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“Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out” acoustic demo
With a few exceptions, demos are genial curiosities, adding context but little else to the standard version. You don’t hear the song any different after. This one is an exception. Like a lot of folks, I’ve always found this song from Walls and Bridges particularly haunting, given where John Lennon was in his life (and […]
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Thoughts on Red and Blue?
Robert Rodriguez, author of Fab Four FAQ 2.0, popped up on my Facebook feed this evening touting an interesting anniversary: Thirty-five years ago tomorrow, on April 2, 1973, Apple/EMI released the Beatles compilations, 1962-66 and 1967-70. Or, as they were universally called, the Beatles Red and Blue Albums, respectively. Not surprisingly, these two LPs hit like […]
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The Beatles and the Historians
After commenter Rob raved over it in this comment, I was reminded that I’ve been meaning to hip you all to something for a while. Longtime Dullblog commenter Erin Weber has written a book called The Beatles and the Historians, which anybody who loves this site will eat up with a spoon. In Erin’s words, […]
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Top Five Songs?
New commenter Tasmin writes: “I was curious on your take on lists? Specifically, Top 100 Beatles songs? The Beatles Channel has been playing a special this weekend, where listeners voted for their top 100 songs — here are the top 5: 1) A Day in the Life 2) In My Life 3) Hey Jude 4) […]
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Rest in Peace, Brian Epstein
Chris Carter’s ever-excellent “Breakfast With the Beatles” reminded me that today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Brian Epstein, the original Beatles obsessive. I’ve written a lot about Brian on this here site, as my own journey through showbiz has proven how important support people are to any showbiz success story. Brian was […]
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The Gospel of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”
Longtime commenter Waterfalls wrote in recently with the following: “I wanted to ask the Hey Dullblog community their thoughts on the song ‘Maxwell Silver Hammer’, after reading some comments on Youtube where some thought the song was actually about a real murder (i.e., Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell) and others believe it’s a clue in […]
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A Deccagone mystery
Reader Craig Fenton wrote in today with the following interesting question: “When the Beatles’ Deccagone Sessions are talked about [in historical sources], there are those that state the exact order they performed are as follows 1-15: “Like Dreamers Do” (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) “Money (That’s What I Want)” (Gordy/Bradford) (unreleased version) “Till There Was You” (Meredith […]
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Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: “Monkberry Moon Delight”
Ran across this in the comments at the always-entertaining Dangerousminds.net, and felt moved to share. When Paul asked, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins obliged. My life has been taken over by Bystander, but I hope to post more in the coming months. Carry on. Related posts: "Hey Bulldog" by Fanny Hmmm… A slight present, on John Lennon’s […]
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Deconstructing The Beatles, the movie
Against all odds, and perhaps against our better judgment, life seems ever-so-slowly to be returning to normal. This morning I received an email from musicologist Scott Freiman, who lectures regularly on the Fabs, dissecting some of their most interesting albums in front of a live audience. Now Freiman’s lecture on the White Album has been […]
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American Bystander #3 is available
I try to keep my non-Beatles activities separate from this blog, for obvious reasons. And being from the Midwest, I have a positive horror of self-promotion. (This has been exactly as helpful to my career as you might expect.) But several readers have asked me to tell everybody about my dayjob, on the chance that […]