I don’t know the answer to that question. But the most pertinent to our social life today is one is one written by their lead guitarist, the late George Harrison. It’s called “Taxman“:
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxmanShould five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxmanIf you drive a car, I’ll tax the street
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feetTaxman!
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxmanDon’t ask me what I want it for (Aahh Mr. Wilson)
If you don’t want to pay some more (Aahh Mr. Heath)
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxmanNow my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxmanAnd you’re working for no one but me
Taxman!
Do you think it’s bad now? It is bad now. Just wait, though, till Team Obama gets in power and begins to “spread the wealth” around in earnest.
“Can’t buy me luuuuuuv … ” (“but you can buy something awwwwwfully close!”, WCBS dj, Ron Lundy)
Taxman is a great song on one of the most important rock albums ever… Revolver.
Also, note that the ripping guitar solo on Taxman was played by Paul McCartney. He shows some influence from Jeff Beck’s raga rock style of the time. (Of course Beck got the idea of mixing the sitar influence from Norwegian Wood.)
i think Eleanor Rigby(the second track on Revolver) is pertinent for our time also. ” All the lonely people”
All the people who had no hope, nothing to believe in but needed a god…
all the ones that voted for Obama…..
elvis
Made me wonder how important is the most important rock album; more or less important than, say, the most important sitcom episode?
After some careful research, the order of importance is:
1 Scientific theories and applications
2 Candy bars etc.
3 The Humanities (broadly defined but excl. pop culture)
=4 Rock albums
=4 Sitcoms
5 Pornography
6 Advertising slogans
7 Cereal box literatures
8 Blogs (incl. citizen journalism, excl. pornography)
[note 1="most important"]
The fact that sitcoms and rock albums have an equal importance needs to be interpreted carefully. For example, it does not mean that the most important Beatles Album is as important as the most important episode of Friends. That would be a ridiculous comparison. The correct equivalent sitcom in that particular case is “the most important episode of Seinfeld.”
I honestly don’t think there is such a thing as a good Beatles! song. But then I also don’t believe that Obama’s poots smell like lilacs either.
The best Beatles song (ever!) is “A Day in the Life”. It is such a good song that even the Bee Gees cover is better than Beatles singing The Tax Man. That is a cold, hard, objective fact.
As for “spreading the wealth”, what wealth? President Obama will have little to work with by the time he reaches the Whitehouse. Although this, of course, is “all his fault”.
One of the, in fact the only, tiny consolation on learning about the recent surge in unemployment was the expectation of the fun to be had seeing how it would be blamed on Barak Obama. PJM did not disappoint. PJM never disappoints and never surprises. Any fact (and if the situations demands it, the opposite fact) demonstrates Obama’s unsuitability. Every action Obama takes “May Be His Biggest Mistake”.
Taste is one thing, but historical importance is much much different.
You have a clever point on the surface Roy M.; however, I know the Beatles will continue to be in most academic music history books for many years to come. I’m sure Seinfeld does not share that same weight. Therefore an album by the Beatles will probably be more significant than an episode of Seinfield
While your list, wherever you found it, is interesting to look at, it would be meaningless to music majors or someone doing research in music. It is also meaningless in the realm of Art.
Musicologists and music theorists had to concede that Sgt Peppers brought rock music into a stage of something to be listened to by 1967 or 68. Most everyone at that time had missed the significance of Revolver. It was released under the radar.
As most things that are truly important within their context, they tend to rise to the top. Revolver has been surpassing Sgt. Peppers as an artistic statement with in the genre of popular music for quite awhile now.
As far as your “cold, hard objective facts”, you sound like some of my college students.
Are you a studied musician?
The worst Beatles song (yes, I know, it isn’t a Beatles song) is “Imagine”, a mawkish, facile outpouring of cant. The hypocrisy of John Lennon’s nursery moralising (“imagine all the people living life in peace”) was exposed by his more or less contemporaneous musical diatribe against Paul McCartney, which showed what a childish, petty, spiteful little nobody Lennon was.
But you keep on coming back here, Roy M, tormented by the idea that people should have ideas that you don’t approve of. The fun to be had in this blog is reading the fretful posts of the left, who worry, deep down, that heretical ideas might lead to dancing.
Merry Christmas!
“Taxman” is an excellent example of popular song making an important political statement.
Another is The Who’s “Don’t Get Fooled Again”. After Roger Daltry’s primal scream near the end, the final lyric is “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”, but it is in the beginning of the song that the real political insight takes place.
“Revolution”, also by the Beatles also has a tongue-in-cheek “conservative” lyric.
