charts. The record sold more copies in its first ten days of release than any single up to that time, and eventually sold over seven million copies. The song later became the signature tune for the eponymous 1990 film Pretty Woman, which brought fame to actress Julia Roberts.
Orbison toured with The Beach Boys in 1964, and with The Rolling Stones in Australia in 1965. He was arguably more successful in Britain than his home country, especially from 1963 onwards, logging three No.1 hit singles and being voted top male vocalist of the year several times there.
Career decline in North America
Orbison signed a contract with MGM Records in 1965, and starred in MGM Studios' western-musical motion picture The Fastest Guitar Alive, in which he performed several songs from an album of the same name. Possibly due to changes in musical taste, he had no hits in the U.S. after 1967. He remained popular elsewhere, but his American popularity did not recover until the 1980s.
Success outside North America
Songs that had limited success in North America, such as "Penny Arcade" and "Working for the Man" would go to No.1 on the Australian charts, and "Too Soon to Know" went to No.3 in England. His popularity extended to Germany, and he recorded his songs "Mama" and "Shahdaroba" in German (the latter being retitled "San Fernando"). His records were in great demand on the black market behind the Iron Curtain. In France, he was viewed as the master of the ballad of lost love in the vein of that country's most popular singer Édith Piaf. A cover version of Orbison's "Blue Bayou" sung in French by Mireille Mathieu went to the top of France's record charts. Fans in the Netherlands founded his largest worldwide fan club. He continued to perform in Ireland, despite the continual terrorist activities in Northern Ireland. In 1972, Orbison covered the popular Irish anthem, "Danny Boy", featured on his album, Memphis.
In Britain, Orbison had no hit singles between "Penny Arcade" in 1969 and "You Got It" in 1989, but compilation albums of his past material always sold well (with the 1975 release "The Best of Roy Orbison" and the 1988 release "The Legendary Roy Orbison" both hitting the No.1 spot). Greatest Hits compilations of Orbison's material continue to do well in the UK to this day (for example the 2001 collection "Love Songs" reached No.4).
Career decline in the 1970s
In 1973, Orbison's contract with MGM ended and he signed with Mercury Records soon after. He released a country-style album on the label entitled I'm Still In Love With You. The original liner notes said how Orbison's career was suffering, and mentioned his lack of hits in the States. According to these liner notes, that was to change with the release of the songs on the album. The song "Sweet Mama Blue" was a single from the album, but it failed to chart.
In 1976, Orbison re-signed with Monument Records, hoping to revive his career. Orbison re-teamed with Fred Foster for the album Regeneration. The album failed to make an impact with the public, and despite having enough material for another album to be released, Orbison asked Foster to be released from his contract in 1978.
In 1977, multi-Grammy winning vocalist Linda Ronstadt included "Blue Bayou" in her triple-platinum album Simple Dreams. The single reached No. 3 on the Billboard singles chart and was certified platinum by the RIAA. Ronstadt's interpretation of "Blue Bayou" is Orbison's greatest commercial songwriting success, with the single having reported sales of over 7 million copies worldwide.
Orbison continued to tour heavily in the late 1970s, and at times, non-stop for weeks at a time. That all came to a halt in late 1977 when he discovered that he needed open heart surgery following a heart attack at the age of 41. On January 18, 1978, Orbison underwent an operation and had a new lease on life. Over the next decade, his voice and music would become as big as, if not bigger than, in the early 1960s.
Orbison's last contract in the 1970s came in 1979, with Elektra/Asylum Records where he finished the album Laminar Flow. The album was a new direction for him, as it was his attempt at doing disco. The album also features a tribute song to Elvis Presley, who died in 1977, "Hound Dog Man." Presley was a fan of Orbison's and during a show in Las Vegas in 1976, he called Orbison "the greatest singer in the world." According to Orbison's brother, Sam Orbison, Orbison was "saddened by the sordid treatment of Elvis Presley in the aftermath of his death in 1977."
Resurgence in the 1980s
In 1980, Orbison teamed with Emmylou Harris for the song "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again," which won the 1981 Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
In 1985, Orbison recorded "Wild Hearts" for the Nicolas Roeg film Insignificance, released on the ZTT Records label, produced by David Briggs and Will Jennings. The inclusion of "In Dreams" in the 1986 David Lynch film Blue Velvet also aided Orbison's return to popularity. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. His pioneering contribution was also recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
Having signed a recording contract for the first time in 10 years, with Virgin Records, he re-recorded his 1961 hit song "Crying" as a duet with k.d. lang in 1987 for the soundtrack of the motion picture Hiding Out. The song earned the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.
In September 1987, Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night, a black-and-white HBO television special was recorded at the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Orbison was accompanied by a who's-who supporting cast organized by musical director T-Bone Burnett. All were fans and all were volunteers who lobbied to participate. On piano was Glen Hardin, who played for Buddy Holly as well as Elvis Presley for several years. Lead guitarist James Burton had also played with Presley and Ricky Nelson. Male background vocals, with some also playing the guitar or piano, came from Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther and Steven Soles. A "million-dollar" trio of Jennifer Warnes, k.d. Lang and Bonnie Raitt provided female background vocals. He was also joined by keyboardist Michael Utley, a long time member of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. All members of this first-class group of supporting artists displayed great respect and admiration for Orbison. This TV special performance brought Orbison to the attention of a younger generation.
