Next we have "Paperback Writer" by The Beatles, #1 for 2 non-consecutive weeks, June 25 - July 1, and again from July 9 - July 15, 1966.
Paperback writer isn't very cohesive as a song, but it has some fantastic parts. I'm a little surprised that it hit number 1, it just isn't as streamlined and hit-ready as most of the number 1's have been up until now. The parts that grab your attention: the opening vocal round that creates a great harmony, the absolutely rocking into of guitar lick and drum beat (Ringo is SO great on this) It's interesting, especially for a song that's a big hit, that the lyrics are a fictional story and one that you would not think would interest anyone: the guy wants to write, and not really anything of interest or value, and he'll basically take on any assignment that will pay him. A case where some of Paul's weaker lyrics are set in such a cool musical arrangement that you really don't care what they are about. Like a lot of people, I like Rain better, but it could never have been a hit. I imagine people that bought this single thought Rain was pretty weird.
Paperback Writer is another great song, definitely top 20 Beatles and one of the best number ones of this year. I don't get the (mild) criticisms levelled above; it sounds quite cohesive to me and the lyrics, while a flight of fancy perhaps, are far from nonsense IMHO. I'd give it a slight edge over Paint It Black, if I had to decide between the two ... but they're both great!
Speaking of Rain (which I agree is another great one), if you like that song, give a listen to Goodbye Dreaming Fields by Martin Newell and tell me if he didn't manage to nail the guitar tone from Rain bang-on:
Paperback Writer IMO, 1966 is the year when the Beatles reached their height. They went from strength to strength from here until the end of their career, but they never surpassed what they produced that year. The year started in an unprecedented way, with a nearly four month break from work. This happened because filming for their third movie, a Western (!) called A Talent for Loving, fell through when they couldn't agree on a script. With all that time on their hands, the boys were able to deep dive into the cultural excitement that was going on all around them in London. When they returned to work in April, they brought with them a new revolutionary attitude. The first song they worked on was an odd number John had composed based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It had one chord, and John envisioned singing it as he were the Dalai Lama calling to his monks from a hillside in Tibet. That number, called Mark I, eventually morphed into Tomorrow Never Knows, and to George Martin's credit, he didn't run screaming from the studio when he heard it. By the time they were done with it, they had created something unlike anything that had ever been recorded before. That song set the tone for the entire album, which came to be known as Revolver. Experimentation in the studio was the new operating philosophy. By the time they got around to recording their next single, they had a raft of new techniques to use that made the songs sound far different from anything they had offered before. One thing that had always bothered McCartney was how his bass seemed to get lost in the mix. In the old days, they had recorded the bass and drums first, then layered stuff on top. With Revolver, Paul started recording the bass as an overdub. He also had the engineers use a loudspeaker as a microphone to further sharpen the sound. The bass just pops on this single, and that's why. And McCartney, one of the most melodic songwriters of the 60s, added that quality to his bass playing as well. The result is almost like a counter melody at times, creating even more excitement. And of course, their subject matter changed. On Revolver, only a few songs could be considered traditional love songs; most of them went in entirely different lyrical directions. Paul's Paperback Writer is one of his first successful story songs (Eleanor Rigby was another on the same album). Besides all that, the song just has a jangly verve to it that more recalls the kind of stuff REM or the Bangles or the BritPop folks would do decades later. It's not like the other stuff the Beatles were releasing as singles up to then, nor is it like the stuff they would soon be tackling in 1967 and beyond. It's almost like its own little island. I flat out love this song. The guitar sound, the bass, the weird echoes before the chorus, the way the vocals cascade over each other at the end, the funny lyrics ('it's a dirty story of a dirty man'), the energy, the cheeky way they sing 'frere jacque' as their backing vocals on the final verse. It would be the only 1966 song they would ever play in concert, but it was a tough one to reproduce given its tricky guitar figures and harmony, and the few live versions on Youtube are better left unheard. Even if they had not already tired of performing live, this number would be a pretty clear signpost that their future lay in the studio, for it was there, away from screaming kids and violent protests, that they would from then on produce their full magic.