“Declare the pennies on your eyes”
Pre-decimalisation, then, unless you’ve got very small eyes.
“The Taxman” is from “Revolver”, which is definitely the best Beatles album ever.
Elvis, I was struck by the phrase ‘important rock album’ and just played with that. Although parts of the list do approximate what I actually think.
There are probably several clever points that could be made about this kind of thing, but unfortunately I was being too flippant, and in any case am too ignorant to make them properly. The same is true in spades for the relative merits of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and Revolver.
But!
“I know what I like” and I do like A day in the Life.
Lefroy,
Well my excuse is that ideas I disagree with are more interesting, stimulating than ideas I agree with. But secretly I probably come back for the feeling of “ha ha look at the wingnuts!” at least sometimes.
I wish you a solem and holy Advent sir.
And to you too Roy M, good holidays from wingnut central.
My vote is for “Hey Jude.” Talk about sublime! But the observations here about the Revolver album are right on. It’s the best collection of songs I’ve ever heard.
i’m going with the Medley on the second side of the vinyl Abbey Road. Alternatively, virtually any cut from the White Album. Here are the boys commenting on the Medley:
JOHN 1969: “Paul and I are now working on a kind of song montage that we might do as one piece on one side. We’ve got two weeks to finish the whole thing so we’re really working at it. All the songs we’re doing sound normal to me, but probably they might sound unusual to you. There’s no ‘Revolution #9′ there, but there’s a few heavy sounds. I couldn’t pin us down to being on a heavy scene, or a commercial pop scene, or a straight tuneful scene. We’re just on whatever’s going. Just rockin’ along.”
PAUL 1969: “I think there’s not a bad track on it… and then the long one. The whole of the long one. The whole of the end bit. I think that works good.”
GEORGE 1969: “It feels very abstract to me, but it all gels and fits together. I think it’s a very good album.”
RINGO 1969: “And then it sort of slows down a bit, into ‘Golden Slumbers’ which is a nice heavy lullaby. You know, if you could sleep through it, it’d be a miricle. And then ‘Carry That Weight’ is like two bits all together, two distictly different bits. And we all sing, ‘Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight’ in unison, then those parts come in.”
JOHN 1969: “We always have tons of bits and pieces lying around. I’ve got stuff I wrote around Pepper, because you lose interest after you’ve had it for years. It was a good way of getting rid of bits of songs. In fact, George and Ringo wrote bits of it… literally in between bits and breaks. Paul would say, ‘We’ve got twelve bars here– fill it in,’ and we’d fill it in on the spot. As far as we’re concerned, this album is more ‘Beatley’ than the double (White) album.”
RINGO 1976: “The second side of Abbey Road is my favorite. I love it. ‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,’ and all those bits that weren’t songs, I mean, they were just all the bits that John and Paul had around that we roped together.”
Oh come on. Clearly it’s “Yesterday.” It’s the most covered Beatles song. And if contemporary relevance is your criteria, what other Beatles song speaks so evocatively to the demise of your 401(k)?
Best Beatles album is Rubber Soul – although I certainly agree that Revolver is the most technically accomplished. But let’s face it, Revolver don’t get no girl reaction. But Rubber Soul – Norwegian Wood, Michelle, and In My Life – those turn the lights down low.
Well yes, Yesterday is the most recorded piece of music in history the last I checked. Rubber Soul did help R and R grow up. But it is still behind Revolver as an important genre crossing piece.It did set Brian Wilson on course to do Pet Sounds. I did mention Revolver made it’s way into the world a bit under the radar….
If you actually are not worried about your taxes going up (as was Rogers real point I think)and want something for the lights to come down, try Esquivel
#10: “Pre-decimalisation, then, unless you’ve got very small eyes.”
Well, yeah. Decimalisation was 1971. Revolver was 1966. More pertinent is the fact that the top rate of tax really was nineteen shillings in the pound (95%). It scarcely seems possible today, but effectively all income above a certain level was confiscated by the State. That the long decline in Britain’s fortunes was arrested and then reversed during the Thatcher era was not unrelated to the fact that such swingeing levels of taxation were abolished. Even the catastrophically incompetent Gordon Brown has thus far overseen a rise in tax to only half that of the Wilson regime.
‘One for you, nineteen for me’ hardly reflects the tax burden of Bush’s decadent plutocracy. I was recently in Minneapolis, and driving along Hennepin Avenue uptown the otherwise rather pleasent street was blighted by the presence of ClearChannel billboards. But they patronize the right, so you absurdly blame dada and atonality for the center that cannot hold.
Norwegian Wood is best beatles song
i dont know why, but my favorite is help. maybe i find it real catchy
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