Wish You Were Here, 40th Anniversary

This post is rather special, as we are in fact celebrating two Pink Floyd anniversaries. Not only is it 40 years to the day that Pink Floyd’s album Wish You Were Here was released, but it is 50 years this year since the band formed. Despite going their separate ways in 1994 and only performing once together since then for Live 8 in 2005, Floyd still manage to bring in fans from all ages, and remain unmatched by any other band in creating such a distinctive psychedelic sound.

Despite forming in 1965, it’s probably their 1973 concept album Dark Side of The Moon that Pink Floyd are most famed for. Tracks like Money and its 7/8 rhythm, and Great Gig In The Sky and the astonishing improvised solo from Clare Torry are what make the record one of rock’s most commercially successful albums of all time. However, our focus today is on Floyd’s possibly lesser known next album, Wish You Were Here.

At first, recording this ninth album seemed difficult for the band, after the success of Dark Side and the tour they’d just finished had left them all emotionally drained. Roger Waters became lead writer of the album, although it could be argued that the album is more famous for Gilmour’s four note riff in the opening track than it is any of Waters’ lyrics. It is well-known that Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a track split into two 13-minute sections at the beginning and end of the album, is a tribute to the now late Syd Barrett, who at the time that the album was being composed had left the band, and was in a downward spiral of mental health. Each track is heavily instrumental, and one flows seamlessly into another, and the theme of Barrett’s condition with it. Just like Dark Side, any modern-day fan will know that Wish You Were Here is absolutely infuriating to listen to on a CD, iPod or other device that shuffles. You’ll be fully engrossed, about to launch into the opening chords of the next track and then BAM! You’re cut dead as if rudely awoken from a dream. The best way to listen to Floyd, I have found from experience, is in a darkened room with a vinyl copy.

I’ve always been fascinated by the album’s cover, and I in fact have a poster of it hanging on my bedroom wall. There is so much to read into with the cover design, which I have only realised myself whilst researching now. The image itself brings to life the album’s messages about the brutality of the music industry; the handshake, an often empty gesture, and a reflection on the phrase “getting burned”, used by musicians of the time when artists were denied royalty payments. A fun fact for you: When first taking the photograph, the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, so much so that one stuntman lost his moustache! They therefore changed positions and the image was later reversed. The overall theme of the album is “absence” which again was reflected in the the album being sold in a dark-coloured shrink-wrap, concealing the artwork. Like so many of Floyd’s albums, the cover was conceived by the great visionary Storm Thorgerson, who I had the pleasure of meeting shortly before he died in 2013.

It may not have the stand-alone hits like Dark Side does but as an album, Wish You Were Here was just as successful and impactful. It’s also said to be both David Gilmour and Richard Wright’s favourite Floyd album. The song I decided to cover, for practical reasons as much as anything, is the title track, a rare example of the balanced writing collaboration between Waters and Gilmour. It speaks not only of Barrett’s schizophrenia, but of human loneliness as a whole, and the image of "two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl" brings tears to my eyes nearly every time. Fading in from Have a Cigar, the track is supposed to sound like a radio tuning in from one station to another, the effect captured by Gilmour recording from his car radio. Unfortunately I am no multi-instrumentalist, so all the backing tracks that I use for this blog are downloaded. I have to hand it to the person who composed this backing, however, for their incredibly skilled playing. It was a delight to record with! So here it is, as it should be, instrumental and all. I hope you enjoy it...

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - 50th Anniversary

“The Beatles and The Stones” - you often hear these two bands referenced together. They’re penned as the good boys and bad boys of the 60s, but whether this was a managerial decision is hard to confirm. Mods vs Rockers, Blur vs Oasis, every decade has them, but what’s one thing that separates The Beatles and The Rolling Stones? In a word, longevity. Despite all the odds and obstacles thrown at them since they formed in 1962 (drugs, arrests, falling from coconut trees, that kind of thing...), they're still going strong. 

Some of you may be shocked when I point out that The Beatles were only active as a band for 10 years. But today, as their biggest hit turns 50 years old, The Stones have just got back from touring the States, and are preparing for their retrospective show Exhibitionism next spring. Individually, Mick’s producing TV series Vinyl with Martin Scorsese, Keith’s about to release another solo album, Ronnie’s set to reunite with The Faces for a charity gig (as well as continuing with his work as a fine artist) and Charlie… well, he’s probably still contemplating leaving, like he threatened to in 1975. 

I’ve seen The Rolling Stones live twice now, once at Twickenham in 2002 and again in 2013 at their Hyde Park gig. Each time it’s been their energy that’s brought the music to life, and encouraged strangers of all generations to dance and sing together (even after the concert, in the crush to get on the train, you’re bound to get an “Ooh oooooh” of Sympathy for the Devil, and then the whole carriage is off again). I often hear The Rolling Stones referred to as “old men” or “aaaancient”. “Aren’t they dead yet?” is another classic. Well, they may have a combined age of 285, but by God, that ain’t gonna stop ‘em. They’re here to stay, not fade away (Ah, I do love a pun, me).

In his autobiography Life, Keith Richards describes (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction as “the track that launched [The Rolling Stones] into global fame”. To this day, despite recording nearly 200 songs and among them more hits than Jagger can shake his hips at, it remains their most well-known and most popular. It’s a hit most artists would dream of… which is funny, because that’s exactly where the song began...

