Here is song number three of my Desert Island Discs:
Get Back by The Beatles
My eldest brother had a few Beatles albums and singles and in the late 70's, I became hooked on them, especially Let It Be and Abbey Road. As the most consistantly brilliant band, The Beatles produced gem after gem over a stupidly short period of time. No other group has a back catalogue of such quality and to prove it, if you ask most people if they know of certain tracks such as Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Back In The USSR or Here Comes The Sun (or another dozen or more), they will know the songs... despite the fact that these songs were not singles.
I could have chosen any of 20+ Beatles songs, but had to make the cut somewhere and decided on Get Back, which is a deceptively simple song, not only a great rocker. It reminds me of the wide variety of music I absorbed from my brothers including Led Zepellin, ELO, Michael Jackson, Steely Dan, Deep Purple and many others.
I could have chosen any of 20+ Beatles songs, but had to make the cut somewhere and decided on Get Back, which is a deceptively simple song, not only a great rocker. It reminds me of the wide variety of music I absorbed from my brothers including Led Zepellin, ELO, Michael Jackson, Steely Dan, Deep Purple and many others.
Good choice. Any discerning music lover of my generation (and later) would almost be duty-bound to include a Beatles track. As you think yourself, it could be any one of a very long list (I'd say any one of 40 or more!). Being someone who was lucky enough to have lived through the Beatles era as it happened (I'd actually started out positively HATING them in the early years of that decade), it was their single release of 'A Hard Day's Night' which was the first to make me sit up and listen - and to reflect that something 'special' was going on here. From then on it was just holding your breath for every single release and every album. By 1965 I just could not BELIEVE that anyone could come up with such consistent high quality. When I first heard 'Sgt Pepper' I actually wept with the wonder of it (even from the very opening track!) - something I'd only done before for Beethoven.
ReplyDeleteReturning to your choice of 'Get Back', it has an added poignancy in coming just as the cracks started appearing, with 'Abbey Road' just around the corner (so to speak). Of course it has the added attraction of (the then closeted gay) Billy Preston on organ. But all four members of the group make their presence felt. I also like it's rough-hewn edge. As I say, a fine choice.
Yeah - good choice. I would have gone for Strawberry Fields. But still a FAB track.
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