Still the Greatest: The Essential Songs of the Beatles’ Solo Careers by Andrew Grant Jackson

Still the Greatest: The Essential Songs of the Beatles’ Solo Careers by Andrew Grant Jackson is another book covering a favorite speculative topic of many popular music fans: what would sort of albums might the Beatles have put out if they had stayed together? I have my own series of imaginary Beatles albums compiled from the best of their solo work, and in the past I wrote about another book covering the same ground, Jeff Walker’s Let’s Put the Beatles Back Together. Inevitably, I found myself looking at the differences between Still the Greatest and the latter book, not to mention my own albums. Rather than creating multi-CD box sets as Walker does, Jackson sticks to the standard album format, though with the interesting (though I’d say unnecessary) twist of making them exactly parallel the actual Beatles’ albums, so there is one double album in addition to a dozen single albums. As mentioned in my review of the other book, I think the album format makes a great deal more sense, as the idea that the Beatles would have released all their original material in multi-album sets even in the pre-CD era strikes me as highly unlikely. Another area where I think Jackson’s book is somewhat superior is that his discussions of the individual songs are more balanced length-wise and have less of a tendency to go too far off on tangents only barely related to the music, whereas Walker’s discussions of Lennon’s songs are a lot longer than those about the others’ material and tend to dwell a little too much on gossipy details about Lennon’s life (though much of it is admittedly interesting). Jackson also includes an appendix listing all of the actual solo albums released by the ex-Beatles, including the songs from each that he has put on his Beatles albums. He even compares the albums in terms of number of songs from each that he’s included. This is something that I thought Walker’s book should have had. Jackson, on the other hand, doesn’t try to improve the songs by editing them as Walker does, a good idea that I wouldn’t bother to actually do in most cases, and Walker adds a lot more side sets like cover albums, live albums and even albums combining the work of related artists like Yoko Ono and Lennon’s two sons.

As might be expected, I don’t agree with all of Jackson’s selections, though in most cases I disagree more about what he left out than what he put in, as most of his choices are at least decent and are often very good, even the ones I left out of my own albums. He doesn’t try to stretch Lennon’s material as far as Walker does, which means that on his post-1980 albums there are only a few Lennon songs (the last one has only McCartney and Starr songs, since Harrison had also died by then). This means his albums present a better picture of the four’s solo material, with McCartney being by far the most prolific over the entire post-breakup period and therefore having the most songs included. Even if it is argued that McCartney was more inconsistent than Lennon, meaning that he had a substantially lower great-to-mediocre ratio in his song output (which is I think debatable), the mere fact that he released far more songs even before Lennon’s death means that he easily had more worthy material. Walker ended up including a lot of songs from posthumous Lennon demo collections in order to have plenty of Lennon songs even on later sets. While I could see including a few of the best of these, it would be more natural to just let songs by McCartney and the others predominate on later faux Beatles sets, and perhaps just put on one or two Lennon songs from earlier in his solo career (after all, it was not unusual for the Beatles both as a band and as solo artists to release songs well after they had been written). Jackson’s solution of sticking fairly strictly to the actual release dates (which also means that his early to mid 1980s “Beatles” albums have few songs by Starr or Harrison, since they went for long periods without releasing anything) is also better than trying too hard to create a balance between contributions.

