--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "jpgillam" <jpgillam@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" wrote: > > > > > > I'm not wild about everything on the White Album, but some > > > of the songs on it are just on a different level, IMHO, as > > > if they came from a new place. > > > > I like that sunny perspective. The White Album sounds different > > to me in that it no longer comes across as a band, but as a few > > guys who are singing and playing on one another's songs. Genius > > men and brilliant songs, granted, but still, the band is a thing > > of the past. > > I don't think of it as a "sunny" perspective so much as a > new perspective. I think you put your finger on it, that > the songs are much more personal to the particular Beatles > who wrote each of them, rather than being collaborative > efforts. It's as if they were able to access their > individual reservoirs of creativity in a way they hadn't > before.
I wonder to what extent they were tapping deeper creativity, and to what extent being liberated from the constraints of the band permitted them to go directions the group structure would not allow. George once remarked that Paul was writing "fruity" songs near the end - just one of George's complaints about the band. It's conceivable that in an earlier day, Paul may have shelved "Honey Pie" because George didn't like it. Once the dynamic changed to "every man for himself," the need to sacrifice one's personal vision went away, and what resulted seemed fresh and new. My fantasy is that the band would have continued to accommodate one another, and gone through more incarnations than it did. A New Yorker article once described the first half of the Beatles' career as "lovable mop-tops," the second half as "hippy artistes." To my ear, John dominated the first half of the Beatles' life, and Paul the second half. (Look at the songs on "1," the album of number-one hits. John sings most of the songs in the first half. Paul sings most of the second half.) What might the Beatles have sounded like had George been permitted to influence the band in its third phase? He wrote enough songs to dominate a Beatles album, had they let him. Once George had his say, Ringo could have ushered in a period of alt country. I would have hated it at the time, but today I like "What Goes On" more than any other song on "Rubber Soul," and "Rubber Soul" has some awesome songs. Ah, magical thinking. What else is a mind for?
