The Beatles

Sad little Beatle-y trivia tidbit for today (although you folks over there probably saw this already):

Lucy of `Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' fame dies
(AP) – 1 day ago

LONDON — The real life Lucy from the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has died after a long fight against lupus.

The death of Lucy Vodden at age 46 has been announced by St. Thomas' Hospital in London, where she was treated.

The hospital said Monday she died after battling the disease for years.

Vodden came to the attention of John Lennon when the Beatles' young son Julian came home from school one day with a drawing that he said was "Lucy in the sky with diamonds."

The elder Lennon turned it into a psychedelic masterpiece long associated with LSD use.

Julian Lennon reached out to Vodden in recent years as she suffered from the disease.

Lupus is a chronic illness during which the immune system attacks the body's own tissue.

Read this yesterday and it shows how staggeringly productive The Beatles were.

"Abbey Road came out in late September 1969. The Beatles' first album, Please Please Me, had come out almost exactly six and a half years earlier. So if Abbey Road had been released today, Please Please Me would date to March 2003. So think about that for a sec: Twelve studio albums and a couple of dozen singles, with a sound that went from earnest interpreters of Everly Brothers and Motown hits to mind-bending sonic explorers and with so many detours along the way-- all of it happened in that brief stretch of time."

Incredible really.

And that, my friend, is why the Beatles are the yardstick by which every other group is judged.

John Lennon's birthday today...he would've been 69 years old! Hard to imagine! RIP John - miss you!

The thought that always crosses my mind is whether he would have continued recording or have taken up some other art form. How much of an influence would he have had?

If Lennon were alive today, he'd probably be massively into blogging, YouTube, Twitter, and the like. If you ever read his autobiography, Skywriting by Word of Mouth, it's virtually tweet-like already.

The 80s could have used Lennon as a cultural corrective to the excesses of the era. I think Bloom County almost managed that -- in a weird synchronicity, Bloom County debuted the same day Lennon was killed -- but what the 80s needed was a loud voice against Reagan and Thatcher.

This is an interesting alt-history of what the world could have been if the Beatles had taken up Lorne Michaels' offer to appear on Saturday Night Live.

Yeah, I think we've started something.
I believe that his influence as a recording artist would have wained. I LIKE Double Fantasy but with the inclusion of Yoko Ono does nothing for me and interupts the flow of the album. Thank God for C.D's.
He would've become more politically active but would he have had a greater influence if he had moved back the the U.K?

Lesley Gilks wrote:

I LIKE Double Fantasy but with the inclusion of Yoko Ono does nothing for me and interrupts the flow of the album. Thank God for C.D's.

I have a WinAmp playlist called "Double Honey," that takes the Lennon tracks from Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey and sequences them together into a single "album."

For the most part, it switches back and forth between the two albums, until the end where I do something a little different.

1) (Just Like) Starting Over
2) I'm Stepping Out
3) Cleanup Time
4) I Don't Wanna Face It
5) I'm Losing You
6) Nobody Told Me
7) Beautiful Boy
Watching the Wheels
9) Borrowed Time
10) (Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess
11) Woman
12) Dear Yoko
13) Grow Old With Me

If you're using the remastered Milk and Honey with the bonus tracks, I put John's version of Yoko's "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him" between "Flower Princess" and "Woman."

Also, I use the version of "Grow Old With Me" from wonsaponatime rather than Milk and Honey because it has George Martin's string arrangement.

What I call "Side Two" has an interesting flow. John's been "watching the wheels go round and round," then he admits he's been "living on borrowed time, without a thought for tomorrow," then he apologizes to May Pang in "Flower Princess," when lets him move on to Yoko in "Woman" and "Dear Yoko," and finally "grow old along with me, the best is yet to be."

Great playlist! i think I might try this.
John and George were always my favourite Beatles and for me, had the better solo careers. The first side of All Things Must Pass is still one of my favourite CDs, particuarly on a rainy Sunday morning.

