I found Get Back incredibly inspirational. It's all just so ordinary, like any band rehearsal I've ever been in. It's kind of amazing to see The Beatles just doing the same stuff that everyone in bands does
Yes, it's all very very familiar. The setup, the sitting around the amps, the mumbling.
It does away with the "magic" while simultaneously making clear you do need to have a natural talent for "coming up with stuff". Not so much "inspiration" but just being willing to be shameless and plug away at random things and follow intuition.
> you do need to have a natural talent for "coming up with stuff"
Where do you see that? Watching the documentary I see people who have been, for years, putting in the work. This is them going to work. Most people I know who have not met their songwriting goals do not put in the time, day after day, year after year.
Perhaps it's a little of both? But my takeaway from this scene was also more on the side of "this is how they did it: relentless hard work."
...but plenty of people put in the work and never come up with anything close to what the Beatles could. Including, it's worth considering, any of the fab 4 in their solo careers. Sure, there were a few hits. But nothing comparable to the insane productivity from when they were a band.
So it looks to me like the formula is: hard work + talent + band chemistry = hit making machine. And only the hard work portion of that is within anyone's control.
I think some of this is just that anything done in their solo careers was continually measured against the best of the Beatles output. If you look at the number of hits and records sold by McCartney and Wings, it's amazing. And John Lennon's solo stuff is legendary. I still think that "Imagine" is as good as any of the Beatles stuff. And the Beatles had what I consider a lot of poor songs as well. It's just that their sheer volume of outstanding songs made it easy to ignore the lesser ones.
There is an important component I think is necessary somewhere in there, maybe lumped under "talent:" and that is a link to the zeitgeist that would let them come up with popular content.
What if this band worked hard, was talented, worked great together, but had no idea of current events or what the currently popular music was to rebel against; and instead ended up cranking out baroque Bach-like classical pieces? I bet they would remain in obscurity.
There were a few points in the doc where some of the Beatles would come in saying "I was thinking about this song last night while watching TV" and they'd hum it out or play some of the notes in their head on the piano. We saw Paul mess around with the guitar in real time as he slowly put together the chords for Get Back. Moments like this, to me, feel like times where that natural talent is necessary.
Not to say that I'm particularly good at it, but this too is a muscle that gets better with time. I recently started playing music again with my highschool band. The guitarist worked at songwriting for the past 15 years and can now write out a song on demand, many of which are (in my opinion) great.
Agree, the Great Man Theory puts too little emphasis on time and place.
I feel the Beatles wild success in the United States is linked to the incredible sadness in the U.S. after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These four English lads were the Pollyannas that the country needed, clung to, to get out of their national funk.
I think that the success of the 'British invasion' groups in America is that it provided a safe way for mainstream Americans to listen to black musical genres.
The British musicians—who weren't as queasy about it—took R&B, Rock and Blues and played it back to the Americans from a safe distance.
Interesting theory. But isn’t this exactly what white American musicians were doing themselves? For instance, the Beatles started out imitating Elvis, who himself was largely a[n inferior] imitator of black American popular music.
They were imitating Little Richard a lot more than Elvis. In Get Back, they are mocking Elvis in a way that makes it clear that had been making fun of him this way for years.
Not by then. After Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis had their explosive starts in the late 50s (that went into pauses with cousin-marrying and military service), white music was determined to market versions of them with all the implications of blackness stripped out. Instead, you had teen idols and white doo wop groups singing "Mister Sandman, bring me a dream..." White rock and roll is dead until the British invasion, who consisted of people who gleefully mined US race/blues records (and Elvis, and Jerry Lee Lewis), and fed it back to Americans.
That's a bit of what the movie Hairspray was about. The pause, that is.
edit: honestly, rock and roll probably would have died then if it weren't for the British Invastion. The kids were getting into folk.
It seems relevant that Jimi Hendrix only made it in the US as a "British invasion" act, after breaking through in the UK and securing the enthusiastic backing of McCartney, Clapton etc.
I loved the doc, my slight disappointment is that this was a relatively conventional period, compared to the couple of years before. No insight into how you end up with brilliant, sonically outlandish stuff like Strawberry Fields, Tomorrow Never Knows, I am the Walrus etc. Of course there's masses of stuff written and spoken about those things too, but not the incredible fly-on-the-wall view you get in Get Back. Maybe it's for the best.
Have you heard George Martin talk about making Sgt. Pepper? Its on Youtube, basically its a response to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. George Martin goes into the creative recording process, we just never get to hear any of the beatles talk about how those songs came about though. There was another engineer who has insight to the whole process, Geoffrey Emerick, hes also got some interviews on youtube.
