Josh Turner Guitar Covers "And Your Bird Can Sing"

 

And here's Josh Turner Guitar (that's his performance name) and two guys doing a pretty good cover of The Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing".  I first became aware of Turner via his cover of The Beach Boys "Sloop John B" -- not as letter-perfect as The Fendertones, but also pretty good.

Several points about this song and this video:

1. Although John Lennon famously didn't like this song,* and neither does Peter Asher (he wondered why it did so well in one of his listener-selected Top 100 Beatles countdowns in 2017 on Sirius XM Radio), I always agreed with Rob Sheffield that "it's one of his best songs ever".   (I sent Asher an email explaining why I thought the song was so good, and he replied "Very cool!")

*He also didn't like "It's Only Love," another one of his very best songs.

2. In addition to being "so scathing and yet also so empathetic and friendly," as Sheffield says, it's also "packed with tiny musical triumphs".  Sheffield mentions the "girl-group hand-claps that sneak into the song for the middle guitar break".  One of my all-time favorite "tiny musical triumphs" in any song is the minor-to-major chord change in "And Your Bird" on the word "awoken" (1min13sec to 1min14sec in this video) -- just a perfect acoustic coming to life of that word.

3. In the Turner video, I have no idea if this was deliberately staged, but the background works just right: the guy in the red hat kicking a ball and then the little dog on a leash pulling the blonde and brunette birds in masks.  A time-stamp tableau of our age.

Ok - here's Josh Turner Guitar and a different crew doing "Sloop John B" on a bus at the end of 2018

And my reviews of Rob Sheffield's masterful Dreaming the Beatles begin here.

The Rolling Stones - Never Over

I'm in a musical mood today - see my review from an hour ago of The Blue Dahlia's new La Tradition Américaine album - and I wanted to say something about The Rolling Stones. Yesterday was Mick Jagger's 75th birthday (jeez, he's just four year older than me), and I've been listening to and watching a lot of their videos on YouTube.  Especially this one, definitely one of my favorites, because it most typifies what I've always loved about The Stones:



The sheer energy of these guys - look at how they move - was always one-of-a-kind.  In this song, add to that Mick's especially good strutting, Keith's rhythm (with his feet - he's playing lead guitar), and the great angry delivery of Brian Jones.  Even stoic Bill Wyman manages something close to a smile, and Charlie Watts was, well, Charlie Watts.   (This video probably benefits from an overdub of the song that was better than the sound at the live performance, but that doesn't matter.)

I've always considered The Stones second only to The Beatles - a long way below the Beatles, but a long way above every other band.  But over the past few days, and especially epitomized by this video, The Stones have moved a lot up for me.  They're still no threat to The Beatles, but they're much closer.

Rob Sheffield, in his superb Dreaming the Beatles, provides a good account of The Beatles and The Stones.  The two were woven together in all kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  Next time I hear Lennon's inimitable "I Dig A Pony" on The Beatles Sirius XM Radio Channel, I'm going to quietly chide him for his attack on The Stones as imitators. True, they did imitate and get inspired by a lot of The Beatles.  But The Rolling Stones had a passion and energy on stage, and some kind of bite to their music, that The Beatles never quite had.

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 24 of 24: The Last Two

The title of this, my concluding review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles - concluding, at least, for now - refers not to the surviving members of the Beatles, or "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love," but to the last chapters in Sheffield's book.  I began reviewing this book here literally a year ago - May 23, 2017 - and have been taking my time enjoying this book, as I would with any masterpiece.

So let me begin this conclusion by saying, again, that Sheffield is one hell of a writer.  His very last line in the book is "The field is forever" - a play on Harrison's "Sorry we hurt your field, Mister" line in A Hard Day's Night, through to the Beatles leaving the field of their last in-person performance, all tied together, of course, with "Strawberry Fields Forever".  If you want a literary journey in which nearly every other line is packed with such intelligence, depth, and poetry, Dreaming the Beatles is for you.

As I usually but not always say - like most pain-in-the-ass reviewers (by which I mean that reviewers are intrinsically pains in the ass to writers, and I say this as someone who works or walks on both sides of that street) - but as I usually say in my reviews, I don't agree with everything Sheffield says.  "Yes It Is" in one of my all-time favorite songs - all-time favorite Beatles songs, all-time repeating few-minute segments of  my life.  It's had such a powerful effect on me that I gave it a key and crucial role at the end of my triple-nominated Loose Ends time-travel novella ("Real Love" figures later on in The Loose Ends Saga).   For me, "Yes It Is" is about Lennon telling this girl not to wear red, because a girl that Lennon deeply loved, who left Lennon, and shattered his heart, wore that same shade.   I suppose the girl could be literally dead, and that's why she's no longer part of Lennon's life, but I don't see why Sheffield presents that as the de facto interpretation.

