McCartney In Goal
McCartney In Goal is a monthly podcast that debates and dissects the greatest albums of popular rock music. Hosted by David Hughes, and fellow judges, Brett and Steve Sumner, each episode the McCartney In Goal team pick a rock or pop music album that they love and put the songs through an imaginary competitive style-knock out format to find the best song on the album. At times, they may be uninformed, biased and they are often a bit unruly. Come and listen in on the fun - and if you enjoy it, TELL A FRIEND!!! Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com
McCartney In Goal
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)
Episode 48: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles). McCartney In Goal is the podcast that debates and dissects the great albums of rock music, using a competitive knock-out format. Today we’re discussing, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which was the eighth studio album by The Beatles. It was released on 26 May 1967.
The McCartney In Goal team take an unruly amble through the album discussing:
- why this album, once deemed the greatest of all time, might have lost its unassailable status?
- is Sgt. Pepper's truly a concept album?
- why did John Lennon dislike some of his own contributions to Sgt. Pepper's?
- and, eventually, the best song from the album.
This is your chance to revisit your favourite songs, see them from a fresh perspective, and witness a lively battle for the top spot. Don't miss out on this exciting and enlightening debate!
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin
Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com/
Hello and welcome to McCartney and Gold. This is the podcast that debates and dissects a great album of popular music. I am Steve Sumner and I'm joined by my fellow judges.
Speaker 2:Brett Listen, I'm hoping we all have a splendid time, but I cannot and I will not guarantee it.
Speaker 3:Yes, I see what you've done there excellent work and David Hughes, it's wonderful to be here. Certainly a thrill.
Speaker 1:Lovely stuff. We are going to throw in some stories, mixing our opinions, sprinkle over a sporting knockout format, whatever that means, and we're going to pit the songs against each other in a battle to the death.
Speaker 3:Oh, here you go. What Filling me up with your rules.
Speaker 1:Lovely stuff, but stop butting in, even with Beatlepuns. No butting in, please. We're going to pit the songs against each other in a battle to the death, but with news and man chat until we reach a grand final and reveal which song is the unassailable winner. As ever, we promise to be biased, uninformed and unruly. Right here we go, filling the blanks. Oh, good evening, good evening. Or, if you're listening earlier to this in the day, good morning, good morning.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am hosting for the first time I have the time. What's going on now? Okay, good, well done, I've got it. He's quick and he caught up with us.
Speaker 1:I'm hosting for the first time, which means it is, of course, getting better, getting better all the time. Very nice there we go, even though I host my own podcast. I'm a little bit nervous about doing this, but I'm sure the tile Be fixing a hole.
Speaker 3:Get through with a little help from your friends.
Speaker 1:Absolutely brilliant, well done. Good, this is going very well, very good. Sadly, let's get to more tenuous now. Sadly, our Beatles episodes always overrun dramatically. I'm hopeful that we can get this in the can quickly and I won't still be recording it when I'm 64. Yes, lovely stuff. It took me forever to edit the last episode down into something manageable, but I'm used to that as Uh I don't know. That's just a day in the life of an average podcast.
Speaker 2:Okay, gotcha we needed the last bit to kind of really understand.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, I know it's okay, lovely, beautiful, that was great.
Speaker 2:I don't know how you'd have got Lucy in the sky with diamonds on that.
Speaker 1:No, some of those were uh challenging.
Speaker 2:Very hard, just not happening.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest, just challenging to the point of it Superb. Thank you very much. On this episode we are discussing one of the most famous and highly regarded albums of all time. It is Sergeant Rutter's Only Darts Club Band by the Rutles.
Speaker 2:Ah great, eric Hyde's finest work. I'm only joking, of course.
Speaker 1:It's Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie soundtrack by the Bee Gees.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a that you, in the preceding weeks before doing this podcast, you sent us a trailer to that on YouTube and it is oh yeah. Oh, you cannot unsee it. I think that's what they show in A Clockwork Orange. I think that's what they show the main character in that, when they're trying to torture him with awful video images.
Speaker 3:It's just appalling. Oh my god, so is this the best Beatles album.
Speaker 2:What are you doing? What are you doing? Stop trying to back host it. Stop trying to backroom host this show.
Speaker 3:Don't back-host it, I'm just generally asking you to you can't, you can't.
Speaker 2:You can't.
Speaker 3:Casually, like you can't say.
Speaker 2:Steve, you can host it. Our rageous use Unbelievable.
Speaker 3:But I'm casually asking you you can, you can? Is this See? Hosting cannot be allowed. You can ask.
Speaker 1:You can answer my questions, you cannot ask Okay, alright.
Speaker 2:No questions. Right, steve, you need to ask a question, otherwise the podcast starts at its hands. Right.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I'm having a test. Some reason Steve has.
Speaker 2:Dave has done some incredible kind of cyber voodoo. Because you're silent at the moment, steve, I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 1:No, I know You've just dropped out, completely Right.
Speaker 2:Dave has got serious powers.
Speaker 1:He's got powers I don't like. So are we back on?
Speaker 3:It's getting better, fuck sake. Yes, go for it Okay.
Speaker 1:So here's the question on everybody's lips, especially Dave's. Is this answer no, by the way, the greatest Beatles album?
Speaker 3:No, of course it's not Well if you ask the classic rock magazine in the 1990s, then yes, it definitely was, and probably into the 2000s.
Speaker 2:It was always there in the enemies greatest albums of all time. Yeah, that, and Marvin Gaye Mojo, I think you're raising the most pertinent.
Speaker 1:The most pertinent thing here, which is the bigger question. There was a period of time when we were growing up when it was absolutely considered by everybody to be the greatest album of all time, and in the last two to three decades that reputation has gradually withered away a little bit. It's still in the top tens, top 20s, top 50s, but it's no longer always unassailable number one, why I'm not asking, I'm just, I'm just Mulling it.
Speaker 3:Why don't we record it loud Out loud and then, at the end, come out with that conclusion about why it happened. To get the pod verse. Why? Why is it? I mean I hate to come out with that conclusion.
Speaker 2:It's kind of put a kind of narrative tension to this or any kind of arc or. I mean, should we just say what the best song is Fucking now and then go home Come?
Speaker 3:on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right so round one Chaps.
Speaker 3:Are you ready? Yes, Hang on. Remind me what we're Fuck us. What we're doing A quiz.
Speaker 1:No, we're doing round one of McCartney and fucking Goal. Fuck that.
Speaker 4:This is going great.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:David, would you please stop stopping me, I see what we're like. 49 episodes in this is smooth as fuck.
Speaker 3:I don't know Round one, I'd say, yes, I should have called it round one.
Speaker 2:What do we usually call it Qualifying round? Right, okay, so actually for general audience.
Speaker 3:It should be called round one, because that's so much easier. Am I this bad? I like it. Am I this bad? I'm making a mental no next time when I'm hosting. He's loving it.
Speaker 2:He's going to be like this with me as well. I mean, we have given him pelts for 47 episodes.
Speaker 3:Why haven't I called it round one for 47 episodes?
Speaker 2:I'm going to get it as well next week, don't worry, it's all good right.
Speaker 3:Right the qualifiers gentlemen, now let's do round one that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Round one Round one of the qualifiers. He's Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. Yes, the main one versus Sergeant Pepper's. Lonely Hearts Club band. The reprise slash reprise, depending on how you feel about saying it. Lonely Hearts Club band.
Speaker 2:The Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. We hope you enjoy the show. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. The sorry versus time to go. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. We'd like to start you once again. Sergeant Pepper's won an army on the hearts of men. It's getting very nearly end. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. The first round of the qualifiers Brett. Oh wow, I mean, obviously you've got both Sergeant Pepper's there. I just want to say from a personal point of view, I'm holding up my I don't know if you can see that, unfortunately. Can you see that that's my granddad's release book from the Second World War, and he was I'm listening to this on my phone.
Speaker 3:No, you can't, and obviously no, I'm not actually listening to it.
Speaker 2:But imagine in your ears On the podcast app Is coming in a soldier's release book from 1946, second World War. He fought for six years in the Second World War and he was called Dennis Pepper and he was a Lieutenant Sergeant, so he was the original Sergeant Pepper.
Speaker 4:So this is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, granddad Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, as it's known in my family, and these. So it's a very beautiful kind of pointy title for an album. Both of these songs are it's about your granddad.
Speaker 1:The launch into this album this is yeah, it's about my granddad.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic, Literally. This is a launch off point into this album which is, as we've discussed earlier, an iconic 60s moment. This is one of the quintessential 60s albums, is it not?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, should we talk themes, since we're doing Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band.
Speaker 2:Why not? Let's do it. Yes, let's theme it up. Is it a concept album? No, no, I mean, I'll Well.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna say yes.
Speaker 2:Oh good, I'm gonna say yes, but let's get to some debates.
Speaker 3:But the concept is not all about Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band but the concept is probably like an eccentric musical Britishness that they kind of pull together which draws on multi-strands of culture, british culture and society. There isn't a common story thread that makes it a concept album but they bring together all of these British cultural and musical influences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'm being childish when I say no, because I don't think anything. Thinks a concept album. What is a concept album actually? Can you name your concept album that? Doesn't talk about when you really interrogate it, it's not by Prog Rock band.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was about to say yes, in being Prog Rock, there are plenty of them. I mean, you know it's like this, I mean literally.
Speaker 2:No one listens to Prog Rock. No one listens to it anymore. The 70s are gone. No, it's fine.
Speaker 1:But I mean all right to be clear. I listened to some Rush stuff the other day where there's a song called the Trees on a Rush album, and then, two albums later, there's a follow-up song about what happened to the Trees because people wanted to follow up on the stories.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean it's like this, Nice you know there's lots of In Prog.
Speaker 1:you will find concept albums that are tight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, With sequels, it seems With sequels yeah, yeah and side projects that then mention the sequel or something you know. You know cross-pollinate.
Speaker 1:But you can give Sergeant Pepper a pass because it was the first time anyone was doing something like that. But I think in terms of what's come afterwards in concept album, it is very, very loose yeah.
Speaker 2:So know, in the sense of like, when the Prog rock bands took it to the zenith of these ultimate degrees of making it super concept-y, as they are having sequels three albums later.
Speaker 1:I think it's thematically and vibe-wise it's nicely linked, in the same way that lots of albums are just collections of songs and nothing else. Sergeant Pepper has a nice unifying vibe and sort of old psychedelic sort of atmosphere to it, which is lovely. But is what I would call a concept album? No, not particularly.
Speaker 3:But it's good. So it sounds like we've all agreed it's a concept album. Then that's what I'm hearing. We'll let you have it. We'll let you have it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know what. I'm going to change my vote to yes, it is a concept album. Can we now continue with the podcast? Thanking that.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Fantastic Two to one. It goes through to the next round of.
Speaker 1:Is it or is it not a? Concept album Brett for the love of God, please vote for Sergeant Pepper, the reprise, or Prog rock Pepper, the main one.
Speaker 2:Um, they're both amazing.
Speaker 3:Let's vote for reprise.
Speaker 2:Fine. No no, let's, we're all going to vote separately. I'm going to infosage, and peppers Opening track is amazing. He's vocal and it's incredible. I don't really want to, you know stop the show it's fantastic. They're both great. The guitars are amazing on both of them. They're so atmospheric. Love them both, but I will go with the okay.
Speaker 3:If I was going to be making a case for the reprise to win out and go through to the next round, I would prefer it because it rocks along at a faster pace.
Speaker 1:It's rockier yeah.
Speaker 2:It's got a lot going on. It's got a lot of stuff on the outro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely heavier yeah.
Speaker 3:It's more fun in it. Yeah, it's an all four Beatles, I think, are singing on it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot going on on the, especially on the outro, and you know when you get to I don't want to geek out too early when you get to the re, the kind of the remastered, remix versions that they put out in the last deluxe Sergeant Pepper's version Uh hello, it's Christmas, Kaching, let's get something out that you can hear kind of. You can hear a bit more clearly, like all of them clattering way at the end of it as well, and just the kind of chaos that leads into a day in the life. Obviously they're trying to build up to that point to kind of make it chaotic, but um, yeah, they're also.
Speaker 3:I'll go for the reprise then. Fair enough.
