Yellow Submarine
[Part 3 of The Death of Rock and Roll]
[Next part : Part Four -- UFO]
by Stephen Deng
Coming out of The Beatles’ final concert, in sanFrancisco in August 1966, a typical fan could go to the shops and buy the bands’ latest product, the album called “Revolver.” She would be surprised to find in it, rightly or wrongly, a transAtlantic echo of the new “psychedelic” style of Rock and Roll popularized in her city.*1*
(the Yellow Submarine as she appears in the animated film from the year 2 AD)
“Revolver is my favourite album of all time,” says John “Ozzy” Osbourne, former singer with the UK band Black Sabbath, and most popular music fans (and magazines) agree. “I like all those songs,” says Eddie Cox. “And mind you the album as it was released in the UK has fourteen of them.”
(a revolving cylinder of chambers)
But other musicians in this city aren’t so sanguine.*2*
“An album usually gives me a strong feeling for the time and place of its production,” says Runar Sigurbjornsson, a songwriter-performer.*3* “But with Revolver I just don’t get that.”
“It really is the most perfectly titled album of all time,” says Skip Lunch, “because it was just like those British bozos came over and put a bullet in the head of Rock and Roll.”*4*
(Revolver fan John Osbourne)
How can one album give rise to such contradictory appraisals? The crux is : was Revolver good or bad for Rock and Roll? Or : was it even Rock and Roll anymore? \ Certainly it brought new national / regional flavours to the table, reaching further afield from the Mississippi River than ever before. Yet some of its songs are respectful tributes to the music that Memphis was producing in 1966. What is not contentious is that right from its famous count-in —“1-2-3-4”-- Revolver presents itself as a product of the studio. With recordings of voices and guitars doubled and even played backward, of drums distorted and otherwise foreign, with sound effects the likes of which no one had ever heard, here are songs that no band would ever reproduce live [/laiv/ = on stage].
(a headstone)
Four of our municipality’s musicians take a look at the songs on Revolver :
Taxman
A criticism of the UK economic system, the song made mention of real, living leaders, a daring thing in English-language popular music 40 years ago.
(sampler of Taxman)
“It may sound like the Batman theme song,” says Hans Fenger, who performs at the Asgard café on Bailuzhou [白鹭洲]. “But musically, it is a raga, a traditional form of melody and rhythm in India .”
“Taxman is Rock and Roll,” says Cox, who once performed Taxman at a the Wonderful [万德福] English corner. “People can’t sit still for it. Which is why Beck went and sampled it—he knows what makes people dance.”*5*
“It’s got the best guitar solo ever played by a bassist,” says Chubby Jiang, former bassist with A-Lei & The Suspicions [阿磊&怀疑], now a shopkeeper in DingAozai [顶沃仔]. “In RNR terms that’s as if a football goalie ran out over the length of the pitch and kicked one in.”
Eleanor Rigby
A song about death and loneliness, subliminally inspired by a headstone.*6*
“It’s not made of major and minor chords, which is unusual for a pop/rock song. Sounds like it might be in the Dorian mode.”—Fenger
“No band members play on this song—the classical instruments were unfamiliar to them. These musicians were called into the studio. So that’s bad for RNR. And after all that bother, the strings are played to provide rhythm. Why not just use bass and drums?”—Jiang
(Ravi Shankar, master sitar player )
I’m Only Sleeping
[cut from the US/Canada release] A paean to the unconscious, the still abiding source of creative energy.*7*
“George [Harrison, the band’s guitarist] played the whole solo backwards just so they could flip the tape (= recording) around and play it rightways. That man is a bleedin’ virtuoso.”—Cox
“A beautiful drowsy song about introspection. But inward is not the direction of RNR.”--Jiang
Love you to
Played entirely on Indian instruments. “ Harrison ’s the only band member on this one,” says Fenger. “He plays the sitar, which he was studying under the master Ravi Shankar.” So this one’s not RNR, then? “Well .. some will disagree, obviously, but I hear Memphis .”
Here, There and Everywhere
Attempts to match the songs of Pet Sounds in soft sweetness. But well before that studio album decided the matter, The Beach Boys had ceased to be a real RNR band.
“It’s a classic popular song, like something you might hear on Braodway.”--Fenger
“It’s okay if you want to dance with your grandmother. Otherwise it comes as a wet blanket.”*8*—Jiang
(French horn)
Yellow Submarine
Now that the mania for psychedelic music is a fading memory, this song can be heard for what it is : a matey children’s song.
