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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 11:05 am Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
| ...I admit my faults. I appreciate the concerns about my posts expressed by "desultude" and (to a lesser extent - because he knocks George Harrison...) "Bulsajo." |
Oh, no no no!
Au contraire, mon frere!
I have to correct you here- I most certainly did NOT knock George Harrison.
I admire and respected him and adored his music.
He was and a;ways will be my 'favorite Beatle' (but hey this isn't the Tiger Beat message board so I'll just leave it at that).
No, what I was knocking was the concept that there are mystic combinations of vowels, consonants, and other assorted human sounds which- when vocalized or heard- bestow elevated spirituality.
THAT is what I was knocking, or rather- mocking.
In the thread you are referring to I believe I said that I could understand the idea that listening to George Harrison's music (in this instance My Sweet Lord) could elevate a person spiritually. However, I was talking about the spirituality inherent in the music rather than the lyrics.
My Sweet Lord is a beautiful song, but I feel 'Do be do be do' would have worked just as well as 'Hare Hare Krishna' in terms of spirituality.
(note that I have not used the words 'religion' and 'mantra' anywhere in this post)
I understand that this is where we differ and I don't want a repeat of that argument, I just wanted to clarify my position. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:35 am Post subject: |
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Can't avoid mentioning a fact of history that "My Sweet Lord" was decided by courts as a plagiarized rendition of "He's So Fine" by, I think The Shirelles. Harrison later admitted in an interview that it seemed quite an ovious case of unconsciously taking the melody from an older song and putting his own words to it. Had he realized what he was doing he would have sent them a check and included a notation in the liner notes telling where the tune came from ... I also respect him enough to surmise thast much.
He's my second favorite Beatle. John Lennon's music suffered when he no longer had Paul to and collaborate with, but I think it was cool that he decided with clear eyes that what he wanted was to stay home with the kids and bake bread.
I've never baked bread, myself, but the idea of it sounds a little mellow.
In the end, though The Beatles were more a cultural phenomenon than a musical one. The sounds they generated inextricably became attached to a very unique time in human history, a rather pivotal moment when mass numbers of people asked for change and wished for nothing more than hope that the world could be better than it is ....
"You say you want a revolution, we-ell, you know ..." |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:34 am Post subject: |
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Continuing to to take this thread off on a tangent:
I forgot about that lawsuit. I wonder though, what a difference a few decades can make?
In this day and age, with all the sampling and remixing, would you ever been able to win a suit like that?
Look at John Fogerty, who lost when his record company sued him for sounding to much like himself...
And even better than My Sweet Lord is What Is Life, and that's original.
Anyway, fun stuff to talk about.
No new plane crashes to report either. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:35 am Post subject: |
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Continuing to to take this thread off on a tangent:
I forgot about that lawsuit. I wonder though, what a difference a few decades can make?
In this day and age, with all the sampling and remixing, would you ever been able to win a suit like that?
Look at John Fogerty, who lost when his record company sued him for sounding to much like himself...
And even better than My Sweet Lord is What Is Life, and that's original.
Anyway, fun stuff to talk about.
No new plane crashes to report either. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:46 am Post subject: |
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It wasn't the Shirelles - it was the Chiffons who did "He's So Fine," but I think it was a questionable legal decision. The crucial thing is to be able to differentiate the popular girl groups of that era (besides the Supremes)... The Chiffons also did "One Fine Day," while The Shirelles' biggest hits were "Soldier Boy" and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" Among the many other similar girl groups around then were the Crystals ("Uptown" "He's a Rebel") the Ronettes ("Be My Baby" "Walkin' in the Rain") The Dixie Cups (one biggy: "Chapel of Love") and of course the Shangra-las ("Leader of the Pack" and "Walkin' in the Sand" among other hits...)
To re-connect to the original thread topic (I almost forgot what it was...) the "American Pie" was the name of Buddy Holly's plane that crashed ("the day the music died...") killing him along with rock stars Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper... |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
| It wasn't the Shirelles - it was the Chiffons who did "He's So Fine," but I think it was a questionable legal decision.. |
Appreciate the clarification. I'm old enough to have heard of a lot of the groups you mention and I have even sang a few of their their songs in a norae bang, but I'm on the cusp of being old enough not to care so much about their names .. again, appreciatiate education, regardless.
My senior year of high school, the coounty fair of my small suburban town provided a venue for Chuck Berry. He was at a late stage of his career where he was playing almost solo, and, I kid you not, surrounded by bales of hay a few hundred yards away from the 4-H competions and rodeo clowns ... I had fun that evening and I think he did, too.
Yeah, I think he did. He was holding a guitar and standing in front of some people who wanted to hear him play it and sing. A guy could do worse than that in this world, and this is what I took away from the afternoon. I'm just a white a white boy from the suburbs but I could figure a few things out.
One thing I could figure was that if Chuck Berry wasn't holding that guitar and wasn't able to sing what he was able to sing, he'd be just another black man in America. Even at the time I stood in front of him he was an icon and seminal influence on what we now call rock and roll, but at that moment he was standing in front of some bales of hay a few hundred yards from where some really quality sheep were dropping their loads in their pens ...
And Chuck? He was smiling. He was laughing. He was in the moment and giving that moment every bit of joy and humor the song required - like I said, a guy could do worse.
The bit of shame I recall is that when he played a song called "Sweet Litttle Sixteen" I was disappointed that the melody line sounded way too much like he'd stolen it from what (I thought) was a much older song from the Beach Boys, "Surfin' USA." ... of course this was not the case.
Later, I read interviews with Brian Wilson who had no trouble admitting that he had simply put new words to another song. He could afford to say so - he was living in a nice house with a beachfront backyard at the time, and I've already said that Chuck berry was playing county fairs - bales of hay, the smell of sheep faeces ...
Chuck Berry gave me about 90 minutes of hiis life, perhaps the most important part of his life. I'll always be happy that he wanted to give us the same fun of rock and roll that rock and roll always gave him, and which, by the way, he helped to create ...
Strangely enough, though, he never sued The Beach Boys. |
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