Posted on 07/29/2016 12:41:59 PM PDT by Mariner
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2016/07/29/dad-rock-beatles-revolver-album-turns-50/87681696/
Genius! /s
Not at all. He was GREAT at what he was good at, including perfect vocals and as an instrumentalist.
But, his weakness was he didn't have a ground breaking sound or songs like Lennon. Even though he taught Lennon to tune and play a guitar.
And Lennon didn't have sufficient musicality in the early years to be anything besides the leader of a bar band. And likely out of tune.
I don't know what that means...
Who was a great all around songwriter then?
You don’t know how lucky you are Boy...
Once I learned that little tidbit "The End" was that much better to listen to - figuring out whose riffs are whose was lots of fun.
You mean cute little pop jingles? McCartney was good for his era. He could have been a good ad man. For poetics, Bob Dylan holds up well.
As for great all-around songwriter, let’s start with J.S. Bach and see how far down in the gutter we have to go before we reach John Lennon.
All the avant garde elements of the Beatles records were Paul’s idea. He was the one who went to hear Stockhausen perform. The linked mini suites, the strange production and sound effects. Lennon didn’t like any of it. He wanted straight ahead rock and roll. Listen to Lennon’s solo albums to see how stripped down he got once he got away from Paul’s Artiness.
It's all a single cord of E Major. Just like Tomorrow Never Comes is in a single chord (C Major, I believe).
He probably down-talked the song because of the respect he had for McCartney.
But time show them both to be masterpieces at a level McCartney never achieved.
Like Dear Prudence.
In D Major I believe lol
Apples and Oranges. Bach was not a popular songwriter. He wasn’t a songwriter period.
Given the general interest in the Beatles, I’m quite surprised nobody has ever written a 3 hour movie to include an analysis of the musical progression. I would imagine it would be YUGE, especially if they could pull clips and audio.
It’s never been done in long form, perhaps even a mini-series would provide more time to do a thorough history documentary.
That was certainly his preference.
But not all "artiness" came from McCartney.
Strawberry Fields, Tomorrow Never Comes, A Day in the Life...etc.
Much of the artiness actually came from George Martin who tried to make it sound like John and Paul would describe and hum to him.
He was popular and he wrote songs, but I know what you mean. "Popular songwriter" is a euphamism for writer of trivial jingles of dubious value.
Get it.
He did not write songs. Not all vocal music is ‘songs’.
Jet, I can almost remember their funny faces
That time you told them that you were going to be marrying soon
And jet I thought the only lonely place was on the moon
Jet Jet Jet
Jet was your father as bold as the sergeant major
How come he told you that you were hardly old enough yet
And jet I thought the major was a lady suffragette
Hardly.
I recall the title song Ram On, 40 something years later. I think Paul used a banjo or ukelele. One of the sweetest earworms you ever did hear.
Thx, just took a look over at Amazon, it looks great.
JS Bach was a Kappelmeister, or Orchestra Leader for the local church.
As a composer. And a lot of Tin Pan Alley songs had very poor lyrics.
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