#Paul McCartney (historical person)

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

Obviously, the fact that Paul McCartney and John Lennon instantly composed music despite having no idea what music theory is

goes to the fact that the writers believe that many people have innate talents, even if they don’t realise it.

[m1ssunderstanding]

If Paul can't be who he is, or talk to people, keeping it in him who's to blame for this. If he has problems he doesn"t talk about or we older fans see him the way we do, whom is he hiding from? Is it really fare to blame his fans for thinking like he's happy and got it together. Do the younger generation see things differently? I care and adore Paul and don't want to think he isn't. Is that it? Or do we need to feel he's lying and all pr I know pretty much everything public about Paul. I dont mean to be rude or disagree with you. I enjoy seeing new fans and sees him from your pov but I wanna know what you think what he feels he can't share.

Hi! Okay, let's break this down.

Question one: Who is to blame for Paul not being more open about his private life?

Jim McCartney. Next question. No, it's a lot more complicated than that. Besides it being just a natural part of his personality, the foundation of this trait was formed through the whole context of his upbringing which laid the groundwork for how Paul would react to fame, as opposed to the other three. Then, because he was already set up to do so, fame and its side-affects and consequences made Paul double down on closing up. Then during the breakup, John's diarrhea of the mouth syndrome and Linda's encouraging Paul to lean into his home life and let his public life be, put Paul further into a pattern of craving privacy.

Question two: Is it fair to blame older fans for taking Paul's public self as his private self?

Firstly, I don't see the point in talking about blame in the first place. A) being a private person, putting on a face in public, is neither bad nor uncommon. (Maybe nobody really does it to the degree Paul does it. Maybe it does have some negative outcomes and does point to a lack of self-assurance and a strong tendency to emotional avoidance) but to some degree, Paul's cagey and fake public self is normal and healthy. B) blame is the least interesting mystery here.

Secondly, no one is trying to blame older fans for Paul's behavior. What I personally am frustrated with is what such a large group of people taking the surface as the entire ocean does to Paul's character as a historical figure and to the Beatles narrative as a whole. However, this large group is certainly not limited to older fans, nor does it contain all the older fans. Additionally, people can do, think, and say what they want. It's not some pressing humanitarian concern if people misunderstand Paul McCartney and the Beatles. It does seem to indicate and contribute to a large-scale cultural deficiency which may negatively impact more important social issues, but it is certainly far from a life and death situation.

Question three: Does the younger generation see things differently?

I'd actually never thought of these views in terms of generations, but yes, I guess many younger fans do look beyond the surface more than many older fans do.

Question four: Do we need to assume Paul is lying and all PR?

Again. Nobody needs to do anything. Do what you want. But. If you are looking to gain a more serious understanding of one of the most influential people of the twentieth century, then I suggest you don't take every word from his mouth as one-hundred-percent truthful as you should with anyone. This is absolutely not to say Paul is a liar and only cares about looking good to the public for business reasons. In fact, I believe if he was completely open about a lot of the things he guards against fully sharing, he would come off a lot better.

My personal rules of thumb with the Beatles are these: 1. John (and to a lesser extent George) often speaks from a place of strong emotion and uses talking about his experiences and feelings to regulate and soothe. Therefore, his statements are often extreme and often emphasize the negative. Paul (and to a lesser extent Ringo) cannot express strong emotion and fears talking about his experiences and feelings without disguising them or softening them. Therefore, his statements are often evasive and often emphasize the positive. If John says "I was going through murder," he means, "my mental health struggles were particularly difficult at that time even with all the good things I had going for me." If Paul says, "but it wasn't all, you know, great," he means, "Despite what I've made it seem like, that period of my life was not even safe, let alone perfect." 2. Take into account the culture these men were raised in and the attitude that culture would've pushed on them about certain topics. None of them are going to be particularly open about anything they would've been in any way punished for during the bulk of their life experience.

Question five: What do you think Paul feels he can't share?

If you were internationally famous, would you share absolutely everything about your personal life, innermost thoughts, politics, desires, regrets, hurts, and loves? I don't think so. Now, imagine you had most of your ability to be emotionally vulnerable beaten out of you as a child, you and your three best friends experienced death threats and permanent career damage due to one seemingly innocuous comment, and the person you trusted most in the world turned on a dime and exploited all your insecurities and the entire world followed suit for decades. I imagine there would be galaxies filled with all the things you feel you can't share and that you would use whatever protective measures necessary to keep yourself sane.

[beatlesbookblog]

This Boy: The Early Lives of John Lennon & Paul McCartney by Ilene Cooper

(welcome to the very first book review!!)

So, I read this book on the infamous anniversary of John and Paul's meeting a few months ago, and it was a simple and quick read for the most part. I was going to review this book hard because of its simplicity (which ultimately is not bad, it just depends on the book). However, I soon realized this book is meant for a more younger audience, so I'll cut it some slack.

Cooper is generally known for her children's books, so perhaps I wasn't the target audience for a book such as this (I found this as an ebook on my library website so I had no idea it was a YA historical book). Though, there were some aspects to this book I liked, genuinely.

I think this book did detail a lot about John and Paul that younger/newer fans may not know about. Though, I did notice there to be 2-3 chapters dedicated to John's childhood versus the 1-2 chapters about Paul. This obviously could be because of John's more troubled childhood versus Paul's, but I did find the John chapters to be more detailed than Paul's. I wouldn't say the author had more of a bias towards John, but I would have liked more of an equal amount of prose for both of them. It would have properly illustrated the equality amongst John + Paul's writing partnership once their friendship is established.

Another thing I really liked about this book was the introduction of the Quarrymen and more insight into them. Though, again, this book is generally geared towards a younger audience so there aren't insane amounts of detail you'd find in a proper historical book about the early Beatle days. Though, I think introducing the other Quarrymen members to the John + Paul story is a nice touch to this book. I tend to notice some Beatle authors sort of brush off the Quarrymen members to the side of the story, so this was nice to see in a newer book.

