Half Agony, Half Hope

I hateeeee that we are stuck with Ian Leslie as an alternative voice to the mainstream Lennon/McCartney narrative. I don't want to rely on this man, and he possibly has the means to really shift the narrative/affect beatle literature/media. Our society depends on the perspectives of men (fuck this, but it is true unfortunately), particularly white men, especially on topics as mainstream and "male dominated" (absolute bullshit) as the Beatles. Like, we can't even get a queer white man on this!! What the fuck? That man has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to the absolute queer shit storm that is Lennon/McCartney.

I was enjoying the wackiness of the beautiful possibility podcast/blog; I didn't buy into the truly wild & sweeping claims she made about mclennon healing the world or whatever but I liked the mythopoetic themes and the sort of structured insanity of it. I also admired that she's insistent on doing serious mclennon research under her own name etc (although her wider theories are likely to put casual readers off, not to mention problems of confirmation bias in her approach etc).

With all that said, I've been totally put off by some recent episodes' parasocial insistence that paul is a little scared uwu baby that must be encouraged (by her?) to "tell his story", and indeed that he may be listening to the pod for just that purpose??

A chronic case of Too Much Fanfic brain, I fear.

The Threepenny Opera

Image: Dada Rundschau by Hannah Höch, 1919.

(A review from last year of the Threepenny Opera in the Gate Theatre. Trying to get this post to nestle into the correct chronological space, but Tumblr seems to have a problem with that kind of reverse-scheduling. Hence this introductory note - this review was written in October 2013.)

Seeing the show in the flesh, in the theatre, after years of exposure to the myth, is a slightly disorientating experience. The expected, stunning musical set-pieces are interspersed with narrative-prolonging longeurs, while the most famous songs (Mack The Knife and Pirate Jenny) pop up at rather incidental points in the story. The political message is less a message than an announcement, clunking the audience over the head with the complaints of the oppressed in rags.  The show itself, as presented by The Gate and directed by Wayne Jordan, is both less strange and more wonderful than I’d imagined it would be. This is a production that takes the source material seriously, as shown by the 18-piece orchestra that starts playing as soon as the curtain lifts. From then on the show dazzles with pitch-perfect (and refreshingly unamplified) singing, choreography that manages to be challenging without being confusing and costumes and set design that convey just the right amount of ragged decadence.

The lack of subtlety and nuance in the original storytelling persists through a game reimagining by Mark O’Rowe, but the music and aesthetic for which the name Threepenny Opera is synonymous more than compensates. Allusions to the present economic situation are kept mercifully subtle. This production is no exercise in superficial window-dressing – it is the very sincerity with which the cast and crew present this musical and visual feast that gives this production its extraordinary power.

Highlights include Hilda Fay as Jenny, Mark O’Regan as Mr Beecham and the aforementioned 18-piece orchestra.

Crates from every port.

On Instagram

Another regular conversational pit stop during our calls was the guests I was interviewing on my radio show on any given week, especially if they were rock stars. Inevitably, John would have some spirited opinions to share about his competition. One time, for instance, I casually mentioned an upcoming booking with Mick Jagger.

“Why are you interviewing him?” John asked.

The truth was, I was interviewing Jagger because he was holding a concert in L.A. to raise money for victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. (His wife, Bianca, was Nicaraguan.) But for some reason I foolishly blurted out, “Because the Rolling Stones are probably the greatest live touring band in the world.”

“Isn’t that what they used to say about us?” John coolly replied.

“But the Beatles aren’t touring anymore,” I said, stepping on a landmine. “The Beatles as a group don’t exist anymore. And the Rolling Stones are as important a presence as anybody in rock ’n’ roll.”

“The Rolling Stones followed us!” John shouted. “Just look at the albums! Their Satanic gobbledygook came right after Sgt. Pepper. We were there first. The only difference is that we got labeled as the mop tops and they were put out there as revolutionaries. Look, Ellie,” he went on, “I spent a lot of time with Mick. We palled around in London. We go way back. But the Beatles were the revolutionaries, not the Rolling Pebbles!”

Excerpt From, ‘We All Shine On’, Elliot Mintz

The dash of Beatles magic comes as they reach the end of the verse and bounce together on the strung-out “pleeeeeeease . . .” answered by Paul’s solo “ . . . love me do.” The spirit in the harmony and the expectant silence that follows heightens the sense of anticipation...

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In the drawn-out “plee-ee-ease” of “Love Me Do” the lilting harmonies yearn politely—in “Please Please Me” it’s dirty and polite all at the same time. John and Paul’s verse duet gains on the Everly formula: Paul stays on the initial high note as John pulls away beneath him (“Last night I said these words to my girl”), putting the Everlys’ “Cathy’s Clown” lilt to a brighter beat. The rasp in Lennon’s voice on the repeated “come on”s is far from innocent—he wants this woman to do more than just hold his hand. As they hit the second “please,” Paul and John leap away from the pleasantry of the first, soaring up to convey a real adolescent sexual frustration. Even the sound of the band has more rough edges than the thunking bass of “Love Me Do.” Where the first single is genuinely coy, the second makes a “polite” demand on the female, and Lennon deliberately tries to stir up a reaction.

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Although John and Paul can be worlds apart (as this album [“Please Please Me”] demonstrates), when they harmonize the common brilliance they achieve is breathtaking. The two share a space of musical effervescence that only they know how to reach for, and they hit it with uncommon grace.