There are all kind of myths and fudged truths flying around the origins of the song, but this is my favourite, so I’m sticking to it. According to Keith, “I wrote Satisfaction in my sleep.” After a row with his girlfriend in her St John’s Wood flat, he went to bed, as was his ritual, with his guitar. When he woke up the next day, Keith glanced over to his cassette player and realised it was at the end of the tape. He wound it back and there it was - the bare bones of Satisfaction. Fantastical, perhaps, but as legend has it, this was how Jagger/Richards songs often came about. Keith would present the initial idea (the riff, the chords, maybe a line or two) and then Mick would flesh it out with lyrics and turn it into a recordable track. Gibson had also just sent Keith their first fuzztone box, which gave the song its famous distortion.

Satisfaction was actually released in the US in June 1965, two months before it came out in the UK, but once it hit the charts it made No. 1 on both sides of the pond, as well as in Austria, The Netherlands, France and Germany. 

In a 1995 interview, Jagger made the following observation: 

“…It captures a spirit of the times… which was alienation. Or it’s a bit more than that, maybe, but a kind of sexual alienation. Alienation’s not quite the right word, but it’s one word that would do.” 

I agree though, that there is more to it than simple alienation. There’s frustration, irritation, a sense of rebellion, and a wanting to belong but at the same time, a wanting to be your own person. Of course it’s predominantly about sexual satisfaction, but I think it relates to many more of the struggles of teenage life too.

There have been several interesting covers of Satifaction. Putting Devo and Britney aside, it’s the soul covers that I enjoy the most, and that I turned to when making my own version (Aretha, for example, really gives it a spark). Despite changing some of the words, the soul covers are far livelier with horns and trills, and it is in fact Otis Redding’s version that the Stones listened to for inspiration when reproducing Satisfaction for their own stage shows (it had previously been left off set lists).

But whether it’s Aretha or the boys, it’s that riff, “the five notes that shook the world”, and that classic double negative that will live on for generations. Happy 50th, and here’s to 50 more.

The Beatles at Shea Stadium, 50 Years Ago Today

Shea Stadium, 15th August 1965

If music is in your heart then surely, The Beatles must run through your veins. I’ve heard the odd idiot (yes, I said it) try and impress with the bold statement “I don’t like the Beatles”, and every time, I can’t help but shudder. I guess it’s forgivable for someone of my generation to, say, not be that acquainted with their discography, or call Hey Jude their best track, but to say you don’t like The Beatles is comparable to saying you don’t like… eating. You may not like eating spicy food, or you might prefer eating beans on toast to champagne and caviar, but no one could say they don’t like eating.  

The Beatles and Beatlemania not only changed the music industry but all of popular culture from 1960 onwards. On this day, we celebrate a very important anniversary in Beatles history. The stadium tour is a norm in today’s music scene; in London alone venues like Wembley and Twickenham play host to some of the world’s biggest stars when out of the sports season. But, it was fifty years ago today (see what I did there?) on 15^th August 1965, that the Beatles drew a record-breaking crowd of 55,600 fans to Shea Stadium in New York City, and hosted the first concert held in a venue of this size.

The following year a documentary of the concert, produced by Ed Sullivan, was released, which showcased extraordinary scenes unlike any that had been seen before. There are looks of astonishment across the Fab Four’s faces as Sullivan announces them onto the grass. Although perfectly clear in the film, in reality their playing was completely drowned out by the sound of screaming and crying, and the on-site security were fully occupied throughout the concert with the removal of fainting teenage girls, or those attempting to run out onto the stage. Cousin Brucie, the announcer on the night, put it quite simply in a recent interview. He said:

“This was a sociological experience. This was an amazing event, more than just the music. The music played almost a secondary role to what was going to happen at that particular moment in time.”

Here are some fun facts about the Shea Stadium show:

1. Seats in the upper deck cost $5.10 – that’s about $40/£25 in today’s money

2. In the audience that night were a young Meryl Streep as well as Linda Eastman and Barbara Bach (the future Mrs McCartney and Mrs Starr)

3. 25%-30% of the crowd that evening were male!

4. The concert made $304,000 in box office takings, of which the Beatles got $160,000

As with every concert on this tour, the set list was comprised of 12 songs. But which track should I choose to cover as tribute to the anniversary? One in particular stood out to me, a favourite of mine which, I can’t believe, only made it to No. 42 in Rolling Stone’s top 100 Beatles songs.

I Feel Fine was released in November 1964 and appears on the album Beatles ’65. Its opening note is the first example of feedback being used on a record, made by McCartney pressing his bass up to the amp. Just think how a single note, who knows, maybe even a mistake initially, paved the way for acts of the future to coin the technique (Townshend, Hendrix and Cobain, to name just a few…)

Lennon wrote the majority of the song, and came up with the riff whilst recording Eight Days A Week at Abbey Road. This riff is very close to Bobby Parker’s Watch Your Step, and although it has been suggested that Lennon may have stolen it, the inclusion of Parker’s track on the 2004 John Lennon’s Jukebox compilation ironically made Watch Your Step a hit in the UK. Bobby Parker isn’t the only influence on I Feel Fine. Lennon admitted that the inspiration for the drum piece came from Ray Charles’ What I’d Say, and you can hear this coming through on the vocals too. 

But all these factors aside, I Feel Fine still has all the elements to make a perfect Beatles' classic: Sweet, catchy rhymes, a poppy, toe-tapping rhythm and a simple, effective harmony. The trinity!