Is this book adding anything to the John + Paul story? No. Not really. If you're looking for an introduction to John and Paul as a newer or younger fan, I would recommend this book. It gives the basic history of John and Paul's early lives, their meeting, and the beginnings of their partnership. The book stops before the band goes off the Hamburg, giving the book a sort of "Nowhere Boy"-esque storytelling, which might be appealing to some people. Personally, I think it leaves too much out. Overall, I do think Cooper does a good job in telling the story of John and Paul to a younger audience, though I would have liked more detail. Then again, I'm not the target audience for this book so 🤷

------

Rating ⭐: I'd rate this book about a 6.5/10 given it's a basic introductory book, and that it's fairly factual.

Further Reading 📖: Though, if you are looking for a more detailed, thorough book of John and Paul's meeting, I would recommend The Day John Met Paul by Jim O'Donnell.

[knitmeapony]

'why are people treating X like they are the first musician/actor/ cultural icon to do ABC? what about Y?'

- most of the fans are young and the person you think they should know was popular 10 or more years ago before they were in kindergarten

- the newer person is famous in more mainstream circles, actual pioneers tend to be underground or only famous in certain communities

- at least in America we don't get regular history that's taught well or honestly, much less recent history, much less a history of pop culture

- people are *aware* of the more historical figure, but they are *fans* of the newer person, so they talk about them a lot more

- nobody is saying X is the first, but they are becoming a cultural icon in a subcommunity and it's okay to identify them with that community.

This is definitely not to excuse the homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, etc of the mainstream media (especially not the people who do the news, do some goddamn research like you are paid to do) or the culture as a whole, but good God please give individual young people a break.

I once heard an absolute sweetheart of a 15 year old girl say, with all sincerity, "did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" She knew the stuff that her dad liked and she knew the stuff that she and her friends liked but not much more.

When young people tell you that a certain musician is the new hotness and they are really excited that they are (out and queer, disabled, playing electric at glastonbury, winning Awards, playing with a symphony, whatever) or they say something like "I've never heard of a musician doing abc!" Please take it as your chance to share awesome classic material with them, not as if they are inherently doing something wrong. And if they continue to prefer the newer material, please let them be kids.

[indiaalphawhiskey]

i was just wondering do you think there really is a chance that harry might be less popular when he comes back (whenever that will be) and not be at his career peak anymore? i find it really hard to imagine him not playing stadiums/ being extremely popular etc anymore tbh for me it obvs won‘t make any difference i will always love him just the same (and wouldnt mind annyoing tiktok stans and fans who only like him bc hes „trendy“ to leave lol) i just wanted your thoughts on that :)

Okay, so I’m not a music industry buff. What I know, and what I’m about to say is based entirely on my general knowledge of pop culture (that’s heavily influenced by American pop culture, btw) so if I make any leaps, or if there’s an alternative view from a non-America-centric perspective, please forgive me.

But, for all intents and purposes, if you look at Harry’s profile as an artist and compare it to other artists of a similar profile (super popular boyband member + teen heartthrob turned solo pop star), historically you don’t really have many examples of successful solo careers, and even less of career longevity.

If you compare it to The Beatles, for example, they weren’t a traditional boyband (and arguably, neither was One Direction after TMH, but still), and if I’m not mistaken, though John Lennon and Paul McCartney both went solo, (and Paul obviously has the longevity down), their individual work still wasn’t comparable in popularity to their work while they were in The Beatles.

More modern examples, like George Michael, Robbie Williams, and Justin Timberlake, have a similar story in that while they were all able to launch solo careers, they all had a relatively short shelf life because pop music (and their fan bases) are very synonymous with youth, and they all eventually “aged out” of that marketing bracket.

So, really, the only example I can think of, of someone who was more popular solo than he ever was in a band and still managed to hold such a wide and devoted fanbase over multiple career eras, is Michael Jackson. And that’s like, music legend level.

I think Harry has already currently surprised people on many counts by being able to equal and arguably surpass his success and popularity in One Direction as a solo artist, especially without having to drastically rebrand or pivot his genre of music. He’s managed not only to hold on to what people thought was a very age-specific fanbase, but also broaden it massively. That’s beyond rare in pop music, and if you add that to the fact that a lot of people still attribute a big part of his success to his looks, the music industry is expecting him to age out soon, and therefore, for the steep decline in his popularity to start. That’s why people think it’s crazy that he’s taking a break because the industry is constantly pumping out new young artists and so, there’s always going to be a ticking clock.

Personally, I think Harry is a once in a generation performer, and has everything it takes to get to that legend level. But it’s something that is so rare and impossible to predict or orchestrate because so many factors have to go into making that happen, and the pressure of setting that as the ultimate goal of creating music could very, very easily break a person. I think he’s much more content to take a break, cultivate his connection to music, and just let those dice fall where they may.

[yonpote]

i think an interesting opposition to rpf that ive heard quite often over the years is people claiming that they've had friends who were a bit too invested in their relationships and had fanfiction written about them which they found weird or invasive. in that specific case, it makes a lot of sense to feel uncomfortable with any art or stories of real living people in sexual or romantic situations that they didn't consent to being in and then being shown said art and fic. rpf (at least before youtube) was always incredibly niche and considered generally weird, all the way back in star trek fandom days, but it's also kinda always existed. the 1960s mclennon fics dan joked about in his now deleted video about shipping culture WERE A REAL THING! one could argue shakespeare participated in rpf! (its on the wikipedia page about real people fanfiction i am not joking go check) or perhaps even the bible!!!!

but obviously with more historical tales, people don't really find a problem with that because they were all written so long ago and we've greatly mythologized a lot of the kings shakespeare wrote about for example where they may as well be fictional characters since we dont have any way of knowing their true personalities anymore, and with kings in the 15-1600s there was definitely no direct line of communication between royalty and the common people the way a modern day celebrity can easily just tweet to their fans about their everyday life.

