Lady Madonna b/w Hey Bulldog -- theoretical Beatles release

Straight upfront, I will divulge that I am not a huge fan of The Beatles, Let it Be, and Abbey Road. They're executed by The Beatles -- they're quite good, for the most part -- but they just don't reside within my preferences for Beatle music.

I would propose that a single release of Lady Madonna/Hey Bulldog would have been the quintessential end to the official Beatles canon. (For me, anyway.) A near-perfect legacy would have followed in its wake, I'd say.

Fantasy, revisionism -- sure -- but it ain't that far-fetched, given the general circumstances/politics surrounding the band subsequently.

 

"Hey Bulldog" is the A-side, right?

 

* I may very well be out-of-my-mind to have made this my first created thread here at SHMF. Cabin fever, perhaps.

Be gentle.

 

Nah.
Lady Madonna is more "pop".
Slightly.

 

Both sides would have used the same filming for promo videos (?).

 

Back to rock and roll after they went as far as they could psychedelically? Sounds good to me.

 

So the world never gets to hear the White Album, Let It Be, Abbey Road, or What's the New Mary Jane?

That's kooky spaghetti.

 

You should try just typing in plain English. And also let the people at the Asylum know that your meds need to be adjusted.

 

Alternate Universe.
Don't take it personally.

Also -- decent syntax, yeah?
You know, for English...

 

A near-perfect legacy, it seems to me, is a kind of intellectual-ish idea that really has no value beyond the way people like to *write* about music, as opposed to how they actually enjoy music, and how they love music. A legacy is an abstract idea that doesn't make any difference, outside of external concerns about how music is perceived by others such as cultural "taste-makers". So I don't think any kind of subjectively-based "near-perfect legacy" is somehow more valuable than the world getting to hear songs like "Let It Be", "Dear Prudence", "Revolution", "Come Together", and so on.

You've made it clear you just don't really love late period Beatles, that's fine, but what can be argued against is this underlying idea in what you said, that having a discography be "near-perfect" as an abstract idea is more important than taking in life with all its imperfections. Some of my favorite other bands have made some (in my opinion) awful records, especially late in their career, but honestly I prefer that those albums do exist in the world (perhaps for other people to enjoy who may) than if they were just somehow never ever made.

 

Yeah. "Near-perfect" was probably a misfire.
"Less-controversial"?

* fewer "restructuring The White Album" threads, etc...

 

I love a theoretical argument and since you qualified saying this would be a quintessential end (for you) there's not really much to argue. For you, this would be best. But luckily, you can just ignore the music that came afterwards. For whatever difference of opinion we all have on something very subjective (I don't like Let it Be, for instance), I think we have pretty concrete proof that it's essentially pointless arguing against how the Beatles handled and ended their career. It's the most consensus agreed upon catalog in modern pop music and it's truly not even a contest. (I'm not looking for an argument, there's band I love more, but I think it's safe to say that worldwide the Beatles are indeed the most beloved) i.e. they did it right and your theoretical argument likely would have been a disaster. If nothing else than you've now robbed them from "Here Comes the Sun," their most streamed song and one of the absolute standards of their catalog that lives on to this day through endless covers and weddings and blah blah blah

 

I hear what you mean. An alternate view there is that the controversial aspects of art are perhaps its most progressive and important ideas - the experiments (even the failed ones) that stretch the genre. The result may indeed be "messiness" at times (i.e. wild disagreements on various aspects of The White Album), but the influence of The White Album and Abbey Road can't be denied, on so much that came later from other musicians (prog rock, indie rock, indie folk, etc.) The Beatles as artists, in relatively experimental mode (from Lennon's "Revolution 9" to McCartney's Abbey Road medley), worked from a luxury of previous successes which were often based on less challenging (though no less entertaining) work perhaps. The end stage of the band was also critical in beginning to define their musical approaches as individuals, which informs the work they would go on to do separately after the breakup.

It's interesting that when The Beatles did attempt to "Get Back" and pull back the reins of experimentation, they didn't seem to find great inspiration (McCartney's fine songs on Let It Be aside, IMO.) Instead they kind of collapsed into lethargy for a month or so, and ended up writing off their "retrogressive" efforts as sub-par and disorganized, only coming back to those recordings when they were pretty much broken up, and did so partially just to fulfill contractual obligations. But the Let It Be album is the outlier here I think, with most fans also in general agreement that pound-for-pound it's not their greatest. Once they were looking forward again, instead of looking back, they make what is in my opinion, their masterpiece in Abbey Road. But to each their own!

 

Pre-ordered !

 

I've always thought Lady Madonna is one of the weakest Beatles singles. It's not dreadful or anything, but I don't think there's much special about it.

 

a promo of the sax studio musicians called in and Macca having nothing for them to work with..... that would be fun to see their glare at him...

the nerve

 

The piano work makes Lady Madonna for me. Fine vocal, as well.

 

It's a very well put together song...from the verse arrangement to the bridge, etc...but I'm with you...it never did much for me...especially coming out of the "color" and "magic" of all that '67 material. But the main thing I want to say here is that it's being imagined as the *final* beatle single...so, no Hey Jude..?? That would have been much more of a "perfect" ending than LD, IMO.

 

That was very much in my thinking -- but I admit that I was lazy in my presentation. I defer...

I can't begrudge you that.

Occasionally, I find it marvelous.
It's just not that often.

 

I find the "see how they run" hookline clunky.

 

But Hey Bulldog is more "rock." At a time when hard rock was in fashion (Cream, Hendrix).

 

My favourite alternate universe has Across the Universe as the a-side.

 

I was going to make a quip about creating threads that we-wish-we-could-take-back, but then I remembered the Beatles related lyssavirus displayed my Hoffmanites, so I decided to turn the tides, gently, gently, away.

 

This is a lot of effort. I am certainly rethinking starting threads going forward.

 

Well-known as a Madonna prototype: Bad Penny Blues.
Paul's dad had this record and you can bet it got played a lot.