The Common Ills: Music

Saturday, December 07, 2024

Music

First up, today's posting:

Two of the posts above are non-music. The rest? All Beatles songs except the top one, Diana Ross' cover of "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" which is a John Lennon song.

Great music is great music.

Michael Jackson was a pedophile but "Rock With You" was a great song. I'm not going to deny it because of what he did outside the studio.

There's some real desire on the point of some to trash the Beatles. This is largely radical freaks. They seem to think they score points by trashing the Beatles.

They don't.

They only demonstrate their ignorance.

After the band broke up, there was a push to downgrade them and uplift the Rolling Stones. I like the Stones but they were never the Beatles. And probably no one ever will be.

Ringo Starr wrote "Octopus Garden" and "Don't Passy Me By" which are interesting notes in the Beatles' discography. Good songs, songs that probably wouldn't have been written by the other members. George Harrison came into his own as the band progressed and ended up writing the great songs "Here Comes Tomorrow" and "Something." He was clearly influenced to grow and stretch by working with John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Those two were the Rogers & Hart of the second half of the 20th century.

Now Rogers & Hart wrote great songs -- "Ten Cents A Dance," "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," "Where or When," "Blue Moon," "My Funny Valentine," "Sing For Your Supper," "Glad To Be Unhappy," "My Romance," "Little Girl Blue," "My Romance," "The Blue Room," etc.

They wrote for Broadway. They weren't not the only great songwriters of their era but they were probably the greatest when you look at their output compared to others.

And that's why, even when they were no longer writing songs together (Lorenz Hart died in 1943), people were still recording their songs -- in the sixties, that included Diana Ross & the Supremes, Janis Joplin, the Mamas and the Papas and Cass Elliot as a solo, Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand and many, many more.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon might even be better than Rogers and Hart. If so, that's due to a number of reasons. First, the fifth Beatles -- George Martin. He produced their albums. And his skills and interests forced them to be better. A second reason was the fact that they became very popular and that popularity gave them a license to do what they wanted in terms of exploration.

Stevie Wonder is an amazing songwriter but, while the Beatles were stretching and being encouraged to, he was instead at MOTOWN and being discouraged. No one really respected Stevie or his talents in his early days at MOTOWN. The thought was that he shouldn't be in charge in the studio. Those who only know of Stevie after his release of one of the all time great albums of the 20th century, 1972's TALKING BOOK, might not grasp just how hard Stevie had to work for final say and control to deliver his greatness as he heard it and not dictated on MOTOWN's terms.

The Beatles got popular quick and did so via bubble gum pop. In the US, and with lesser management (Brian Epstein was their representative for the bulk of the group's time together) and a so-so producer (George Martin was their producer) and a more successful label (they first achieved success on EMI's PARLOPHONE) they would have been forced to remain the same over and over, record after record.

Third, the times they recorded. You had a whole cultural revolution taking place -- hippies, calls for peace as war on Vietnam mounted. New fashions -- the hippie look, the mod look, etc. A call for films and books that spoke to people's lives. The photography of Diane Arbus, the pop art sensibility of Andy Warhol, comics who did acts -- actual thematic comedy shows -- and not just a string of unrelated jokes. In every aspect, the arts were growing. Lorraine Hansberry and Joe Orton demonstrating what plays could be in terms of focus and in terms of structure -- add Juidth Malina and Julian Beck of THE LIVING THEATRE -- these were seeds planted early int he decade that grew and advanced the arts. . You had a huge demographic bulge that had started out on bubble gum pop but wanted something more as they continued to buy records.

Fourth, the music revolution taking place. As Michelle Phillips, of the Mamas and the Papas, has noted, everyone was striving for contributions via their music, they were borrowing freely from one another in their recordings and creating a sound. As she noted, the Beatles borrowed from Bob Dylan. And you had Brian Wilson who was a nice hitmaker reaching deeper -- PET SOUNDS being the result. Music was exploding in the UK and in the US and there was so many influences and influencers.

It was also a dark time that had hope. And that fueled great songs.

Music itself was stretching. The Temptations are a great group but look at them from the early sixties to the end of the sixties and start of the seventies and you can hear how music had changed. They depended a lot on outsiders and MOTOWN wasn't really wanting them to grow, but grow they did in their psychedelic soul period.

Smokey Robinson writes great love songs and he wrote some great ones for the group but Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong provided deeper material. And the group grew as a result.

Last week, a White man who always tries to speak for Black people did an attack on the Beatles. We don't like that man here, we don't note him here. We've found him useless over the years repeatedly. He is the Woody Allen joke of the White man majoring in Black Studies who thinks he can become Black (BANANAS).

The attack was done by a dumb YOUTUBER a few years back and we responded at THIRD with a long list of Black artists who had recorded Beatles songs.

I don't understand the hatred for the Beatles.

You don't have to like their music to appreciate it. I can't stand Laurie Anderson's music. Nothing in it speaks to me and nothing ever has. However, I can appreciate that's she's followed her own muse, done her own thing and advanced art.

The members of the Beatles, after the group folds, doesn't write a lot of great songs. Even John, who had the most to say, struggled to fill a full album most of the time with even just good songs.

The four didn't have each other to challenge nor was their a thriving music scene to challenge them.

Carole King wrote some amazing music in the sixties and achieved classic status with TAPESTRY. But not a lot after that. She never had another TAPESTRY and by the mid-seventies she wasn't even recording good music. By that I mean the music she wrote was now arranged -- by her -- poorly. Gone were the figures -- which she sometimes wrongly calls vamps -- that set the music apart -- the piano figure at the start of "One Fine Day" and throughout. Now everyone just seemed to play the same chord on albums like WELCOME HOME and TOUCH THE SKY -- among others.