(Saying all this incase someone else might want to dig further)
There is such a thing as a book: Geoff Emerick's autobiography, "Here, There and Everywhere". You couldn't ask for better insight into exactly the songs you mention :)
The last few days of the Beatles were the most scrutinized because they have ample footage of everything they did. That's why you don't have as much detail from the previous period.
Surprised at how much leadership Paul showed. I had heard this previously was watching the sessions really displayed how he was the de facto band leader at this point.
What he’s talking about is when you’re deep into music, that small time between deep sleep and when you’re waking up you have almost a lucid dream where amazing music comes to you. The problem is right when you wake up. It vanishes. The “hit” song is on the “tip of your brain” … then gone.
It happens to me and musicians I know. On occasion you remember one.
I tend to have two kinds of musical dreams: there are those when my fingers are magic and everything comes out amazing and those when everything comes out awful. I think I've managed to retain a dream melody once or twice.
Recently I dreamt a poem that was absolutely amazing but when I woke up it had melted away even before I awoke. I have some dribs and drabs of it that I'm trying to reassemble into something coherent.
I have this happen every once in a while, and I love it. That state between sleeping and full wakefulness is one of my favorite things to experience because of things like this, hearing music, and also being much more creative. I've learned to stay in the state for a decent while - seemingly lengthening it from seconds to a number of minutes - by keeping my mind relaxed/loose. (The state of transitioning from wakefulness to sleep is also nice, but it seems less readily "useful" in this way.)
As someone that wouldn't regularly consider themselves a musician, hearing music out of nowhere is super cool but weird.
For some reason I could count on getting into that state fairly regularly when I went home to visit my parents and slept on a slightly uncomfortable spare bed in their house. The exact reason is a bit of a mystery to me. I suspect a mixture of factors come together to make it more likely.
If I try, and focus, and am in the right mood, I get some pretty good-sounding symphonies, just kind of happening. Never any other kind of music. Which is weird because I mostly listen to various forms of popular music.
Developing that skill makes it easier to be a songwriter, but I think most people do it to some extent.
One of the tricks is that sometimes when you hear a song in your head, it's a bit sloppy and has some blanks in it. Like, there may be a melody with a descending run, but it's not clear what the steps are in the descending run or which notes it starts and ends on.
Another one of the tricks is that people typically focus on the topline melody, but if you hear a song in your head, you probably also at least "hear" the bass, or even other internal voices in the harmony. But without practice, you might not know that this is what you're hearing in your head, so you might struggle to put it to paper.
For a basic example from the Beatles, take the first line of the chorus for Yesterday, "Why she had to go". The melody holds the same pitch for the first two notes "why" and "she", but the bass is descending. If you know the song Yesterday, you can probably hear that descending bass in your head. If you can translate that to paper, you can transcribe songs. If you can hear songs in your head and transcribe them, you can write songs.
I've often hopped out of bed in the middle of the night with an AMAZING tune in my head from a dream, and recorded it on my phone. They've invariably been shite when I listened to them the next morning
I've somewhat had this phenomenon, with the added observation that if I listen to the recording multiple times it will "click" and will sound good again. Then I wonder if it actually sounds good or what.
Yesterday is only good when you hear it in hindsight, knowing the commercial success that it had and under the influence of halo effect
Honestly every song of that Level is.
You have to put together a good album and it can make it to 100k copies sold .
Everything above 100K copies is more telling about the luck and the scope of the promotional campaign supporting it then it says about the album itself .
It’s a phenomenon you see in every field .
Gisele Bunchen is beautiful but not 400M dollar beautiful
Bill Gates is smart but not 170B smart
The Mona Lisa is a great painting I guess but not 1B dollar worth
Jesus was a pretty cool role model , but not a 3B devote follower type role model dictating that the world stops on his birthday
All the above phenomenons rely on a mix of luck, vitality and as well as people not thinking about potentially buying into something that could be overrated and ‘overpriced’ compared to cheaper options which is the definition of halo effect
Well if he really existed as an historical figure (we highly suspect he did) then for sure he would not be displeased if he knew that the world came to a halt on his birthday and that he has 3B followers and not like Instagram followers who have an attention span of 1 minute, just the number 3 billion doesn’t really paint the whole picture . It’s the amount of waking hours that the totality of humanity spend thinking about him. Nobody even comes close . No king , no absolute dictator , no celebrity (modern or past). It’s power law on steroids
Many of the 3B dedicate at least an hour a day thinking about him and the values he tried to communicate , and in a very deep way
He was somewhat of a crossover between a magician , a cult leader an artist and a businessman self promoter so nobody can convince me that he would not the type to gloat about his success.
