Sunday , June 13, 2010
Heavy Rotation, Special Edition: Beatles Songs That Meant The Most To Liz & LJ In 2009
"The Night Before"
"The Night Before" is my favourite beginning.
Every essay I ever write begins with "The Night Before". I mean this cosmically, because:
1) You can't put mp3s in books, and
2) It is (practically) 2010, and I no longer feel the urge to augment my own art with the art of others. I mean, yes I do. I'm just fighting it.
In November, I wrote an essay named, "Let It Bleed to Death & Die of Natural Causes", and it began with "The Night Before." "The Night Before" is the beginning of everything. It plays (cosmically) when babies are born, and for first dates, kisses, & I love yous. New haircuts, jobs, "life overhauls" and all decision-making processes, every time you open a door. It's Track 1 on every album. "The Night Before" will play twice tonight: it's a new year, and a new decade! One exact decade ago, I discovered the Beatles. "The Night Before" played, and never stopped. Every morning! It's the Universe's alarm clock. (Laura Jane)
"If I Needed Someone"
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
Hi, happy new year! The reason I'm sharing the above Stephen Crane poem with you today is that it's kind of exact opposite of how I feel about "If I Needed Someone." In 2009, "If I Needed Someone" said to Liz Barker: "Sir I exist!" - and then said it again 8 million more times. Truthily, I never gave a fig about the song before October 18 of this year - and then I saw some people Rock Band it at a brunch party, and then it was everywhere all the time. I can't get away from "If I Needed Someone," and I don't ever want to. And rather than replying "The fact has not created in me/A sense of obligation," I pretty much spend all day every day trying to figure out what obligation I'm supposed to fulfill for "If I Needed Someone": Maybe I'm supposed to write a book about it, maybe I'm supposed to just listen to it, maybe I'm supposed to tattoo it on my skull in royal purple Bad Hangover font. I don't know yet; I'm still working shit out. If you have any suggestions, please place them in the Suggestions Box. (Liz)
P.S. The most outstanding thing about all of this, of course, is that I am the universe, and "If I Needed Someone" is a man. It's cool sometimes, when things go upside-down.
"Not A Second Time"
The Beatles are like my family. I can say any mean thing about them I want, and often, I do. I say things like, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has no overarching concept to speak of, and I don't understand why nobody has noticed this except for me and John Lennon," or "Paul McCartney looks ugly with a beard," or "The Beatles barely even done* one single innovative thing after 1967," or "John Lennon was a major Beatles-slacker and rested on his "being a genius" laurels," or "George Harrison was dour and unfunny," and people get so ANGRY with me! And I'm all, "Yeah. You're right. I hate the Beatles. The Beatles are a bad band. That's what I think. That's my opinion on the Beatles. That the Beatles SUCK," and I'm being sarcastic.
But, overarchingly, my point here is that the Beatles kind of sucked after 1967**. Every dog has its day, and the post-1967 Beatles already had mine, earlier this decade. Listening to Revolver or Magical Mystery Tour is like listening to the sound of my own self breathing. But there is a magical and mysterious magic to the pre-1965 Beatles that time cannot dull. It's the sound of the Beatles loving the Beatles! "Not A Second Time" is a very strange and specific-to-itself Beatles song. John Lennon excelled at lazy-peppy mid-tempo, and it sounds like staircases, and those staircases are actually "Aeolian cadences." Biting. It makes me so sad when girls are bitches to the Beatles. (Laura Jane)
* Not a typo
** In a way
"Hey Bulldog"
In LJ's "IF PEOPLE WERE BEATLES SONGS" post from last July, she wrote that "Best Case Scenario Michael Showalter" would be "Hey Bulldog," and we all giggled a little and nodded knowingly. A little while after that I realized you could say that exact same thing about this dude I know, the "Best Case Scenario" part included. But then on the eve of my "23rd birthday" this week, I found myself speaking the words "I actually never count on him anymore at all ever," about that very same boy. So he gets to be "Hey Bulldog" no longer - when you're someone who can't be counted on anymore at all ever, you don't get to be the Beatles song where the chorus goes "If you're lonely, you can talk to me." And that's turned out to be one of my biggest Life Lessons Of 2009: Don't give "Hey Bulldog" to the ones who don't deserve it. Instead of being perpetually disappointed by people you already knew you couldn't consistently count on, move the hell on and try being "Hey Bulldog" to the sweet-hearted souls who are truly "Hey Bulldog"-worthy. It's so stupid-obvious, but sometimes you just need to type it out loud to make it stick - you know? (Liz)
"She's a Woman"
Last summer, my hero who I was psychotically in love with asked me to write a Beatles book with him. "I am going to FULLY IMMERSE MYSELF IN THE BEATLES," I decided, as if I hadn't already been doing that every single second of my life for the past ten years already. I made my entire iPod shuffle the Beatles, and walked around listening to it/them. I listened to "She's A Woman" over and over again, and became convinced that there was some magical, important secret about "She's A Woman" that I was yet to figure out. The beginning of it sounds like "Sgt. Pepper," and it's kinda Kinksy. It's choppy and pretty punk; the "peasants/presents" rhyme is utterly pathetic. "But there must be something more! It must mean something huge! WHAT COULD IT BE???" I wondered idiotically. Last night, I figured it out. Here is the secret of "She's a Woman":
THE BEATLES ARE FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!! (Laura Jane)
"I've Got A Feeling"
This morning I decided to stop getting my kicks off of creating elaborate revenge fantasies involving boys who broke my heart, or even just minorly bruised it. I was walking home from an iced-coffee run at the laundromat Starbucks and listening to a certain Doors song, and when Jim sang "This is the end," I nodded motionlessly and shouted "You can say that again, Jim!" without talking. But instead he sang "RIDE THE SNAKE," and I blushed but in an eye-roll-y/fuck-off kind of way. But then at "The west is the best" I took him back again, because Jim and I have a really chill if slightly unbalanced friendship, much like his and Wayne's in Wayne's World 2.
Anyway, the Beatles, the Beatles! What I mean when I say "elaborate revenge fantasies" is "I want to Rock Band 'I've Got A Feeling' with this one boy and make this other boy totally jealous," because I'm just that vindictive. Evil, I know. But I guess I can't have that fantasy anymore, so I guess I'll just think of something else when I listen to "I've Got A Feeling" from now on. Maybe I'll think of Rock Band-ing it with Laura and making Paul McCartney totally charmed. She'll have to be the Paul though, because I'm going to be so good at the John part. It's cool sometimes, when things go upside-down. (Liz)
Jay-Z feat. George Harrison, "Public Service Announcement/Long, Long, Long"
The best thing that happened to me in 2009 was that Barker became my Paul, and I no longer had to repress my urge to run around the world screaming "I'm JOHN LENNON!!!" I mean, I don't actually think I'm John Lennon. I only kind of think I'm John Lennon. Naturally, I spent the entire past decade frantically searching for a Paul. I'm attracted to Pauls. I'm surrounded by them, and most of them are Geminis. I am a lone jerk John in a field of jaunty Pauls. But none of them were the right Paul! But then it was actually Barker, and I said "Phew!", and wiped some imaginary sweat off my brow while loosening the knot of my imaginary tie.
In December, Barker wrote an essay about "Long, Long, Long" and I was all, "A thing like that!" and then I was all "COSMIC COCONUT COFFEE!" which is what Barker and I say when the Universe validates our belief that we are John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The very same week "Long, Long, Long" meant everything about everything to Barker, "Long, Long, Long/Public Service Announcement" meant everything about everything to me! I mentioned this intensely wild cosmic coincidence to Barker, and she was all, "There's a public service announcement about 'Long, Long, Long'???" LOL. (Laura Jane)
"Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey"
Oh god, I made them all about dudes, all of the Beatles-song blurbs I've already written on this page. Gross but who cares: I'm a lover and a dancer.* To make up for it anyway, I give you "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey," which never makes me think about dudes at all. It just makes me think of the Beatles**, in that sadly/sweetly rare, "I-don't-have-any-room-for-anything-else-in-my-head-right-now" kind of way. A head full of Beatles is one of the best things in the world; I wish you all many more of those moments in 2010 and beyond. (Liz)
*Speaking of being a lover and a dancer, this post is sort of a lie, in that "Helter Skelter" was absolutely the Beatles Song That Meant The Most To Me In 2009. But it's usually always the Beatles Song That Means The Most To Me, so it doesn't really count.
**This is also sort of a lie, in that "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey" often makes me think of Emily Richmond as well. One day last summer we were getting ready to surf and talking about the Beatles song titles that Laura had asked us to write on pieces of paper and then photograph ourselves holding (for what would eventually become the "IF PEOPLE WERE BEATLES SONGS" post). Emily said her song was "something about hiding and a monkey," and I jealously/gleefully shouted back: "'Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey'??!!", which is a very funny thing to interrogatively exclaim on a beach. I urge you to try it sometime, seriously.
Tags: 2009, Barker loves the Beatles, George Harrison, John Lennon, Laura loves the Beatles, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Beatles
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1 Comments!!
Say something so insightful and witty, it will blow us away. (No pressure.)
Got something to say? We'd love to hear it! Name, email and "type in the weirdo drunken text" thingie are all required to comment; don't worry, we won't email you or anything, we just want to make sure you're not an evil spambot. Keeping in mind the good-times mentality we like to keep going here, we've worked hard to keep NOGOODFORME.COM as fun as possible. We welcome all kinds of comments, but insults/abuse/general bitchery are not tolerated. In other words, we put the smackdown on evil troll posts. If you want to be a hater, please go elsewhere. Now, as Salt 'N Pepa say, "Only the sexy people..."
oh wait, only the 'hey bulldog' and 'i've got a feeling' parts are about dudes. i'm obviously on drugs!!!!
still LOL-ing about the 'long, long, long' PSA. LOL-lerskates, as my brother would say.
By Liz
on December 31, 2009 4:44 PM