Teddy Boy

Richard Furnstein: Paul McCartney's songbook is full of sketches of the daily lives of simple folk. "Teddy Boy" fits well with better known songs such as "Eleanor Rigby," "Penny Lane," "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "Lady Madonna," and "She's Leaving Home." They all provide a portrait of the quiet moments of common people. The subjects of these songs flutter about like impatient extras on a movie set: a middle aged man pours his morning coffee as a baby babbles in a playpen. A young woman runs to catch the morning trolley while tugging at her sagging pantyhose. A shadow lingers over these portraits, often in the form of death, loneliness, or shattered dreams. The Let It Be outtake "Teddy Boy" brings all three to the table as a widow and a child try to support each other in the changes following the death of a "solider dad." It's a vague story but the essential emotional cues are there: a child hugs his mother as she cries over a solider's photo. Paul can hardly narrate this touching scene, offering platitudes such as "oh my" or "oh no." You created this world of misery, man. Help these people out.

Robert Bunter: It seems to have been a default mode for him. When Paul sat down and picked up a guitar and let the ideas flow naturally, a seemingly infinite stream of strong melodic hooks and third-person Everyman portraits bubbled to the surface. “Teddy Boy” illustrates this particularly well, as it never developed past the fragmented rough-draft stage. Even the “completed” version that appeared on his debut solo LP McCartney sounds like little more than a sketch. It’s catchy enough, and the darker undertones you describe add a bit of depth, but few would rank this among his highest achievements. It doesn’t even shine very brightly alongside similar, roughly contemporary Macca throwaways like “Junk” or “Her Majesty.” Every time I buy another Get Back sessions bootleg or outtakes compilation and see “Teddy Boy” on the tracklist, I have to suppress a faint groan of disappointment.

Richard Furnstein: At least you try to hide your disappointment in this song. You can actually hear Lennon's deride"Teddy Boy" in the band's aimless Get Back recordings. His distaste surfaced in the form of  jokey voices, rambling asides, and square dance instructions during the song's protracted coda. You can almost feel the cold air and ambivalent vibrations of Twickenham Film Studios come through your speakers when you listen to this song. To be fair, Lennon was pulling this too cool for school routine on all of Paul and George's offerings during this period. It's just that he was actually right this one time.

"Teddy Boy" is much more successful on the McCartney album. It's still not much of a song, but the arrangement is tightened up significantly. To be fair there are probably 1.5 fully realized compositions on Paul's debut and it's still one of the best things he ever recorded. The recording offers many of the charms of the album: muffled drum tracks, light echo box tricks, the warm ambiance of the McCartney living room, and off-kilter Linda harmonies. The small touches such as the gorgeous "ooooooohs" at 2:02 and the fluttering ending really make the recording. I wish Paul, Linda, and Martha the sheepdog were still in that living room, pumping out lo-fi  delights on a dusty Studer tape machine. Stick around for dinner, there's a vegetable barley soup on the stove and Linda is making her famous yeast crepes. We'll listen to some old tapes together.

Robert Bunter: Yeah, it’s a lovely image. Too bad the McCartney album and its trappings of domestic contentment (warm, homespun songs about family and love accompanied by charming snapshots of Papa Paul chopping down trees, holding babies and picking his nose) is one big lie. Here’s the real facts: John quit the Beatles but everybody convinced him to keep quiet about it because they were in the process of a massive renegotiation with the record company and didn't want to upset the applecart (that’s my little joke). Paul is an emotional wreck and retreats to his Scottish farmhouse where he grows a beard and drifts slowly toward a full-scale Brian Wilson-style breakdown. Stops wearing belts. Vodka for breakfast, sacked out in bed all day, showers optional. Very optional. A reporter from LIFE magazine shows up and Paul screams in his face and throws his camera at him. The fans have started to speculate about whether he’s dead. One can only imagine what newlywed Linda thought of the situation. She had climbed aboard the Paul train just in time to see it run completely off its rails. Drunken sadness and paralyzing numbness gradually coalesce into fury. They can’t do this to me! So in an undisguised power play he cobbles together McCartney on primitive home recording equipment (by today’s standards, anyway – in 1970 it was state-of-the-art) and releases it along with a self-interview press release to tell the world that he’s quit the Beatles and doesn't care about them anymore. Against this backdrop, the Happy-Family-Man-Strumming-His-Guitar-By-The-Evening-Fire vibe that the album and its packaging attempted to convey ring chillingly hollow. You can build up sweet mental fantasies about tape recorders and yeast crepes, Richard, but the reality was considerably more hairy, smelly and toxic. I’m not here to sugarcoat the facts.

You can build up sweet mental fantasies about tape recorders and yeast crepes, but the reality was considerably more hairy, smelly and toxic.

Richard Furnstein: Paul's retreat to his country compound was part of a greater social trend at the end of the sultry sixties. The unwashed legions were retreating to the mountains--a new farm movement featuring malnourished children, diseased livestock, and bog-like conditions in the fields. Neil Young captured the simple pleasures of this movement on "Here We Are In The Years" from his 1969 debut album: "Go to the country, take the dog/Look at the sky without the smog/Look at the world laugh at the farmers feeding hogs/Eat hot dogs." Paul wasn't as dim witted or charming in his appraisal of country life. He just reverted further into the familiar comforts of mama-based blues and ballads built for wide open spaces. Want to play some mason jars and record it for the album? Great, we'll call it "Glasses." How about an audio hunt track to really "get back" to the origins of man? Here's four plus minutes of "Kreen-Akore." There were no expectations. John wasn't leering at him when he introduced some bone-headed blues like "Oo You." He didn't have to worry about George's sour puss appearing in the gatefold. Ringo didn't have to be bored during the sparse "Every Night." That's the charm of the McCartney album. It's beautiful and it's nothing at all.

Robert Bunter: Back to the land? Sure, it’s wonderful that Paul could crawl into a filthy swamp and record a strangely beautiful solo album. But we’re supposed to be talking about “Teddy Boy.” It wasn’t a very good song and it came out of a particularly low point in Paul’s life. The outtake/bootleg versions of the Beatles attempting it are hard to listen to. It sits more comfortably among the half-baked platters and weird experiments of McCartney or the dismal vibe of the aborted Glyn Johns Get Back LP. Look Richard, I’m sorry but this whole discussion of yeast pancakes, stinky groat clusters, hot dogs, body odor, vodka, sheepdogs, sagging pantyhose and rotten Apples is making me nauseous. Let us have a little mercy and draw the soiled curtain of dismissal over this sordid chapter in Beatles history, shall we? Do you have any final thoughts?

Richard Furnstein: Yeah, hold on. Urp. No, that's better. I'm good.

All My Loving

Robert Bunter: To this day, I can't tell the story without getting emotional. Furnstein and I went to the Paul McCartney concert together. He opened the set with some Wings stuff, to build the tension ("Venus And Mars / Rock Show" into "Jet"), then launched into "All My Loving." The video screen lit up with iconic black and white footage of screaming girls and the smiling young Beatles. In an instant, every one of the thousands in attendance had the exact same thought: "Mother of God, that is really him. He's from the Beatles and HE'S RIGHT HERE WITH ME NOW." It was like getting punched in the soul. Tears rolled down my face and I was far from the only one. It was a cheap showbiz trick, in a way; the kind of contrived, premeditated dazzlement that has long been Paul's primary approach (in stark contrast to Lennon's raw, in-the-moment inspiration). But how else could he have handled it? That moment needed to happen and Paul deployed it with the confident touch of a master. "All My Loving" was the perfect song choice. It stands tall among the very best of their earlier work, yet it never really garnered the reputation as a cultural milestone assigned to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You." It almost managed to feel like an obscure album cut, even though it was probably the first Beatles song most Americans ever heard.

Richard Furnstein: What a great moment in our lives together as Beatles fans and friends. I wish I scooped up one of your careless tears and captured the shimmering drop in clear perspex: a testament to the power of time, love, and memory. What a feeling! I wanted to stomp my feet on the ground like those reckless teenaged girls in grainy black and white clips, but I was worried about crushing my nacho tray purchased before the show.

I always considered it a bold choice to kick off their first Ed Sullivan appearance with "All My Loving." It's a cracker to be sure, but it's a Paul song in an era where John was clearly being presented as the closest thing to a front man of the group. John, the group's primary songwriter during that period and the throat shredder who lead most of their songs, stood tall in the center of the pack: legs boldly parted as he strummed his custom Jet Glo Rickenbacker, smacking bubblegum, and his pointy nose acting as a divining rod to the teenaged American moistness ahead.. Paul was merely the side attraction during this era: the loose balloon-eyed, soft cheeked romancer who didn't even warrant his own microphone. Yet, there he was, leading the charge of The Beatles into foreign shores. "All My Loving" was the perfect choice. It's essentially a sequel to previous triumphs, building on the letter within a song format of "P.S. I Love You" and "From Me To You." This conceit managed to touch on both the innocence of young love and the hopeful correspondence of lovers in the previous wartime generation. "All My Loving" also suggests the day after the initial fumblings detailed in "I Want To Hold Your Hand." Nighttime was the right time. Now we have to figure out where we stand, babe.

Paul was merely the side attraction during this era: the loose balloon-eyed, soft cheeked romancer who didn't even warrant his own microphone.