And honestly I can accept that . I’d rather have promotion about love and compassion than the technoutipian futurism such as crypto Jesus or rocket Jesus .
But as I said I have to point out that luck plays a huge role . So many people tried to sing the virtue of compassion and love via story telling but only Jesus broke out and became a figure with 3 billion religious followers
Too bad it's not his actual birthday, but rather an arbitrarily chosen day in year by the Roman Church to coincide with an already-existing holiday (winter solstice).
Depends on the proof you’re looking for. There are convincing arguments but it depends on what will satisfy you. How could I prove JFK was assassinated? Well there are mountains of proof, including video evidence. But what of that existed in 33 ad? Well we do have some evidence but it’s not as numerous as history produced today. Looking at the time period though, there is some pretty good evidence of what happened, but at the end of the day it is a conviction that only you can come to. Through my own research and experience I am convinced that he did, and through what I believe he has done in my life. But I realize that is not sufficient for some. Not even God himself was able to convince some of his divinity. I recommend the youtube video I linked, it’s a homily by a bishop about the historicity of Jesus. Not too lengthy.
You must have stepped on some toes there by bringing in religion, but it’s a solid point overall. A lot of artistic greatness comes down to familiarity, marketing, money and luck. It’s possible that experts can determine the difference between one of the best songs ever and other merely great songs, though I suspect it’s largely a matter of opinion and also some measure of self consumed bullshit like with wine snobs or audiophiles. There’s a big difference between bad, competent, and great. I’m not so sure about the various shadings of great, at least objectively. Subjectively I have my own personal favorites that speak deeply to me and that I highly value.
I write songs too, and this is often how it works for me.
Songwriting is like any other kind of creative work. You come up with an idea, put it into some concrete form. That first recording. If it's shite, give it a minute and then come back to it with fresh ears and think about what you like about it and what you don't like. Take away the parts you don't like. Maybe you can think of something else that works with what you already like. Work that in. Evaluate. Rinse, repeat.
Sometimes you just have to abandon stuff that isn't working and move on to something completely different. That's OK too. Just keep doing it and your output will get better and better.
Even though it can be fun, in order to do it well you have to work on it. Your tenth song is going to be better than your first song, and your hundredth song is going to be better yet.
I tend to entertain the notion that anyone posting publicly isn't posting solely for their own indulgence but to others' benefit as well.
insofar as making stuff goes, especially art, I think there are widely held views that it either comes easy to you, or you don't do at all. It doesn't occur to some people that to be good at something (even something "fun") you have to work at it and put in time that decidedly isn't fun.
It's possible to train your mind to do this. It's not just musicians who find their inspiration in dreams.
Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali practiced naps while holding an object over a plate. When they dozed off and dropped the object, the clang would wake them and they could better remember their thoughts from the dream-like state moments before.
Watching this documentary made me wish that they did that with all their records. Since Get Back was a relatively stripped down record, it didnt really show a lot of the techniques they used on their more produced records. I am a bit of a gear head and it is pretty cool to see a brand new silver top Rhodes piano getting delivered and seeing it with all its Tolex looking brand new and not showing years of being beat to death like most Rhodes pianos look now. I do agree that it seems like the sessions look generally like they are having a good time, and the memory of the Get Back/Let it Be sessions are most likely conflated/clouded by the breakup around the time it was finally released.
71 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadIt does away with the "magic" while simultaneously making clear you do need to have a natural talent for "coming up with stuff". Not so much "inspiration" but just being willing to be shameless and plug away at random things and follow intuition.
The process is nothing special.
Where do you see that? Watching the documentary I see people who have been, for years, putting in the work. This is them going to work. Most people I know who have not met their songwriting goals do not put in the time, day after day, year after year.
...but plenty of people put in the work and never come up with anything close to what the Beatles could. Including, it's worth considering, any of the fab 4 in their solo careers. Sure, there were a few hits. But nothing comparable to the insane productivity from when they were a band.
So it looks to me like the formula is: hard work + talent + band chemistry = hit making machine. And only the hard work portion of that is within anyone's control.
There is an important component I think is necessary somewhere in there, maybe lumped under "talent:" and that is a link to the zeitgeist that would let them come up with popular content.
What if this band worked hard, was talented, worked great together, but had no idea of current events or what the currently popular music was to rebel against; and instead ended up cranking out baroque Bach-like classical pieces? I bet they would remain in obscurity.
I feel the Beatles wild success in the United States is linked to the incredible sadness in the U.S. after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These four English lads were the Pollyannas that the country needed, clung to, to get out of their national funk.