i think the dawn of youtubers and internet fame and social media was the first time that the people being written about were actively discussing the stories that were being told, and the first time that people were directly sending them links to fics or art of them making out. (but correct me if im wrong! maybe paul mccartney has an interview out there where talks about having to sign a girl's beatles fanfic zine lmao.) but thats the first time anyone was actively talking about it outside of "oh, thats just a weird thing that some people do, lets just leave them in the corner" and it was the first time that this was being brought to people's attention at a much larger scale. even just in the phandom, a lot of comments under the reupload of dan's shipping video were like "this is the video that actually taught me what shipping was" (lmao @ dan accidentally creating his own beast of burden)

so it's just this unprecedented moment of this (being fully honest as a fic writer myself) Pretty Weird Thing That We Do coming into light. but it didn't just start with pretty boy youtubers or even boy bands.

and i could probably somehow tie this in with my whole thing about yaoi/slash as a genre created primarily by and for women not really being about gay men necessarily but rather a way for women to express parts of themselves that are generally repressed by using characters they can't project onto so they don't have to imagine themselves in more taboo scenarios that they secretly want to explore. but i think thats enough yap from me today lmao

[ear-worthy]

SmartLess Podcast Welcomes Presidents Biden, Obama & Clinton

SMARTLESS’ UNITES PRESIDENTS BIDEN, OBAMA, AND CLINTON FOR HISTORIC PODCAST INTERVIEW

While one former president is in court defending himself against hush money payments to a porn star and to a Playboy playmate, three other Ex-POTUS's discuss gun violence, foreign relations, Biden’s re-election campaign, what they miss about being in office, the State of the economy, passing the baton Between Presidencies, and more on the Smartless podcast.

SmartLess hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes have brought together three U.S. Presidents, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton, for a historic podcast interview.

The momentous episode is available early on Amazon Music/Wondery+ here. It will be wherever podcasts are available on Monday, April 29.

The podcast interview was recorded in-person recently with the hosts and the Presidents in New York City.

SmartLess with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity.

The award-winning podcast was launched in July 2020 and is consistently among the top five most listened-to podcasts monthly. Guests have included Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Don Cheadle, Larry David, Greta Gerwig, Idris Elba, Kristen Stewart, Pedro Pascal, Selena Gomez, and many more.

INTERVIEWS CLIPS AVAILABLE HERE:

Sean Hayes: Do you all miss something specific about holding office, obviously except for you because you’re in office, but do you guys miss something?

President Biden: I miss not having an office.

President Obama: Well, look, everybody talks about Air Force One.

Sean Hayes: Yeah, sure.

President Obama: Marine One. It’s pretty convenient, I won't lie. But I’ll tell you the thing I miss the most. Remember those music concerts I used to do at, you can basically invite anybody, and you have this concert and I mean we got you know Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney.

Sean Hayes: Everybody will show up.

President Obama: They’ll show up. And they do these rehearsals the night before a lot of times and you can kinda sneak down and could just sit there and watch Mick Jagger practicing with BB King or something on a blues night. I do miss that.

President Clinton: I miss the fact that they don’t play a song when you walk in a room anymore.

Sean Hayes: We should’ve done that today.

President Clinton: I was lost for three weeks when I left office. But let me tell you something serious, this is one reason that I so badly want President Biden to be re-elected. What I really miss is the job. Not doing it, I'm glad, I believe in the two-term limit strongly, but what I learned was on the worst day, when nothing was going right, problems are everywhere, there was still something you could do that would make somebody's life better. There is no job like that on earth.

Sean Hayes: I love that.

Clinton: And I want somebody..

President Obama: Who appreciates it.

President Clinton: …that I trust to make the most of that every day. Cause they’ll be bad days no matter who gets elected. But he’ll get up and he’ll start thinking about that. And I think his opponent will be thinking about…

President Obama: Himself.

President Clinton: …yeah, who I can get even with, who I can send away. Joe Biden will make the best of the bad days.

Jason Bateman: And the team that you have assembled and your comfort with deferment. For me personally, I love leaders that have the confidence to hire those that they respect, that might make them a little nervous.

Will Arnett: And also not to think that you're the…

President Obama: That you’re the smartest guy…

Will Arnett: Yeah, that you’re gonna have every…. We had leaders like that in the middle part of the last century who were put into government by presidents of old, and they made a lot of decisions that they thought they were right about, and they were terrible people. And when that happens, when you think that you’ve got all the answers, is the moment you don’t.

Jason Bateman: Like Ron Klain, bringing us out of COVID. It’s just on and on and on, the way in which you’ve surrounded yourself with the absolute best this country has to offer.

President Biden: I made a commitment, having an administration that looks like America. I have more women in my cabinet, I’ve appointed more Black Circuit Court judges than every other president combined in American history. I’ve kept my commitment about putting a Black woman on the Supreme Court. I’ve had an opportunity to go out and get the best people - and by the way, I sometimes pick up the phone and ask these guys who they think are the best people. And I’m looking for people that most of all, not just are good, but care about what they’re doing.

Jason Bateman: Whereas the other guy is only hiring people that won’t talk back and that’s…

President Biden: Oh mine talk back.

CLIP 2 - Download Here

Sean Hayes: What are the issues coming up that people are focusing on that you believe are the wrong things, or they may be the right things, and what should they be focusing on?

President Biden: I think they should be focusing on a couple of things. Number one, we’re gonna, in the second term, God willing, we’re gonna make sure that we do something about gun violence in this country.

Will Arnett: Yes.

President Biden: The idea that we allow assault weapons to be sold, and magazines with 100 rounds, is just bizarre.

Will Arnett: Well, President Biden, I’m so glad to hear you say that because that was gonna be my other question. Which is, the Democrats never say we want to take your guns away.

President Biden: Absolutely not.

Will Arnett: You never said that, you said we gotta be smart about what’s going on.

Jason Bateman: You don’t need to kill a deer with an AR15.

Sean Hayes: Right.

President Biden: The Second Amendment, when I taught law school, the Second Amendment wasn’t absolute ever. You weren’t able to have a cannon when you were, you know, the liberty is ordered with the blood of patriots. I mean, it’s a bunch of crap.

This episode of Smartless will be available wherever you get your podcasts on Monday, April 29.