Robert Bunter: The surging chord progression and irresistible triplet rhythm make the song throb with tumescent, propulsive inevitability. The genteel, politely romantic sentiments of Paul’s epistle are belied by the jackhammer pant-grind of the music track. The mental image is a young man seated at a constrictive desk composing a letter to his beloved in cursive script with a quill pen, but meanwhile he is bouncing up and down violently and pawing uncontrollably at himself with the other hand. His hair is disheveled and his face glistens with sweat. His eyes betray the brittle intensity of a madman. More ape than human, he nearly knocks over the inkwell as he stumbles around looking for envelopes and a book of stamps. The demented, hollering 13-year-olds who dampened the seats of every concert hall the Beatles ever played understood that rhythm in their bones. The four young men on the TV screen were wearing fresh-pressed tailored suits and had their hair washed squeaky-clean, but that was just a subterfuge to sneak the primal sex rhythm onto the staid airwaves of a repressed nation. The children understood.

Richard Furnstein: Paul was seen as the romantic of the band, but there's a sleazy quality to the lyrics that suggests that the heart and groin can't quite meet up. "I'll pretend that I'm kissing the lips that I'm missing." Love the one you're with, indeed. Imagine Paul sending that dedication out to his girlfriend from a pungent, tossed Manhattan hotel room. A cigarette dangles from his chapped bottom lip as he dampens the envelope on the cream colored top sheet. "Fly away little bird" he says as he slides the letter to grotesque errand boy Mal Evans at the hotel restaurant. Then it's a quick adjustment of his trousers as he heads out into the brisk February night. It's a disgusting cycle, but we're all just animals. The Ouroboros can't eat itself forever.

Robert Bunter: Ew gross. How about the U.S. stereo mix on this one? Right channel is all vocals, left is all music! Isolate the right channel and you can really pick out some fascinating details, like Paul’s huffing for breath at 1:52. Meanwhile on the left channel, I think Paul hits a wrong note on his little bass at 1:19. That bass line is nuts … as Carol Kaye said in that Beach Boys documentary, “That’s a JAZZ FEEL, man!” George takes the guitar to some nice places on his little solo segment. Speaking of “solo segments,” you’ve got Paul’s voice double-tracked in unison on the first two verses, then in harmony later. Why didn’t John or George jump in there? I’ll tell you why: because Paul cut the damn track perfectly. It didn’t need any other voices on that lead, and the others were cool enough to recognize that and not make a big fuss about it.

Richard Furnstein: "How about the U.S. stereo mix on this one?" Did you honestly ask me that question? Put that mix in the garbage can with the rotting banana peels and used adhesive bandages. It's not even on my radar, man. You know my original issue Parlophone mono is one of my prized possessions. Do I look like some stupid slack jawed teen buying Meet The Beatles! at a Woolworth's in Baraboo, Wisconsin? "All My Loving" as a side closer? No thank you, sir. Please get yourself the hell out of here already. There's the door, you monster.

Robert Bunter: Ha! Great! Terrific!

Honey Pie

Richard Furnstein: Oof. Get a load of this shiny turd bouncing around with a top hat and cane. How did Paul McCartney find the nerve to unleash this stench in the hallowed halls of Abbey Road? At best, he should have dropped this stinker in the comfort of his own home, never to be revealed to the world. Close the lid, flush, and walk away. "Honey Pie" should be nothing more than a scratchy demo created on his Brunnell tape deck: a holy grail for the many McCartney Cold Cuts devotees. As it stands, The Beatles should have provided a barf bag with The White Album instead of that collage poster. At least then unsuspecting rock and roll fans would have someplace to deposit their chunky mouth waste after hearing this awful song. I mean, COME ON.

Robert Bunter: Listen more deeply, friend. “Honey Pie” is indeed the third installment of what was to become a long line of McCartney’s affectionate tributes to the prewar music hall supper-club standards that he so admired (“When I’m 64,” “Your Mother Should Know,” and certainly many more in the solo years – a process that culminated in 2013’s geriatric Kisses On The Bottom standards album, a brilliant late-career masterpiece which will one day receive the same critical re-evaluation that belatedly dawned on McCartney II and Wild Life). You would be correct to turn up your nose at Paulie’s smirking, saccharine platter (or at least as correct as you are about anything else to do with McCartney, which is hardly at all). “Honey Pie” is elevated by its context. Alongside the sour, dark and frightening moods of much of the accompanying material, Paul’s soft-shoe shuffle seems less like a carefree romp through a rose-colored yesteryear and more like a grown man wearing a tiny little boy’s sailor suit and holding a balloon and lollipop on the outskirts of some nightmarish construction site where three other men are grimly setting about the business of tearing down your fondest illusions with poisonous tools and jagged vehicles. The man-child hugs his balloon tightly to his chest and closes his eyes. His face is covered with stubble and the sailor suit needs washing. He hums a happy little song to himself and tries to ignore the stench of death but it creeps in. Listen to that chord on the word “crazy.” This song is every bit as heavy as “Glass Onion” or “Revolution 9” for them that have ears to hear. Listen … listen.

Richard Furnstein: Sure, this malformed batch of rock candy makes some sense sitting next to the sleaze boogies of "Revolution 1" and "Savoy Truffle." We have George Martin to thank for his wise sequencing choices for The Beatles.* Indeed, The White Album may be his greatest track listing accomplishment.

Okay, let's find something to like about this track. George Martin's arrangement connects the rooty-tooty tin pan alley sound with black and white movie schmaltz. The clarinets make the song. Paul does a great Ringo impersonation with his delivery of the line "in the U.S.A." In fact, I always hope that it is Ringo, straw boater clutched to his chest as he passionately delivers that lyric. I was shocked to read that John even bothered to play anything on this cloud of granny flatulence, but there he is poking out that jolly guitar solo. It truly was a team effort to make something this rotten. The Beatles didn't polish the turd, they just wiped a tea towel over it and got human waste all over their hands. Wash up, boys.

Robert Bunter: If you’re willing to acknowledge that the song makes some sense in context, I’ll meet you halfway and admit that there are some cringe-worthy moments. Paul’s falsetto warbling of “oooh … hah … I like this kinda hot kinda music, hot kinda music, play it to me, play it to me honey with blues” is really goony, and you can just tell that he thinks he’s kidding around, but you know deep down that he meant it. Let’s face it, this kind of music is at the primal core of McCartney’s soul. When you hear Paul slip into that debonair crooner mode (from “Besame Mucho” on the Beatles’ earliest crude EMI demo acetates to the aforementioned recent Kisses On The Bottom digital download disc file), you’re really listening to the deepest soul of the man. He can’t help it, and it’s beautiful.

Richard Furnstein: It's true. The gentle shuffle and swing of the music hall was in young James Paul McCartney's bloodstream. His father Jim was a trumpet player and pianist in Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the careless twenties. I've always heard Paul's granny music tendencies as his attempt to connect with the frivolous age of his parents, before the gloom and urban decay of war took over sooty England. In a way, it's easy to hear these songs as Paul's primal scream: the harrowing echoes of childhood. The lost promise of the youthful smile in photos of a mother that died when was 14 years old. While John drained his gleets all over the studio floor during his punishing exorcisms on Plastic Ono Band and the "Cold Turkey" single, Paul chose to channel his loss and anger into levity, thrown voices, and bubbling trumpet lines. "My Mummy's Dead" b/w "Daddy Won't Buy Me A Bow Wow." I guess we all have to face our demons on our own terms, Robert.

You’re really listening to the deepest soul of the man. He can’t help it, and it’s beautiful.

Robert Bunter: I really agree with everything you’ve written there, Richard. The reason Paul’s granny material is so vexing is that he was quite evidently capable of crafting extraordinary work in any style of music he put his hand to. C’mon, man! How about another “Penny Lane,” another “Helter Skelter,” another “Blackbird,” another “Maybe I’m Amazed”? Quit ladling out tepid bowls of Uncle Swabson’s Olde-Time Buttercreamed Oaty Meal when we know you’ve got a perfectly divine spiced crown roast of premium-grade top loin there in the kitchen, just waiting to be served! Well, I’m afraid that’s not always how it works. Stop being a pig. He’s provided you with plenty of nourishment over the years, thank you very much. I’d like you to take a little mind-journey with me here, OK? You’re a kid and you’re Paul McCartney’s nephew. He gives you wonderful presents and you love him very much but you don’t get to see him often because he’s still quite busy. A visit with “Uncle Jimmy” (as you call him) is a rare treat. But then there was this one time when you got to spend a whole weekend there. Mum and Pap dropped you off at his Scottish farmhouse for some quality time and it just so happened that his then-wife Heather Mills was away that weekend and none of the other family were visiting. Just you and him. He is charming, doting and attentive. Fixing breakfast, taking a walk by the lamb pasture, watching a little TV. Then, in the cool September evening as the sun is starting to set, he sits down at the piano in the parlour. He’s going to sing you a few songs! Even as a young child, you’re aware that a private musical performance by Paul McCartney is a rare treasure. So what’s he going to play? “C Moon”? The middle part of “A Day In The Life?” “Kreen-Akore?” Get the hell out of here! He’s going to play the simple, beautiful music that lies closest to his heart. “Stardust.” “It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie.” “September In The Rain.” “My Funny Valentine.” He’s going to look you right in the eyes and smile. The two of you have never been closer. With songs like “Honey Pie,” we all have a chance to be that nephew. His name is Bobby. Little Bobby Bunter McCartney. If you want to turn your nose up at that and quarrel about tracklists and guitar solos, that’s fine. Me and Uncle Jimmy …. uh, I mean … hypothetical nephew Bobby McCartney and James Paul McCartney … will be right here in the front parlour. We’re doing just fine.


