Great Moments in Rock and Roll

My 10-year-old God daughter Catherine, sitting in the back seat of the car, listening to her mother's iPod:

"Mommy, what's a working class hero?"

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Florent

Florent is closing, so we went there last night.

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IRS Spam

I know that we are all getting pretty savvy about ridiculous phishing emails, but just as a public service, I am posting this recent one that apparently a lot of people fall for. I have to hand it to the authors, it's clever.


In case there is any confusion: This is not real. The IRS will never contact you via email, even if you e-file. And you don't have to fill out any forms to get your rebate (or your refund), other than filing your taxes.

Click here if you want to report some IRS spam of your own.

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Late 1970

My sister and I have been working on a project. What if the Beatles had not gotten a divorce in 1970? What if they still loved each other and got couples counseling instead? (just NOT Primal Therapy) What would those albums have sounded like?

This wasn't as easy as it sounds. While 1970 and 71 found our boys churning out music like a busy jukebox, later years found them further and further out of sync. The other problem is, even from the very start, the albums were produced very differently. Finding the right balance and transitions took some work.

There were logistical problems on our end as well. For one, in general. I'm not a big Paul fan, although when I do like something of his, I really love it. So this required my rethinking my feelings about his music and buying a bunch of his songs off iTunes. And speaking of iTunes, all of my George Harrison albums are on vinyl, so when  iTunes finally put his (and John's) catalogs up it was very helpful. Now, if they would just put Dark Horse and Extra Texture up, I could do a 1972 list.

Anyway, we decided we should put some thought into what the boys would allow each other to get away with. "Cold Turkey" did not make our list because this was a song Paul had rejected for a Beatles album. So I originally started this play list with Working Class Hero, until my sister pointed out that a Beatles album probably wouldn't start with a song that uses the F word... twice**.  Chances are John's lyrics might have been altered for a Beatles album--you know, couples counseling does encourage compromise--but not wanting to second guess the past too much, I changed the song order.

So here are the play lists we came up with for 1970 and 1971, for those of you who 1) care and 2) are familiar with at least some of these songs. This would have seen the boys putting out back to back double albums, but this whole thing requires us to extend our sense of disbelief, anyway.

1970 (Thinking it should be titled "Early 1970"..either that or something weird like Scrambled Eggs, or No We Don't Hate Each Other Vol. 1.)
It's So Hard
My Sweet Lord
Maybe I'm Amazed
Remember
What Is Life
Instant Karma!
Every Night
Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)
Mother
The Back Seat of My Car
I Found Out
Isn't It A Pity
That Would Be Something*
Working Class Hero**
Early 1970
Run Of The Mill
Isolation
Oo You
*my sister and I both agreed that this song, very pretty but very repetitive, might have benefited with some input from John

**The night John was murdered, WPIX FM, which was the "Lite" music station, played Working Class Hero in it's entirety, i.e, not censored. I always wondered if they just weren't familiar with the song, or hadn't heard it in so long they forgot, or, less likely, decided to take a chance that the FCC wouldn't bust them considering the circumstances. I kind of picture them scrambling to find a John Lennon album, finding "Plastic Ono Band" from their old library of albums (from when they were a real station), dusting it off, and throwing it on the turntable. "Oh, God, did he just say 'F*ck'? Oh GOD, did he just say it AGAIN?"

1971 (Another Dollar, or No We Don't Hate Each Other Vol. 2)
Imagine
Another Day
Apple Scruffs
Jealous Guy
Oh Woman, Oh Why
Let It Down
I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama
It Don't Come Easy
Monkberry Moon Delight
Gimme Some Truth
Art Of Dying
Oh Yoko!
Dear Boy
Awaiting On You All
Too Many People
Crippled Inside
All Things Must Pass

Still working on 1972, 1973, 1974-76 (this is where things get quite a bit out of sync), then 1980-81. Will keep you all (excuse the blog pun) posted.

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