2020 Beatles Bible Bracket Challenge | Page 17 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

sir walter raleigh said
I Am The Walrus vs. For No One

Well this is classic Lennon vs. McCartney. I Am The Walrus represents a lot of the ideas that made John’s music great and unique, and For No One is inseparable from its author as well, it contains a fair amount of emotion, and just the right amount of instrumentation as well. Even though I really appreciate what either is doing with their respective compositions, I’ll have to go with the one that is just a more rewarding listen and that generally goes to John. It is more ambitious, it feels bigger and even sonically it’s more experimental and it comes out great. For No One has a lot of value to it, and it is sort of experimental considering how minimal it is and how much contrast it holds to the rest of the songs on Revolver . But I Am The Walrus is an attempt at breaking a bigger wall and it succeeds, fewer people cite For No One on a regular basis when it comes to revolutionary songs.

sir walter raleigh said
And Your Bird Can Sing vs. In My Life

I think And Your Bird Can Sing has melodies that are more cliché, as it resembles a lullaby. It is more convoluted with those ascending-descending guitars that George puts on the track. But I just think In My Life achieves a lot more with its simplicity than And Your Bird Can Sing does with its complexity. John really finds a way to make the vocal harmonies of his partners sound like instruments, and the chord progression behind the vocal melody really benefits for that. There are little bits of lyrics in And Your Bird Can Sing that feel unfinished from a composition standpoint, the bridge in the middle at times can be a little underwhelming, and when it comes to In My Life almost all of the song is captivating, there isn’t a line or a phrase that sounds unfinished or uncertain. And most of all, In My Life has a better ending. And Your Bird Can Sing ‘s final guitars have nothing on those falsetto vocals the band performs.

sir walter raleigh said
Strawberry Fields Forever vs. Norwegian Wood

Out of the two I think Strawberry Fields Forever is a bigger artistic leap for John. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) is a minimalist masterpiece, with some great arrangements, and a lot of gentle genius in the structuring of the lyrics. But Strawberry Fields Forever is the ultimate studio song. You can’t argue an acoustic ballad against the most diverse psychedelic song of 1967. He and the Beatles were creating other universes out of sounds. The amount of balls that the song has is what make it so appealing, even if it has more potential missteps than any song on Rubber Soul . Those parts in a way are what make it so attractive, how they didn’t care if they failed, as long as what they created was authentic, unique. You can hear the creative process happen before your ears. I just couldn’t see myself voting the other way around.

sir walter raleigh said
Dear Prudence vs. While My Guitar Gently Weeps

lovelyritametermaid said
But yeah in all seriousness I do like WMGGW’s chord progression– and the song itself isn’t really meant to be smooth but just sort of messy despair that these chords with the instrumentals, production, and George’s vocals really captures.

Well, of course it is intended to be that way, otherwise he wouldn’t have changed it. But to me it’s a step down and it is only trying to bank in John’s knack for epic songs. George butchered While My Guitar Gently Weeps the moment he made it all about sound instead of composition. That piano sounds awful, the guitar solos are boring and stale, and with an instrumental like that, George’s vocals sound… minimal, like they aren’t enough.

The verses have a descending bass that conveys depression until we get to the bridge where we are uplifted into the more comfortable and harmonic bridge.  And I don’t find there to be an air of pretension at all in Harrison’s lyricism (and there’s no line that says “converted”– it’s just “I don’t know how you were diverted / you were perverted too / I don’t know how you were inverted / no one alerted you”, which is kind of some sort of Dylan-esque rhyme style) I don’t really think it’s supposed to be an “easy” listen either– it’s a piece that’s supposed to make you think and reflect, like all great art and poetry.

Comfortable? You find the major chord progression comfortable? It’s the most uncomfortable chord progression ever. The minor progression is decent, even though is cliché af, it’s acceptable, but those major chords are straight out bad, in the context of the song AND by themselves alone. On the other hand, I can’t focus on the man’s depiction of “spirituality” when he is TRYING to make his lyrics sound deep so much that he gets lost in the woods. I’m not saying he wasn’t trying to convey real feelings he had, but it’s just the execution that really ruined it. He made a two part harmony that at first seemed like sorrow and then, bringing an some acute performances, completely ruined whatever mood it might’ve had at first. Also, when he goes to falsetto, he just… sings badly, it sounds bad, his voice sounds bad. That is the problem with the chord progression. It’s unnecessary and ultimately ruins the mood of the song (if it wasn’t already ruined by the awful production).

A piece that’s supposed to make you think, to feel that despair and disappointment that George feels towards his life and humanity in those moments as he reflects on the rifts that had started to aggressively form between the band after they returned from India. In his lyrics, he explores the teachings of his spiritual commitment, but not in a “pretentious” way wherein he looks down on his target, but in a way wherein he’s just mourning the loss of humanity’s love and compassion. It’s sort of just an obituary, not an accusation.

And it fails. Something isn’t pretentious just because it’s condescending, something to me it’s pretentious when it doesn’t know how to transmit its ideas with other than cheap lines that mean nothing. George’s reflections just don’t make sense, the rhymes seem forced and don’t connect at all: “nobody told you, someone controlled you, you were inverted, you were diverted”. That is pretentious not because the feelings aren’t genuine, but because it is such a lazy way of portraying them. Stuff like your guitar gently weeping, “gently”?, come on, he is trying so hard.

On the other hand, GO is just a bunch of cheap self-references basically utilized only to establish how “meta” Lennon is and only conveys Lennon’s distaste for rock conspiracy theories and people looking too deep into his and his band’s lyrics– yeah maybe it’s cool and funny because of Lennon’s snarky self-awareness, but to me, it’s just kind of lame.

This was 1968. As lame as that would be today it was groundbreaking at its moment (as mostly anything Lennon did at the time) and it’s also the third song on the album, think about that. After the intro songs, John introduces the record by basically saying “now you’ve obsessed over all of our previous creations, we’ll give you some more, so forget about the old ones”. It’s kinda genius. And the lyrics are direct, understandable, and don’t expect me to invert my alerted divertion into pervertion As I said, Glass Onion wouldn’t be my choice for a top bracket either, but it works way more. Primarily because it knows it can’t take it too far, which George certainly didn’t.

Eh but that’s just my own opinion

Touché. If I have to defend the masterpiece that is Dear Prudence against this overrated piece of self-absorbed bollocks once more I would be kicking a dead horse. Just read all I’ve written for Dear Prudence up to now. It has more a million times more personality than While My Guitar Gently Weeps , better lyrics, better instrumental, it actually GOES SOMEWHERE instead of just standing in the same spot for almost 5 eternal minutes and the vocals, the instruments, the editing, the heart-felt emotion… everything is better.