#can you guess which is my favorite beatle

[4doras]

A NIGHT WITH YOU ౨ৎ⋆˚｡⋆

what happens when you meet a black cat while trick or treating? ⊹♡

taesan x f!reader | strangers to lovers

genre. fluff (lowercase intended)

wc. 0.8k

a/n. wrote this for halloween but i don't know if its enough so i might write another fic ><

you planned to stay inside this halloween, no different to the years before. you happily laid on your bed, scrolling on your phone.

“y/n?” your mother knocked on your door. “can you please go out this year? you can wear something simple.” your mom pleaded.

“something simple like what? i have nothing to wear.” you groaned.

“you could be a black cat. just wear a black outfit and cat ears.” she suggested.

“fine.”

a black cat, isn’t that unlucky?

more under the cut!

you wore a black shirt and skirt, paired with a cat ear headband. you drew whiskers on each side of your cheek and a circle on the tip of your nose. you found an old pumpkin basket and left the house.

you knocked on the close houses, collecting a few pieces of candy every time. you knocked on house 400, instead of the usual parent or grandparent, a boy around your age opened the door. he was also wearing a black cat outfit, as simple as yours but without the headband, his hair managed to stick in a way that looked like cat ears. maybe he really was a black cat.

“h-hey.” he stuttered.

“hi.” you responded, taken aback from the person in the door.

“taesan! what’s taking you so long? just give out the candy.” you heard a voice coming from inside getting louder. “oh! you’re y/n, right? i’m friends with your mother!” someone who looked like the black cat's mother walked up to the door.

“yeah, that’s me.” you bowed as you greeted his mother.

“you’re so pretty! do you want to come inside? you and taesan can become friends.” she held her son's shoulder tightly, making him quietly wince at the pain.

“of course.”

you followed the boy up to his room, which was well kept. it smelled really nice, too.

“you can sit on my bed if you want. i don’t mind.” he said, plopping himself onto the bed. “i’m taesan, by the way. han taesan.” he looked at you with his big eyes. he really was like a cat.

“i’m y/n. l/n y/n.” you introduced yourself. “you like music?” you scanned the room, it was decorated with posters, vinyls and a guitar.

he turned to you like a cat hearing its favorite word. “mhm, i play the guitar too.”

“what’s your favorite band?”

“i like The Beatles and My Chemical Romance.” he seemed so happy to talk about his interests, he really fit the cat persona. “i can play something for you.” he smiled.

“only if you’re good.”

“don’t pressure me.” he sulked.

he sang and played the guitar for a few minutes before stopping, burying his face in his hands.

“what’s wrong?” you said, concerned.

“it’s embarrassing…” he mumbled in his hands.

“no it’s not, you’re really good.” you tried to pull his hand away from his face. he removed his hands, looking you straight in the eyes. his eyes shone in the dim room, it was weird. you could see stars in his eyes. “seriously, taesan. it was good!” you giggled, brushing a piece of hair out of his face. a red glow forming on his cheeks.

“well, tell me about you, now.” he sat up straight.

“i don’t know… i don't do anything interesting.” you thought for a bit.

“there has to be something.” he tilted his head.

“there really isn’t, taesan.” you tilted your head as well, mirroring him.

“then i guess i’ll have to get to know you, hm?” he grinned

considering you two would be staying inside, you both removed your makeup and showered. taesan let you wear his clothes for the time being. though, they were huge on you. taesan came out of the shower and stared you down.

“you look cute, my clothes are so big on you.” he laughed.

“shut up!” you pushed his arm.

“you look cute,” three words that stayed in your head the whole night. that, and the smell of taesans shampoo was all you could think about. taesan had a twin size bed that you both squished on. taesan snuggled into your shoulder, trying to get comfortable. you could smell his shampoo with how close he was. his clothes smelt like fabric softener. his room was so cozy, and so was he. you let your hand linger in his hair, gently playing with it. what you didn’t realize was that taesan was wide awake. he didn’t dare move an inch in case you stopped. his heart was racing, the whole atmosphere engulfing him like a warm blanket.

when you woke up, taesans arm was sprawled across your body, keeping you against the bed.

“taesan? i can’t get up if your arm is on me.” you poked his arm.

“just five minutes…” he held you closer, hugging you tightly.

maybe black cats aren’t so unlucky.

[m1ssunderstanding]

Get Back Rewatch 55 Years On: Day 15

The beautiful mess that would’ve been The Beatles plus Yoko Ono plus Billy Preston plus Bob Dylan plus whoever else. Although I guess that is sort of what George went on to do. He really did just want a group of friends that cared more about each other than the product, and that’s what he created for himself. 

John: And the dream I had was you. The camera: zooms in on Paul’s wounded puppy eyes. John: *staring at Paul* d’you get my meaning? Imagine doing that to literally any other human being. I would not be that intimate with my best friend, my husband, my sister . . . anyone. Let alone my ex, (not literally, you all get what I mean) in front of my current SO and multiple cameras. This kind of thing really makes me wonder what kind of insane shit he must’ve said/done when they were alone, especially in happier times. 

George painted his own psychedelic guitar, and it looks gorg. Who painted Paul’s. Anyone know?

How can I Not assume “Stand By Me” is *meaningful* if, firstly, this is the second time you’ve sung it at each other during this project, and secondly, if you look at each other like This while singing it? Then again, when are they not uncomfortably intense when singing together?

“Oh, help me, Daddy. I don’t even know how this thing works.”  He says about the instrument he plays in the most successful band of all time. Paul can play whatever he needs to to get what he wants out of someone, and that includes dumb.

John’s little “Ookaay.” At Paul’s weird carrying-on about his insecurities with his bass playing. It just screams, “You’re delusional and I’m not getting into this right now.” Which is 1000% valid. Imagine being Paul McCartney and second-guessing your bass skills. Reminds me of that quote where John’s like, “He’s an egomaniac about everything else, but he’s coy about his bass playing. Which is stupid because he’s one of the most innovative bass players . . .”

John and Paul nail the harmony on “HoooooohOoOoOme.” And the LOOKs, you guys.

But also the nonverbal vocal communication! It’s one of my favorite parts about them, really. One of the things that reminds me of how special their relationship is. John makes a face. Paul goes, “brroop”. John replies with a beaming, “Yeah!” To which Paul adds another “brrrrip” as they simultaneously continue the song. It’s just unreal. Nobody does that. They are magical and they were right to think they had special telecommunicative powers. 

The lunch orders today are everything you need to know about the Beatles. John: Sparrow on toast. Paul: Boiled testicle. George: Uh, Mal? So, we’ll have whatever the vegetables are, and if they’ve got any cheese sauce for the cauliflower. Ringo: Mashed potato. That’s it. That’s them.

“Then there’s another one,” says Paul, doing a shit job of pretending he hasn’t rehearsed this to sound like some accidental discovery. “Don’t let me down. Oh, darling,” sung suddenly, and forcefully, directly at John, “I’ll never let you down.”

John, beaming like the star quarterback just told him he looked pretty, tucks his hair behind his ears and says, barely hovering in the safety of a joking tone, “Yeah, it’s like you and me are lovers.”

John has of course taken Paul’s game of gay chicken an arm’s reach farther than Paul’s comfortable with, at least in front of cameras, so he can only nod, and brush his own hair back. Stiff, expressionless. "Yeah."

(Of course, Peter Jackson cuts out what eventually evolves into John and Paul singing “we’re a couple of queers” and talking about wearing skirts for the performance) 

Am I the only one getting the vibe that John genuinely dislikes Teddy Boy? Not because he thinks it sucks or anything but because he doesn’t like the obvious similarities to his relationship with Julia? Personally, I love it. It was my anxiety song a few years back.

The original lyric to “fancy me chances” was Not “frock” I absolutely guarantee. 

Love Paul checking on Billy. Love that they're all, even with everything they've got going, making sure he's set up and taken care of.

Sorry not sorry that I’m so thirsty over literally every woman in this show, but. Hello, Pattie! She just walks in, ignores everyone else, kisses him Like That, whispers something, and gets out to go live her own life. Queen. Gorgeous. Obsessed.

George Martin praising his children for "working so well together." I love that he refused to produce them after the white album, not because they were being disrespectful to him or anything, but because they weren't getting along. And that, although he's not producing, technically, he can't stop himself coming in to make sure they're okay. He's such a good dad, literally.

John over here being emo af by himself, playing “I Feel Fine,” because he definitely does Not feel fine and he’s just as nostalgic as Paul, which is way too fucking nostalgic. Poor baby. 

