oh crap, i'm stranded!

This week’s Oh Crap! selection comes from the other end of the conversation that sparked the whole Oh Crap! idea. Without revealing his choice to me at the time he offered to contribute something. And I knew he wouldn’t let me down. John (commonly referred to here as Johnny G.) is a true music lover. A musicologist of sorts. When I have a question about what year a song came out or how high it charted I ask John. It would not be out of the ordinary for me to ask John something like, “Who do you think was more influential? The Bee Gees, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Run DMC, The Ramones, or Pat Benatar? John’s passion for music is one of the qualities I find most endearing about him. As-a-matter of fact, our relationship is rooted in the love of two bands. I had seen him around the office and then spotted him from the balcony at 12 & Porter during a show one Friday night. The next Monday at work, “Hey, I saw you at the Sixpence show.” Later in that conversation he said, “I found out my other favorite band is going to be here next week. Considering he was a Sixpence fan I ventured a guess and said, “Over the Rhine?”. I was right and it was the start of a beautiful friendship. I won’t say much about John’s selection, mostly because he says it all wonderfully himself. I wasn’t quite sure which album he would pick. I thought he might go with Emmylou’s Red Dirt Girl. But after reading this I totally get this choice. And you will think it’s time for John to resurrect his blog.

When I was growing up I didn’t understand why so many people maintained that The Beatles were the greatest band ever. From my immature point of view I thought, “The Beatles sound like everyone else.” Later, of course, I realized I had it backwards. Get back Jo-Jo.

John's pick: The Beatles: 1.

Growing up, rock music was basically prohibited in our household. Mom had our best interest in mind, but I’m not sure she ever conceded merit in any of the modern stuff until my mid-to-late teens. I remember secretly buying a new 45-rpm single at a department store and then frantically wadding up the picture sleeve when I thought I saw her car coming down the street on my walk home. The record? Stevie Wonder’s paean to rebellion and hedonism, "I Just Called to Say I Love You."

Around this time I managed to tape "Hey Jude" from the radio station that broadcast my beloved Cincinnati Reds baseball games. It was monophonic AM sound on a cheap, low-bias cassette. I was changed. A year or two later I bought a record album of their greatest hits at the grocery store down the street (which would later be my first place of employment), and ever since – through long, expensive surveys of centuries of style – they have always been the music-makers I come "home" to.

I know how some people regard the Beatles. Oldies music. Poppy. Lightweight. Overplayed. Hype. Of course there are those who are too cool to listen to anything so ubiquitous. I have heard in-the-know friends say that they’re more into the Zombies, or any number of lesser-known bands from that era, trying to appear hipper than the masses. And then there’s the buddy of mine, bless his heart, who absolutely believes to his soul that KISS was more popular in their day than the Beatles in theirs.

Granted, there are elements the Beatles’ music lacks. There’s undeniably more heart in some later music. Others’ lyrics are more emotive. But look at what they did. Consider how far pop music came in the seven-year span of their recording career. (Notice I’m sticking to the music. A lot of the cultural change the Beatles helped set in motion… well, let’s just say I’m thankful that the Lord didn’t place me in a family of hippies. Dichotomy, dichotomy.) Recognize that without the Beatles there would be no Zombies. There’d be no Bowie, no Springsteen, no Clash, no U2 (!), no Nirvana. Dude, there would be no Partridge Family. Rock & roll was dying in 1960. Elvis wasn’t enough, as much as I love him.

Listen to "Love Me Do" from 1962 and "Come Together" from ‘69 back to back. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Done? Isn’t that crazy! That much development from one band in seven years is unthinkable today. Who in 1964, upon hearing "I Want to Hold Your Hand", could’ve imagined something like "Eleanor Rigby" just two years later? Or "I Am the Walrus" in three years? Ever since the mid-60s, artists’ conscious efforts to transform themselves have been commonplace. But in this regard they are, wittingly or not, following a precedent set by the Beatles.

You could make the argument for Bob Dylan being just as influential. He more than anyone made it okay to put "weight" in a song; indeed since he came along you don’t hear many singers pondering the cost of doggies in windows. Why then would you not take Dylan to the island instead? Maybe you would. I have ten of his albums myself. But I’ve always paid more attention to music than lyrics, and here the Beatles never run dry. My island, my iPod.