Speaker 1:I am as well because and for me it's, it's it's about the. It's about the energy that McCartney brings to it, cause it's that one, two, three, wow, it's like, wow, she hasn't really done since, like the first song of the first Beatles album, um, which I just it's and it's, it's just heavier, I'm, I'm, I'm very much, very much a reprise guy. I mean, I love both, but that's definitely my, my choice of the two.
Speaker 1:Oh, I wasn't expecting that, so we are already losing the main title track which does not go through. You feel happy. I'm not really happy with that.
Speaker 2:Have you really chuffed with yourself.
Speaker 3:You're not happy with that Cause.
Speaker 2:I was. I wanted to give you said. You said at the start let's go for the reprise.
Speaker 3:I wanted to give reprise one vote and then I was expecting the, the actual one, the real one, to go through.
Speaker 1:To go through you knob.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're such a fucking unbelievable knob Contrary. You've contraried yourself into fucking corner. Dave, this is like Dave Hughes squared. Yeah, and the end of you fucking yourself over Fucking believable.
Speaker 3:I'm in the contrarie corner, ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But I'm not happy with the result of what you? You were five, I mean. Take a long hard. Look at yourself, man, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:He's right, I think everything Brett said I second. I'm totally right, right.
Speaker 2:Round two is getting the chair for the rest of the podcast, please, david. Thank you, okay, getting better.
Speaker 1:Getting, getting better versus fixing and whole.
Speaker 4:I'm fixing the whole. Well, the rain gets in and stops my mind from wondering where it will go. Oh, I'm feeling the cracks that ran through the door and kept my mind from wondering where it will go, and it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong and right where I belong and right where I belong. See the people standing there who disagree, never win. I wonder why they don't get in my door. I'm painting the room in a colorful way.
Speaker 3:Oh, getting better. I blim in love that it's great.
Speaker 2:I love it. I do love it.
Speaker 3:But I really love it Fixing a hole Like what hole? Yeah, what hole is he fixing?
Speaker 2:Well, he would I think it's basically, it's McCartney being McCartney. My my understanding is McCartney being McCartney is he. He was literally fixing a hole in a roof in your house, in your house in Scotland.
Speaker 3:I always thought that and then wrote a song about it. I always thought that as a teenager, that's the legend, because he doesn't actually ever say it's fixing a hole in the roof, does he? But I'd always assumed like fixing a hole is.
Speaker 2:I don't know he goes that far. He's not that, he's not quite that. Oh my God, I could not disagree more with that.
Speaker 3:He says fixing a hole where the rain gets in, doesn't it so that you automatically literally? Your literal mind then takes you to where it must be a roof, what no?
Speaker 4:No, the fuck are you talking about McCartney.
Speaker 3:here is he's fixing a hole in the creative direction at the heart of the Beatles, because from 1967 onwards, that's what he was fixing.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's worse. That's worse than your idiot. You've gone from totally literal to just ridiculous.
Speaker 3:Steve, tell me what hole is he fixing.
Speaker 1:I mean listen to the lyric right, the beautiful thing about fixing a hole.
Speaker 2:He's fucked up being you. He's got some tarmac.
Speaker 1:He's got his. I'm putting some cork, I'm corking a hole.
Speaker 3:Surely.
Speaker 2:I've got some roof felt to light. Yeah, got some line. I got some line. Tell me about the lyrics, steve.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think it's just going to get hijacked again and again. I'm going to just no, no do.
Speaker 2:Tell us about he promised he's going to be good now I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in. We put him in contrary corner, remember. So he's going to be good now.
Speaker 1:It stops my mind from wondering. I think that. Do you know what I mean? It's like fixing a hole where the rain gets in which, and stops my mind from wondering where it will go. It's the most brilliantly psychedelic lyric McCartney does on the whole album because it's so wonderfully nebulous in what it could mean. It's this idea, you know it's. I think that's more LSD than half the stuff on Lutie in the sky. The idea that I might think it's about DIY is mad to me.
Speaker 2:I do think it is about DIY and I think it's about the point of doing something, doing a task that just stops your, literally your mind wandering and going a bit mad. Sometimes we just need to do stuff just to kind of stop our minds going round and round and round on the same. I agree, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:I think the genesis might be of that, but I think it's a brilliantly psychedelic sounding. You know this idea that I'm doing something, so it can be both in a way, but I'm doing something, mean you're, you know, because the psychedelia on Sgt Pepper. There's two types of psychedelia. There's like mind blowing psychedelia and then there's this kind of like old school British have a cup of tea, funny colors, village green psychedelia and Sgt Pepper's more you know, like Sid Barrett.
Speaker 1:It's a very Sid Barrett style Sgt psychedelia, which is what this is, and I think fixing a hole encompasses that brilliantly.
Speaker 3:So he says I'm painting a room in a colorful way. So, brett, you think, like it's a literal, he's got his due lux paint swatch out. Oh, definitely, he's definitely got some swatches out and he's thinking shall I go salmon, pink or rude teal?
Speaker 2:That's what he's looking at. That's what he's basically thinking. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:But there's nothing more psychedelic than that either. I mean, this is the time when they were getting like the mural put on the side of the Apple building and stuff, you know, and you're going from like black and white Beatles album covers like two years previously to like the most colorful album. You know color you could have got in some greens and blues and everything else. So you know again, even if it's literal in terms of actual due lux style, stick it on the wall painting. It's still incredibly psychedelic.
Speaker 2:I think it probably was inspired. It's obviously it's a metaphor he's using and also the benefit.
Speaker 3:It's a metaphor for psychedelia. A joy of DIY. It's actually just a DIY song.
Speaker 2:It's a metaphor. Yeah, it's a DIY manual, basically.
Speaker 3:The lyrics are brilliant, yeah, aren't they? And they do have that double triple meaning and I love them, they do.
Speaker 1:I'm voting fixing a hole. I'm going in.
Speaker 3:I'm not as much as I do like fixing a hole, and I do really like it. I'm blooming love getting better, so I'm going to vote.
Speaker 2:I'm blooming, love it. I'm going to vote for getting better. I'm glad you're getting better because I feel it too. It's going through.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a really rocky song, isn't it? And we'll talk about that in the course finals.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. I love it. I've got a very personal reason to love it as well, so there's lots of love I have for that song Love it All right.
Speaker 1:So getting better goes through, much to my chagrin, which is French for chagrin. So next, next ones up against each other.
Speaker 2:Is it round three, round three, let's call it round three with a little help from my friends, just making up rounds Making up rounds.
Speaker 1:It's the third. Yeah, exactly this is the third qualifying round with a little help from my friends, joe Cocker's finest moment, which is obviously being covered by Ringo he's a bit sad Against when I am 64.
Speaker 4:When I get older, losing my head many years from now, will you still be sending me a Valentine's birthday greetings bottle of wine? I just need someone to love. To be anybody, I want somebody to love. Oh, I get by with a little help from my friend Gonna drive a little help from my friend.
Speaker 2:Oh, I get by with a little help from my friend. Yes, I get by with a little help from my friend, with a little help from my friend. Well, you've got two Maca songs there, haven't you?
Speaker 4:You've got two Maca songs.
Speaker 2:Yeah there are, shall I still stat attack you? We've got seven Maca songs in this album, one Harrison and four Lennon.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go earlier with this. I think this is McCartney's weakest showing on a post-65 album.
Speaker 3:What with a little help?
Speaker 2:No, his contribution to an album, oh what.
Speaker 3:Sgt Peppers.
Speaker 2:I think this is his weakest contribution to an album.
Speaker 3:Songwriting, mccartney's weakest contribution to a post Hang on Post-.
Speaker 2:The Beatles cat amongst the Post.
Speaker 3:What Did you say, 67? The.
Speaker 2:Pigeons 65. I'm saying Post from Seoul.
Speaker 3:This is his weakest show.
Speaker 2:Abbey Road. Hello, Excellent on that.
Speaker 3:I mean, the only one would be would be Let it Be, wouldn't? It Exactly, I've thought of this through, and actually he carries that album.
Speaker 2:I've got a feeling though that Steve loves a song on that, so he won't disagree with me.
Speaker 3:Could you say the?
Speaker 2:word. His best song in this album is Sgt Peppers.
Speaker 3:Boom. I don't agree with that. Come on.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think I agree with that.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, we'll get to what you do think I don't? I can't agree with that.
Speaker 3:Tell us now, because you're I can't make the case for it yet, because I haven't thought about it enough.
Speaker 2:But I think it's through. Well, no, I have Listen to it as we go through the podcast and think, if you can think of seven songs that McCartney contributes to an album, that the only reason that you could possibly make that argument is because the quality of his contributions to the other albums are so so high.
Speaker 3:That's it, Good boy. And you could. You could actually make that argument, because even if you went for-.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can the other? Two weakest ones which I would say is Let.
Speaker 4:It Be and the White Album. That's for my album.
Speaker 3:Those contributions to those are so high. I still don't agree.
Speaker 1:You can't the White Album. Hang on, Brett Brett, your microphone's got you've, you've lost, you've got no audio at all.
Speaker 3:No, no, I can't Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh it's gone back.
Speaker 1:It came back again.
Speaker 2:I think I must have blown it with that high note of Absolutely, I think he was just silent Wow.
Speaker 1:Would you say then that the part of the reason is because actually he contributes. There's too much McCartney on this album, you know, because he contributes seven songs. Perhaps if you chose the best five would you not feel the same.
Speaker 3:Well, you're going to say Brett, you're going to say it's because it's the so much filler McCartney filler on this.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's filler, I just don't. I just I think you're right with your summation of my argument. I love the fact that you you intuited what I was going to argue and you're probably quite right. I just think he's stronger on the other albums. I think the strongest songs on this album are Lennon's, despite the fact everyone thinks McCartney saves the Beatles with the concept of this album and he does in a lot of ways and I'll get to that later but actually he's songwriting because he's so concerned about saving the Beatles and the fallout of not wanting to play live anymore, all of this stress going on. You know it's, it's. It's very, very competent and incredibly melodic what he does. He's so professional and it's great. All of the songs. I like them. I do like them. They're just not his greatest work since Rob, rob, rob so long.
Speaker 3:So you said songwriting there, his songwriting contribution and I, okay, I can sort of see that in terms of how, in terms of pure songwriting maybe I'm still not going to give it to you, but maybe, but in terms of his production, because he brings a lot of production, a lot of production to this album and in terms of musicality because he plays some of the outstanding musical moments on this album and unbelievably, completely vital I mean in every sense, it's totally vital to the continuation of the Beatles.
Speaker 3:Obviously we know that, but like a ridiculous, so we're on, yeah, we're on, with a little help from my friends and when I'm 64.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't expect that comment to receive so much kind of scrutiny. If I'm honest, I'm quite glad it did. But I was just thought you might just shrug it off. I thought I'll try and be a bit controversial and see what happens and boom.
Speaker 3:Well, we've just done the previous round, we've just done getting better and fixing a whole. So in terms of songwriting, okay, I'll give you those aren't two of his that they're excellent songs, but they're not two of his absolute greatest. But in terms of musicality and production, they're right up there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so as complete songwriting, I was very careful as a lawyer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm picking it apart now, and okay, if it's pure songwriting, I don't know maybe, but I'm still not giving it to you yet and you've already been in contraric or you've already argued with yourself.
Speaker 2:David lost, so I don't know why you're fucking starting with me, Because I've actually thought this. I've actually thought it through.
Speaker 1:Can I assume bringing us back to the competition for a second? That's when I'm 64, is going out here.
Speaker 3:Not from me. I'm voting for it. Oh, okay, shall we talk about them and let's talk about them.
Speaker 2:It's almost exciting, steve. We don't know what's going to happen. Who's going to win? Let's talk about both songs and see which one fucking wins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's the ultimate, let's just pitch it. The pitch open here. It's probably, of all the examples of what Lenin would call McCartney's granny music, this is probably, I would say, the top one. It's like you know that was, that was that thing he told McCartney's granny music songs. I would say, apart from maybe Honey Pie, you know, this is like the number one granny music song.
