Beatles Countdown #83: Lady Madonna

Mar 16

Doug1960s paul mccartney, the beatles No Comments

Paul McCartney brings us some old-time boogie-woogie with #83′s slot on the countdown: “Lady Madonna!”

Having seen a picture titled “Mountain Madonna” which had an African woman suckling her kid, Paul was inspired to write this as a tribute to women everywhere shortly before the band’s trip to India. The lyrics describe the titular woman’s journey’s throughout the week though Paul famously leaves out Saturday as he figured it must have been “a real night out.” John had a minor contribution to the song too as he borrowed his famous “see how they run” lyric from “I Am The Walrus” for the song’s middle eight. The upbeat, quirky song was accompanied by a promotional film (or music video) which The Beatles had some expierence with. However, when it came time to shoot for the film, all the band wanted to do was work on and record a new song they had just penned: “Hey Bulldog.” As such, one of the two promotional films features mainly studio recordings & performances, most of which are of that song! Denis O’Dell, who was in charge of the filming, would recall had he had a plan for the film, but all that went out of the window as soon as Paul started playing something new on the piano.

The music itself was derived by Paul McCartney wanting to emulate Fats Domino on the piano. He subsequently tried to sing the song like Fats, but has also described the song as his “Elvis voice.” Fats himself would later cover the song and it would actually be the last charting success of his career. Though inspired by Fats, the piano riff borrows heavily from Humphrey Lyttelton’s “Bad Penny Blues” from 1956 which was also produced by George Martin. Conicidence? Listen to it and let me know. I will say though that if George Harrison can get ruled against for “subconciously” plagiraizing a song, where’s the uproar here? Anyway, the song features a lot of cool features not normally found in Beatles songs other than the obvious blues-riff on piano. One would have to be the saxophone solo by Ronnie Scott who’s original solo was longer. The fact that they cut out a portion of his solo pissed him off (as it would me), but come on, you got to play on a Beatles recording. You’re in the history books – get over it. Another cool trick was the “brass voice” trick George, Paul, & John tried to utilize at a little over a minute into the song. They tried to get the brass section sound by vocalizing through their hands and while it doesn’t sound like that to me, it definitely does make the song a bit more unique than it would have been otherwise. Who doesn’t like Lady Madonna, guys? It’s just a bluesy piece written & recorded all in fun. Enjoy it!

Song: Lady Madonna
Album: “Lady Madonna” Single
Year: 1968

To download, right-click here and select “Save Target As.”

Or watch this: