Bob Deakin Short Stories

The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was originally relased in 1967.

As we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the release of The Beatles seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, I was compelled to finish the review that I never completed. I was a few months short of my second birthday when the album was released, but it had a profound effect on me.

Thanks to older brothers and sisters, the album was played over and over again as I learned the basics of life and an early appreciation of music. I didn’t yet know how to write or reason, but I’m confident that the countless comments that I heard at the time about the Beatles, the songs and the album were deposited into my subconscious memory for later withdrawal.

What I do remember vividly are some of the dreams I had about the imagery from the album; most notably John Lennon’s glasses from the cover photos, Ringo’s drum break in “A Little Help From My Friends” and the recurring nightmare I had about “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.”

My older sister’s name is Chris, known around the house as “Chrissy” as a kid, and I had this very scary dream, set at night in our back yard, that she was in the sky, with shiny things around her, hence, Chrissy in the Sky With Diamonds. It wasn’t a good dream. She was kind of stuck up in the clouds with Lennon and his glasses on while the rest of us were on the ground kind of staring up at her with other weird images popping up all around.

Lennon’s voice in that song really bothered me. It was as if he put Chrissy up there and was taunting us about it. There was no psychological reason for the dream. I loved my sister as I did everybody in the family and I didn’t want her to be up there with that weirdo. The dream didn’t go much farther than that, but it came back to me a few more times until the song was forever etched in my mind as “Chrissy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

I replay the image of that dream every time I hear the song (which has only been a thousand times or so) and to this day it’s one of the few Beatles songs that I don’t like. The CD version of the album sounds like crap compared to my mint condition vinyl LP, but the one thing I like is that I can skip to the next song with the click of a remote control, as opposed to walking to the turntable and lifting the tone-arm and moving it to “Getting Better,” which has always had a double meaning to me, as a result.

Here’s how my review of the album would have read if I was able to put those thoughts and images together as a very mature one year-old.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The first song on this unique new album, the title track, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” really blew my mind, which isn’t saying much for a one year-old. The song is dominated by brass with some really groovy guitar licks by George Harrison woven in between. The song clomps along in a steady march and climaxes with a very impressive ascending vocal harmony at the end. The crowd applause is a nice touch, too. Very unusual for a rock band to begin an album with an overture.

What’s really cool is how the first song leads into the second; “A Little Help From My Friends.” I don’t know who these friends are that the Beatles speak of but they must have quite an influence on them. Ringo Starr shows a fine baritone voice that we’ve not heard before and he adds a great, albeit, simple drum break early that gives the song a moment of reflection that works to perfection.

“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” is the third track and it’s quite the step back into the mellow introspective. John Lennon does the vocal and sounds almost creepy, singing in a voice we’ve never heard from him. The song is hauntingly breathtaking and soothing while disturbing at the same time. We aren’t told who Lucy is, why she’s in the sky or where diamonds come in to play but it’s the Beatles, so it must be cool. It’s almost as if the title of the song is an allegorical word play on something that the Beatles are not informing us about.

I don’t know if I’m more frightened by the way John sings this song or the way he looks in that satin green, 19th Century military uniform on the album photos. He also now sports these round, wire-rimmed glasses that make him look really way out. It almost looks as if he’s doing drugs or something, but this is the Beatles, and we all know these fine Englishmen don’t dabble in that stuff.

“Getting Better” is next and that’s right. The album gets immediately better with this song. It is a breath of fresh air following the emotional roller coaster that is the first three songs.

I’ve got to admit it’s getting better
A little better all the time
I have to admit it’s getting better
It’s getting better, since you’ve been mine

Whoever it is that Lennon and McCartney are referring to, she must be quite a girl. I always figured since the Beatles are so famous, they must have girls throwing themselves at them everywhere they go. I’m sure we will find out one of these days very soon who this special someone is who has had such a positive effect.

Emotions aside, Paul McCartney drives this song with his bass guitar while he and Lennon team up for a brilliant lead vocal duo throughout. It is odd to hear a bass guitar lead a song but McCartney’s Rickenbacker 4001 Bass does just that. Harrison’s halting cadence on the guitar adds the perfect touch of an optimistic march forward.

Great phrasing and contradictory messages abound including Can’t get no worse, as well as pictures of their past (I used to be cruel to my woman) that are perhaps better left unsaid. Best song on the album, hands down.

“Fixing a Hole” really sent me for a loop with that somber harmonium at the beginning. I was also wondering what kind of hole needs fixing. Anyway, very nice and powerful vocal by McCartney with a great distorted guitar break by Harrison midway through. Love the rising falsettos that close out the song. McCartney’s energy builds and builds, getting seemingly desperate about a seemingly banal subject.

Seems like he was spooked by the hole where the rain gets in. Stops my mind from wondering? He seems to have been caught in a moment of heightened imagination. The Beatles seem to have a lot of those type of moments these days. Well, they’re getting older and maybe they’re starting to experiment with different ways of thinking, or something. I heard that Lennon’s been hanging around with Mick Jagger, and I hear that guy hangs with the extra groovy people.

“She’s Leaving Home” is quite the departure in emotions once again, which seems to define this album. Beautifully Victorian in its style, the string quartet provides the perfect backdrop to this sad story of a young girl leaving home and leaving her parents heartbroken.

McCartney’s vocal tells a third-person story so easy to visualize, buttressed by Lennon’s answer to each of his statements in the verses, placed so cleverly in the distant background. McCartney’s falsetto soars ever more toward the climatic and terribly sad conclusion, matched by Lennon’s Bye, Bye voice of his conscience. The story doesn’t have a happy ending, and I feel as if I’ve lost someone forever, although I will never let it happen again.

“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” is the last song on Side A.

What the hell is going on here?

A raucous calliope and thumping drums set the tone in this peculiar tune which I may never figure out. I’m not even sure the lyrics on the recording match those on the back cover of the album.

Messrs. K and H assure the public
Their production will be second to none
And of course Henry The Horse dances the waltz!

These guys are getting really weird. It’s bad enough that those words make no sense but I can swear Lennon is singing And of course Henry The Horse and Fuzzy The Whale!

Still makes no sense but I’m glad it’s the last song on the first side because I can push the stop button on my turntable to end it and turn the album over.

“With You, Without You” opens side B. We don’t get many George Harrison songs on Beatles albums and I wonder why we go this one. Sitars look really groovy and it’s fun to watch somebody play it but, like yodeling, I don’t want to hear it.

I’m sorry George. I loved “If I Needed Someone” on the Rubber Soul album and I hope to hear more beautiful songs like that in the future. This is probably just a phase George is going through with this Indian music and probably the last we hear of that stuff on a Beatles album.

“When I’m Sixty-Four” is next and now we’re floating back to Earth. This song is steeped in the classic Al Jolson style of crooning in the 1920s and if I didn’t know better, I might even say it was written by McCartney by himself, even though the credit is Lennon-McCartney. You don’t suppose these guys just bill every song as a co-write do you? Maybe Lennon added the line Doing the garden, digging the weeds. The way he’s been acting lately, it almost seems like he’s been digging weed, although this is the Beatles, and we know these fine Englishmen don’t dabble in that stuff. Certainly not McCartney.

“Lovely Rita” follows that and man, where is this album going? I can’t imagine McCartney being attracted to the local meter maid when we see film clips of a thousand women chasing the Beatles down the street. This song is very bland in lyric and melody although the vocal harmonies are great. That said, where does this fit on this album? Am I missing something?

“Good Morning, Good Morning” follows Rita and we’re going down hill Daddy-O. I would have to be on drugs to enjoy this song, and I’m sure that’s not the message that the Beatles are sending because we know these guys don’t do that stuff; although my suspicions are growing about Lennon. Maybe those friends he’s been hanging out with are having some strange influence on him. Probably just a phase, like Harrison and the Indian music.

