COMBO’s new writer Wild Bill (from his Facebook page)
Hello everyone and welcome back. This month I am writing about a subject very dear to my heart. A little group out of Liverpool, England called “The Beatles” that became the world’s number 1 selling musical group in the history of all time. The Beatles have sold a total of 2,303,500,000 records worldwide including singles. I have always been a huge Beatles fan, and thought I would express what they mean to me, my opinions about them and their vast catalog of songs.
From the first moment I ever heard the Beatles when I was around 4 years old, I knew I was listening to something very great. I did not know what “Beatles” were or any group at that age. All I knew was it was the greatest thing I ever heard. One song in particular I loved was “Tell Me Why” which was side one, track 6 on the “Hard Days Night Album”. I listened to it over and over. At 5 years old I realized this was a perfect song, with perfect music, perfect vocals, performed perfectly, and recorded perfectly! The song has a wonderful opening, which starts off with the chorus in golden 3-part harmony. Then John sings the first line of the 1st verse alone, and the second line of the verse is “answered” in 3-part harmony. Genius! Then repeat on the 2nd verse, followed by another chorus. Now comes the only bridge, and John sings the first line alone, then all three sing in a very clever tripled falsetto to answer it. Pure and total genius! Another chorus and a perfect ending follow this. A total and complete perfect song. Like all their songs in my view. They put these genius touches on all their songs. They refined each song until they were as good as each could possibly be.
I will be saying perfect a lot during this article because that is what The Beatles were about. Perfection. Striving to be the greatest band, and making the songs as great as could possibly be. The song writing all started when the Beatles played at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and the bands that were playing before them each night, played all the songs they were going to perform. They decided that the only way to have songs the other bands did not know, was to write their own songs. Therefore, they did and the songwriting team of Lennon/McCartney was born. What a tremendous team they were of course. One thing I heard them both say in various interviews was they set out to make each song unique. Some groups had formula type songs and the Beatles wanted each of theirs to sound like nothing else. Each song sounding completely different.
When the Beatles went to Hamburg, they honed their act and played sometimes up to 8 hours a day. This tightened them up to a new level. They were the best around. When they came back to play the Cavern again, there was a line a mile long to get tickets. A mile long! This is for pretty much a local band. They did not have records at this point. Shows you what a sensation they were just as a gigging band. When they did record their first album, “Please Please Me”, they recorded it in one 13-hour session. It was basically their stage songs they played. Producer George Martin said of the session: “I don’t know how they do it. We’ve been recording all day, but the longer we go on, the better they get.” All that work in Hamburg paid off big time and made them a better band. That is what it takes to be in the big leagues. Extreme work.
I cannot emphasize enough how great a band The Beatles were. First and foremost. If they never wrote any songs, they would still be probably the best band there ever was. Tightest harmonies, perfect vocals and music that accompanied it perfectly well to make The Beatles “sound”. John, Paul, George, and Ringo were all world-class musicians on their own, but when they put those suits on, and Beatle boots, and played together, they became THE BEATLES. Only those 4 in the world could make that Beatles band sound. A perfect combination of players that must have been handpicked from the music gods. So many things happened that were fate-like it is unbelievable. The way Paul met John and Paul switched to bass guitar. In addition, how Pete Best had to be let go and Ringo joined the band which was the final piece of the Beatles’s puzzle regarding band members. They all acknowledged that when they first all played with Ringo, they knew instantly that was IT! They had that magical sound together.
So many great songs they wrote it is almost unfathomable. Almost every song they wrote was hits. Some bigger than others but almost all were great songs by almost anyone’s standards. Certainly, the majority of the world agrees and easily confirmed by sales and chart records. 19 Number 1 albums, 20 Number 1 singles (the most by anyone), most platinum albums (33) and most multi-platinum albums (13), etc. In addition, The Beatles had one very special day on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. On April 4, 1964 The Beatles occupied the top 5 positions on the chart:
1.) “Can’t Buy Me Love”,
2.) “Twist and Shout”,
3.) “She Loves You”,
4.) “I Want To Hold Your Hand”,
5.) “Please Please Me”.
They also had 7 other songs on the chart that day as well! No one has ever done that. This is just for the U.S. Billboard chart. They were Number 1 all over the world. Universally.
In my mind, The Beatles were as close to a perfect band as humanly possible. It was not by chance or by accident. They set out to be perfect, and better than any band that ever existed. I believe they achieved it. Each song they wrote was a finished and polished masterpiece of its own. They did not release them until each was completely refined until there was nothing else they could do to make them better. None of their songs can be improved. Each song is perfect as is. Just exactly right. “Lady Madonna”, “She Loves You”, “Hard Days Night”, all perfect and none can be improved. That goes for all their songs, which is a big reason they are so special and will be for all of time I believe. Hope you enjoyed my personal thoughts about The Beatles. A true musical phenomenon for all of time. Keep Rocking! -WB
By William “Wild Bill” McClintock
Sources:
1.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Please_Please_Me
2.) https://www.beatlesbible.com/1964/04/04/beatles-billboard-hot-100-top-five/
3.) https://www.statisticbrain.com/the-beatles-total-album-sales/