Another brilliant tune in a year that's easily the most-packed with such that we've covered (to date, anyhow). This is already far removed from "She Loves You", although that wonderful energy is still there. But lyrically and musically, texturally, "Paperback Writer" is just so much more advanced. I've loved this song since I was a little kid, and it really demonstrates how production had suddenly become as important is the songwriting or the performance to rock.
Rain If Paperback Writer seems like "an early clue to the new direction", Rain sounds like it might be a transmission from a distant, and infinitely cooler, galaxy. I can only imagine what it must have been like in 1966 to be listening to an AM radio show when, after the latest hit by Gary Lewis, Rain suddenly came thundering out of the speaker. My goodness! Even today it seems ahead of our time; I can't even guess how it must have sounded back then! I think this might be one of the coolest tracks ever recorded. Even the videos for it are amazing. In the studio version, Lennon with his uber-groovy shades and flower shirt smiling as he sings, while trying to convince us he is really singing the backwards bit at the end. The video in the park is BEAUTIFUL on the blu ray they sold recently. Ringo struts like he owns the place, with the sign 'Way Out' behind him not only indicating the exit, but also the fact that Ringo is, in fact, a 'way out' character. How many amazing things can a group squeeze into one three minute song? The Revolver production tricks were in full flower here. They recorded the initial song faster and slowed it down to create that sludgy guitar texture that gives the entire song its ponderous weight. Lennon's lyrics are inscrutable, wise and tuning in to the acid reality that would become much more widespread shortly: I can show you That when it rains and shines It's just a state of mind I can show you Reality is an illusion. Let me show you what I mean. Some of the West Coast beautiful people got it when they heard the song on the radio; the Beatles were tuned in, and they were letting the hip people know. But I'm guessing it went over most people's heads that early in 1966. Did the average 1966 Beatlemaniac think John was losing his mind? Then there's the amazing chorus. Raaaaaaaaaaaaain, I don't mind. How many syllables in that first word? Following on the heels of Paint It Black, the Beatles go even further into Indian sonorities with that one word. Psychedelia being born, right there on the radio. Paul and Ringo bring it on this one. Paul's bass, now forward thanks to new production techniques, had never been more amazing. I especially love the way he varies the bass on the two choruses. On the second one he is swooping and diving like a roller coaster, producing this incredible dislocation under the sonic sludge of the guitars. Wow. And Ringo has often claimed this is his best ever drumming performance. He may be right. Some of those fills are so great they would in and of themselves make an ordinary song special, and here they are just an amazing few seconds that prepare us for the next one and the next one after that. Then there's the backwards bit at the end. Lennon claimed that this was the first intentional usage of backwards music in a pop song. I recall that there was a single called They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha! from the same year. The B-side of that bizarre number had the song played entirely backwards. Lennon in an interview claimed that that was not the same thing, but thought they might have beaten him to the punch. But guess what? That song came out a couple of months after Rain! So John's claim stands. The Beatles often took a reel-to-reel home at the end of the day to listen to what they had worked on that day. According to John, he got home, got stoned, and put the tape in the wrong way. The music came out backwards. He loved it, and the next day convinced the others to paste part of the song backwards onto the fadeout. Naaaaaaaaaair! After that, for the next year little backwards bits and pieces were all over their work. But as far as I know, no satanic messages or hints that Paul was actually dead were among those backwards nuggets.
Rain is an incredibly cool and psychedelic sonic experience, but it's also a heck of a nice song. Here's a charming little cover by a sunshine pop group called the Sunshine Company. I bought one of their albums for 50 cents once, and was pleasantly surprised how good it was. I like what they do with Rain here; instead of the psych bombast of the Beatles version, they underplay, to great effect!
I seem to remember that song. It doesn't seem to be on cd now. I wonder if I heard it back then by someone else?
