Beatles Breakdown

The Beatles were Hopper’s longest running continuous phase of 2019. Way, way back in January, almost at random, wanting to get away from tomes on war, religion, and science, I picked up a hefty Beatles biography and read it all the way through in six weeks. I somewhat surprisingly enjoyed it. This led to further reading of a half-dozen more books on the band. Over the summer and fall I must have spent a hundred hours listening to all their albums in depth from Rubber Soul to Let It Be. (Not a big fan of early Beatlemania Beatles, but I did listen to a lot of stuff off Anthology 1, primarily to check out original drummer Pete Best.)

Anyway, I discovered a handful of really, really good tunes. Not so much of a shock there, but I reveled the delight, as I always do, of a new artistic experience. Like you, I’m probably aware of 20, 25 songs that are played fairly regularly via classic rock stations and popular media such as TV and movies. But the following are some songs I heard for the first time in 2019 that I truly enjoyed:

I’m Only Sleeping (Lennon)

And Your Bird Can Sing (Lennon)

For No One (McCartney)

Doctor Robert (Lennon)

Tomorrow Never Knows (Lennon)

Flying (instrumental; credited to all four Beatles)

I’m So Tired (Lennon)

Piggies (Harrison)

Julia (Lennon)

Yer Blues (Lennon)

Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey (Lennon)

Sexy Sadie (Lennon)

Long, Long, Long (Harrison)

Savoy Truffle (Harrison)

Cry Baby Cry (Lennon)

Some of those Lennon songs are phenomenal, sonic sculptures of perfection of two or three minutes length. And George Harrison’s ethereal and sublime “Long, Long, Long” still sends goosebumps up and down my arms six months after I first heard it. It’s perhaps the best of those new tunes I got exposed to over the summer.

I recommend them all, but I guess overall I like the stuff off The Beatles, a.k.a., the “White Album”, the best.

All in all, a great musical year for me, great especially since I haven’t really been able to get into anything new classical-wise or jazz-wise. Which has me now thinking of what other supergroups I’ve been unconsciously hearing over the years that I kinda know nothing about and would like to explore. I have some ideas, but nothing has grabbed me yet. Maybe in the new year I’ll head over to one of the big book stores and peruse the entertainment section and see what band bio leaps out at me.