[dustedmagazine]

Jonathan Cott — Let Me Take You Down: Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever (University of Minnesota Press)

Whether you adore, loathe, or are indifferent to the Beatles, it seems fair to ask in 2024 what exactly could be left to say about them. Surely at this point the most written about, discussed, mythologized, demythologized, simply covered band (although to be fair, have they blown up on TikTok yet?), it’s understandable both that people would feel compelled to express themselves about the Beatles and that the rest of us might have our eyes glaze over in response. Jonathan Cott has more bona fides in this area than most, having written about and interviewed the band from the 1960s on (including an interview with John Lennon a few days before his murder), and he’s made two smart choices in putting together this particular book: narrowing the focus, and going in a more idiosyncratic, personal direction.

That focus is apparent from the title on down, and it’s a relief to see the scope reduced to two songs. Who needs another general overview of this particular band? (Yes, it’s good those exist in general, there will always be new, curious people as time passes, but it feels like that category is pretty densely populated at this point.) The Beatles are also one of the few acts that could conceivably sustain (in a financial sense) a whole book on one of their singles, even a double A side; even if one wished various other artists would get that kind of analysis, it’s hard to begrudge writers taking their chance to go so deep on one of their few chances to do so. But Let Me Take You Down is only partly a history of the two songs. The first section here covers, in 50 pages, the circumstances of the two songs’ creation, looking at the first period where the four members tried taking a break from the Beatles (and, in some cases, had existential crises about what not being a Beatle might mean), Lennon and McCartney’s artistic partnership/slight rivalry, the personal history that fed into both songs, and so on. It’s well done and moves briskly; someone who knew nothing about the Beatles would probably come away wanting to know more, and those already deeply steeped in the lore won’t feel their time has been wasted.

The second and final section here is nearly twice as long as the first; Cott, clearly a seasoned interviewer (with an impressive ability to either quote other myriad other works and authors out of thin air, or an impressive dedication to keeping potentially relevant quotations on hand to refer to), sits down with “five remarkable people” to discuss the single. Only two of them, Laurie Anderson and Bill Frisell, are primarily known as musicians. The three are the urban planner and Gramavision Records founder Jonathan F. P. Rose, Jungian analyst Margaret Klenck, and actor (and, more significantly for his section, noted Buddhist) Richard Gere. These conversations feel like they make up the heart of the book, and are where it will succeed or fail for most readers.

The tone throughout all five conversations is loose and friendly, with everyone involved engaging with the songs (lyrics, sound, historical context, personal context) deeply but informally. It’s worth noting that the median age of all six interlocutors is in the early 70s, and all come at “Strawberry Fields Forever”/“Penny Lane” from the perspective of people who were there at the time and who’ve been playing and thinking about these two particular songs ever since. Although Cott does have a bit of a thesis (based on James Hillman’s The Dream and the Underworld, with Paul as Zeus taking you “back” and John as Hades taking you “down”), he doesn’t impose it on any of the conversations and they all go in their own directions. Are these songs about depression? memory? love? the illusion of the self? all of the above? Let Me Take You Down’s most signal virtue is the way it might remind you of your own deep conversations with friends about music (Beatles or not), digging deeply into shared passions and volleying insights and theories back and forth.

The result is a book both small and scope but that goes to surprising places. If there are quibbles to be had, they’re along the lines of wishing “Penny Lane” got as much space from any of the people involved as “Strawberry Fields Forever” (but then again, isn’t the underworld something most of us find more fascinating, and easier to talk about, than our pasts?), and that the dense repetition of “said,” “explained,” “commented,” etc. might make one wish these interviews were presented in a more transcript-like style. Those small issues aside, the only big issue Let Me Take You Down really has is the obvious one, that most can answer for themselves instantly: in 2024, do you want to read another book about the Beatles?

Ian Mathers

[ferdifz]

Paul McCartney’s new AI Beatles Song

AFP News Agency:

Paul McCartney has revealed in an interview with the BBC broadcast Tuesday that a "final Beatles record" has been made with the help of artificial intelligence. McCartney did not name the song that has been recorded but according to the BBC it is likely to be a 1978 Lennon composition called "Now And Then". The recording will be released sometime later this year.

https://u.afp.com/iDAV

Concerning, sure. I could fathom the potential disapproval. But if the estates of all four Beatles members approve, what are the fandom and the music-consuming public going to do about it? 

——

Updates:

My further personal opinions: Yeah like what are Beatles fans going to tell The Beatles? Are fans going to tell The Beatles that they have no right to “mess around” with their songs? 

Like how Star Wars fans had told George Lucas he had “no right” to make the 1997-2005 prequels? Or tell Disney they have “no right” to cast a Black woman as Ariel in the Little Mermaid live-action remake?

——

Another analysis which I tend to agree with, from Mic The Snare on Twitter:

I got a wee lil jumpscare at first, but I think Paul’s quote’s been mischaracterized by these headlines.

John’s vocal already exists! They’re not generating John’s voice via AI! They wanna clean it up with the same tools they used during the Get Back doc! I think that’s okay!

And from Paul on the BBC Channel 4 interview:

...And we were able to use that kind of thing when Peter Jackson did the film Get Back, where it was us making the Let It Be album. He was able to extricate John’s voice from a rumpy little bit of cassette that had John’s voice and a piano. He could separate them with AI, and he could tell the machine, “That’s a voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar.” And he did that, so it has great uses.

So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had, that we worked on. We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure, through this AI, so then we could mix the record as you normally do.

——

Further: some imho relevant historical articles & links:

“Now and Then” (1979 unfinished "demo” song by John Lennon) - Wikipedia

“Free As a Bird” (1995 Beatles song) - Originally written in 1977 by by Lennon but uncompleted - Wikipedia

“Now and Then” (May 2023 A.I. fan edit) - Song uploaded to YouTube. Made by YouTube user “John Winston Lennon” on May 2nd, 2023. Created by editing & repurposing from ‘officially’ unreleased ‘bootleg’ material from the 1995 version that McCartney, Harrison and Star were attempting to record, for their “Beatles: Anthology 1″ album, released in 1995.