[your-unfriendlyghost]

4, 5, 7, 14

(Okay I really liked these ones fyi)

4. Rank the main 7.

  Ooh tough one. I guess right now, in order of favorite to least favorite, I’d have to go Sodapop, Two-Bit, Steve, Johnny, Ponyboy, Dally, and then finally Darry. But it’s pretty close, and the order changes day by day honestly- I like all of them a lot, y’know? I guess the only one I don’t think about too often is Darry. I still like him and think he’s a really well-written character- I just don’t have a lotta original thoughts about him, is all, whereas I do about all the others. 

5. What are your fave ships?

  In a truly shocking turn of events, I, a frequent draw-er and writer of Stevepop, am going to say Stevepop. I dunno, something about them just makes me happy. Reminds me of like…daydreams I had when I was twelve and crushing on my best friend, and trying to get her attention by doing stupid things and whatever…god I don’t really know how to explain why I like it. Before this fandom I didn’t usually ship things, to be honest. But I guess when I did it’d be stuff like Jesslake in Infinity Train, where it’s the sorta thing that can be seen as platonic or romantic. I reckon Stevepop scratches a similar itch in my brain lol

  But I also really like Marcia x Two-Bit, which I haven’t really talked about here much- They had good chemistry, y’know? I oughta draw something about them sometime

  And then finally there’s my DIY crack-ish ship Soda x Steve x Evie. I like them! It’s all the things I like about Stevepop, plus there’s a cool girl in the mix! I love cool girls! More folks should think about them i think

  I do like other ships okay too- like the Tarry crowd has dragged me in, and sometimes the Jally crowd does too, along with Purly and occasionally Johnnyboy. I’m not an active participant, but when I come across it, I sorta mentally nod and say “nice”, you dig? They’re like…my ship-in-laws. Or like…milk duds and hershey bars- candy I still enjoy, but reach for only after I’m out of milky ways and twizzlers.

7. What are your fave non-romantic relationships? (This can be close friends, familial, enemies or even just acquaintances)

  Two-Bit and Pony! I like them a lot. Their interactions in the book were some of my favorite parts. That line when Two-Bit was worried about Ponyboy using that broken bottle on the Socs…ugh that part was great. I remember reading it for the first time and just sitting there thinking about how much I liked that detail.

  Then on the opposite side of the coin, Steve and Pony lol. I LOVE how Pony doesn’t initially like Dally or Steve, and yet Dally’s chill with Pony…but with Steve the disdain is mutual. Jk I don’t think Steve really hates Pony- but he definitely thinks Pony’s kinda annoying. I like the idea of him watching out for Pony anyways though, like at school especially now that Soda’s not going.

14. Tell us five of your headcanons you basically see as canon

Sodapop has ADHD and maybe (?) dyslexia, but it’s the 60s so he won’t find out till he’s well into adulthood

Marcia gave Two-Bit her real number, and was disappointed when he didn’t call it. I like to imagine they end up remeeting at some point and going out together- even if that’s kinda unrealistic lol

Steve hated Dally when he first rolled into town, because Dally was everything he really wanted to be- tough, cool, and street-smart. And he was also scared of losing Soda, who thought Dally rocked- because Dally’s from New York and rides in rodeos! Eventually they became buddies though when Dally gave Steve a compliment or something. Not even a particularly good one- something like “Hey you ain’t bad at fighting”- just barely enough for Steve to feel like Dally’s earned a little bit of his loyalty. Might write fic/make a comic for this- it’s kinda niche but I think the idea is funny

Steve and Soda secretly listen to the Beach Boys at the DX. They can’t tell anyone because it’s not tuff to like a dumb California band. And Ponyboy would like the Beatles if he listened to them, but he doesn’t, so he won’t realize that until years after Beatlemania has died down

Steve is not just a Ponyboy hater but also a horses-in-general hater. He thinks horses are scary and unpredictable and that cars were invented for a reason. He was secretly relieved when Mr. Curtis stopped Soda from riding rodeos, because seeing Soda on a crazy horse gave him mad anxiety. Pretended he was sad though for Soda’s sake

Thanks so much for asking!! I loved answering these so much lol, definitely let me know your thoughts too on ‘em!

[thecoleopterawithana]

Eras: The Beatles | Episode 6 - Now and Then

In the final episode of Eras: The Beatles, we hear the story behind The Beatles' final single Now and Then, including new interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Narrated by Martin Freeman, the episode also features insight on the new track from Sean Ono Lennon, Olivia Harrison and Peter Jackson.

.

[This episode features more complete audio from the soundbites included in the 'Now and Then' short film/documentary. Under the cut are transcriptions of some of my favorite sections. Including Paul's interpretation of the meaning of 'Now and Then' (bonus points if you guess his answer!)]

PAUL: And then 'Now and Then' just kind of languished in a cupboard and we didn't do anything with it. I kept saying, "You know, maybe we should do something with this, seems a bit—" "Hm, I don't know..." There wasn't a great desire to do anything with it. So it hung around for a while. Years! And every so often, I'd kind of go to the cupboard and think, "There's a new song in there! We should do it! We gotta do it!" But it'd go back in the cupboard.

[...]

PAUL: Peter [Jackson] had sent me a text while he was doing the 'Get Back' thing. He said, "Here's a piece of dialogue of John's that I'd like to use, but George is rehearsing in the background," and you could hear George's guitar and you couldn't really make out quite what John was saying because it was distracting. He said, "But we've got this new technology: Machine Assisted Learning. M.A.L., so we're calling it MAL." Which was like— that was really cool! Because our old road manager and dear friend was Mal [Evans].

[...]

PETER JACKSON: I'd had this idea for two or three years about him [Paul] singing a duet with John. And the fact that we'd developed this software now allows us to separate the voices and the music meant that I could take a song that John and Paul were singing on, just separate John's vocal only, and Paul could have that for playing on stage. And then his band and himself could do the vocals and the playing for the rest of the song. So he could do a duet with John. He didn't even blink, he just said, "That's a fantastic idea, I love it! Let's do it!" And so we quickly turned that around and got that underway. So Paul was now touring with a John Lennon duet on 'I Got a Feeling'.

[...]

PETER JACKSON: I got a phone call from Paul saying, "Is it possible to use that technology for another project I've been thinking about? [...] Would it be possible to take John's vocal and clean it up and get rid of everything else? Because that would allow us to finish this Beatles song." And absolutely, it didn't take me more than about a second to get back to him and say, "Of course we can do it!"

[...]

PETER JACKSON: We assumed that the copy of 'Now and Then' that they were working to in the studio in 1995, where the vocals were coming from, was probably not a first-generation copy. [...] So we though, well this is probably a third generation [tape copy]. [...] And so we contacted Sean Lennon and he was very helpful. And sure enough, we got a digital copy of the original. Which is the same demo, same performance, but two generations better.

[...]

RINGO: I'm sitting there thinking, "I don't remember George doing that solo?" It was just like practicing, maybe. Cus it sounds like George! Then Paul said, "No, it's me." [laughs] But Paul did a great job. I mean, he's very good, you know, Paul. He's a very good musician.

[...]

RINGO: Giles [Martin] had to fly out to LA one day to listen to a four-hour string session that Paul wanted, and then fly back to England! [laughs] There's no string sections in England!

[...]

PAUL: Eventually, when we got to mix number 7 it was, "Wow, this is it! Now it's a Beatle record!" And we played it to various people, some of whom cried. Some of whom said, "Jesus Christ! It's a Beatles record!" But the reaction was very favorable.

[...]

RINGO: The difference from the two tracks of John, the old track of John— you know, we have to thank Sean as well, because he found the original tape. So that's the one you can really hear John, not the copy-copy-copies. And... it's like John's there, you know. It's far out. It's so clear now you know it's him. Cus on the original one we were working to I couldn't tell if it was Paul or John singing half the time. But now you know it's John! [chuckles]

[...]

PAUL: I think it just means 'now and then'. "Now and then, I have a cup of tea". I'm not sure it means an awful lot more than that. But, looking at it from today's perspective, now and then. Then you can start to get all sorts of meanings in. The modern-day, the historical past of the Beatles. It lines up with all of that. But we were always very happy to let people make their own minds up. "Here it is, it's a song. Now, the minute we deliver it to you, it's up to you. You can do anything you want with it." And people do!

[...]

RINGO: And that was what it was like for the three of us when we started this role in the 90s. We had to pretend— it always makes me laugh when I think of it— we had to pretend that he'd gone for a cup of tea or his lunch. But that he was still around. Because it was very strange when we started there's only three of us, after all those years, and all that life, that there were four of us. And I still miss him, man!

[...]

SEAN LENNON: It feels very synchronous that the lyric speaks about time and that it's taken so much time. That it sort of fuses the past and the present. It's like a time capsule. And it all feels very meant to be — or fated, or something — in the nicest sense.

[...]

PAUL: When I remember the Beatles, I remember the joy, the talent, the humor, the love. And I think, if people remembered us for that — for those things — I'd be very happy.