“Some say Revolver would have been better without it,” says A-Zhong [阿忠], who performs at the Tianlai pub in Wenzao[文灶]. “It’s not RNR. I don’t know what it is. But the song lends itself to a singer-guitarist all right. It creates a warm atmosphere.”
“It’s not easy to do the Submarine right. A-Zhong covers it with respect, which is more than I can say for Emil Zhou [周华健] and that Taiwanese doofus [任贤齐].”—Cox
She Said She Said
Finally back to RNR—or are we? Either way, the song ominously returns us to Death.
“That’s one subject which, try as he might, the singer-guitarist was never going to escape as long as he led a psychedelic lifestyle,” says Fenger. “She Said is in the Mixolydian mode, I think you’ll find, and set in B flat, which is the pitch of the sun.”
“The guitars are wicked, but the song never gets going. The drums are restless, kind of jazzy.”--Jiang
Good Day Sunshine
With two Beatles absent and a non-Beatle on piano, this song attempts to match the happy feel of the pop song “Daydream” by John Sebastian & The Loving Spoonful.
and your Bird can Sing
[cut from the US/Canada release] Perhaps the apex of the bands beguiling jangle sound. But with Harrison mixing at least two guitar solos together, and the lyric [=words] comprised of in-jokes, the song is impossible and opaque.*9*
for No one
Beautiful French horn solo. But with a clavichord as well, the song is rather eclectic.*10*
Doctor Robert
[cut from the US/Canada release] A paean to the great speed with which the first RNR was recorded, at the Sun studio in Memphis .
“Musically it doesn’t do justice to its subject. Except maybe the vocal harmony, which is rich.”--Fenger
i Want to Tell you
Harrison ’s flat singing is neatly offset by the dissonant piano.“Yes, the E-minor ninth chord, says Fenger. “Weird.”
“The song makes me feel a bit ill.”—Jiang
“Say what you like, that guitar riff is very catchy, kind of Mo-town, and Mo-town aint far from RNR.”*11*--Cox
Got to Get you into my Life
Attempts to match the great records then coming from Mo-town and from the Stax studio [in Memphis ]. The brass (= horn) part marks it as being on a different branch of the RNR family tree from those along which most white regional bands had been running.
“Wicked solo by George [ Harrison ], just wicked. When the guitarist with Blur learned to play that one, his mum baked him a cake. And rightly so.”--Cox
Tomorrow Never Knows
It features bizarre sound effects as well as a backward guitar solo and super compressed drumming *12* -- to say nothing of the singer’s voice, processed through Leslie revolving speakers and transmitting a lyric from the funeral ceremony of a Chinese mountain minority people.*13*
“They say he wanted to sound like a Buddhist monk choir in the mountains. I don’t know--I hear Buddy Holly & The Crickets.”--Fenger
“The bass is good. The “three-and” drum beat is odd, abrupt and original. Maybe it’s shamanic. But again it takes you inward. It’s no coincidence that a rave group like The Chemical Brothers keep sampling it.”*14* --Jiang
(In the Bardo, a wrathful god destroys all human delusion)
Vocabulary / Note :
*1* psychedelic [saikedelik] = characterized by intense or distorted sensations. (As a genre of Corporate Rock music) equal to Acid Rock.
*2* sanguine = cheerfully optimistic, hopeful or confident.
*3* for an interview with Sigurbjornsson, cf. http://common-talk.com/old/051130/people.html
*4* revolver = 1.a handgun with a revolving cylinder of chambers. 2. anything which revolves, e.g. a music record [唱片].
*5* On his album Odelay (1996). Sample = to quote one piece of music within another. Also "filch."
*6* subliminal = existing or operating below the threshold of consciousness.
The bassist with The Beatles saw the name on a headstone in 1957 but nine years later thought he'd made it up.
*7* paean = a song of praise and thanks, esp. to a god. Also "pean."
*8* wet blanket = that which discourages enjoyment or enthusiasm. (Literally) that which smothers a fire.
*9* opaque = impenetrable by light. obscure, elusive, minimal of meaning.
*10* eclectic = choosing or using bits from a variety of sources, systems or styles.
*11* Mo-town = Motor town = Detroit, the automobile-industrial centre and Great Lakes port. Aint = amnt = am not (regional pronunciation). Also, as here, aint = isnt = is not (regional mispronunciation).
*12* compressed = unnaturally fulsome. The device of compression is pretty much universal in the recording industry now.
*13* the "Bardo Thodol" englished by Dawa Samdup, edited by Evans-Wentz, glossed by Leary.
*14* three-and = (in music) a point of accentuation between the third and fourth of four beats. Shamanic = (in primitive cultures) intermediate between nature and supernature.