[ghostsontelevision]

sorry the gaylor stuff is fascinating to me so i wrote a whole damn essay abt it under the cut

something i find personally really interesting about gaylor stuff is like - i see the sentiment expressed often in gaylor circles that taylor swift's queerness needs to exist to justify her art. like, if taylor swift isn't queer, why does she write so much about hidden romances? about feeling like she needs to protect her lover from the public? how come she writes about these big dramatic whirlwind affairs when in real life she just dates boring white guys?

there's a few answers:

writing about normal dating stuff isn't as fun as writing about big dramatic whirlwind affairs. yes, love can be stored in going to the grocery store together and cuddling and movie nights - but it's hard to get multiple albums worth of material out of the bliss of domestic mundanity

she is a woman in the public eye. her dating life has been heavily scrutinized by a million strangers since she was sixteen. publicly being seen with someone is in fact a big thing for her, even though she is a cishet white woman who historically has only dated cishet white guys

as much as she hypes up her work as autobiographical - she is capable of writing fiction and has done so before. to assume that every song is ripped straight from her diary seems like it's discrediting her own creativity (and, see point one)

and i think its fair to say that these themes she returns to of forbidden love and having to hide your feelings can absolutely resonate with queer audiences. yeah, i do think a lot of her songs probably hit harder if you imagine they're about a queer person. but relatability and identity are not the same thing, and i think it's important to both not assume that everyone with x identity has experienced y, but also to not assume that experiencing y means someone must have x identity.

however, there's another layer to this. if i were to tell a straight girl about my personal experiences with homophobia, and she responded by saying "i absolutely understand - my dad wouldn't let me date anyone until i was eighteen, i had to sneak boys in and out of the house" - i would understand this as well intentioned, but i might feel slighted or misunderstood by the fact that she considered society-wide discrimination equivalent to having to worry about getting in a fight with her dad. similarly, i've seen many gaylors express that taylor being an ally would make her absolutely unpalatable to them - if she's straight, that means she centered herself every time she talked about lgbt activism despite being heterosexual, that means all the lyrics about hidden relationships are actually about her public boring white boyfriends, that means she didn't ramp up her gay activism because she was planning on coming out and she just did it to promote her new album, that means there really aren't any more secrets to decode and she might actually be dating a football player. for a lot of gaylors, the gay subtext is in fact the entire reason they like taylor swift, and if she's a heterosexual woman, that means they have to find a new favorite artist

in case it's unclear: this is an outsiders perspective. i find gaylor stuff interesting in the same way i find paul is dead stuff interesting - the concept of this long running conspiracy theory surrounding celebrities is really fun for me. paul mccartney is alive, though, and taylor swift is, at least to my knowledge, heterosexual. i'm actually not really a taylor swift fan - i won't change the station if she comes on the radio, but i'm only familiar with her hits and also steadfastly believe that her being gay wouldn't outweigh the damage her jet has done to the environment. i don't have any investment in taylor's sexuality at all - if she's been secretly dating whatever woman she was most recently photographed with, ok cool. if she's actually for reals dating the football guy - cool. but i think a lot of gaylor stuff leans on starting from the assumption that she's queer and works back from that, which makes for poor theorycrafting. additionally, i think it's fuckin goofy to pretend the biggest pop star in the world would face career-ruining backlash for being gay, especially when she's made her stance on gay rights known. i can't imagine someone going "i thought the gay rights song was good and tasteful but knowing she herself is queer has ruined her for me". if she could come back from the kanye scandal, the jet thing, the dating a right-wing asshole thing - she will literally be fine, and to pretend otherwise is to ignore the plethora of other queer pop stars who are far less famous than her and still maintained their careers.

however, i do find that theory that she and harry styles committed vehicular manslaughter and had it covered up pretty funny. i will incorporate that one into my belief system.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

It takes a couple of stops in Liverpool to locate Paul McCartney and John Lennon, neither of whom are musicians,

before the Inspector and Emerald can confront the Conductor and their evil plan to turn music into noise.

[wallisninety-six]

Defining a Legacy: The Historical Significance of “The Smile Sessions” (2011)

It’s not that it wasn’t meant to be; it needed to grow- and it needed time, to shine on it’s own.

October 31, 2011 marked the day that would change The Beach Boys forever: 44 years after the much-anticipated Smile album was scrapped, and only 7 years after Brian completed the album as a solo project- Smile was finally released not only as its own 19-track album, but also was included and released as a legacy compilation with vast amounts of the original recordings named “The Smile Sessions”

Coincidentally or not- 2011 was the 50th anniversary of the Beach Boys’ formation as a band in 1961. As such, its release and its wide swaths of material to listen to feels like a total culmination for not only the band’s discography, but for Brian Wilson and his legacy: not only did it live up to the near-impossible expectations for both critics and fans alike, but as one of the group’s final releases- The Beach Boys finally got to define their legacy largely on *their* own terms, not critics who lost faith in them while they struggled with blacklists and personal tragedies and even abuse.

And all of the original surviving members of The Beach Boys slowly started to put a major cap on their career together with the band as we know it- not with embarrassment (as with their much-derided “Stars and Stripes Vol. 1″) but with one of massive triumph and exceptional quality that made even the most seasoned and established musicians (like Brian’s creative rival and friend Paul McCartney) turn their musical world upside down with how deeply unique, unusual, yet masterful and often deeply complex the 2011 Smile album and all its recordings sounded. For once, the world’s reaction to the band was not one of pity- but one of massive respect for all the incredible creativity and hard work from Brian, songwriter Van Dyke Parks, the band members, and The Wrecking Crew musicians that birthed this album.

The Smile album included- while still unfinished, sounds remarkably whole and practically complete thanks to the engineers Dennis Wolfe, Alan Boyd and Mark Linett (as well as Brian himself) largely basing the album off Brian’s 2004 solo album, and taking whatever fragments they could to compile and create finished tracks- a massive undertaking for a big project, especially one whose history is incredibly long and complex in itself. Whether we like it or not- this is as officially finished the album will ever be, and what’s here is breathtaking.

Smile itself is a powerhouse of musical work- completely varying in sound from A Capella, atmospheric baroque pop, almost-demonic chants and incredibly abrasive instrumentals, haunting orchestral arrangements, yet also delightful country rock, experimental psychedelic instrumentals, and so many others as we are taken on a strange journey of the birth- and death of America and the American dream. All of it dizzying yet also sounding unified, each track blends to the next almost seamlessly with song cycle form- cementing its status as a concept album. And even beside the album itself, listening to the other tracks as well as hearing Brian direct during the sessions offer a vivid glimpse into a completely different time: for the band, and for music.