But small potatoes, as far as objections from me about this wonderful book are concerned, because it also has throwaway lines like "I would not have wasted any sympathy on Kevin Kline if I knew he'd marry Phoebe Cates" all over the place.   And the main thesis of these last two chapters - that the Beatles truly came into their own not in the 1960s but in the 1990s, or three decades after the group disbanded, was not only true a year ago, when I began reading and reviewing this book, but is even more true today, with music playing on The Beatles Channel on Sirius XM Radio every minute of every day (I've refrained from saying eight days a week - though I guess by mentioning that refrain, I actually didn't refrain).

I've mentioned how hearing the Beatles every day, in every way, has lifted my existence - which was pretty high already - this past year, and how that experience was enhanced by shows like Peter Asher's and Dennis Elsas's on The Beatles Channel, as well reading Sheffield's book.  My one big regret in finishing this book is that I won't have it any more - at least, not for the first time - to read along with listening to the Beatles on Sirius XM.  ("For the first time" ... reminds me of an especially memorable passage in Dreaming the Beatles, earlier in the book, where Sheffield remarks how Cynthia must have felt when she heard John singing he was "in love for the first time" about Yoko in "Don't Let Me Down," which I heard just the other day on The Beatles Channel.)

But I will be able to dip into relevant portions of this book - on just about every page - whenever I like.  And I was delighted to see on Sheffield's Facebook page just yesterday that he's becoming a paperback writer for the book (see, punning on the Beatles the way Sheffield does is catching) - meaning, a new paperback edition, with some new material, will be published next month, in June!

So I'll no doubt be back here with a review of that, sometime in late June.  Also - I'll be putting together a single text with all 24 of my reviews, and posting it on my Academia page, and also a podcast in which you can hear me read these reviews out loud (no doubt with some embellishments, including me singing a line or two from who knows how many Beatles songs).   I'll post links to all that here.

Until then - thanks again Rob Sheffield, for creating an essential and marvelous component in the clearly continuing story of the Beatles.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

Review of Rob Sheffield’s Dreaming the Beatles 23 of X: Near the Science Fiction Shop

It’s been more than two months since I’ve read a chapter and posted a review (really more my commentary than proper review, whatever exactly that is) of Rob Sheffield’s wonderful Dreaming the Beatles. The main reason, as I’ve said here before, is that I don’t want the dream to ever end. But you can’t put off the inevitable forever, and The Beatles Channel on Sirius XM Radio with DJs like Peter Asher, Dennis Elsas, Laura Cantrell, and Meg Griffin is pretty good consolation.  I listen to the channel every day, still manage to hear a song I haven’t heard in decades once or twice a week, and am still learning new things about fame and music.  (For some reason having nothing to do with this review, “Honey Pie” which I heard yesterday is still in my head today.  So is “It’s Only Love,” but I know the reason for that, it’s one of the best love songs ever written and sung, even though Lennon said otherwise.)

And that’s as good a segue as I’ll give you for the first of the last three chapters in Dreaming the Beatles, this one about the immediate aftermath of John Lennon’s murder.  Sheffield explores this by looking at the effect of that beyond-tragedy on Yoko and Paul, and relating this to his own experience as a widower, and how it immediately gave him a kinship with Yoko.  Here we get another facet of Sheffield’s peerless writing - quiet and deeply effective and intensely personal when it needs to be.

Sheffield once passed Yoko on the street - not far from where the Science Fiction Shop used to be, which,  as fate would have it,  I just had occasion to write about a few weeks ago.  Meetings like this have a science fictional aspect wherever they happen to occur.  Rob and Yoko exchanged big smiles, even though he wasn’t sure at the time she was Yoko.

I said a few months ago on Twitter that I get tears in my eyes every time I hear John sing “Oh Yoko,” which I had just heard then on The Beatles Channel. There is a magic in New York City, and I’ll always love living here, but there is pain here, too, and always will be, because of what happened to John at The Dakota.  I’ve tried to change that reality in my science fiction - but, after all, that’s just fiction.

