The whole Paul-Is-Dead controversy began in October, 1969 in Detroit. As I say in the introduction to my blog, I was a kid Beatles' fan among thousands of kid Beatles' fans in Detroit. We heard "Penny Lane" in 1967 (although I swear I heard that song in the fall of 1966. But that can't be, right?) We Beatles' fans knew something was wrong with that song. Paul's voice was not the same.
When Sgt. Pepper came out, alot of us did not like the music and the vibe that The Beatles were projecting, It was off, it was not right. So most of us kissed off Beatle fandom and became Monkees' fans.
So when the Paul-Is-Dead backmasked clues started surfacing, many of us thought it was a publicity stunt that The Beatles were using to--as they say in Detroit--"goose up" their sagging popularity.
As I started researching the changes in the members of the group, it occurred to me that--if there were heavy duty machinations with The Beatles--whoever surfaced among them would want some way to talk about it. Blurting it out publicly would have gotten band members replaced--and whatever consequences followed from that. So they hid their information in their songs.
The music industry is a fluid situation: musicians quit bands and join new ones; musicians hang out together; they listen to each others' music and the gossip they hear in recording studios. So I reasoned that other groups would want to share their information and gossip.
The results from testing songs backwards were 'way more than I expected: pop and rock musicians had bits of information about behind the scenes problems with The Beatles, and they shared their knowledge and gossip in backmasked songs.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Other Voices, Part 17: The 1967 Yardbirds' Song, "Dazed and Confused"
The Yardbirds were a British invasion group who, in 1967, consisted of Keith Relf, Jimmy Page, Chris Dreja, and Jim McCarty.
Keith Relf took a song called "I'm Confused (Dazed and Confused)" by Jake Holmes and reworked some of the lyrics. The Yardbirds did live versions of the song, two of which showed up in two releases: Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page, released in 1971 and Cumular Limit, released in 2000.
The lyrics suggest a man who is abused, tense, and not knowing if--for instance--he is going to be dumped from his band.
Think of Paul in April, 1966 with a publicly visible chipped tooth.
Listen to the song at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYDhx_DgDxE .
Here are the lyrics:
I'm dazed and confused,
Is it stay, is it go?
Give me a clue,
'Cos I just want to know.
Give me a clue as to where I am at.
Feel like a mouse, and you act like a cat.
Yeah I'm
Yeah I'm
Yeah I'm
Yeah I'm,
I'm dazed and confused,
Hangin' on by a thread.
I've been abused,
I'd be better off dead.
Can't stand the heat,
And I'm starting to crack,
If you're out to get me,
You're on the right track.
Hey, hey!
Hey, hey!
Hey, hey!
I'm dazed and confused.
Is it stay, is it go?
I still love you,
But I still want to know.
Secrets are fun to a certain degree,
This one's now fun 'cause the secret's on me.
Yeah, yeah,
Hey, hey!
I'm dazed and confused,
Is it stay, is it go?
I've been abused,
And I sure wanna know.
Give me a clue as to where I am at,
Feel like a mouse, and you act like a cat.
Yeah!
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
Reversed, you can hear them say PAUL--I count--TEN times, beginning at 1:19 in the reversed track.
Keith Relf took a song called "I'm Confused (Dazed and Confused)" by Jake Holmes and reworked some of the lyrics. The Yardbirds did live versions of the song, two of which showed up in two releases: Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page, released in 1971 and Cumular Limit, released in 2000.
The lyrics suggest a man who is abused, tense, and not knowing if--for instance--he is going to be dumped from his band.
Think of Paul in April, 1966 with a publicly visible chipped tooth.
Listen to the song at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYDhx_DgDxE .
Here are the lyrics:
I'm dazed and confused,
Is it stay, is it go?
Give me a clue,
'Cos I just want to know.
Give me a clue as to where I am at.
Feel like a mouse, and you act like a cat.
Yeah I'm
Yeah I'm
Yeah I'm
Yeah I'm,
I'm dazed and confused,
Hangin' on by a thread.
I've been abused,
I'd be better off dead.
Can't stand the heat,
And I'm starting to crack,
If you're out to get me,
You're on the right track.
Hey, hey!
Hey, hey!
Hey, hey!
I'm dazed and confused.
Is it stay, is it go?
I still love you,
But I still want to know.
Secrets are fun to a certain degree,
This one's now fun 'cause the secret's on me.
Yeah, yeah,
Hey, hey!
I'm dazed and confused,
Is it stay, is it go?
I've been abused,
And I sure wanna know.
Give me a clue as to where I am at,
Feel like a mouse, and you act like a cat.
Yeah!
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
Reversed, you can hear them say PAUL--I count--TEN times, beginning at 1:19 in the reversed track.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Other Voices, Part 16: "Good Vibrations"
I was reading a 2001 book, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds: The Greatest Album of the Twentieth Century by Kingsley Abbot. It chronicles The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson's gargantuan effort to, basically, out-Beatle The Beatles.