Shortly after this critically acclaimed performance, while working with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra on tracks for a new album, Orbison joined Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty to form the Traveling Wilburys, achieving substantial commercial and critical success. For this album Orbison adopted the stage name Lefty Wilbury. He subsequently recorded a new solo album, Mystery Girl, produced by Orbison, Mike Campbell (of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers) and Jeff Lynne. It included one track by U2's Bono (who also wears trademark dark glasses and co-wrote the song "She's a Mystery to Me" with the Edge specifically for Orbison). At an awards ceremony in Antwerp a few days before his death, Roy Orbison gave his only public rendition of the hit "You Got It" to the applause of a huge crowd.
Orbison came back to America and played his last show for 1988 in Highland Heights, Ohio. He had big European and American tours planned out already for the next year.
Death
Orbison headed down to Nashville on December 4th, and on Tuesday, December 6th, he spent time shopping for model airplane parts and flying them, but during the afternoon he complained of chest pains. He was visiting at the home of his widowed mother, Nadine Orbison, and eldest son Wesley when he was found collapsed and unresponsive in the bathroom by his brother, Sam Orbison. Although rushed by ambulance to a hospital in Hendersonville, Tennessee, he was declared dead at 11:54 p.m. on December 6, 1988. He had suffered a massive heart attack.
On December 15, Orbison was buried in an unmarked grave at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Orbison's last album, Mystery Girl, on which he had worked for some time, was released posthumously.
Personal life
Orbison endured a great deal of tragedy in his relatively short life. His first wife, Claudette Frady, died in a motorcycle accident on June 6, 1966 in Gallatin, Tennessee. On September 14, 1968, the Orbison family home at Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee, burned to the ground while Orbison was touring in England. Two of his three sons, Roy DeWayne (b. 1958) and Anthony King (b. 1962), died in the fire. His youngest son Wesley Kelton, who was three at the time, was saved by Orbison's parents.
Orbison met his second wife Barbara in August 1968 in Batley, West Yorkshire, England. They were married in Nashville on May 5, 1969, and built a new house one block away from where Orbison's old house had once stood. The family moved to Malibu, California in 1985. They had two sons, Roy Kelton Orbison, Jr. born in 1970 and Alexander Orbi Lee Orbison born in 1975. "Orbi" is a drummer with the band Whitestarr.
At the direction of his wife Barbara, Orbison was interred at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California on December 15, 1988. His two sons and their mother Claudette, who predeceased him, had been laid to rest at his request in the Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville.
Orbison's album, Mystery Girl, and the single, "You Got It," were posthumous hits. At the time of his death, he was the first person since Elvis Presley to have two albums in the top 5 (Mystery Girl and Traveling Wilburys). He was the posthumous winner of the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and in 1992, the tracks "I Drove All Night" and "Heartbreak Radio" appeared on the posthumous album, King of Hearts, produced by Jeff Lynne.
Legacy
Orbison is remembered for his ballads of lost love, and in the music community he is revered for his songwriting ability. Record producer and Orbison fan Don Was, commenting on Orbison's writing skills, said: "He defied the rules of modern composition". Songwriters such as Elton John and Bernie Taupin along with many others referred to Orbison as "far ahead of the times, creating lyrics and music in a manner that broke with all traditions". Roy Orbison's vocal range was impressive, his voice effortlessly powerful with little apparent physical effort, and his songs were melodically and rhythmically advanced and lyrically sophisticated.
* Three songs written and recorded by Orbison, "Only The Lonely", "Oh, Pretty Woman" and "Crying" are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
* In 1989, Orbison was inducted posthumously into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
* In 1998, Orbison was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
* In 2004, Rolling Stone named those three songs plus "In Dreams" on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The same year, the magazine ranked him #37 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
* Bob Dylan, later a band mate of Orbison's in the Traveling Wilburys, wrote "Orbison … transcended all the genres. … With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. … [He sang] his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. … His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, 'Man, I don't believe it'. His songs had songs within songs. Orbison was deadly serious–no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn't anything else on the radio like him". Dylan was also quoted as saying "Roy was an opera singer. He had the greatest voice."
* In addition to Roy's many commercial releases, there have been many bootlegged releases that have surfaced over the years. One of the most popular Orbison bootlegs is the 1981 recording of his "Country Club" concert.
* On June 12, 2007, The Traveling Wilburys Collection box set was released worldwide to huge sales topping over one million copies. It was also the first time in more than ten years that the original masters were available.
* A reissue of Orbison's last two studio albums, Mystery Girl and King of Hearts, were released on October 23, 2007. It was the first time in more than fifteen years that King of Hearts was available again to the public.
* On September 30, 2008, "The Soul Of Rock And Roll" box set was released from Sony Records. It contains over one hundred songs spanning Orbison's entire career, including over a dozen unreleased and rare songs including "Precious" (unreleased from 1970) and as well a live performance of "It's Over" from his final concert on December 4, 1988. Also the box set had a book containing pictures and more of Orbison and his personal and career life. The box set on October 6, 2008, charted number one at Amazon.com's charts in Rock, Box Sets, and Oldies categories at the same time for three weeks straight.
* On December 2, 2008, Orbison's final concert from The Front Row Theatre was released on iTunes. The only song missing from the concert is "Running Scared".
* On January 2, 2009, The Orbison estate released a letter to the public that the box set "The Soul Of Rock And Roll" was one of the highest selling sets for the 2008 holiday season, and as well the new website receives daily over 100,000 hits worldwide. The letter also stated that the final concert release is also very huge success, making 2008 the biggest year for Roy Orbison since 1989.
In popular culture
* The song "Please Please Me" by The Beatles was inspired by "Only the Lonely" as Paul and John explained it in the The Beatles Anthology series.
* k.d. Lang lent her vocals in a remake of the 1961 classic, "Crying."
Wikipedia
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