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Author Topic: The Beatles minus George  (Read 27154 times)

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sewi

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #40 on: June 26, 2007, 03:21:29 PM »

Quote from: 185

Far out. I see it as totally reversed. George was needed more in Beatlemania when their moptop image was all important. Once they became a studio band his replacement would have been much easier.
I like The Beatles as they are, and would never wish to see him leave. But on Rubber Soul his guitar work sounds thin, and importantly he seems to lack confidence. I have to wonder "what if" sometimes. But to cure that I just need to listen to Eric on WMGGWeeps I guess.

to lack confidence in Rubber Soul? I cannot see what you mean kevin sorry.But when George began to compose his replacement would have been more dificult after mid sixties and with psicodelia and Indian music going so popular for a while and convincing the others to go to India and then writing masterpieces for their last albums. Ringo on the other hand was not needed after they stopped touring because Paul could have played the drums instead and Ringo did not contribute as much as George to their projects whatever they were:India,Apple,songs.When he left they continued recording but when Goerge left they knew he was serious and he was needed.John said that about Eric Clapton but I don not think it was considered as a choice.
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Kevin

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #41 on: June 26, 2007, 03:32:05 PM »

Re Rubber Soul - it's in the ears  guess. Listen to Paul's guitar on Ticket To Ride and Taxman - he plays with confidence and gusto. George generally sounds thin and hesitant to me.
No George: no India trip - was it really that important? They'd never had trouble knocking out songs wherever they were.
No Indian music - it is hard to imagine Sgt Pepper without it, but perhaps if they had a guitarist who concentrated more on his guitar work than fiddling with a sitar - who knows. Again, the world wouldn't have ended.
George's masterpieces - respect to the guy for Something, Here Comes The Sun and to a lesser degree Taxman and WMGGW. Great songs, but really drops in the bucket compared to what John and Paul were churning out year in and year out.
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sewi

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #42 on: June 26, 2007, 03:43:52 PM »

Quote from: 185
Re Rubber Soul - it's in the ears  guess. Listen to Paul's guitar on Ticket To Ride and Taxman - he plays with confidence and gusto. George generally sounds thin and hesitant to me.
No George: no India trip - was it really that important? They'd never had trouble knocking out songs wherever they were.
No Indian music - it is hard to imagine Sgt Pepper without it, but perhaps if they had a guitarist who concentrated more on his guitar work than fiddling with a sitar - who knows. Again, the world wouldn't have ended.
George's masterpieces - respect to the guy for Something, Here Comes The Sun and to a lesser degree Taxman and WMGGW. Great songs, but really drops in the bucket compared to what John and Paul were churning out year in and year out.

So you are comparing two examples of good Paul guitars versus all George guitar works but I don not hear Geiorge playing badly on If I needed someone or And your bird can sing mentioning only another two.

The India expierence was important for them not only for the peace and the number and quality of songs but they had an oportunity to be really together since the tours.

Psicodelia nad Indian music was the new kind of music of mid sixties and George was a master.They needed him to be cool to those who liked those styles and they were a lot of people by that time.Fashion.

Those songs that you have mentioned are among the best of those albums and for some people and important critics and even for the Beatles themselves are the best tracks of those albums so he was needed during those late years too to improve the albums.And he composed some other great songs too not only those because All things must pass is another wonderful song for example.

My opinion is that George was very needed although surely there would be some points at which he was not a master.I am not saying he was better than John or Paul but he was great doing what he knew.

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Kevin

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #43 on: June 26, 2007, 03:51:48 PM »

I'm not saying George played badly, just not that spectaculaly well.
Indian music was "the new kind of music of the sixties."????? Can you name some others by other groups? (other than Paint it Black). Hardly a trend. Indian music was George's thing, either a brave dash of inventiveness or a stumble up a blind alley. I don't think it's the "new music" anymore than  Paul's flapper songs.
ps I applaud George for his Indian music. Very brave to put that on a pop record. But it never really caught on.
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Kevin

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #44 on: June 26, 2007, 04:04:48 PM »

Quote from: 564

to lack confidence in Rubber Soul?

I was just going to qualify that by saying actually he sounds strong on Drive My Car. Just did a quck Wiki to check and oops - it's Paul.
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BlueMeanie

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #45 on: June 26, 2007, 04:05:51 PM »

Quote from: 564
So you are comparing two examples of good Paul guitars versus all George guitar works but I don not hear Geiorge playing badly on If I needed someone or And your bird can sing mentioning only another two.

Except that they are not on Rubber Soul! And remember, George was the official lead guitarist. He's not meant to be outplayed by the bass player!

Quote from: 564
The India expierence was important for them not only for the peace and the number and quality of songs but they had an oportunity to be really together since the tours.

