I have no idea whether this is part of the Beatles’ original recording of “For No One“, a song written by McCartney that was on the Beatles’ best album, “Revolver”. But hearing it again, I once again realize that no group in the last several decades has even come close to the consistent quality and yet the variability of the Beatles’ oeuvre.
The French horn solo, which repeats itself when McCartney sings the last stanza, really makes this song. The player was Alan Civil. If this is part of the original recording (I’m sure the horn was suggested by producer George Martin), then there were multiple tracks, as Wikipedia notes that on the LP recording, Macca was responsible for “vocals, bass guitar, piano, [and] clavichord.” Besides Civil’s playing, Ringo did percussion on the recording. And yes, you can hear the keyboards on the original recording.
If you say that there are songs as good as this being produced right now as pop or rock music, well, I won’t comment, but GET OFF MY LAWN!
For a longer and somewhat countrified version, Emmylou Harris’s cover ain’t bad.
Just watched the terrific documentary series, “McCartney” on Hulu. It’s a series of one-on-one conversations between McCartney and music producer Rick Rubin. They really talk about the music. Very entertaining, I thought, and insightful. Highly recommend.
It’s actually called “McCartney 3,2,1” and it is superb. The fact that these one-on-one conversations occur in a single room with a bunch of multitrack source tapes going through a mixing board, interspersed with film clips, really makes it. The Beatles’ songwriting often seems like magic so it was especially interesting to hear McCartney tell us what he was thinking when he wrote or performed some lick.
I think that use of the French horn comes from/is related to a film score that Macca did for a film called “The Family Way”
The Beatles stand alone in the pop/rock universe. It’s amazing to realize they were together (counting from when Ringo joined) from 1962 through 1970 (though they stopped recording together as a band in 1969). So seven years of making music that changed the world. No group or artist has come close to matching their brilliance. There will never be another Beatles.
This video comes from “Give My Regards to Broad Street,” a not-good feature film from 1984. “For No One” is one of my favorite Beatles songs (though my favorite McCartney-led Beatles song is “Penny Lane”).
As for Jerry’s challenge about other great pop songs of relatively recent vintage, try “Poor Fractured Atlas” by Elvis Costello (who has written a few songs with McCartney) from 1996. I think this is a gorgeous song (great lyrics, which are provided in this YouTube video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaE_nJdnUhM
That is interesting.
The best description of contemporary music(?) that I have come across is “tuneless abuse”.
My favourite Paul song. The Beatles and the Beach Boys were building the pyramids. Today it’s pretty much all pre-fab cottages. There are some exceptions but not many.
Joe Pernice is an exception. Here’s one of my favorite “jangle pop” songs from The Pernice Brothers’ 2019 album, Spread the Feeling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-1XXGgyNCw
I really like that, thanks for sharing! Sounds kind of Byrds like in the harmonies. You may alos like Death Cab For Cutie, Built to Spill, Avi Buffalo, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Badly Drawn Boy, The Shins, Band of Horses, to name but a few. And if you want a good protest punk song, The Paranoyds’ “Carnage Bargain” is the best song about Trump’s election from 2019.
One of the sublime gems from The Beatles.
The melody does exactly what it needs to do with the given rhythmic pulse – repeats, upwards – pleading – then gives up. We know exactly what is being expressed. It develops a bit, then it does no more – it says all it needs to say, and with clarity. McCartney puts himself right there in the room with the listener. Nothing extra or unnecessary. That is what the greatest music in existence always does.
I had forgotten the title and when I heard the first note a wave of neurotransmitters (I guess) went through my chest and shoulders.
This is such a moving and powerful song. I remember my (now-ex) wife hadn’t really been familiar with the Beatles, weirdly enough, but she played cello and loved Broadway music, didn’t have a lot of interest in popular music. But she heard this when I was playing the Revolver CD in our car and she was blown away. I love how it opens and closes so abruptly…perhaps a deliberate reflection of the nature of the relationship described in the song, who knows? It’s even hard for me to sing along with as it tends to make me choke up.
Yes. Your comment about choking up is the same for me. “She’s Leaving Home” does that to me as well.
It is also amazing to see their progression in music over the years, from a contemporary (though brilliant) beginning, then they become ever more different and mature and experimental over time.
On any album, any one song sounds so different from the next.