*Two crucial clunkers in Martin's album sequencing for the band are the brutal side closing covers on Beatles For Sale ("Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey" and "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby"). However, this was probably due to lack of quality material for the album.

Getting Better

Robert Bunter: This song is joyful and infectious, but it doesn’t really fit into the Sgt. Pepper concept. It would have made more sense alongside “Good Day Sunshine” and “Got To Get You Into My Life” on Revolver. Pepper is an extended meditation on show business and identity that slyly upends the backpack full of roles and expectations the Beatles were carrying around by 1967. The album opens by announcing that the Beatles have been replaced by a groovy band of satin-military-suit-clad tuba players who are about to take us on a magic carpet ride around the world (and … elsewhere?) The rest of the album uses jump-cut editing splices to whisk us from a psychedelic boat ride (“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”) to a soap opera (“She’s Leaving Home”), a circus (“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”), an exotic Eastern mystic sermon (“Within You Without You”) and an old-time soft-shoe revue (“When I’m 64”). Sure, you’ve got the John-figure lurking in the background throughout, with his spooky moustache and dead carp eyes slowly leaking bleeding Everyman nightmares into the corner of the frame (“Good Morning Good Morning”) before finally pulling back the curtain on the whole charade (“A Day In The Life”) and leaving the listener’s contextual framework in shreds. But for the most part we are strapped safely into the lurching cart of a hallucinatory funhouse ride. In that context, Paul’s relatively earnest and autobiographical “Getting Better” sticks out like a sore thumb.

Richard Furnstein: You clod. "Getting Better" is central to the Sgt. Pepper concept: a song cycle about the promise of renewal in the Age of Aquarius. The bright and bold sleeve for Sgt. Pepper represented an about face from the pen and ink wanderings of the Revolver color. Lennon suggested that we "listen to the colour of [our] dreams" at the conclusion of Revolver. Sgt. Pepper boldly insisted that everything required a fresh coat of paint ("I'm painting my room in the colourful way.."). Paul's entire Sgt. Pepper concept was about escaping the greyscale images of The Beatles. What better way to do this than to don marching band jackets, pick up shiny brass instruments, and adopt a new, garish monicker (truly only bested by the daft "Colonel Tucker's Medicinal Brew and Compound" concept). "Getting Better" is clearly about self improvement, about wiping the slate clean after past transgressions (domestic abuse, poor academic performance, anti-social tendencies). Suddenly: a new day to change one's scene (or as much as possible: "I'm doing the best that I can"). Paul's message of hope carries through the remaining Sgt. Pepper songs: the scenes include reclaiming happiness in the golden years ("When I'm 64"), reclaiming spirituality in the modern age ("Within You Without You"), coming to terms with the ghosts of childhood ("Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane," and "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite"), experimenting with mind expanding drugs (the turned on businessman of "A Day In The Life" and "Good Morning Good Morning") and taking decisive action towards this progress (the lanky teenage rebel in "She's Leaving Home").

Let's tear the whole damned thing down.

Robert Bunter: Hmmm, well I guess you could say that there’s more than one way to look at it. As usual, the extra baggage about the contemporary cultural shifts of the so-called Love generation or “extended meditation[s] on show business and identity” (Bunter, 2014) only becomes obvious in hindsight. That reminds me, an interesting thing happened on March 21, 1967, early into the “Getting Better” sessions. At this point, all the Beatles but Paul had tried LSD. John, George and Paul were in the studio doing some vocal overdubs when John decided to take a pill that he thought was speed. A touch of amphetamine, just the thing to add a little zang to the otherwise tedious process of hanging out in Abbey Road with the most talented and charming humans who ever lived recording an album that represents not only the undisputed peak of their career but one of the highest artistic achievements of the 20th century. Of course, you can guess what happened. He took the wrong pill and started an acid trip right there in the booth. Ringo’s pores became eerily distorted and disproportionate (which later inspired the “Sea of Holes” scene in the Yellow Submarine cartoon). Paul was wearing a strange necklace thing that started to look like paisley sausages. Mal Evans was levitating like a can of beans. Uh-oh. John excused himself from the vocal overdubs. “Sorry lads, I’m not feeling quite right for some reason.” Thus it fell to staid, conservatory-trained producer George Martin to take his young friend up to the Abbey Road rooftop for a bit of fresh air. Pretty soon the others realized what was going on and rushed the hell up there to make sure John didn’t try to swan dive right off the side because on acid you assume that you’ll just gently float to the ground or maybe actually fly. Problem is: you don’t. There’s just a pile of paisley sausages on the iconic Abbey Road crosswalk and a bunch of screaming girls who were hanging around outside the studio and that’s it for the Beatles. The others fetched him back inside and Paul gave him a ride home. When they got there, Paul said to himself, “OK, this is the night for me to try acid for the first time. I’ll take it with John so he doesn’t feel so alone and frightened.” And he did! Paul’s first trip was March 21, 1967. They both talked about it years later in interviews. John: “We got into a heavy thing, staring into each other’s eyes, saying ‘I know, man … I know! I KNOW.’” This is a sweet story to contemplate. They were still young men who’d been through a lot together. Not just the group’s meteoric rise to superstardom, but the loss of a parent. It was not the kind of thing that macho young greasers like John and Paul would ever talk about out loud, but with their inhibitions relaxed by mind-altering drugs, they were able to communicate everything in those three simple words: “I know, man.” If I had a time machine, I would certainly set the dial for March 21, 1967 and lurk outside the sitting-room window at Weybridge so I could witness this tender scene firsthand. I just hope they don’t see me and become frightened.

Richard Furnstein: Don't spook the horse. "Getting Better" also ties in with Peter Blake's elaborate cover art for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Clubs Band. The photo finds The Beatles posing as a marching band, supported by a cast of entertainers, philosophers, addicts, scientists, gurus, and (most harrowing) their childish 1964 selves. It's as if they are saying, "we are nothing more than we, dear friends." Lewis Carroll begat Aleister Crowley begat William S. Burroughs begat Marilyn Monroe. The Beatles are standing on the shoulders of giants, offering the finest artistic output of humans developed with the greatest sound recording techniques and equipment. You are truly blessed. The Beatles are staring out at you (the pimply, soggy listener) as if to challenge you to make the next move. In front of their feet is a lovely garden/funeral arrangement. A collection of flowers ready to explode in the summer of 1967: aching anthers pulsing with the pollen of new life.

Robert Bunter: Speaking of gardening, that was how the idea for the song originated. Paul was chatting with his groundskeeper -- the gentle and reliable Reginald Peake--and asked “How’s it going?” to which Peake replied, “Well, it’s getting better!” and of course Paul got “THAT LOOK” that he used to get when a song was brewing and ran back inside to the piano to effortlessly immortalize the fleeting remark of a common landscaper. Meanwhile, poor old Peake is still standing outside with his pruning shears, staring at the empty space where Paul used to be before he ran back inside, like “What? What did I say?” Later, Paul gave him a signed copy of the finished LP. It was a first-press mono Parlophone in mint condition with all inserts and OG inner sleeve, but the clueless gardener played it repeatedly on his shoddy common-man portable phonograph causing noticeable wear, audible scuffs and unforgiveable surface noise. For the rest of his days, he derived great joy from hearing the record, especially proud of his “star turn” on Side One and the heavy breathing at the end of “Lovely Rita.” When ol' Reg passed away in 1979 from advanced gout, the album was bequeathed to his daughter who kept it in appalling conditions of humidity and heat, not even bothering to store it in a simple two-bit poly bag. That gorgeous inner sleeve (designed by the Apple-contracted Dutch design team The Fool)? Seams split to hell. It was just stacked up on her dumb shelves in a sloppy pile with all her other stupid records. Her kids used to play with it and busted the damned thing all up.

Richard Furnstein: A harrowing vision, to be sure. Paul had a talent for highlighting the minor victories of the diabetic underclass. The sad, pock-marked visions provided depth to such chestnuts as "Another Day," "Eleanor Rigby," and "London Town." The inspiration behind "Getting Better" is less specific; rather, it seems to represent an entire generation rather than one lonely misfit. In that sense, "Getting Better" is a companion track to "She's Leaving Home," showcasing the larger cultural shifts at play. The key lyric in "Getting Better" is "the teachers who taught me weren't cool." It's certainly a minor offense, but the catalyst for a philosophical and lifestyle shift. "Getting Better" offers a life-and-how-live-it manual for the youth who were leaving their parents in the sad suburbs and embarking into a world of discount barbituates, aimless new age explorations,  and primal/hairy sexual intercourse. The sharp and confident introduction of "Getting Better" announces the new chapter. The treated piano and slack single coil electric guitar bursts open the door into the new world. It's a choose your own adventure moment. How are things getting better for you, love? A hippie collapses onto a diseased bean bag chair in a grimy tenement in The Mission. A pot-bellied, cocksure man opens the door to his bachelor pad, wafting in the freedom of divorced life. A diminutive hippie stares out from between the curtains of her straight black hair: "I won't become a Mrs., ma. I'm going to grad school." A slender, wild-eyed Yogi finally masters the King Pigeon Pose after weeks of careful attention to breathing. A young man finally saved enough money to purchase his dream muscle car and is off to cruise the hamburger stand. Martin Luther King's dream. Stonewall. Let's tear the whole damned thing down.

Little Child

Robert Bunter: I think there are really a lot of important things we can say about "Little Child," the primal crucial track on With The Beatles. It was on this song that the Liverpool foursome was finally able to shed their happy-go-lucky image and grapple with the darker side of the '60s revolution and changing social mores. Despite its early vintage, "Little Child" represents the ritualistic transformation of the John-figure from innocence to maturity. We all must understand this.

