Do Beatles fans consider this song (along with, I suppose, the new version of ‘Real Love’) a real Beatles song? Why or why not?
Thanks!
There’s no definitive answer, of course. All I can say is, I regard them as mediocre John Lennon tunes with a little overdubbing, not as Beatle records.
I didn’t hate “Free As a Bird” or “Real Love,” I just didn’t think they were anything special. They were typical of the lame, wimpy, uninspired stuff Lennon had been cranking out for years (just as the new bridge to “Free as a Bird” is typical of Paul McCartney’s wimpy, post-1975 stuff).
Ah, I liked em.
As a Beatles fan I considered it to be a sort of a Beatles song and sort of not.
All the band members had some sort of input into it which would technically make it a Beatles song, pretty much by definition (although most Beatles tunes had little input outside of John and Paul).
OTOH, to my knowledge there was plenty of give and take between Paul and John on the songs they actually collaborated on, and, with John being dead and all, the “newest” songs don’t have that, so that would detract from them being “Beatles” songs in my opinion.
Overall I think the songs are okay, but I still haven’t gone out and picked them up on CD.
How can there be a new Beatles’ tune if there is no Beatles? The Beatles broke up in 1970. They spent the better part of that decade declaring themselves to be “ex-Beatles.” Maybe we should call FAAB and RL “Ex-Beatles Songs.”
On the other hand, there was probably more of a group effort in creating these two songs than there was with many of the songs the Beatles put out in the late 60s (“Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?” “Ballad of John and Yoko,” etc.).
I think I’ll stick with my gut, however: there can be no new Beatles songs because there is no more “Beatles.” Just because one, or two, or three, or four of the original Beatles collaborate on a song does not necessarily make it a “Beatles” song. Especially when one of them is dead. And especially because the person that originally wrote the songs meant them to be solo projects. How those other three guys (and possibly Yoko) could suddenly “declare” two of John’s songs to now be Beatles’ songs/ property is ludicrous.
Happy
Asylum said, “OTOH, to my knowledge there was plenty of give and take between Paul and John on the songs they actually collaborated on,…”
On the FEW songs they collaborated on. Even though their names both appeared on the songs, the collaboration effort was near non-existent. I consider them to be Beatle Songs, even if they are unconventional.
I just sort of took it as the remaining Beatles final tribute to John. It’s one thing to sing about the Beatles from the remaining members (ala “When We Were Fab”) but I thought it was a nice gesture that they could all work on it as a final salute to their partner.
A real Beatles song? Nah…but they all contributed on a lost Lennon track and that makes it special in its own sense.
For what it’s worth, I think it might have felt more like a genuine Beatles song had they gotten almost anyone else in the world to produce it. Gods, do I hate Jeff Lynne as a producer. A good producer does not make every song he touches sound like it came from the same band.
Paul, George, Ringo, and John’s widow control the Beatles name. Are you arguing that a disbanded group cannot have a reunion? And that every member of the original band is required? Two of the four original Red Hot Chili Peppers are no longer with the group (one is dead). Are they not really the Red Hot Chili Peppers today?**
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Then what does?
I hear you loud and clear, Anamorphic. (And it doesn’t help that I’ve always hated ELO.) For that matter, with all the technology at his disposal, all the computers and spectrum analyzers and signal processors and aural exciters and whatnot, was that really the best Lynne could do as far as getting “Real Love” to sound like Lennon was really singing with the Beatles? The effect of “noisy cassette being turned on for two bars and then off for two bars” is overwhelming.
I am when one of the founding members is dead. Rolling Stones, Chilli Peppers and The Who aside, I just don’t think it would work for the remaining Beatles. And there never really was a Beatles “reunion” here. The (then) three surviving members have all kept in touch, they’ve all worked together in the studio over the years, and this project was just the three of them working in the studio yet again-- granted with a “Beatles” focus.
If Paul and Ringo, with the two widows’ support, decided to go on tour next fall as “The Beatles,” would it really be the Beatles? Would it be a reunion?
I mean, John writes a couple of songs, and for whatever reason, doesn’t (or doesn’t get the chance to) record them. Then 20 years later, they’re suddenly declared “Beatles” songs because Ringo’s playing the drums and George and Paul play guitar and sing backup?
IMO, these songs will never be canon. They’re good songs, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think of them as Beatles songs. They’re unfinished Lennon songs that George, Paul, Ringo and Jeff Lynne helped finish.
Happy
I agree with Happy. As much as I like free as a bird and altough it is, as Anamorphic says, the closest they have ever got, it is not a Beatles song to me. It is a song of the four Beatles, but it lacks something. Hard to pin down exactly though.
The song reminds me of the White Album, where there’s so much solo work. In FAAB, John sings lines quite chatacteristic for him, Pauls middle part is remeniscent of the middle of “Two of Us” in its sentimentality and George is, just as it always has been, allowed a few lines to sing, too. I bet Ringo was even instructed how to drum 
Thanks all to your responses to my question!
To be honest, I’m not all that sure where I stand on the whole issue. I guess another way to pose the question is to imagine a Beatles fan 100 years in the future with a new “Greatest Hits” album that contains both “Free As A Bird” and, say, “Penny Lane.” Will THIS fan, who will likely see the time between the Beatles’ break-up and the reunion between the surviving members of the band as irrelevant, consider “FAAB” part of the Beatles canon?
Kalhoun, tsk, tsk, tsk.
How do you know their collaboration effort was near non-existant? Were you there with them in the hotel rooms and at their homes and in the studio when they were coming up with songs?
I doubt it.
And I suppose that both McCartney and Lennon were lying when they talked about their collaborations, right? And so was Georgre Harrison and Ringo Starr and George Martin? Oh, and let’s not forget Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who watched Lennon and McCartney collaborate and finish writing a song in front of them.
Of course, it may depend on what you consider to be collaborating.
In the case of “A Day In The Life,” Lennon had the verses, but was missing a bridge. McCartney happened to have a lyric that he had come up with which fit in perfectly, the …“Woke, up, fell out of bed…” bit. McCartney was the one who came up with the idea for the tremendous buildup of noise which connected Lennon’s first half to McCartney’s lyric and for the buildup at the end. The buildup was done using an orchestra.
Lennon said that he wanted the end of the song to sound like "the end of the world." After the orchestra was done recording the buildup sections, Lennon and some others tried to hum for as long as possible, but they could only do so for about 18 seconds before bursting into laughter. It was a day or so later that they came up with the idea of having a foot on the sustain pedal on the piano and hitting a note and just holding it. There were actually three pianos which were used, and the faders were turned all the way up, so that you can actually hear the hum of the air conditioning vents on the CD.
It is true that in the later stages of the Beatles recording career Lennon and McCartney wouldn’t "write together, rather they would usually come in with a finished song and play it for George Martin who might make some suggestions. But one of the other Beatles might also throw a suggestion in, which is collaboration.
Who gets songwriting credit has little to do with who actually wrote the song. Alan Freed is credited as a songwriter on several early rock/r&b records and the only thing he had to do with the songs was playing them on his DEE-JAY show. It was a form of payola.
Bob Segar, in the liner notes to Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band Greatest Hits has this to say about the song “Old Time Rock & Roll”: *"This track was sent to me by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section from Alabama as a demo with a different singer. I rewrote the verses * but asked for no writing credit (I wish I had.) Next to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”, it’s the most popular juke box single of all time.
The songwriting credits for “Old Time Rock & Roll” read as follows: Written by George Jackson and Thomas Earl Jones III.
Well, I just watched the Production of Free as a Bird on the special features disc of the Beatles Anthology, and Paul and George did omre than sing back up. They also contributed lyrics to the the final product. I’d say, based onthe way they described the process, that it was as much as a collaboration as most of their other songs.
Real Love is a bit different though. Paul commented that he didn’t like working o nthat as much because “it was completely finished” and they just sang harmonies.
the song is puke warmed over.
I’m only sorry they never had the chance to finish “I’m So Stoned, Yoko, Please Remind Me to Erase This Tape Before Someone Hears It.”