Speaker 2:Your mother should know probably is possibly higher up on that on the granny grannyometer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 2:Maybe not, though You're right. It could be higher on his grannyometer, I agree, but he wrote this, ironically, when he was 13. Yeah, the earliest songs that he wrote that survived into the people. He's reminded of it this year because his father turned 64.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Looking around for material anyway, but his dad turned 64 this year.
Speaker 3:That's often like I've heard that before that McCartney and it's often repeated as McCartney wrote it when he was a teenager. But right.
Speaker 2:Oh, are you going to be a revisionist Well, it's a story here and attack both of these sacred cows? No, but I think it is documented that he wrote the music when he was a teenager.
Speaker 3:He didn't write the lyrics, he didn't put the melody over the top, so the Beatles used to play this as a just as an instrumental sort of filler police in when they needed to fill, presumably when they needed to fill time in between songs in Hamburg or something, but it wasn't a song in the sense that he hadn't written the lyrics and it wasn't when I'm 64 as we know it.
Speaker 3:Oh, interesting I think when I'm 64 gets. I mean, it's sort of prime McCartney bashing territory. This isn't it. Haters going to hate, but I love this. This is great. Haters going to hate.
Speaker 2:I do Like. It's fantastic. It's a great little jaunty melody. You can. You hum it immediately after hearing it. It's great, but it's against, with a little help from my friends, which is, which is kind of a semi Beatles classic, would you say.
Speaker 3:With a little help from my friends. Oh, it's an absolute classic.
Speaker 1:Yes, but it's also. It's a Beatles performance which when I'm 64 isn't, you know, when I'm 64 is essentially McCartney and some fucking oboes and shit.
Speaker 4:You know it's, it's it's?
Speaker 1:it's just a straight up McCartney on his own thing and what I love for me it's a no brainer because with a little help from my friends, has got the actual let's not be so reductive that when I'm 64 becomes McCartney plus some oboes and shit. Yes, sorry, that was completely unfair. They're clarinets on reflection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Come on, Steve, get your woodwinds right mate.
Speaker 1:Sorry, completely the wrong woodwind then, but I stand by everything else I said.
Speaker 2:You're kind of convinced of me, steve. I was on the fence with these.
Speaker 1:And also let's talk about it. Usually I would not be swayed by a cover, but the Joe Cocker version of whether little help from my friends, you know, just shows what I mean. It's a completely different style of of doing it, but it's just for not him doing that. A woodstock is one of the all time greatest moments. Can you imagine him trying to do when I'm 64? I mean it wouldn't stand it.
Speaker 2:Far out man, Peace and love.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, that's true.
Speaker 1:Hold on. You know it's like it's not going to work because the song isn't strong enough to translate and also to be honest with you, my other vote against it is the very speeding. I really dislike the fact that they've edited up so that he sounds like Kermit the Frog. They speed up his vocal by like a little bit to make him sound a little bit more hilly in me and that doesn't work for me. You'll take from this that I'm voting against when I'm 64.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think we've got it yeah, we got that memo. Yeah, that came through Some oboes and shit.
Speaker 2:What do you think? Emma Thompson, robert Smith and Magic Johnson think of this song? Which song? When I'm 64. Say it again, that's a strange pairing, emma Thompson, emma Thompson, because you're all fucking talking at me Emma Thompson, robert Smith and.
Speaker 3:Magic Johnson, robert Smith, as in the cure frontman.
Speaker 2:That's it, and Magic pick it apart. Is everything I say is not going to be totally picked apart.
Speaker 3:Well, not everybody knows who Robert Smith is Deeply analytical.
Speaker 2:These are fucking. Come on. Everyone who listens to this podcast, I guarantee, knows who Robert Smith is. Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm assuming all these people are 64.
Speaker 2:Well done, steve. That's the clue. Well done, you got it. Yes, so it's interesting, isn't it? I'm just the point I'm making is like when you're a 25 year old man in the 60s and people when they're 64 then did look really fucking old, now we've got to point me like, oh, they don't seem old to us. I mean, obviously we're now closer to 64 than we were a long time ago, but it's that point of the difference is actually get older and society changing and the way people look changing and what we expect of people as they get to 64. Now, if you look back at the documentary on, even get back where they're talking to interviewing people in the street. It's amazing that footage of the interviews to get all the different characters and as people are getting as they're in their 60s, they really look old, whereas you wouldn't achieve it now.
Speaker 1:What's your point in relation to the song, though no?
Speaker 2:there's no point. It was just a titillating kind of thing to kind of show the.
Speaker 2:I think I'm explaining that, the distance we've come since the 60s and what a concept is If you're writing a song now when I'm 64, if Taylor Swift writes a song now when I'm 67, it's going to be like, oh it's interesting, but that you know that might. Or Adele does it, but you just think of his next album or something. You know it's not going to have as much cachet. We're getting older, we're living longer. That's my point we're living longer.
Speaker 3:We are, as we're waiting for this tie, particular tie, to resolve itself between, with a little help from my friends and when I'm 60, we are definitely getting older.
Speaker 1:Well, what?
Speaker 2:are you voting for?
Speaker 3:I've gone.
Speaker 1:I've gone.
Speaker 2:I've gone. We knew what you were going with. Right as I'm going for, I mean I don't want to do it because you persuaded me to, and right now I don't feel. If I'm going for with a little help from my friends, that's the fucking opening. Love it.
Speaker 1:So I love how I run it. It's beautiful and, Dave, you were going for when I'm 64, weren't you so?
Speaker 2:but it's gone, okay, with a little help from my friends goes through no help from these friends as to what your favorite song was.
Speaker 1:Right, I don't understand your notes.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that was the third qualifier, steve, and the fourth qualifier, which is labeled number four, on the sheet that I helpfully wrote out and provided.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I got that, but why is she's leaving home, lucy?
Speaker 3:And this because they've already gone through, so so the spoiler there is that the quarter finals. We've put three songs through already to make this work. From a numerical point of view, I'll get that.
Speaker 1:But you'll have to help me. We'll have to go off off mic while I work out how to put the quarter final, the quarter finals, together, because I don't understand how sport works Right.
Speaker 2:You have done 47 episodes of this, though. This is genius.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, all right, cool. So the fourth qualifier is being for the benefit of Mr Kite versus oh with and you without you.
Speaker 4:The band begins at 10 to six when Mr K performs his tricks without a sound and Mr H will demonstrate 10 summer sets he'll undertake on solid ground. They've been some days in preparation. A splendid time is guaranteed for all and tonight Mr Kite is having a bill. Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is the two of my least favorite songs in the album. I would say this is a bit of a well end qualified.
Speaker 3:Yeah, funny, you should mention that because who organized this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, go on Funny, I should say who organized this organize what the draw?
Speaker 3:you mean that this lineup, that would be me.
Speaker 1:Dave, because he thought he was hosting at the point when this was written, so you can't blame me for this no, I'm not, I was look, I was pointedly looking at him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, he knew what he was doing. He did answer bless him.
Speaker 3:So your least favorite, brett, and this might be Lenin's least favorite as well. Ty of this whole this whole shenanigan. Lenin hated being for the benefit of Mr Kite. I really enjoy it and I think that Lenin often hated stuff that he created that brought quite a lot of pleasure to other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was. He was dissatisfied with Strawberry Fields. There's a famous there isn't there where he's talking to George Martin. He's gone. I've record it all again and George Martin says what? Even Strawberry Fields, he goes, yes, especially.
Speaker 1:Strawberry Fields Especially.
Speaker 3:Especially.
Speaker 2:Especially that bit of genius production he did when you listen to both versions of Strawberry Fields. I was listening to them today and it's like take one and then go to take 26. It's just the two different keys, different speeds, completely different approaches, and then what they then produce as from those two take, it's just ridiculously achievement from a production point of view. It's extraordinary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I, I mean, I completely agree with that and I love Strawberry Fields and I love that version of it. But if I'd, you know, had some beautiful ballad in my head about this sort of lilting semi acoustic song and that psychedelic semi nightmare to end up, I might be quite miffed.
Speaker 2:It is a huge act of production that almost takes over from the song. I think I can see Lenin's point of view that there's actually a better version in his head. I do get that and I hear that when I listen to it. But I think also it's an amazing version that achieved. I don't think the version in his head is really there, ever possible.
Speaker 3:Right. So what's going through then? This tie is being for the benefit of Mr Kite, which Lenin claims later he hated, and within you, without you, which a lot of people have claimed that they don't like.
Speaker 2:I think it's my least favorite ever Beatles track ever, really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, actually that's a good question. What would be the contenders?
Speaker 2:It's definitely. It's definitely my top three, or maybe bottom three I don't know how these things work but yeah, for the worst Beatles track, oh, this Baby's in Black, 100% I like. Baby's in Black.
Speaker 3:All right, okay with it, within you, without you. Which song?
Speaker 4:did.
Speaker 1:George.
Speaker 3:Harrison want to include in this album instead of.
Speaker 1:Only a Northern Song. Yes, oh, which I would have preferred it was recorded for this album and I would have preferred I think it was recorded for this album. It was recorded for at the Pepper Sessions and it was meant for this, and I think that it's got a more interesting Genesis, a more interesting story, and it fits better on Sergeant Pepper than this does.
Speaker 3:I disagree. Yeah, the reason I asked that is because we were going through Brett's list of like bottom three Beatles songs and I wondered whether only a Northern song might be in there.
Speaker 2:No, I quite like it, I quite dig it. Yeah, I quite dig it.
Speaker 1:And also, but if you really listen to it after the podcast, if you go and listen to it, the amount of psychedelic weirdness going on on it's only a Northern song in your headphones, sort of panning from left to right is so Sergeant Pepper compared to this great big sitar track. That frankly takes me out of the album. I don't dislike the track. I like within you without you. I just don't want it here. I think that even though only Northern songs probably a weaker track in some ways it's I think it's 100% more Sergeant Pepper Than within you without you is.
Speaker 2:I think it should be here. I would have much rather. I'd rather not have the norm. It's only also gonna rather have in a light On this in a light.
Speaker 3:Now that's going into what is the inner light.
Speaker 2:Brett, explain that to it was the B side of it was.
Speaker 2:There's none, I'm still listening that once we're once, once you explained who Robert Smith was, everyone else turned off In a light is, I think, the B side to paperback writer, so it would have been released in 66. I hope I'm right and that God, I don't know, I'm flying off super pants here. But yeah, I think it was, and that was like Another for a of George Harrison songwriting into Indian music, but it's just much, much better tune, I think. Much better tune, much better rid of.
Speaker 2:Much better Chorus vocal music you know melodic ideas on it, and this one, this one just seems a bit interminably Going round and round.
Speaker 3:Yeah, really ever the fast-making case for this. The things I like about within you, without you, is listening to George Martin making the London Symphony orchestra imitate Indian classical music, so that that thing that he does with the instrument or composers for the instruments there, I think that's really clever, like echoing and weaving in and out of the Indian classical musicians.
Speaker 1:I agree with that. But again the problem is that you've got George Harrison and George Martin again. It's not really a Beatles track. It's okay, I do agree with that.
Speaker 3:I would live if George had recorded an whole album of this kind of music, indian classical, with George Martin producing it with the London Symphony Orchestra, you know, guesting on it I. That would be really interesting.
Speaker 1:I'd be into that. I don't want it on pepper and, as I say, if you go back to only in all the song, you've got other Beatles doing stuff and mucking about on it which just seems a bit.
Speaker 3:But this wouldn't be in my bottom three Beatles tracks within you without you.
Speaker 2:But it's a showpiece moment. If you're talking about the this moment in this mid 60s, a summer of love, all of those things. To Harrison going to India studying yoga is a massive thing, so he's gonna want to put on a song like this to introduce the world. Is it unbelievable opportunity to introduce the world to?
Speaker 3:yeah and not only that, it opens side to, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:We've got a big slot and but this is interesting, this round is the end of side a and opening side to. So if you had this album on Cassette, as many of us would have done back in the 90s, you could just flip over. You'd have to listen to being for the benefit of the kind. You could skip with him about you, it's perfect, so you could skip out those two songs if, within you, without you, was a food, it would be an apple.
Speaker 3:I like it, but not a lot.
Speaker 1:I mean much, much how I feel about that analogy. I'll be honest. It's crunchy, it's crunchy, but that's not gonna sustain me for very long. Right, are we assuming that mr Kite's going through them?
Speaker 2:Yes, it weirdly cleans your teeth as well, doesn't it? That's good. I am voting for being for the benefit mr Kite.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as am I three nil Dave, you are a renail.
Speaker 1:All right, lovely stuff. And then finally, the final round is lovely, rita, who is a meter maid.
Speaker 4:Not only do we get, to meet her.
Speaker 1:But we find out her profession also against. Good morning, good morning.
Speaker 4:It's up to you.
Speaker 2:I've got nothing to say, but it's okay, oh uh, you can raise time, make time babe, Ah, wha, okay. So Lennon versus McCartney here. I mean, I really love Good Morning, so I'm definitely gonna vote for that. It's just a absolute belter. It's super charged, it's great, A Lovely Reader's, really, really nice pop song. But the lyrics, I mean it's hard to really love it.
Speaker 3:So good morning. Good morning, Lennon said it was rubbish, which is just another example of-. Oh, Lennon said it was all fuck.
Speaker 4:What did Lennon like?
Speaker 2:Fucking Norwegian Wood. And that was about it. Maybe half have come together.
Speaker 1:I think the way that Lennon writes I think you made a point earlier about McCartney which is really important, which is that McCartney was putting himself under a lot of pressure to come up with stuff. But I think Lennon's writing when he's under pressure to match what McCartney is doing is some of his best, but he doesn't like it. He prefers it when he's writing things like I don't know God or something, some of the stuff on Plastic Ono Band which I find interminable quite a lot of the time, because he's taken the time to say proper John Lennon-y stuff that he feels is coming from inside him, or even something like I'm the walrus, where he's taken time to be psychedelic on his own terms, whereas stuff on Sergeant Pepper is very much. Paul's told us we're making an album. I've got to pull my socks up. I better come out with something.
Speaker 1:Here's Benefit and Mr Kite. Here's Good Morning. Good Morning, whatever it is, but actually they're fucking brilliant. It's just that he doesn't like it because he does it sort of subconsciously and he's one of the best people ever at it. So we get these nuggets of complete Lennon brilliance that he's been forced to make under pressure. He hates them. We love them and I think that's a really interesting.
Speaker 3:And, of course, the context in which he says these things. Isn't it Because he? Said these things in the early to mid-70s when he was reacting against, you know, the Beatles and he never had the benefit of Beats me breaking up.
Speaker 2:He never had the benefit of time.
Speaker 3:So if he'd revisited these in the late 80s or 90s, when all the classic rock magazines were having a Sergeant Pepper's loving, then you know he might have been kinder. Yeah, I think it. And also he is massively contrarian.
Speaker 1:As much as you accuse me of being contrarian, oh hugely Lennon is slightly arch-contrarian Totally, but I think he was, in fairness, still very rude about these songs in that In that 1980 Playboy interview as well. So he did have a full decade, 13 years between, and was still being rude about them.
Speaker 2:So what didn't he like about Good Morning? I can understand maybe Benefit Mysticite because he I mean Lennon famously wanted being for the Benefit Mysticite to sound like Sawdust and he had very specific things he'd say to George White about production. But what didn't he like about Good Morning? Is it because he kind of pulls his punches in the lyrics?
Speaker 3:He said it was a All the Lennon songs. He dismissed it. It's a throwaway piece of garbage.
Speaker 2:Well, it's inspired by Kellogg's Cornflakes apparently. Yeah, that's the way he was watching Italian Nick that game when he kind of wrote it. But all of Lennon's songs on this really Maybe not at least since he's gone down but this and Trilby Fields, all about disassociation, the kind of melting of his egos going on an acid trip. I mean, his kind of ego is kind of melting. So Good Morning is again. It's got nothing to say, but that's okay, all of those type of things he comes up with in the lyrics. Which is which does actually support Steve's argument that it's not a concept album, because you've got McCartney's kind of shiny, characterful, vordervillean, walkthrough British culture and then you've got Lennon's essentially four songs about disconnection and not really kind of feeling like he's just.
Speaker 3:He pulls British culture into this, doesn't he? But it's more contemporary. He mentions Meet the Wife, which was a. British sitcom of the 1960s. So, whereas McCartney's sort of pulling in, as you say, like Victorian Vorderville in 60s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and all of that, all of those, there's plenty of British culture infused in all of these, so even within you, without you which is there's a lot of melded kind of Anglo-Indian influences in British culture.
Speaker 4:And I like the way that the.
Speaker 3:London Symphony Orchestra combined with the Indian classical musicians, you know, and sort of represents that.
Speaker 1:Right. What are we voting for then? Lovely Rita, good morning, good morning.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely voting for. Good Morning, I mean lovely Races, good morning.
Speaker 3:What's the animal noises at the end? What's that all about?
Speaker 2:Just a minute. Do you think it's going out? That's why you're asking this question. So you're definitely voting, rita, aren't you? Me, I've worked him out. Oh, it's Davies. I think I've read Dave's Beatles-based mind, because he's trying to. He's stealing your job, steve. He's trying to host this podcast.
Speaker 1:He's been doing it for the beginning. Well, I'm voting Good Morning, good morning, good morning.
Speaker 2:Oh. Ok, so we don't need, you can ask that question in the next round, that's why I thought that might happen.
Speaker 4:Oh, ok. So let's talk about lovely Rita. Lovely Rita, it's going out.
Speaker 2:It's two, two, it's two, one, isn't it? Yeah, it is great, it's great, it's great, it's great, rolling Well, lovely Rita is talking about now.
Speaker 3:Ok, so yeah, but it's. The Beatles. Give you moments, right, a few seconds here and there in random songs, and they're not a hook or a theme and they're not repeated elsewhere in the song, but they're like little musical Easter eggs, and the first few seconds of lovely Rita is one of those for me. So up until the drum fill, you've got George Martin on piano, which I think is speeded up to sound like a honky-tonk sound, and I think it's. I assume it's McCartney's backing vocals and that that.
Speaker 3:I think it's like nine seconds of music. It's just absolutely gorgeous. And then it's not a theme.
Speaker 4:It's not repeated elsewhere in the song.
Speaker 3:And I don't know. I'm trying to think of other artists that give you that, these little nuggets, just check away this.
Speaker 2:It's a very good point.
Speaker 3:There's a few, on Abbey Road, in the medley, and there's other moments you can probably think of on other Beatles songs. But so, lovely Rita, for me I'm voting for it, not only because it's got that, but particularly because it's got that intro.
Speaker 1:Also, I think that lovely Rita is a great example of McCartney taking Just McCartney's vocals, lifting things that could be turgid and making them phenomenal Because he's just, he's so on top of it, he's so on it.
Speaker 2:It's a great vocal.
Speaker 1:It's such a fruity tune. And it's like nobody else could do it, Even when he goes.
Speaker 2:Rita exclaims it before the little piano solo comes in, even the timing on that it's like if he.
Speaker 1:Yes, the phrasing everything it's like if he brought a different energy to it that any other energy just, or any other singer just, wouldn't pull it off and it would be an absolute stinker. But it isn't because he brings sort of the McCartney sunshine to it in such a brilliant way.
Speaker 3:And the bass line. How about the bass line? Yeah, you're right, it's amazing, isn't it?
Speaker 4:It's cracking, it is cracking. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, his bass lines from 65 onwards are just fucking amazing. He's so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they become dramatically more complicated mid-60s onwards, don't?
Speaker 2:they.
Speaker 1:And he doesn't get the credit yeah.
Speaker 2:But he's a brilliant bassist. Yeah, a brilliant bassist.
Speaker 3:Because he's so outstanding at songwriting and production and ideas and he just doesn't get the. That's true. He doesn't get talks about enough.
Speaker 1:Maybe, if you do look at top bassist polls. He is always up there.
Speaker 2:Oh is he. He is always up there.
Speaker 3:He's very, very well respected in bass circles. Ok, so we're going to say goodbye to Lovely Rita, but I've got two questions for you. All right, all four. Beatles are playing which unconventional instrument on Lovely Rita. They're all credited as playing what Melotron? They are household items Spoons no Good guess Comb and paper. There's a lot of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Nice yeah.
Speaker 3:Mouth trumpets Lastly who said about Lovely Rita? It's boring people doing boring things.
Speaker 1:McCartney.
Speaker 3:No, McCartney would never say anything about it.
Speaker 2:Lenin would definitely have said that.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought it was a trick question because it was like the most obvious Lenin quote ever. No, it's very much.
Speaker 3:Lenin Dismissed, lovely Rita.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the fact that all of these quizzes, Steve always over things, it one step and always gets the question wrong.
Speaker 1:Because you overthink it. I know not of what you speak, sir Steve.
Speaker 2:Bob Dylan episode for Fur4Proof.
Speaker 1:OK, and the first quarterfinal is the Sergeant Pepper reprise, depending on how you're feeling against Getting Better.
Speaker 3:Getting Better. I hope goes through, because I'm going to vote for it.
Speaker 2:Well, I love this song. It's very personal to me because Getting Better. Yeah, I had a friend called.
Speaker 3:Cool, so it is going through.
Speaker 2:Well, mate, yes, I'll be honest, I love it. It has very special meaning to me because I had a friend called Carlos Bertaza, who was an incredible man and he is very good friends of my friend Tint Show I've mentioned before on this program who and both of them are in a Beatles band called the Silvers. And I met Carlos through Tint Show and it was an extraordinary, incredible thing to go to somewhere like Argentina, where they're both from, and just to meet people who get the same shit as you. It's incredible to travel that far. He was the John Lennon in the band, but he was also, amazingly, he was a conductor in the Buenos Aires Philharmonic. He was director of Teatro Colón, which is their Royal Albert Hall. He just today, he just looked today and saw that the Philharmonic in Bogota, colombia, has just released a video of him conducting their orchestra from many years ago.
Speaker 2:You know, I met him probably a handful of occasions, but I loved him. He's a beautiful person. He's sadly no longer with us, but we always used to sing this song because we'd always talk about the world going to shit in a handbasket and then we'd always start singing, getting better all the time, and that was kind of a kind of comical punchline to get out. That's fine. So sometimes I hear the song and it just makes me cry. I've heard it played live a couple of times and just suddenly I'm like crying. Oh shit, wow, it's just hit me totally. So I will vote for this pretty much all the way through this podcast. So for Carlos, I'm voting for getting better.
Speaker 1:Nice, okay, so I would vote for Sergeant Pepper Rapiz, but nonetheless it is going out. So getting better goes through Right. So this is, with a little help from my friends, against. For the first time she's leaving home.
Speaker 4:Stairs to the kitchen, clutching her handkerchief, quietly turning the back, doggie, stepping outside. She is free. We gave her most of our lives. We gave her everything money could buy. She's leaving home after living a lot for so many years she's leaving home.
Speaker 2:What's the first thing that happens here on a Beatles record?
Speaker 3:Uh that no other Beatles are playing on it. I don't know. That happens on yesterday, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:No, actually two things happen here, on a Beatles record, I think, but definitely one. Come on, dave, you've read a Catlin Moran book?
Speaker 3:Oh, is this something about feminism?
Speaker 2:It's not about feminism, it's just, I mean, I love that.
Speaker 3:It's through the eyes of a woman I don't know.
Speaker 2:No, it's the first credited woman to play on a Beatles song. Sheila Bromberg, who plays the harp.
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean I was thrashing around roughly in the ballpark next door. I wasn't across town, but I wasn't really quite in the same ballpark, was I?
Speaker 2:You're in a different postcode.
Speaker 4:No, not really. It was a good effort.
Speaker 2:And also, this is not arranged by George Martin, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:He wasn't available, was he, and they got someone else in. He was like a film score guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's Mike Leander, I think, and it's very much more romantic and syrupy than Martin's stuff, I think.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I think George Martin hated it as well, didn't he?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he hated the fact that McCartney, because he was just busy and McCartney was just like I can't make, I'm going to go and get someone else to arrange it, then Got to get it done. He literally couldn't wait three days. I think that's always stuck a bit in George Martin's score, a bit that it's like could you not have waited like a week?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But no, that's what we've got. I'm really happy that we're talking about she's leaving home.
Speaker 1:Me too.
Speaker 3:If we end up talking about it because it goes out here, I will be very sour. I'm just throwing that out there as not really a veiled threat, more a threat.
Speaker 2:Just a threat and you do live close to me, so all right, it's not going to go against being for the benefit of Mr Guy. I mean that just only got through because it was against George Harris' song.
Speaker 3:It's with a little help. It's with a little help from my friends.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've misread the missive. Okay, that is a bit more of a juicy one, isn't it? Okay, well, let's vote. Let's vote. This is exciting. Let's vote. Just before we vote. Does, with a little help from my friends, have the curio of being possibly the only song a cover of a Beatles song is actually superior to the original.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, do you think that the cover is superior to the original?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Because, Brett, you have said before it must be, one of the early Beatles ones that no cover of the Beatles is better than the original.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, that's why I'm it's pointing that it's me asking the question, I suppose.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is yes unusual for sure I would say that the cover by Joe Cocker is a very, very good cover, yeah, and it's got extra sentimental value for everybody who grew up with that TV show.
Speaker 4:The Wonder Years, the Wonder Years, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's got extra value because of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:However, it's not better than the original.
Speaker 4:No, it's not.
Speaker 2:But I was just posing it as a titillating question.
Speaker 1:I prefer it. But there you go you see some people do prefer it.
Speaker 2:You prefer.
Speaker 1:Joe.
Speaker 3:Cocker.
Speaker 1:Yes. I do I do, but I like this version too. But I, you know, I think.
Speaker 2:Jarvis's dad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jarvis's dad, that's right. I think the Joe Cocker version has a depth and a soul to it that this doesn't, but this is a very different beast.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, but George Martin was very I'm going to say very good at taking the soul out of the Beatles.
Speaker 1:So there's not a lot of soul in.
Speaker 3:Oh there, that's an interesting.
Speaker 2:A lot of Well it really goes for the controversial statements, Like we are. This is a podcast of entirely filled with clickbait.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's unbelievable. Well, click this up.
Speaker 2:Steve Whack this on TikTok. What else have we got?
Speaker 4:Let's think about it.
Speaker 1:Derek.
Speaker 2:Taylor was a cunt.
Speaker 1:Malavans had a massive eating disorder and screwed young girls.
Speaker 3:I don't think we can put that on TikTok without being cancelled, but I say that and I'm a massive lover of soul and Aretha Franklin is my favourite vocal artist of all time. However, if you listen to the anthology and I'm thinking particularly of some of the Harrison songs, george Martin, I don't know, maybe it wasn't George Martin, maybe it was the Beatles as a whole they strip out the soul.
Speaker 1:When you said to hang on a minute, when you said strip the soul out of the Beatles songs, you didn't mean like. You meant strip the influence of soul music out of them.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. Oh Jesus Christ, Dave, Was that not clear?
Speaker 1:No, it sounded like you were saying George Martin took the spirit out of their songs and they were just sitting here trying to process the enormity of what you'd said. That makes a lot more sense now.
Speaker 2:Okay, but such, but such is. But, dave, such is the shit that you come out with. We didn't even think to.
Speaker 4:Neither was the question, If you know what's in this.
Speaker 2:I don't understand. We thought he definitely means that. Such is the outrageous statement you come out with.
Speaker 3:I guess we both share a bit of the blame. On that one then no that's totally on you.
Speaker 1:Massively ambiguous, I'm afraid I can't remember where we are. We are debating, with a little help from my friends, versus she's leaving home. Oh yeah, because you said.
Speaker 3:Jarvis Cocker. Sorry, Joe Cocker.
Speaker 1:Not Jarvis Cocker, come on now.
Speaker 3:Has Put it together, has got more soul in his version. Yeah. Yeah, I'd agree with that, but I think the Beatles version is better, Okay well.
Speaker 2:That yeah, fine, so you agree with George Martin in removing the soul, as in the soul music, from their songwriting.
Speaker 3:I think for the Beatles it works better. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yep, no, I agree. I am going to vote and I've got to decide then, haven't I?
Speaker 1:No, I haven't voted.
Speaker 2:Oh, what are you voting for?
Speaker 1:I'm voting for the Beatles. This is very hard because, before researching the album and listening to the album for the first time and I haven't listened to this I never, ever, ever listen to this album Ever. I just don't.
Speaker 3:I don't go back to it and I put it on.
Speaker 2:It's not in heavy rotation, was there?
Speaker 3:ever a period where you did listen to it in heavy rotation, steve? Yes, only.
Speaker 1:When I was getting into the Beatles. Yes, I mean when I was getting into the Beatles and I went through that obsessive phase when I was listening to all the Beatles albums a lot then, yes, but once the Beatles obsession was over, there were then lots of Beatles things I went back to. Sergeant Pepper wasn't one of them, however. I put this on and I was in the car and she's leaving home, kevin and I thought, oh, this is one of the Syrupy McCartney ones.
Speaker 4:I don't particularly remember liking this and by the end of it, not only were all the hairs on my arm, you were weeping at you, not.
Speaker 1:I was nearly. I was nearly in tears and all the hairs on my arm were up ass, and it's a very, very long time since a piece of music has done that to me and I was like what just happened.
Speaker 2:Um, you've, you've aged 20 years. Last time you heard it you were 27,. Like yeah, fucking right, she's fucking right to leave home, fucking ass old parents and they like how ungrateful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 2:What a bitch All the sacrifices they made, yeah.
Speaker 1:But no, I, I honestly, I was on the verge of tears and I'm going to vote she's leaving home, simply on the basis that it's so long since a piece of music has has moved me in unexpectedly in that way, uh, that I was quite taken aback, I have to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No, I think it's a much more interesting song than with a little help from my friends. I think with a little help from my friends is is again. Is what I'm saying is is is just McCartney doing, mccartney brilliant going. Oh, needs to write a song for for Ringo, for this album I've got a jam called Bad Finger Boogie. Get some friends around with jam out. Yeah, I'll pop it out. There we go. Yeah, that's like a kind of a semi classic that just represents the sixties. Bush done Right.
Speaker 3:What's next?
Speaker 2:So with a little help, from my friends home is really beautiful, and I'm voting for it also, so it's a three.
Speaker 3:Yeah, three now she leaving. Yeah, it's a three nil. So, brett, with a little help from my friends, that was um. That was an existing Boogie that McCartney already had, was it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I think that they literally kind of kind of literally jamming people around the house of Lenin's part, lenin's house at the end of the party and yeah. So they just kind of worked on it there. They needed something for for Ringo and obviously had to get that very high note at the end, which took a number of attempts.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And maybe, maybe, john. Then and one of the scrotum.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just to get him up there. Get him up one of the drumsticks and a seven out of him, obviously yeah.
Speaker 2:Actually they called it in. I expected it they into him.
Speaker 1:They grabbed him at the end of the session and he was scheduled to sing the vocal the next morning, wasn't it? And they said no, you're doing it now and he's like what.
Speaker 3:And they deliberately caught him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he caught him off off beam so that he couldn't overthink it, which I thought was really good.
Speaker 2:That's great production right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Whoever come up with that album.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah and well, apparently it was the, it was the other three Beatles. They clumped together in a sort of moment of solidarity. Right, we're nailing him. He's doing it now.
Speaker 2:It's a really, it's a really high note and my friend Tinchot, who does play in a Beatles band, has to do this song, sometimes live, and he has to sing it and he always hits the note perfectly. I mean it's just like respect you, it's hard to. Luckily they never played played it live. So obviously they don't play live after 66, but it's a tough one to produce.
Speaker 3:Ringo must play it live though.
Speaker 2:Oh, he will play it live. Of course he does.
Speaker 1:But he'll get. Well, let's find it on YouTube and we'll take bets on whether he does the last note on his own or whether he gets other people to sing it, who knows? Right, so she's leaving home, goes through three nil, which leaves us with the benefit of this to kite being four versus, for the last, sorry first time in this competition, lucy in Skyward.
Speaker 2:Diamonds Wow Fantastic.
Speaker 4:Set us bank flowers of yellow and green Towering over your head. Look up, all the girls with the sun in her eyes and she's gone. Lucy in the sky with Diver.
Speaker 2:I just want to take us back a minute because we haven't really gone into the Genesis album. We've just assumed that it just plopped into existence. This album essentially defines the 60s? I think it does. I don't think that's an outrageous statement. I think this album defines the 60s. If you're going to produce a montage of images that define the 60s, this album is there. This could be in the top five images you'd choose to describe the 60s.
Speaker 4:It defines what comes. When people think of the 60s, they think of the stuff that came out of 67.
Speaker 1:By 68 you're into everything's monochrome and rights in the streets and all sorts. For whatever reason, the hippie thing is the thing that stays in people's minds.
Speaker 2:This album was massive for us in the 90s it was always top of the list.
Speaker 4:It was huge.
Speaker 2:If the 60s were the 90s, it was the big thing in the 90s. You remember that. This album is right there. How does it just plop into existence? How does it change pop music from? As Time Magazine says, this is the album that changes pop music into an art form.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree with that. Going back to what you two were just saying now, I think when we describe music as timeless, we could either mean that it doesn't put down its roots in one particular time period. I think it could also mean that it's not rooted in one particular genre. I think that this album fits that latter definition. It sounds very much like the 1960s when you listen to it. It's incredibly, but it doesn't feel like it's stuck in one particular genre.
Speaker 2:It's not stuck in one genre, but I think this is the most dated Beatles album.
Speaker 3:I think it's the one that's ironically Dated in the sense that you listen to it and you would say, oh, it sounds very 1960s.
Speaker 2:More than Abbey Road does, or more it just feels very summer of love.
Speaker 3:But although it's somehow the poster album for Flower Power in 1967 and the Summer of Love, it never really gets stuck in that genre for me. So a lot of the music that you listen to from 1967 and that summer don't really sound like this album. This is a very diverse, musically diverse album through and out.
Speaker 2:It's got the biggest budget of an album, probably up to that point in history. It's got a $75,000 budget. They spend three months in the studio making it. It's going to sound different to the first Pink Floyd album.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think we should return to Brett's original question, which I think is really interesting, which is how do they get here? Because it starts off really slowly, doesn't it? Yeah, they get here.
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you all the way back to 29th of August, Candlestick Park, San Francisco. It's the last ever Beatles gig 29th of August.
Speaker 4:Which year?
Speaker 2:66. Is that all right? Yeah, we're good on the fact check. I think you did.
Speaker 1:Just going to take a break. When he googles that or gets the books out, make sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, so 1966, 29th of August in picture day. If you're in San Francisco, you've paid to go and see the Beatles. They're in the middle of the Candlestick Park, they're playing in the middle of the pitch, and then you're not standing by that stage, you are in the seats, so you're literally watching them play on the halfway line. I mean, you're so it's so removed from. Do you know how many songs they played that night?
Speaker 3:I don't know Six. Did anyone hear how many songs they played that night?
Speaker 2:No, one could hear shit. Yeah, I can't. How many do you reckon they played 12. Thank you, Thank you, Steve. Just to move the fucking podcast 11 songs 11 songs. They played half an hour Half an hour. How many songs?
Speaker 3:Taylor Swift plays for three hours Half an hour 11 songs. If you'd waited like the whole day and paid however many dollars back then, which would have been a lot, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Okay so I've got two more questions for you. What's the capacity of the concert? How many tickets could they sell? Just roughly.
Speaker 3:Like 25,000.
Speaker 2:The capacity is 32,000. How many do they sell? Oh, it must be a sellout, but how many people are watching them? That's the question. 32,000?, no, 25,000. They do not sell the show out. Oh right, which is mind fucking blowing.
Speaker 2:Okay, they've had an awful summer. They've had to go to the Philippines where they pissed off Emelda Marcos, the fascist dictator's wife, with the shoes. With the shoes, she had a lot of shoes. They basically got knock on the hotel door. Hey, income tax inspector, uos, $80,000, so they literally have to bribe the way out of the country. They get punched on the way to the airplane. They just about get on an escape. There's death threats to them in Japan.
