Norman and Goldman and Sentimentality
Why pick an Isley Brothers song for the title? Yesterday evening, I was perusing Shout! and, as ever, thought it was a really great, fluid, surprisingly no-nonsense large-grain history of the group. Well, maybe "really great" is a bit much, given the book's anti-Paul bias, but it's still wonderfully written, and was essential in its time. If you were a [...]
Juggling to Beatles? Smiles await you
Juggling to Beatles songs? We got that. Dig this joker's juggling to the Abbey Road medley. http://youtu.be/UcBLrboXrvQ
"Genius Is Pain"
(All words from Lennon interviews.) http://youtu.be/oSnjRaGoYyI (Via Jonathan.) [MG, Oct. 2013--This is from National Lampoon's great comedy album Radio Dinner, which came out in 1972, and you should listen to. John and Yoko were friends with National Lampoon art director Michael Gross, and used to hang around the magazine...until this came out, I suspect.]
All your life
Paul McCartney performs a rare version of Blackbird in this video from 1968. http://youtu.be/3uqGCqMYaHQ
I want to hold your hand…
...just maybe not when you're thirty-five. [Update February 2015: Here's a mini-doc on the "bigger than Jesus" controversy:] http://youtu.be/ETFKXMdjbkU
Albert Goldman and Hunter Davies on Beatles Biographies
"What's the creepiest photo you have?... Yeah, that one." This is a two-part news program from 1989, where the author of the muckraking "The Lives of John Lennon" (just released at that time) debates Hunter Davies, the author of "The Beatles" authorized biography from 1968. Davies is very charming, and makes some very good points about Goldman's tendency to veer [...]
More on the breakup…
So there, John. A great comment from Nancy on the breakup of the Beatles, in the comment thread... Here's another thought, prompted by your post and the responses to it: both John and Paul reacted to Brian Epstein's death in ways predicted by their reactions to their respective mothers' deaths. John learned from his whole childhood that he couldn't really trust [...]
A Momentary Lapse of Reason
The happy newlywed? Shirley Tilloch over at Beatles Til I Die has written a very interesting post originally inspired by one over here at Dullblog. This post of mine began as a lengthy comment to her post...until I got to the point where it was too long and went off in too many directions. So apologies in advance if what [...]