Beatles Song of the Week

Here’s a song that I found enjoyable enough, just a harmless piece of bubble-gum pop music with a nicely infectious beat and the type of easy chorus you can sing under-your-breath to get yourself through the day. And the song certainly is that, but as it’s my current Beatles Song I’m Obsessing Over, let’s talk a little bit about “Ob La Di, Ob La Da”. One thing I’m quickly learning about the Beatles is that they just don’t do a whole lot of standard openings to their songs. This one starts with a piano riff that sounds like a rag-timeDown the rabbit hole….

Well, I couldn’t have picked a worse title for this series of posts if I tried, huh? “Beatles Song of the Week”? Yeah, if we redefine “week” to mean “some indeterminate period of time that bears no relationship to a seven day span”. But anyway, about “Octopus’s Garden”. I can’t get enough of this song. It just tickles my hippie heart, in a big way. At first hearing, “Octopus’s Garden” sounds like a harmless bit of bubblegum fluff, and at its most basic level, that’s pretty much what it is. Sandwiched on the Abbey Road album between the swelteringly sexyDown the rabbit hole….

Well, maybe I should rename this series of posts, since there’s an element of weekliness that is implied and which I am not achieving at all. Oh well…I guess we’ll just have to stipulate that I never claimed that there would be a Beatles song for every week, but rather that I’ll be posting about the song when there happens to be a Beatles Song of the Week. I’m not sure that made any sense at all, but let’s plow on, shall we? “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”: This song’s genesis, as related by Wikipedia, is fascinating. The key phraseDown the rabbit hole….

I’ve loved this song for years…many years. And I loved it years before I even knew that it was a Beatles song at all. The first time I remember hearing it was, of all places, at the end of an episode of Family Ties; Meredith Baxter-Birney sang it at the end of a clip show as her teevee family was gathered around. I heard it again a few years later, in a wonderful cover by Judy Collins, in an episode of The Wonder Years. I didn’t learn that “In My Life” was a Beatles song until four or five yearsDown the rabbit hole….

I’ve written about my fairly new-found admiration for The Beatles a number of times over the last couple of years. The main thing that has captivated me in exploring their music — and I’ve only done this in a cursory way as of yet — is its sheer variety. The Beatles compose and perform in so many different styles, and they’re convincing in each one. The idea for this new series of posts came to me last month, when I was answering a question on Ask Me Anything! August 2010 edition. Basically I’ll pick a Beatles song and write aboutDown the rabbit hole….