Really? I always thought it was the beginning of the end. The mood in the studio during recording the White Album wasn't exactly peace and love.

Quote from: 564
Psicodelia nad Indian music was the new kind of music of mid sixties and George was a master.They needed him to be cool to those who liked those styles and they were a lot of people by that time.Fashion.

George was not a master of Indian music. He could barely play a sitar to a child's level. And there were not a lot of people who liked Indian music. A few hippies hanging around Carnaby Street who want to be seen wearing Indian clothes and listening to Sitars. After all, you'll listen to anything when you're stoned. The average man in the street didn't even know the 'swinging sixties' was happening, let alone have any interest in Indian music outside of the local tandoori.



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harihead

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #46 on: June 26, 2007, 05:24:01 PM »

I'm putting way too much time into this, but I'm a geek!

I just happened to see a poll in another forum, that released its results today. A bunch of people (not sure how many, but at least 2 dozen) listed their top 25 favorite Beatles songs. When I looked over the results, I was struck by how many George songs were in the list of people's favorites, so I geeked out and did this little check.

If you use this page as a source: http://www.stevesbeatles.com/songs/default.asp?sort=songwriter

you find that George wrote 22 Beatles songs. I'm leaving out joint instrumentals and post-1970 songs like FAAB. That leaves 169 Lennon/McCartney original compositions. That means George wrote 13% of these 191 original Beatles songs compared to L/M. Not very many.

But in this poll, 10% of the favorites ended up being George songs. Since he only wrote 13% of the songs to begin with, this is a pretty good percentage.

If you look only at the top 10 winners, 20% of the songs are George songs (carrying 26% of the vote), and 80% Lennon/McCartney. ("Here Comes the Sun" was #2, behind "Day In the Life".) So George's "masterpieces" (as Kevin called them earlier) seem to really stand out as highlights for many people in the Beatles catalog.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It's just one poll that collects a bunch of people's opinions. ("Taxman" doesn't even appear on this list, so..?) But anyway, I think George made a definite contribution to the Beatles sound, and perhaps more of an impact on their memories than many people realize.

Okay, must stop geeking and get to work. Cheers, all!
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The Swine

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #47 on: June 26, 2007, 07:04:25 PM »

interesting discussion. i think george did not feel as much pressure as john and paul to come up with a lot of songs. it probably didn't matter if he had not come up with anything and he did so for quite a long time actually. he delivered don't bother me in 63 and then his first composition was i need you and you like me too much for the help album. john and paul built the songs that made beatlemania.
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raxo

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #48 on: June 27, 2007, 10:51:00 AM »

Quote from: 748
[...]he delivered don't bother me in 63 and then his first composition was i need you and you like me too much for the help album. john and paul built the songs that made beatlemania.
George was ignored ... he wrote a very beautiful song in 1964: You Know What To Do ...  

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raxo

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #49 on: June 27, 2007, 11:04:58 AM »

Quote from: 483
Except that they are not on Rubber Soul! And remember, George was the official lead guitarist. He's not meant to be outplayed by the bass player![...]
If I Needed Someone is on Rubber Sooul, sorry  :P ... but Kevin mentioned two (Ticket To Ride and Taxman) that are not! And notice that the bass player was a guitarist too!
Quote from: 185
Re Rubber Soul - it's in the ears  guess. Listen to Paul's guitar on Ticket To Ride and Taxman - he plays with confidence and gusto. George generally sounds thin and hesitant to me.[...]
Quote from: 483
[...]Really? I always thought it was the beginning of the end. The mood in the studio during recording the White Album wasn't exactly peace and love.[...]
The same could be said about Sgt. Pepper's sessions but they felt really well together again during some weeks in Rishikesh ... good enough to compose a lot of songs ...  
Quote from: 483
[...]George was not a master of Indian music. He could barely play a sitar to a child's level. And there were not a lot of people who liked Indian music. A few hippies hanging around Carnaby Street who want to be seen wearing Indian clothes and listening to Sitars. After all, you'll listen to anything when you're stoned. The average man in the street didn't even know the 'swinging sixties' was happening, let alone have any interest in Indian music outside of the local tandoori.[...]
To compose good music you needn't to play well an instrument and India music was a novelty to Western ears ... another new thing the guys were doing and sending to the whole world, don't pay at10tion only to Carnaby Street or to the week one song or album was released ... they influenced others goups with they new music, Indian music included ... I think that George was a force: meditation, new instruments and approachings, new projects and colaborations ... he was more alive and creative than ever since mid sixties ...