[good-to-drive]

Do you think that George and John would have fixed their relationship had John lived past 1980? Because I don't.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this because in general I'm not a fan of speculating about what a person would or wouldn't have done had they lived. One of my favorite pieces of advice I ever got was when I was tutoring disadvantaged students during college (the best job I've ever had) and my supervisor told me potential is unknowable by definition. Meaning it's just as misguided and counterproductive to say someone has a lot of potential as to say they have no potential, because that's just not how that word works. Partly because people are dynamic and changeable but also because there are recesses of our character that no one, including ourselves, can be aware of.

So I truly don't know what would have happened between them, and I don't think you know either if I'm being totally honest. But, to throw all that out the window and speculate anyways, I think the most realistic answer is: Possibly.

I think it's fair to say that John and George were both highly mutable individuals, and that of the four beatles they spent the most time and energy trying to understand the self and achieve some kind of self awareness and personal growth (even if those attempts were sometimes misguided -- I'm looking at you, primal therapy). And I think in this case their mutability is both a complicating factor and an indication that reconciliation really was a true possibility for them. 

John was making enormous strides in his mental and emotional health at the time of his death, and it's entirely possible that might have led him to feel differently about George over time, or to simply decide he didn't want to put energy towards being angry at him anymore. (Not to equate letting go of anger with being adapted/self-aware – just that that’s one way growth can manifest, it’s definitely not the only one or the best one.) 

For his part, George was very vocal both musically and irl about all the ways he felt he needed to change/grow, though of course whether he ever got there is a difficult question to answer. His views on forgiveness are really interesting here (and sometimes a little magnanimous, tbh) but one thing that initially surprised me is that Paul credits George with convincing him to forgive Yoko.

(Which I guess just surprised me because I always believed the conventional wisdom that Paul is the sweetie and George is the cranky guy, but obviously that's a very limited snapshot of both of them.)

Anyways, to me the fact that George was putting time and energy towards learning to love Yoko implies that he may have been hoping or wanting to relearn his love for John as well (if he hadn't already.)

So I do think it’s possible that at some point in the last 40 years they’d both have been in a mental space to want to interact positively with one another again. It's not something that was guaranteed to happen, and I don't think we can even fairly say it was probable or improbable because that implies a level of knowledge of their souls that no one has or has ever had, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.

On a related note, another thing I've found kind of profound in analyzing the beatles (or anyone) is the line “The wounds of childhood do not heal” (Maryse Condé, Crossing the Mangrove.) Which is to say that the pain we experience as children shapes us so profoundly that every experience we have as adults is seen through the lens of that pain, and we reenact our childhood and our childhood family systems again and again without healing.

Now, in the case of the beatles, I think it’s a little blurry what constitutes childhood and what constitutes a family system (“family” system being a misnomer because every close collection of people has the tendency to form a system). Because they found each other as adolescents, and went through a life changing and arguably traumatic experience at a very young age that no one else could ever understand, the system they formed shaped them very powerfully and the wounds it instilled probably never healed, either. 

I guess that's my way of saying that the four of them had kind of an extended adolescence, and they continued to reenact the system they built as adolescents in order to survive the insanity they were living in well into adulthood.

Since George was something akin to a forgotten child in this system, and Paul was something akin to a golden child, (both of which are miserable, horrible ways to live, btw – this trend of using golden child to mean “spoiled” is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever seen and also incredibly destructive to people who have actually experienced that trauma) those two really did have a tendency to be at odds with one another throughout their entire adult lives.

(Obligatory reminder that this is wild speculation and I'm not their therapist, or indeed any kind of therapist at all.)

But I think it’s that (and the fact that we tend to analyze anyone who touched Paul’s life purely through the lens of Paul) which tends to make people think George was fundamentally opposed to forgiving people who’d hurt him or allowing systems to adapt over time, even if that assumption doesn't really bear out in any of his other relationships. And, obviously, it's a little tricky to try to transplant the Paul/George relationship onto the John/George relationship and equate or even compare the two, because John played a very different role in the system and was a very different person from Paul.

Also, the fact that the wounds of childhood do not heal absolutely does not imply that we'll always be a slave to them. Crossing the Mangrove is an amazing book about decolonization and intergenerational trauma but one of its most powerful themes was the idea that we can continue to build ourselves and build our world in the shadow of enormous pain. And we'll always be informed by that pain, but being informed isn't the same as being defined.

All this is just to say it's very hard to anticipate what kind of changes John and George would have undergone in the last 20-40 years and whether those changes would have brought them closer together (or, if not closer together, would have encouraged a sense of acceptance towards one another.)

I also think there’s a conversation to be had about whether rebuilding that friendship would have actually been for the best for their mental and emotional wellbeing (a LOT of children from toxic family systems ultimately come to find that sorting through the pain isn’t worth it for the chance of reconciliation and that’s okay), but this is already way too long lol. 

Anyways, thanks for the ask and sorry this turned into such a novel!

[cursedzucchini]

Dc x DP prompt #9 ♪

Lmao i just remembered i wrote snippets of this jazz is psychiatrist in Arkham in au, and Danny just doesn't give a fuck thing. And so y'know why not post them w some new stuff right?

I'm gonna post them as i wrote them, which is not chronologically, so yea

These prompts will have have this ♪ next to them bc I'm extra like that.

Aight now to the prompt!!

--

"My favorite doctor! how are you doing today Ms Fenton? and is that your brother? That is—"

"Yeah, yeah, shut it, Walmart beatle juice, we get it, you're" the boy sighed, exhaustion obvious on his face as he made quote signs with his fingers "'crazy'. Get over yourself, you're not that special"

The woman, standing next to the teenager, lightly hit his head "Danny!" she reprimanded lightly. Tim guessed this was probably common occurrence for her, but damn, he did not plan on witnessing watching a child sass the Joker and live to tell the tale.

And what was even more surprising, the green haired menace actually looked like he took offense in the supposedly Danny's words “Well aren't you a rude one. If you have to know that character wears very different clothes and is dead. I on the hand-” he dramatically gestured, but was promptly interrupted by the boy. Again.

“Well I'm not so sure about the second part” he grinned at the clown, his weirdly sharp teeth showing. His hand was about to reach his pocket (and holy fuck was that a gun???) before Dr Fenton glared at him and he stiffened. As if realizing they weren't the only one in the room his eyes shifted to Tim, before looking back to Joker “I mean, because you look ugly as fuck. No one alive should be this hard to look at” the teen flipped the older man off, before waving at the doctor and stepping outside the cell.

Doctor Fenton sighed again, looking for a moment at the door where Danny disappeared before turning towards Tim "I apologize for him, he's just going through a difficult phase" she smiled at him as if saying 'younger brothers you know'.

And in fact, Tim did the fuck not know, because in which phase do you make fun of a psychopath who continuously breaks out of Arkham and kills for less.

--

Joker sitting at his bed when his new therapist apologizes to the vigilante and not him the victim of his brother: h-

Jazz, w nice smile and her hand on the handle of her taser which could and probably did kill a bitch: shut the fuck up (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

-

Tim after he manages to get out of his shock, at his fam: i think Jason got cloned

-

Jazz later: Danny u can't just bully my patients just because of your misplaced anger, and big fear of clowns

Danny: watch me >:))

-

Rr: can you even.... Bring him here? Like he's obviously a teen, he shouldn't be meeting w these dangerous criminals...

Jazz: well when tried to stop him, he just stared at them, until they let him

Danny, who let a little bit of his eldritch abomination leak out: yea

[ram-on]

whenyourbirdisbroken asked:

Hi ram-on! Thanks for your tags on that fic rec for Carry That Weight, I've never read that fic but your tags made it sound very interesting! What are other McLennon fics you like, if you don't mind sharing?

Hello there, @whenyourbirdisbroken! Thank you for my very first Beatles related ask and sorry for the late reply!! I discovered fanfiction through the Beatles fandom, I had never read fanfic before! But I'm still too bad at bookmarking things, so I'll certainly forget some I loved. Still, here's a list of those I can remember now:

Carry That Weight and its sequence Hello Goodbye by @waveofahand It's a massive work by a massive talent and it has a very special place in my heart. @idontwanttospoiltheparty described it very well in their recent post about it, and I added a bit of my commentary in the tags. Don't worry about the length, you don't have to read the two parts to enjoy it, but also if you start from the beginning and it's your cup of tea you may soon discover you never want it to end!

 Mums, Yur Boys are Crying by waveofahand. If you love hurt/comfort, this fic includes both John and Paul suffering - John's mom dying and Paul helping him go trhough the funeral, etc, and then Paul himself getting into another situation, and John worrying about him too. The boys are young but there's kindness, maturity and wisdom in it and the typical picturesque, novel-like features of waveofhand's prose. A special bonus are the very charming scenes between Mimi and Paul which may colour your perception of the interactions between those two forever (I always expect them to act like that in other fics). It's also a delightfully finished fic, it has a beautiful ending and conclusion.

