Revelations from a Super Beatles fan

[teletail]

I never understand the Ringo fanboi thing. Yes, he’s a good, solid drummer, but if someone wants to be considered great they need more than that. I look at Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne to name a few and you can’t really call them great and Ringo great at the same time.

 

[arlum]

I've been a fan from the first time I heard them. For me it was about the songs / songwriting. No band has had as much song writing talent as The Beatles did.

 

[Silent Otto]

if you haven't seen it yet, the new film is on documentarymania - all 3 parts!

 

[Skully]

I never understand the Ringo fanboi thing. Yes, he’s a good, solid drummer, but if someone wants to be considered great they need more than that. I look at Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne to name a few and you can’t really call them great and Ringo great at the same time.

Ringo serves the songs in ways that are tasteful and simple, yet often deceptively innovative. Most of the others are way too busy and eager to make the song serve them.

 

[Jim622]

I have been into them full time since the Ed Sullivan show I saw when I was 8 or 9. I had the butcher Cover album the day it came out. I won a Beatles trivia contest on a radio station at 10. YEAH YEAH YEAH, I love them. I was depressed walking out of the Let it be movie some 40 years ago. It was like your parents telling you they hate each other and they are getting divorced. SO I watched get back, WOW. I saw they loved each other very much. I thought the music came way easy too them, like it was secondary to the fun they were having. I like how they didn't seem too worried about deadlines and confident they could do whatever they needed. But heck, Paul's bass playing is just landmark, innovative & extraordinary. Pulling killer original basslines from the air? My God. They sung and harmonized effortlessly. And Ringo proved he is as bad arse as the best drummers just keeping it potent, but simple. You can't touch John and George looks for the most innovative timeless guitar parts to sprinkle here and there. They seem so nonchalant, yet no one could touch them. One more thing, seeing this, they were good for another two stellar albums. AND, I don't think Yoko ruined anything. AND I loved Heather McCartney mocking Yoko into the mic, just too cute.

I liked the Get Back movie. I’m not a rabid fan, but I think you drunk the movies KoolAid a little. I think Get Back was as one sided as it’s negative Let It Be was. They were both as biased as watching todays news. The movie did make me a bigger fan of each of them. John I think already checked out, but really stepped up on the roof top. Paul’s talent really impressed me and his ability to keep them to task. I felt sorry for George he was very much under appreciated and a little bullied. Ringo is the perfect studio drummer, engaged, competent, and no noodling.

I also think Billy Preston saved the whole project. They all acted more civil as to not embarrass themselves in front of a real professional musician.

 

[middy]

I never understand the Ringo fanboi thing. Yes, he’s a good, solid drummer, but if someone wants to be considered great they need more than that. I look at Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne to name a few and you can’t really call them great and Ringo great at the same time.

It’s weird how I disagree with almost everything you post.

 

[middy]

I never understand the Ringo fanboi thing. Yes, he’s a good, solid drummer, but if someone wants to be considered great they need more than that. I look at Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne to name a few and you can’t really call them great and Ringo great at the same time.

Famous drummers seem to think he’s great. Sorry, but I value their opinion more than yours in this case.

 

[Manual Slim]

I never understand the Ringo fanboi thing. Yes, he’s a good, solid drummer, but if someone wants to be considered great they need more than that. I look at Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne to name a few and you can’t really call them great and Ringo great at the same time.

Sure I can. It's ok if you don't want to though.

 

[teletail]

It’s weird how I disagree with almost everything you post.

No, what’s weird is that you think I care.

 

[421JAM]

I never understand the Ringo fanboi thing. Yes, he’s a good, solid drummer, but if someone wants to be considered great they need more than that. I look at Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne to name a few and you can’t really call them great and Ringo great at the same time.

I don’t care who thinks who is great and who isn’t. But none of those drummers could have cut it in The Beatles, and most of them couldn’t cut it in any band other than the ones they were famous for. Hell, Peart, who I admire as a member of Rush, couldn’t even deliver a convincing performance in the jazz project he was the boss of.

 

[teletail]

Famous drummers seem to think he’s great. Sorry, but I value their opinion more than yours in this case.

I’m not sure what your problem is, other than a highly exaggerated sense of your importance, but fortunately my ignore list will solve it.

 

[teletail]

Ringo serves the songs in ways that are tasteful and simple, yet often deceptively innovative. Most of the others are way too busy and eager to make the song serve them.

