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We turn now to side one of Abbey Road. And six songs come together by John.
Something by George.
Maxwell's Silver Hammer by Paul. Oh!
Darling by Paul. Octopus's Garden by Ringo.
And I Want You (She's So Heavy) by John, in that playing order.
I will, in the next video, in the song close-up, take a little closer look
at Maxwell's Silver Hammer and I Want You (She's So Heavy), as well as, Here Comes
the Sun, which, strictly speaking, is on the
first, is the first song on the second side.
But we'll do it before we talk about the big Paul second side in the next video.
So I'm going to save my comments on Maxwell's Silver Hammer, and I Want
You (She's So Heavy) for that close-up that follows in the next video.
Let's have a look, consider for a minute
John's song Come Together.
Again, it's another one of these John wordplay kind of tunes where
he's the, the songs don't literally make any sense but they put together
things and interesting and fun of kinds of combinations It's
further interesting that he seems to have lifted a line from a Chuck Berry song.
And Chuck Berry found out about
it, you know, and you don't really, you
don't really not pay Chuck Berry his copyright royalties.
And so I think that what ended up happening, you
can correct me on the, on the in the forum.
If, if, if you know, if you know the
story more accurately than what I'm about to say.
But I think the way that they settled it, is that John told
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Chuck Berry that he would do an album where he would feature a number
of Chuck Berry songs.
And of course, if John Lennon does an album where sings a
bunch of Chuck Berry songs, Chuck Berry gets the publishing on all that.
And so that was the way they sort of settled this,
this little thing was for John to record some of Chuck's
songs as John Lennon the Beatle, and of course sold tons
and tons and Chuck Berry made tons and tons of money.
The idea of Come Together, especially the way it
seems like John is saying at the beginning, shoot me
maybe referring to to heroin, but of course, the
way things ended so tragically for him In 1980.
It now it's now kind of spooky to listen to him
sing those, those lines at the beginning of course it's the
wordplay here is very, very much reminiscent of what we talked
about earlier this wee-, in one of the earlier videos this week.
Dig a Pony, you know And, and also I've Got
a Feeling.
This sort of wordplay kind of thing that goes
back to things like Happiness is a Warm Gun.
And even back before that. And it's a simple verse form.
So from that point of view it's a
very straightforward almost kind of blues-based kind of tune.
George Harrison's Something we already talked about a little bit as an AABA form.
We won't say too much more about it here.
Except that it stands up pretty well to Come Together, and the song
that follows Something which is Paul's Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
That being a tune we'll talk about in the next close up.
I'll just say now that if you think about the sequencing so far of
this first side, Come Together, Something, and
Maxwell's Silver Hammer, three very different sounding tracks.
And not just because they're
by three different songwriters But in a way very similar to
what they had done with the White Album and with Sergeant Pepper.
And even going back to things like
Revolver and Rubber Soul, we're getting a selection
of tunes that all sound like, in many ways, they could be a different band.
And we've talked a bit about that, kind of that wide variety of different sounds and
stylistic approaches, the Beatles were able to get
away with early on, because they were the Beatles.
Now, of course, they've been so influential a lot
of groups are doing this kind of thing, but we
see that as a consistent feature that, that takes
us, that shows us the continuity with their earlier work.
Following Maxwell's Silver Hammer, we get Paul doing Oh!
Darling.
This one very clearly in a 50s style.
And so this brings us back to the idea of Paul
as we talked about on the White Album sort of going for
earlier styles.
That's another way in which you're sort of trying to get back
and trying to get back to his roots and that kind of thing.
This one in AABA form and we can think of it maybe as most clearly
related to something like Lady Madonna or going back to an
earlier style like something like I Will did on, on the White Album.
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Octopus's Garden, the Ringo song
we already talked about with regard to his his being inspired by the the habits of
octopuses or octopi, whatever the plural of that is at the bottom of the ocean.
And then John's I Want You (She's So Heavy) which
we'll spend more time talking about in the next video.
So as we look over side one, just to kind of
get an overview of that side that was put together,
because that's the way John Lennon wanted it to go.
We get six very different and very contrasting
tunes that all of which when we, especially when
I, when I try to make these connections
with regard to Maxwell's Silver Hammer and I Want
You all of these really reach back and
connect up with so many other things the Beatles
have done up to this point, when we listen to those and look at those songs together.
Come Together,
Something, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Oh!
Darling, Octopus's Garden, and I Want You (She's So Heavy).
So in the next video let's take a much closer look at Here
Comes the Sun, Maxwell's Silver Hammer and I Want You (She's So Heavy).
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John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