Brian’s production and editing techniques here were virtually unheard of and un-attempted- and even now, it all sounds unlike anything music has made ever since. And not only that, his editing, tape manipulation and production methods were so complex that they would be incredibly difficult to replicate until the advent of digital music editing around the 2000s- decades ahead of everyone else. With the Sessions album released, what we thought we knew in terms of musical production history were immediately challenged as music professors and producers studied Brian’s production methods to then try and pass down to new learners of music for years to come.

Indeed, considering the massive amount of material produced and composed, and especially considering the near-impossible task of compiling all this music into one album with massive technical, legal, and personal limitations, as well as severe mental health crises of Brian in the 60s- this is perhaps the only real way Smile could have ever been released while nearly satisfying everyone’s expectations. And perhaps this is the most important part: Smile could never, ever in a million years be released *unless* it was on Brian‘s own terms- a scenario that was completely impossible for him in 1967. It’s no coincidence at all that Smile Sessions came out after Brian finished the project in 2004.

Possibly a first for Brian, he was largely surrounded by people not constantly telling him “no” at every turn- but by those who truly believed in the project’s realization and in Brian’s talents as a whole, thanks to individuals like Darian Sahanaja (who would later preform in Smile’s live performances) giving Brian his support to finish the project how *he* wanted to. And as a result from the Smile Sessions’ release, many more musicians continued to be inspired by the completed project like Kevin Shields and his band’s most recent MBV album.

With the troubled history of the project in mind- the massive and unanimous critical acclaim for Smile, The Smile Sessions, and for Brian and The Beach Boys were way overdue, yet entirely deserved. It’s a triumphant moment for a man who nearly died for this album yet lived long enough to see his musical world and ideas validated. And thanks to Smile Sessions’ success, The Beach Boys have started releasing other archival releases of post-Smile albums, offering us a glimpse for the first time stirring & incredible compositions from him and his late brothers Carl and Dennis Wilson for the very first time in the process, while giving more exposure to the band’s largely unknown later albums for the wider public.

Henry Rollins- former leader of hardcore punk band Black Flag perhaps put it best in his review of The Smile Sessions: “Sonically, the album is one of the best things you are likely to hear in all of your life. There are moments on SMiLE that are so astonishingly good you might find yourself just staring at your speakers in unguarded wonder, as I have."

Smile’s world truly is one of wonder, showing us the unlimited possibilities for creativity in music- fans have been (and even moreso now) compiling their own versions of Smile, allowing them to test their musical chops, make their own edits of the album and its tracks and experiment with music with a fiery passion, transforming Smile from a mere musical project into a living, breathing album. And this, indeed may be the greatest gift Smile and Brian has given to the world: Sharing full creativity and spreading a love of music in people’s own unique way.

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

[mountain-in-springtime]

i was tagged by my darling @loser-user-noaccuser (thanks for the tag love) so let’s go!

(i’m also gonna tag @takenbythelightfantastic @shutupdevvie and @myfriendtheghost but if you see this and i didn’t tag you, feel free to participate anyway!)

what book are you currently reading? i just started shady hollow: a murder mystery by juneau black. i’ve been meaning to read it for ages, so i’m excited to finally get around to it. 

what’s your favorite movie you saw in theatres this year? this is really hard to pick because i did see a lot of films this year, most of them screenings of older movies. my top three are probably labyrinth, goodfellas, and rear window. i do feel that elvis deserves an honorable mention as well because i did really enjoy that and it made me cry multiple times. 

what do you usually wear? it depends on the day. if i’m at home i just wear athletic tights and a t shirt, but if i’m going to class i’ll throw on a cardigan as well and sometimes wear jeans instead of tights.

how tall are you? i’m 5′3″ 

what’s your star sign? do you share a birthday with a celebrity or historical event? i’m a pisces! i also share a birthday with johnny cash and victor hugo (and i’m one day away from sharing one with george harrison)

do you go by your name or nickname? they’re pretty interchangeable tbh. some people call me mallorie, but just as many call me mal. 

did you grow up to be what you wanted to be as a kid? yes and no. i think that who i am as a person is the type of individual that i’ve always been and wanted to be, but in the tangible sense of a career, lifestyle, etc., i’m still in a transitional period of my life and can’t say yet if i’ll reach the more material goals set by my childhood self. 

are you in a relationship? if not who is your crush if you have one? i’m not in a relationship, and i don’t really have any crushes aside from my multiple famous/fictional/tumblr mutual babygirls. 

what’s something you are good at vs something you are bad at? ever since i was a child, i’ve been pretty talented in the arts (singing, acting, visual art, etc.) and i did really well in school, but i am absolutely terrible at sports or really anything atheltic. 

dogs or cats? both! although i don’t know if i could live without a dog.

if you draw/write or create in anyway what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you have created this year? it’s definitely this (technically unfinished) painting that i did of george harrison at the beginning of the year. i consider it one of my best works to date, and it was done at a time when i was really deep into a beatles phase so i think my love of the band and george really manifested into the work. 

what’s something you’d like to create content for? oh my gosh there’s so many things. i’m really big into any kind of pop culture/media so i draw a lot of celebrities that i love and things like that. i’d really like to continue to make art that shows my love of the beatles, but i would like to branch out into making art for some of my other loves like john denver, gvf, and the muppets. i’d also love to give writing fanfic for any of the fandoms i’m in a try.

what’s something you are currently obsessed with? well i’m obviously obsessed with the beatles and gvf, but i also adore john denver, the solo works of all the beatles, the muppets, the simpsons, film (particularly old hollywood and 80s films), and a million other things. i’ve also been hyperfixating on seinfeld a bit lately bc that’s the show i’m currently watching. 