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”

Finally a good song. It seems like a week ago I was excited about how this album was getting better all the time, when I was starting to think that it can’t get no worse.

This song takes off like one of those rockets they’re sending into orbit nowadays. A one, two, three, four count off from McCartney and the Beatles are rocking like the Yardbirds on their best day. This reprise of the title track moves quick and is over before you know it, but not before you forget it. Harrison plays some mean distorted guitar with Ringo pushing the song along with a frantic pace, which ends with the first note of the last song on the album.

It leaves us winded, but poised for a song with meaning and, more importantly; a song from John Lennon.

“A Day In The Life” is a tour de force emotional roller coaster that epitomizes and completes the album we thought we were getting when it started.

Lennon brings back his “Lucy” voice, sounding unusually winded and disappointed, not like we’ve heard from a Beatle before. He tells the sad story of a lucky man who made the grade yet blew his mind out in a car because he hadn’t noticed that the lights had changed. A crowd of people stood and stared. They’d seen his face before although they weren’t sure if he was from the House of Lords.

Lots of imagery here. Perhaps Lennon is speaking metaphorically and cynically of McCartney’s rise to the forefront of the band, which seems to have happened in the past year. If that is his point, he speaks as though his band mate has died, artistically, losing touch with reality and succumbing to his exploding ego.

We can’t tell what’s going on behind the scenes with the Beatles but Lennon has developed a very introspective and brutally honest way of expressing himself in his songs. If you ask me, strange as it may seem, he’s talking about himself.

The song does an about face when the melody changes abruptly and McCartney chimes in with Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Very interesting interlude from the guy this song may be about. I’m just getting confused with all of that when they do a brilliant drop back into the original melody.

Lennon picks back up with the vocal spouting off about 4,000 “small” holes at the Royal Albert Hall, which, coincidentally, seats about 4,000. I don’t think John is going to be invited to Tea with the Queen any time soon.

The song concludes with Lennon’s line, I’d love to turn you on, followed by an orchestral hyper-climax that ends with all hands on the piano for the final note, which rings on in a terrifying manner for what seems like eternity. I think I’ll hide under the covers now.

There is this developing tavern tale with Beatles weirdos that Paul is dead. There are countless “clues” on the album giving credence to the story such as Paul standing with his back to the camera on the back album cover and the lyric, He blew his mind out in a car. There is also a message divulged when playing backwards the recent single, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which conveys I Buried Paul at the end of the track. Incidentally, that song and “Penny Lane,” the B-side, would have fit much better on this album than any number of the other tracks that made it.

It’s actually a clever ploy on the part of the Beatles marketing bandwagon but I have to ask myself, why would they need more publicity? Also, who is the guy they found to replace him who writes songs, sings, plays incredible bass, guitar and keyboards? I guess it must be those guys from Phil Spector’s “Wrecking Crew.”

The next thing you know, they’re going to be circulating stories that it wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy.

“Sgt. Pepper” is undeniably original, at times scary and sometimes too weird for listening pleasure. I think the guys are spending a little too much time with their friends, although I’m sure they have lots more friends now that they’re The Beatles. Nonetheless, I’m sure there are plenty of great albums to come, and I bet Lennon starts hanging around with the right people again. I heard he has this really nice new girlfriend who’s from Japan.

I bet she straightens his life right out and the band is together for the next 20 years.

Copyright 2009

I watched Michael Jackson’s This Is It at the local movie theater this past weekend and walked away struck first and foremost by the sadness that I’ll never be able to enjoy his talents anymore. When any entertainment superstar that was a part of our childhood passes on – whatever the circumstances – a part of our youth passes with them.

None of us knew him personally, even the few I’ve met who did know him personally, but I feel as though I’ve lost something; like someone took all my Michael Jackson and Jackson Five albums off the shelves and sprinkled a thick layer of dust on them. All of mine are in mint condition but they just aged 25 years overnight.

