A Hard Days Night is goofy fun Help... I've never seen. The Mystery Tours biggest crime is it is very dull. I love the music, but the movie... it's just really dull to me. It's trying to be trippy or whatever, but it just seems like they didn't have any solid ideas, and thought they could wing it... and who can blame them, they pretty much had the world at their feet lol... I actually really enjoyed Yellow Submarine. I don't think Return To Waterloo is remotely like any of them, in style, conception or aim. I don't dislike it... it's like one of those indie movies that reaches to do something different, on a Low Budget. Very likely if it wasn't Ray or the Kinks I wouldn't bother with it, but for the most part I really like a lot of the songs.
A Hard Day's Night is a total classic, and I speak as a non-Beatles fan, although Wilfrid Brambell is obviously the star of the movie. Help seemed like fun when I was, like, 11, but, in retrospect it's a typically shapeless and self-indulgent mid-to-late 60s British movie which isn't as good or as clever as it thinks it is.
You've never seen Help!? To me it's the perfect summer film. The color is great, the plot is silly and the songs are great. MMM is also watchable for the songs and especially for the appearance of the Bonzo Dog Band, whose Viv Stanshall does his Elvis impersonation in "Death Cab for Cutie".
The point I was making earlier today: it is in one important, over-riding way. You wouldn't be watching either unless one of your favorite bands/recording artists wasn't involved. There are all kinds of rock movies. Cool stuff like the That'll Be the Day/Stardust series. (I bought a region-free DVD player just so I could see both again.) Hedwig and the Angry Inch (although the musical seen live was so much better). Phantom of the Paradise. Concert movies ranging from stunning to watching-paint-dry dull. Rock stars acting in movies that have nothing to do with music (but you will go see it because you're a huge fan of the rockstar). And so on. I guess the catch to Return to Waterloo was Ray coming up with an original plot line and matching his music to various points in the story. Not a full-on musical. Not the band frolicking in montages to their songs between some paper-thin plot. Not a concept album translated into a movie. Does that make it interesting and/or watchable? I'll leave it up to the viewer. But I will say, whoever mentioned Slade in Flame upthread, that movie feels like Citizen Kane in comparison!
I love A Hard Day's Night, Help, and Magical Mystery Tour. The first one is a classic and likely the best film, but I think Help is nearly as good. Magical Mystery Tour is a trip and not a great film, but highly entertaining, especially for all the videos and songs. I visited Liverpool a few years ago and went on a Beatles tour on a Magical Mystery Tour bus! Satisfaction guaranteed! Return To Waterloo must not have very many fans these days. I went and picked up the record today from my local shop. It was $5 and has been in the racks for about a year. Hopefully, I get a chance to listen tonight and watch the film. I started watching the first 15 minutes and it's too early to tell if I will like it. It is interesting that the cinematographer was Roger Deakins before his film career really got rolling.
I did not know that Ray published a short story collection, have you read any of it? What did you think? I just watched Return To Waterloo, it’s better than I remembered, though it helps that I’m more familiar with the songs now, and with Ray’s work.
Ray put out a book of short stories called Waterloo Sunset in the late 1990s in different UK and US editions. The stories were mostly based on his songs, including one story that was based on Return to Waterloo and was written from the viewpoint of the main character. I have both editions and it’s an interesting read. I’m currently listening to UK Jive while typing this & it’s not that bad.
Ok, this is an even bigger confession than my Slade In Flame one that may entirely sink my rep (considering I have somewhat given the impression of being a connoisseur of early pop music video at times on this thread) but….. I’ve never seen Help! either!!!! And I’m a huge Beatles fan. Just one of those things: I never seemed to catch it on TV growing up (whereas Hard Days Night and Yellow Sub seemed to be on the schedules fairly regularly)… I had the MMT video from early on in my fandom, and Let It Be was literally the first thing I looked up on the first day I discovered YouTube existed in late 2005… but Help! fell through the cracks somehow… by the time I was in my 30s and and a budding Beatles footage enthusiast, the fact I’d still never seen Help! got more and more bizzare… events seemed to conspire to thwart me at points: I remember I was over a friends house about 10 years ago, also a big Beatles fan, we were settling in for a night drinking in front of the tv: he asked me what I’d like to watch and spying his Help’ DVD box set, I asked if we could watch that, and…….. he point blank refused! Saying that other than the song performances, it wasn’t a great film. Instead he insisted we watch the Ade Edmondson/Rik Mayall etc heavy metal spoof ‘Bad News’. Now it’s got to the point where I’m 41 and still a Help! virgin and I think, heck I might as well keep this going unless the stars align themselves: I know I could probably easily buy a copy on Amazon right now, but there’s also something kind of (perversely) cool about knowing that there’s 90 minutes of prime Beatles colour film that I’ve still to see out there waiting for me for the right time. It’s so weird as well cos I’ve encountered lots of fans over the years for whom Help! was their entry point into Beatles fandom!