But Rob crossed paths with Yoko in reality, and that will live forever, too - like The Beatles, The Beatles Channel, and this book.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

"Ian, Isaac, and John" and "Saving Lennon" in this antho

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 22 of X: The 70s Till the End

It's a testament to how good a book is that you seem to say every chapter is the best.  I'm not going to go back and read my 21 previous reviews of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles - right, I'm reviewing this book just about chapter by chapter - because I'm more in the mood to write this review than do even a modicum of research, but it sure feels like I've said that lots of times in the past nearly year.  And each time I say that, I usually put in the proviso that this chapter really is the best in the book.  Which is exactly how I feel about this one, which is about The Beatles in the decade of the 70s, not individually (the focus of some of the other chapters in this book), but, somehow, as a group, typified by Capitol's release of their Rock 'n' Roll Music double-vinyl album in 1976, and kindred releases, and lost chances, all culminating with the Dakota in New York City in December 1980.

Sheffield brings his customary intensity and light touch to the subject, getting us to twist and shout and just about everything in between and before and beyond as we read this chapter.  We learn that even Ringo felt used by the album - "When Ringo feels degraded, you know things are out of hand" - and how John's line to the effect that one can be a "delinquent" by buying a "rock and roll book" empowered Sheffield.  As is clear from the first page of Dreaming the Beatles, this is as much Sheffield's autobiography as it is The Beatles biography, and that's key to why it's such irresistible reading.

We hear again about what we already knew - John and Paul, in New York at the Dakota, almost went down to Rockefeller Center for an impromptu appearance on Saturday Night Live in response to Lorne Michaels' running gag - and some things we didn't, like Lennon's statement (in a sworn affidavit) at the end of November 1980 that The Beatles had "plans to stage a reunion concert".  Lost opportunities, which just an excruciating month later became impossible to ever recover.

Sheffield importantly mentions that Lennon was murdered by someone with "a legally purchased handgun".  I don't have to tell you the sick synchrony of that with the legally purchased semi-automatic that took the lives of 17 people,  many of them students, at Parkland High School in Florida last week.  Not only is the legal age (18) at which someone can purchase a firearm lower in many states than the age at which someone can buy a drink (21), it is easier to purchase a more deadly long gun than a handgun in many states as well.  This insanity has to fucking end, beginning with voting out of office all the NRA-whipped Republicans who stand in the way of sensible gun reform.

The murder of John Lennon didn't get that reform, and so far neither have the subsequent mass shootings at schools, concerts, and houses of worship.  But the murder of John Lennon did extinguish a part of our innocence - at least, my innocence - in a way slightly different but related to the awful eradications of innocence that attended the murders of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy.  Dion's "Abraham, Martin and John" (written by Dick Holler) captured part of this in 1968.

The end of 1980 also brought the loss of Marshall McLuhan (who actually had been interviewed by John and Yoko a few years earlier).  McLuhan died of natural causes - a stroke - but his death was as traumatic and life-changing for me as Lennon's.  Tina and I went up to Toronto for Marshall's funeral (I'd worked with Marshall at the end of the 1970s), and I've written half a dozen books either completely or mostly devoted to explicating and expanding his work since then (Digital McLuhan, McLuhan in Age of Social Media, etc).

I've written no books about John Lennon or The Beatles, but he and they have figured in my science fiction novels and stories.  One nice thing about time travel is you can have a chance to undo some terrible event, like the murder of John Lennon, by traveling back to the past.  But that's fiction.   In the world of reality, the best you can do is read Rob Sheffield's book.

And I'll be back soon with a review of one of the dwindling number of remaining chapters in this one of a kind book, Dreaming the Beatles.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

"Ian, Isaac, and John" and "Saving Lennon" in this antho

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 21 of X: Resistance

It's been nearly a month since I posted a review of a chapter or two of Rob Sheffield's superb Dreaming the Beatles because, as I've said before, I don't want this book to end.  I want it to last forever, as I do its subject, The Beatles.  And I'm sure they - the book and The Beatles - will.

We're now into the sad and sadder part of the book.  And amidst the gathering ruins of The Beatles, no longer recording together, soon to experience far worse events, Sheffield manages to ingenuously pull together strands that no one else would or could connect, and weave into a riveting now close to heartbreaking chapter.

This time it's a comparison of John Lennon's "Revolution" (of course recorded with the Beatles) and Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" (of course recorded after the Beatles disbanded).  No one but Sheffield could possibly see and convincingly argue that these two songs are really about the same thing, and show that despite the many differences between Lennon and McCartney, they nonetheless were in many ways almost the same person, or brothers.