For me, the same thing happened with John Lennon, Elvis Presley, George Harrison and Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys. I grew up with these musicians staring at their photos, lyrics and liner notes on albums as I listened to the music intently, sitting on my bedroom floor, on the living room couch with headphones on, driving around in my car or lying on the beach or in an open field. Their music created visions that would last a lifetime, but once they were gone those visions became memories, which are nice but sad.

I could live by quotes such as Neil Diamond’s “Used to be’s don’t count anymore, they just lay on the floor ’til you sweep them away” from “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (I can’t believe I just quoted that song) or Ricky Nelson’s “If memories were all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck” from “Garden Party.” I choose not to however, because the songs I’ve loved are too good to sweep away or abandon. Listening to them or watching the videos may be sad but they still bring joy. I just now will be forever separating the past from the present.

This Is It provides an effective and original insight into the planning of the concert tour of a megastar and the way Michael participated, albeit we don’t see how often he was actually at rehearsals, which was probably not as often as suggested judging by the cheers from the cast and crew when he did show up. Nonetheless, the footage of his performances at rehearsals is at times, nothing short of spectacular.

The quality of the images is very good and the sound is excellent. Most of the film is shot onstage at Staples Center in Los Angels with a live band playing and much of the lighting and special effects in operation. It begins with an opening montage of interviews with the dancers who are being chosen for the tour, a la American Idol, but fortunately it quickly moves on from there into the rehearsals. I felt that this introduction to the dancers actually took away from the film, as from there on, I got the impression that they weren’t seasoned professionals as much as amateurs star-struck by Michael. In addition to that, compared to him, they looked like amateurs, as anyone would.

There is a scene late in the This Is It where Michael is blocking the dance steps for “Billy Jean,” then lets the drummer vamp the rhythm as he goes through an extended series of steps based on the famous video. It was unrehearsed, as he bypassed much of the singing to focus on his moves. Michael is at his best here and moviegoers see the best of his dancing, and the scene is a great show by itself and the reason Michael Jackson was who he was. There may have been better acrobats, better singers and better choreographers, but no better performers than present in these few minutes of film, from a 50 year-old at that.

He appeared to have lost nothing over the years, and his audience – his backup dancers in front of the stage – were in awe, as the film displays.

Also a very touching scene is his rehearsals for “Human Nature.” His voice sounds great, and the tenderness of the song is aptly reflected in the light show and the emotions of the cast and crew as they watch.

The film also gives insight into the creation of an updated version of a film sequence for “Thriller,” shot in 3D, once again with the Vincent Price voice-over, as well as new film vignettes for other songs. We get a lot of concert producer and director Kenny Ortega barking orders to the cast and crew while nurturing the star – a common contradiction experienced by anyone who has ever been part of a major label film shoot or recording session.

Michael appears healthy although gaunt, which has been the description of him for the last 25 years. He is seen watching playbacks of video, coaching musicians and dancers and we see a touching explanation of his views on the environment as he discusses the recording and film footage for “Earth Song,” from his HIStory album. It’s a bit trite, following four decades of environmental concerns from musicians, but the footage is well produced, typically in line with Michael’s touch.

There are no shots of him away from the stage on his own time, but the film is a documentary of the preparation of a concert tour, so as much as I wanted to see that, it may not have been available for the film.

All in all, This Is It gives an effective insight into the production of a major tour that is not rife with the usual rock & roll eccentricities seen in many other ‘tour films’ such as fights, drug use or legal battles. Michael is portrayed as a gentle soul, extremely prepared, compassionate and demanding of himself. Not a surprise to anyone, but in the past tense a somber finality.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the production and the concise editing and organization of the piece as a whole, which runs just short of two hours. I’m not a Michael Jackson fanatic, nor a dance aficionado, but I have been forever taken with his artistic genius, and am sad for the passing of part of my youth and the new found layer of dust on my albums.

Copyright 2009