Richard Furnstein: Listen, I'm going to be honest with you on this one. I've got nothing to say about "Little Child." I couldn't care less about John's mocking pleas for physical love, the reckless harmonica tracking, and the motorisch refrain in the fade out. We've been there before. This guy had issues with women and a tendency towards self pity when he didn't get his way. Let's do something useful with this forum. Think outside the box. Actually, do you want to talk about "Listen To What The Man Said" from Paul's 1975 solo effort "Venus And Mars"? It's been on my mind lately.

Robert Bunter: Ahem. I think there are really a lot of important things to be said about "Listen To What The Man Said," the primal crucial track on Venus And Mars. The story of Paul McCartney is the story of a guy who could write the greatest songs in human history ("Penny Lane," "You Won't See Me," "Maybe I'm Amazed"), but his real pleasure was writing catchy throwaways that played to his natural strengths in the realms of melody and personal charm ("C Moon," "When I'm 64"). It was a source of real struggle for him. The intense, committed fans were wracked with desperate thirst for more life-sustaining liquid from the same deep, profound well from whence came "You Never Give Me Your Money," but the keeper of  the keys to the bucket was just as happy doling out paper cups of brightly-colored Kool-Aid like "All Together Now" or "Your Mother Should Know" to the ignorant slack-jawed masses. For Paul, it was not about providing the deepest artistic fulfillment to the most discerning of die-hards but reaching the widest possible audience and making them smile as much as possible. At times Paul seemed to struggle with the burden of being the goose that laid the golden eggs and strive for works of elevated merit, but then he might be just as likely to turn around and unleash a defiant piece of fluff like "Silly Love Songs" or "Her Majesty." You can see where I'm going with this, right? The final mind-bending truth is that Paul's throwaway fluff was in fact the High Art all along. His true medium was AM radio and magazine clippings, not 180-gram sealed audiophile deep-groove vinyl artifacts and gilded oil paintings. "Yesterday" and "Hey Jude" were the real fluff, the second-rate album filler. The Truth was hidden in plain sight on tracks like "All My Loving" and "Listen To What The Man Said" all along.

Richard Furnstein: Paul McCartney fully embraced the stadium pop leanings of Wings on the Venus And Mars album. Sure, there were sugary pop moments all over the two previous Wings albums (Band On The Run and Red Rose Speedway) and on the overblown "Live and Let Die" single, but they were tempered by the low-key experimentation of the fledgling band. Even the easy listening pop of "My Love" seemed somewhat lo-fi and weedy rather than glossy and smooth. Venus and Mars found Paul McCartney in full-on mega pop monster mode (look no further than the opening number "Venus and Mars/Rock Show," a "Band On The Run" style suite that paid tribute to the stoned masses who would come out to see Wings in American stadiums). "Listen To What The Man Said" is the only pop hit on Venus And Mars, and it was strong enough to provide all the support that was needed for the Wings Over The World mega-tour. Wings had become the well-tuned/profitable/muscularly musical machine that The Beatles never were.

Robert Bunter: John Lennon did more than his share of singing about how the world needed more peace, love and understanding, but it was McCartney who actually delivered the goods. Lennon's latter-day Beatles and solo output ranged from turgid to terrifying, with stops in-between for political harangues and trite sloganeering. Albums like Plastic Ono Band invite the listener to curl up in a fetal ball under a set of headphones and painfully absorb the heavy vibes. Nightmares, tears and perhaps, by the end, redemption. But meanwhile, if you were to just take off those dusty, stinky headphones and look out the window of your darkened teenage bedroom, you might see that the whole rest of the family is outside near the swimming pool, laughing and belly-flopping while a platter of freshly-grilled hamburgers and fruit punch sits expectantly in the July sunshine. And what's on the AM radio? I'll give you one guess: it's Paul McCartney singing "Listen To What The Man Said." Listen to that clarinet happily tooting along! Lennon's tortured, epic Statements bemoaned the walls that separate us and the lack of human communication, but Paul was content to provide the soundtrack to our lives and brighten up the air with a tune so sweet it might make your teeth fall out.

Here is one anonymous listener in a comment posted under the "Listen To What The Man Said" YouTube video clip: "Ten seconds into the song tears flowed down my face, hurting/longing for the days of this songs era, and the flood of happy childhood memories the song suddenly brought to me. I would do anything to go back to that time for just a little while." Here is another: "1975 - 7 yrs old, back seat of Mom's Plymouth Valiant, headed to the beach. God, I miss those days..." And another: "This song reminds me of Summer picnics by Lake Michigan...yes, the 1970's was a great era in music!"  One more: "When this song came out in 1975, My girlfriend and I loved to sing this song together in the car at the top of our lungs. We would then laugh until our sides hurt." Check the page yourself - there are dozens of them, each more heartbreaking than the last. Paul touched the hearts of a generation and brought real love and happiness into the world at a level that scary John, sanctimonious George and drunken clown Ringo could only dream of.

Don’t read too much into it, mate, it’s just a pleasant boogie that is guaranteed to shoot straight up to the top of the charts. You’re getting into a weird area.

Richard Furnstein: For all of their hair and blood, Lennon's most grotesque demonstrations couldn't match the brutal reality portrayed in this happy-go-lucky pop song. The scene is set early: "Soldier boy kisses girl, leaves behind a tragic world." It's a fun image: horny, stupid kids having drunk fun during liberty. However, we can interpret this deceptively simple lyric two different ways. One interpretation is the act of physical love gives the man and woman a temporary escape from the horrors of war and tedium of life. The other interpretation is that the tragic world is the result of their regrettable romantic encounter. That innocent kiss lead to the conception of new life. Unfortunately, human beings are inherently evil, resulting in a lifetime of damage, wreckage, and misery. I'm inclined to take the latter interpretation of this key lyric. Indeed, the intent of that line would be the first question that I would ask Sir Paul if I ever had the chance to meet him.Remember that The Beatles were a product of post-war Europe, much like the fine-tuned pop machine of Wings was fully realized following the Vietnam War. Paul certainly knows how to bring us into his tale of passion and tragedy.

Paul lets a little light into the house with the next line. The soldier is ambivalent to the tragedy surrounding his love: "But he won't mind. He's in love and he says love is fine." It's a classic call back to the monosyllabic word play of early Beatles, including the jumbled use of the word "love" which recalls classics such as "Things We Said Today." Paul seems to be saying that we're already stuck in this world, taking our slow steps towards death. We may as well make the most of our time here. Love is a simple fix, but it will still do the trick.

Robert Bunter: That’s all as valid an interpretation as any, but I think this is one of those cases where Paul is using the lyrics as a simple decorative vehicle for his intoxicating melody, performance and production. He did the same thing on “Jet,” “C Moon,” “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Hello Goodbye,” “Come And Get It” and so many others. To quote my beloved Nicholas Schaffner, “[Paul’s solo work] brings to mind a chocolate egg – tasty, if just this side of sickly sweet, but it crumbles when you try to sink your teeth in.” The soldier boy, “the people,” “the Man” – these are all just syllables for Paul to croon while those tasty bongos, lovely Linda harmonies, funky clavinet and sprightly Dixieland clarinets do their thing. “Don’t read too much into it, mate, it’s just a pleasant boogie that is guaranteed to shoot straight up to the top of the charts. You’re getting into a weird area.” But here’s the twist: Paul’s hasty lyrical sketches may have unwittingly pulled back the curtain on Paul’s true nature far more than any of John’s nude confessionals or childhood exorcisms. Who is the titular “man”? Maybe he is Paul himself, beholding his own reflection in an infinitely-regressive funhouse mirror. What did the man say, Paul? Tell us. We are you.

Richard Furnstein: Paul is certainly no stranger to phonetic scoot babbles--especially during some of the feel good/free and easy Wings period. Think of his wordless exultation that concludes "Powercut" from the Red Rose Speedway album. I think there is more to the story here. You are right that the secret lies with uncovering the mysterious "man" in the title. I think there are a few intriguing possibilities in Advanced Man Theory:

1. Paul McCartney-Wings was Paul's show: a fully realized but necessarily loose outfit that Paul could manipulate to knock out some loose rock ("Soily") or mechanized pop sheen ("With A Little Luck"). Remember back to a haggard George battling Paul in the Let It Be movie about doubling a rote bass guitar line. George was right to fight back on the condescending Paul ("I'm only trying to help you."), and certainly used this moment to help realize the majesty of All Things Must Pass. Now Paul was reminding the record buying public that he was still the one to "listen to." His pop vision was true, steady, and--most importantly--financially sound.
2. John Lennon-It's easy to imagine a dialogue between Lennon and McCartney during their solo years. The world was hoping that these long lost brothers would be drawn back together; following a string of clues and gentle winks in their assorted solo catalogs. This theory is garbage, however. Paul was singing about Linda or marijuana-induced wordplay. John was singing about himself or Yoko. It's sad, really.
3. Brian Epstein-Paul was no stranger to looking back with love. The death of Brian Epstein signified the end of the brotherhood of The Beatles so it is easy to view him as this symbol of creative control and focus. There never was a "Man" for The Beatles. Politicians and police officers had little impact on the sheltered lives of geniuses and the gurus were quickly exposed and discarded. Brian remains as the only real position of authority who could advise these egomaniacs. 
4. The Saxophone-My favorite theory. The Man is nothing more than the dancing, exuberant specter of the saxophone that runs throughout the song. The saxophone represents the loose and free sway of music on human beings. Paul is simply requesting that his listeners sit back and give in to the dancing spirit of this wild and gentle instrument as it scales the trees, giggles on the mantle, and peeks at us through an open window.