Both songs, Sheffield explains, are about the The Beatles' resistance to authority.  Lennon's "Revolution" is about not being dictated to by trendy political truth-tellers, of which we now in 2018 obviously have a myriad, on any screen you see.  McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" is about not being told what to do - what to sing about - by self-appointed pop-cultural gurus (of which Robert Christgau was a prime example back then, and which we all suffer a myriad of advice from, nowadays as well).  And like I once read somewhere about Immanuel Kant, a philosopher much harder to understand than is Sheffield, once you consider his hypothesis about these songs, you realize instantly that he is right.

Sheffield couples and discusses other Lennon and McCartney solo recordings, such as Lennon's "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" and McCartney's "What the Man Said".  Here I'll say that I've always liked pop more than (I think) Sheffield does - "Afternoon Delight," for example, by the Starland Vocal Band in 1976, was and always will be one of my favorite recordings.  And I don't know if Lennon's "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" is pop.  How could it be, with a line like "Don't need a watch to waste your time" (my favorite line in the song)  which sounds like it could have come out Dylan's "My Back Pages"?

Sheffield also says that "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" isn't played on radio anymore, because of it's "Don't need a gun to blow you mind" line, but I just heard it on The Beatles Channel on Sirius XM Radio.  The times they are a-changing, including an evolution in our understanding and appreciation of The Beatles, of which The Beatles Channel and Dreaming the Beatles are essential parts.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

 
lots of Beatles in this time travel 

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass"

What better way to conclude the year than with a review of the next section of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles, which has accompanied me for more than half a year now, as I read the book bit by bit, with still more to follow, I'm glad to say, in 2018.  This is the case - what better way - even though we're knocking on the door of the saddest part of the story, and indeed are already there.

Sheffield presents a grimmer than usual portrait of George Harrison in 1970s, after the Beatles disbanded.  He's dissolute, unable to hit his notes or remember his lyrics, verbally happy about the breakup but ravaged by cocaine and booze.  I knew none of this in the 70s.  I was beginning to pull away from music by the middle of the decade, and wouldn't regain my daily proximity until, well ... this very year, and the coming of the Beatles Channel on Sirius XM Radio (not just the music but priceless I-was-there commentary by Peter Asher on his "From Me To You" and his commentary of the listener-voted Top 100 show, where I learned, for example, that the "cool bendy guitar" work on "Ticket to Ride" was by Paul not George) all stoked by Sheffield's book.

I'd heard "All Things Must Pass" in the 1970s, but didn't recognize it for what it was until 2008, when I was finishing up the first edition of New New Media, and chose "All Things Must Pass" as, ironically, a perfect example of the immortality of music on YouTube, or of some great things never passing.

Sheffield cites someone who says "All Things Must Pass" is the "wisest" song the Beatles never included on an album (they decided not include it on Let It Be).  He agrees, and judges it one of the very best of the Beatles songs released to the world after the group broke up.  I'd agree, and would go a little further.

First, along with "Taxman" and "My Guitar Gently Weeps," I think "All Things Must Pass" is among the best Beatle songs ever written by members of the group during and after they were together.  The lyric is in a class by itself, and couldn't have been written by Lennon or McCartney, or by Lennon and McCartney, either.  If Harrison was significantly responsible for the Beatles, in his way as much as Lennon or McCartney, "All Things Must Pass," with its wisdom, sensitivity, and cutting edge, tells us why.  It is at least as extraordinary as the closest Lennon and McCartney songs in theme, which I guess would be "Across the Universe," "Long and Winding Road," and "Two of Us".

Ironically but indicatively, the best performance of "All Things Must Pass" now on video is at the George 2002 memorial concert, and is sung just perfectly by Paul. (And, of course, I can't now find this video on YouTube - here it is on Vimeo.) (If your soul doesn't get choked up watching this video, you're not fully human.) The song indeed passed, but unto another Beatle, and therein the future at large, and humanity both here and now on Planet Earth and in the future in the stars.

Happy New Year everyone - I'll see you here next year, very soon, with more reviews of this superb book.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

 
lots of Beatles in this time travel

Moody Blues on PBS

Justin Hayward and John Lodge singing Nights in White Satin

My wife and I would've gone to see The Moody Blues and their 50th anniversary (of Days of Future Past) concert this past July at Jones Beach, but we'd just gotten back from Cape Cod the day before and were still unpacking.  Fortunately, PBS captured one of their concerts that summer (in Toronto), and we recently saw it.

