Beatles Countdown #72: I Me Mine

{Nov 10}

Doug1960s , No Comments

One of George Harrison’s most signature songs with The Beatles comes in at #72 talking about the dreaded ego problem: “I Me Mine!”

The song is probably the most ironic songs to appear on the band’s last released album out of the disastrous Get Back recordings. A combination of LSD and his new love in all things Hindu, “I Me Mine” is basically just the sum of the ego problem by Harrison. In the Hindu context, those are taught to shy away from the shackles of ego with these words to be truly selfless for the lord. Harrison would call it “his eternal problem” and came up with the idea after dabbling in LSD & examining just how much his ego controls things. Now, the funny thing is that while this song has roots in the Hindu teachings, it’d be very naive to think that the twilight of The Beatles had no part of shaping the song. Destroyed by the egos of everyone thinking they knew best for the band, they now approached things lackadaisically while grudges formed that wouldn’t heal for years to come. Hell, when Harrison brought up the song and described it to his “bandmates” as a “heavy waltz,” Lennon mockingly dismissed the song claiming that they were in fact a rock band. As the other three practiced the waltz, Lennon continued the embarrassment by jokingly waltzing around the studio with Yoko Ono in a famously captured scene for the documentary Let It Be. In the video below, you can see bits and pieces of this too. Though it wasn’t his breaking point for leaving the band briefly during this time, moments like this make it pretty clear why Harrison felt so constrained within the group. Lennon & McCartney viewed themselves as the songwriters for the band and Harrison was just there for the odd song out here & there. Don’t believe me? They didn’t even care about it to include on the album in the first place!

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Beatles Countdown #87 – I Need You

{Mar 05}

Doug1960s , No Comments

George Harrison returns at #87 with his second-ever song for a Beatles album: “I Need You!”

I hope all of you know the plight of George Harrison. Recruited by the best songwriting partnership perhaps ever for his technical prowess on the guitar, John & Paul weren’t much concerned with getting his “songs” on their albums. Much like with Ringo, they would give him a song or two to sing each album and on their second album, they even showcased his first song “Don’t Bother Me.” Definitely one of the lower-tier Beatle songs despite not being a bad song by any definition, his first song wasn’t exactly something Paul & John wanted to hear more of so it’s no surprise that the next two albums after that had no Harrison compositions. But Harrison persisted and eventually got another chance at writing a song for their newest album & film Help! and he jumped at the chance.

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Beatles Countdown #95 – The Inner Light

{Mar 01}

Doug1960s , No Comments

On to number 95 on the list which is another Indian piece by George Harrison: “The Inner Light!”

Though it was released as a Beatles song & was the first George Harrison composition to be placed on a single (the B-Side of “Lady Madonna”), the genesis of the song actually puts it outside The Beatles’ realm. The music itself was recorded in January 1968 as part of the recording session for George Harrison’s first album, the soundtrack to the movie Wonderwall. That album is notable for actually being the first solo album for a Beatle, pre-dating the breakup albums by a little over two years. Now, it was all instrumental save a few tracks and poorly recieved, but nonetheless, it was the first. After Harrison had laid down the tracks for the album, he recorded extra bits & pieces for later use, one of which became “The Inner Light.” When it was recorded, however, George Harrison was actually not playing on the track. It’s not known who exactly it would have been, but it’s surmised that his usual repitore of Indian muscians was used (such as on Wonderwall Music). Harrison added his vocal part a month later to the mix with John & Paul adding a very small amount of harmony to it shortly after that. So the song that wasn’t recorded with The Beatles or by The Beatles or even composed in a Beatle-setting was then thrown on as the B-Side to “Lady Madonna.” Cool!

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Beatles Countdown #97 – Love You To

{Feb 26}

Doug1960s , No Comments

After three McCartney songs, number 97 brings us George Harrison as a primary songwriter for the first & certainly not last time. From the album Revolver, I give you “Love You To!”