Everything by merseydreams . As you may notice, I'm mostly a fan of drama and angst, but @merseydreams are my favorite exception. They're a comedy genius, their fics are romantic, charming, witty, very vivid and enjoyable both on story-buld level and micro-sentence level. I've often told them they should write scripts for sitcoms and romantic comedies/dramedies and other good things. Also good thoughtful characterization, relationship study-ing and dialogue too (so there's seriousness in them too! They're ultimately happy but not fluffy.). I love all their fics but I guess The Birthday Party is the best by being the longest, if you somehow missed it go read it ASAP! 

i was a younger man then (now) (post hoc)  by fingersfallingupwards.  This fic is so touching, that I don't know how to describe it. It's a very poetic, imaginative and unique story about John&Paul-forever and time travel. About the connection of their souls in a fantastical but poignant sense that somehow fits them so much. Might make you cry but it's worth it. Also, completely finished fic as well, with a thrilling emotional twist towards the end. Might be the most complete fic I've read. The fic also provide very good context for the flaming pie anecdote :-)

On our way back home by Kathleenishereagain. This one is also about time travel, but in a different way, basically about old Paul getting back to being young again and how he'd do things differently. I think it's quite popular so you probably all know it. (Funny thing is I never thought I'd care about time travel, but ultimately it's just a writing vessel and aren't we always time travelling when we fantasise about the Beatles?) 

Close The Door Lightly When You Go by RosalindBeatrice. Set in 1979 when Paul comes to visit John in the Dacota, who acts like he doesn't want him there. It's awesome, one of those fics, in which they have real tension and problems which makes it all more real. It's mostly inner-thoughs and dialogue-driven but very intense nontheless, great characterisation, great attention to detail, just fantastic for lovers of post break up relationship studies and excellent writing.

The Wild Horses trilogy, from which I especially love the last part, Son of a Shining Path. It's about young Paul and John and Paul being abused by his father, and the first part might be a bit too dark for some. But I love the writing, and especially in the third part (which has no abuse but other suffering) I just love how well being worried about someone you love and being unable to show it is written in the end there. It's subtle, very realistic in its details, I love it.

I'm Looking Through You by @idontwanttospoiltheparty That's the only fic in this list which is still a work in progress, still updated. If you follow the author on Tumblr you know how smart they are, and their fic is just as thoughtful and attentive to the Beatles history, the music and the psychology of it all. The story gets more exciting and rich whith each chapter, I fell in love with the last three. It also pays attention to all four of the Beatles and their human sides and motivations in a way that rarely happens. Last chapter included the best incorporation of the Manila adventures I've read in fic. Just many emotionally packed and thrilling scenes all around (also that thing I just wrote about being worried about someone and being frozen about how to help them which I love being written realistically in fics -- is here too.) Go read it if you haven't and let's read the next update soon together!!

Widow by abromeds on LJ. This story is more than a decade old, but it's no wonder it still appears in fic recs. It's about death and grief - not John but Paul dying like John did - so it's truly dark, not like fun angsty, but truly deeply dramatic and real. So you might think why read something sad, but maybe you should, because it's so good. It's also serious writing on meaningful topic and I think the fictional element (Paul dying and not John) somehow helps it being more bearable and at the same time makes you think about the actual reality and we kinda avoid doing it, don't we? And it's just very well written, there are also very plausible-sounding flashbacks of their history and relationship through the years (the one about why John actually climbed the fence in Cavendish is my favorite!), so it's not really all about death. And my absolutely favorite thing in ''Widow'' is the very ending, the last sentence even. It's the most perfect, most poignant ending this story could have had, an ending any good fuckin literature could have. Sometimes I walk on the streets and think about that ending. 

-------------------

This fic rec is got too wordy, so I'll end this here, although there are other fics I've enjoyed just as much, but I'll add them some other time!

Always feel free to recommend me some fics too (or to share your thoughts on the already mentioned!)

[the-boney-rolls]

The Great Covid Beatles Binge, Day 1: Nowhere Boy

I am stuck in bed with Covid and have decided to spend my time binging all the Beatles movies, docs and biopics I've never gotten around to. Up first, Nowhere Boy (2009)

OK this opening shot is actually stunning? The first chord of A Hard Day's Night and John running through Liverpool and stumbling just like in that movie. STRONG opener!

“Do I ignore you? No. So please don’t ignore me.” makes me think of "Don’t 'nore me Mimi!"

Oh Uncle George! I don’t know if their relationship was really this lighthearted and warm but it breaks my heart to think that sweet John couldn’t have a positive father figure in his life for long, he clearly needed that. 

John making weird little sounds while he doodles and then doesn’t even know that he’s being asked about his favorite guy. “Churchill sir!”

This poor actress has really been type cast as Messy Mom. I feel like she usually plays meaner/more fucked up characters though so I was skeptical, but I like her in this after all.

"I Put a Spell on You" really is a sexy song, damn.

So in the context of this movie, these scene doesn't even feel all that scandalous. This entire movie to this point (and going forward) has been framed a romance between John and Julia, so by the time you get here it's like yeah, I guess that's what we're doing. The writer of this movie read that one quote of John's talking about having feelings of attraction to Julia and really went WILD with it.

I'm shocked that they didn't try to find some way to get the song "Yes It Is" into this movie. Clearly someone has a theory:

If you wear red tonight Remember what I said tonight For red is the color that my baby wore

Anyway, this forest scene was hot.

I love Aunt Mimi and John teaming up to haggle with the man for a better price on the guitar. “That’s not very good is it John?” “Borderline mediocre if you ask me”

What is going on with this lodger and Aunt Mimi! I feel like I'm getting a vibe.

OK unsurprisingly, I need there to be like %1000 more significance placed on this scene.

I'm gonna pause here to talk about casting. I don't believe that actors need to look just like the subjects they're portraying, it's more important that they can carry out the essence of the character, but I do feel like sometimes, with certain characters, there are some aspects of appearance that are important. Like I think it is important that Paul is very pretty, both for his own character and for John's perception of him. And in this instance, the John actor is just objectively much prettier than the Paul actor and that's simply wrong. John would never in a million years say this little boy looks like Elvis!

This scene is such a mess, this movie is just making shit up now. Julia at literally every one of their gigs. John being weirdly jealous of Paul's relationship (??) with Julia. Paul being a great and confident lead guitarist! This last point in particular gets me because if that were the case, what's the point in bringing in George? Which happens in the next scene! There's absolutely no build up, it's just like here's George.

Justice for George, once again a nonentity in a Beatles movie. At least in Backbeat he had a couple funny lines.

Mimi made him birthday dinner and bought him a new guitar!! But he didn't show! Excuse me while I sob. This trope always gets me. I think the relationship between John and Mimi is my favorite part of this movie.

Ah the infamous punching scene. It really must have especially irked Paul that it was in the context of John grieving for his mother. Like, how dare they take this thing that was such a tender, emotional bonding experience for the two of them and make it into a display of John's macho anger.

Make me think -- WHAT would John have thought of this movie??

"In Spite of All the Danger," my beloved! This song is so good. Peter Jackson, please work your AI magic on the record to give us a cleaned-up version! I'm so McLennon-pilled though that it's very weird to see it in this context. Also, it's mostly a Paul song!

“Hamburg? Humbug!” Mimi, I love you!

OK sobbing. And as "Mother" plays the movie out? It's on the nose but it's working for me.

Overall, a fine movie. The whole concept of the movie as essentially a romance between John as his mother is questionable at best! But there were a lot of lovely shots of Liverpool and I did like Aaron Taylor-Johnson as John. He captured John's silly, playful side that you don't often see. Definitely the Mimi/John relationship was the best and most authentic feeling part of this movie, so I am glad that it ended on that note.

Next up, Give My Regards to Broad Street!

[daisyknife]

Great selection! I love '70s prog, so I'm definitely with you on King Crimson... though my favorite album of theirs is Lizard, which apparently even Fripp doesn't like lol! which of their albums do you like the best? And the Beatles are a big one for me lol, cursed with being a Paul girl 😭 But outside of that, I also really love '60s and '70s California acts like CSNY, Joni Mitchell, the Fifth Dimension and so forth!

I used to love winter as a kid, but it lost some of its appeal after I started needing to drive to work in the snow haha.... but I think I'd miss the snow, too, if I lived somewhere without it! The closest I got to that was living in the Seattle area for a while, where there would still be a dust of snow a few times a year, at least. My favorite season is probably spring, I love all the flowers! But autumn is beautiful, too - it was extremely vibrant where I live, this year! How was your autumn?