Yes, a fantastic, probably under-appreciated song. What you say about the Beatles is dead on, though this song is purely McCartney. I do not believe the other three were involved in any way (maybe Ringo, but certainly not John or George). Thanks for getting me to listen to it again!
Two things: First, that video shows Paul looking about a decade older than he was in 1966. I don’t know what that’s from but it’s not contemporaneous. Also the lead vocal melody seems to have drifted or evolved in a way songs do when performed over time. But who knows?
Second, the French horn was Paul’s idea. And by all accounts he drove Alan Civil to the brink of madness in the studio. Civil didn’t like the song and ended up liking it’s composer even less.
According to this article, Paul & Ringo are the only Beatles on the song. The article tells how the song was written and recorded.
https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/for-no-one/
I pretty much grew up with the Beatles, and they influenced my musical taste to a large degree; but if you talk to Paul, he’ll probably tell you there’s a ton of good music being made nowadays. Just turn off the radio, where you only hear the music they use to sell Monster Truck Shows and whatever else they put in commercials these days. My dad hated the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and wanted me to listen to the happy strings on CBC-FM, or the Ray Conniff Singers. And as far as he was concerned, music died with Glenn Miller.
Music is always changing and evolving, if it didn’t we’d still be pounding bones on logs. Good music, as the Beatles’ was, was built on music from the past.
There’s music on the internet, in the vinyl record stores. That is, if you’re interested and don’t want to be like my dad.
I’m presuming that Alan Civil got paid all of £27.10s – the Musicians Union’s standard recording session rate back then – matching the payment made to trumpeter David Mason for his similar instrument-defying performance on the piccolo trumpet on “Penny Lane”.
As I mentioned below the line recently, Raphael Ravenscroft earned exactly the same amount (albeit decimalised as £27.50) for his saxophone contribution to Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”. He somewhat understandably felt his work was undervalued, given that Rafferty was earning £80,000 a year in royalties from that song alone.
Good point. Not just the music industry – the whole world is filled with examples of that kind of “Mathew Effect” unfortunately.
D.A.
NYC https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
Way I see it, picking the best Beatles’ album is kinda like picking the best Kubrick movie. There are essentially five contenders for the title (in order of release date): Rubber Soul, Revolver, Pepper’s, The White Album and Abbey Road. You can argue which one’s best until you’re blue in the face — same way, among Kubrick fans, you’ve got your Strangelove people, your 2001 people, your Clockwork Orange people, your Barry Lyndon people, and your Shining people. Some might even argue for Lolita or Full Metal Jacket — just as a few Beatles’ fans might make the case for one of lad’s early Sixties’ releases, say Meet the Beatles!, or (the poor godforsaken souls) for the last released before their break-up, Let It Be.
Bizarrely, my best friend – we grew up in the same tiny village in Kent and have birthdays exactly one month apart – did some post-production work on Full.Metal Jacket and has an autographed copy of the vinyl soundtrack album. (But regardless, not my favourite Kubrick film…)
I love Full Metal Jacket and, despite my initial disappointment, after several viewings I’ve come to a deep appreciation of Stanley’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut. But I don’t think either is peak Kubrick.
Revolver is in the top three with Abbey Road and Sergeant Pepper. The White Album would be up there but includes too many songs of lesser quality (by the standards of the Beatles) and Revolution 9.
However, Revolver is arguably the most important album because it marks the transition of the Beatles from a really good pop music band to genuinely great artists. It’s also the album that showed pop music in general can be art.
Oh, I think that’s an entirely defensible position. I’d argue that the initial tremors foreshadowing the tectonic shift to come could be felt on Rubber Soul and that the full quake came with Pepper’s (even though, on some days, Revolver is my favorite album).
I love some of the songs on the White Album, too. Was a time when I listened to that album a lot — I mean, maybe not as much as Charlie Manson did, but a lot.
But, hey, that’s what keeps these discussions forever young.
Agree about the White Album (esp. Revolution 9). I seem to be an exceotion, but I never liked Sergeant Pepper as much as the other top albums (I find She’s leaving home a tad too saccharine, for one.)
I would add ‘Let it be’ (the album) to your list of contenders.
I found 2001 a weak film, from the ridiculous ape ballet at the start (clearly dressed up humans), learning to kill (as if that is a new skill), reminiscent of the Genesis story, from a ridiculous monolith to a disease on the moon that is so contagious it mandates radio silence
Does it spread via radio waves? Or what? And then the Hall computer, a rehash of Frankenstein’s monster or the original ‘robot’, (Karel Capec). His worst film hands down.