what��s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? i think every year i convince myself that i’ll make new irl friends and finally have a full friend group or even get into a relationship, but that never really happens much. (although i am thankful for all of the darling friends i have made on tumblr. y’all mean so much to me.) i also went see paul mccartney in concert this year and while it was amazing and by no means disappointing, it didn’t hold the life-changing gravity that i thought it would, and it almost made me a bit sad because it reminded me how much time has passed since the beatles and that the people that i really care about won’t be around forever. 

what’s a hidden talent of yours? i’m pretty good at impressions! i can do a lot of them, but some of my favorites are miss piggy, cher, bob dylan, chubby checker (specifically singing the twist), a ton of simpsons characters, jerry seinfeld and jimmy stewart. (the last two aren’t always great but they really make me laugh.)

are you religious? yes, but it’s a bit complicated. i was raised catholic, but i find that i don’t agree with all of the teachings of the catholic church, so now i’m trying to find where i stand in the religious community and where my beliefs and morals fit. it’s something i’m working on and figuring out as i go along. 

what’s something that you wish to have at this moment? happiness, love, and peace

[captainmdhridoyhossain-blog]

[ad_1] “It’s simply cringe-making,” mentioned Glyn Johns, the recording engineer and manufacturer who performs a distinguished function in “The Beatles: Get Again,” Peter Jackson’s marathon documentary collection concerning the fateful Beatles periods in 1969 that culminated within the “Let It Be” album.Mr. Johns used to be no longer speaking concerning the just about eight-hour collection, which critics and fanatics have embraced as a watershed tv match, however of the Austin Powers-esque outfits his 26-year-old self wears right through it. “I appear to be a bloody clown,” he added.His yeti-like goatskin coat. His dandyish Oscar Wilde jackets. His Capri-ready neck scarves and Janis Joplin sun shades.It's not simple to face out in a documentary that includes 4 of the twentieth century’s most renowned folks. However together with his aptitude for equipment and slinky-pants-cool, Mr. Johns has discovered a brand new spherical of appreciators a part century after the truth.For Mr. Johns, 79, the revel in has been fun — to some extent.“I’m bored to death with it now, I’ll inform you,” he mentioned with fun in a phone name from his house in Chichester, England. “I've 9,000 emails and texts from folks from my previous, all taking the Mickey unmercifully.”“Some persons are pronouncing, ‘Oh, the jacket you wore on X day used to be improbable,’ or ‘The place did you get the goatskin coat?’ However on the whole, they’re guffawing at how ridiculous I regarded, which after all is right.”Mr. Johns used to be infrequently the one peacock throughout the ones fateful weeks, because the Beatles worked to recover from their variations and get again to their roots with a no-nonsense rock n’ roll album, accompanied, in idea, through a live performance tv particular.What to Know About ‘The Beatles: Get Again’Peter Jackson’s seven-plus hour documentary collection, which explores probably the most contested length within the band’s historical past, is to be had on Disney Plus.Whilst John Lennon and Paul McCartney usually appeared to be dressed for convenience, befitting lengthy hours toiling within the studio, Ringo Starr confirmed as much as one consultation in a lime-green pinstriped swimsuit with a woodland inexperienced musketeer blouse. George Harrison wore a identical ensemble in red and crimson. (Type websites together with W and Marie Claire have introduced guides on how one can store the appearance in “Get Again.”)In such corporate, this is a little unexpected that Mr. Johns has garnered such a lot consideration. He used to be already an trade heavyweight, who would later transform the go-to sound guy for The Who, Eric Clapton, the Eagles and lots of others. However at that time, Mr. Johns used to be the rest however a Beatles insider. He used to be related to the Rolling Stones, whom he had labored with because the early days. In reality, when the Beatles first reached out to him, he used to be doubtful.“I used to be at house on an overly uncommon evening off and the telephone rang, and the individual at the different finish introduced themselves in a Liverpudlian accessory as being Paul McCartney,” he mentioned. Mr. Johns idea it used to be Mick Jagger pulling a realistic comic story, so he informed him to get misplaced, albeit in saltier language.“And naturally there used to be silence at the different finish of the telephone,” Mr. Johns added. “He began in all places once more, and I assumed, ‘Oh, it is Paul McCartney, Jesus Christ!’”The Stones’ model affect on Mr. Johns is plain. “I consider Brian Jones taking me to a shop in Carnaby Boulevard as soon as, and we purchased stuff,” he mentioned. “I consider Mick gave me a marvelous blouse.”“The best factor I feel I wore within the movie used to be the crocodile Levi jacket, which in reality have been given to me through Keith Richards,” he added. “We have been in Paris, and Keith had this jacket made for him in France, and it have been dropped at the lodge. He took it out of the packaging, put it on and mentioned, ‘Right here you could have it, I don’t need it.