When I was nine years old, in 1970, I went to see a Beatles double feature in London, Ontario with my two older siblings. It was the new Let It Be movie which from my point of view at that age was a non-stop snooze fest and the band I knew as the Beatles certainly did not seem to get along. The second of the two Beatles films was Help. I had never seen the Beatles as the adorable Mop Tops (I had heard the White Album and Abbey Road plus the North American Hey Jude album). Help was a breath of fresh air that day after the depressing Let It Be film (from my nine year old perspective).
So it appears I missed something here... In 2001 Dave released a solo album on Meta Media called Fragile, and it is a series of tracks he recorded over the years. The compilation works somewhat like Decade and was released in 2001. Dave Davies – Fragile Label: Meta Media Records – MM04 Series: Meta Media Demo Series – none Format: CD, Album, Compilation Country: US Released: 2001 Genre: Rock 1 Astral Nightmare .....3:44......... 1995 2 Violet Dreams .........5:02 .........1977 Bass – Andy Pyle Drums – Nick Trevisick 3 I'm Sorry..................4:49 ........1995 4 Give Something Back 3:34 ... Oct 1987 5 Hope ........................4:25.......Oct 1987 6 Bright Lights........... 2:42 ......Jul 1987 7 Open Up Your Heart 3:57 .... 2001 8 Wait! ........................3:41 .....Jul 1987 9 No More Mysteries 4:28....Apr 1987 10 Lost In Your Arms 3:07....1994 11 Long Lonely Road 5:27....2001 Bass – Andy Pyle Drums – Nick Trevisick So I don't know anything about this one, but the song Violet Dreams is obviously one that should have been in the mix around the Sleepwalker Misfits era.... Thank for the heads up @pyrrhicvictory Violet Dreams. Violet dreams caress my eyes And my heart cries out to you Gently, peace will flow In and out of you So we'll all follow you[?] Funny how it goes There's a plan[?] that's finally found a home We [?] singing out a chorus Now we can open all of life's golden doors Broken schemes are turned in the earth That supports and gives life to you Gently each wind that blows Hides the voice of truth Calling to you, but We know that you haven't got the time To listen to the [?] that beats with yours And my future passes us [?] We can open [?] Oooh, these foolish ways We know that we should change We could see [?] A light that does [?] [?] But your memory retains You're a part of me I'm part of you Wherever we go Sweet dreams Like a rose will grow In the very heart of you Someday love will come And the world will change And then we can be free Anytime at all We will [?] the clouds that bear the storms When you decide to come along Violet dreams will take your aching soul Violet dreams caress my eyes And my heart cries out to you Gently peace will flow In and out of you And forever be Written by: Dave Davies Published by: Dabe Music We have an interesting lyric that could be about something spiritual or perhaps a stylized love song of sorts. I haven't had a chance to digest this one, and I'm kind of operating on the fly here. This is a really interesting track musically, and seems quite different to pretty much anything that I have heard from Dave at this stage. We have this dreamy kind of track, that suits the lyric, and Dave moves into this seemingly quite technical series of chord changes that keep me engaged, even on this first listen. We get, for the most part, a really pleasant vocal, that aside from a few moves into falsetto, it has that smooth easy to listen to Dave vocal. The song kind of gently rolls along moving through some nice rhythmic and chord changes, and it reminds me of something style-wise, but I haven't even had a chance to have a coffee yet, so I'm making no sense. The bridge gives us a nice change up.... Anyway, I'm just going to post the song, because I have no ability to focus my thoughts this morning. I like this, I think it's a solid song, and has an interesting layout. The lead break later in the song is very cool too.
Lol.... I'm pretty sure the only reason that Elvis didn't end up staying with Ann Margaret was pressure from Parker and the boys.... I don't think Elvis was intimidated by Ann, but Parker certainly was.
Welcome to the forum. We're up to Ray's Return To Waterloo. If you go back a few pages to Saturday morning around 5am, you'll see a thread guide to take you to all the places we've been. As you say, the thread has been quite long, with still quite a ways to go, and yes it has been fun. Feel free to join in.
"Violet Dreams" Never heard this one before - a very intriguing track. Lots of nice chord changes and a pleasant dreamy atmosphere. Maybe a bit long and not focussed as much as it could be, but there is certainly the germ of a decent album track here. Could have worked well on the bar code album.
‘Violet Dreams’: the “violet dreams caress my eyes” part sounds like Wishbone Ash before it wanders off into a slightly different direction. Yes, this is a highly listenable song. I enjoyed it.
Side note: live by the playlist, die by the playlist. Per standard shuffle mode review methodology, ‘Summer’s Gone’ has…gone. Cut. Didn’t stand up to peer review.
On first listen, 'Violet Dreams' reminds me a bit melodically of something by Arthur Lee and Love, in particular 'Willow Willow'.