As noted above, Jackson also ranks the original solo albums by number of songs included. The ones at the top are mostly the ones one would expect, i.e., All Things Must Pass, Band on the Run, Imagine, Plastic Ono Band, Ram, and so forth. Further down there are some oddities, such as there being only a few songs from albums like Flaming Pie (the first of McCartney’s string of excellent post-Anthology albums) or Living in the Material World (which is only inferior to All Things Must Pass, Brainwashed, and possibly Cloud Nine among Harrison’s albums). He also includes too many cover songs. While I think all four did some excellent covers, I don’t think if they’d been releasing albums as the Beatles they’d have put many, if any, on them. It makes more sense to do a separate covers only album, as Walker did, or indeed as Lennon and McCartney did as solo artists (though the latter’s excellent rock ‘n’ roll covers album Run Devil Run included three good original tracks among the covers, including the great title track, which Jackson also leaves out). There are only four songs from Ringo, which is not only easily Starr’s best album but one of the best solo Beatle releases period. Venus and Mars, one of the better Wings albums, is also badly underrepresented. On the other hand, there are as many songs from Walls and Bridges as there are from Plastic Ono Band and Ram (seven each), putting it in the top six. While Walls and Bridges is a good album, I don’t think it’s that much better than Living in the Material World, Venus and Mars, Ringo, or for that matter Mind Games, all of which have far fewer songs included. And that’s without even getting into my disagreements regarding the individual songs, whether from the albums or from singles. But given how subjective these sorts of things are, some disagreement is inevitable. I suspect that if I actually sat down and assembled Jackson’s proposed albums – or for that matter Walker’s – I’d enjoy them immensely, at least nearly as much as I do the ones I put together myself. Still the Greatest will certainly be a major resource if I ever get around to completing my own set of imaginary post-breakup Beatles albums.

New Radio Show on Taiwanese Popular Music

I recently started doing a show on the radio station News98 (98.1) in Taipei, Taiwan. The show is to be broadcast every other Saturday from 3 to 5 pm. I expect to mainly focus on Taiwanese popular music, but I haven’t got it planned out in much detail. Since I collect a pretty wide variety of music, I imagine I’ll end up playing music from all over. I am particularly interested unusual or obscure recordings, I want to try to play as many of these as I can, since listeners are less likely to hear many of them elsewhere. On the other hand, I don’t want to overdo it, especially since at this point I’m not sure how much the people likely to tune in are likely to already know. The trick will be to make sure the audience has some connection to most stuff I play, whether because they’ve actually heard it before (or some version of it), or because they are familiar with the artist, though of course there are also a lot of really good songs that I think most people will like even if they know nothing about them at all. Also I want to have a lot of variety in the themes of my shows, without the contrast being so great from show to show that people find it too much to take. In any case, while I may want to set up a separate blog dedicated especially to this show, for the time being I’ll occasionally post about it here.

For my first show, which was broadcast on November 14, I decided to play a wide variety of songs as sort of a preview of some of the types of music I expect to play on future shows. I framed it to roughly reflect my own journeys in learning about the popular music of Taiwan and nearby places in Asia. Thus I started with one of the songs that was popular at the time I first came to Taiwan, and continued with songs by some of the first singer-songwriters I was introduced to when I started listening seriously to Taiwanese pop. Then I followed my explorations further and further back into the past and into the pop music of the smaller ethnic groups in the country as I started to learn more about Taiwanese popular music history. I then played a few Taiwanese rock songs and rock songs from Hong Kong and Thailand, before concluding with a song by one of my favorite recent Taiwanese aboriginal groups. I hope this selection gave listeners a good idea of the music that can expect to hear on my show in the future.

情網〈詞：劉虞瑞 曲：伍思凱〉 張學友 (1993)
把悲傷留給自己〈詞曲：陳昇〉 陳昇 (1991)
向前走〈詞曲：林強〉 林強 (1990)
戀曲1990〈詞曲：羅大佑〉 羅大佑 (1988)
無聲的所在〈詞：陳世杰 曲：吳俊霖〉 伍佰 & China Blue (1995)
鹿港小鎮〈詞曲：羅大佑〉 羅大佑 (1982)
走在雨中〈詞曲：李泰祥〉 齊豫 (1979)
迴旋曲〈詞：余光中 曲：楊弦〉 楊弦 (1975)
你說過〈詞：吳文良 曲：洪小喬〉 洪小喬 (1972/07)
回想曲〈詞：楊正[周藍萍] 曲：周藍萍〉 紫薇 (1961)
秋風夜雨〈詞：周添旺 曲：楊三郎〉 陳芬蘭 (1965)
無緣〈詞：呂金守 曲：吳盛智〉 吳盛智 (1981)
有空來玩〈詞：陳明仁 曲：卑南歌謠〉 北原山貓 (1997)
我不能出嫁〈詞曲：阿美歌謠〉 盧靜子 (1968)
Heaven on Fire〈詞曲：孫寰東〉 Metal Kids (1988)
長城〈詞：劉卓輝/詹德茂 曲：黃家駒〉 Beyond (1992)
Made In Thailand (W/M: Yuenyong Ophakul) Carabao (1984)
困惑 (fast) 〈詞：查馬克、阿新、Suming 曲：Suming、阿新〉 圖騰樂團 (2006)