The Beach Boys recorded for Capitol records. Capitol was owned by EMI, the record company The Beatles recorded for. Capitol--after a few fumbles--released The Beatles' recordings. The Beatles made massive inroads on the American pop scene from 1964-on, so you can imagine that Brian Wilson would have been curious as to what The Beatles would be planning for future music, and--with a little poking around Capitol's Los Angeles headquarters--would have gotten some advance knowledge.
It's also more than possible that Brian Wilson was "tuning into" the gossip about The Beatles that was floating around Capitol records. The Beach Boys also hired Derek Taylor, fresh from being The Beatles publicist, as their publicist, so Brian Wilson had more insider knowledge about The Beatles.
While the other Beach Boys were off touring, Brian with an English advertising man turned lyricist, Tony Asher [!], and a heavy contingent of studio musicians, put together the album, Pet Sounds.
They had three hits from the album: "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Sloop John B", and "God Only Knows". Brian worked on the album from the fall of 1965 through the spring of 1966.
On May 16, 1966, Pet Sounds was released in the U.S. The album and the single "Sloop John B" sold better in Europe than it did in the U.S.
Given all the efforts Brian Wilson made to outdo The Beatles, I thought he might have slipped in a few comments on the state of The Beatles, late 1965 and 1966.
He did.
I'll talk about the Pet Sounds hints in a coming post. (I still have to do a little more research on them.)
But, a track that Brian considered for Pet Sounds and held off the album for "more work" was the song, "Good Vibrations." Brian, according to the Pet Sounds book, "proceeded to experiment with different feels and arrangements for some 90 hours of tape, in four different studios, before finally constructing a finished master from many separate, quite disparate fragments." This sounded, to me, like it had backmasking written all over it. I thought the backmasked song would directly mention our Paul. Instead--and, remember, the song was released in November, 1966, a month before the new, new Beatles were beginning to record what would become the Sgt. Pepper album--the main backmasked words throughout the song are: "she's . . . shear", as in "the one and only Billy Shears" mentioned in the first track on Sgt. Pepper.
People have interpreted the Billy Shears passage as, "Billy's here": a new Beatle OR "Billy Shears" as in the real name of the new Beatle Paul. It follows that "she's shear" would mean "she's here" by the first interpretation.
But "Good Vibrations" preceded Sgt. Pepper. How did Brian Wilson know?
The Beach Boys recorded for Capitol records. Capitol was owned by EMI, the record company The Beatles recorded for. Capitol--after a few fumbles--released The Beatles' recordings. The Beatles made massive inroads on the American pop scene from 1964-on, so you can imagine that Brian Wilson would have been curious as to what The Beatles would be planning for future music, and--with a little poking around Capitol's Los Angeles headquarters--would have gotten some advance knowledge.
It's also more than possible that Brian Wilson was "tuning into" the gossip about The Beatles that was floating around Capitol records. The Beach Boys also hired Derek Taylor, fresh from being The Beatles publicist, as their publicist, so Brian Wilson had more insider knowledge about The Beatles.
While the other Beach Boys were off touring, Brian with an English advertising man turned lyricist, Tony Asher [!], and a heavy contingent of studio musicians, put together the album, Pet Sounds.
They had three hits from the album: "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Sloop John B", and "God Only Knows". Brian worked on the album from the fall of 1965 through the spring of 1966.
On May 16, 1966, Pet Sounds was released in the U.S. The album and the single "Sloop John B" sold better in Europe than it did in the U.S.
Given all the efforts Brian Wilson made to outdo The Beatles, I thought he might have slipped in a few comments on the state of The Beatles, late 1965 and 1966.
He did.
I'll talk about the Pet Sounds hints in a coming post. (I still have to do a little more research on them.)
But, a track that Brian considered for Pet Sounds and held off the album for "more work" was the song, "Good Vibrations." Brian, according to the Pet Sounds book, "proceeded to experiment with different feels and arrangements for some 90 hours of tape, in four different studios, before finally constructing a finished master from many separate, quite disparate fragments." This sounded, to me, like it had backmasking written all over it. I thought the backmasked song would directly mention our Paul. Instead--and, remember, the song was released in November, 1966, a month before the new, new Beatles were beginning to record what would become the Sgt. Pepper album--the main backmasked words throughout the song are: "she's . . . shear", as in "the one and only Billy Shears" mentioned in the first track on Sgt. Pepper.
People have interpreted the Billy Shears passage as, "Billy's here": a new Beatle OR "Billy Shears" as in the real name of the new Beatle Paul. It follows that "she's shear" would mean "she's here" by the first interpretation.
But "Good Vibrations" preceded Sgt. Pepper. How did Brian Wilson know?
