Okay, for the next six days we’ll be focusing on one artist–the Beatles. They’re so well known I’m not even going to bother giving you the Wikipedia link. Before we move on to consider how their music has been adopted and messed with by other people, let’s keep it in the family and look at a song that’s written, performed, and produced by the Beatles. Well, kinda. In 2006 the surviving members of the Beatles released Love, an album of Beatles songs remastered and remixed for Cirque du Soleil‘s Las Vegas show of the same name. It was approved by the living Beatles and the dead ones’ heirs, put together using nothing but Beatles recordings, and was produced by George Martin (their original producer) and his son, so it’s as close to an authentic Beatles production as time and human frailty allowed. And, at least as importantly, it’s really good!
The remastering is excellent, so the sound quality is great, and the production choices the Martins made were actually quite adventurous. You might not blame them for being conservative, considering the fact that the Beatles’ discography has been treated with kid gloves for decades*. But instead, Love is a very interesting composition–an unbroken album-length medley of great songs, put together to sound like something new, not just another “best of” album.
Some of the tracks on Love bear an obvious resemblance to the originals (like “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” or “Because“), but others are much more drastically reworked. For example, “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite / I Want You (She’s So Heavy) / Helter Skelter” dices up those songs and throws the pieces back together. It’s really weird, discordant at times, and quite good. Today’s song takes a similar approach, but the resulting mashup seems more coherent and melodious. Here it is: Drive My Car / the Word / What You’re Doing – The Beatles.
The song combines “Drive My Car“, “The Word“, and “What You’re Doing” quite nicely. My favorite part is probably the horns, some of which amazingly come from a song I’d never heard called “Savoy Truffle” (that tidbit comes from this interesting review of the album), but it’s hard to complain about any of it, really. It’s one of the highlights of an album I’ve enjoyed tremendously, and if you don’t like it you’re a total idiot.
Tomorrow: more Beatles!
* This came up again with the release of the acclaimed (by critics and by me!) Beatles: Rock Band, which is actually much more faithful and reverent to the band’s legacy than Love, in every way except for the fact that it’s a video game.
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