Robert Bunter: Now you’ve got the idea. The Man is all of these and more. Paul’s breezy lightweight lyrics are a blank page that listeners can fill with all sorts of heavy interpretations, or just take them as they are. Ob-la-di Ob-la-da and all that. Paul never lost sight of the true nature of his gifts, even while the rest of us kept waiting for him to mine a deeper vein. This song is a cheeseburger. Who is “the Man?” He is Ronald McDonald, doling out infinite billions of warm round brown patties to a drooling populace lined up hundreds deep at the front counter. It ain’t filet mingon, but nobody’s leaving with an empty stomach, either. Did you know that Tom Scott was the only person to play on all four Beatles’ solo albums? It’s true! At least, I think it might be true.

Richard Furnstein: You are right, although he just did some stage work with Lennon. In a way, Tom Scott was the life glue that held this disgraced band of brothers together through the rocky (and rocking) 1970s. His expert gut control and breath force rocketed him to the top of the Los Angeles session men: a scene that the solo Beatles would rely on to anchor their temperamental solo recordings. Long gone were the glory days of "Little Child" and other carefree rockers. The only wind blowing in that time was from Lennon's primitive mouth harp. Friends supported friends, not a L.A. coke-twonker in sight.

Robert Bunter: Well that was an exhaustive analysis.

I'm Looking Through You

Richard Furnstein: Come in, old friend. Let's listen to the pure joy in the introduction of "I'm Looking Through You" together. Open a window. Hell, open every window. Change of plans: go outside and roll around in the flaking heather with Donald and Phillip Everly. What a goddamned pleasure. Let's get an early lunch. It's on me.

Robert Bunter: Oh yeah sure, that’ll be great, hoss. The Beatles are serving up a queasy menu of doubt, suspicion and insecurity. Yesterday’s simple infatuation and tender affection have curdled. The sour aftertaste is masked by a catchy melody and stabbing organ fills (!), but we’re dealing with a smorgasbord of uncertain adult emotions as the Paul-figure moves inexorably toward maturity. The seeds of the disillusionment and pain that would later flower on tracks like “You Never Give Me Your Money” and “The Long And Winding Road” are planted here, and you’re sitting there with a napkin tied around your neck, holding your fork and spoon upright next to your empty plate, smiling eagerly in anticipation of another helping. Get the hell out of here.

Richard Furnstein: Enjoy your steaming pile of heartbreak, pal. Paul was probably skipping a lot of meals when he wrote this song following the end of his relationship with the lovely Jane Asher. There was always sadness in Paul's early love songs. Songs like "Things We Said Today," "And I Love Her," and "I'll Follow The Sun" are undeniably beautiful and romantic, but seem like a songwriter attempting depth by hinting at potential loss and heartbreak. Perhaps Paul was just trying to replicate the light and shade of John's "love" songs, which were more about the euphoric balance of sexual release and emotional trust in a new relationship. The loss of Asher finally gave Paul a similar but distinct edge to his love songs. Paul wasn't merely venting on "I'm Looking Through You," "Drive My Car," and "You Won't See Me"; he was revealing the sadness and pain behind his dreamy doe eyes. It's a straight shot from here to the elegiac "Let It Be" or the funereal "Little Willow." Paul didn't need cloying strings ("Yesterday") or horrorshow expectorations (Lennon's "Mother") to convey loss to the listener. The power was in his brown eyes, his spidery fingers, and his steady stare into the quaking unknown.

We’re dealing with a smorgasbord of uncertain adult emotions as the Paul-figure moves inexorably toward maturity.

Robert Bunter: I think the key line is “You don’t look different/But you have changed.” Paul was not used to feeling a real sense of need in romantic relationships in 1966; his Liverpool youth and Hamburg adolescence were filled with casual conquests with Paul seated firmly in the driver’s seat. In Jane Asher he was confronted for perhaps the first time with a strong, independent woman with her own career, needs and wants. Paul senses that she has changed, but has she really? What’s different is the power dynamics between the two of them. He probably wrote this song after a trifling spat where he wanted to spend the night in but she wanted to go attend the opening of the new Joe Orton comedy at the Gloanshire Playhouse. Now, of course Paul could go out whenever he wanted and stay out till all hours with a series of faceless secret girlfriends, but if he felt like staying in, it was just expected that “his woman” would be right there with him to fix the tea and digestive biscuits. Well I’m sorry Paul, but that’s not how it works with mature modern relationships in the 20th century. Why don’t you just pick up your little guitar and write a song about it? Oh, you’re so disillusioned. Where did she go, Paul? WHERE DID SHE GO?

Richard Furnstein: There's a lot to unpack here. John's lyrics (even in the early years) tend to be the subject of scrutiny for his emotional state while Paul's lyrics are typically taken at face value despite his poetic interpretations of loss. Imagine if John had written "Yesterday," it would have been acclaimed as a heartbreaking tribute to Julia Lennon. Instead, the listener interprets "Yesterday" as a melodramatic exploration of puppy love. It's similarly easy to point at the Asher incident as an emotional awakening for Paul, as if he could only feel pain following a broken heart. Show the man some respect: Paul had experienced the death of his mother when he was 14 and had those wounds exposed again as he helped John through Julia's death a few years later. It gives a heavier spin on the loss suggested by the line "Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight." Paul (much like John) was developing his capabilities to express more complex emotions in the pop song format. Asher was simply the wrong woman at the right time, pushing Paul into a new emotional language. It was a new day and Paul no longer had an angel on his shoulder ("You were above me, but not today"). Things would certainly get better.

Robert Bunter: Well it makes sense that Paul would be taking some serious emotional strides at this point. All the Beatles were developing so rapidly in every sense: musical sophistication, political awareness, expanded consciousness, breaking social barriers, brown suede jackets. The magic spell they were under must have naturally applied to matters of the heart, as well. That’s always the point: all the Beatles always did whatever they did because it was the very best thing they could possibly have done right then at that moment. It just happened to be time for Paul to confront his complex attitude towards relationships with women, so he did it. With a minimum of fuss and a lovely tune.

Richard Furnstein: Rubber Soul was the start of a new era for The Beatles. They were now operating without contemporaries. There was no need to pad out their albums with rock chestnuts or modern girl group numbers: that musical language no longer contained the answers. They finally mastered the form and could now just smile and watch their pathetic peers scramble to keep up. You don't sound different/I've learned the game." Remember the scene from Don't Look Back where Bob Dylan eviscerates Donovan while running through a ragged "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"? The Beatles were now doing this to mankind. "I'm Looking Through You" isn't about Paul getting over some some green-eyed cutie pie. Rather, it embraced the new supernatural powers of The Beatles race, scanning the fears and emotional confusion of the trembling human beings after each of their miraculous feats. Better drain out your boots when you hear "Wait," animals.

Robert Bunter: Oh crap!

Strawberry Fields Forever

Richard Furnstein: An absolute and perfect work, “Strawberry Fields Forever” is the The Beatles at their best. It represents the peak of their songwriting craft, George Martin’s production and arrangement work, incidental and exciting floating instrumentation, and the unlimited creativity of the psychedelic era. Hell, I’d contend that it is the greatest creative work of the 20th Century. I feel weird dumping our typical giddy hyperbole on this masterpiece. Indeed, “Strawberry Fields Forever” has little connection to its only true sonic or songwriting antecedents (“Tomorrow Never Knows” and “In My Life,” respectively) as Lennon doesn’t reference or build on these prior works. Rather, he devises an entirely new language to tell the story of his brain. “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a completely unique animal; emerging tattered and strange from the ornate gardens of the mind. The song isn’t in the key of A; rather, it’s in the key of Air—a menacing and fragrant gas which disables the feeble human synapses and filters and resets the landscape below.  

Robert Bunter: Yeah. It’s an altered mental state. The unfamiliar instruments (Mellotron and some kind of zingy Indian harp), the tapes played backwards or slowed down, the improbable yet beautiful chord changes, the trick ending – they not only illustrate the lyric’s precise yet vague portrait of confused uncertainty, they evoke and induce it. The listener can’t help but viscerally inhabit Lennon’s haunted mindspace. I don’t care how mentally together and emotionally secure you are, when you hear this song, you know what it feels like to be a rich, unhappy, drug-addled human genius full of pain from the past, fears for the future and disorientation in the present. Objectivity dissolves. Lennon was able to manufacture similarly hallucinogenic effects on his other two attempts at audio drugs (“I Am The Walrus” and the aforementioned “Tomorrow Never Knows”), but what elevates “Strawberry Fields Forever” is the beauty. It shines through the confusing textures like a warm smile inside of a nightmare.

Richard Furnstein: The nightmare was certainly displayed in the promotional video for "Strawberry Fields Forever." The clip displays the band's new look--a combination of Victorian and lurid clothing, deviant facial hair, and the vacant, sad stares of internal psychedelic explorations. After an unheralded six months of creative chrysalis, they have emerged as underfed butterflies. There was nowhere to go but up: miles from the dull, patchy grass, through the pink smog, and into the pulsing light. Surprisingly, Paul McCartney is the most frightening figure in the video. His once friendly doe-eyes are lifeless (perhaps literally) and full of sorrow. Cloaked in a garish mustard-colored coat, he hops along the ground backwards and jumps into an expired oak tree. George and John have aged decades during their break from the public eye. Their gaunt bodies are hidden by technicolor fashions. Ringo looks the most familiar, but he is clearly searching for comfort in this strange world. The clip enters night during the slow, cello-drenched "no one I think is in my tree' verse. The tree is festooned with nylon spider web emerging from a piano. Is the tree fake? Is there truly nothing to get hung about in this caustic landscape? Ringo smiles with glee as they douse the piano in cans of paint. We (the viewers) are similarly baptized in these colorful new structures. Surely, everything that came before had to be scrapped as useless. This was it.