Thirty Favorite Soul and R&B Classics

So far on this blog I’ve written a lot about British rock bands like the Beatles, Queen and Genesis, but of course there’s a lot of other great music out there. One type of music which had a very big influence on artists like Paul McCartney, Freddie Mercury and Phil Collins (among many others) is African American music like rhythm and blues and soul. These terms often are used to cover a pretty broad range of music, from the songs that served as the foundation for rock and roll to the music of artists like Prince and Erykah Badu. But for the following list I’ve stuck to the classic soul and R&B of the 1960s and early 1970s. This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the great songs in these genres, as most of these artists have a lot of other brilliant songs (I restricted myself to no more than two by any one artist), and there are plenty other important artists that I have to admit are missing from my collection (actually, even in this list there are a few songs I don’t actually own a copy of, though I want to get them all eventually). These are just the songs that came to mind when I was trying to think of some R&B and soul classics. I even included an example of so-called “blue-eyed soul”, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers, as in my opinion it is good enough to stand alongside the others.

Thirty Favorite Soul and R&B Classics
What'd I Say (Charles) Ray Charles (1959)
Money (That's What I Want) (Gordy/Bradford/Strong) Barrett Strong (1959)
You Really Got a Hold on Me (Robinson) Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (1962)
Stand By Me (King/Leiber/Stoller) Ben E. King (1961)
A Change Is Gonna Come (Cooke) Sam Cooke (1964)
Dancing in the Street (Stevenson/Gaye/Hunter) Martha and the Vandellas (1964)
Under the Boardwalk (Young/Resnick) The Drifters (1964)
My Girl (Robinson/White) The Temptations (1964)
People Get Ready (Mayfield) The Impressions (1965)
The Tracks of My Tears (Robinson/Moore/Tarplin) Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (1965)
You've Lost That Lovin’ Feeling (Spector/Mann/Weil) The Righteous Brothers (1965)
I Got You (I Feel Good) (Brown) James Brown (1965)
You Can't Hurry Love (Holland/Dozier/Holland) The Supremes (1966)
Respect (Redding) Aretha Franklin (1967)
Reach Out (I'll Be There) (Holland/Dozier/Holland) The Four Tops (1966)
When a Man Loves a Woman (Lewis/Wright/Sledge) Percy Sledge (1966)
You Keep Me Hangin' On (Holland/Dozier/Holland) The Supremes (1966)
I'd Rather Go Blind (Jordan/Foster/James) Etta James (1967)
I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Whitfield/Strong) Marvin Gaye (1968)
(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay (Redding/Cropper) Otis Redding (1968)
Think (Franklin/White) Aretha Franklin (1968)
Everyday People (Stewart) Sly & the Family Stone (1968'
War (Whitfield/Strong) Edwin Starr (1970)
What's Goin' On (Cleveland/Benson/Gaye) Marvin Gaye (1971)
Papa Was a Rollin' Stone (Whitfield/Strong) The Temptations (1972)
Ain't No Sunshine (Withers) Bill Withers (1971)
Higher Ground (Wonder) Stevie Wonder (1973)
If You Don't Know Me By Now (Gamble/Huff) Harold Melvin (1972)
Fight the Power (Part 1 & 2) (Isley/Isley/Isley/Isley/Isley/Jasper) The Isley Brothers (1975)
Sir Duke (Wonder) Stevie Wonder (1976)

