Beatles "Cry Baby Cry" white album 1968

Just great !

I'd love a Beatles White album movie !!! You've written the synopsis !!!! A plot based on the characters & lyrics from some of the songs !!!!

Prudence gets back from the USSR & stops on Oxford Street for her favorite chocolates & a Savoy truffle! She meets Desmond & Molly on the way to Covent garden where she catches Rocky with Sexy Sadie !!!!

It has to be really good animation & voices, with 20 something year old Beatles leading us through the adventure !

It would be great to use the White album because none of the Beatles movies use songs from it. There's a ton of at least 33 songs to choose from & the soundtrack, would sell millions with the new mixes & bonus tracks !!!

All we gotta do is convince Jeff Jones & the Beatles to solicit the 35 million dollar production costs & green light it. Get Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam or someone good to do it & voila`` something to watch & hear in 2023 !!!

It's about time for a new, non documentary Beatles movie !!! Tell Paul & Ringo the grand kids want it !!!

 

It's not White Album only, but have you seen Across the Universe? It's a musical film built entirely around characters from Beatles songs, including a handful from the White Album era (Jude, Prudence, Sadie and Molly). Pretty good overall except for an awful bit in the middle with Bono as "Dr Robert". Not exactly the same as your suggestion, but your post made me think of it.

 

Also "It's Only Love" somehow as well.

 

I think it struck a marvelous balance with the malevolent times back in 1968... delicate beauty in counterpoint to primal screams.

 

Interesting stuff. IIRC, an early working tape of Cry had John attempting to incorporate a bridge that wound up as the chorus to Across the Universe.

 

There is no V7 in the verse. It is IV (C b7). IIRC, there is no dominant in the song anywhere which gives it that certain dreamy unresolving sound. I can't hear one and correct me if I am wrong. There is a secondary dominant however in the verse (A chord) which John uses before the rise out.
I agree with you and others in that it sounds very unlike Hey Jude.
Cry Baby Cry is a brilliant song IMO.

 

To me it's just the intro to Revolution #9. Paul's contribution was "Can You Take Me Back".

After the first time I heard Rev. #9 (followed by Goodnight) I cried (I was 13).

 

The stereo mix sucks

 

As someone who first played it 20 years after its release, without context of 1968, i find it fascinating how it transfers that inherently.

No wonder Manson connected so well to this album.

 

Yeah that's a nice little film. I think it turned some (then) 20 something's onto a few Beatles tunes. Believe it or not, I think it's been nearly a decade since the film.

But as you know The music were Beatles songs, but performed by other people.

We can never have a full Beatle album of 'new' material. It's physically impossible. They don't have unreleased albums in the can, & 2 of them have died. They have rehearsals & a couple tracks from the 60s, & the 3rd reunion song. But an album of new songs is impossible.

But you could do a high quality, non documentary, animated film. Fictionalized Beatles, in an adventure like Help or Yellow Submarine. The White album has a ton of songs to choose from, including lots of fictional characters, Dear Prudence, Sexy Sadie, Desmond & Molly, the Piggies, & of course the King & Queen & Duchess in cry baby cry.

It's off topic & I shouldn't pursue it here,in this thread.

Oddly as much as I do like Cry Baby Cry. When I made a comp splitting the White album into 2 single albums. Cry Baby Cry didin't make my cut !! I placed my 13 favorite songs on one album & Cry Baby Cry came in around 16th or 17th for me. I just like Dear Prudence, Blackbird, Guitar Gently Weeps & the others more. I learned I really adore 25-26 of the 33 cuts.

As for Revolution 9, I don't enjoy it as a masterpiece. Because it's not remotely like a song. I enjoy it as a pastiche or sound collage, my favorite bit is the loop of the engineer going #9, #9, #9, #9.. who is that by the way ? Do we know ?

As for 33 tracks, that's the album + Hey Jude/Revolution, & Not Guilty.

 

It is so like Lennon to have forgotten (?) a song that he alludes to in a song on the album he's promoting.

 

The Across the Universe movie reminded me of Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You, in that both films are musicals without appearing to be.