Robert Bunter: It wasn't just the video. The lyrics themselves are addressed directly and personally from the John-figure to YOU, the listener ("Let me take you down"), just like "I'd love to turn you on," "Isn't he a bit like you and me?", "Can you hear me?", "There's nothing you can do that can't be done," "You can syndicate any boat you row" and so many others, all the way back to "Oh yeah I tell you something / I think you'll understand." This approach would come off has presumptuous (at least) in the hands of a lesser artist, but John and the Beatles were confidently aware that they occupied a special place in the consciousness of their listeners. So, after a gracefully genteel Mellotron prelude, the lyric begins with our old friend John disarmingly offering to let us join him on a trip to Strawberry Fields. Informed fans know that this was the name of an orphanage just around the corner from John's childhood home in the Liverpool suburbs, where a young Lennon was fond of listening to the sprightly tubas and cymbals of the Salvation Army Band each summer at the annual garden party. One can even imagine the domineering young lad rounding up his neighborhood chums on the way to the fair by saying something like "Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Field" in a cute little British accent. But obviously John is working on a different level. He informs us that "nothing is real" and, more alarmingly, "nothing to get hung about." This casual, ho-hum attitude towards the existential riddles with which John confronts us - "It doesn't matter much to me" - is almost as terrifying as the cellos, reverse-time drum loops and old-man moustaches. 

Richard Furnstein: I beg to differ. John was not entreating the listener to take a "trip" down to the halcyon Strawberry Field. Instead, he was warning the listener that he was about to tell them the sad story of his shattered childhood ("let me take you down"). It's significant that he set this alleged idealist piece of nostalgia in an orphanage as he was finally ready to tell the story of a mother who left him (and then suddenly died in a senseless accident as she decided she was finally ready to become a stable figure in his life) and an absentee seaman father. In "Strawberry Fields Forever," John envisions himself as a ward of the orphanage rather than merely a visitor to its lush gardens with his caretaker Aunt Mimi. John realizes that he is nothing more than an unwanted child, despite the best efforts of Aunt Mimi and Uncle George to create an illusion of stability and normalcy following his primal scream trauma (the loss of his parents). Indeed, "living is easy with eyes closed" suggests both John escape from his loss as he retreats to his rich and fractured imagination and Aunt Mimi's well-meaning illusion of a normal Liverpool family. Perhaps as an orphan, John could have realized a greater sense of connection to humanity ("no one I think is in my tree") in an age when traumatized children didn't receive psychiatric care. He was hiding his internal damage caused by the loss of his parents to the world rather than wearing his injuries proudly as a state-declared orphan. The casual mention of "nothing to get hung about" suggests that suicide is the only way to really stop the bleeding. John would be more emotionally direct in revealing his pain during his raw early solo years ("Mama don't go/Daddy come home" and "One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside"), as he finally received the therapy and time for self reflection that he desperately needed. However, the grace and poetry of the pain in "Strawberry Fields Forever" is somehow more startling than the grotesque exposure of those later lyrics.

Robert Bunter: The shattered childhood material is all there, but it’s subtextual – indicated only by the title/refrain’s mention of an orphanage and the track’s pairing with McCartney’s “Penny Lane” as an explicitly two-sided meditation on their shared Liverpool roots. The sad little chap, squinting nearsightedly at the merry Salvation Army band and stoic war orphans of early-‘50s England is now grown up. His already hyperactive mental/emotional/spiritual Self has been rocketed to the highest levels of wealth and artistic acclaim, then magnified and distorted through his copious use of advanced pure mind drugs of the highest pedigree. The Beatles just made the decision to stop touring and John, at loose ends, decides to accept a minor movie role and spend a few weeks filming in Spain. During the interminable waiting periods between takes, he gently strums an acoustic guitar and ponders the uncertain future of his career as a Beatle, his stultifying, dead-end suburban family life with Cynthia and Julian, and, yes, the bleak reality of his broken youth. The primal, crucial questions of his life loom inescapably as he struggles to decipher their answers through a haze of THC and boutique-quality lysergic acid. Am I a madman or a genius? What is real and what is illusion? How can I maintain my integrity and awareness in the face of so much pain? It is startling to hear the John-figure -- so accustomed to delivering pronouncements from on high, flashes of righteous anger or cutting wit -- lost in melancholy confusion. Who is this politely confused old man with the granny glasses and moustache, singing “I think I know, I mean, ah yes, but”? Surely not the same confident authority figure who had (quite recently) commanded us all to turn off our minds, listen to the color of our dreams and say the Word.

The beauty shines through the confusing textures like a warm smile inside of a nightmare.

Richard Furnstein: It's easy to imagine John languidly strumming this chord progression on the set of of How I Won The War. Literally and figuratively in a foxhole during the making of Richard Lester's dark comedy, Lennon was nervously awaiting the next development in his life. "Strawberry Fields Forever" was a bold and risky direction for the songwriter: he was exposing himself (emerging from the foxhole) to the rewards and risks of its creation. The glorious demos for "Strawberry Fields Forever" reveal the endless options of this strange composition. A Beatles fan could spend a decade in the stark and gentle productions of these early versions (combined and compiled nicely as part of the Beatles Anthology). Later in his life, Lennon claimed to be unhappy with odd patchwork of lushness and strangeness that was unleashed to the world like a psychedelic Frankenstein's Monster. You can almost understand his concerns because the final product--while pure brilliance--was so unusual and seemingly incongruent with his original vision of the song.

Robert Bunter: The story of how “Strawberry Fields Forever” was pieced together from wildly different takes in the studio is one of those Beatles stories that have been re-told in every book and documentary film, but I’ll briefly summarize it here. The song was first debuted to George Martin as a solo voice and acoustic guitar demo that George Martin later said was “utterly breathtaking” even in a completely unadorned state. Since it was the height of the studio experimentation phase, however, they clearly couldn’t let it go at that. John asked Martin to score the track for cellos and trumpets, and the resulting take was utterly striking and unique. John still wasn’t satisfied, however, and suggested they start from scratch with a more ponderous, heavy rock version that emphasized Ringo’s drums. This, too, was an artistic triumph. John still felt something was missing and asked Martin to join the two takes together. The staid, conservatory-trained producer nearly fell from his velvety-cushioned rotating studio chair with incredulity at Lennon’s inexhaustible naivete. “But John! They’re in completely different keys and tempos! What you’re asking is impossible!” But John just smiled and gave him “that look” and said, “Oh, I know you can do it, George” and floated away before his very eyes (actually, this was accomplished with a simple series of ropes and hidden pulleys arranged over the studio rafters by assistant Mal Evans and Ringo). Martin, suddenly alone in the cavernous studio space, racked his brain for several hours before he thought of the (totally obvious) idea to slow down the faster one a little bit and then speed up the slower one slightly. Miraculously, it worked – the keys and tempo matched perfectly. This is the reason John’s voice sounds more druggy and strange in the later verses. It may be difficult for a non-musician to understand just how startlingly unlikely it would be for that to work.

Richard Furnstein: John's voice also sounded more druggy because he was consuming Olympian doses of d-lysergic amid at the time. Martin's role was clearly to translate a madman's babbling for the Top 40; seducing happenstance with a surgeon's steady hand. Indeed, the studio trickery of the "Strawberry Fields Forever" master is more than mere psychedelic colouring (think of the BBC airwaves captured during the chaotic "I Am The Walrus" fade or the swarming clavioline that haunts "Baby, You're A Rich Man"). It is an essential element of Lennon's storytelling. He once implored us to "Listen to the colour of your dreams"--a nice enough sentiment--before taunting "It is not leaving." In other words, we have reached the point of no return. The dripping many-eyed iguanas and undulating mindwave trails are here to stay. Are you in or are out?  

Robert Bunter: I'm out. There's too much more to say, and we've already gone on too long. Maybe we'll do part two someday. Maybe. That would be a fine place to talk about the fake ending, the Mellotron, and the fact that this and "Penny Lane" were pulled from the Sgt. Pepper lineup as originally conceived. Let's get the hell out of here.  

Richard Furnstein: Fair enough, old pal. This song is a burrito-as-big-as-your-head. Sometimes it is alright to get your fill and walk away. We're all adults here.

Original Beatles fan art by Matthew Heisler

Blackbird

Richard Furnstein: It's a quiet night in for Paul. He pads around his London flat in his woven khussas. Time for a little tea and breeze. A lonely bird called from beyond the black, sharp images dancing across his window glass. "You and me, pal. You and me." Then he grabbed his standard D-28 (strung backwards, of course), sat on a helpful beanbag chair, and joined the lonely bird in a song. Whip-poor-will and wait. Keep waiting. The night will burn off eventually.