Thank you 😊😊 Lizard is awesome! Lady of the Dancing Water is one of my favourite love songs ever, so sweet and melancholy but also exquisite and delicate… big inspiration for some of the stuff I try to write for sure. I think my favourite KC album might be In The Wake of Poseidon, but not an easy choice (I also love Red and In The Court)

Hehe Paul is a powerful character 😄 and his songwriting is like world cultural heritage (or whatever that’s called in English, you know, like the famous monuments). What’s your favourite Beatles album? Mine is Revolver (for emotional attachment reasons) and I also love Sgt Pepper’s. Also *love* CSNY, Dejà Vu is one of my favourite albums ever! Wish I could get more into Joni Mitchell, I never know where to begin because I know only two of her songs but I like them a lot. Is there an album of hers you would recommend? 🤩

Heh, yeah I didn’t think about that, snow can be a little bit inconvenient 😅 my sister lives in Germany and I remember going to visit her during the holidays and the car would always get stuck and there was thick ice on the windshield… I guess the silver lining of not getting to enjoy how lovely and bright it looks is that we don’t have to worry about it being a nuisance either over here. I’ve always liked spring too! Mostly because it means winter is over and summer is coming lol. I think now that it’s warmer though I might enjoy it more in its own right too. And you’re right that it looks great with everything blooming 🤩

This autumn has been ok thanks 😊. There were some bumps in the road, but I like where the road is going if that makes sense. Mostly I’ve enjoyed seeing my efforts during the summer pay off now, specifically regarding the band I play guitar in. I joined in late spring, it’s the first time I’m in a band and it’s like a dream come true 😊. How has autumn been treating you? Also do you play any instruments? (Sorry, I asked so many questions 😅 take as long as you need, this reply was a bit of a wall of text!)

[vivi-in-the-sky-with-diamonds]

Where Heart Doth Hop

(Source)

In which you help three of four boys practice a certain Shakespearean performance.

Apologies once again for no posts. It's raining a lot here and the only internet I have is my hotspot and my data gets really slow when it rains. Finally finished reinstalling Windows 10 but now I have to reinstall Word with my slow ass internet >.> since my masterlist is a page and can only be accessed for editing on web (and since my internet is an actual ass), this one might not be there for a bit, but that's why we make master tags lol.

Like I said before, originally written for my Beatles dr but I honestly liked it too much to not post it. This isn't a direct manuscript of this performance, but it's pretty damn close. The audio on that performance (or at least the upload I've seen) was kinda bad, and the audience was super loud (understandably so) so some lines are directly from the original play or just referenced from an outside POV. I watched the performance and read the scene from the play several times while writing this to make it as accurate as possible. It's never explicitly stated where John is (I think at one point, I decided in my head, he was on a date or something), so you can choose your own adventure on that.

Proofed in UK English (probably). Checked with a random TTS website to triple-check for typos and me forgetting to change the person. Sorry I'm posting this at 3 AM, I procrastinated by sleeping all day (it was raining, I couldn't help it!) and then playing the Sims Medieval for an ungodly amount of time. Please excuse my sorry excuse for a name for this one, it's my favorite line and I couldn't come up with anything better. Enjoy!

“Y/N, can you help me with this?” Paul asks when he comes into the sitting room.

“Of course, love, what is it?” you reply.

“Well, we’re supposed to perform this Shakespeare thing and the lads and I wanna run through it, but, well…” He gestures toward George and Rich, noting the lack of John.

“Oh, I can do John’s lines,” you volunteer. “Which character?”

“Okay, you’ll be Thisbe.” He hands you what you assume is John’s copy of the script. “I guess we’ll pretend the coffee table is Wall.”

George and Rich stand back, Paul guiding you to do the same.

“O, I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot!” he begins. “And thou, o wall, o sweet and lovely wall, that stands between her father’s ground and mine! Thou, o wall, o sweet and lovely wall, show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eye— But what see I? No Thisbe do I see! O wicked wall, cursed be thy stones for deceiving me!”

He pretends to beat up whatever poor soul plays Wall before addressing the audience about Thisbe’s cue.

You walk to the table and clear your throat. “O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans for parting my fair Pyramus and me! My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones—”

As you continue your line, Paul addresses the audience again before standing across from you. “Thisbe!” he sings. “Thisbe!”

“What?!” you reply in fake annoyance. “My love thou art, my love I think.”

“Meet me at Ninny’s tomb straightaway.”

“Ninny’s tomb; is that still open?” You're trying your hardest not to laugh at the line as you both step back, allowing George and Rich to take their places in front.

“You ladies,” starts Rich. “You who fears the smallest monstrous mouse that walks the floor may now perchance both quake and tremble here, when lion rough in wildest rage doth roar!”

You and Paul nearly dissolve into giggles at Ritchie’s tiny roar before he continues, “And know that I one Ringo the drummer am, for if I was really a lion, I wouldn’t be makin’ all the money I am today, would I?”

He steps back, leaving George alone. You can tell George is having trouble with not having the hecklers' lines practiced, because he’s pure frustrated by the time he gets to, “Look, you, all I have to say is to tell you that this lantern is the moon, you see. I’m the man in the moon. This thorn bush here is my thorn bush, and this doggy-woggy here is my dog.”

You step forward. “So, this is old Ninny’s tomb. George, do you need something to hold in place of a lantern?”

George, with his arm suspended above your head, answers, “It’s fine. Keep goin'.”

“Right.” You feign knocking on the door before opening it. “But where is my love?”

Ritchie pops up in front of you with another roar; you scream, and he begins chasing you round the room before you end in what would be the background.

According to the script, you're—or rather John is—meant to drop a mantle, so you drop your handkerchief on the way back.

“Sweet moon,” says Paul, “I thank thee for thy sunny beams.”

As he begins another sentence, George shakes his head and gestures toward your fallen handkerchief.

“Hello, hello, hello, what’s this?” He begins his line as he picks up the fabric. “Eyes, do you see; how can it be? What dreadful dole is here! Thy mantle good, all covered in blood—” his accent makes the words rhyme, “—o dainty duck, o dear! Come, tears, confound! Out, sword, and wound—” he pulls an imaginary sword from its hilt “—the pap of Pyramus; that left pap where heart doth hop!”

You stare at him in adoration as he speaks, though you don’t think he notices, as he continues, “Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, now am I fled. Oh, well, you can’t win ‘em all. Tongue, lose thy light, Moon, take thy flight. See ya, George.”

George exits the “stage” as Paul begins fake stabbing himself. “Now, die, die, die, die, die!”

You skip in, humming a tune, and kneel next to him. “Asleep, my love?”

“Die, die, die!” he continues, still stabbing.

“What, dead, my dove?” You begin shaking him as you continue, “Pyramus, arise! O, speak, speak! Quite dumb. Dead, a tomb must cover thy sweet eyes. Those lily lips, his cherry nose, those yellow cowslip cheeks are gone, are gone. Lovers, make moan. His eyes were green as leeks.”

Paul is trying not to laugh as you say, “Tongue, not a word, not a word. Shut up!” You move to sit instead of kneeling. “Not a word. Come, trusty sword. Come, blade, my breast imbrue.”

You stab yourself with Paul’s imaginary blade before saying, “And, farewell, friends; thus Thisbe ends. Adieu, adieu, adieu!”

You and Paul take hands and lie backwards together as he says the line with you.

You're both laughing by the time you stand up.

“Right, I think that was good. Lads?” Paul looks to the other two for confirmation.

They both nod and Rich says, “I like her better than John. She takes the role seriously.”

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

favorite band/artist?

Sheesh. Complicated one.

You see, my music tastes are, to put it mildly, rather varied. I think it showed in my music recommendation post and the post that further explored one of those artists, but to further illustrate, my library includes:

Earth, Wind & Fire

New Kids On The Block's Jordan Knight's first solo single

Dubstep band Hadouken!’s Lana Del Rey cover

A mashup of Wham! and a fishing anime

A Japanese bilingual melodic punk rock band's two songs about bowling

80s remixes of Justin Bieber songs

A Japanese "punk ska and melodic hardcore band"'s cover of Scatman’s World

A 140+ song Beatles remix collection, featuring such gems as "Octopus's 3D Garden", "I Saw Her Yankin' There" and "Help!" (suspicious)

A eurobeat female duo of rotating Italian and British members’ Abracadabra-sampling track about falling in love with a banana

A remix of Azumanga Daioh’s Sata Andagi scene I retrieved from a porn site reupload

Moldovan folk punk band and folk musician duo’s collab about celebrating the reopening of a railroad

The soundtrack of Pictionary for the NES

A mashup of AVICII, Rick Astley and Chumbawumba

An 80s pop Linkin Park remix

Black Sabbath covers by The Cardigans (of Lovefool fame)

JT's solo debut

A Flock Of Seagulls (of I Ran (So Far Away) fame)

One (1) DJ Khaled song

A 2011 My Little Pony-themed song by then commentary youtuber

(And I beg each and every one of the people who read this list and thought "Okay that one cannot possibly be good" to hop in my askbox and allow me to prove them wrong.)

