There’s a truism in sport that what makes a champion is not the level they play at when they’re in top form but how well they play when they’re not in form. When we meet The Beatles in Get Back, they’re clearly in a dip, and that’s what makes their response to it so impressive. Even the best songs they bring in are not necessarily very good to begin with. Don’t Let Me Down is not up to much at Twickenham. George calls it corny, and he isn’t wrong. But John has a vision of a song that eschews irony and sophistication and lunges straight for your heart, and he achieves it, with a little help from his friends. They keep running at the song, shaping it and honing it, and by the time they get to the roof it is majestic.The already classic scene in which Paul wrenches the song Get Back out of himself shows us, not just a moment of inspiration, but how the group pick up on what is not an obviously promising fragment and begin the process of turning it into a song. In the days to follow, they keep going at it, day after day, run-through after run-through, chipping away, laboriously sculpting the song into something that seems, in its final form, perfectly effortless. As viewers, we get bored of seeing them rehearse it and we see only some of it: on January 23rd alone they ran it through 43 times. The Beatles don’t know, during this long process, what we know - that they’re creating a song that millions of people will sing and move to for decades to come. For all they know, it might be Shit Takes all the way down. But they keep going, changing the lyrics, making small decision after small decision - when the chorus comes in, where to put the guitar solos, when to syncopate the beat, how to play the intro - in the blind faith that somewhere, hundreds of decisions down the line, a Beatles song worthy of the name will emerge.
But I really recommend you read the whole thing.
Forgive me for putting this up: when I was 19 years old it pretty much summarized life for me. Then I discovered Bach...
2 comments:
The most irritating artists (to other artists) are those with easy fluency. Shakespeare apparently was quite an amiable fellow personally, but his ability to write reams of drama quickly irritated the heck out of his fellow dramatists. Probably Schubert secretly irritated composers of his day as did Mahler with his 90 minute symphonies. So this is why the struggling artists get the higher cred.
I personally like the Keith Richards Rule although even Keith didn't always follow it: Do something different every 10 seconds. Even classical composers would do well to follow that rule closely. Where the talent lies is deciding what to do differently. The Stones and the Beatles were particularly good at that.
The rule I have found to be the best indicator of quality is individuality. In the Stones and Beatles albums you always know where you are even if not closely listening. When one song or work begins to blur into another you should realize you are noodling or overly repeating yourself.
The quality of individuality is what I sometimes call "character". Really good pieces of music have an individual character that is unmistakable. Difficult to achieve!
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