The myth that we serve the song is just that, a myth. It’s fancy language for saying we play it the way WE think it should be played. Saying that is just a way people try to objectively quantify playing, which can’t really be done. One person plays it simply, one more complex, it only opinion which is better.

 

[middy]

I’m not sure what your problem is, other than a highly exaggerated sense of your importance, but fortunately my ignore list will solve it.

 

[ZackyDog]

I never understand the Ringo fanboi thing. Yes, he’s a good, solid drummer, but if someone wants to be considered great they need more than that. I look at Neil Peart, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne to name a few and you can’t really call them great and Ringo great at the same time.

I think Ringo fit The Beatles music perfectly. That's what makes him great and "musical" to my ears. Pert, Baker etc. would be misfits in The Beatles IMO.

 

[Skully]

The myth that we serve the song is just that, a myth. It’s fancy language for saying we play it the way WE think it should be played. Saying that is just a way people try to objectively quantify playing, which can’t really be done. One person plays it simply, one more complex, it only opinion which is better.

They fit that all in a single fortune cookie?

 

[teletail]

They fit that all in a single fortune cookie?

I leave the one liner fortune cookie pablum for people that can't think for themselves.

 

[ZackyDog]

And for me, Yoko is an intrusive figure. Weeks on end, she’s glued next to J while other spouses/partners keep their distance.
Her relentless presence suggests to me that she was not going to let the band hold J tighter than she could (that long kiss in the middle of a song - even if prompted by news of her divorce - is intrusion).

 

[Gibson]

Some Beatle observations after watching Get Back:
First I keep reminding myself they were all in their 20’s and among the most famous people on the planet At the time. Second, they were a great little band as PM likes to say. But the seeds of discontent are there - George clearly is resentful at not being treated as an equal with J and P. When the four are together almost all the interaction is between J and P while G just wants to get some of his songs played. He’s humorless most of the film. John’s playing is better than I ever imaged. Paul’s musicality is incredible - Melodie’s keep pouring out

Agree here. George had matured musically and was outgrowing the old dynamic in the band. Unfortunately, it seems to me, he still at that time didn't have enough confidence in his own ability as a musician or a songwriter after being in the shadow of Paul and John since they were kids. His self-comparisons and observations about Clapton were particularly revealing, I think.

And for me, Yoko is an intrusive figure. Weeks on end, she’s glued next to J while other spouses/partners keep their distance.
Her relentless presence suggests to me that she was not going to let the band hold J tighter than she could (that long kiss in the middle of a song - even if prompted by news of her divorce - is intrusion).

I think that's down to John and his insecurities as much if not more than it is to Yoko. It seems a little unfair to place all the blame on her in this instance.

 

[Robert H.]

The myth that we serve the song is just that, a myth. It’s fancy language for saying we play it the way WE think it should be played. Saying that is just a way people try to objectively quantify playing, which can’t really be done. One person plays it simply, one more complex, it only opinion which is better.

Can’t agree with this. If you play with a band, you try to fit in and enhance the sound of the piece being played. Try not to step on others, disrupt the flow, and hopefully make the song sound as good as the people involved can. That’s what many folks hear when they listen to Ringo’s contributions. I don’t know or really care what Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Neil Peart or anyone else might have done with Strawberry Fields. It might have been wonderful - but I love what Ringo did - it served the song beautifully to my ears (and several others).

 

[drmordo]

I don't love everything he posts (and I hate the stupid faces he makes for his cover shots), but I thought he pointed out a lot of what was great about Get Back and the lads in general.



Also, it's important to note that Let It Be focused on the misery and contentiousness during the opening days at Twickenham, whereas Get Back focused on all the later sessions where they got along and had fun. Get Back certainly doesn't shy away from George's unhappiness and the scene with John and Paul discussing his issues is utterly fascinating.

What both films left out are the cut sequences (which I have seen in bootleg form) of Yoko taking the mic and caterwauling for EXTENDED periods of time. Also, if you read books by people who were there (Paul, Glyn Johns, Peter Brown), none of them are flattering about Yoko. And that's putting it pretty gently.

Remember - she has the same voting rights as a Beatle now. When they made the Beatles Anthology series, it originally had candid conversation about Yoko in it that she insisted be cut. Like Anthology, Get Back could not be made without her consent. so they definitely weren't going to show any truly negative stuff about her.

I definitely need to rewatch Get Back.