But let's go through bands and artists I've not posted about before.

Two Door Cinema Club Just out of statistics. I can prove I played I Can Talk over a hundred times and I can tell you any number under two hundred is underselling it. There is genuinely some problem with my brain that that intro slots into perfectly.

Oh also all the rest of their first album this comes from is this great too, and if you ask me what a perfect album sounds like I will tell you it's not that far off their second album.

OK Go Now, I like the music. Actually, I'd left my two guitars alone for years until an easy OK Go song made me think "Oh, maybe I can play this" and realize that rather than -as I had prior- just play the music I'd been taught, I could actually teach myself to play the music I was listening to, which snowballed into playing more OK Go songs and then it expanded and now I have a ukulele, a bass, a third guitar I need to merge with that bass (it's complicated), a fourth "guitar" (it's complicated), a Casio calculator/synth (it's complicated), a melodica, a launchpad and a kazoo. Whoops. But really, all you need to be sold on OK Go is see two of their videos. One to find out what they're like (and you're already good on that front because you have visited the internet ever and have thus seen Here It Goes Again aka "The Treadmill Video" aka what when posted to YouTube upon its CEO begging them to do so became the biggest video of all time) and another to find out that no the first one was not a one-off fluke. I am serious, go click that link, it takes you to a playlist of their videos and each one is crazier than the last. I mean they played a song with a car. A song. That has a guitar solo. With a car. Have you seen the name of this channel.

Ah, right, the name of this channel. I guess I have to say a thing about that car now. Uhhh this video was sponsored by Chevrolet to promote the Aveo which, despite being badged as a Chevrolet, like many of the more Europe-oriented Chevrolets was made by the automotive branch of Daewoo, brand General Motors picked up after the Daewoo conglomerate (then the second largest in South-Korea which may as well be called Samsungland) went bankrupt in '99 over almost $90B modern dollars in debt. Its founder Kim Woo-chong (because Lord knows the "woo" in Daewoo did not stand for "woo what a great car") earned a ten year sentence, but I feel they focused too much on the wrong guy. The REAL criminal is whoever penned Daewoo cars.

A good person doesn't do this on purpose.

Owl City I have too few of his songs, but I absolutely love how comically upbeat he is. He is so precious. If c: walked this Earth. I mean "Golf and alcohol don't mix and that's why I don't drink and drive / Because, good grief, I'd knock out my teeth and have to kiss my smile goodbye". Protect this man at all costs. Also one time I saw the Fireflies video after what must have been a good decade and you know when you feel near crying? I adored that song when I was a kid and I was right.

Liquido European one-hit wonders - and not even "people know them just for one song", not even "people don't know them and just know the song"; I found you can tell people the name of their hit and they won't know what you're talking about. But hum the riff and infallibly, invariably any single person in my country (and, in my limited experience, the rest of Europe) will go "Ooooooh, that one". And to be fair, those guys did stumble on one of the most memorable riffs in modern history.

Not saying this is a hidden gem of a band, I am sure some bigger music nerd would stamp a big fat "SEEN BEFORE" on all their stuff, beyond some enjoyable splashes of "I wonder how much of this is them leaning into it" cheese (yes, even more than that video) - but I've still got their whole discography including all the B-sides, because to me, so what? It's good music and I'll treat it like it. What's the point of praising "groundbreaking", "genre defining" works and then glossing over those inhabiting the ground they broke and making the genres they defined? When I eat bread I don't complain that it doesn't innovate or set itself apart from the rest of the genre, so as long as my music doesn't bore me why should those be problems there? I feel like people have a problem in general separating their enjoyment of a work from its artistic merit. I'm digressing.

The Beatles If you ask me "What's your favorite number of pant legs?" I'm not going to answer five because two would be cliché.

And now we get to the final answer, the real answer, in such a league of its own it deserves to be separated from the rest via a Read More.

I lied, this is under a Read More because it's an entire fucking dissertation. Your fault for asking.

Caparezza I've spent well over a decade of my life mulling over his lyrics to the point me and my ex-flatmate played this game where she told me a random word and I'd try to find it in his lyrics (e.g. the first word of your ask, "favorite", was used in the second verse of the sixteenth track of his sixth album, yes I am neurodivergent why do you ask), and still it happens that as I am going through my everyday life I happen to accrue some information and slam my forehead going "Oh my God THAT'S what he meant there". His songs are more layered, more deep, more thoughtful, more cutting, more witty, more clever than most prose you see around and still he manages to play with his words and rhymes with incredible dexterity.

Take his last record, Exuvia - actually, take the previous record Exuvia picks up from, Prisoner 709:

Its name not only introduces the theme of imprisonment, but also of dilemmas and juxtapositions, since the prisoner's number, 709, stands for the dilemma about the number of the record: it's the 7th in his discography as Caparezza, but the 9th if one also counts the two shit records he made under his previous name Mikimix (we don't talk about those). Its tracklist, indeed, while being as typical for him incredibly varied in topics (from religions to his affinity with Ludwig II of Bavaria to "I'm not [x], BUT-" types) is arranged as chapters of the story of an imprisonment (The Crime, The Punishment, The Weight, The Psychologist, The Letter, The Visit, The Yard Time, The Torture, The Revolt, The Guard, The Infirmary, The Window, The Evasion, The Hiding) and associated to dilemmas - for instance, as the record is about his feeling imprisoned in his body and in his role, the first song -and first chapter, The Crime- is indeed Prosopagnosia (i.e. face blindness), a track about him no longer recognizing himself in the artistic reputation he built himself, with the dilemma being between "Michele", his name, and "Caparezza", his rap name. Oh, and if you also want a taste of the impressive wordplay, well, count the letters of those two names. Yep. Every single one of the 16 tracks is a dilemma is between a 7 letter word and a 9 letter word. Because of course it is.

So now, let's get to the last record, Exuvia.

Nah, the pop-up edition's cover fucks way harder.

That's more like it.

Exuvia is the exoskeletal remains left behind by ecdysozoans after ecdysis, i.e. when creatures like insects and crustaceans develop a new exoskeleton and crawl out of their old one, as this record starts from his escaping from the anguish compounded through all his previous records and through a deep analysis of his past, his self, his surroundings, his fate, condensing it all and moving on to a new self, a new birth, a new shell. (Understand how I feel when people say the greatest rapper of all time is one whose greatest record is called "Damn" because the songs made him go "Damn" and whose biggest song is "Biggie Smalls' Juicy but this time about me".)

Well, in the second track of it, about running away from the dire situation of hatred, decay and persecution described in the first track, he says, and I paraphrase,

I give it all up, I'm dying, I retreat - Caporetto plus Waterloo Dripping and smelling like my head was in a station's toilet- oh.

introducing the desperation and hopelessness of military defeats and immediately following it up with an image whose comedic nature makes a contrast so stark as to surprise even him while still, being a reference to the military's hazing and bullying, latching back to the line before. While the prose I represent it with is deliberately poor, the concept behind the words is brilliant enough that it would be a good line if it didn't rhyme at all. And yet the original lines rhyme for twenty syllables. TWENTY.

Thing is, you can be as clever as you want, but the underlying music, you know, it can't be clever, it can just be good or bad. One would think. And yet the music is not just good but full of clever, witty samples and ideas that don't just reinforce the track's mood but tie the instrumental inextricably into the lyrics' themes, like Larsen (the track about his tinnitus, which he calls by audio feedback's technical name of Larsen effect) using high-pitched synths and emphasizing cymbals, Prisoner 709's title track being 79bpm (I wager 709bpm was a bit non-doable), House Credibility's instrumental featuring intercom buzz and cowbells reminiscent of cookware, or, well, everything in Exuvia's second single. See, that song is about the choice he faces between the story of Beethoven, who despite all his challenges kept devoting himself to music until the day he died, or that of Mark Hollis, lead of Talk Talk, who despite all the fame peaced out to focus on his private life - and the entire instrumental is devoted to that concept: the verses' reference Für Elise, the chorus Such A Shame, and the bridge I Believe In You; and when you tun into the background choirs you find they are rhythmically repeating "I don't know".

You start to get a clue why there's three years between his records.

So if his songs are so fucking good, why is he not famous? Well, he is! Except for his first album which no one really noticed (fairly so in my opinion - while I like a few songs I feel he really got going in his second one), the following records did really well for someone with such dense content: his third record has been certified gold! And all the others platinum. Some twice. Never since the first one did a record of his peak under 5 in the charts, and he's got 8 gold singles, 3 platinums and a double platinum. And don't get me started on the shows.

