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.

A Few Words About My Musical Background

 

Since this whole Beatles thing has gotten completely out of hand, I decided that it might be a good idea to update you about my interest in the Beatles and how I came to write all this stuff. No, it doesn’t amount to a book but there’s a whole lot more then any rock magazine is going to publish!

I don’t exactly deserve the term “Beatlemanic” – I don’t scream a whole lot – but I’m afraid I’m going to have to plead guilty to “fan.” Their story is very interesting; the “lads” were/are very interesting individuals and the group, for which the terms “gestalt” and “synergy” keep coming up, (If you aren’t sure about the definitions of these words, please go to http://dictionary.com (or your favorite online dictionary) and look them up. They are important.) accomplished truly amazing and inexplicable things.

Remember folks, the music of my teens was rock-and-roll–I was 15 and at band camp (I played clarinet, bass clarinet, and bassoon. I also took beginning band in order to skip study hall and learned a bit about french horn and drums.) when Rock Around-the-Clock came out and we learned to do the bop. I never realized until I took up this research that I heard Rock Around The Clock within a week after it hit the top of the charts. Did you know that bop differed geographically? Although a pretty untypical 15-year old, I was just as blown away by it as anyone. Didn’t do any of us in small town Tennessee much good, no sock-hops or soda shops to dance in though I do remember dancing a bit at one of the two drug stores. As Rock and Roll began to wind down and I inched out of my teens, I renewed my early interest in folk. I heard The Beatles differently from the way younger people did. Remember that I was part of the “between generation” as in between the depression and WWII. There weren’t very many of us. I’ve never done the fan thing–not for Elvis, not for Bo Diddley, not even for Pat Boone (though I still know the words to Love Letters in the Sand).

I was a “folkie”, not really a performer (didn’t play guitar although I did buy a dulcimer.) I eventually knew quite a few of the performers well enough to spend evenings at the musicians table when I lived in an apartment right across the street from the back door of the Steamboat Lounge, a jazz club which had “Hootnanny Night” on Sundays. (A hootnanny was a performance by folk singers, probably paid very little.) My then husband and I rarely missed it. Later we hung out at The Shadows in Georgetown (Washington, DC neighborhood) and knew the house musicians well enough that we were invited to be part of the “Live at” audience for their (Carol Hedin and Donal Leace) shared album. [1963 The Cellar Door opens at 34th and M Streets, NW. WAMA Hall of Fame singer/songwriter Donal Leace headlined with blues (and folk) singer Carol Hedin opening the show. The club soon becomes known as “The Home of Donal Leace.”] (Except to those who knew it as the “home of Carol Hedin!”)

I returned to Tennessee in the fall of 1962 (to work on the Congressman’s reelection campaign) and stayed. I first heard of the Beatles in probably February of 1963. Yes, I do remember (not at all well as I will explain) seeing them perform on Ed Sullivan on February 9, 1964. No, I didn’t see their subsequent appearances. My father died on the 12th. The rest of the 60s for me were pretty full of work, motherhood (a single mother from 1965 on) and a bit of a swinger, mostly around Washington, DC again. I became a serious jazz fan and hung out at several of the jazz clubs in that town including Blues Alley with the Ramsey Lewis Trio? Quartet? Anyway, Keeter Betts was the bassman and I recognized his “walking bass” in Paul’s bass. And Tommy Chase, the opening act, took me home safe the only time I ever got drunk. Also hung out at a bottle club somewhere in Northern Virginia for the Tee Carson Trio with Wilbur Little on bass and at least two other jazz venues in town. Also visited Mr. Henry’s pub on Capitol Hill (where I lived) and heard Roberta Flack doing “The First Time”, a lovely song I first heard from Carol Hedin. (This song is actually what introduced me to Carol. She said as intro that she’d learned it from a friend named Oswald [name changed to protect the guilty]. I went up to her after her set and asked if that could possibly be the Oswald I knew. Turns out it was — I’d met him at the University of Tennessee a year before.)

I recognized many of the later Beatles songs but I’ve never been someone who knows who did this or that song. Radio simply isn’t very good about giving out the names unless they are doing a top whatever session. As my daughter said at the Beatles tribute band concert she took me to; “I didn’t know Come Together was a Beatles song.” Well, neither did I until I got into this research.

Of course the most important question is do I think I finally cured myself of having their songs running through my mind? You can suggest maybe better songs to have running through my mind? Obviously there have been great and wonderful songs written and/or performed by other soloists and groups during my lifetime. However I don’t think that any single individual group has produced quite so many remembered and welcome songs. I have come to the conclusion that I can easily deal with having Beatle songs in my head. After all it could be Swinging or Achy Breaky Heart. No, I’m not picking on country music, let’s not remember Teen Angel or Chapel in the Moonlight either.

In the course of this pleasant research I’ve also written a book, which might somewhat explain why it’s gone a bit slowly. I’ve watched the full 8 video-tape set of the Beatles Anthology a great many times. Actually I found when I got seriously into finishing the book, that having it on, not very loud, helped me get work done. I don’t necessarily pay much attention but when I look up I know what year it is and what’s going on and there’s always good music to listen to. If you haven’t watched the Anthology, I highly recommend it.

A new friend, met through this Beatles interest, has provided me with all the groups music, well, all that was formally issued except for the Anthology CDs, and I have rediscovered old favorites and heard a good few of their songs I hadn’t heard at the time and my respect for the band has grown very great.

Remember, I’m just about Ringo’s age (he was the oldest of the Beatles) but Paul and my birthday are 2 days (and 2 years) apart which I tend to believe has given me some special insight into him. Fair warning, my respect for Paul has grown a great deal and I don’t like John a bit better then ever.