Taiwanese Aboriginal Music Project Links

I haven't been posting with much frequency here, but I haven't been neglecting my music-related projects entirely. On the contrary, I've gone down to Taidong in east Taiwan every month for the past three months to work on my project on old Taiwanese aboriginal pop music. Here's some news reports on the shows I did in late August. In these shows we went to different aboriginal settlements and played old records for the local people, including a few of the original performers. The reports are all in Chinese and various aboriginal languages, but non-Chinese speakers can at least hear some of the music.

放歌的人 https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=gkAj3ej-BKM

黑膠的原聲 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBdaCXh2CBo

Here's a link to one of the songs we did in our show back in February, in which younger singers covered the songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=F3fxrvd0ZH8

Our show in late September was similar to this one. If any online links to it are put up in the future, I'll eventually post them here.

Posthumous Queen Releases Part 2

This is a continuation of my previous blog post on "posthumous" Queen releases, i.e., ones that came out after the death of lead vocalist Freddie Mercury.

No-one But You (Only the Good Die Young)
This 1997 recording was the last newly recorded release to involve bassist John Deacon, who subsequently retired from music. The song was written by guitarist Brian May and was originally intended for a solo project, but when drummer Roger Taylor heard it, he suggested it could be released as a Queen song. Taylor also helped with the arrangement and suggested some changes to the lyrics. While Freddie Mercury himself was of course not on the recording, since he had been dead for six years, and so some might argue it isn’t a true Queen song on the basis that only songs with the full four man lineup are real Queen songs, there are also good arguments for including it as a legitimate part of the group’s canon. First of all, there were actually quite a few Queen songs that didn’t include the full band on the recording or that one or more members played a very minimal part on, including some without Mercury himself. May and Taylor, who handle the vocals here, of course sang lead vocals on a lot of their own compositions on the band’s classic 1970s albums and occasionally on later tracks. While Mercury usually did some backing vocals or even co-lead vocals and sometimes played piano on a lot of these, there were a few he seemingly didn’t appear on at all, so his absence on a “legitimate” Queen song is not unprecedented. What’s more, since the song was inspired by him and the lyrics are largely about him, he is arguably present in spirit (using the phrase loosely). As for the song itself, it is a very solid effort with a good melody, arrangement, and lyrics, and the three band members’ playing is up to their usual standards. It may not be one of their best songs ever, but it is still quite good and makes a nice farewell to Mercury, as well as a suitable swan song for Deacon as an active member of the band.

Queen + Paul Rodgers and The Cosmos Rocks
In 2004, Brian May and Roger Taylor teamed up with Paul Rodgers, formerly the vocalist for Free and Bad Company and the man behind hits such as “All Right Now”, for a concert tour and eventually a studio album named The Cosmos Rocks (released in 2008). They used the moniker “Queen + Paul Rodgers”, inevitably exciting debate among Queen fans about whether it was right to use the Queen name for the combination. This was not the first time the “Queen +” appellation had been used, as the EP featuring George Michael’s performance with May, Taylor and Deacon at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert had been billed as by “Queen + George Michael”, a one off live cover of “The Show Must Go On” with Elton John (Deacon’s last live performance) was released under the name “Queen + Elton John”, and May and Taylor did a cover of “We Are the Champions” with Robbie Williams using the name “Queen + Robbie Williams”, and other performances with guest vocalists had been similarly billed. The recording with Robbie Williams had generated some controversy, not least because Deacon made a statement critical of the combination, but May-Taylor-Rodgers grouping was the focus of even more intense discussion because it was not merely a one-off performance.