Speaker 2:They're under huge problems in America because Lenin said in an interview for the Daily Mirror I think it was, the Beatles are bigger than Jesus. Now Ku Klux Klan trying to stop their gigs, and so yeah, we're a terror organization. We've got ways of doing these things. They're under huge pressure. They play this gig they don't even sell it out, and then at the end of the gig, when they're playing on the middle of the stadium, miles away from the fans who can't hear shit, they're bundled into the back of an armored van and at that point they go to Paul McCartney who had been taken for ages we don't want to play any more.
Speaker 2:And he goes yeah, I agree, we can't play live anymore. So George Harnes was threatened to quit. They've played over a thousand shows live, but that is the last show they ever play. And Macca has to think and he is, paul McCartney has to think of how the fuck are we going to survive as a band that doesn't play live? And that concept in 1966 is almost impossible. It's like describing streaming videos before it happens, like how do you, how do you be a band without playing live? It doesn't make any sense. Well, even their year is planned around tours, even though what we would now see now, it doesn't make any sense. But they had to make sense of that.
Speaker 3:And it's a representation of how far and how quickly music had developed from 1963. Oh, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 2:The lightning speed. But the point is, the stress they have in that summer is the reason, is the gestation for this album, for exactly this the fact they go completely the other way and they spend three months in the studio, which has never been done before. They get three months off as well after that tour, which is interesting, and that point. So McCartney, if I can go on a bit more, mccartney goes on, so the lightning goes off, as the do some acts in a film Harrison goes to study yoga, ringo Stardust goes to hang out with his new baby at his home and be chilled and eat baked beans, and McCartney decides he's going to.
Speaker 2:Because he's McCartney, he's going to drive his Austin DB through France on a holiday. But he doesn't want to be known as McCartney, so he literally gets a disguise together. He gets like an Inspector Clusso type disguise, puts some fake glasses on, fake wig, fake eyebrows, a big Mac and he drives around France completely unmolested by anyone. No one notices him. He's no longer Paul McCartney and he spends his time making experimental cinematography in the.
Speaker 2:Champs Elysees and things like that only Paul McCartney would do. And he's like so, he's enjoying it. And then he tries to get into this disco one night and they're like no, fuck off. And he's like what? And he goes no fuck off, go away. You look scruffy, you look a bit like Peter Sellers, and it's. He goes back to his homeroom, takes off his disguise and then walks back as Paul McCartney and voila, he's lit into the nightclub.
Speaker 2:But it's at this point.
Speaker 2:So this couple of weeks he's thinking about the idea of the alter ego, of being someone else, of stepping into someone else's shoes and inhabiting a different skin. And after that he's picked up by Mal Evans to go on a flight, to go on a safari, and he's they're eating their dinner and he and Mal Evans are asking to pass the salt and pepper. And he says what? Pass the salt and pepper? And he hears that as Sergeant Pepper on that flight, at that moment, and then this kind of whole idea coheres in Beatles legend to think of the alter ego and coming up with this idea of this band. They can step into different skins, be different people. They're not themselves when they go up to the microphone and they're singing as this character, and that's how Sergeant Pepper is sold to the rest of the band and how he conceives it. So it's all comes from this pressure of being the Beatles. He turns that pressure literally into a diamond from a lump of coal. It could have broke them, but it didn't. It just made them extraordinary.
Speaker 3:I think at this point they're all still pulling in the same direction and music had changed dramatically from the early sixties through to this point in such a quick period of time. So it had gone from a point where you make all your money from the tour and then the album is just there to promote the tour to a point where you make your money from the album and the tour is there to promote the album. And so they openly said at the time there was a feeling that the album could go on tour for them. But also it's coming off the back of Revolver where they've just created Tomorrow Never Knows which you could never reproduce live.
Speaker 3:So they were heading in that direction, into songwriting, creating songs that you could never produce live. So the thought of having to then tour these things and play them live was becoming redundant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how many songs did they play on Revolver at that last gig? Zero. They played zero songs from Revolver. So yeah, you're right, and the promoters lost money on that gig.
Speaker 1:Right, so we come back to these two songs then. Mr Kite versus Lucy in the Sky.
Speaker 2:Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. So I have talked on for ages, I know, but I wanted to set the scene in the quarterfinals, half or three of the podcast. I am for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, obviously, of course you are and am I. As is Dave. As is Dave because he's got a sense. Well done, dave. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I guess, so I do. I love being for the benefit of Mr Kite, despite what Lenin says about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I really like it. I really like it.
Speaker 2:It is cool.
Speaker 4:It's very cool.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is just Lenin reading phrases from a poster that he found in an antique shop when they were on location filming the video for Strawberry Fields. But some artists can sing the phone book and make it sound enjoyable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I don't think that's him reading. I think he manages to cohere it into feeling like it's not just a bunch of phrases written off a poster. It's like you know, it feels I don't know. It engages me in the sort of narrative of what these people are like, I think it's brilliantly done.
Speaker 3:No, I agree, and I think the production by George Martin, oh, really adds to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, phenomenal, yeah.
Speaker 2:Lenin asked it to sound like sawdust, didn't he? He wanted to smell the sawdust. Yeah, and there's a brilliant excerpt in Revolution, the Head, where Ian McDonald is famously snooty in that book about appraising all the Beatles songs. And he's like this wasn't even Lenin's most outrageous request. He wanted one song to sound like an orange. Just fucking genius.
Speaker 1:Genius in every sense.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:Right. So, despite our love of Mr Kite, lucy, and the sky goes through somewhat, inevitably three nil, which means the final, no, how do I say this? The final quarterfinal. Final quarterfinal, I would say the last quarterfinal.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:That's the word I'm looking for. The last quarterfinal is good morning. Good morning. Good morning Against, for the first time a day into life.
Speaker 2:Well, it's Lenin versus Lenin. We know what's going to go through. Obviously, even people in the cheap seats know what's going to go through. Yes, we all know what's going to go through, for fuck's sake? Come on, let's grab a bit here. Come on, people.
Speaker 1:Right, so let's talk about. Is there anything else to say about good morning? Good morning before the incredible amazingness of a day in the life goes through.
Speaker 2:Yes, Dave, what happens at the end of good morning? Good morning, oh, the animals. What about the animals?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's going on with the animals, great band. Well, how's the life in the?
Speaker 2:sun. It's good, don't let me be missing to do not ask Steve about that.
Speaker 3:So at the end of good morning, good morning, they insert a series of animal noises, and the concept here was that each animal should be capable of eating the next preceding one.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is arbitrary, and then some isn't it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty bad, but he was on a lot of LSD. He was on a lot of LSD at the time.
Speaker 3:But that's one of the things where this album is a departure, but also there's a common theme running through it. It's playful and it's out there, it's experimental.
Speaker 1:That you cannot deny, that you cannot deny oh yeah, it's very playful. It's the sort of thing you would expect from this album.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were literally playing in the studio, weren't they? They were discovering the joys of all of these things they could do. I mean Les Farringo star, because he was the drummer, which, when you're doing a three month long album, is fucking boring.
Speaker 3:He did talk about that, didn't he?
Speaker 1:He learned to play chess, didn't he?
Speaker 3:Yes, he did it on some documentary back in the 90s. I think it was the 25th anniversary documentary.
Speaker 2:Ringo started playing chess it's a very amusing concept. So he started off losing to Mal Evans and by the end of recording he was fucking shitting on Gary Kasparov.
Speaker 1:Well, you say this about Ringo Ringo playing chess. What was George Harrison's response to being bored?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:His response was to not bother to turn up. He turned up to, I think, fewer sessions on Zahra and Pep than any other album they'd done so far.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And many of the albums that came after, which again is why without you winds me up a little bit, because it's basically he turns up, does Solo track on his own with a lot of orchestration and none of the other Beatles, and then bogs off again. There's very, very little George Harrison on this record. So I do believe that we are through to the semi-finals, and the first semi-final unless Dave tells me otherwise, because he understands these things better than I do is getting better versus she's leaving home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is. We've got two McCartney tracks getting better against she's leaving home, against each other, and then the second semi-final. We've got two Lenin tracks Lucy in the sky against the day in the life. But anyway, before we get there, shall we discuss whether this is. Please don't say.
Speaker 1:Who were the Beatles?
Speaker 3:I've been saving that one up.
Speaker 2:He made me fucking explain, robert Smith earlier Steve. Who were the?
Speaker 3:Beatles Right Bob McCartney, yeah, yeah right, let's not, let's not do that. Come on, what were you gonna say I? Was gonna say do we need an ideal version of Sergeant Peppers?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yes, I have made one on Spotify. I shall send it to you. Of course you have.
Speaker 2:George Martin says it's where the biggest regret of his career is not putting, I think, the double A side on this album.
Speaker 3:What was the double A side? What the double A side was.
Speaker 4:Strawberry.
Speaker 2:Fields Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane and the original album. The concept of this album was an album about childhood, so both of those songs are redolent of childhood strawberry fields and Penny Lane.
Speaker 1:And they have them. And they have them in the bag at the beginning as well, didn't they?
Speaker 2:So they started this but then they, they panic.
Speaker 3:Okay. Why didn't they include those songs on the album?
Speaker 2:Because very good structural reasons why they. Well, there was. I think it was because they finished them early and then they just finished they needed a double A side, so they get them out.
Speaker 1:They product to the market and then finish the album.
Speaker 2:But they didn't need an A side. They thought they needed an A side and because the world at that point was still based around hey, you're a band, you tour, you release singles, I sometimes do an album they forgot, they didn't really put the onus on the album being the most important thing and they just yeah, and, as Steve says, they rushed out the release of those two songs because they were ready.
Speaker 1:So they spunked to basically spunk the two best songs on the album On a double A side, before the album came out, I believe.
Speaker 2:I was a travesty. Well, just record anything as a B side and shove it put within without you, on a B side with whatever, because it doesn't matter. This is famously the only single they released. It didn't get to number one in the UK.
Speaker 3:So George Martin is on record as saying, I think in the same documentary back in the 25th anniversary, as saying that at the time it was convention not to put the singles on the, the opening singles, on the album, because it was felt like it was cheating the public because you sold them the single and then you bunged those two songs on the album. Solve them that as well. Yeah, so there was a good structural reason why those opening singles never appeared it's a structural reason.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's a good structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's just a quirk of when they made them. Imagine if they'd like recorded lovely Rita meter made in good morning. Good morning at the beginning of the sessions. Put them out as an A side and a B side and we would have got those two on the album. It's totally arbitrary, it's just when they got recorded they would have.
Speaker 3:I mean, they knew what a single sounded like, and George Martin famously knew what a number one song sounded like, so he would have waited until he's he had what he thought was a number one song and then put that out and release both of them.
Speaker 2:A side for the counter argument to, by the way, we can't shoot the fans is hey, fans, would you rather listen to the being for the benefit of mr Cutten with me without you in the same sitting, or have strawberry fills and penile on this disc? What do you rather spend three quid on? I know I'd fucking on.
Speaker 3:Also, you got to ask ten years later whether the public was ready for strawberry fields and penny lane at that time because, as you say, they were kept off number one by what? What's the?
Speaker 2:song Engelbert Humperding. Engelbert Humperding yeah, these release me. It's a classic.
Speaker 1:It is a classic. Yeah, I mean they are to. You know that's one of Lenin's greatest lyrics and one of McCartney's greatest ever melodies.
Speaker 3:I mean that that one of George Martin's greatest ever regrets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. I mean. I mean, you know, imagine if you took off. I mean we could debate forever what you could take off, but but take them off and put something and put those two on there and you have an album that I can't now say has dated as badly as I think this out. I love this album, it's brilliant, but I don't think it's dated brilliantly. You put those two songs on. I Just keep my trout shot. There's nothing.
Speaker 3:I can say so on your ideal version, steve. On Spotify, what, what songs do you take?
Speaker 1:off. Well, let's have a look. I'm gonna read you the playlist that I've got. This is my ideal sergeant playlist here, yeah how you've got your own hearts club band, with a little help from my friends, lucy In the sky with diamonds, penny Lane getting better, fixing a whole strawberry fields forever. Being the benefit of mr Kite, only a northern song. Oh, good morning. Good morning, sergeant Pepper. Reprise day in the life.
Speaker 3:So what? You leave a lovely room.
