All Their Words of Kindness Linger on When She No Longer Needs You
So a few years ago Rolling Stone mag put out a special issue featuring their list of the 500 best albums of all time. Not surprisingly I own a lot of these albums and I have my own words for most of them. Of course, this means I will be writing them here, but I'm not going to go over a big chunk of the list because I'm just way too lazy. So I'll take the top three starting from the bottom and ending at number one...........
3. Revolver - The Beatles
Rubber Soul has always been my favorite Beatles album. I just always liked how it was a perfect transition between the bubble gumness of their early work and the acid trip of their later work, not unlike Ok Computer being a transition between heavy guitar Radiohead and super computer Radiohead. The thing is Revolver as, George Harrison was quoted in the Rolling Stone feature, could easily have been added on to Rubber Soul as the second part to that album. So I guess it's fair to say that Rubber Soul/Revolver is my favorite Beatles album. When we hear about the Beatles the word influential always pops up, and to those who don't really get it let me just shove it down your throat one more time. The reason why the Beatles are the most important band in the history of rock, alongside the only other band we'll talk about in these discussions, is that they changed the business and made it into what it is today. Given the short attention span of typical teenagers, the main consumers of pop rock, the genre was heavily dependent on singles. Creating a full length album of solid music was not a priority to musicians. Rubber Soul/Revolver and the number two and number one albums on this list are undoubtedly the albums that changed this forever (but not necessarily the first records to bring about the concept of solid start to finish albums). These albums were pieces of art from start to finish. They were not singles with fillers. They were fantastic whole works that were meant to be listened to all the way. They were to capture that short attention span of those teenagers and make them realize that there was a world around them.
When you pop Revolver into your CD player, or throw the piece of vinyl on your phonograph, you cannot dislike any of the songs. You just can't. They are too good. This album deserves to be on any top albums list and it deserves to be as high as it is placed here, my only disagreement would be that it should be linked with Rubber Soul. Anyway, let me talk specifically about a few select songs from the album.
A long long long time ago, during my first round at college, I was given an assignment in a creative writing class to write a very short story about a break up. In this story the narrator implies that one benefit from having his heart break was that now he could listen to songs like "For No One" and really get it. I had no idea that I was forecasting an experience of my own. "For No One" is one of McCartney's most beautiful songs and you don't have to listen to the lyrics to understand that, yet it's after you do pay attention to the lyrics, after you've experienced it yourself, that you completely get it. McCartney took the sadness of heart break and made it beautiful, so much so that if you hadn't felt it before you almost wanted to.
From what we can tell, if John Lennon isn't sleeping he's so tired. Throughout his career Lennon was able to take things we wanted to say and put it in killer songs. In "I'm Only Sleeping" the message is clear, "Leave me the fuck along." This song has always been one of my favorite songs. It's a song that hits you with a powerful opening note and continues on with flowing melody along the lyrics "Please don't spoil my day. I'm miles away and after all I'm only sleeping."
"Here, There And Everywhere" is the Beatles' resident balladeer doing what he does best, creating completely cheesy songs yet making them so good you forget that they are cheesy. Lyrics such as "changing my life with the wave of her hand" and "if she's beside me I know I need never care" are enough to murder the lactose intolerant, but McCartney makes it work.
Anyway, I guess that's enough on Revolver. Stay tuned for number 2 - Pet Sounds. Those who know me or who have read this blog regularly know I have a loooooooooooootttt to say on this album.
3. Revolver - The Beatles
Rubber Soul has always been my favorite Beatles album. I just always liked how it was a perfect transition between the bubble gumness of their early work and the acid trip of their later work, not unlike Ok Computer being a transition between heavy guitar Radiohead and super computer Radiohead. The thing is Revolver as, George Harrison was quoted in the Rolling Stone feature, could easily have been added on to Rubber Soul as the second part to that album. So I guess it's fair to say that Rubber Soul/Revolver is my favorite Beatles album. When we hear about the Beatles the word influential always pops up, and to those who don't really get it let me just shove it down your throat one more time. The reason why the Beatles are the most important band in the history of rock, alongside the only other band we'll talk about in these discussions, is that they changed the business and made it into what it is today. Given the short attention span of typical teenagers, the main consumers of pop rock, the genre was heavily dependent on singles. Creating a full length album of solid music was not a priority to musicians. Rubber Soul/Revolver and the number two and number one albums on this list are undoubtedly the albums that changed this forever (but not necessarily the first records to bring about the concept of solid start to finish albums). These albums were pieces of art from start to finish. They were not singles with fillers. They were fantastic whole works that were meant to be listened to all the way. They were to capture that short attention span of those teenagers and make them realize that there was a world around them.
When you pop Revolver into your CD player, or throw the piece of vinyl on your phonograph, you cannot dislike any of the songs. You just can't. They are too good. This album deserves to be on any top albums list and it deserves to be as high as it is placed here, my only disagreement would be that it should be linked with Rubber Soul. Anyway, let me talk specifically about a few select songs from the album.
A long long long time ago, during my first round at college, I was given an assignment in a creative writing class to write a very short story about a break up. In this story the narrator implies that one benefit from having his heart break was that now he could listen to songs like "For No One" and really get it. I had no idea that I was forecasting an experience of my own. "For No One" is one of McCartney's most beautiful songs and you don't have to listen to the lyrics to understand that, yet it's after you do pay attention to the lyrics, after you've experienced it yourself, that you completely get it. McCartney took the sadness of heart break and made it beautiful, so much so that if you hadn't felt it before you almost wanted to.
From what we can tell, if John Lennon isn't sleeping he's so tired. Throughout his career Lennon was able to take things we wanted to say and put it in killer songs. In "I'm Only Sleeping" the message is clear, "Leave me the fuck along." This song has always been one of my favorite songs. It's a song that hits you with a powerful opening note and continues on with flowing melody along the lyrics "Please don't spoil my day. I'm miles away and after all I'm only sleeping."
"Here, There And Everywhere" is the Beatles' resident balladeer doing what he does best, creating completely cheesy songs yet making them so good you forget that they are cheesy. Lyrics such as "changing my life with the wave of her hand" and "if she's beside me I know I need never care" are enough to murder the lactose intolerant, but McCartney makes it work.
Anyway, I guess that's enough on Revolver. Stay tuned for number 2 - Pet Sounds. Those who know me or who have read this blog regularly know I have a loooooooooooootttt to say on this album.
posted by Angelo at 4/12/2006 01:23:00 AM
2 Comments:
I think I wrote about how George Harrison called Revolver an extension of Rubber Soul.....I believe you have a point that songs on Revolver could have been in Rubber Soul, but I'll throw in a point right back at you that songs like "Norwegian Wood" and "Girl" could have very well been on Revolver. Thus I would totally agree with the Beatle himself that those albums are essentially two parts of a whole...and so I'll go back to the conclusion I implied in my entry that Rubber Soul/Revolver are the transitions albums
Wasn't Ice-T in the Beatles?
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