Of course no vocalist could replace Mercury in the sense of being exactly like him, and someone who attempted to imitate him would inevitably ring false. On the other hand, there is no reason that May and Taylor shouldn’t want to perform together as much as possible, and it is no surprise that their performances should focus on their work under Queen’s name, as most of their own best songs and recordings were originally performed by Queen. It is true any combination without Mercury or even Deacon can’t be considered Queen in the classic sense. But while May and Taylor’s decision to use the Queen name was obviously motivated in part by commercial considerations – not nearly as many people would turn up for a concert if they used the name Smile (May and Taylor’s pre-Queen band) or some other new name, or even their individual names – they were half of the classic band, they were performing Queen songs and the addition of “+ Paul Rodgers” (or “+ guest singer” for other combinations) to the name helped to distinguish the new grouping from the original group. So I don’t have any real objections to May and Taylor using the name, though I would still make some distinction between their performances with Rodgers and others and the classic four-man group.

As for the merits of the Queen + Paul Rodgers combination, it has been said with some fairness that while Rodgers is a good singer, he wasn’t necessarily a great fit for some of Queen’s material. I think there is something to this criticism. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with radically different reinterpretations of songs, and in that sense it was interesting to hear Rodgers’ take on Queen’s songs, but many of them did sound less like Queen than they might have with a different vocalist. Adam Lambert, who May and Taylor have toured with more recently as Queen + Adam Lambert, seems to be a much better fit in this sense, since Lambert is stylistically much closer to Mercury while still being his own man (George Michael was the best guest vocalist at the tribute concert for much the same reasons). I tend to agree with the critics who have said Rodgers sounded best on the heavier tracks but sounded a bit out place on some of the other material. But since my goal here is to talk about new material released under the Queen name after Mercury’s death, I will just focus on The Cosmos Rocks, specifically the songs that struck me as being more Queen-like in my admittedly limited experience with the album.

Basically, while I enjoyed some of the songs that were written mainly by Rodgers, it is the ones written chiefly by Taylor or May that sound the most Queen-like, especially the ones the latter two sing lead on. This is not surprising, of course, as not only did May and Taylor write around half of Queen’s songs between them, they also sang prominently on quite a few of them. The standout songs for me were “C-lebrity”, “Small”, and “Say It’s Not True” (written by Taylor) and “Some Things That Glitter” and “We Believe” (written by May). These songs struck me as worthy of addition to the Queen canon, or at least as good candidates for inclusion. Some of the other songs were let down by weak lyrics – Taylor was particularly inconsistent in this area, writing good or even great lyrics on the above songs and terrible lyrics on others – and others just didn’t make much of an impression on me, though perhaps my view of them will change when I listen to the album more (for that matter, my favorable impressions of the songs mentioned might also change on closer listening).

Queen Forever
This compilation, which came out late last year, is the most recent Queen release and the first since Made in Heaven to feature previously unreleased material recorded with Freddie Mercury. Unfortunately, the new material is limited to three songs. The rest is previously released Queen songs. While these are of course mostly very good, they are unnecessary for fans like me who have the albums already, with the possible exception of a few songs like “Lily of the Valley” which on the original albums opened or close with segue-ways to other songs, making it difficult to separate them for purposes of making mix tapes or compilations. It would have been better to have released the new material with some demos or other unreleased material, if at all possible, or perhaps as an EP. Regardless, here’s my take on the new songs.

Let Me in Your Heart Again
This song, written by Brian May, was the only song that was completely new to me. It had been previously released, but only on an album by Anita Dobson, then May’s lover and later his wife. Queen had attempted a recording for the 1984 album The Works but abandoned it, and those initial efforts served as the basis for this recording. It’s a pretty good song, though not a great one, and qualifies as an authentic Queen song, if not a classic.