The Beatles’ music has brought me so much pleasure and excitement and taught me so much musically – I still look to them as the blueprint – that I genuinely feel sad for people who can’t get into it or who never try. I’ve listened to, analyzed and flat enjoyed these songs hundreds of times over, and still I was hearing brand new sounds while listening over the weekend. There’s always something to discover.

My point in all the defensive soap-boxing is this: It is silly to think that the Beatles could have attained their status as the biggest, most all-around influential band of all time and not likewise concede that what they achieved on paper and in the recording studio was extra-ordinary. Hype has its limits. Forty years later, their songs hold up. The influence is still felt. Last week I received a flyer in the mail from a very big church – a Southern Baptist church – inviting folks to their Easter services. In big bold letters were the words, "All you need is love." Now you tell me.

Beatles: 1 was released in 2000. It is the soundtrack to "what happened." It’s a 79-minute course in what should happen. In my opinion, it is everything that’s right about pop music. All 27 songs hit #1 in either the US or the UK, in most cases both. If ever there were a band whose songs all DIDN’T sound the same, surely it was them. You could listen to each song for two weeks and be inspired for the year.

I never get tired of the sound of John and Paul’s voices blended in harmony, as on "I Feel Fine" and "We Can Work It Out." I love the walking bass line in "Eight Days a Week." I love the word-imagery and melodic inventiveness of "Penny Lane" – one of my favorite songs by any artist. I love the fact that anybody penned a song about wanting to write paperback novels. Or a yellow submarine. I love the fact that in concert Sinatra supposedly introduced "Something" as his favorite Lennon-McCartney composition. (George Harrison wrote it.) I hate the fact that Paul dreamed the melody to "Yesterday." I like making up my own lyrics to "Get Back." I laugh to think how often I grab my classical guitar whenever "Day Tripper" comes on.

My one hesitation in picking this CD (as opposed to, say, the New Testament read by Laurence Olivier or Johnny Cash) is that having heard the songs so many times, hearing only them on the island might push me over the edge. On the flip side, the familiarity might be comforting as I contemplate a future of eating delicacies from the "Survivor" menu. Familiarity is no reason to trade in your first love after all, now is it?

The BIG downside to being a Beatles fan born after the 1960s has always been that we never got to hear the music with virgin ears. Hearing some of their earliest tracks especially, it can be hard NOT to hear it as another tired song on the Oldies station. But listen hard. You just know you’d have gotten excited too if you were a kid when they played "She Loves You" and you heard those ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’s for the first time. It’s kind of like if your first viewing of The Empire Strikes Back was on home video and you’d already heard that Vader was Luke’s daddy. You have to go back, but you really can’t.

There are several artists whose work could make for a really strong one-CD retrospective, but not many whose recorded life spanned just seven years. In fact if NONE of the material on 1 existed – if the CD were comprised of their 27 "next best" songs – it would still be my choice. Three or four such compilations in, I’d say the same. There are songs on this album I would swap out if making my own Beatles best-of ("The Ballad of John and Yoko" replaced by "Here Comes the Sun" for starters!), but if your island iPod only plays one commercially available Beatles CD, this is the one you would want. The sound is incredible – way better than the initial CD releases from 1987 – and with it regularly being available in the $10-13 range, it’s a no-brainer way to say "from me to you" or to treat yourself after a hard day’s night.

And yeah, I still turn up the volume during the fade-out of "Hey Jude" to hear every glorious nuance, just like when I was 14. Eventually Mom even came around. (I’m still working on her with U2.) She laughs along now when Dad reminds her that she threw out his Beatles records when they got married. All mine survived, thank goodness. One time she was playing "Can’t Buy Me Love" on the piano for me, sight-reading it, and as the printed page instructed, she screamed just before the solo. One of my all-time favorite Eva Gouge moments.

I do hope my younger siblings appreciate the work I did so that they could rock at will.

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P.S. for musician-geeks:
The other day I looked at the chords to a "filler" song from the Help! album, "You’re Going to Lose That Girl". Check this out. Song is in the key of E, so you’d expect at least E, A and B7. But Lennon found room for the alphabet and then some: A, B7, C, C#m, D, E, F, F#m7, G, and G#m7. And not one chord sounds forced. Try writing a song that does that. Most amazingly, the subdominant IV chord (A major) is not even used until the 2nd to last bar of the song!
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