Robert Bunter: To me, this is the most beautiful song Paul ever wrote. I think it's better than "Yesterday," "You Won't See Me" and "You Never Give Me Your Money," or "the three second-most-beautiful McCartney songs that all start with 'Y'" as I call them. I will admit that I was surprised, after many years of listening to this song, to hear Paul explain that it was written as an oblique statement of support for the civil rights movement. For me, it was always a song about his own sublimated yearning for independence from the stifling confines of the Beatles' insectoid chrysalis to the free-flying avian future of mature development that was Wings. But the subtexts are really beside the point. It's a beautiful melody and lyric. A baby could understand it. Purity. Simplicity. Unadorned acoustic fingerpicking, no effects on the vocal, don't be afraid to let the mic pick up the sound of your foot tapping on the floor. It's a natural affair. There's a goddamn bird with a broken wing hopping around on sad little bird feet and this earnest, beautiful man is encouraging it to muster its resources and take flight. Are you telling me you wish the other Beatles had been in the studio for this session? You want 1968-era Ringo tom-tom plodding and Lennon's tortured falsetto? Maybe we'll have George add some of the beefy horn sections he was experimenting with on "Savoy Truffle." Yeah, that would be a GREAT idea. Get the hell out of here.

"Blackbird" was always about Paul's sublimated yearning for independence from the stifling confines of the Beatles' insectoid chrysalis to the free-flying avian future of mature development that was Wings.

Richard Furnstein: Hey, great point. Much as been made of the solo recordings aspect of The White Album, but I can only think of one of the songs that would have benefited from the full band arrangement ("Why Don't We Do It In The Road"). The sparse and solo-focused songs are some of the most effective on the album (think "Blackbird," "Julia," and "Martha My Dear"). There is a confidence in the individual pieces of The White Album; it's as if The Beatles were asserting that they were more than the raucous backbeat or the distinctive harmonies. They were producing pure musical love. Is that Clapton on guitar? Is Yoko singing backup? Is John making the pig noises? It doesn't matter, simp. Focus on Paul's voice here--a single beam of light in a pristine clearing. Nothing else matters.

Robert Bunter: Much has been made (by me, here) about the way Paul’s tendency towards crowd-pleasing, eager-to-delight showmanship can serve to obscure the primal essence of the man. I would submit that “Blackbird” actually exemplifies that phenomenon, even though it seems like an exception to the rule. The sparse production and intimate setting seem to be at pains to cue the listener that, hey, this is the real McCartney, caught in a personal moment, behind the curtains – as you evoked so beautifully in your opening statement about the pajamas and the beanbag chair.

Richard Furnstein: Thank you, kind friend.

Robert Bunter: As we listen, our mind’s eye conjures these fantasies. A little too readily, if you ask me. Paul paints a self-portrait of a wistful dreamer cradling his backwards-strung guitar and whistling a little tune for his own personal amusement, and maybe that of the injured crow hobbling around his windowsill. Finally. The man behind the eyebrows. I love you, Paul. Yeah, well, keep your powder dry, Kemosabe. The whole thing is just as much of a contrivance as “Your Mother Should Know” or “She’s Leaving Home.” I’m sorry, but there is only one Paul song that allows us to glimpse the reality of its composer, and that song is “Fixing A Hole.” There’s a lot to unpack there, but we don’t have time right now. We’re talking about “Blackbird.”

Richard Furnstein: Thanks for the reminder. "Blackbird" is the first in Paul's esteemed bird series. The later installments ("Bluebird" from Band On The Run, "Single Pigeon" from Red Rose Speedway, and "Jenny Wren" from Chaos And Creation In The Backyard) share the fragile beauty and reflective tone of "Blackbird" but never reach its wondrous heights. I could write pages about Paul's oaky voice and his absolutely perfect guitar part (still the only part to play when testing out a acoustic). I'll tell you what absolutely slays me, though: the gentle tapping on the body of the guitar. The organic rhythm box would also help define "I Will," but it's almost more effective here. Again, we're down to just Paul. A man with a guitar in a room surrounded by lovely Disney birds. The pulse you hear isn't brutish Ringo and his unforgiving stickplay; it's simply Paul tapping the box. Flesh hitting wood. All come free.

Robert Bunter: Yeah, it’s a light moment on a record that doesn’t have too many of them. Only McCartney’s very similar “Mother Nature’s Son” and Lennon’s pastoral “Dear Prudence” are in the same room of the crazy, endless house that is the White Album (Lennon’s “Child Of Nature,” an outtake that was cut from the White Album lineup and later repurposed as “Jealous Guy” on Imagine, was cut from the same lovely cloth). Otherwise it’s just a nightmarish collage of tiger hunts, oedipal love ballads, cannibalistic swine, unabashed monkeys, terrifying playground equipment, wounded bloody raccoon cowboys, soiled sheepdogs rolling around in their own filth, hairless car crash victims, insomnia, guru betrayal, lizards crawling on windowpanes, violent revolution and toothaches.

P.S. I Love You

Richard Furnstein: Paul McCartney was a dangerous young man. His loose balloon eyes would draw the helpless ladies of Liverpool into his warm cloak, where a dark cloud of aftershave and sweat would swarm around their wilting bodies. The women were easy prey: Paul would snatch them up like a giant ripping the roof off of a girls' school. He always seemed to be the secret man in a gaggle of boys. "P.S. I Love You" finds Young Paul reaching Aleister Crowleyian levels of control over sexual energy and power. The song--a breezy appropriation of Buddy Holly's white man samba--seems innocent enough. The P.S. of the title may even be a reference to Holly's figurehead of rock and roll innocence, "Peggy Sue." There's something sinister going on in this song. John Lennon serves as the dashing wing man on this recording, gently easing his friend into each line of the verse. Paul remains steady and confident during the pitch to Earth's women. He only breaks a sweat during the climax of his mating call ("YOU KNOW I WANT YOU TO remember that I'll always-YEAH-be in love with you"). You don't even really notice that the man is screaming until he comes down off that powerful run to join the measured tone of his buddies. It's powerful stuff.

Robert Bunter: Well, that’s just it. Paul’s greasy charm was irresistible, and the whole song is delivered with brisk professionalism. It’s difficult to listen to this one and not form a cartoonish mental image: a single blue spotlight illuminates the shabby wooden stage of a darkened nightclub. A quartet of unctuous smoothies sways gently back and forth as they effortlessly sketch a gentle tropical melody; the singer cradles an old fashioned microphone and leans into the foreground of the frame at an exaggerated, physically impossible angle. His eyebrows arch and tighten with hideous sincerity; his pursed lips glisten with shiny secretions. The audience members are the featureless black silhouettes in a George Peed album cover. The sincere intensity of Paul’s contrived insincerity begs all sorts of questions. Is it possible to tell a lie so well that it becomes your truth? The real Paul McCartney and his emotional feelings might be the real illusion; the cartoon nightclub crooner in our mind’s eye, the reality.

Richard Furnstein: The music suggests motion: a tender blend of the precision stride of a seasoned nag and the comforting creaks of a an tugboat. Where are we going? Paul suggests that he is "coming home again to you, love." It's a nice image, but Paul is reluctant to put a timeline on this return. It feels more like a tender kiss off from a man who realizes that his future his full of tender fragrant nubs, moist jazz cigarettes, and the simple elegance of teak. Paul's never coming home. His love is still true; in fact, he loves you so much that he can't break your heart. I'm sorry. It has to be this way. You'll understand years from now. See you around, sweet Penny Lane.

Paul's never coming home. I'm sorry. It has to be this way.

Robert Bunter: Penny Lane – the heartsick, immature Liverpool dalliance whom smarmy Paul is brushing off with a casual letter and postscript – is US. The fans, the record buyers, the listeners – from the damp screaming 12-year-old in the upper decks of Shea Stadium to the sad, fat old man with a shopping bag full of officially-licensed Apple Corps towels, jackets and Magical Mystery Tour DVD’s at Beatlefest 2009. The “letter” is actually the record album itself; “treasure these few words while we’re together / keep all my love forever,” he tells us. “Send a few extra bob to the fan club and you may even receive an autographed glossy photo and a lock of hair shipped via postal mail!” Paul seduced the world and then tossed us aside like so many nickels and dimes, scattered across the rumpled bedsheets of our lives from where they fell out his pants pocket during the tussle and roll of physical love. Thanks for the trinkets, Paul. I guess I’ll just hold onto them and treasure the memories. PS, I love you. But … who are you?

Richard Furnstein: That's the burden that James Paul McCartney must carry. He's just a man who was sent to this planet to keep our memories alive. George and John are dead. Ringo doesn't want to sign autographs for you anymore. It's all on Paul. You say it's your birthday? Let me play you this Paul McCartney song. Are you sad because you are lonely? Here is a magic spell called "No More Lonely Nights." Wait, you want him to live forever and play a thousand songs in a single concert? I'm sorry, he has to travel to Pittsburgh in the morning to heal their citizens. But aren't you glad that you heard "Mrs. Vanderbilt"?

How much are these memories worth to you? That depends. Are they truly longer than the road that stretches out ahead? I'm not sure if there is an answer. All I know is that I want more of it. Forever. Give me your collected letters of John Lennon. Give me "Press To Play" in multiple formats. Give me Ringo and Steve Miller jam sessions. Give me the overpriced remastered mono vinyl box set (rumored for an Xmas 2013 delivery). I want it all. I'm alive.

Robert Bunter: Yeah, I want it all, too (London Town illustrated songbook and “Take It Away” 12” single with the picture of him holding the teacup, please). I’m human. But you’d better go into this thing with your eyes open. The thing you really want is the one thing you can never have: Paul McCartney’s true heart. I’ll bet that even when you were in his actual presence, you found yourself staring at the pixilated eyeballs on the JumboTron and not the flesh and blood human at the other end of the sports arena. Paul’s voice is an electronic signal coming out of a speaker, his face is a 8"x10" glossy promo photo and his soul is a haunting melody that captured the heart of a world called Earth, I’ll bet not even Paul McCartney knows who the real Paul McCartney is at this point. He looks in the mirror and sees an album cover; his grandchildren visit for Boxing Day and he gives them autographs. He sits down at the piano and everything he plays is a Paul McCartney song. His burdens are as weighty as his gifts. The love you take is equal to the love you make, but at what cost?

