![]() In between John had conjoined with the ocean child of his lyric Yoko. However on 13th October 1968 Julia became the last track to be recorded for the White Album and was achieved in just three takes, take three becoming the released version. ![]() ![]() The Kinfauns run-through in May 68 allowed John to block out a longer demo version of the song, with extra verses and ending with “ I can only speak my mind, Julia,” which he hadn’t yet done. However the lyrics to Hide Your Love Away are both cynical and self-deprecating as “ I cannot sing my heart,” whereas, in Julia, John is straining to reveal his emotions with the immediacy of his signature newspaper realism, in order to reach her as “ I can only speak my mind.” The Light Programme had given them so many opportunities to play live on air that The Beatles at the BBC archive albums runs to 140 tracks (!) but it had just ended to be re-invented as the far narrower pop music station Radio 1.Īt first I thought that Julia was a breakthrough acoustic guitar love song for John, but he’d already been featured in HELP! serenading Eleanor Bron, whom he adored, in acoustic troubadour mode. As it is Julia is his only solo acoustic guitar track for the Beatles and became part of the wonderful simulation of the BBC Light Programme that they created as the White Album. Perhaps he was still under the influence of Donovan and was considering writing more singer/songwriter material as his big bright blue pleasure machine looks ready for stage work (as seen below). Lennon was more interested in his musical instruments and commissioned The Fool to psychedelicise his acoustic Gibson guitar whilst he was still in the light and airy mode he had returned from India with. Pepper (see All You Need is Heutagogy for more). A diverse creativity initiated by the “ experimental style“ of the Beatles very own Sgt. So diverse that, just recently Spanish scientists have “proven” that over a period from 1955-2105 popular music was at a rich and creative peak at that time (1968). Whilst they wrote much of the White Album up in Rishikesh, once back in Britain they caught up with the ever-evolving and amazingly diverse music scene going on in London. Except, of course, that they were not only accomplished musicians but also avid music fans (see Ob-La-Di for more). And that music, it seems once again on the White Album, is untypical Beatles. Not so much Love Me Do, more “How do I love?” Julia is also another song that casts off the pressures of being in the Fab Four in order to play around with music. They are both songs that, like most of the White Album, ask questions first and then embark on an attempt to answer them. Like Pauls “I Will” Julia is a love song about love, a personal meditation on love. Johns feelings are both those of a respectful son and a lustful lout, possibly Oedipal shown awkwardly in the film perhaps because they are more about the directors lust for her leading man. In the book Julia tells wonderful stories of them that ring true and resonate with the wistful memories floated by John in this song. John’s half-sister is named after his mother, and I am a big fan of the interpretation of her provided by Anne-Marie Duff in Nowhere Boy, especially the scenes of all three of them together alongside Julia Lennon’s second husband. When you talk to people in Liverpool today about how they value the industry of Beatles memorabilia (not so much it seems), they tend to recommend the truthfulness of the book by Julia Baird called Imagine This. “This song is almost agonizingly exquisite in its restrained, laconic poetry, its combination of suggestive imagery with a reluctance to be explicit “ silent cloud touch me,” indeed.” The great Beatles musicologist Alan Pollack accurately sums it up like this There is a corner of Rishikesh that is forever Liverpool. ![]() Is this Johns moist beautiful song? It definitely builds on the open nostalgia they discovered and played free with up in a mountain village in the Himalayas.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |