Ringo; Living in the Material World; Good Night, Vienna; Dark Horse
George Harrison and Ringo Starr in 1973 and 1974
In this episode, we'll take a look at what Ringo Starr and George Harrison were working on from about 1973 to 1975. (By the way, this is the follow-up episode from one where we discussed All Things Must Pass and Ringo’s country-themed and American Songbook-themed albums Beaucoups of Blues and Sentimental Journey. Click here if you are interested in seeing that.)
1- Ringo:
Well, all right. Let’s start with Ringo’s eponymous album from 1973. All four Beatles appear on this album in one capacity or another. And one could say that each wrote one song for the album, although that’s not strictly accurate since George helped Ringo write his.
Here’s a quick list of the ex-Beatle-penned tunes: John wrote I'm the Greatest, which we’ll listen to first. George wrote Sunshine Life for Me (Sail Away, Raymond), which was later covered by Don McLean. And Paul wrote Six O’Clock. But, as mentioned, Ringo and George wrote Photograph together. So Ringo didn't actually write his own song for this album independently of one of the others. (But he did write a great one for the Good Night, Vienna album a year after this.)
I'm the Greatest is the album’s opener and, honestly, I think that song is a bit over the top. Only an ex-Beatle or, in this case, two, with John having written it and Ringo singing it, could probably get away with it. It’s a fun track, though, and I like how Ringo channels John toward the end while shouting “I'm the greatest, baby, and you’d better believe it!” as John throws in his own reckless banter in the background.
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As for Photograph, that song just sounds like the 1970s, doesn’t it? Released the same year as Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, both these songs take me right back to Farrer Junior High in Provo, Utah in 1973 whenever I hear them. The orchestration, including melancholy horns, conjures up the sights and smells of that era in a way that few other songs can do.
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Sunshine Life for Me (Sail Away, Raymond), George’s tune, is the kind of country/bluegrass-flavored tune that Starr excels at. According to the song's Wikipedia page, it was written as a response to the Beatles’ bitter experience with attorney Alan Klein, who some might describe as a gold digging lawyer who specialized in targeting wealthy pop bands in an effort to fleece them of some of their earnings. I have no personal knowledge to share on this subject, but check out its Wikipedia page if you want to know more:
For me, that backstory doesn't particularly add anything to my enjoyment of the song. I've been acquainted with the song since hearing Don McLean's version back in the early 1970s, and I've always felt that it conjures up an image of an itinerant laborer or a hobo chasing after the ever-elusive American dream. In any case, I think this may be my favorite track from the album, with Photograph as the runner-up. Click below to hear it:
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Paul’s song, Six O’Clock, is not a highlight of the album for me. Of all four Beatles, I have followed Paul McCartney the most closely, and I generally enjoy his music more than I do that of any of the others. However, this is not his strongest material.
It's anything but horrible, though, and I love the synthesizer solos in it. In the 1970s, the synthesizer was still new enough that it sounded fresher and more interesting than, say, in the ‘80s, where it came to play too large a role in the acoustic soundscape of many songs. And, interestingly, that freshness still comes through some fifty years later. Here’s Six O’Clock:
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You’re Sixteen and Oh My My are two other fun tracks from the album which I can recommend. The former is a re-make of the old Sherman Brothers song that was a hit for Johnny Burnette in 1960.
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2- Living in the Material World
Moving on to Harrison’s Living in the Material World, let’s start with the album’s opener, Give Me Love, Give Me Peace on Earth. This is perhaps the best known song from the album, and it's one of those songs by an ex-Beatle that is occasionally mistaken for a Beatles song. (Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey from Paul McCartney's Ram album is another.) I'm including it here because it was a single from the album.
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The second track is the Sue Me, Sue You Blues, which is probably my favorite track from the album. The lyrics are a little sloppy, as rock lyrics often are, but there are some good lines, and the general idea comes across pretty well.
The chorus features some really great bluesy musical elements. I particularly like the high note at the very end of the chorus on the second “blues”, sung over a lovely 9th chord.
It’s kind of ironic that Harrison would write a song like this, considering how sue-happy he himself was. He apparently even sued Starr a couple of years after this over the latter’s version of a song he had given him to record. You can read more about that on the Wikipedia. Here’s a quote from that page with a link to the original page: “According to Keith Badman, Harrison was "not pleased" with Starr's version of the song and took legal action against him, which was soon settled out of court.”
No matter. It's a song worth hearing if only for that really delicious chorus.
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Try Some, Buy Some is a reasonably decent song, but I think there are four or five songs here that are better. It sounds almost like it could be a Beatles song, but I wouldn't say it rises to the level of Beatles material.
By the way, it's interesting that Harrison claimed he had such a large backlog of songs which hadn't been accepted for appearance on a Beatles album that it would take him years to get through them all on his own. And, indeed, 1970s All Things Must Pass featured a good eight or ten of them. However, he didn't release another album for three years after that. (This one.) And I don't think there are more than about two really great songs on this one. So it sort of makes you wonder what happened to all those songs, doesn't it?
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Be Here Now and Who Can See It are, like most of the material on this album, religion-themed songs, and I like them both. I'm including the latter here because it has an interesting, jagged time signature and also because I think the song captures a deep feeling of religious awe or euphoria exceptionally well.
Speaking of religion themed, I’ll just briefly mention that George’s The Lord Loves the One, from this album, is a song that, to me, makes God sound sort of vindictive. I suppose Harrison is exploring the idea of karma in the song, but he doesn’t make God look particularly good in the process.
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The Day the World Gets Round is another beautiful ballad. Unfortunately, Phil Spector’s orchestration is a little too reminiscent of Across the Universe in places, but try not to let that distract you from what really is a nice song. Click below to listen to it now.
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All in all, I think this album is a little heavy on ballads. Give Me Love is a faster paced tune, as is the title track, which I would have included here except that I think most of the ballads are better songs. But those are really the only two non-ballads.
Also, I have nothing against religion, but I think Harrison goes a little overboard with the religious content on this album. But, of course, it's his album, and he gets to decide what will be on it, and I have no say. I'm just expressing an opinion here.
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By the way, deserving of special mention here is Deep Blue, a really great song which didn't appear on the original album for reasons I can’t fathom. I recommend you look it up. Or, if you buy the CD version of the album, it will likely contain that and one or two other outtakes. You can read more about that track here:
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3- Goodnight Vienna (1974)
The title track is a John Lennon song, and it's a dud in my opinion. So we won't be listening to that one here. I do like a couple of things about the song, including the interesting time shift from the verses into the B section. But the lyrics are pretty dumb. I mean, really, John, what were you thinking? “She was so good looking that she made me uptight?” and “I felt like an Arab who was dancing through Zion?” Is that supposed to mean something? You've written much better tunes and lyrics, friend.
If you do want to get a feel for the song without devoting the full two minutes and 25 seconds to it, check out the reprise of it from the end of the album. That's only half as long.
Meanwhile, let's start with Occapella, which is an Allen Toussaint song. It features some great piano playing and some nice horns. The credits on the Wikipedia page for the album show eight piano players, but they don't say who played on which tracks, so it's hard to know who you’re hearing in any given song. But we know John Lennon played the piano on the title track, and we can assume Elton John played on the EJ/BT track. So we can probably rule those two out.
In any case, it's a classic tune from an American legend. Toussaint, who was active in the New Orleans music scene from the 1950s up through the end of that century, and he also collaborated with a number of musicians outside the New Orleans scene, including Elvis Costello in 2005. You can read more about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Toussaint
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The best track on the album is a song called Call Me that Ringo wrote himself. He co-wrote two or three others on the album, but this one is credited to him alone, and it's a really great song. Let's give it a listen. Here's the link:
I love the backup vocals that come in about halfway through the song. All in all, it’s an excellent listening experience.
