The Beatles Plus 50 It was fifty years ago today…

Up to this point every Beatles album had been dominated by John and Paul — first as a team, then as two strong individuals vying for control. But on side 2 of 1970 we begin to see that the primary struggle here is between John and George, with Ringo popping up to offer wry commentary, and Paul off in a room by himself doing his own stuff. Spoiler alert: George came loaded for bear.

Track List:

Wah-Wah (George)
“After one of those first mornings [at Twickenham for the Get Back sessions] — I couldn’t stand it; I decided this is it! — it’s not fun anymore — it’s very unhappy being in this band — it’s a lot of crap — thank you I’m leaving. Wah Wah was a headache as well as a footpedal. It was written during the time in the film where John and Yoko were freaking out screaming — I’d left the band, gone home — and wrote this tune.” —George Harrison

Well Well Well (John)
“Ringo Starr claimed… that Lennon had played Lee Dorsey’s 1969 single Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On) ‘a hundred times’ to get the spirit he wanted…. [but] the levity of the words was… lost amid the savage screaming that Lennon’s vocals descended into. In his lengthy 1970 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Lennon denied that the screams in Well Well Well were connected with [primal scream] therapy. ‘Listen to Twist And Shout. I couldn’t sing the damn thing, I was just screaming. Listen to “A-wop-bop-a-loo-wop-a-wop-bam-boom.” Don’t get the therapy confused with the music.’” —Wikipedia

$15 Draw (Ringo)
Though it was written by country music veteran and peanut farmer Sorrells Pickard — a native of Jacksonville, Florida — and recorded in Nashville, this song was Anglicized for Ringo’s benefit. You’ll notice that the guitar was found in the “boot” of an old car and that the band is set to play in “Bolton City.”1As all the real heads know, the palindrome of “Bolton” would be “Notlob.”In Pickard’s version it’s “trunk” and “Bossier City” (Louisiana), which for some reason comes out in Southernese sounding like “Bolger City.”

Momma Miss America (Paul)
“An instrumental recorded completely at home. Made up as I went along — first a sequence of chords, then a melody on top. Piano, drums, acoustic guitar, electric guitar. Originally it was two pieces, but they ran into each other by accident and became one.” —Paul McCartney