Mull of Kintyre

Mull is a very strange song to be a tremendously popular one. It isn’t a bit catchy, there is no “lick” or even any real “hook”. It’s one anyone can sing but it doesn’t flatter the singer’s voice. I suspect that an examination of the newspapers for a couple of months before it’s release (11/11/77*) might provide some clues as it seems to me it must be one of those songs that found it’s own perfect time and place. A perfect moment when it countered an insecurity felt by many or fulfilled a fairly specific need.

The song does invoke “indestructible Britain”; it says that some things don’t change or disappear as so much does in our times. It’s not that it invokes the past but that it places the security of a part of the past in the now.

I by no means intend to imply that Mull isn’t a good song. It simply doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of song that becomes a runaway best seller. The more usual mega-hit either is sprightly and catchy or has a hood that sinks deep into human experience/emotion, like Yesterday. Mull is practically a novelty song, particularly at a time when Folk was pretty much dead. It’s very simple, folky, in tune and lyric. The bagpipes contribute a strong pull on the sort of emotions that are very difficult to express in words and I’m sure they contributed despite the fact that you’d think they’d put the English portion off.

By the way, there may be a very simple explanation as to how Paul got the pipes in tune for recording this song: he tuned the guitars TO the pipes. Guitars are much easier to tune!

*It was the Queen’s jubilee year, she toured what was left of the Empire and then attended celebrations in various portions of Britain; EMI fired the Sex Pistols during the summer and firemen went on a national strike 3 days after the release – for what the info is worth.

Highly Miscellaneous

 I’m not in the mood to edit or to produce something all harmonious and put together today so here are some snippets of OPINION culled from my notes.

I’ve seen a number of discussions about what songs John had on his jukebox. Ever think what might be on Paul’s? Or more practically, what isn’t? I’d guess everything from madrigals to cloud chamber bowls and grand opera to Spike Jones and then some.

 “Arguing with a fanatic [is] about as profitable as arguing with a drunk and far more dangerous.” Sun wolf in The Ladies of Mardigan by Barbara Hambly Oops, that isn’t a Beatles snippet!

Of all the heinous things John did to Julian, I really think the most evil was to appropriate the song Paul wrote for Julian (Hey Jude) and say it was about John and Yoko despite Paul telling John who it was for. John’s self-absorption has reached far more then merely toxic levels at this point.

There are a lot of open questions about John’s childhood: Did Julia really have tea almost every day with Mimi? If so, how could John not have seen her regularly? Did Mimi take John away from Julia or did Julia happily hand him over? Did Mimi really want John or was she really most interested in getting even with Julia? Did Mimi love John at all? Did Mimi emotionally if not physically abuse John?

It was George Martin and the Beatles themselves who made the least out of the group’s success at least while they were still together. Martin was still on a rather skimpy salary. Brian, Dick James, EMI and all the merchandisers made the most though nobody knows what Brian did with his. After 1970, Paul clearly did far better then the others do both to the fact that he really paid attention and because his in-laws were both skilled and honest – and because his records sold a lot better.

Bad rock + lousy reception = Awful noise – oops, that was the Grammy’s last night.

Philip Norman in Shout talks about Paul marrying Linda Eastman as being “social climbing” although Linda was daughter of a poor immigrant who won a scholarship. On the other hand, Yoko, whom John married, was genuine aristocracy; a schoolmate of the future Emperor of Japan.

The words to All You Need Is Love are so breathlessly inane it’s tempting to consider them an act of genius. It’s sad and sobering to realize that they unfortunately led to Give Peace a Chance and many more completely mindless anthems through the intervening years. You know, nobody goes on and on about what Hoagie Carmical was feeling when he wrote Stardust of what tragedy in Harold Arlen’s life sparked the lyrics of Stormy Weather and I don’t even think anyone much cares what was Dylan’s inspiration for Blowin’ in the Wind.

Beatle “Managers”

Nigel Whalley

Allen Wiliams

Bob Woller

Mo Best

Sam Leach

Bill Harry

Pete Best

Brian Epstein

Peter Brown, Tony Barrow, Alistair Taylor, Neil Aspinal and

Paul McCartney

Scary thought: Paul probably was “hyperactive” as a child and John definitely had ADD and emotional problems. If they were kids today they’d be fed drugs and made normal.

The Beatles: A Rockumentary: A review. A lot of worn sound bites organized in a vaguely chronological manner. Pointless if you’ve seen Anthology and not worth more then $2 including postage.

 

 

I Remember Yesterday

I suspect one reason I’ve buried myself in the Beatles is because at this time it’s so difficult to believe that the 60s ever happened. That there was a time when people cared what their country was doing, what their president was doing. Cared about hungry people, cared about books and art and music. In the mid 90s Paul said to Miles (one of his biographers and a friend) that he felt like the 60s were yet to come. Except for the Beatles there is hardly a trace left of them.

No, everything about the 60s isn’t gone, women still have more freedom although there are those working very hard to take it away (but not the right to work, they do like those second incomes) and gays are still a bit better off, just a bit. I actually appeared at a demo for the first time in 03 (I did a lot of support work for several in the 60s which keeps you off the green at the time the cameras are there.) We’ve lost all the wins in free speech and then some. Caring about the hungry is so far lost the government has even found a way to avoid calling them “hungry.” Worst of all, all those businesses, like Apple Corps. that tried to run on trust in the employees found that, predictably, you couldn’t trust some of them. Now if it’s a business, you can’t trust any of them, particularly the suits running things. And nobody seems to see that this is a bad thing!

The more things change the more they seem the same and history repeats itself – at least I hope it does. Because right now we are so lost in a past that never really existed that surviving the results of what’s going on sometimes seems doubtful. Despite the suspicion that John was more then a bit of a pessimist, the Beatles music had a very open and optimistic quality, one that I certainly need these days. Maybe trouble wasn’t as far away as all that Yesterday, but let’s keep our eye on It’s Getting Better and also be prepared to step up and do something, when an opportunity presents itself, about it. (End unpaid semi-political announcement.)