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Post by Michelle Revolution on Jan 16, 2008 1:01:07 GMT
What are your thoughts on this book by the late Ian MacDonald (he committed suicide in 2003 following a long bout of clinical depression)?
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zipp
What Goes On In Your Heart
Posts: 97
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Post by zipp on Jan 16, 2008 13:33:54 GMT
Hey Michelle, I thought you were gonna tell us about Nowhere man and George's songs.
Basically this is a personal appraisal of the Beatle songs dressed up with a lot of detail which is sometimes questionable (hence my question about the book's reliability). I agree with quite a lot of what he says, but not everything. His basic stance, which is now unfashionable, was that everything builds up to Sgt.Pepper, then after that the choices and quality of their songs are uneven.
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Post by Michelle Revolution on Jan 20, 2008 23:42:06 GMT
Sorry for the delay, Zipp. The book is littered with sniping comments on George's songwriting, like this for example:
"Like so many Harrison songs, If I Needed Someone has an obstinate quality which, combined with his preference for dour progressions, renders it gauche beside McCartney's urbanity and anaemic next to the boldness of Lennon."
And this about While My Guitar Gently Weeps:
"...the quadruple internal rhymes of his middle sixteens are pedantically contrived and, as a whole, the track exudes a browbeating self-importances which quickly becomes tiresome. Later popular at concerts, WMGGW enshrines, in its plodding sequence, rock's typical rhythmic overstatement and slow rate of harmonic change. The energetic topicality of pop is here supplanted by a dull grandiosity..."
And finally this about Nowhere Man - a character assassination of one of my favorite Beatle tracks:
"The weary weight of this dirge-like song all to effectively transfers itself to the listener.... its harmony-laden melody sags so graphically that it's a relief to reach Harrison's glistening, treble-bright solo... Thereafter diminishing in interest, the song dies of a superfluous dose of its pleading middle eight."
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Post by briank on Jan 21, 2008 6:08:04 GMT
Not a fan of it. But I like the approach, which was different. But it certainly didn't FLOW as nice reading. I, too, disagree with his facts and findings.
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Post by The End on Jan 21, 2008 10:08:46 GMT
Yeah, I didn't agree with a lot of his opinions but it was interesting reading the potted musicology for each song. It seemed to me that it was written as a reference book.
I remember one positive comment he made about George's "Something" - he said something like "if Paul wasn't jealous of this song, he should have been."
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woodbine
What Goes On In Your Heart
Posts: 27
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Post by woodbine on Apr 1, 2008 23:47:34 GMT
I didn't know he'd committed suicide -- how sad. I enjoyed this book, in fact I've read it twice. I don't agree with all of his opinions, but I found it well-written and quite thought-provoking at times. Clearly he'd spent many hours listening closely to the Beatles music. And not just listening, but pondering intently.
I'd recommend it. I'd even put it in my top ten Beatles books (I've got maybe sixty or seventy).
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Post by Bobber on Apr 2, 2008 11:54:44 GMT
I got sick of all the endless footnotes.
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Post by the carnabys on Apr 2, 2008 15:29:31 GMT
It wasn't for me!
I thought he tried to go too deep into things which didn't need to be looked at in such ways.
Like the quotes Michelle posted above...what was he on?
OVer-complicating ones anaylsis of a song just ruins them for me!
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beatler
And That's A Start
Posts: 5
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Post by beatler on Nov 7, 2008 19:39:25 GMT
i thought he sometimes came across as a critic. you know the type... like those film critics in the broadsheet newspapers. they feel that they have to be critical even when there is nothing there to criticise -- because that's their job, they are critics.
but i still thought it was a good book though. well worth a read.
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alexis
I'll Be On My Way
Posts: 447
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Post by alexis on Nov 7, 2008 20:58:33 GMT
Sorry for the delay, Zipp. The book is littered with sniping comments on George's songwriting, like this for example: "Like so many Harrison songs, If I Needed Someone has an obstinate quality which, combined with his preference for dour progressions, renders it gauche beside McCartney's urbanity and anaemic next to the boldness of Lennon."And this about While My Guitar Gently Weeps: "...the quadruple internal rhymes of his middle sixteens are pedantically contrived and, as a whole, the track exudes a browbeating self-importances which quickly becomes tiresome. Later popular at concerts, WMGGW enshrines, in its plodding sequence, rock's typical rhythmic overstatement and slow rate of harmonic change. The energetic topicality of pop is here supplanted by a dull grandiosity..."And finally this about Nowhere Man - a character assassination of one of my favorite Beatle tracks: "The weary weight of this dirge-like song all to effectively transfers itself to the listener.... its harmony-laden melody sags so graphically that it's a relief to reach Harrison's glistening, treble-bright solo... Thereafter diminishing in interest, the song dies of a superfluous dose of its pleading middle eight."While I like these songs, on reflection there is a kernel of truth to his descriptions, I don't think he's completely blotto here.
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Post by The End on Nov 8, 2008 0:24:02 GMT
In my opinion, your own personal opinions of a song should never, ever be swayed by the comments of a "critic".
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Post by Bobber on Nov 9, 2008 20:41:43 GMT
Sometimes I'm so happy that English is not my first language. There are times that I really don't understand what Ian McDonald is trying to say.
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Post by The End on Nov 10, 2008 12:52:18 GMT
I didn't understand some of it, and English IS my first language!
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Post by Bobber on Nov 11, 2008 10:42:25 GMT
I can imagine Ian McDonald got depressed.
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Post by mrmustard on Nov 11, 2008 12:06:08 GMT
I can imagine Ian McDonald got depressed. He did get clinically depressed. That's why he commited suicide. If that contributed to his thought processes in the book, particularly the deridation of George's guitar work and songwriting, we will never know.
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Clarabella
I'll Be On My Way
All she needs is the stars up above
Posts: 104
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Post by Clarabella on Nov 11, 2008 23:03:31 GMT
The enormous amount of footnotes makes the book impossible to read for me.
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alexis
I'll Be On My Way
Posts: 447
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Post by alexis on Nov 12, 2008 20:53:57 GMT
In my opinion, your own personal opinions of a song should never, ever be swayed by the comments of a "critic". Agree. As a matter of fact, though I like these songs, on reflection the parts of them that keep them from being my favorite Beatles songs are pretty much the points he makes. There's a reason not everything can be She Loves You, Yesterday, Strawberry Fields, In My Life, etc.! Then, it sounds like he is saying that since the songs in question are not the BEST POP SONGS EVER WRITTEN IN THE UNIVERSE (!!!) that they therefore suck. I think we all disagree with that!
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