I love both "Paperback Writer" and "Rain". I probably like "Rain" more. It sticks in your brain like few others can. The thing I love most about it is how they slowed down the drum track.
I'm also in the Rain camp. I didn't cotton to PW probably because of the melody shifts while Rain, as druggy as it sounds, was just more palatable to my ears. This is as good a time as any to bring up the infamous "We're bigger than Jesus" misstep that almost derailed their career in the US. I've always felt it cast a shadow over Revolver - my favorite Beatles album. This could be why Yellow Sub stalled at #2 and the great Eleanor Rigby just missed the top ten. I've never been religious and having heard many of their cheeky and irreverent interviews back in the day, this just seemed more of the same but the guys failed to take into account just how Christian the States really were. The smashing and burning that ensued was something to see and the fans that were never thrilled with the shift in style and complexity of the music probably relished the backlash. Of course, in less than a year, they showed the world they were far from done and indeed, still capable of changing the musical landscape.
I probably like "Rain" a bit more, but "Paperback Writer" is great in the sheer brazenness of the run-of-the-mill subject matter. Who else would even think of writing a song about an unemployed writer in the first place, much less do such a radio-friendly job of it? The guitar riff is fantastic, too. A remarkable harbinger of just how cutting edge they were becoming.
Alright, since you broght it up, first let me say that people, including the media, keep getting it wrong, and keep taking it out of context. This is John Lennon's exact quote: He said nothing blasphemous. Later, he explained: But, that didn't seem to matter to those who were already disposed to hate The Beatles and their music.
Thanks for the clarification. I'd never read the whole quote(s), which you put in context. One thing, 50+ years later, that is clear: Lennon wasn't much of a prophet.
I don't know why I'm not getting notifications on this thread. My first exposure, at least that I can remember, to "Paperback Writer" (and certainly "Rain") was on the HEY JUDE album in 1970. I was 7 when it was released in 1966, and didn't listen to the radio much; the first Beatles single I am sure I heard when it was on the chart was "Hello Goodbye." But what a great two-sided record it was/is. Like others have indicated, I prefer (ever so slightly) "Rain" to "Paperback Writer," primarily because of the magnificent drum work done by Ringo. JcS
You nailed it nicely! A little more detail: The Beatles were profiled in a British newspaper by a journalist who was also a good friend of theirs, Maureen Cleave. Each Beatle got his own story on a given day. Lennon had been reading a book at the time that talked about the decline in religion, and how material things like TV (or pop music) meant more to many kids than religion. Keep in mind that this was the same time frame as the infamous "Is God Dead?" cover of Time Magazine. The idea that organized religion was struggling to gain followers was in the air, and Lennon was basically parroting that. The article was never meant for the States, but a teen magazine picked it up and republished it, and that started the trouble. He certainly wasn't boasting or trying to build up the Beatles by saying that. Most of his fans stayed fans, although I'm not sure what he would have thought of the below pic (I'm guessing he would have thought it was funny, though! ):
I wasn't old enough to be aware when PW and Rain came out but in looking back,to me these and TNK were the songs that kickstarted the counter culture.In listening to the Beatles since the mid 70s I had never even heard Rain until about fifteen years ago and loved it immediately.
Your reviews of PW and Rain are superb, and I'm especially glad you brought up the videos for Rain, and I would add the PW videos too. As someone from a later generation, I've thought from the very first time I saw those videos, still to this day, that it is impossible for anyone at any time to look or be cooler than they do and are in them. You mention the Blu Ray -- I upgraded multiple pieces of hardware to be able to watch these beautiful videos, and others of theirs like SFF, PL, and Hello Goodbye in their full 4K vibrantly restored glory on 1+. I grew up watching music videos on MTV nonstop, yet I think these videos, and some from their movies, are the best music videos ever made. And they were among the very first!
I disagree. Too bad I can't elaborate on this forum about why I disagree. Check your settings. Along with The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".
