Beatles tell me why key3/9/2024 ![]() ![]() One of two Ringo lead vocals on the White Album, this stately lullaby came from Lennon’s pen for Starr to croon at the close of the 93-minute album. ![]() It wouldn’t be until Wings’ “Jet” that Paul would create a true classic named after a pooch. You can’t reasonably expect a music hall-indebted song named after a sheepdog to be the standout track on any album, and sure enough, “Martha” is jaunty, affable and disposable. But this also speaks to how peerless the Beatles were at this point – their filler was twice as lively as most bands’ throwaway songs. Not a bad treat by any stretch of the imagination – the lively brass section is especially savory - but it’s obvious that had the Beatles sliced this double LP down to one disc, “Savoy Truffle” would’ve been the first lightweight number to get canned. The 50th anniversary edition of the White Album presents a ten-minute version of “Revolution 1” that wraps with a few minutes of tape loops that would eventually be expanded into “Revolution 9,” suggesting an alternate reality where the Beatles grounded their avant inclinations in the structure of a malleable rock song and created a thrilling concrète coda instead of a concrete chore. ![]() Like “Wild Honey Pie,” the music doesn’t back up the concept. With none of the hypnotism of a Karlheinz Stockhausen experiment or layered complexity of a Pierre Schaeffer collage, the end result comes across more like ‘The Fabs Get Arty’ than an impressive composition that rewards repeated listens. It’s too bad, then, that this is not good musique concrète. It’s hard to understate the cultural impact and importance of the biggest rock/pop band of the ’60s forcing the public to sit through eight minutes of musique concrète in 1968. It adds flavor, sure, but it’s one you want to spit out politely when the chef has turned away. While the under-one-minute “Wild Honey Pie” helps set up the ‘anything goes’ spirit of the White Album as the double LP’s fifth track, there’s just no getting around the fact that the wigged out guitar chords and yowling McCartney vocals are plain irritating after several listens. ![]()
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