’ I do not know what took place to it. Possibly I gave it away.”Nor can he consider the place he were given the goatskin coat that audience are obsessive about, even supposing he does consider the way it smelled after a rainstorm.“I distinctly consider queuing for an aircraft dressed in that coat, and the folk in entrance and at the back of me moved clear of me as it if truth be told stank,” Mr. Johns mentioned. “And naturally in the ones days, in case you had lengthy hair you have been suspect anyway.”Fanatics rightly laud Mr. Johns’s seems within the movie because the epitome of ’60s British rocker cool, and the costume-like whimsy he (and quite a lot of Beatles at quite a lot of occasions) show in “Get Again” has the entire colour and enthusiasm of the peak-psychedelia second.By means of 1969, then again, rock used to be taking a more difficult, darker flip, as evidenced through the Rolling Stones’ “Let it Bleed” and Led Zeppelin’s eponymous first album (either one of which Mr. Johns labored on), to not point out Beatles songs like, sure, “Get Again.”The Beatles’ public symbol used to be beginning to replicate that. For the quilt shot of “Abbey Highway,” taken on Aug. 8 of that 12 months (coincidentally, the similar day 4 contributors of the Manson circle of relatives set out for Sharon Tate’s space in Los Angeles), Mr. McCartney and Mr. Starr opted for somber military and black, Mr. Lennon blank-slate white and Mr. Harrison, “gravedigger” denim — no less than in step with the viral Paul-is-dead conspiracy idea of the day.Nor did the Beatles appear to gussy themselves up a lot for his or her final public look on a London rooftop — the climax of “Get Again.”Long gone have been the Technicolor satins. Mr. McCartney used to be principally dressed for the workplace in a somber black three-piece swimsuit and open-collar blouse. Mr. Lennon, in shoes, and Mr. Starr went minimalist black-on-black, even supposing the previous wore a fur coat borrowed from Yoko Ono and the latter, his spouse Maureen’s shiny crimson raincoat, probably to gird themselves towards the iciness relax. George Harrison regarded quite festive, if somewhat thrift-store sublime, in shiny inexperienced pants and a grizzly-like Mongolian lamb-fur coat. After which after all there used to be the ever present Ms. Ono herself, in her ever-present black.A conventional research used to be that the Beatles had stopped placing on showbiz airs through then as a result of they have been bickering over cash and control, and have been headed towards a breakup. That view turned into canonical after the discharge of “Let It Be,” the downbeat 1970 documentary through Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who performs a distinguished function in “Get Again,” and captured the hours of unseen pictures that looks within the collection.To Mr. Johns and lots of others, “Let It Be” has the entire pleasure of a divorce continuing.“It’s terrible, horrible,” Mr. Johns mentioned of the sooner movie. “My reminiscence used to be that we if truth be told had a truly just right time and everyone were given on nice. The truth that George left the band for twenty-four hours isn't any other from every other band I ever labored with, or any individual who works in an workplace. Individuals who paintings in combination for years on finish, they fall out, and so they patch it up on the finish. It’s standard.”He would by no means have guessed the Beatles have been heading towards a cut up.“The 4 of them had long past via this mammoth revel in, from once they have been unknown, to being 4 of probably the most well-known folks on this planet,” he mentioned. “There used to be this huge bond between them. They have been like circle of relatives, truly.”He remembers so much much less about what he used to be dressed in, and why.“Pay attention, mate, it used to be 50 years in the past, how can I consider?” Mr. Johns mentioned with fun. “Everybody has a method of their very own, I assume. However I used to be busy operating.”

[ad_2] #Glyn #Johns #Type #Favourite #Beatles

[power-of-read]

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present

Enjoy reading the lyrics online

From his early Liverpool days, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his long solo career, The Lyrics pairs the definitive texts of 154 Paul McCartney songs with first-person commentaries on his life and music. Spanning two alphabetically arranged volumes.

Pages: 960

Download Here

[sumpix]

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes … because I live just around the corner. Lynsey Hanley

To a dour Brummie like me, living in Liverpool is an unending source of hope and delight. I took this photo to remind me

Once a place is immortalised in song it’s hard to imagine it as somewhere in which people really do walk their dogs, or go to the Londis or get a haircut. When it’s the Beatles doing the immortalising, it becomes almost impossible – unless, of course, you live there.

Penny Lane, in Mossley Hill, south Liverpool, lives on not just as a Beatles song but as a street five minutes’ walk from my house. John Lennon and George Harrison went to the primary school on the corner, and Paul McCartney was a choirboy at the church opposite the song’s “shelter in the middle of a roundabout”, where this photo was taken. (Mossley Hill was a bit too posh for Ringo, who has his own mural in Toxteth.)

I see these landmarks while going about my daily business, and in the 10 years I’ve lived in Liverpool it has never ceased to feel wonderful and strange. Sometimes, it’s like living in a theme park: the open-top Liverpool Explorer bus passes the top of my street a couple of times a day. The Magical Mystery Tour bus – you can see the sticker on the street sign – ambles round daily on a three-hour tour of historic sites that I’ll never quite be able to take for granted.

Come to my house and I could walk you to John and Paul’s childhood homes. I’d show you the fire station, the barber shop, the park they walked through to get to each other’s houses, and the bus stop where Paul caught the same number 86 that I get into town most days. It’s a daily privilege to see something like the world they wrote about – still recognisable, though inevitably altered, 60-odd years later – through my eyes.

For someone who grew up in a pop-worshipping household, far away in Birmingham, a household that regarded the Beatles essentially as family members, it can resemble a living dream, a bit like the song itself. It was partly because of them that I knew growing up to have something like the life you dreamed of was attainable. Although moving to Liverpool wasn’t part of that early dream – I’m here because I married a Merseysider, falling in love with the place as well as the person – it’s in so doing that I’ve found the community and life I always hoped for.

Macca’s mental map of these streets remains intact to this day, as it was when he wrote Penny Lane from his Regency mansion in St John’s Wood, around the corner from Abbey Road in London. In McCartney’s telling, the “pretty nurse” selling poppies by the tram shelter “feels as if she’s in a play/ she is anyway”. When I’m going off to the doctor’s, or dropping bags at the charity shop, within sight of that same tram shelter, I catch myself thinking, how lucky am I?

Part of this comes from Liverpool’s own irrepressible, elaborately gregarious character, which to a dour Brummie like me is an unending source of hope and delight. Among the sights I’ve seen within yards of my front door are Ken Dodd’s extensive funeral cortege (with Dicky Mint, his puppet Diddyman, guarding his coffin), two Liverpool FC cup-winners’ processions – the main road a cheering sea of red and white, and a thumbs up from Mo Salah – and Stephen Graham wearing plus-fours and a tweed waistcoat outside the local wine bar.

Liverpool is exactly this, all the time: the dreamlike and the everyday overlapping at every opportunity. That’s not all it is. It’s also about dockers striking and winning, as they’ve done this year; chasing fascist sympathisers out of town to the sound of the Benny Hill theme tune, as Liverpudlians did in 2017; about LFC and Everton fans going from collecting tins to building a national campaign for the right to food. Its socialism is practical and dreamful at the same time. The sticker commemorating the life of the late Guardian columnist and campaigning writer Dawn Foster is there for a reason: Liverpool was her kind of town.

Ask a scouser what Britain’s second city is and of course they’ll reply, “London.” But I love that in a place. Maybe it takes moving here from somewhere else to recognise how special that is. I never wanted to live in a fantasy world, but I always hoped to find a place that was real and fantastic at the same time. Penny Lane is it.

Lynsey Hanley is the author of Estates: an Intimate History and Respectable: Crossing the Class Divide