Love Kills
This song was familiar to me and most fans as a Freddie Mercury solo track. Supposedly it was also considered for The Works but rejected before being released by Mercury as a solo track from the soundtrack of Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of the classic film Metropolis, and apparently all four members of the group, including Deacon, appear on it. If it had been on The Works, it would have been the first Queen song to have been co-written by someone outside the band (in this case Moroder, who wrote it with Mercury), with the only later examples being “All God’s Children” (written by Mercury and Mike Moran) and “Too Much Love Will Kill You” (written by May with Frank Musker and Elizabeth Lamers). The version on Queen Forever is much slower than the Mercury solo version. It’s a decent track, though I haven’t decided whether I like this version or the Mercury solo version better. In any event, both versions fall into the “good but not great” category.

There Must Be More to Life Than This
This track, a version of a song written and previously released by Mercury on his first solo album Mr. Bad Guy, was the most widely discussed new release on Queen Forever because it is a duet between Mercury and Michael Jackson. It was one of (supposedly) three songs Mercury and Jackson recorded together in the early 1980s, but unfortunately this was the only one May and Taylor were able to get permission to release. I’ve previously heard a pirated recording of this song with just Jackson on vocals as well as a duet version, and I’ve also heard a pirated version of the Jackson song “State of Shock” sung by Mercury and Jackson (I’ve never seen or heard any version of the third song, said to be called “Victory”). It was one of the better songs on Mr. Bad Guy, and this is a reasonably good version as well, though it’s a little hard for me to think of it as a Queen song.

Though some of the songs discussed above (including "No-one But You" and the songs from The Cosmos Rocks) only seem to marginally qualify as Queen songs, they are all pretty good and if assembled together could make a decent Queen album, though a somewhat short one. In any case, while it is probably too much to expect any more releases of unreleased material by the classic Queen lineup, I hope May and Taylor continue to make music, including perhaps some new recordings together (it might be interesting to see what they could do with Lambert, for example). The old Queen may be gone forever now, but as the song says, "the show must go on".

Whatever Gets You Thru Your Life: A Beatles Album from 1975

This is the last of my imaginary Beatles albums of the 1970s, or at least the last one that I finished. For readers who don't haven't seen any of the other albums, what I've done is taken some of the best recordings by the four solo Beatles and put them together in albums, one for each year beginning in 1970. The results are about as close as we can get to hearing what the Beatles might have released as a band if they had stayed together. I assembled this album, along with What Is Life (1970), Working Class Heroes (1971), Imagine (1972), Live and Let Die (1973), and Band on the Run (1974), quite a few years ago, and at the time, I intended to continue putting together more albums in the series, though I would have had to start spacing them out more as the four became less prolific, but I never got around to it. I hope to still do it eventually, though I would also be attempted to make a few changes to the ones I've already done. Nevertheless, while other Beatles fans would no doubt make some very different choices as far as tracks to include (and even I might do the same if I were to start again), I have to say that these albums all sound pretty good, and the best of them compare well to the albums that the Beatles actually released when they were together, proving that even though the band had broken up, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr all retained their talent.

This particular album may not at first listen seem quite the equal of most of its predecessors, as the most obvious tracks from the excellent 1973 albums that I continued to draw on for this collection had been used already, but these songs are quite good too, though they may take a bit more time to grown on the listener. As with the previous albums, I have simply pasted in the liner notes I originally wrote for the album, with a brief addition at the end.

Just after finishing this entry, I went book shopping on Barnes & Noble's and discovered that last year a book with the same premise as this album series of mine was published with the title Still the Greatest: The Essential Songs of The Beatles' Solo Careers. This is actually the second book that I know of based on this concept, the other one being Let’s Put the Beatles Back Together Again 1970-2010, which I wrote about in late 2012. I decided to get this new one to see what the author picked for his albums. Though I put together my six albums before I knew about either, it's always interesting to compare other people's choices, and their selections can serve as a reference if I get around to doing any more of these imaginary Beatles albums, though in the end I'll use my own format and pick the songs that I personally think fit best.

