Zappa and The Mothers', "Mother People"

Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention recorded a loosely satirical (as the Brits say) send-up of the B/Featles' Sgt. Pepper album.  (See the image of the album cover for We're Only In It For The Money on the right.)

Track #18 is a song called "Mother People".  You would think it's a song about Zappa's group, but Mother 
is never mentioned in the song.  (Hear the complete song at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWFu7N4jknw  .)  Instead, Zappa and the boys sing:

     We are the other people  (x3)
     You're the other people, too.

And then in the most important passage of the song, they have one of the band do a John Lennon sound-alike to the lyrics:
     Let me take a minute and tell you my plan,
     Let me take a minute and tell who I am.
     If it doesn't show,
     Then you better know:
     I'm another person.

Frank Zappa knew.

The Beatles' Voices: Piecing Together The Meaning Of "Yellow Submarine"

In the November 23, 1966 edition of the British magazine Punch, our Paul was discussing his song, "Yellow Submarine":

"'The idea was just to do a children's song'" McCartney said, smiling calmly though perhaps a tiny bit peeved by people who insist on elaborate interpretations.  'But there is a Yellow Submarine place.  It's real even if it is only a hallucination.'"

It sounds as though if Paul was saying there was any complex interpretation of his song possible, it would be a drug-involved one.  But, of course, it wasn't simple and it also wasn't drug-inspired.  Paul was trying to get a message to his fans and had to hide it to the powers-that-be behind innocence or the p-t-b's drug pusher mentality.  Remember, the new, new Beatles who replaced our Paul and our John were pushing drugs hard and heavy to the Baby Boomer generation.

So what was the song about?  I reversed the song and heard the following:
     -  At ~ 0:05-0:30 into the reversed song you hear marching sounds and "Near a bus, alack" repeated 3 times.
     -  Beginning at 0:30-0:45 you hear:  "Here a bus . . . Here de water . . . Here battalion . . ."
     -  Again, beginning ~1:07-1:22 you hear "Near a bus, alack" and marching sounds repeated twice.
     -  In the forward song, Ringo introduces what I believe will be the Sergeant Pepper band with, "And the band begins to play."  At 1:24-1:27 you hear the reversed band music.
     -  Finally, at 1:41-1:46, the bus, alack and marching sounds are repeated two more times.

Geoff Emerick, the Beatles' recording engineer wrote a book in 2006 called, Here, There, and Everywhere:  A Life Recording The Beatles.  He went into a detailed discussion of "Yellow Submarine".  John wrote a spoken word introduction to the song that Emerick called medieval sounding.  The "alack" in the reversed song is taken from the medieval exclamation of sorrow, "Alas and Alack."  The intro was supposed to be a take-off on a much-publicized walk by an English woman between the two farthest points on the British mainland.  But Emerick said the intro couldn't be successfully worked into the song and was dropped. In the reversed song the "alack" is combined with marching sounds which implies the then Beatles (or some of them) were probably being marched out of the group.  Remember, the forward song sounded convivial and party-like.

Later, in the reversed song, they talk about a bus, the water and a battalion, like some of The Beatles were going to be taken away.  Was the B/Featles' Magical Mystery Tour a reference to that, and not--as some have said--just a compilation of English working class experiences?

The definitions for battalion according to the online Oxford English dictionary are:
1.)  A large body of troops ready for battle, especially an infantry unit forming part of a brigade typically commanded by a  Lieutenant Colonel.
                                                     --And--
2.)  A large, organized group of people pursuing a common aim or sharing a major undertaking.  

I believe the second meaning of battalion and Paul's statement in the magazine interview that a happy group enjoying the ride was an illusion were Paul's rueful comments on The Beatles.

 

Again, More To Come

What I will be trying to do in the next month or two (or more) is find our Paul's true identity.  I've scattered some information I have found about it throughout my blog, but I think it's important to bear down and get the puzzle pieces together and that's what I'll be working on.  Stay tuned . . . and . . .

As I've asked several times before, if, dear reader, you have any comments, additions, information or speculation, PLEASE post it on the blog.


                                                            ---paulumbo

Was Our John Talking About Our Paul?

I was reading The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.  It is my opinion that the Double Fantasy album was the work of Yoko Ono and our John, not the pinched nose John that made his debut in late 1966.

The interviewer David Sheff is talking to John about his and Paul's childhood:

LENNON:  Whereas Paul had lost his mother but he never lost his father.
PLAYBOY:  Yes, he lost his mother very young.  At about three.
LENNON:  Yeah . . .

It's possible that John misspoke or misremembered when Paul lost his mother.  Remember, the real Paul lost his mother when he was thirteen.  On the other hand, both the interviewer Sheff and our John might be accurately remembering when OUR Paul lost his mother.  This could be another bit of information to piece together the true identity of OUR Paul.

New Info From A Very Interesting Book

I was reading a book by H.V. (Har Van) Fulpen, The Beatles:  An Illustrated Diary, first published in the U.S. in 1985.  Fulpen was former head of the Dutch Beatles fan club.  He said he had access to a very large collection of Beatles memorabilia that he himself had put together since 1963 and that he had also purchased other archival material.  He thanked Freda Kelly (who ran the English Beatles fan club), Allan Williams (who was the group's first manager), Bob Wooler (who was a host at the Cavern Club), Dezo Hoffmann (who photographed the early Beatles), and Piet Schreuders (who later wrote books about the Beatles.)

I'll put a small caveat in on this book -- I found several errors when I read his information about the years that interested me:  1964-1966 and his take on the 1969 Paul-Is-Dead rumor.  Still . . .

Fulpen's book had four extremely noteworthy additions to the Paul mystery.

1.)  Fulpen had a two-page feature about the Beatles cartoon series that ran in the U.S. on Saturdays in 1965.  He reprinted the drawings of artist Peter Sander who was commisssioned to design the character models of each Beatle.  Sander said his drawings were based on the Beatles' film, A Hard Day's Night. The movie definitely had our Paul in it, and in both the Paul and George studies, Sander says the the two men are the same height.  There have been dozens of comparisons shown on Paul dead/replaced discussion boards that prove that at varying times Paul was:  shorter, taller, or equal in height to George.  So this adds more proof that there had been MORE THAN ONE PAUL in the group.

2.)  In Fulpen's chronology for 1966, he has for the dates:

- October 14, 1966     "Paul begins writing the music for a film titled The Family Way; soon after he leaves
                                    for a vacation in Kenya."
- November 19, 1966  "Paul returns from Kenya."
 In between those two entries is the most extraordinary bit of information that--if true--is the first  confirmation of its kind I have read:
- November 9, 1966     "Paul is involved in an automobile accident.  Several years later, during the 'Paul is Dead' uproar, rumour will have it that he was fatally injured in this collision."
 Again, on the Paul dead/replaced boards, they show that the Paul in Kenya is NOT our Paul.  Take a look at two photos from film of "Paul"'s Kenyan trip.  It's not Paul,
 right?  The new, new Beatles began work on the Sgt. Pepper album November 24, 1966, a scant 40 days after "Paul" began his vacation.  There is no evidence from the photos of "Paul" from the Kenyan trip that he was injured in an automobile collision at all and no evidence in an interview given December 20, 1966 when the "Beatles" entered the EMI recording studio that "Paul" had in any way been injured in a accident. (Take a look at a photo below from the interview and you can see the whole interview on Youtube at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exracy8Bsy4 .

 If it wasn't that Paul who had been injured, was it, instead, our Paul?  He could have died, he could have lived.  My guess is that he DID  have an accident and DID live.








3.)  Fulpen's Beatles diary entry of  April 5, 1966 talks about Jane Asher's birthday, and---
"John and Paul sell off a portion of their shares in Northern Songs, each receiving 146,000 pounds.  Their remaining shares are worth some 1,000,000 pounds."  This is a crucial time when, I believe, Paul (and John) were planning their exit (or were being told they were being replaced.)  Since Paul had already spent money on his London house and the renovations on it, and the farm in Scotland our Paul bought in June, 1966 only cost 35,000 pounds, Paul obviously wanted money for some other purpose.

4.)  Fulpen details the 1969 Paul-Is-Dead rumor and hints strongly that the Sgt. Pepper-on Paul wasn't the Paul of earlier in 1966:  "After all, all four members of the group had suddenly started to wear moustaches and beads at the end of that year, for no particular reason.  Unless of course it was to conceal the fact that one Beatle's face, the face of 'Paul McCartney' had undergone some subtle--and sinister--changes . . . ."

A Video Of Our Paul(?) At The Melody Maker Awards in 1966

I found a short video on YouTube that shows our Paul(?) and Ringo at the 1966 Melody Maker Awards ceremony.  See it at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEQysGn4EdU .  The question is:  is this really our Paul?

The photos taken from the awards ceremony suggest it is.  For example, take a look at the three below.  (Courtesy of the blog, irreco.blogspot.com)

Photos are more easily doctored, but the video DOES look like our Paul.

Was The Octopus Paul?

In my April 27, 2012 post I talked about the English group Manfred Mann's 1968 song, Fox On The Run's references to Paul.  I found an October, 1966 Manfred Mann song that might have previewed Ringo Starr's 1969 song, Octopus's Garden.

At the beginning of the reversed song Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James, you can hear the lead vocalist sing "you're an octopus" six times.  The song talks about a woman planning to marry a man and settle down to a routine English suburban life.

Ringo Starr's song was recorded in April and July, 1969 and released in September, 1969.  In it, he talks about an "octopus" living under the sea with lyrics very reminiscent of Paul's 1966 song, Yellow Submarine.

So in addition to the walrus being Paul, was the octopus Paul?