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Easy For Me is a Harry Nilsson tune, and it's another good one. It sounds like an old Cole Porter ballad, and it’s got beautiful instrumentation to back up Ringo’s stellar vocal. Let's give that one a listen now.
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At John Lennon's suggestion, Ringo did a cover of Only You on the album. It's well done, and I thought about it including it here except that it's too close in spirit and general sound to Easy for Me. So we won't be looking at that one. If you’re interested in hearing it, look it up on YouTube or buy the album.
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I was excited when I saw that there was an Elton John and Bernie Taupin song on the album, but Snookeroo disappoints. It's not horrible by any means, but it's not particularly memorable, either. I suppose Elton and Bernie were saving all their best material for their own albums, of which there were many right around that time, including Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which had just come out the year before.
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All by Myself is a decent song, too. It’s one of Ringo’s collaborations with Vini Poncia. Let’s give that a listen now.
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I enjoyed the No No Song back in the day. It was on the radio a lot at that time, and I guess it probably sold quite well. But I have to say, it hasn't aged well. I'm all for “just say no”, you know, but you've got to package it up better than that in order to make it convincing.
Anyway, that's Good Night, Vienna. I'd say it's probably not quite as strong as its predecessor, Ringo, but it's a decent album with some strong tracks, including one of Ringo’s own best tunes.
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4- Dark Horse:
Finally, let's move on to Dark Horse, George Harrison's album from 1974.
I'll just mention at the outset that he plays a very weird sort of Space-Age version of Bye Bye Love on the album. It's definitely interesting and worth hearing, but I'll take the Everly Brothers or Simon and Garfunkel versions over it any day.
Dark Horse opens with an instrumental called Hari’s on Tour. It's one of the better tracks on the album, and it reminds me of that Grateful Dead instrumental you used to hear everywhere all the time. (Sorry, I don't know the name of that tune.)
Here’s Hari’s on Tour:
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Simply Shady comes next, and it's a pretty decent tune. I don't think it's nearly as good as some of the best George Harrison material, but it's one of the better tunes on the album.
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So Sad, the third track on the album, gets points for the interesting rhythmic stuff that's going on in it. It's an upbeat tune, and it’s catchy despite its title.
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I read somewhere that Ding Dong is supposed to be another song that references Sir Frankie Crisp, one of the former owners of the estate that George Harrison was living in in the 1970s. Had it been written after Let ‘Em In, I’d have assumed George was having a laugh at Paul but, alas, it was written three or four years too early for that. In any case, it's a very repetitive song and, to my ears, a weak one.
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And the title track, too, leaves something to be desired. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but the tune just doesn't grab me. Part of it is that transitions between the verses and the choruses don’t seem as smooth as they should be. Plus the flute part sounds completely out of place.
Interestingly, the CD version of the album I have includes a demo of Dark Horse which is better. I think the fact that it’s just guitar without a lot of extra bells and whistles helps. And the demo version has backup vocals which work quite well. It makes me wonder why he didn't use them in the finished version. Let’s listen to that early version now:
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Far East Man starts out interesting, but it gets repetitive really quickly. It just seems like it’s a lot of major 7th chords pitted against each other. Sort of Bacharach on steroids or something.
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And It Is He is even more repetitive and a little too jumbled for my taste. I like quirky time signatures and weird, off-beat chord progressions, but they just don’t work that well in this tune.
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My sense is that George was in a dry period right around this time because he went on to write lots of good material again later on. His 1976 album 33 1/3 was pretty strong, and his eponymous 1979 album was even better. In the 1980s, Cloud 9 was a very powerful album and, in the early 2000s shortly before his death, Brainwashed was particularly good.
OK, that’s it for today. Come back soon for more music. Meanwhile, visit this link for access to the Paul McCartney-John Lennon episodes, and click here for the first Harrison-Starr episode. And thanks very much for reading/listening! See you again soon, I hope.