Whatever Gets You Thru Your Life

Let Me Roll It (McCartney/McCartney) 4:47 (1973/12/05)
The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord) (Harrison) 4:33 (1973/05/30)
Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond) (Harrison) 2:44 (1973/11/02)
I Know (I Know) (Lennon) 3:49 (1973/11/02)
Mamunia (McCartney/McCartney) 4:50 (1973/12/05)
Whatever Gets You Thru the Night (Lennon) 3:16 (1974/09/26; single 1974/09/23[US])
Hari's On Tour (Express) (Harrison) 4:40 (1974/12/09)
(It's All Down to) Goodnight Vienna (Lennon) 2:35 (1974/11/15)
Junior's Farm (McCartney/McCartney) 3:01 (1974/10/25)
Dark Horse (Harrison) 3:54 (1974/12/09)
Steel And Glass (Lennon) 4:36 (1974/09/26)
Letting Go (McCartney) 4:34 (1975/05/27)

Total Time - 47:27

Bonus Tracks: Lucille 5:57 (1974/03/31)
Stand By Me 6:04 (1974/03/31)


Let Me Roll It
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run

The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1972/10-1973/01; Released 1973/05/30
From Living In The Material World

Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)
Written by George Harrison; Performed by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr)
Guitar: George Harrison
Recorded 1973/03; Released 1973/11/02
From Ringo

I Know (I Know)
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1973/07-08; Released 1973/11/02
From Mind Games

Mamunia
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run

Whatever Gets You Thru the Night
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1974/06-07; Released 1974/09/26 [US single 1974/09/23]
From Walls And Bridges
[Note: The link is to a version with John only on vocals (i.e. without Elton John, who aside from singing played keyboards), though on my CD I used the official version with Elton.]

Hari's On Tour (Express)
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1974/10-11; Released 1974/12/09
From Dark Horse

(It's All Down to) Goodnight Vienna
Written by John Lennon; Performed by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr)
Piano: John Lennon
Recorded 1974/08; Released 1974/11/15
From Goodnight Vienna

Junior's Farm
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1974/06-08; Released 1974/10/25
Single

Dark Horse
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1974/10-11; Released 1974/12/09
From Dark Horse

Steel And Glass
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1974/06-07; Released 1974/09/26 [US single 1974/09/23]
From Walls And Bridges

Letting Go
Written by Paul McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1975/01-2; Released 1975/05/27
From Venus And Mars

Bonus Tracks:
Lucille
Written by Penniman/Collins; Performed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Friends
Guitar and Lead Vocal: John Lennon
Drums and Harmony Vocal: Paul McCartney
Recorded 1974/03/31

Stand By Me
Written by King/Leiber/Stoller; Performed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Friends
Guitar and Lead Vocal: John Lennon
Drums and Harmony Vocal: Paul McCartney
Recorded 1974/03/31

Having released (in this what-if imaginary world) two albums in 1973, the Beatles might have followed it up with this album, entitled Whatever Gets You Thru Your Life, in early 1975. The title comes from the lyrics of "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", which in the real world appeared on John's Walls And Bridges album and featured Elton John on keyboards and harmony vocals. It was also released as a single, resulting in a bet between John and Elton. Elton, convinced of the song's commercial potential, bet John that it would hit number one. John didn't think it would, and agreed to appear on stage with Elton if he lost the bet. The result was John's last ever live concert appearance a few months later. One of the other Lennon tracks on this album is "I Know (I Know)", from Mind Games, and the other, from Walls And Bridges, is "Steel And Glass", which is apparently about Allen Klein, the manager John, George and Ringo had hired over Paul's protests in 1969, but who was finally dropped by them in 1973.

Paul, though overall the most prolific of the four, was the only one to not release an album in 1974, having released Band On The Run at the end of 1973. The first of his contributions, "Let Me Roll It", is another track from Band On The Run and seemed a good choice to open this album. The second, the typically catchy "Junior's Farm", was released as a single in 1974, and the final track, "Letting Go", is a solid album track from Wings' 1975 album Venus And Mars (more tracks from this album will appear on the next "Beatles" album, as will more from John's Walls And Bridges).