We've loved the Moody Blues since the late 1960s.  We rediscovered them in the 1990s, when we saw them (on PBS) at their Red Rocks concert in 1992.  We heard then, for the first time, some of their newer material like "Wildest Dreams" and "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," and a lot more.  We've seen them in several concerts in the New York area, and thought they were superb.

For a variety of reasons that I've never understood, The Moody Blues are not held in universally highest regard.  They're now scheduled be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, but that should have happened decades ago.  On a personal note, I submitted an article about The Moody Blues (I may still have it somewhere on a floppy disk or a faded print-out, I'm not sure) to Rolling Stone Magazine in the mid-1990s, and it was promptly turned down on the grounds that no one cared anymore about The Moody Blues.

But on another personal note, The Moody Blues have greatly influenced my own music - "Forever Friday" on Twice Upon A Rhyme wouldn't have been written without "Tuesday Afternoon" - and whatever poetry is in my writing, I attribute at least in part to inspiration from their lyrics.   If we're talking about top bands, no one compares with The Beatles (read Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles and listen to the Beatles Channel on Sirius XM if for some reason you need to know why).  And The Rolling Stones pretty much are undisputed for second place.  But as for the rest of my Top Five, I'd easily include The Moody Blues among them, and sometimes ahead of The Beachboys, The Who, and The Eagles.

Anyway - if you ever loved them, they're almost as good now.  Their guitar-playing is fine, Justin Hayward hits all of his notes well (as a comparison, a bit better than Paul McCartney now), John Lodge is ok (not as good vocally now as McCartney), and Graeme Edge is fine on drums.  The back up band is excellent.  The songs are as fresh and poetic and what I think of as watercolor beautiful as ever.

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney

Next up in Rob Sheffield's one-of-a-kind Dreaming the Beatles, which I've been reviewing here now about a chapter a month, because that's the way I like it, is an outstanding defense of Paul McCartney, as only Sheffield with his combination of depth, irreverence, and sheer style could do it.

The thing is - as you'll know from reading almost any one of my previous reviews here (see list at end of this review) - I don't think McCartney needs any defense.  I find people who don't like his music tone-deaf, jealous, or at best marching to a drummer so different from mine that I have nothing to say to them.  It's not that I love every song McCartney has written and recorded.  It's just that I love more of them then I do any other artist's.  It's not that I don't love Lennon just as much, and that I don't acknowledge that many of Lennon's songs, from when he was with the Beatles (like "Rain") and when he was on his own (like "Jealous Guy" or even "Whatever Gets You Through the Night") are easily as good as or even better than McCartney's best.   It's just I've gotten a little more, in sum, over the years, from McCartney's music than from Lennon's, and this was so even before the unacceptably tragic day when Lennon was murdered (my Loose Ends Saga concludes with a time-traveling plan to prevent that).

And it's not that I agree with every move McCartney has made outside of the studio, either.  On a personal level, I imagined that McCartney would contact me after my Vote for McCartney was published in The Village Voice in 1971 (my first published article).   That never happened (but I was thrilled when my son, Simon Vozick-Levinson, got to interview McCartney twice for Rolling Stone decades later).  But regarding McCartney's music - the worst I can say about it is some of his songs and recordings aren't as wonderful as others.  Which is why I think his career needs no defense.

Yet Sheffield's defense is both a pleasure to read and useful.  I confess to never having heard So Bad, a McCartney song which Sheffield enjoys.  I just listened to it on YouTube, and concur with Sheffield.  (He might have also mentioned two McCartney songs from a little later which are among my favorites - My Brave Face which he wrote with Elvis Costello, and Hope of Deliverance - by, hey, different strokes.)  And Sheffield's takes on various aspects of McCartney's life and career - ranging from quick notes like "he did less to fuck up his good luck than any rock star ever" to a magnificent, extended little essay on Paul McCartney and Cary Grant as two very similar expressions of working class Brits become famous in America - are genius.  (And just for good measure, I agree completely with Sheffield's praise for McCartney's concert in 2016 - my wife and I felt the same about his concert in Hempstead, NY this past Fall.)

All of which adds up to McCartney, though his admirability should be self-evident, is fortunate to have someone with Sheffield's pop-cultural sensitivity and analytic depth writing about him in this destined-to-be classic book.  McCartney doesn't need this defense but he more than deserves it.

And I'll be reviewing more of this book soon.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ...  20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

 
lots of Beatles in this time travel