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The first and last songs on the album, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout,” are its bookends: both revolve around the idea of falling in love on the dance floor. But where Paul gets the dance floor jumping, Lennon makes the earth move. It’s as raunchy as anything the Beatles ever recorded, and it stands up beautifully to records with raunchier reputations (like the Stones’ “Satisfaction”). Where the opening tune suggests an adolescent sexuality, “Twist and Shout” conveys a loss of innocence; where Paul’s singing is charged but charming, Lennon’s delivery is nothing short of lustful.

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Throughout rock, and throughout the history of music—from Bach’s French Suites to Ravel’s La Valse—the image of the dance in music has been linked to the act of sex.

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After two verses [“Twist and Shout”], the singers—John with Paul and George in support— back off to play their guitars for a verse, as if resting for the final round. When the voices come back in, the personalities we’ve heard throughout the record stack up one by one for the rave-up, building the chord with mounting excitement. At the top of the ladder, they spill over the edge with hysterical screams, the musical dam breaks, and before we know it they’re into the last verse. It’s the musical equivalent of an orgasm, and it counts among the most exciting moments in all their music.

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It’s not that they’re telling teenagers to dance or have sex: they’re simply enjoying life so much that they can’t contain themselves—they want the beat to seduce the whole world into having fun.

(Tell Me Why by Tim Riley, 1998/2002)

reblog w the song lyrics in your head NOW. either stuck in yr head or what yr listening to

Charley Foxx, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder at the Scotch of St James club, 1966.

“When on tour I have to write essays about the places I visit. In the essay I’ll be writing when I get back I’ll certainly include my meeting with Paul McCartney. I met him in the Scotch Of St James club. He’s a really swinging guy, the only Beatle I’ve met.”

15-year-old Stevie Wonder, NME, 18 February, 1966

“None of the Beatles was on hand for Stevie’s show at the Cavern, but Paul McCartney came to a show we did in London. After the final set, Stevie, Paul, Clarence [Paul, Stevie’s producer] and I sat around acting like a proverbial mutual admiration society - Paul going on and on about how the Beatles loved rhythm and blues and how they all admired Stevie’s music and the Motown sound; the rest of us quizzing him about the “Fab Four”. it was the only time in all my years of working alongside the greatest singers and musicians in the world that I ever asked for an autograph, which earned me major points with my sisters Joan and Diane.”

Ted Hull (Stevie’s tutor), The Wonder Years: my life and times with Stevie Wonder, 2000

Braille message for Stevie (“We love you baby”) on the cover of Wings’ 1973 album Red Rose Speedway.

On the first night of recording, who should turn up at the studio door but Paul and Linda. It was the first time since the Beatles had broken up that John and Paul had been in the same room…They play. With Paul on drums, in the absence of Ringo and Keith Moon that night, and John picking up his guitar, soon to be joined by Stevie Wonder, they went into a jam of ‘Midnight Special’.

Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon A Restless Life

“I’ve always been an admirer from the early days when we first heard him as ‘Little’ Stevie Wonder with ‘Fingertips’. Then I met him on and off [for a few years] and went to his shows. Eventually, I asked him if we could record together ‘Ebony and Ivory’. I spent some time with him in Montserrat to make that record... He’s such a musical monster. You sit down with him at the piano immediately he’s off. I know some of his old stories so I can joke with him and take the mickey. He was originally ‘Steveland Morris’ and he was in a little blind school in Detroit. He was just one of the blind kids who happened to be musically gifted. He went to Motown to make ‘Fingertips’ and then he was famous. He came back as ‘Little Stevie Wonder’. So he once told me all the blind kids in the school used to call him [adopts mocking tone] ‘Wundurr’. They didn’t like him and were jealous of him. So now when I see him and if we pass in the corridor I say ‘Wundurr’ and he immediately knows it’s Paul.”

Paul McCartney, GQ Magazine, November 2012

Stevie and Paul in Montserrat, working on Tug of War, 1981.

“But, you know, he’s such a fantastic person to work with that you just go along with it. He’s worth it! He may not always show up when he says he will. Maybe he has got to finish this other album he’s doing, whatever. You just have to make a lot of allowances. He’s such a great musician. It’s all fine, in the end. When he eventually got there and started working, it was perfect. I thought, ‘Oh God, everything he does is perfect.’ I’m talking about even handclaps here… you know, just handclaps. I remember being just a little bit out on the handclaps. We were round a mic clapping, and he just went, ‘Hey Paul, stop! Hey man, you’re not in the pocket!’ And I’m going, ‘Okay, alright, I’m not in the pocket! Let’s get it in the pocket.’ On the Beatles records we weren’t that precise with handclaps! ‘In the pocket’ means being exactly on the beat. So Stevie is saying, ‘You’re not in the pocket, man!’ and I’m going, ‘Oh shit! Okay, let’s get it right!’ So we just worked at it until we got it. He’s very much the perfectionist.”

Paul McCartney, Tug of War Archive Collection, 2015

“Stevie came along to the studio in LA and he listened to the track for about ten minutes and he totally got it. He just went to the mic and within 20 minutes had nailed this dynamite solo. When you listen you just think, ‘How do you come up with that?’ But it’s just because he is a genius, that’s why.”

Paul on recording Only Our Hearts with Stevie in 2011.

Paul and Stevie during mixing for Kisses on the Bottom, 15 November 2011 source