Revolver would prove to be Harrison’s first great stand with three songs of his appearing on it: “Taxman, I Want To Tell You,” and this. Hell, “Taxman” even got to open the album and certainly set the pace for the acclaimed recording. Their last album yielded two songs & the next would give Harrison just one song so this was surely his chance with the ball so he ran with it. There may have been better songs on the album, but Harrison definitley made a big mark on Revolver & people started seriously paying attention to the “Quiet Beatle.”

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The Fab Four Discussed

{Aug 26}

Doug1960s , , , No Comments

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days, but I’ve been busy listening to some of the albums released last week and this week. In the review section of the site, there are two new album reviews up: Athlete’s Black Swan and Jet’s Shaka Rock. You should check out both, of course

Plug aside, we’re still talking about my favorite bands here. Little Richard, The Clash, The Who, Red Hot Chili Peppers & John Frusciante; they’ve all been covered, but my musical tastes run deep so I’ve still got a bit more to cover. Today we will be talking about probably the most influential band of all time and definitely one of the best ever. The Fab Four have been touched upon here before, but now, we’re finally going to cover: The Beatles!

As much as I would love to make a long post about The Beatles, I don’t think I can. There’s really not much that can be said about them. So musically diverse, their catalogue covers so many genres and so well that it’s eerie. Hard rock, pop rock, folk rock, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, MoTown, boogie-woogie, bubblegum pop, Indian, doo-wop; I can go on and on just as they did in tackling so many genres. Just listen to one album and you’ll be taken through an introductory class of music of the 20th Century with every piece being covered save for the genres that arose after 1970 (heavy metal, rap, punk, et cetera). They covered so much ground with each release and did them all with their trademark Beatles sound.

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Originals Week: To Do It First Child

{Jun 02}

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Up until now we’ve been dealing with songs that were mostly covered on top of each other. Aretha covered Otis two years later. The Monkees covered Neil Diamond directly after he recorded it. Why don’t we bridge the gap a bit and also discuss one of the best bands of all time, shall we?

The Beatles.

Everyone knows the story of the dynamic of the group, but this is pivotal to the point of this song so let’s discuss it again briefly and kind of haphazardly. The band was Paul and John. That’s pretty much it. Ringo was a media darling, did a good job making recognizable drumbeats part of rock music, and mostly expand the role of the drummer in the band. George Harrison pushed them into new genres and kept his lead guitar a signature sound of The Fab Four. But in the end, it was the songs that made The Beatles great and Paul & John were the driving force behind that. It’s not like they didn’t let the others try: Harrison had at least one track of his on most of The Beatles albums and Ringo eventually scored with two, one of which became a better known Beatles song. But in the end, it was the Paul & John songs that sold the records and had the critics in awe. Imagine then who had the pull in the band? If John came up with an idea for a song, do you think they would go for it? Of course! If George did? Probably not so much. Now, this is not the way it went down for them, but it’s a rough sketch to get my point across.

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Got My Mind Set On Someplace Else

{Feb 26}

Doug1980s , 1 Comment

Today’s song comes to us from one of the overlooked Beatles, George Harrison. I almost put down “the most overlooked,” but does anyone actually care what Ringo Starr has done since 1970? This is actually a really good song never released as a single (aka not many of you will know of it, let alone have heard it) that I feel is the best track on his 1987 record Cloud Nine. You should know something about that album already because it featured the smash hit “Got My Mind Set On You” that Harrison had been wanting to cover since the 60s (John & Paul shot him down numerous times). If you don’t know that song, click here and catch up, loser.

Anyway, the year is 1987 and George Harrison hasn’t released anything since 1982 when his last album bombed. He spent the time working on his film production company, Handmade Films. That went over swimmingly as their biggest picture, Shanghai Surprise starring Madonna and Sean Penn, was nominated in virtually every Razzie Award possible and won for Worst Actress. However, that movie is very vital to this record as Harrison recorded around five original songs for the soundtrack, two of which made it onto the Cloud Nine record. Two were later added on the album as it was re-mastered and re-released. The album itself is also important historically to music as it was the recording sessions which led to Harrison and Jeff Lyne (Harrison’s co-producer at the time & long time friend) starting the Traveling Wilburys in 1988 with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison. We will definitely cover them in the future here on this blog.

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