Lesley Gilks wrote:

John and George were always my favourite Beatles and for me, had the better solo careers.

I'm with you, Lesley. John was, far and away, one of my all-time favoritte artists. And George had such grace and dignity in his music; even when it rocked, you got the sense that the guy who wrote it ran really deep. Paul and Ringo, God bless 'em, both gave me a smile or a chuckle here and there with what they've done since the Beatles, but nothing I was ever truly affected by in any way. Not that music has to be deep or affecting - God knows the Ramones weren't, and I love them to death - but I guess Paul had such a legendary rep as a Beatle that the lightweight nature of his solo stuff just didn't connect with me.

Speaking of Paul & Ringo, they've gotten together to do some new stuff for Ringo's new album. Van Dyke Parks is also involved, and he's ace, so I will probably have to give it a listen.

My Good evening in NYC DVD finally arrived. An it is soooo great! I'll always be a Macca lover!

Buy it!!!

I've just got organised with a system to record my vinyl records to MP3 (the ones I haven't already got CDs for). I've just spent the morning with the White Album - I'd forgotten what a brilliant album this is and quite how much I love the Beatles.

Glendarian wrote:

I've just got organised with a system to record my vinyl records to MP3 (the ones I haven't already got CDs for). I've just spent the morning with the White Album - I'd forgotten what a brilliant album this is and quite how much I love the Beatles.

Yeah, I find that I often overlook the White Album myself, and every time I rediscover it, I am pleasantly surprised at how great it sounds.

Just got back from a wee trip to New York City. While there, my daughter and I - Beatles fans both - made time for a visit to the John Lennon memorial, Strawberry Fields, which is in Central Park across from the Dakota. I had been to New York after Lennon's death once before, but the memorial hadn't yet been installed at that time. I was a bit taken aback at how emotional it was for me to see both Strawberry Fields, and the location where he was gunned down, even though nearly 30 years have passed since his death. I really felt unsettled being there, but it was nice to share it with my daughter, who is as Beatles-barmy as I am and was keen to see it all.

Here's a few pics for those who are interested...

At the entrance to the memorial area:




By the mosaic in the center of Strawberry Fields:




With John Lennon's former home, the Dakota, in the background:

Lovely photos Chrissie!

R.I.P John - today is the 29th anniversary of his death and I still feel the loss, deeply, every fucking year. Maybe I'm not right in the head, but that man was one of the most influential figures in my life, despite the fact that his band was on its last legs when I was born. I never went through Beatlemania with the rest of the world, but I went through it as a pre-teen and as a teenager once I discovered their music, just as my daughter is doing now that she knows their music. And of them all, John was the one that I found the most fascinating, the most creatively astounding, and the most courageous. I will never stop missing his presence in our world. It sucks that he's not around.

As I mentioned, the Strawberry Fields memorial and the Dakota are very weird places to visit if you were/are a big Lennon fan. Here's a link to an excellent article with some comments on that experience:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/06/greene.lennon/index.html

Yes, a tragic loss - I remember hearing it on the news when it happened.

Thanks for the photos, too, Chrissie - the next best thing to being there...

News out today regarding the remake/"re-imagining" of Yellow Submarine...I can only imagine what a train wreck this could likely be and am veeeery unsure why anyone thought it was even necessary, but anyway... http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/actors-on-board-for-yellow-submarine-remake-1866428.html


Actors on board for 'Yellow Submarine' remake

Four actors are in negotiations to star in director Robert Zemeckis's 3D animated remake of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, according to The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog. The voices of the Fab Four will reportedly be provided by Cary Elwes, Dean Lennox Kelly, Peter Serafinowicz, and Adam Campbell.

Dean Lennox Kelly (John Lennon) is currently on the BBC's Robin Hood series. Serafinowicz (Paul McCartney) has appeared in movies Shaun of the Dead and Couples Retreat. Elwes (George Harrison), who started in such films as Lady Jane and Robin Hood: Men in Tights, previously worked with Zemeckis on A Christmas Carol. Campbell (Ringo Starr) has acted in Epic Movie and Date Movie and is known for his role as Kev Ball on British TV's Shameless.