Speaker 1:And when I'm 64, I think yeah and well within you without you. And within you without you. So I swapped out Harrison for a. Harrison took off to McCartney. Mccartney put on a better McCartney and and a Lenin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's ridiculous you just those two songs are huge. They're, they're gonna be among the best Seven songs on any Beatles album, right? So to leave both of them off is fucking mental.
Speaker 1:Well, also what's interesting is that, just in terms of the history of this podcast, the last time I tried to have this conversation because for me rubber- soul weighty history.
Speaker 1:Yes, but you know, when we discussed the same issue on rubber soul and I tried to sort of say, look, if you could get the double a side, we can work it out day trip on rubber. So it'd be much, much better album which is standby, everyone's going ask Steve, yeah, whatever. I mean, come on, it's a word, yeah, but notice that on this occasion, Both you have an obsession with. Yeah, I do like to read, I do like to fix out Revisionist tracks, fixing albums.
Speaker 2:I love you are literally fixing a hole.
Speaker 1:I'm very I'll do it with black crows albums. I'll do it with all my favorite bands. If there are b-sides and things from sessions that I can take out and put in and debate, that's fine. On this occasion, what's interesting is that there was absolutely zero descent from either of you on this concept. In fact, I think you you pitched it. Do you know what I mean? It's like Dave, dave, dave, who is the king of shutting me down when I have a. What should have gotten. This album Is the one that raised this, which kind of says everything you need to know about, about story feels forever and Benny Lane, you know, needing to be on this album only because I think we've previously established it as a moot point and and I'm happy to explore it, we're in it, I'm trees there was a brief moment of you two actually agreeing.
Speaker 2:I believe he's such a belittling fucker right.
Speaker 1:I believe at some point we were discussing Getting better versus she's leaving, so we're into the semi-finals now. We're into the semi-finals and the first semi-final is a double McCartney.
Speaker 2:I stop fucking presenting.
Speaker 1:I've given up. He's not gonna let me do it his way. He's my way. He's just gonna talk over me. That's fine, getting better Against. She's leaving her.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is. This is tight now, because both of these are very cool songs. It's not tight, getting better, is it? But getting better is interesting because it is very much, as it's quite rarely this happens, but it's kind of a co-write getting better, like it. Yes, one would write a bit of it and it doesn't happen much after this album. Actually, there's quite a few examples, and she's leaving home also. It happens on because Lenin does that kind of Greek chorus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you're pushing the. I Think I think it's pushing the idea of co-writer, because I think I think back in the day he used to sit guitars opposite each other and write after song each, whereas this is now. You know it's a McCartney song and London will do some bits in the course, yeah, of course, by by second Beatles period.
Speaker 3:This is what a co-writer sounded like yeah, yeah, this is exactly great Agreed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like you're, you're, that's. That's I'm making the argument as in. We all know that the legend was that Lenin McIro songs. Then we, we Ski-ki Beatles fans if you listen to podcast, that's you, I'm afraid it is. Embrace it. We know that they really didn't write songs nose-to-nose after like 1963 in some hotel in Newcastle. That's when they stopped. When they wrote she loves, it's pretty awesome. They wrote song nose-to-nose together. So we know that that legend is kind of an apocryphal tale. But on this album there are kind of quite a few examples, or more than others, of them kind of Helping each other quite a lot and you can hear the influence really clearly on these. Certainly these two songs. It's nice there together. It's nice there together.
Speaker 3:There's some great examples on getting better aren't there in the lyrics. So what? What are the lyrics that yeah?
Speaker 2:That's exactly. I mean, like McCartney's lyrics and vocals are great on the song and then the Lenin's lyrics are so much darker. They're so much darker like Dave's what? What do you want to say about the difference in their lyrics here? Because you pose the question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that line. So it's getting better all the time, which is classic, mccartney. And yeah, lenin responds with it can't get no worse, which is classic.
Speaker 4:Lenin yeah, but I think he yeah, but he also wrote Steve to slap his head.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just letting it pass, I'm letting you wash over the men. And it's darker, isn't it? Because he, he says let Lenin, says.
Speaker 3:Allegedly Lenin adds the lines I used to be cruel to my woman.
Speaker 2:I've beat her and kept her apart, apart from the things that she loved. But, man, I was mean, but I'm changing my scene.
Speaker 1:Hmm, although noticed that you didn't finish that, because I think, man, I was mean, I was changing my scene and I'm doing the best that I can very very weak ending to that set of lyrics. Yeah, it's like they're great up until then and it's like but I'm doing, yeah, the best that I can. It's like oh, jesus Christ, is that you what you're gonna finish on, okay, thanks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the rest.
Speaker 3:Yes, you're right actually right, and that's more than we can't. I know.
Speaker 2:I like, I like it, you like it. They're definitely the most arresting four lines in the song as in sense of like, the lyrics are great, I'm to the point, and then you like, you're listening to those, you're like what it's. It's a nice counterpoint. But then you've got the counterpoint with she's leaving home with Lenin doing the kind of Greek chorus thing. I think that's incredible, the stuff. I think.
Speaker 1:I think that's amazing not not least because you see.
Speaker 4:I.
Speaker 1:Again. That's why that the whole good and get, no worse thing Irritates me, I think because it's such a trope, because you look at, she's leaving home and what you get is is two sides of the same story and I think it's much suckler. Instead of going that one's a sunny songwriter but that one's really dark and subversive, you're going no one of them's, telling one side of the story and somewhat unbelievable, especially for 1967. They're telling both sides of the story so that you sympathize with the girl.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, thanks to the counterpoint vocal.
Speaker 1:You sympathize with the parents as well, which is a billion times more subtle than the getting better counterpoint. So so, anyway, I think you'll be understanding that she's leaving home. Is getting my vote here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean she's leaving home. To have the double counterpoint where everyone can find a point of sympathy is Remarkable songwriting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really knocked me off my off my feet when I heard it this time around. Yeah, well, I think, I think your points very salient about me listening to it as an older man. I think that's fair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's there's. I think there's an alexis sale sketch about that, about the fact when you're young Like, yeah, fucking parents, and then you're gonna go like, oh, there's someone, great for these kids. You know just the whole way that as you age, that song is like almost Determinant of how old you're getting. Um, I've, I've said it from the start to bell with it. I'm gonna vote for getting better, because it means a lot to me. Um, dave, I'm gonna put you so an exciting position there got the casting.
Speaker 3:Dave, you got the casting vote, so I do love the uh, I do love the Lenin counterpoints to getting better and those lyrics and I also love the. The third verse. There's like a drone, like Indian instrument that comes in underneath.
Speaker 4:Yes, agree, I think it's a tambourine.
Speaker 3:I read in any mcdonald.
Speaker 1:Which comes out much better in these new remixes and remasters of the last couple of years as well.
Speaker 3:Really good and the production on getting better is is fantastic. It's masterful, which I think actually is primarily by McCartney rather than Martin. On that song, mccartney was the one that and the and the remix is very nice.
Speaker 2:So then, if we want to get so fucking geeky, we talk about this in the original, the remaster and the remix. But the remix that came out on the last iteration of the, the christmas cash in Beatles release, um, it's really nice. Yeah it's, it's remix. You can. It's a bit more gnarly.
Speaker 3:Um, and I'm anyway, gone I'm talking about getting better, because I'm not voting for it. So oh she's leaving home is our first finalist Okay, lovely, wow, it's beautiful, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:It is because it's McCartney, and if my theory is to hold true, this this can't be won by a mccartney song. So I'm worried. I'm worried, all right.
Speaker 1:So our second semi final, two Lenons, which is Lucy in the sky, which we've really talked about so far.
Speaker 2:Vs the day of the life which we've really not talked about.
Speaker 1:So far.
Speaker 2:No, this is gonna be a lot to say here there's a lot to say.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, so a day in the life we haven't talked about, but we do like to kill our sacred cows on McCartney and Gull. So, um, let's vote a day in the life out. Shall, we vote it out. Who's with me?
Speaker 1:Anyone Are you talking about? No, absolutely not. Come on, shut the fuck up. Let's get rid of it, absolutely, without talking about it. It's rubbish, it's just. Yeah, let's not talk about it. Yeah it does not.
Speaker 2:It's a half it's very half baked. The production is poor.
Speaker 3:I mean the concept. The concept is weak. I mean, they didn't have enough for one song, did they?
Speaker 2:No, they kind of got two arse ends of a song and stuck them together and the orchestra's not in tune.
Speaker 3:Let's get rid of it, come on.
Speaker 1:Let's get rid of it. He's right.
Speaker 3:Do you know what he's won me over? Let's Sod it's who's facing for Lucy in the sky.
Speaker 2:Everyone is, of course, after that, rousing.
Speaker 3:No one, so um Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Speaker 2:What is the famous legend here?
Speaker 3:We all know it. It lacks a chorus. That's not that one. Okay, lucy in the sky with diamonds. The famous legend is that it's got nothing to do with LSD.
Speaker 4:Yeah nothing.
Speaker 2:Julian Lennon came home from school and he had a picture and John Lennon said what is that, julian?
Speaker 3:He said it's Lucy in the sky with diamonds and that's what John wrote, and it was a picture of his school friend who was called Lucy.
Speaker 2:It's not about LSD. And then he said, what's other pictures? He said, oh, it's a chicken in a hat. Oh, cold turkey is it? Lovely.
Speaker 1:Fucking brilliant. It's not about a heroine.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So I think, lucy in the sky, which I think is going here, I think so. It's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I don't think it's about.
Speaker 4:LSD.
Speaker 1:I think the easy way to work out that it's not about LSD is that Lennon would have given it up some point. He would have gone.
Speaker 2:No, that's a very strong argument, steve.
Speaker 1:That's as simple as that. He had 13 years before his death to go. Do you know what, actually? And he never did, and and he would have given it up at some point.
Speaker 2:He didn't, he was not afraid of telling the truth. No, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I don't think it was and again what I like about, in the same way that I think fixing a hole was, I think Lucy in the sky is the other song that shows this very British, very Sid Baratesque psychedelia and it's just wonderful. I mean that the images are wonderful, the production is wonderful, his vocals wonderful. It's a great song. It just ain't day in the life.
Speaker 2:It's extraordinary. I mean it's a vocal. It's a vocal, especially at the first part, is pretty much one note. I mean to make that musical is very fucking hard. You know it's very god, it is yeah.
Speaker 1:And and bearing in mind that that you, you referenced earlier my least favorite song of all time, which my great, which is don't, please don't let me be a misunderstood by the animals, yeah, and the reason. I hate that and rent about it is because it's all on the same bloody note.
Speaker 2:Which is fascinating, because so is Lucy in the sky and I never even noticed, because it's so much you don't notice, because that's how good it is, that everything the production and the performance, that's how beautiful his vocal is, just the way, the way Lenning can deliver a vocal that no one else could really. You can get away with that. Yeah, extraordinary, wow.
Speaker 1:That's an incredible, incredible song. It just just as, as you said about McCartney's songwriting earlier, it's not that it's bad, it's just. There are other Beatles albums, but it does even better. Yeah, it's just. I think Lucy in the Sky has to go here because it's right at the top of this album. It's just going to be pipped by A Day in the Life.
Speaker 2:It's here a very huge brick wall called A Day in the Life. Yeah, it's just ain't going to beat that. So is that 3-0,? Yes, dave, yes.
Speaker 3:If you're not going to vote out A Day in the Life, then I'm going to have to vote with you. A Day in the Life goes through 3-0.
Speaker 1:Which means Well, which means Don't do which means me, I was seeing you up.
Speaker 3:I was seeing you up For the love of God. Which means what, steve?
Speaker 1:The worst backseat drive I've ever met. Unbelievable, which means, ladies and gentlemen, said the first time host of this particular podcast. The final is she is leaving the house in a sad manner versus A Day in the.
Speaker 4:Life. Friday morning at 9 o'clock she is far away, waiting to keep the appointment she made, meeting a man from the motor trade she. What did we do? That was wrong Is heavy. We didn't know it was wrong. Firm is the one thing that money can't buy Something inside that was always denied for so many years. She's leaving home, bye, bye.
Speaker 3:This is a song that resonates with me more as I move through life.
Speaker 2:I think from being, and you've got two children who are now teenagers.