Give me dr Strangelove any day.
+1 Though 2001 was a beautiful film, I found the story confusing and silly. After seeing the movie, I tried the book but it didn’t help much.
2001 was far from my favorite Kubrick film. But it has its diehard fans; that was my only point.
Fear not PCC (E): Nobody in their right mind, and certainly nobody in these comments sections, is going to dispute the primacy of the Beatles. Sensible people just laugh and walk out of the room if anybody seriously tries to compare today’s music to the Beatles. (For No One is one of my favorites).
In shit canning today’s music and lionizing the 60s however many people fall for the “survivorship bias” – I’m betting there was a LOT of crap floating around the 60s, but it has all been forgotten.
Not in this case though… today’s music IS shit and what got out of the 60s alive is excellent. I hope I’m around in 20-30 years to see what “survived” THIS era.
D.A.
NYC https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
Amy Winehouse, for one, will stand the test of time I’d suggest.
I usually point out : an important factor to understanding these glaring discrepancies between modern *popular* music and that of past eras is the audience and where it is.
Today, the audience has earphones in while walking around, taking trains, cabs, walking on the street, staked out in front of a screen doing work, etc.- in effect, they are damn busy. Or they are at a rave or dance club or Coachella or something. Or movies, also more personalized, and an unlimited availability of all this media.
Perhaps The Cavern or Summer Jam was essentially a rave, but listening to music was akin to a special religious experience – obtaining the LP, retiring to one’s room, reading the liner notes – in effect, taking it in. Movies were a rarity too. I’d suggest there was a reverence.
I don’t know – but I think the audience and where it is matters.
+
Who did the Beatles’ orchestrations? They were often much more interesting — i.e., using varied instruments and sounds — than most of the overly-guitared junk (my opinion) other “artists” used.
George Martin. I think he really deserves writing credits on a lot of the Beatles songs.
Well this is one of their best songs which means that there are unlikely to be many – if any – equally good songs being written now, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t writing good music. It’s a bit like arguing that all of today’s novels and plays and films are worthless because nobody has come close to Romeo and Juliet.
It is morbidly amusing to imagine a modernized version of For No One.
– about 10 times more vocals
– edgy, attitude soaked vocalizations e.g. “uh – “ “huh”, up talk, pronunciations that express disrespect, etc. (ie. rap or hip hop)
– wail on the ninth (aka “supertonic” – Andrew Huang’s youtube video last year showed this)
– horn solo edited out
– no development
– cut the melody back about a bar or two – replace with above vocals
– autotune every vocal to a grotesque proportion
– samples of an orchestra jabbing in occasionally “BWEEEN! BWEEN!”
… might be able to extend it by 30 seconds with that.
Go ahead. Book the studio time. Could be a big hit. 😉
I forgot : repeat ad nauseum.
• vocal has to sound like the singer is anaesthetized, in a grotesque version of “effortless” performance.
Imagine a time before Beatles, before Stones – Ron Carter was there with Miles in New York City : https://youtu.be/k2vqJ78VA4g
Great song, unusual imperfect cadence at the end. That horn solo is cruelly exposed, but brilliantly executed. I used to see Alan Civil in concert a lot in the 80s when he was principal horn in the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and looked like a slighly portly and jovial sea captain.
Is Revolver the Beatles’ best album? It is (for me) difficult to tell, they had so many great albums.
Are all of Macca’s best songs sad? Eleanor Rigby, Yesterday , For No One, The Long and Winding Road and even Blackbird are sad. I guess that Penny Lane is a kind of exception, although it has this pang of nostalgia, like knowing your way in a house that doesn’t exist anymore. If that interpretation is correct, it is about the saddest of them all.
There was a programme on BBC Radio 4 a couple of days ago about “sticky” songs that get lodged in the brain. One of the guests suggested that one reason why Paul McCartney wrote so many such songs is that he couldn’t write musical notation. Consequently, when a melody occurred to him and he wasn’t immediately able to work on it because he didn’t have an instrument to hand only the truly memorable ones stayed with him long enough to become actual songs. An interesting theory, anyway…!
On Hulu’s “McCartney 1,2,3” he said that they had to rely on memory because of their inability to record anything except in an expensive studio, referring to how easy it is to do now.
It sounds an interesting series – thanks!