The Yellow Submarine remake will be created by Disney's ImageMovers Digital, the performance-capture animation studio that previously worked with Zemeckis's team on Polar Bear Express, Beowulf, and, most recently, A Christmas Carol. For Yellow Submarine, the director plans to employ the same 3D-animation style used in those films.

Zemeckis, who is also writing the script for the film, will incorporate the 16 Beatles songs and recordings from the original motion picture, including "All Together Now," "All You Need Is Love," "Eleanor Rigby," "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "With A Little Help From My Friends."

Yellow Submarine is expected to be released in the summer of 2012 to coincide with the Summer Olympic games in London, although an official release date has not been announced.

Might be OK, might be awful, but Peter Serafinowicz is bloody excellent! And I loved Cary Elwes in Princess Bride.

As with all remakes, if I hate it, I can ignore it and watch the original.

Gets a tentative from me, the voice actors are all sound and it should be in safe hands with Zemickis and Disney on board.

Nice timing too, if they manage to tie it in with the 2012 Olympics.

For those of us familiar with the actual speaking voices of the Fab Four, hopefully the voice actors will be a close impersonation.

The voices in the original movie was a bit iffy IMHO ( although not nearly as bad as the ones in the Beatles cartoon series ! )

Just so long as they don't mess with the music in the remake !!!

I'm pretty sure somewhere on the DVD extras for the original movie, each member of the Beatles said the same thing upon hearing the voice actors, and it was something along the lines of 'you've got everyone elses voices spot on, but mine sounds nothing like me'.

Peter Serafinowicz's McCartney impression is amazing... It can be seen on the Shaun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZUP_-lQo3U skip to 9.48

MagicalTrevor wrote:

I'm pretty sure somewhere on the DVD extras for the original movie, each member of the Beatles said the same thing upon hearing the voice actors, and it was something along the lines of 'you've got everyone elses voices spot on, but mine sounds nothing like me'.

Yeah, I remember seeing that same thing, MT!

I'm not actually as worried about the actors or the voices. It's just that original had such genuine charm, and I am not sure you will have that with the high-tech 3-D thing happening. Not that technology sucks, or that the original was some sacred relic that is above being tampered with (I mean, the Beatles themselves barely got involved in the making of it), but it was what it was, and I'm wary of what it might turn into with all the bells and whistles thrown in. It might be visually stunning but with all the soul sucked out of it, and that would be a shame, I think.

You can use technology to update something and still keep the vibe of the original, and Beatles Rock Band is a good example, IMO. It was obviously done with a lot of care and attention to detail, and a lot of respect for both the Beatles and the fans. They somehow managed to keep the unique presence of the Beatles and the joy and the excitement of their music intact after all the rendering. If Zemeckis follows this example then his movie should be OK.

I'll keep my thoughts on Zemekis' Yellow Submarine remake to myself. They're not fit for pleasant company. *sigh*

On the plus side, I love Ringo's new album, Y Not. I didn't like his last album, Liverpool 8, much at all, which was a disappointment because he'd had a run of listenable and enjoyable albums going back to Time Takes Time. But Y Not is just really fun to listen to, and "Walk This Way," his duet with Paul McCartney, is lovely. There's some catchy stuff on that album. If you like Ringo, give it a shot.

allyngibson wrote:

I'll keep my thoughts on Zemekis' Yellow Submarine remake to myself. They're not fit for pleasant company. *sigh*

On the plus side, I love Ringo's new album, Y Not. I didn't like his last album, Liverpool 8, much at all, which was a disappointment because he'd had a run of listenable and enjoyable albums going back to Time Takes Time. But Y Not is just really fun to listen to, and "Walk This Way," his duet with Paul McCartney, is lovely. There's some catchy stuff on that album. If you like Ringo, give it a shot.

Allyn, I heard the Ringo/Paul duet the other day, and I agree it's quite a sweet little thing!