Speaker 3:So from being a teenager myself listening to this, to being a parent of teenagers, to looking at what my parents sacrificed for me and then thinking about the emotional complication that wraps itself around us every year that we go through life. This does resonate in a way that Steve was describing earlier, where you were listening to it in the car and you felt really emotional about it.
Speaker 3:I get that same feeling when I listen to this now, which I don't know that I did when I was a teenager. She's leaving home is just a brilliant song that I could listen to endlessly. I absolutely love it. It's beautiful. I know that George Martin didn't get to do the orchestration, but whoever did did a brilliant job.
Speaker 2:It's Mike Leanne. Do you know the Melanie Coe story? Does that mean anything to you? Melanie Coe appeared on Ready Steady Go when she was 14. She did a competition with Four Ever Girls about miming to a song. The person who judged who would win the competition was Paul McCartney. He chose Melanie Coe and he shook her hand and all of those things. As a result, she was really a boolean and nice. They asked her to come back and she did a year as a backup dancer on Ready Steady Go.
Speaker 2:She was a teenager in swinging London. She's right in the middle of it. She's seen Stevie Wonder, dusty Springfield, all of these things. She goes on a night out and her friend bump into John Lennon in a nightclub. They're right in the heart of swinging in the 60s. As a result, being in the heart of swinging in the 60s, she's doing the age of 17. She's kind of got a boyfriend and she gets pregnant. She kind of freaks out because it's still the 60s, very conservative time. She just leaves a note for her parents, leaves the car, goes off with her boyfriend and disappears. This turns into an article in the Daily Mail which Paul McCartney reads and then writes a song she's Leaving Home. So the mad circularity of that, that McCartney didn't even know that he'd met her and judged a prize on a program that she won, and then it changed the course of her life because it spun her out into this whole different world that she would never be otherwise it's fucking mad.
Speaker 2:And then, only a couple of years later did she work out as her, because her mum heard McCartney talk about the genesis of the song later on. So yeah, it's really crazy, isn't it? Absolutely. What a crazy world so it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 4:It's a beautiful song.
Speaker 2:It really is. It's not the usual area for a pop song, is it either as well? But, it's just literally come to them from reading that article.
Speaker 1:But then they were doing a lot of that. By this point They'd from sort of remember so long was very quickly. It was sort of songs about all sorts of interesting subjects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from newspaper articles they got Me, and Mr Mustard is from a newspaper article. She's Leaving Home is from a newspaper article Day in the Life, day in the Life. He's reading oh, there we go.
Speaker 3:Mr Kite is a poster. Mr Kite is a poster.
Speaker 2:But Day in the Life. The relevant then fact, there is Dave. This song is versus Day in the Life, so they're both inspired by newspaper stories.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Pretty crazy.
Speaker 3:She's Leaving Home. I mean, it doesn't actually say how old she is. I mean we assume that she's a teenager who's leaving home.
Speaker 2:She was 17. She could be 47.
Speaker 3:You know today's generation.
Speaker 2:They never leave home, do they they never?
Speaker 1:do that's how you say it. Certainly post 30.
Speaker 2:You're paying the mortgage all those years Of course it is?
Speaker 4:Of course it is.
Speaker 2:And then will they chip in with the rent pay for the tax put up with them all these years. Unbelievable, unbelievable. So it's against Day in the Life which we haven't talked about, so let's talk about it.
Speaker 4:I saw the photograph Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged the comb across my head, Found the way downstairs and drank a cup and looking up I noticed I was late Found the way downstairs what Day in the Life is.
Speaker 2:Again, it is another Lenin song. We had two Lenin songs in the semi-final which could have been in the final, couldn't it Listening to Sky vs? Is it a Lenin song? Yeah, well, that's what's interesting it is. It's incredibly acid. All of the beautiful points in the song are Lenin. It's a two-part song. It's a magnificent surface of what he's feeling at this time his disassociation. He reads about a friend of his, tara Brown, who is the person who drove his car into a traffic light and died. He knew him. I don't think he was close friends, but I think he knew him from parties and stuff. He blew his mind out on a car. I just had to laugh. It's this weird disassociation he's going through at this point with his emotions and his state of being. He's so strung out in so many ways. And then he's medicating with LSD, which is not a good idea. I'm trying to find some meaning, but this song is as any of that. I think this is a finer song, even than Strawberry Fields, which is a similar song.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely agree with that, and Strawberry Fields is an epic song.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's an absolutely.
Speaker 3:This is what Most people might have this in their top three Beatles songs of all time. It's huge, but it's definitely on some level it's a co-write. And you could even chuck George Martin in there as well for the amount that he adds to its production.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But this is what's interesting about this song, because the juxtaposition is this incredibly acid, disassociated character, literally crumbling, laughing at crazy things, and it's beautiful ethereal sense to it. And then you've got McCartney's bit right in the middle which is almost I woke up, got out of bed, dragged to the comb across my head. I mean it's almost too dull for a diary entry, but yet it's made it into one of the greatest songs of all time as a set of lyrics. It's incredible that juxtaposition between Lennon's acid disassociation and McCartney's very melodic, consonant warmth and that works super well, but juxtaposition is the point.
Speaker 2:I think that's the thing, and it works superbly well, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:But I think the McCartney Whatever you think about the McCartney bit on its own- no, I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I know I do too, but whatever one thinks about it, you can't deny that it makes the Lennon bit so much better because you've juxtaposed this sort of sunny bit in between this incredibly Desolation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's beautiful desolation and it's so necessary and it makes it better. It's more almost than the sum of its parts of song. Both of its parts are great, but the way they combine and who would think to do that? But it works and that's almost a microcosm of the whole Beatles post-66 period You've got. Lennon is quite acid-y and disassociated and disconnected in lots of ways and McCartney is just trying to hold it all together and be consonant and melodic and make everyone happy.
Speaker 2:And they managed to pull it off for a number of years and thank God they did, but it just shows that disparity between their characters and why they were stronger together than they ever were as solo artists.
Speaker 3:When I think about a day in the life, the lyrics are I'm not going to say that they're meaningless, but they are plucked, as you say. Lennon plucks them from their little vignettes, from newspaper articles that he's read. They don't really mean too much together. And then you throw in McCartney's bit. Certainly this song doesn't have a chorus, so it doesn't hang together like that as like a song. We all absolutely love it and I think it's the music. So when I think about a day in the life, as much as anything, it's that kind of fragility of the acoustic guitar that Lennon's strumming as the song opens and his voice, and then the build, and then you've got the McCartney bit and that's beautiful music as well.
Speaker 3:And then you've got another build, and it's the piecing together rather than it being a kind of classically well written song that we use Agreed and details as well.
Speaker 1:It's like the musical details Aside from the orchestra, which we can talk about separately, like the piano in the McCartney bit Dread to come across my head. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and it's just there and it's gone, one of those Beatles moments. Wow, what that was a these little, these touches these attention to details.
Speaker 2:It's phenomenal. They throw away. Wow, it's quite. Yeah, it's an extraordinary piece of music, the drums as well, the way they roll across it.
Speaker 3:It's just so good, you know, and to drum against an acoustic guitar is so rare. We definitely need to talk about Ringo's drumming on this, because that is just sensational On the whole album.
Speaker 2:They're chucking loads of mad shit at him, aren't they? He's got?
Speaker 3:the.
Speaker 2:Whirlitzers, carnival music, fucking three, four times, four, four, and he's doing this.
Speaker 1:The thing about he does brilliantly on this is he doesn't try to propel the song in any way. He's playing along with what they're doing the guitar and the piano and everything else are propelling the timing. Oh, totally, and he's just going beautiful and in no way doing what a drummer's supposed to do, which is keeping the beat, yeah, and he's basically sort of an extra musician, like an accompanying musician.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, which is brilliant. Yeah, it's riffing off, it, isn't it? It's beautiful. He's really listening to the vocal. It's so good. So there seems to be no disagreement here about this.
Speaker 4:Well before we get to voting. I've got to admit, man, it's just. Is there anything?
Speaker 3:bad we can say about a day in the life.
Speaker 2:I'm sure someone's playing a C minor at the end on accident on that last chord. But apart from that, no, have you heard?
Speaker 1:the final chord, where they do the hum instead of the, the hum instead of the piano. We're Beatles geeks.
Speaker 3:Of course, we've heard it, of course you have.
Speaker 1:Sorry, it was just a my ringtone when it's on the.
Speaker 3:Actually I hadn't heard it, but it's on the super deluxe edition that they've just re-released.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you just listen to it go. Oh my God, this would be so much worse if they'd done this. Ah, it's no, it's no way near as good as the piano. Yeah, that's kind of what a day in the life is, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It's like it's a day in the life, isn't it? You can't change any of it because it's it is what it is. It needs to hang together like it is.
Speaker 2:No, but it nearly like if George Martin thinks not including Strawberry Fields was his greatest mistake as a producer. If he'd have included the hum instead of that massive chord at the end of this album, that would have been his greatest mistake as a producer 100%. But that's how close they were. They were pretty, probably possibly pretty close to putting on their recorded is. It was an idea going around, but, yeah, thank God they didn't. Could you imagine this album ending? Well, actually, this album doesn't end and it ends in a little thing. This is how ingenious they are. They'd realised that the out groove on a record, if you let it slip over, would just continue to play. That's why they put that on that groove they put.
Speaker 1:Oh, if you play it backwards it does say some rude things apparently, but I've never heard about that.
Speaker 2:Ah right, but if you're on a vinyl, that should just keep looping forever. Never could be any other way. Never could be any other way.
Speaker 3:So that is the last thing you hear Didn't they stick dog whistles on it as well? So it was supposed to. Yeah, I can hear it.
Speaker 1:I still hear it, do you? Yeah, I still hear it. I can hear it very clearly. I think it comes in just before the vocal, but yeah, I hear it very clearly and I always used to go the fuck is that, and then the funny thing comes in.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, still hear it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what? We voting for people?
Speaker 1:Day in the life.
Speaker 2:What do you want me to make this interesting? I'm afraid I can't. I know you can try.
Speaker 4:No, it's gonna be 3 nil isn't it? I have voted for a day you asked most Beatles fans. I think that a day in the life would win over most Beatles tracks and as Right.
Speaker 3:I mean she's leaving home with win over most Beatles tracks for me. But not a day. It's a day in the life it's a day in the life.
Speaker 1:It's ridiculous how good it is. I mean it's ridiculous how good it is. It's just everything about it. It's perfect and the atmosphere is again completely uncopiable. It's a good question. Has anyone ever tried to cover it? I mean you'd be able to remind me of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you would, because it's not good in a conventional way.
Speaker 2:You can't point to it.
Speaker 3:It's not like covering a fantastically written Beatles song and taking it in a different direction.
Speaker 4:It's about all those details.
Speaker 3:It is about all those details yeah, that they put into it and you can't really cover that. No, it's like.
Speaker 1:Brett said it's so much more than the sum of its parts. But, like you know, I want to disagree with you about the sort of quality of the song underneath. That was my point about, with a little help from my friends is that I find it a bit middling as a song. And then you listen to Joe Cocker and you're like, oh wow, there's a really good song here that really and if you know that coped with being translated into another form is actually that probably isn't true of a day of the day in the life.
Speaker 2:It's just so incredible to listen to. It's so transportive, isn't it?
Speaker 1:When he goes into that vocal after the McCartney section.
Speaker 2:It's just like wow, you're always close to flying as you can.
Speaker 1:Apparently, there's an ongoing debate that no one has ever settled as to who's doing that.
Speaker 4:Oh really, I've always assumed that was.
Speaker 2:Lenin.
Speaker 1:I've always assumed it was Lenin, but apparently no one has ever ever got to the bottom of it, and the more you listen to it, the more you think it's the whoever beatle you didn't start with. Oh, is it? Ringo, you've started like we have with Lenin.
Speaker 2:No it wasn't Ringo.
Speaker 3:We can narrow down the investigation To three of them? Yes, I think we can narrow it down to two.
Speaker 1:Oh it's okay.
Speaker 2:Superb. Well, we need to. You know how. We need to end this podcast On a massive hum, On a massive hum.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, let's declare then a day in the life the worthy winner of the Sergeant Pepper episode of Maka in the Goals Ready, here we go. Three, two, one.