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

Ram is perfect, it's one of the only Beatles/Solo albums you can listen to from start to finish and there is no obvious clunker or something that makes you wince in pain. That said, my Top 6, in order:

Back Seat Of My Car
Too Many People
Uncle Albert
Monkberry Moon Delight
Heart Of The Country
Dear Boy

Note: My personal playlist, when I say "Hey Siri, Play Ram by Paul McCartney" you can add Another Day to that list. George shoved My Sweet Lord on his solo album; Paul didn't need to.

 

I agree Ram is perfect, as is All Things Must Pass and Plastic Ono Band. In my opinion only however

 

Exactly, it is subjective. Your opinion of his songwriting doesn't make something someone else said right or wrong, depending on whether it aligns with said opinion. What's also true is what George said in response, "That's a matter of taste". It's not a fact that there are only 6 good songs on ATMP.

 

" More questions than answers there are"---Yoda

 

Wait, we are counting Love You To as a decent song? Taxman I will allow as a vehicle for Paul to play lead guitar.

 

Ram, yes.
Plastic Ono, yes.
All Things Must Pass, no.

If George had released ATMP as a single LP it would have gone down in the annals of music as an epic solo LP on par with Ram, Plastic Ono, Band On The Run, and Imagine in the pantheon of Beatles solo efforts. But ATMP is bloated. Really bloated. And quite repetitive. It's an album that has one 'mood'. And normally that's a good thing. But not on a double album (let's forget Jam for a moment). The White Album works and is a wonderful listen because of its diversity. ATMP is like four sides of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Great song, but not for an hour and a half.

 

I'll side with Lennon and McCartney on this one, thanks. If you can't take my word for it, that's fine. But you can't challenge theirs. George was a great bandmate; but he was just an average English rock guitarist and songwriter.

 

Now, see , I find this interesting ( and why I enjoy this forum ) .
You said previously that ' All Things..' was bloated and you only liked a handful of its songs.
You now praise ' Ram' which I find to be as bloated as a dead whale laying on a beach for two weeks. I only enjoy a very few of its songs. I know it gets high marks from many but I never liked it.

 

I really like Love You Too. That's my favorite Harrison song on Revolver. No knock on Taxman, it's a very cool song, but Love You Too is very innovative, to this day it sounds like nothing else the Beatles ever did and almost every other band ever did.

 

It may be good enough for you, but it really provides no confirmation at all one way or the other. The fact that the song is (apparently) not mentioned on the part of the tape Lewisohn is discussing means absolutely nothing in terms of establishing whether the Cold Turkey incident happened or not. To summarize what we know:
1. Lennon said on two separate occasions that he offered Cold Turkey to the Beatles as a single but they did not want to do it.
2. No one involved (neither the other Beatles nor any other insider) has ever said it did not happen.
3. There's no evidence of any kind that it did not happen.
4. There's a plausible occasion when it could have happened.
5. It's a story that seems entirely consistent with what we know about the personalities of the Beatles.

It continues to puzzle me greatly that you want to disbelieve Lennon's word in this case, when there is no evidence suggesting he was inaccurately describing what happened.

 

Seriously?

IMO, Plastic Ono Band is the greatest of any of the Beatles solo albums. And I'm a huuuuuuuge Paul fan.

 

I'm surprised Lewisohn would describe the tape as "rewriting everything we knew." The tape is NOT a new discovery, parts of it were paraphrased in Anthony Fawcett's 1976 book. Is Lewisohn not aware of this book?

 

I can understand that many think that way about All Things Must Pass. Many others don't. It's epic and awesome for me, not bloated and repetitive. Get your perspective though.

 

Yes, seriously. I listen to music for enjoyment, not for John's useless whining.
"It's raw and honest!" Sure it is. Still succks.

 

George had 3 songs on Revolver 3 years before this meeting.

Just saying.

 

I think that Lewisohn is attempting to generate some extra interest in his lecture tour by exaggerating the importance or uniqueness of this tape.

 

That's fair, but the thing is we can now look back 50 years later and see these albums in a different light. If I had to pick 1 McCartney album that is a fabulous listen from start to finish and 1 Lennon album that is a fabulous listen from start to finish I go Ram and Plastic Ono.

To me, those two albums are extensions of the White Album. Paul doing simple and easy acoustic numbers (I Will, Mother Nature's Son) with an occasional over-the-top production (Ob-La-Di) and a weirdo retro track (Honey Pie) and Lennon going rebellious (Revolution 1) and soul searching (Warm Gun) and very personal (Julia).

When you have a free moment, make a playlist of Ram and Plastic Ono, sequence the songs randomly, every-other-track from John and Paul, tell me it's not the White Album II. If you want to get really adventurous, put My Sweet Lord and It Don't Come Easy on there, you'll be sold on the concept then.

 

Yeah, I'm also a little suspicious because on the tape after every sentence a Beatle says "gear fab".

 

Agreed. That and Imagine are Beatles caliber imho.

As for George, I always say he should formed a new band with someone new to split the load. Roger McGuinn or Peter Frampton would have been good choices.

 

George should have just joined The Band. He always wanted to.

 

I can’t take this list seriously.

No I’d Have You Anytime?

 

I'd Have You Anytime is a nice song. It's just not as strong as the others. I find that most who rate that song so highly do so because of the "Harrison and Dylan" narrative, not because it's a particularly interesting song. Same way that people are supposed to hate Oasis and Coldplay and worship Rush and current-day Radiohead. I disagree. I like my pop songs to be poppy.

 

Thank you for understanding my post in the spirit in which it was written.

 

Well I for one didn't know the bit about Paul saying George should only have two songs per album, and I reckon I could sit on Mastermind with The Beatles as my specialist subject. Jeez it's such a shame they all got so greedy and competitive come the end.