My Morning Rut
I love ruts. Most people speak of ruts in a negative sense. They speak of getting out of ruts or being stuck in them. I love ruts. Ruts are comfortable. If I find something working for me, I don’t see any reason to suddenly stop doing it just because I’ve been doing it for a long time. Repeating something that doesn’t work- well, that’s stupid. So is changing something that does work for the sake of change. Change is not good nor is it bad. It’s different. That’s it.
So what am I going on about?
One of my ruts involves my music-listening ritual. I have established a pattern of latching on to an artist, listening exhaustively to their albums to the near exclusion of everything else, and then setting them aside. I do this several times a year; sometimes several times in a week or month. Some artists dominate my listening more often than others.
My morning rut — which, by the way is not an emo band — includes listening to a podcast of Tony Kornheiser’s radio program. Each morning, I download the previous day’s show and listen to it at my desk at work. On yesterday’s program, Tony played snippets from The Beatles’ Let it Be, in honor of it’s 37th anniversary. That means The Beatles’ “last” album is 3 years older than me. I don’t know why that’s interesting. In fact, it’s not interesting. I don’t even care that it’s three years older than me, but it is. Listening to the clips inspired me to queue up the album in full on my iPod for a refresher course. Mr. Tony… radio for life.
I love The Beatles. TheWifeToWhomI’mMarried despises them. I can’t wrap my head around that. I don’t get it. How can you not like The Beatles? It’s this type of thinking that makes me suspicious of the whole “diversity of opinion” phenomenon. Diversity is fine, but so is consensus. There should be a handful of things upon which we all agree. The United Nations says the debate on Global Warming is over — which turned out to be news to a minority of scientists — but there are people who don’t recognize the universal greatness of The Beatles? Diversity of opinion is great as long as we all get it right.
The Beatles are great. I think I’ve made myself clear on that point. The Beatles are not, however, beyond reproach or above criticism. I’ve never been a big fan of Let it Be as an album. It’s too uneven for me. There are some weak tracks on the album. The (supposed) idea of a stripped-down album is undercut by the bloated production on two of the more famous tracks. You know “The Long and Winding Road” is too saccharine-y when Paul McCartney finds it too maudlin.
This is the part where you might think I’m contradicting myself and that’s why I remind you I said the album is uneven, not awful. These are still The Beatles. Let it Be doesn’t compare well with their masterworks, but it beats the hell out of Herman’s Hermits or William Hung. “Two of Us” and “Across The Universe” are just fabulous. “Let it Be” is special, even if the production is really annoying.
Let it Be is an excellent listening companion to Elliott Smith’s New Moon. The occasionally unvarnished sound of LiB meshes well with mostly acoustic songs of New Moon. Smith is a well-known Beatles’ disciple and while this latest collection is not the best example of their influence on his work, that connection is clearly audible.
Filed under: Tags: Elliott Smith, Let's Talk About My iPod, The Beatles
Sir Josh, this site is fast becoming my most regularly visited. aside from myspace. and my own. but with regards sites that don’t have a picture of me, this is wayyyy up on the list.
re: Let It Be - how do you feel about Let It Be - Naked? does that settle any of the production issues you have with the original record?
i dunno if i’d say it’s one of their weaker records. weaker than Rubber Soul, certainly, and The White Album, but then so’s everythin. compared to, say, everythin up to Help!, i think it stands up well. and i would even go so far as to say it’s a more consistently pleasing record than Revolver, which i’ve always thought to be sore overrated. it’s good, but there’s a lot o shit on there. even the weakest Let It Be tracks don’t come close to the must-skip terror of Yellow Submarine or, God forbid, Taxman.
Thanks, Duke. I’m honored and thrilled to know you’ve found another web-home away from home here at Fanboy.
Naked was an improvement, shedding away some of the bombast. I think the album is undone by the production as well as the environment that birthed it. There are some really good moments on the disc, but I have trouble staying engaged from beginning to end and some of that is down to the songs. Some days I really like “I Me Mine,” other days it gets on my tits. “Dig a Pony” and even ::gasp:: “Get Back” are kind of like that for me as well. I don’t think the songs are as consistently up to scratch.
I can forgive “Yellow Submarine” because it’s a total novelty. Besides, I love Ringo. He’s a big doofus, and that doofus-like charm works on such a novelty song as this. “Taxman” is not a strong track and would have been better buried on side two. Revolver big time stands up for me, but I’ll concede it might be a bit overrated. Rubber Soul, and Sgt. Peppers are impossible to stand up against. That’s like ripping the Stones for not making Let it Bleed or Exile every time out. Who the fuck could?
it’s true, i totally love this kind of writing and banter….it’s the kind of thing i wish for but it never seems to happen, at least not very often.
oh yea…i loved Let It Be Naked.
Hey, be nice, Fanboy. We may not have been the Beatles, but we made a lot of teenage girls scream too.
So did David Hasselhoff
I know nothing of Elliot Smith, never heard the music - but the Beatles, oh yeah.
I was never crazy-crazy over them, though certainly enjoyed lots of their music. Those boys had it going on.
(but my husband doesn’t like them?)
Proof positive you can’t ridicule anyone without a reaction. Whatever.