The first track from George is the wordily titled "The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)", a bluesy rocker with some cool guitar from Living In The Material World. The instrumental "Hari's On Tour (Express)" and "Dark Horse" are both from his 1974 album, also called Dark Horse. Unfortunately this album was marred by George's serious case of laryngitis, which is apparent on the title track. However, despite the obvious strain in his voice, the song is a good one.

George also wrote one of the two songs Ringo sings on this album, "Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)", which like the Ringo songs on the previous two sets comes from Ringo. In fact I didn't originally intend to include any songs from that album here, but as Brent said this was one of his favorite tracks and it's also quite short, I decided to squeeze it in. "Goodnight Vienna", written by John, is the title track to Ringo's 1974 album, which followed the same formula as Ringo, though this time George and Paul weren't involved.

Finally, there are the two bonus tracks, "Lucille" and "Stand By Me". [Addendum: These are from a jam that took place in LA in 1974 at John's beach house. Paul was visiting and the two of them started playing, along with other musicians present such as Stevie Wonder. It seems that most of those involved were not entirely sober, and the jams were often rather aimless. These two tracks are the most listenable, and while far from spectacular musically they are of great historical interest as being the last recordings of John and Paul playing together, and the only ones made in the 1970s.]

My Five Favorite Eagles Songs

Having recently watched the first half of "History of the Eagles", I thought I'd post a list of my five favorite Eagles songs, with the caveat that I haven't heard any of their albums other than Hotel California and The Long Run in their entirety (and it's been many years since I heard the latter - not that most of the album tracks on that one were much good anyway). Three of the following songs are from Hotel California, but I know I'm not alone in considering that the peak of their career (also I lean to rock over country, and Hotel California is much more rock than the band's earlier material). I won't be delving into whether Glenn Frey and Don Henley were (or are) arrogant jerks or who was at fault for all the fights in the band. I will note that regardless of his personality, Henley strikes me as the most talented member of the group, both as a singer and a lyricist (he also has some of the best solo material), while Joe Walsh is definitely the coolest. Also, at the very least Henley and Frey do support many good causes. Whether they treated bandmates like Don Felder as well as they should have is another question.

Hotel California – With music by Don Felder and a melody and lyrics by Don Henley and Glenn Frey (the lyrics are mostly by Henley, I believe), this is of course the Eagles’ most famous song and their crowning achievement. The music and lyrics are great, as are the solos by Felder and Joe Walsh at the end. The song is no doubt overplayed on classic rock radio, but since I haven’t listened to classic rock radio in many years, that’s not an issue for me.

The Last Resort – Though credited to both Don Henley and Glenn Frey, Frey has said it was nearly all by Henley. Henley wasn't entirely satisfied with the music, but he was justifiable proud of the lyrics. These really are great, equal to those in "Hotel California", concisely tearing apart humankind's tendency to destroy every place it goes to, while getting digs in at the concept of manifest destiny and at religion. The music, while a simple progression, works well, and Henley's singing is superb, especially at the end. It really is, as Frey called it, "Henley's opus".

Take It to the Limit – This song was written by bassist Randy Meisner with Frey and Henley, and Meisner sang lead. It was the band's biggest hit up to that time, and deservedly so, with a great chorus and nice vocals from Meisner.

Life in the Fast Lane – This song was based on a riff by guitarist Joe Walsh and finished up by Frey and Henley. One of the Eagles' hardest rocking songs, and a good example of what Walsh brought to the band.

One of These Nights – This song by Henley and Frey is another showcase for Don Henley's vocals, and has a great melody.

Other favorites by the Eagles, in no particular order: I Can’t Tell You Why, Witchy Woman, Take It Easy, James Dean, Pretty Maids All in a Row, The Long Run, Already Gone, Get Over It, Seven Bridges Road