Til There Was You

Richard Furnstein: The emergence of doe-eyed Paul McCartney: the ladies' choice. Paul graced the world with his manboy presence, with a quiet sparkle in his doll-like face and a jutty rhythm that worked through his broad shoulders and confident knees. John was the leader and--at the time of With The Beatles--the primary songwriter of The Beatles. Paul was merely a nice accent piece; he'd provide gentle relief from John's frequent misogynistic breakdowns as well as a solid Little Richard impersonation. It always seemed unusual that Paul's "All My Loving" kicked off their Ed Sullivan appearance. I'm not saying was suffering in the George sub-basement, but he really wouldn't emerge as a true counterpart to Lennon until possibly "Yesterday" or Rubber Soul. "Til There Was You" was essentially a showcase of this limited concept of Paul's role in the band: a rough balladeer who sang as much with his large eyes as his honey throat. Is there any real difference between this and similar showcases for Ringo as the C&W goofball?

Robert Bunter: Of course there’s a “real difference,” Richard. Remember, this elegant show tune was part of the group’s repertoire since the rough-and-ready days of Hamburg 1962 at least, if not the mythical Liverpool Cavern itself. This wasn’t some light-in-the-loafers smoochery tacked on for sales appeal by “fancy” manager Brian Epstein or staid, conservatory-trained producer George Martin. This song is part of the underground root-ball from which the whole Beatle plant would eventually grow – the budding sprouts of emotional directness and harmonic sophistication that define the Paul-stalk of this magnificent plant are audible here. If the Beatles had consisted entirely of Lennon’s ferocious moods and angular artistic sensibility, their sublime balance of forces would have been disturbed. Paul warbles a bit of sweet poetry with disarming sincerity and the ladies swoon, but behind the sweet fragrant meadows and winging birds there is a terrifying emptiness. We’re not getting any of Paul’s real emotions, just a nicely crafted bit of Tin Pan Alley doggerel and a lovely melody. This may be the ultimate McCartney song, not despite but because of the fact that he didn’t write it.

Richard Furnstein: It certainly has the vital life-stuff of later sophisticants like "Things We Said Today" and "Yesterday." "Til There Was You" finds a man lightened by love embracing the bustling life and activity that surrounds him. Every step along the noise, warmth, and light of the waking world is a pure delight. While The Beatles would fully mine this territory in the psychedelic years (the cartoonish "tangerine trees and marmalade skies" representing heightened senses), Paul's childlike wonder truly sells this song. Does he pronounce the word "saw" as "sawr"? That's adorable.

"Til There Was You" is so exaggeratedly mawkish you could imagine The Beatles making goony faces and miming spastic convulsions at the kids when the mums, dads and Mr. Epstein were looking the other way.

Robert Bunter: This track also represents the first hints of self-conscious parody and pastiche in the group’s catalogue. “Til There Was You” seems to be delivered with a bit of an ironic wink; on the one hand, it seems to say “Look at us! A gang of drunken provincial teds with loud guitars, but we can play standards, too. A little something for everybody, ‘ey wot?” At the same time, the song is so exaggeratedly mawkish you could imagine them making goony faces and miming spastic convulsions at the kids when the mums, dads and Mr. Epstein were looking the other way, not unlike Eddie Haskell charming Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver with a little soft-shoe dancing but meanwhile he just dared Beaver and Whitey to climb up onto the billboard and fall into the ersatz soup bowl and the firemen have to come and get them down. This mischeivious, parodic approach would become a career staple, especially for McCartney: “When I’m 64,” “Your Mother Should Know,” “Honey Pie” and “Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance,” to name just four.

Richard Furnstein: "Til There Was You" should be nothing more than a sweet contrast on With The Beatles, their greatest (and most rocking) LP. However, the performance of the song at the Royal Variety Performance would elevate the song in the story of The Beatles. In this performance, Paul plays the sweet bard singing into the deep eyes and hallowed loins of the busty young Queen Elizabeth II. It was a huge moment as this group of rough lads with dead mothers from Liverpool were introduced to the ruling class that they would soon replace in terms of wealth, social culture, and national pride. Lennon later let tried to assert The Beatles (or rock and roll culture) had surpassed Jesus Christ and a host of associated angels. Bold, to be sure. I'd say the America-baiting "sacrilegious" comments and the burning of Beatles records by cross-eyed American rednecks had their origins in the ego trip that was the performance of this gentle number from The Music Man.

Robert Bunter: I would say that, too. And that’s why I would say you were wrong at the outset when you tried to tell me this crucial landmark was in the same ballpark as Ringo warbling his way through “Act Naturally” or “Honey Don’t.” When you look under the surface, you’ll find that there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye, not unlike the episode of ALF where bumbling paterfamilias Willie Tanner reads an accidentally-discovered space diary and learns that the wisecracking, happy-go-lucky orange Muppet he calls “Alf” is in fact Gordon Shumway, a highly-advanced space traveler who spends sleepless nights in the garage brooding over the fate of his doomed romance with sweet Rhonda and the countless melancholy light years which preclude the redemptive return to his primal home on the planet Melmac.

Richard Furnstein: Ha!

Please Please Me

Richard Furnstein: "Please Please Me" is the superhero origins story. The lonely orphan teen who suffered a spider bite. The well meaning scientist who fell into a vat of nuclear goo. The Beatles were a methamphetamine enhanced bunch of bashers that were coming up small in the spotlight. Their first single offering--the ghastly "Love Me Do--traded in the leder-und-schwitzen antics of the Star Club for harmonica-drenched mid-tempo pap. In many ways, "Please Please Me" was clearly presented as the sequel to love me do: witness the return of Lennon's plaintive harmonica, the nursery rhyme teasing of Harrison's opening lead, and the pronoun driven lyrics. However, "Please Please Me" offers something more. Simply put, it's one for the crotches. John's is pleading for a bit of physical tit-for-tat in the lyrics while the pulsing "Come on/Come on/Come on" is the firestarter. Staid conservatory-trained producer George Martin proposed the hired song "How Do You Do?" as their second single, but dropped that hot bowl of garbage after John and Paul offered up the (at once) sexually frustrated and aggressive "Please Please Me."

Robert Bunter: You say that like sexual frustration and aggression are mutually exclusive. My friend, they are inextricably linked. That’s why I yelled at you that one time in high school! I think the reason this track works so nicely (you’re right, it’s the first piece of their recorded output that really strikes some sparks) is that it takes both of those intense emotions and amalgamates them into a pile of sweet harmonies and unorthodox-yet-undeniable chord changes. The singer is aggressive and sexually frustrated, but one gets the impression he won’t be for very long. “You don’t need me to show the way, love.” In other words, what do I have to do, paint a goddamn picture? But with a song this delightful, the object of his ardent entreaty is sure to capitulate. Interestingly, there is a bit of distance suggested – the opening line, “Last night I said these words to my girl” suggest a fourth-period locker-room bull session, maybe exaggerated for effect with the boys. It’s doubtful that the singer was actually yelling “Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on!” at the poor “bird” in the midst of their rendezvous.

Richard Furnstein: The "come on" build is clearly the key moment of this song. John (and his insistent buddies) are clearly trying to wear the poor girl down. They deliver their script with a mannish growl (I detect a Parisian odor to their pleas) and a hint of a smile. Then finally, the walls come down and the destination is in sight. The keening on "please pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease me, oh yeah!" tells you the rest of the story. Our heroes crave the ecstasy of release but it's never enough. They claim that they don't mean to complain about the situation during the bridge. There's always rain in his heart, the poor boy. How will he possibly heal his deep heart wounds? The answer is in the tides of pop music--you don't have to search long to find another chorus (release). The only thing missing here is the yelping passion of a rock and roll fade out, including some yelps and guttural noises from the young and doe-eyed Paul McCartney.

Robert Bunter: One of the key songwriting tricks in the Beatles’ grab bag (along with simple pronouns, harmonica solos and yelling “Yeah Yeah Yeah” or “OOOoooh!”) was the use of startling and innovative chord changes; this was a habit they never really lost, actually. “Please Please Me” was the debut appearance. The ascending chords after “Last night I said these words to my girl” were completely fresh and new; the only contemporary example I can think of that used that chord was the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up, Little Susie” in 1957. The “Come on” section uses some bold transitions, as well. But the capper is that magnificent five chord resolution that ends the single. It’s utterly invigorating, each step like a slap in the face. After I heard that, I knew that this band was going to change the world.

Simply put, it's one for the crotches.

Richard Furnstein: The early Beatles were experts at the dramatic resolution, completely avoiding the mindless fade-out that has long been a hallmark of popular music. Think about the emotional tidal wave that concludes "She Loves You." Even sub-baby food songs like "From Me To You" tended to wrap up things nicely. It's easy to connect this approach to their well-honed live act. I would argue that there is more to it. The resolution of their early hair-shaking mega hits always managed to ratchet up the excitement level in their already exploding pop songs. You replay songs like "She Loves You" and "Please Please Me" because these splendid magicians implore you to return again to the golden cave of self realization. John, Paul, George, and Ringo have the secret recipe for the foodstuff of life--come back any time to feast on their delights. Yeah? Yeah.

Robert Bunter: Yeah!