Quiz: Beatles Songs - 8 Questions to Test Your Knowledge

[Gokul43201]

Yeah, 1965 was a pivotal year.

Yeah, that would be right after Dylan introduced them to pot!

Ironically, Dylan thought I Wanna Hold Your Hand was about getting high on pot.

 

[George Jones]

Yeah, that would be right after Dylan introduced them to pot!

And they then introduced the Stones to pot!

 

[SpaceTiger]

Ironically, Dylan thought I Wanna Hold Your Hand was about getting high on pot.

Yeah, that cracked me up when I first heard about it. He thought that, instead of "I can't hide", they were shouting, "I get high".

 

[Tojen]

George had a great ear for pop riffs, though, and I think that's what really sets him apart.

Good point, and a good example is the bridge to the middle part of Cream's "Badge" (co-written by Clapton-Harrison). Simple but great sound. When Harrison wrote it down, he scrawled "Bridge" near the top; Clapton thought it said "Badge", and that's how the song got it's name. So the story goes, anyway.

John never aspired to be a great guitarist. After the break up, he was invited to play onstage with a bunch of other musicians but he declined because he "didn't know all the chords those guys know", and suggested George.

I always liked Paul's bass lines. Very melodic, just like his songs. But right from the beginning on the Ed Sullivan Show, I was drawn to John's raw edge and tended to prefer his songs. When they were still in the Beatlemania stage, his lyrics could be embarrassing ("I'm going to love you till the cows come home" ), but later, when he started putting some effort into it (by trying to emulate Dylan), he came out with some masterpieces--Hide Your Love Away, Norwegian Wood, Girl...

Was she told when she was young
That pain would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back
To earn his day of leisure.
Will she still believe it when he's dead?​

Has Ringo been mentioned yet? I thought his most inspired drumming was almost hidden in Baby You're A Rich Man. You have listen for it in the first lines of the verses but it's worth the effort.

It's great reminiscing about the Beatles. I got here too late for the quiz, but good thread.

 

[SpaceTiger]

Agreed on all counts, Tojen. I've always preferred John's songwriting. Were Paul not a member of the Beatles, I probably would never have listened to his music and I found much of his post-Beatles work downright repulsive. However, I have to acknowledge his gift for pop, as well as what it did for the Beatles' sound. He even had his moments of creative genius during those years when he was more drugged up and less eager to please.

 

[Tojen]

Post Beatles, George became an amazing and much in demand slide player. George played some great slide on John's Imagine album, including on How Do You Sleep.

George's mate Eric often commented on George's abilities on slide.

Orignially, George didn't play slide because he got too much of the rattling and buzzing sound, until someone (I forget who, maybe Clapton) told him to raise the strings on his guitar. After that, he really took to it.

 

[George Jones]

Orignially, George didn't play slide because he got too much of the rattling and buzzing sound, until someone (I forget who, maybe Clapton) told him to raise the strings on his guitar. After that, he really took to it.

His slide playing really took off after he got a few lessons from Delaney Bramlett (Delaney and Bonnie).

 

[Astronuc]

Chriss Bliss juggles to the sound of "Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and The End".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4776181634656145640&pr=goog-sl

Pretty cool!

"And in the end,

The love you take -

is equal to the love you make"

 

[Wishbone]

Who said that? John was a great musician because his lyrics, music, and presence were so great.

I don't think lyric writing and presence, whatever that means, are good gauges of the musical ability of someone.

 

[Teecher]

I don't think lyric writing and presence, whatever that means, are good gauges of the musical ability of someone.

And you would use what ... a thermometer?

 

[George Jones]

I remember reading a few years ago a webpage that excerpted comment by Eric Clapton about George Harrison. It took a while, but I found it http://www.12bar.de/ftp/text_info/ec-george_harrison.txt" .

Here are some excerpts from the excerpts.

When Eric Clapton was asked about his favourite British guitarists in 1966 by Beat Instrumental, he said, almost apologetically,

"Strangely enough. I like some of the things George Harrison does, although I don't know how much of that is off his own bat, and how much is planned by the whole lot of them."

Now Clapton, at the time, took his music very, very seriously, and this comment shows that, even before he knew George well, Clapton had high regard for the abilities of George in particular and the Beatles in general. I suspect that Clapton's comment is related to the last paragraph of post #62 by Space Tiger.

Clapton commented again about the Beatles in Guitar Player in 1985:

"It was just that he was in a powerhouse band where everyone was
fighting to get to the front - and they really did fight."

Clapton about John's guitar playing (Rolling Stone, 1985):

"There seemed to be a game going on between John and George, partly, I
suppose, because John was a pretty good guitar player himself."

Clapton on George's Slide playing (Rock Lives, 1989):

"He got into Robert Johnson and the other blues slide players through collaboration with me and Delaney; we were listening to that stuff a lot. He took what he wanted from that and used his own melodic sense. He came up with something totally unique. Since then, I've heard a lot of people trying to imitate *George's* style."

Clapton, when asked if his (Clapton's) slide playing is similar to Duane Allman's (Guitar Player, 1976):

"No, not a great amount, because I approach it more like George Harrison. Duane would play strictly blues lines; they were always innovative, but they were always in the blues vein. I'm somewhere in between him and George, who invents melodic lines often on the scales."

I have seen elsewhere comments by Clapton that praise George's slide playing. I recently recently purchased "the dark horse years 1976-1992" DVD, which shows George playing slide live (Cheer Down, Cloud 9) in-concert in Japan in the early 90's. Clapton and his band "backed up" George there.

 

[Tojen]

Agreed on all counts, Tojen. I've always preferred John's songwriting. Were Paul not a member of the Beatles, I probably would never have listened to his music and I found much of his post-Beatles work downright repulsive. However, I have to acknowledge his gift for pop, as well as what it did for the Beatles' sound. He even had his moments of creative genius during those years when he was more drugged up and less eager to please.

I thought Paul's creative genius with the Beatles was more than occasional, but I preferred John's style. But I agree completely about Paul's post-Beatles confections. I'd have to say the same about John's solo stuff, too. The Beatles were more than the sum of their parts, but they had to be those particular parts. Take Paul away and you wouldn't have his and John's exquisite harmonizing, as on If I Fell (compare that to Paul/Linda and John/Yoko). It would be like Crosby without Nash, or Steve Lawrence without Edie Gorme (okay, I admit it, I like Steve and Edie's sound).

And Pope John Paul would have been just Pope John (rumour has it that his papal name was a compromise with the Vatican over his first submission: Pope Lennon McCartney).

 

[Tojen]

His slide playing really took off after he got a few lessons from Delaney Bramlett (Delaney and Bonnie).

Delaney and Bonnie...There's a group I haven't heard of in a long time. I only know of them through Never Ending Love, but if Delaney could teach George Harrison something, there must be more to him than one forgettable pop song.

 

[SpaceTiger]

I thought Paul's creative genius with the Beatles was more than occasional, but I preferred John's style. But I agree completely about Paul's post-Beatles confections. I'd have to say the same about John's solo stuff, too.

I quite liked the stuff he did immediately post-Beatles (Imagine, Plastic Ono, and Double Fantasy), as well as right before he died. The mid-70s work, however, was often really lazy and shoddily put together.

Take Paul away and you wouldn't have his and John's exquisite harmonizing, as on If I Fell (compare that to Paul/Linda and John/Yoko).

Not really a fair comparison, as neither Linda nor Yoko were musicians in the usual sense of the word. I do agree, though, that the Beatles were more than the sum of their parts. It's kind of a shame that they either didn't recognize this or didn't care.