(That's me in the background!) Hell, he's even been on the cover of Billboard! So why've you never heard of him? Well, see the word next to Billboard.

Yep. The man, Michele Salvemini, is an Italian born and raised and, like any proper Italian, doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so pretty much all the English you'll hear in his music are the handful of English features, like Michael Franti, DMC (!) and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley, with which he made a song about Italy's emigration crisis.

Emigration that is also internal, from the underdeveloped, falling aparty and criminality-run south of Italy to where all the industries are, the richer and we-pretend-it's-not-criminality-run north. And since he's from Apulia, Italy's heel (his rap name in fact means "curly head" in Apulian dialect), he's made a song about its woes too, featuring the music of the tarantella, Apulia's traditional dance. (I don't know why y'all add an A in front. It's fucking "Puglia", y'all.) Here's an imperfect translation with a couple of helpful explainers to the asterisked terms over in the video's description.

It depresses me every time I think about it that all the English speakers I know will never be able to fully appreciate his lyrical brilliance. But oh well. At least y'all can appreciate the music... so fuck it, have that song whose music I yapped about so much. You'll hear the choirs in the background say "non so" (I don't know)... and a bunch more Italian words (translated here for those on desktop who want to follow along).

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[greatsaladavenue]

Replies to anons

I’ve heard Imagine ofcourse but I do like more solo stuff post Beatles by Paul and John then by George. Sorry Mom.

 Been a Beatle fan longer than I haven’t, my Mother is the Beatle fan, her favorite has always been George, and really super-stans him.

 She has seen Paul in concert but I have never heard a Paul post- Beatle song before 2022! Or John – aside of Imagine and, Live and let die and them christmas songs.

 Solo: George-”All things must pass album + When we was fab, All those years ago , Got my mind set on you.

Paul – McCartney, Ram + Tug of war, This one, Little lamb Dragonfly, , However Absurd, No More lonely nights.  John –Plastic ono band + Dream9 ,Working class hero, I know, I know, Mind games, Beautiful boy.

  Ringo – Photograph, Back off boogaloo, Midnight Vienna.

 My favorite is John because even before I knew anything about the Beatles or who wrote or sang what I liked John led songs. I still do. Don’t think he’s better that the others. In my world they where better together and neither was really better than the sum. I know what he did, I know he is bad and all that. Guess what I don’t really care.

 I have a type in looks and john fit there. My Dad and brothers are the musicians in our family but Dad and is more a Elvis fan, (he + a brother died some many years ago but see it's Paul in me talking of them ) my brothers likes them too but they are more hard rock/metal fans. (in music I have the 70-80's metal genre ! the favourite band I Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. GEORGE usually gets my vote post-Beatle look as favorite looking Beatle, old man is RINGO!

 I grew up in the late 80/90’s when rock music started to really to go down and rap took over. "Harry Potter" was huge, It was nice to be part of something like that but then Rowling happend... I even had a short boy band period. Eminem was the biggest artist on the planet. I like 80’s and 90’s rap too. I pretty much like older music and a big fan of 80’s pop music too, Prince, Michael Jackson. I really love music and not just the Beatles along with some other artists and bands has more song that I like or has grown on me with time. I guess it’s true that older music was better.

I sort of feel a bit lonely with my Beatles  nobody around me IRL cares or think they’re overrated. I can agree that sometimes the beatles fandom can be a bit too much with the ”The Beatles did eveything first” and hate other acts who also was very important for music. Ofcourse it matters that the Beatles was white, ”sic” as most of the fanbase.  I have so many favorites and I love that I do.

McLennon is what really got me into the fandom. I’m straight myself but I’d never like want to fuck a 80 + year old man but I would be a Beatle groupie back in the days and don’t care which one I would do all of them. However I don’t really care what and if something happend between them I just see what i see, I hear what I hear. J+P are not straight

 I’m a mclennon thruther they where in love with each other! They where gay for each other. I don’t push Mclennon on anybody but here on Tumblr I do. I don’t think I believe eveything I read here is true, I also think many trolling this fandom and some seem to make fun it and comes off as a bit offensive to them as IRL queers. I can understand why Paul’s not coming out. I wouldn’t either in this or as part of the older fandom.

However I’m all for RPF, Yaoi, Yuri and femme the hell out of them. They do have that humour. Also they did all of it themselves, Iol, meaning if they didn't act this way we wouldn't be here. And I don't mean it as famous people they get a queer card.

I’m happy to continue reading your fics and fortcoming posts here. I really am!  I’ll probably keep my existence here as a re-blogger  because Beatles fans aren’t always nice about "us nutcases here" ( but it's better here than on other forums) and too many trolls end up here on tumblr mclennon. all the Beatles have haters and super-stans. Both is just as bad in my opinion. I love them so much, all four of them so much I don’t really have a favorite in Beatles, JOHN still gets my vote I'm a John -girl but they are still so connected. I do like more John-Beatle-songs than by the others tho and was super gorgeous.  

McLennon is my secret sin. I can’t unsee it or explain in any other way. There's a hole missing in the Beatles history as much as in their lives (J+P but also George how he was "left out" tho Paul and him knew each other before. Wouldn't Paul be saying more insane stuff about him too?) things would fill the blanks with McLennon! How can people not see that is my biggest issue. But far too many still today would say like if you got kids, has a wife, has sex with girls, you can't be gay. Yes, they both married women. but Well.. It's mind-blowing. They were so into each other.

My favorites Beatle songs and solo also keep changing all the time:

But The Beatles: Albums: From With the Beatles. Rubber soul and the White album.

 A day in life is a masterpiece.

I also end up listing Happiness is a warm gun, Something, Here, there eveywhere, Across the universe, Help, I will, All my loving, And your bird can sing, Tomorrow never knows etc!

McLennon: Again!

I absolutly believe it was was real. They where in love. The end goodbye. Sex yes they had sex in many ways. But whatever, when how they did it or talked about it or kissed? I'm sure some of the answers is in fan fiction lol. Reality is worse than fiction. Lol. But sometimes  I don’t think they never thought it was a big deal, like it was part of a song to Paul or whatever, and John’s did something to do with glasses. Like that's not me, this is me look at me. No i don’t know but quite often I just think it’s exactly what they are saying and didn’t label it. Other times I think they knew perfectly well what they did and they made own words so only they would know. Now we have Paul's sane but !? version for 40 + years vs John's bat shit craze -like 6+ years. of course it gonna shape our version of them and what happend between them.

 I do think whatever happend in the end John left and walked out of it how, when, why again is another story. I honestly don’t think he ever was secure of anything in his life and Yoko didn't help. I can't or more like don't want to believe eveything that is written about her tho. But the way she looks at him in the beginning she did love him then and there. She has at least made good things too for the fandom, made hits herself, worked for peace and less guns etc.

Paul more like gave up. I don’t blame or think India caused it but it deffo did not help! But neither did think of themselves at least at that point that they would try to claim anyhing of course Paul wanted a family and John knew that. I don't really see how they could have "solved" in any other way. At that time.

I have more thoughts about it. Here's when my mind keep changing. Whos missed who the most? who's more depressed? Woah don't forget it also WAS and IS tough to leave friends and bandmates behind, please do include that. Not everthing is gay either! But I’m pretty sure more than we know knew about it or at least thought the same thing.

They where ALSO friends, brothers,close,bandmates and shared this magic connection with George and Ringo. Sometimes I believe they got jealous of each other’s closeness, especially post beatles and they did tried to re-create this with other people too and this is perhaps the most telling, besides quotes, interviews,pictures, videos and songs. Yeah many songs are about that and each other.

 I don’t push away the idea of other ships happening in the band or other male lovers but if it was only them, to either of them it may have add to some of the confusion. So I don’t hold that against it. Actually I don’t really care much about their lives or families outside of the Beatles. Lol. Neither of them.

My favorite Beatle girl is Cynthia. I just think she’s beautiful. And the only girl who didn’t marry a Beatle-Beatle. I don’t really think John would have stayed that long if he didn’t at some point love her. Or any of the other he "kept around but left behind".

[kinitstuffblr]

I can't tell you guys how important it is that I tricked my partner into watching an episode of puppet history one morning.

It was 100% deception. I was rewatching old episodes while I worked and he wandered out, unable to sleep in on his weekend, and asked what I was watching.

Immediately, I hatched not a beefy little puppet, but a cunning plan.

"It's a history show" I said casually. "My ghost boys do it. It's actually really interesting and there's trivia questions."

Ever the sucker for both history (especially funny or weird history) and trivia, he started to watch the screen - apprehensively, you know, because of the puppetry. But I knew in that moment I had him.

And I knew, I couldn't risk the spoilers.

"I can start it over" I offered, backing out of the ep I was on and going all the way back to the top of the Puppet History playlist. Since the early eps weren't too obvious with the lore, I put it on as a 'background noise' show - knowing he'd drift in for the trivia and would eventually start noticing the weird shit happening behind the scenes.

