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This is the most incredible thing I have ever seen. It's like watching life form from primordial ooze. Apparently it is a bit compressed, but still. I'd have sworn it was staged if I didn't know it wasn't.
 
Is Paul basically strumming two-string chords on a bass? It sounds almost like Presidents of the USA.
 
Is Paul basically strumming two-string chords on a bass? It sounds almost like Presidents of the USA.

Exactly. The verse is basically just A and D, and he's playing two-finger power chords, although on the A chord he lets the open A string ring.
 
What I find most incredible about this is the context – Paul's like OK well I guess I need to write a song right now, so I'll fuck around for a bit and what comes out is "Get Back" for fuck's sake.

Lots and lots of music is produced by jamming or messing around or by accident, but it's wild to see him relatively rapidly conjure up a classic song like that, apparently from a starting point of zero inspiration whatsoever.
 
What I find most incredible about this is the context – Paul's like OK well I guess I need to write a song right now, so I'll fuck around for a bit and what comes out is "Get Back" for fuck's sake.

Lots and lots of music is produced by jamming or messing around or by accident, but it's wild to see him relatively rapidly conjure up a classic song like that, apparently from a starting point of zero inspiration whatsoever.
The thing is that they basically did that all day. So you're seeing one of the ones that actually stuck.
 
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It is also one of their simpler songs musically, fwiw. I feel like songs of that vein are more likely to come out of a jam. Something like Michelle or Penny Lane, which have a lot of chord changes or unusual chords, probably took him more trial and error.
 
Not dismissing how cool that scene was, ftr. When you see him orchestrating his own songs and the songs of the other members in the studio, it's pretty clear what a compositional genius he was (besides somehow being underrated as a singer).
 
The thing is that they basically did that all day. So you're seeing one of the ones that actually stuck.

Yeah that's a good point. There probably was quite a bit of garbage in those sessions, especially since most of them seem barely engaged. I'm not too deep into this yet. Kinda watching in fits and starts between other things.
 
The thing is that they basically did that all day. So you're seeing one of the ones that actually stuck.

Yeah that's a good point. There probably was quite a bit of garbage in those sessions, especially since most of them seem barely engaged. I'm not too deep into this yet. Kinda watching in fits and starts between other things.
They're a lot more engaged in Episode #2 and #3. In fact, they all seem to be having a ton of fun. But they still spend 60% of their time just messing around (doing covers, doing silly versions of their own songs, and so on).
 
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I have noticed that Lennon seems really preoccupied with one particular chord shape. He makes it in the clip above when he sits down to play. Looks like a barred A with the pinky adding a 7th, I guess. He's used that same shape over and over again in the parts I've seen, and on different songs.
 
Later Lennon got way too obsessed with basic blues. He still wrote some really amazing and inventive songs ("Because," "Across the Universe," "I'm So Tired," '"Sexy Sadie," "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," "I Want You," etc.). But even several of those had some blues cliches in them. And he was always talking about getting back to basic rock 'n roll. That wasn't what made the Beatles great in the first place though.

If you look at Hard Day's Night to Rubber Soul era, Lennon dominates. But then Paul becomes the driving force behind their best work.
 
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One of my dark secrets as a quote-unquote musician is that I’ve never paid much attention to the Beatles except in a very superficial way. I guess I should probably change that.
 
One of my dark secrets as a quote-unquote musician is that I’ve never paid much attention to the Beatles except in a very superficial way. I guess I should probably change that.
I've been making a "My Favorite Beatles" playlist. I'll post it here when I'm done.
 
I consider them basically the Shakespeare of pop music. So completely ahead and outside of their time that they still haven't been equaled in many ways. And like Shakespeare, the genius of their art was that they had something for all types of audiences, even within the same song.

Also, looking at the arc of their career, no other band has taken their fans on a similar path of musical evolution. It's kind of sad that the marketplace won't support their type of growth these days. You kind of either start out a pop act and stay that way or you start out adventurous. Possibly the closest thing is Radiohead, but their first album was far less conventional than the Beatles' first several. So the shift wasn't as large. And they were also never the #1 band in the world. It's difficult to imagine Taylor Swift making the modern version of Sgt. Pepper's.
 
Possibly the closest thing is Radiohead, but their first album was far less conventional than the Beatles' first several. So the shift wasn't as large. And they were also never the #1 band in the world. It's difficult to imagine Taylor Swift making the modern version of Sgt. Pepper's.

Wilco followed a pretty similar arc as Radiohead, though I actually strongly prefer early Wilco. But that’s a different conversation.

Taylor’s version of Sgt. Pepper’s is a song about Jake Gyllenhaal that’s longer than the relationship itself was.
 
Being there is brilliant. My intro to Wilco

I saw Wilco in a shitty conference center ballroom at Western Kentucky University in the fall of 1996, just before Being There came out. It was a free show, but maybe 12 people were there. Jeff Tweedy asked for everyone’s name from the stage and thanked each of us personally for showing up. They played their asses off despite the lame attendance and I will always remember and respect that.

Tweedy is one of those guys who simply needs a foil, whether it was Jay Farrar or Jay Bennett. He’s just never been as good without that.
 
My favorite Wilco is easily A Ghost Is Born. I like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot but never understood why it was considered their best.

ETA: my preferring A Ghost Is Born goes against TS9's thesis about needing Bennett.
 
My favorite Wilco is easily A Ghost Is Born. I like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot but never understood why it was considered their best.

Yeah YHF was a critical obsession that I never really understood either.

I struggle with Wilco’s post-2000 output. People like to shit on A.M., but I fucking love it. And Being There is arguably the best album of the alt-country era, with Son Volt’s Trace being the only other option. Summerteeth is really good, too.
 

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