Lewisohn - Beatles - New Tape! - Abbey Road - 'Rewrites everything we knew about the Beatles'*

While my guitar gently weeps was weak?

 

If I Needed Someone?

 

It doesn't sound like they did an entire rundown of George's songs. Sounds like it was Paul summarizing what he'd thought in the past. And Lennon and George Martin had thought the same thing.

 

I'm not going to read too much into secondhand reporting of a private conversation that happened fifty years ago, but considering the tension of Beatle meetings in those days, I'd give anyone a pass on not choosing their words better. It's quite possible that McCartney meant that Harrison, until the Abbey Road period, didn't have enough great songs to justify including four of Harrison's instead of two per LP. And further, he doesn't actually seem to argue against the idea of Harrison getting four going forward. He might just be explaining what both he and I think like Lennon and George Martin too had felt previously. That Harrison takes it as a back-handed compliment and disagrees, is also fair. But I don't think we can take this news as meaning that McCartney thought that no Harrisons before Abbey Road were great. I think if Lennon and/or McCartney either didn't think a Harrison song was great enough to be put out, they wouldn't have let it out.

This all seems like over-interpreting an offhand comment in the effort to make people look bad over something long ago and trivial.

 

Doesn’t change a thing.

Paul was right about George. That “constipation” of songs George referred to led to 1 bloated and semi-decent solo album and nothing thereafter.

 

Let's remember, Paul contributed to every one of George's songs except Within You Without You. John, for a variety of reasons chose to not participate in several.

Years later, John was miffed by how little attention he received in George's autobiography.

 

The 'weak' songs were the ones they didn't do.

"You know what to do" - who did the desultory tambourine, and discards it at the end?

"Dehra dun" ("Oh, I remember that" said Paul at the Threetles interview), I don't think George ever got round to recording that solo.

Add a bunch that we never heard.

All the ones that came out were fine, maybe apart from "Don't bother me" which is George's "Little James" in a way.

 

Remember it was John who pushed for "Something" to be a single when everyone else liked "Come Together"

 

Was John being generous or was it a move to get George to side with him during the management battles? We’ll never know true motives during this period of infighting.

 

There seem to be at least three different threads dealing with this tape now. Perhaps they could be merged? I'm re-posting here what I posted earlier on one of the other threads:

It's hard to put a good spin on what Paul says. It's unequivocal. Paul its dissing George. John is dissing Paul. They're all in a bad mood. They may in theory have thought that a new single, and even a new album, were something they should work on but realistically this wasn't going to happen. They sound like a band in breakdown mode, even if they pretended differently. It is significant that from this point on Paul and George had little to do with each other for quite a few years.

 

Except Paul working with George on I Me Mine, and writing the rocking 4/4 bridge uncredited

 

So when is Giles going to remix the business meeting tape of John, Paul & George in 5.1 surround sound?

 

Indeed. Plus it sounds like Paul was high AF, so.......

 

When Lewisohn stops milking it to promote a lecture.

 

I can see it now: In a dark room lit only by the fire burning in the fire place, an irate Paul McCartney holds a glass of wine in his hand. “Forty years,” he mutters, “forty years I’ve been trying to trick these fools, to make them see The Beatles’ story from my perspective.” He tosses the wine into the fire and lets out a scream. “Damn you Lewisohn!!!”

 

Interesting tape but doesn't change that talking about doing an album/single and actually doing them are different things. I'm guessing all four were still partly open to working together still if it felt right but that it just never felt right to do. I'd say that hidden anger and resentment are hard to pinpoint on a recording unless you were there and knew the situation. BUT interesting nonetheless.

Unlike less charitable views Harrison wrote many terrific songs in his solo career and the fact that Paul and he tiffed over writing is more a big/little brother situation than anything.

 

Steady there , captain!
But I somewhat agree with you to a point. The only bloat on 'All Things Must Pass ' is the terminally dull Apple Jam, a waste of vinyl. The rest of the album is superb.
But after that....a few good tracks scattered here and there over many albums and many years.
If he had made an album every three years or so, the quality would have been better.

 

Then again: John, NME interview, late 1969:
“I don’t bother so much about the others’ songs,” John said. “For instance, I don’t give a damn about how ‘Something’ is doing in the charts——I watch ‘Come Together’ because that’s my song. That is why I’ve started with the Plastic Ono and working with Yoko…to have more outlet. There isn’t enough outlet for me in the Beatles. The Ono Band is my escape valve. And how important that gets, as compared to the Beatles for me, I’ll have to wait and see.”

 

Two versions of the same song is a bit of bloat. Especially when both versions are lengthened considerably by repetitive passages.

Wah Wah also a waste of a few minutes, but at least the crappy production didnt kill a decent song there.

 

sounds like they were only in it for the money

 

He did say elsewhere in an interview that he pushed for Something as the A-side, John's not always consistent

 

I like the idea of a post-Abbey Beatles album with each of the main writers getting an equal 1/3 of an album's real estate, along with two songs for Ringo "if he wants them".

In practice, who knows how it would have turned out.

 

Four songs for John, Paul, George, respectively, and two for Ringo per LP?

What rock LP in 1970 featured 14 songs? By this point even the Beatles’ songs were mostly over three minutes a throw...

It seems like this mathematical compromise would not have been feasible unless each member are throwing in 1.5 minute “sketches” as songs.

 

Abbey Road had 17, altho maybe those are the ones you consider sketches. Ringo gets 2 songs if he wants them, most likely he'll get 1 and someone will help him write it. Actually the White Album was pretty loaded with songs too.

 

Maybe Ringo could have sold his 2 song slots per album to the highest bidder.