 

I love Cry Baby Cry. On a more objective level, I admit it isn't close to the best thing Lennon ever did, but it's still one of my favorites. I love the creepy, slightly sinister vibe. Ringo's drumming is fantastic, the lead guitar licks are perfect, and Lennon's delivery is spot on. The harmonium is a nice touch too. I love the chord progression - it's so Lennon.

 

I associate Cry Baby Cry with Strawberry Fields. Lyrically they both have a dream-like quality. Other than the SFF mellotron intro, both songs open with Chorus followed by verse and that repeats through each song and then each has it's outro section (The psychedelic jam fadeout/fadein of SFF and the Can You Take Me Back part of CBC). Both songs are concerned about creating unique arrangements for each of the verses to relieve the repeating structure. In the case of SFF they merge two entirely different recordings. In CBC Lennon works hard to give each verse a unique feel. Both great songs IMO.

 

Apple Corps had given Robert Zemeckis the green light to make a motion-capture reboot of Yellow Submarine, but it fell through.

 

Yes but they pulled it away from Zemeckis. Presumably because his high budget film just prior to Yellow Submarine tanked at the box office.

But I love the idea, a new non documentary, animated Beatles film. Featuring their music. I like the original Yellow submarine, instead of remaking that, tempting though it is. Do a new one, with new storyline, that uses Beatles songs not already used in one of their films. The 2 obvious choices are Abbey Road, & my favorite choice the White album.

I was surprised reading how many people say Cry Baby Cry is creepy. I find it somewhat psychedelic, but I never thought it was creepy.

 

The Rolling Stones would also have a hidden track on Their Satanic Majesties Request, "Cosmic Christmas".

 

Agree with everyone else that the White Album has a creepy, dark underlying vibe. It creeps up for the first time in the outro of "Glass Onion", and finds its way in the jarring ending of "Wild Honey Pie" and the mellotron outro of that track.

Even the way "Can You Take Me Back" feels, it's just uncomfortable, like the whole album has been building up to that moment, which ushers the nightmarish "Revolution 9".

 

I wasn't in favor of re-making Yellow Submarine, especially when I found out they would be using the same songs. The original film was terribly rushed, parts of it animated on the fly or made up as they went along; the animators have said that the project ideally would have taken another year. Starting from scratch, they could have chosen other songs. (It seems to me that they could have found a spot for "Octopus's Garden.") But I really liked the casting. Peter Serafinowicz does a great Paul McCartney impression.

The TV movie Helter Skelter featured a number of White Album songs (albeit re-recorded by the otherwise unheralded Silverspoon).

 

I have always loved it. To me, it's a dark nursery rhyme. Sort of a twisted psychedelic take on "Sing a Song of Sixpence" (Although that one's pretty twisted,too, with a blackbird nipping off the maid's nose).

 

From the imagery in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "I Am the Walrus", and "Cry Baby Cry", I'd say that if Lennon only read one book, it must have been Alice In Wonderland.

 

The V7 you are referring to is in my analysis of the verse to Cry Baby Cry, and you are correct. My error. I was trying to go on memory, but assuming the I is G, that chord is C7, which is the IV7 chord. Not V7.

I also don't recall saying there was/is a dominant key. I think I said key change? The argument for their being a dominant key in any event I suppose is that the song begins with the chorus and the I chord in it arguably is also the key that is dominant, but I am agnostic on that. It doesn't really matter here, because as you suggest as the song goes on the different chords and notes in the verse has an elusive effect. One that no doubt was intended.

 

My mistake in not being more specific. I meant to say dominant chord and not key.
I am not sure what key the song is in. I guess it is closer to G major and not E minor? The A Major chord in the chorus can be viewed as a V of V. And as you said, the F chord in the refrain can be taken as a flatted VII.
In either case, there is no V Dominant chord anywhere in the song. Typical John to not have a strong cadence in the song and to use that technique to highlight the lyrical content.

 

Harmoniums were common in the 19th century. (US Civil War documentaries often have it playing a hymn in the background.) Also called a "pump organ" (usually pumped by foot pedals). Small churches (who couldn't afford a "real" organ) or chapels often had them, and some homes had them too. My grandmother had one, which I'd play until my feet got tired of pedaling it. It shows up in music from India too, apparently brought in by the British. Makes sense, since it's so droney!