263. The Beatles, "Hard Day's Night"

 


Remember when we talked about Help around a week ago and I talked about how bitter and dark it is about relationships?  Everyone's breaking up and no one trusts each other?  This album (which predated Help by about a year) is from when the relationship was still good.  The songs are mostly about how much the singer is in love and loves her and she loves him and so forth.  (The exceptions, of course, are John Lennon songs.)  So in the very first song (at least on the UK version), the title track, we hear:

You know I work all day to get you money to buy you things
And it's worth it just to hear you say you're going to give me everything
So why on earth should I moan, cos when I get you alone
You know I feel OK
When I'm home everything seems to be right
When I'm home feeling you holding me tight, tight, yeah

Aww, that's sweet.  It also occurs to me that this is kind of a transactional relationship!  He gives her money to buy things, and she gives him "everything," which is probably not code for a warm mug of tea and a spirited game of Scrabble.  

A few songs later:

Before this dance is through
I think I'll love you too
I'm so happy when you dance with me
I don't want to kiss or hold your hand
If it's funny try and understand
There is really nothing else I'd rather do
Cos I'm happy just to dance with you

Gross.  This is the beta male Beatles, just happy for a dance.  Even holding hands is too much to ask for these wimpy virgins.  Meanwhile the Chad Rolling Stones are in the parking lot doing god knows what.

Leave it to John, as I said, to be the tough guy, on one of the album's best songs, "You Can't Do That," punctuated by George Harrison's chiming 12-string

I got something to say that might cause you pain
If I catch you talking to that boy again
I'm gonna let you down
And leave you flat
Because I told you before, oh

What a great song.  I love George's intro riff - which he apparently just came up with in the studio - the way it drops into the minor on the chorus, suggesting introspection and doubt, just the whole thing's a gem.

There are a bunch of other Beatles classics on this album that you already know, like "And I Love Her" and "Can't Buy Me Love," songs that are so entwined in the culture they're the titles of movies and shit.  The Beatles!

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yes.  We've been over this, all the Beatles albums do, because they're the Beatles.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

103. De La Soul, "Three Feet High And Rising"

Image
  Sorry for the service interruption!  Monday I had, like, work stuff to do and yesterday I was picking my wife up at the airport and they lost her bag and we had to file a claim about that and by the time I got home it was well into my Work Hours and you know, I'm just sorry.  (This was tail end of quite a journey for my wife that found her taking off in Ireland and landing in Newark, New Jersey, and then sitting in a plane for almost three hours and then the flight just getting cancelled and then staying in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Newark, NJ [not recommended, she says] and then getting on a flight to SFO at 6:30 am and finally getting back here a solid 14 hours later than expected.) Speaking of the greater New York City metropolitan area, a group of kids from Amityville, Long Island, got together in 1988 and started making songs and released this album, one of the best in hip hop or any other genre, in 1989.  De La have been called the "Beatles of hip hop"
Read more

3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Image
  Do you want the good news or the meh news first?  The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen , or at least better for me.  I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be.  The meh news?  I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album. Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently.  Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey.  (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory). One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of g
Read more

1. Marvin Gaye, "What’s Going On"

Image
  500 albums later and we're out of albums.  This album was number 6 on the last iteration of the Rolling Stone list and has now moved up to number 1 (displacing Sgt. Pepper , which was the last album to hold that spot).  I think it's a lovely album with maybe three absolutely incredible songs, a fair amount of average-to-good, and some not great songs.  I'm not a voter and will never be a voter but I just don't think this is the best album of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with this list if they just sawed off the top 3 and left the rest as is: 1. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life 2. Beatles, Abbey Road 3. Nirvana, Nevermind 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours And so forth.  But let's take this album on its own merits. The first of the three absolute bangers is the title track, "What's Going On," the scene-setter for the rest of the album, a loose concept album that's told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returning to a country th
Read more