- Yer Blues
Song infobox
Name = Yer Blues
Artist =The Beatles
Album =
Released =22 November 1968
track_no = 2 of disc 2
Recorded =13 August 1968
Genre =Blues-rock ,Hard rock
Length = 4:01
Writer =Lennon/McCartney
Label =Apple Records
Producer =George Martin
Tracks = Side one
#"Back in the U.S.S.R. "
#"Dear Prudence "
#"Glass Onion "
#"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da "
#"Wild Honey Pie "
#"The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill "
#"While My Guitar Gently Weeps "
#"Happiness Is a Warm Gun "Side two
#- "
Martha My Dear "
#"I'm So Tired "
#"Blackbird"
#"Piggies "
#"Rocky Raccoon "
#"Don't Pass Me By "
#"Why Don't We Do It in the Road? "
#"I Will"
#"Julia"Side three
#"Birthday"
#"Yer Blues "
#"Mother Nature's Son "
#"Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey "
#"Sexy Sadie"
#"Helter Skelter"
#"Long, Long, Long "Side four
#- "Revolution 1"
#"Honey Pie "
#"Savoy Truffle "
#"Cry Baby Cry "
#"Revolution 9 "
#"Good Night""Yer Blues" is a song byThe Beatles , the second song on the second disc of the "White Album". It was written byJohn Lennon cite book |first=David |last=Sheff |title=All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono |year=2000 |pages=1992-200 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=0-312-25464-4] cite book |first=Barry |last=Miles |authorlink=Barry Miles |title=Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now |year=1997 |pages=421,497 |publisher=Henry Holt & Company |location=New York |isbn=0-8050-5249-6] while inRishikesh ,India , and built around a basic I, IV, V chord progression with a passing bIII chord (i.e. E-A-G-B-E). Most of the song is in a slow12/8 time .Overview
Lennon apparently intended the song as a friendly parody of
British blues .Fact|date=September 2007 He said in a Rolling Stone interview that he used the humorous title as something of a defense mechanism, so that if anyone criticized the song, he could write it off as a parody. Aside from that, he claimed to be serious about the content of the song.Fact|date=February 2007 The lyrics are extremely suicidal, and include references toBob Dylan 's "Ballad of a Thin Man " as well ascosmology , and were possibly reflective of Lennon's well-documented battles with his psychological demons. The claustrophobic sound of the recording is attributable, according toMark Lewisohn 's "The Beatles Recording Sessions", to the fact that the band recorded the song in Abbey Road Studio Two's "annex", which was actually a large closet in the control room. In interviews forthe Beatles Anthology series,Ringo Starr affectionately recalls recording this song in the stripped-down conditions, saying it was like the old days of Beatles live performances. This may have been influential on the Beatles' approach to their next album project, "Get Back". The stripped-down, bluesy nature of the song bears similarity to much of Lennon's early solo output, including "Cold Turkey " and his 1970 "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band " album and marks a retreat from Lennon's concern with studio experimentation that marked such songs as "Tomorrow Never Knows " and "Strawberry Fields Forever ".The vocals in the final verse can barely be heard. The reason for this is that the verse was meant to be an instrumental verse -- what is heard are the guide vocals that John Lennon sang off-mic while the drums were being recorded; these are audible in the left channel. These guide vocals actually exist throughout the song, but most of the time they cannot be distinguished from the main vocal. The easiest time to hear them (apart from the last "instrumental" verse) is during the third verse - Lennon had obviously not quite finished writing all the vocals and when the backing track was being recorded, he shouted random phrases throughout this verse instead. Although it is easy to hear that there is a second vocal in the track, it is very difficult to discern what is being said. Using timings from the version of the song on the "The Beatles [White Album] (Disc 2)" CD, it sounds like the following phrases are said:
" [It] blacks out" (1:31), "Black cab" (1:34), "Who we are" (1:37), "crossed the road" (2:00), "Why it’s alive" (2:03)."What Goes On - The Beatles Anomalies List (http://www.pootle.demon.co.uk/wgo.htm)"] .
There is also a guide solo that can be faintly heard on the left channel while the main solo is being performed. This is again leakage into the drum microphones during the backing track recording, but because the main solo is only on the right channel, it can clearly be heard by listening to the left channel only.
Just after the "White Album" came out in late 1968, Lennon performed "Yer Blues" at "
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus " with a supergroup dubbed the Dirty Mac, consisting of himself,Eric Clapton on lead guitar,Keith Richards on bass andMitch Mitchell on drums. The performance was followed with a boogie instrumental jam called "Whole Lotta Yoko", featuring dissonant avant-garde violinistIvry Gitlis and vocals byYoko Ono . The recording was never broadcast, and for decades the performance was only available on bootleg, but it finally came out officially on both CD and video in 1996. Lennon's performance with "The Dirty Mac" was his first live performance since the Beatles' last concert in 1966 and may have contributed to his renewed enthusiasm for live performance in 1969 (see "Give Peace a Chance " and "Live Peace in Toronto ").References
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