We should take a listen to what harihead has said because it's true that George songs are among the most beloved ones and that is significant  :)

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The Swine

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #50 on: June 27, 2007, 11:07:08 AM »

Quote from: 297
George was ignored ... he wrote a very beautiful song in 1964: You Know What To Do ...  

lets turn around. maybe george was ignored because of this song. you cant be serious. you know what to do is probably the worst thing he ever wrote. and if that was the best thing he could come up with, i know why the beatles didn't take off because of george. he wasn't the best singer of them all and certainly at that time not the best of songwriters. it is a fact that the beatles only took one take of this, or not even im not sure. just a george demo. and even that was one step beyond.
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raxo

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #51 on: June 27, 2007, 11:17:07 AM »

Quote from: 748
lets turn around. maybe george was ignored because of this song. you cant be serious. you know what to do is probably the worst thing he ever wrote. and if that was the best thing he could come up with, i know why the beatles didn't take off because of george. he wasn't the best singer of them all and certainly at that time not the best of songwriters. it is a fact that the beatles only took one take of this, or not even im not sure. just a george demo. and even that was one step beyond.
Are you saying that it's worse than the fillers the other two included on their second LP, for example?  :o Come on, I already knew you're not!  ;D

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The Swine

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #52 on: June 27, 2007, 11:19:29 AM »

Quote from: 297
The same could be said about Sgt. Pepper's sessions but they felt really well together again during some weeks in Rishikesh ... good enough to compose a lot of songs ...  

which were hardly group efforts.

Quote from: 297
To compose good music you needn't to play well an instrument.

you should have told Mozart.
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Kevin

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #53 on: June 27, 2007, 11:21:16 AM »

Quote from: 297
To compose good music you needn't to play well an instrument and India music was a novelty to Western ears ... another new thing the guys were doing and sending to the whole world, don't pay at10tion only to Carnaby Street or to the week one song or album was released ... they influenced others goups with they new music, Indian music included ... I think that George was a force: meditation, new instruments and approachings, new projects and colaborations ... he was more alive and creative than ever since mid sixties ...


I would need evidence to convince me that George's Indian stuff did anything more than start a brief fad for a bit of easterm mysticism in pop/rock music.
Hats off that it did show the world that you can put anything on a pop record BUT they may come with the qualification that you have to be The Beatles to have the luxury get away with it.
It was a cool thing to do - I just don't think that in the bigger picture of rock it's that important
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raxo

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #54 on: June 27, 2007, 11:24:30 AM »

Quote from: 748
which were hardly group efforts.[...]
They had never been, so? ... and they were old enough to change that ... but they had a lot of fun  :D ... and they jammed a lot ... the recordings and, later, the Esher demos show us this ... definetelly a good step (Yoko was another thing, man!)!   ::)
Quote from: 748
[...]you should have told Mozart.
I thought he was clever enough to know that ... so I never thought I should to! 8)

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raxo

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #55 on: June 27, 2007, 11:28:10 AM »

Quote from: 185
I would need evidence to convince me that George's Indian stuff did anything more than start a brief fad for a bit of easterm mysticism in pop/rock music.
Hats off that it did show the world that you can put anything on a pop record BUT they may come with the qualification that you have to be The Beatles to have the luxury get away with it.
It was a cool thing to do - I just don't think that in the bigger picture of rock it's that important
It was another novelty for the world ... and the trips to India another one ... if the group was always trying new things George showed them a new thing to try ... important or not, they thought it was important enough to try ... I think that it was needed ... and George too ...

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Bobber

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #56 on: June 27, 2007, 11:29:15 AM »

I think the pig has got a point. If You Know What To Do was the only thing that George presented in 1964, it was certainly not a lot and that's an understatement. Sewi (or raxo, I can't remember and keep mixing you up, sorry) said that India gave them a chance to finally be together since the tours stopped. Mind you, the last tour was in August 1966, they went to India over a year and a half later! Certainly to Beatles' standards, that is a lot of time. Plus I'm not sure whether the atmosphere in India was all good. Not good enough to last any longer than a few months.
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Bobber

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #57 on: June 27, 2007, 11:31:04 AM »

Quote from: 297
It was another novelty for the world ... and the trips to India another one ... if the group was always trying new things George showed them a new thing to try ... important or not, they thought it was important enough to try ... I think that it was needed ... and George too ...


In fact, the meditation thing was presented to them by Patti Boyd. Trips to India had been made before. It became a public thing because the Beatles did it.
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raxo

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #58 on: June 27, 2007, 11:32:55 AM »

Quote from: 63
In fact, the meditation thing was presented to them by Patti Boyd. Trips to India had been made before. It became a public thing because the Beatles did it.
Exactly, and they did all that because of George ... By the way, I was tallking about Indian music too not only meditation ...

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Bobber

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Re: The Beatles minus George
« Reply #59 on: June 27, 2007, 11:33:58 AM »

No, because of Patti.
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