Valerie Simpson is someone who is magnificent when it comes to writing music. I love Valerie as a person and I loved Nick. But Valerie's music often achieved art while Nick's lyrics were sometimes hit making lyrics but not art. Nick was very talented and I'm not saying that he wasn't. Early on, when the two great songwriters ("Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing," "You're All I Need," etc) became a recording duo, Nick got some of the worst reviews because his voice was only passable and passable is not good when you're singing opposite Valerie who possess one of the most amazing voices. But Nick worked and worked and by the time of "High Rise," he's his own singer with his own style and he and Valerie are an awesome duo.

But, again, in terms of great artistry, that's Valerie's music and not Nick's lyrics. They could be hit making from time to time, his lyrics, but it's not until STREET OPERA that his lyrics come close to reaching what Valerie's capturing in the music she's writing.

I wouldn't put the Beatles in the top ten of the best singers of the sixties. I think John's the best singer of the bunch.

But as songwriters, they have few people who are actually on the same level.

In some cases, that's by choice. Joni Mitchell didn't want hits. She was scared of fame early on before she was even recording albums. She infamously ran out of a college party because the students recognized her as the woman they'd seen perform live. David Geffen -- whose was her manager -- grasped this and knew he had to make it a game. So, for example, he tells her that she can't write a hit song. Despite the fact that she'd already written the hits "Both Sides Now" and "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock." To prove him wrong, she writes "You Turn Me On I'm A Radio" which made it to number 25 on the top forty.

Noting the greatness of the Beatles does not mean that there were no other great songwriters nor that all the great songwriters were White.

Great songwriters from the 60s to the close of the 20th century would include: Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Pam Sawyer, Tracy Chapman, Prince, Carly Simon, Kurt Cobain, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Nicks, Laura Nyro, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, Sade, Ben Harper . . .

Why are we talking about this now?

Honestly, because of race.

The attacks on the Beatles in the last few years have tried to insist that the Beatles are not relatable to Black people. This despite the fact that Black people have always been a significant part of the group's audience in any decade. And this despite the fact that the Beatles have been recorded by many, many Black artists -- Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, The 5th Dimension, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, The Temptations, Natalie Cole, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr (two founding members of The 5th Dimension who, in fact, did an incredible tribute album to the Beatles not that long ago), PP Arnold, Tina Turner, Ella Fitzgerald, Richie Havens, Sarah Vaughan, Chaka Khan, Dionne Warwick, etc, etc.

The 2024 election has resulted in many of us looking at the issue of race -- and how racism and sexism worked to put Satan back in the White House.

And there are times, in the snapshots, where you're seeing "if this doesn't apply to you, just let it roll off your back." Because, if you're a community member, I know you're not acting on racism.

But the reality is that a lot of White people voted against their own interests and betrayed Black women.

Black women have voted for every Democratic Party nominee for president over and over.

And despite some on the left using this -- Laura Flanders, I'm looking at you -- for one election cycle after another with the 'Vote Like A Black Woman' slogans and using Black women's votes to attack White women, there was no love or support for Kamala.

We saw it and we won't deny it.

This is another good moment to point out that, Tuesday, the African American Policy Forum had a roundtable entitled "Views from the 92%: Black Women Reflect on 2024 Election and Road Ahead." Professor of law Kimberle Crenshaw observed at the start, "Conversations are going forward with us being relegated to a time out space." Black women were largely silenced before the election and this has continued. Now when it came to trashing the first Black woman to seriously run for president, DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES, COMMON DREAMS, etc. Along with Kimberle, the participants included THE WASHINGTON POST's Karen Attiah, iONE DIGITAL's Kirsten West Savali, Black Voters Matter Fund's LaTosha Brown, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and Convener of Black Women's Roundtable's Melanie Campbell, the National Council of Negro Women's Shavon Arline-Bradley, the Transformative Justice Coalition, Atlanta Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta's Fran Phillips-Calhoun and Higher Heights' Glynda Carr.

I am not trying to divide us and I'm not trying to make being White a crime. I do expect accountability for those who put Trump back into the White House -- that includes the White racist like Amy Goodman and Kartina vanden Heuvel, it includes the fakes asses in Dearborn and in Hamtramck who pretended to speak for Palestinians even while some of them took GOP money for their remarks -- we're compiling that list in the community newsletters.

You are welcome here regardless of your race, gender, ethnicity, etc, etc.

You can even be here and welcomed if you realize you made a mistake and supported Trump or the hideous Jill Stein.

But we're going to talk about what happened. And if that makes you uncomfortable? You should grasp that's due to the media you've been consuming.

There is so little Black viewpoints expressed at THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES, on DEMOCRACY NOW! or on YOUTUBE programs hosted by White people that when you hear honest criticism of White people for their actions, you feel attacked personally.

Jon Stewart does not speak for Black people. Point of fact, he really doesn't even acknowledge that we have a viewpoint.

You're worshipping a lot of false gods who really don't have any excuses in 2024 to be presenting nothing but the White viewpoint. If we want to grow as a people, we're going to need to learn the viewpoints of other people -- which, by the way, Black people have always had to do.

If I'm calling out a White person and it doesn't apply to you, then I'm not calling you out.

If it doesn't apply, let it fly.

Let's wind down with this: