How many people can say they saw George Harrison play live last Saturday night? Yep, I dusted down the DeLorean and got her up to 88mph & was transported back to a time and a place where the Dark Horse played a rather fab greatest hits set - everything from Taxman to When We Was Fab via My Sweet Lord, All Things Must Pass and Something; to mention but a handful.(Though I was miffed Piggies didn't get an outing.)
However, he did play this - and he got his drummer to sing it; naturally. I'd forgotten completely that George had written it - despite the credit on the sleeve.
The Web is awash with lists. Some might say saturated. Music websites, and blogs in particular, crave the condensing; the diluting and editing of anything and everything (and anybody) into a Top 10 - usually an artist or band's entire output boiled down to a rag tag bunch of songs that then has the word 'definitive' accredited to them. As if.
And none more so than the Beatles. To be fair they had a couple of stabs at it themselves. Once (A Collection of Beatles Oldies) while they were still kicking a ball, and two more (the Red & Blue double albums) when Macca realised that the revenue from Wings was hardly likely to keep a roof (or roofs, to be more precise) over his head. Then we had Anthology, of course, followed a number of years later by the unimaginative 1, before the joyous Love (take a bow Giles Martin) became, for many, the last word in Greatest Hits: the ultimate Beatles list, the Top 26, if you will.
But what of the Beatles solo material? Sure, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr have all been victims of record company hastily prepared compilations - individually. But nobody has put out the combined Greatest Hit compilationwith all four of them sharing centre stage. Is such an eight-legged monster even capable of walking, let alone running into a record store and jumping up onto the counter?
And, to be fair, as big a Beatles fan as I am (have you seen just how many namechecks they get around here?), even I would doubt the validity of such a piece of nonsense.
Which is precisely why I am more than prepared to commit heresy and offer up before you not a Best Of album, but a Greatest Hits EP - four songs that capture the very being of the post-Beatles recorded output. And that was my only guiding principle - it had to have just four recordings on there; not even one of each. Any four. Any.
It's at this point that it dawns on me, not for the first time, that John Lennon didn't care much for being an ex-Beatle (George even less so). But John really struggled to achieve anywhere near the PB he set himself while he was with the Fab 4. He peaked creatively in 1966 and, with the exception of a couple of White Album pearls (you know the ones I'm talking about), Lennon was pretty much a spent force. And no, Imagine is not the Holy Grail everyone thinks it is: it's crass and it's insensitive. If I ever hear it again it'll be too soon. Lennon, for me, very nearly missed the cut altogether - George was going to have two on there, but thoughts of the subsequent hate mail, and the fact that Working Class Hero probably defines Lennon, means it kicks off proceedings on Side 1, Track 1.
Next up is the biggest slice of glam ever to come out of 1972. And it had some real competition too; Bowie, Sweet, Glitter. Not to mention Bolan whose fingerprints are all over Ringo's Back off Boogaloo. A great way to round Side 1 off with.
Flip our little EP over and you'll be met by George's greatest ever song. Better than Something. Better than that one about his weeping guitar; better, even, than Taxman. When George realised, quite early on, that the Beatles wouldn't even last until the seventies (let alone forever), he began stockpiling lyrics and melodies in his personal song bank. When he came to make a withdrawal in 1971 he had a perfectly formed triple album's worth. A real dark horse, wouldn't you agree? I so very nearly chose the title track, All Things Must Pass, but then came to my senses. I'd Have You Anytime is perfect. It knocks the other three songs on this fantasy project into an old brown shoe.
Macca will be furious he's been left till last. Good. I'd love to tell him that he's not all that. I'd love to tell him that every time I hear him sing Hey Jude I want to stab myself in the eyes with knitting needles. I'd also like to tell him that how he talks about John Lennon is mean spirited and churlish. Someone once asked 'Is it me, or are the Beatles dying in the wrong order?' I knew what he meant.
So, what's it to be then? What one song written and performed by James Paul McCartney will fade out into the run-off grooves?
Damn you Macca. How the hell did you come to write something so bloody perfect as Maybe I'm Amazed? I've gotta give it to you, it's genius.
So, there you go, four musicians' (well, three and a drummer) entire solo canon reduced to less than a quarter of an hour. Let's clap it in:
Listening to The Archers is a lot like listening to Beatles albums: FAB for the most part but sooner or later you know the ubiquitous Ringo track will pop up and knock you off your perch; in the case of The Archers it's called the Sunday episode - all light and no heat.
And it's getting worse, Sunday night episodes are now just as likely to happen on a Wednesday. Or a Friday. Added to which the scriptwriters have gone off piste with virtually every character in Ambridge. Words are being put in their mouths by school leaver scribblers who wouldn't know a pint of Shires from a bottle of WKD.
I can think of only two characters that have escaped this recent bout of silliness: Lord Netherbourne, godfather to posh Caroline and all round benefactor, has about as much to say as the sultry, yet dumb, Marina in Stingray. Likewise, Eddie Grundy's longstanding cowboy builder mate Fat Paul has also sworn a vow of silence - thus ensuring that he can never knowingly contradict himself or commit glaring continuity errors.
Everybody knows that David Essex was born in a gypsy caravan on a Fairground within earshot of Bow Bells. It's also a well known fact that Ringo Starr taught him how to fleece the punters on the Dodgems and that when his time comes it will probably be some freak accident on a Ferris Wheel or the Waltzers. Either that or he'll choke to death on his candy floss.
Listen out for how Essex pronounces Roller Coaster. You'd swear it was John Lydon.
Despite sharing his initials Jeff Lynne can never be John Lennon. He may well have worked with Paul, George and Ringo and built a sound (and a career) around A Day In The Life, but he will always be a Bootleg rather than a Fifth Beatle.
He can, however, take this Lennon quote to the grave as and when his time comes. (Audio from 0:13)
And for providing the soundtrack to the climax of Bill Murray's Kingpin, I can't thank him enough.
Six months ago I set up a Book Club. We're known as The Sun Readers; meeting monthly in The Sun Inn, what else could we have called ourselves? We're a merry band of readers who between us have an eclectic taste in all things literary. Everyone gets to have a say (we never stand on ceremony) and it's always fun to pull the pin on an idea, lob it into the group and watch the sparks fly. Does the beer stimulate the conversation? Maybe. Do we take ourselves too seriously? Definitely not. Are we brutally honest about our reading experience(s)? Always.
So who have we read? Magnus Mills, Edward Rutherfurd, Julian Barnes, A D Wilson, Henning Mankell and George Orwell thus far. After a rigorous discussion we always close the evening with the scores on the doors - Barnes' Sense Of An Ending is shading it at the moment closely followed by Wilson's Snowdrops and The Scheme For Full Employment by Magnus Mills. Paramedics had to be called to The Sun Inn last week, such was the ferocity of the kicking Henning Mankell received for his non-Wallander dirge - Kennedy's Brain. He'll survive.
We also have a sub-branch: when friends from Nottingham came over a couple of months ago they took the idea back with them and now, complete with a couple of new recruits, read along with us and email their pithy reviews and all important marks out of 10. If anyone would like to be one of our 'distance readers' we're currently reading The Road To Wigan Pier, followed by Fannie Flagg's Can't Wait To Get to Heaven.
Any excuse to shoehorn Ringo (or a Ringo lookakikey) into my Blog
He and Ringo would go parading in Central Park every Sunday afternoon.
The concierge at The Dakota Building would be remembering that it was nearly thirty years since he had a polite word with the NYPD about some speccy loner hanging 'round the place.
Liam Gallagher would still be labouring on Manchester building sites.
Jeff Lynne would not have been added to the ranks of 5th Beatle.
The rainforest would not be so depleted.
I'd wish him a Happy Birthday.
And if he was still making music, it would probably sound something like this:
This month marks the 40th anniversary of Ringo's Beaucoups of Blues; after All Things Must Pass and Band On The Run, probably the best solo album by an ex-Beatle. Recorded in Nashville with Pete Drake on pedal steel, The Jordanaires on backing vocals and D J Fontana on drums, it had pedigree right from the get go.
The boy from Dingle has come in for a lot of stick down the years but, as the venerable Mr Starkey MBE enters his eighth decade, isn't it about time we all came clean and admitted it: Ringo was everyone's favourite Beatle. Wasn't he? Think about it; he had all the best lines in Hard Day's Night ('You want to stop looking so scornful, it'll twist your face') and Help! ('Two lagers and lime and two lagers and lime please'). He wrote Don't Pass Me By and Back Off Boogaloo, directed Born To Boogie, starred in That'll Be The Day and compliled Postcards From The Boys. And The All Starr Band continue to wipe the floor with The Bootleg Beatles.