The British musicians—who weren't as queasy about it—took R&B, Rock and Blues and played it back to the Americans from a safe distance.
https://daytrippin.com/2018/10/08/john-lennons-lifelong-obse...
(interesting find prompted by other, also interesting, answer)
That's a bit of what the movie Hairspray was about. The pause, that is.
edit: honestly, rock and roll probably would have died then if it weren't for the British Invastion. The kids were getting into folk.
While everything that is shown in this documentary did happen, not everything that happened was shown in the documentary.
Paul McCartney says one day he woke up and had the melody to Yesterday in his head.
He says that some musicians dream about music but don't remember it when they wake up. For him he was able to remember and block out chords.
For me that is what a musician does - 'dreaming awake'.
It happens to me and musicians I know. On occasion you remember one.
Recently I dreamt a poem that was absolutely amazing but when I woke up it had melted away even before I awoke. I have some dribs and drabs of it that I'm trying to reassemble into something coherent.
As someone that wouldn't regularly consider themselves a musician, hearing music out of nowhere is super cool but weird.
One of the tricks is that sometimes when you hear a song in your head, it's a bit sloppy and has some blanks in it. Like, there may be a melody with a descending run, but it's not clear what the steps are in the descending run or which notes it starts and ends on.
Another one of the tricks is that people typically focus on the topline melody, but if you hear a song in your head, you probably also at least "hear" the bass, or even other internal voices in the harmony. But without practice, you might not know that this is what you're hearing in your head, so you might struggle to put it to paper.
For a basic example from the Beatles, take the first line of the chorus for Yesterday, "Why she had to go". The melody holds the same pitch for the first two notes "why" and "she", but the bass is descending. If you know the song Yesterday, you can probably hear that descending bass in your head. If you can translate that to paper, you can transcribe songs. If you can hear songs in your head and transcribe them, you can write songs.
Yesterday is only good when you hear it in hindsight, knowing the commercial success that it had and under the influence of halo effect
Honestly every song of that Level is.
You have to put together a good album and it can make it to 100k copies sold .
Everything above 100K copies is more telling about the luck and the scope of the promotional campaign supporting it then it says about the album itself .
It’s a phenomenon you see in every field .
Gisele Bunchen is beautiful but not 400M dollar beautiful
Bill Gates is smart but not 170B smart
The Mona Lisa is a great painting I guess but not 1B dollar worth
Jesus was a pretty cool role model , but not a 3B devote follower type role model dictating that the world stops on his birthday
All the above phenomenons rely on a mix of luck, vitality and as well as people not thinking about potentially buying into something that could be overrated and ‘overpriced’ compared to cheaper options which is the definition of halo effect
Many of the 3B dedicate at least an hour a day thinking about him and the values he tried to communicate , and in a very deep way
He was somewhat of a crossover between a magician , a cult leader an artist and a businessman self promoter so nobody can convince me that he would not the type to gloat about his success.
And honestly I can accept that . I’d rather have promotion about love and compassion than the technoutipian futurism such as crypto Jesus or rocket Jesus .
But as I said I have to point out that luck plays a huge role . So many people tried to sing the virtue of compassion and love via story telling but only Jesus broke out and became a figure with 3 billion religious followers
He didn’t dictate it, but he’d be pleased about it.
He was a human being after all, if you want to cut him some slack you can compare him with a contemporary Buddhist monk.
They too have an ego
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
How do you know? Citation needed
https://youtu.be/CIVvpFojbzk
Also The most famous celebrity ever
Nobody even comes close
Songwriting is like any other kind of creative work. You come up with an idea, put it into some concrete form. That first recording. If it's shite, give it a minute and then come back to it with fresh ears and think about what you like about it and what you don't like. Take away the parts you don't like. Maybe you can think of something else that works with what you already like. Work that in. Evaluate. Rinse, repeat.
Sometimes you just have to abandon stuff that isn't working and move on to something completely different. That's OK too. Just keep doing it and your output will get better and better.
Even though it can be fun, in order to do it well you have to work on it. Your tenth song is going to be better than your first song, and your hundredth song is going to be better yet.
insofar as making stuff goes, especially art, I think there are widely held views that it either comes easy to you, or you don't do at all. It doesn't occur to some people that to be good at something (even something "fun") you have to work at it and put in time that decidedly isn't fun.
Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali practiced naps while holding an object over a plate. When they dozed off and dropped the object, the clang would wake them and they could better remember their thoughts from the dream-like state moments before.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3023078/how-dali-einstein-and-ar...