Eventually he started noticing the genie thing, and would roll his eyes. "What's with the genie stuff??" He'd eventually ask me. I'd shrug and act like I didn't know at first, but then eventually I'd be like 'keep an eye out for genie easter eggs I guess and maybe there's something to figure out'. He came to accept the genie lore, and by the time the episode promising no more genie lore came, he was begrudgingly invested in it - but already fully accepting of the professor as a part of our weekly show rituals. He had favorite songs (which he insists are the part of the show he can do without; at least that's what he says, but he enjoyed that Beatles one and the Randy Newman one a little too much.) We watch a handful of episodes every weekend, so the pacing has been perfect.

Then the funeral happened. No history. No trivia. Max skepticism about the professor's death the entire time - and yet he watched the entire thing, rapt and silent.

Guys, we're on the new season now. The one where the professor is inexplicably back. He's trying to figure it out guys. He's decided after the defenestration episode that the professor is actually either Mephistopheles or just The Devil in general and thinks Ryan made a deal with him so he could finally win every game -- guys, the point is, when the history and the trivia are gone, he is glued to the TV like nothing else as we get the snippets of hints about what's happening, and I know I have him snared, and I know he's going to cry at the finale and we all know that's the ultimate goal of all this, and I'm so proud that he knows the professor ain't right (originally he asked what I think a lot of us probably thought which was 'did he get reborn and then live all that time until present day?') I'm so excited he's going to love it y'all

[scary-ivy]

I found my radio station's collection of old Elvis Costello and the Attractions records and I'm going to share pictures of them because there's so many cool details

First up, Goodbye Cruel World

The radio station uses these stickers to highlight recommend songs, but the DJs love to put in funny little comments as well. Usually these stickers are written on right when the album came out, so they provide a snapshot into what contemporary listeners though of the records. Apparently the DJs of the time liked Goodbye Cruel World, but what does (Don't Ya Wish He Really Meant It?) mean?

Having only seen this album cover at really low resolutions on streaming, I was surprised to discover who those indistinct figures were

Really cool art on the back of Goodbye Cruel World, once again we never get to see this stuff with streaming :/ love the blatant political message of "nuclear ban now"

Lots of weird little in-jokes in the credits to this one. Maurice Worm is one of Steve Nieve's aliases.

Really interesting radio promo copy of Spike featuring an hour-long interview, I have to check if it's been uploaded online before. It also promises "This Town (The Bastard Mix)", which might be the censored version of This Town where "bastard" was replaced with "sweetheart" that I was looking for online but couldn't find. Or maybe it's the other way around?

Recommend songs off Punch the Clock. I'm surprised because none of these are what I would consider the "big hits" of the album.

The back of Punch the Clock. I'm noticing the other Attractions often wind up on the back of these records.

Probably my favorite detail out of everything is the title of "The Invisible Man" being written to look like it's becoming invisible (It's not just faded like Boxing Day above it).

Very green Veronica single. I believe it's just the same version of Veronica on both sides. These weird radio promo vinyls are the ones I'm most excited about because they so rarely see the light of day after their release...I just realized since Paul McCartney was involved with this one I can play it on the Beatles show!

Get Happy!! without the iconic worn-out ring on the cover? I guess the vinyl can just get worn out on it's own...I believe the 7/25/83 might be the date the vinyl was acquired, or perhaps the date it was supposed to be deemed "old" and thrown out (can you imagine?)

The back features this nice art of the Attractions

The song order of side one and side two is reversed from how the album is presented in streaming. Is this an error, or have I been listening to it in the wrong order this whole time??? Also the song is apparently supposed to be called "5ive Gears in Reverse".

Really cute letter from Nick Lowe promising that the audio quality has not been compromised for the length of the album. It's so fascinating to learn about these types of technical limitations that no longer exist. Like if it released today it would just go to streaming and then probably get a double vinyl release to wring more money out of collectors.

The American "paint-splatter" Armed Forces album cover features the Elephant cover on the back. I already knew this but it was still cool to see.

This Years Model! This record features one of the alternate cover photos (probably my favorite one), and it is a genuine demo record complete with a label from Columbia.

They put the runtimes and little recommendation check boxes for the sake of the DJs, but it looks like every song got checked and stared multiple times (except for Little Triggers :/)

Glowing reviews...it's so exciting to imagine being a young DJ in 1978 hearing This Years Model for the first time and correctly calling it a masterpiece.

"Martial more consistent throughout than My Aim Is True" lol.

I can't really read the cursive, but I it's interesting how they called Pump It Up a mixture of old styles (immediately picking up on the Dylan ripoff), and I wonder what the scribbled over parts say?

The back cover, which I'm seeing now for the first time. Love that 70s bedroom.

The Only Flame In Town single has this really striking artwork of a illustrated woman in a real scene. It's dated 12/4/84.

Pump It Up version? I'll have to listen to it. Also glad someone else loves this version of Baby It's You.

Nothing interesting here I just think it's funny they decided The Only Flame In Town deserves to be on a greatest hits compilation.

A collection of Almost Blue era songs, including a note from Elvis.

That's all I was able to photograph this week, but there's still about 5 Elvis Costello /the Attractions records I haven't looked at yet, I will update this next week!

[thestarsarecool]

@fujoshi-simone-weil tagged me in a "things to get to know me" game! Fun, thank you! You have the best url on tumblr. Also, someone else tagged me in this game, like, a month ago and I kept meaning to do it (it was on my to-do list and everything!) but I forgot and now it has disappeared from my notifications. Also, I don't 100% remember who it was. But still, I wholeheartedly apologize to that person for neglecting their tag. I don't love you any less. Anyway, on with the show!

Last song I listened to: Answer Me from The Band's Visit. You can take the theater kid out of the theater but you can't take the theater out of the kid. Or maybe you can. I don't know. I am taking a class on songwriting for musical theater right now so I am listening to more musical theater than I have in a while, though not as much as I did in like 2019.

Favorite color: Purple!

Currently watching: Nothing really? I'm not much of a TV or movie person. I just finished watching the Fionna and Cake TV show which was surprisingly good. My siblings and I watched all of Adventure Time together a while back (we like to rewatch cartoons together), so we all facetimed to watch the finale, which was really nice. I'd missed them :)

Last movie I watched: Hmm. I don't remember. Let's think...nope, still don't remember. Sorry film nerds of tumblr.com. I wish I was as cool as you.

Currently reading: Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm! It's a really fascinating look into the underlying contradictions of psychoanalysis and also a great overview of the history, but it's all done through an actually engaging character study! I think it was originally a lengthy piece in The New Yorker, published around 1980. Also, I just started The Tale of Two Cities, which is very fun because the only Dickens I have ever read before is Oliver Twist!

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: I want to say savory, but the answer is actually sweet. I put wayyyyyy too much sugar in my tea for me to be picking anything but sweet.

Last thing I googled: The last thing I googled was "Ray Donovan Music" and I will explain why because, yes, I know that that doesn't make any sense. So, I am finishing up work on this song I am writing and whenever I get to that "almost done" stage, I post to r/Songwriting to get feedback because it's fun and occasionally helpful. And someone in the comments said that my song sounds like if "the little girl from Moneyball and Ray Donovan had a brainchild with Regina Spector [sic]." Which, like, ok. Let's unpack that. The comparison to Regina Spektor is very kind. I have gotten that a few times, though I think Reddit just doesn't know any other women who write songs on the piano. The little girl from Moneyball is such a funny comparison to me. Like, she's not a songwriter? She's just Brad Pitt's fictional child. But like, sure, I get what they mean. I sing kind of light and talky sometimes which makes it sound childlike, I guess, like a Moe Tucker sort of thing. But Ray Donovan??? I literally do not know what this commenter is talking about. All I can find for who Ray Donovan is the guy from the TV show. Like, does TV criminal Ray Donovan write songs or something? Is my song particularly evocative of the Ray Donovan soundtrack? Did this commenter mash together Ray Davies and Donovan's names? I asked him who he is talking about, but received no reply. Someone save me from this hell. Who is Ray Donovan and why did he birth my song?

Current Obsession: Still The Beatles, I guess, though it's not nearly as debilitating as it was a year ago. Which is quite nice, actually! I can actually be productive now.

Current Thing I'm Working On: Well, I've just about finished up the aforementioned song! All it needs is a title. Also, I'm writing a paper on The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is fun. The guy who wrote my translation is a professor at my uni so I may go to his office hours to ask him about it!

Ok, I tag @torchlitinthedesert, @idontwanttospoiltheparty, @veidelon, @theallenklein, and @mydaroga. I know this one already made the rounds though (I think) so no need to do it if you already did it. Or, really, no need to do it at all.

Cheers, everyone!