I have been living with this in the car since Friday. Both the 5.1 and all of the out takes. I got a bit reflective!!
Spinning back to 1968, we (as kids) looked at "The Beatles" (the group and the album) in a much different way than we do today, 50 years later. Today, we hear "Honey Pie" and think, "There's Paul's granny stuff, no wonder John hated some of these tunes. How did that type of song get on a rock and roll album?", or listen to "Bungalow Bill", with Yoko's vocals, and think "No wonder the group got annoyed with John with Yoko in the studio and singing on the album". Today we hear John tunes, Paul tunes, George tunes, we complain that George got shafted by not getting "Not Guilty" and maybe "Sour Milk Sea" on the album. We hear the songs and the albums with (up to) 50 years of prior listening.
But back in 1968, the Beatles were like a mystery. They were rarely seen on TV, there was not a lot written about them, and anything that came out was a big deal to Beatles fans. When we listened to this album, we really didn't think "Paul Song", "John Song", etc. In fact, I would guess that over 50% of the listeners of this album back in 1968 could not tell John from Paul vocally. That may sound ridiculous today, but it is true. I remember getting into arguments with other kids about who was singing what!
So when songs went from "I Will" to "Why Don't We Do it in the Road" and "Wild Honey Pie", most listeners thought "Beatles songs", not individual songs. Sure, that wasn't the case, but back then - that was the illusion.
So we had this double album with beautiful melodies, loud metal sounding songs, strange sound effects, an old fashioned '20s tune, all kinds of stuff. No other artists of the time had such a wide variety of musical styles on one release. Something for everyone, along with tracks many hated. Hey, it's a double album.
But - in 1968, you pretty much HAD to listen to the entire side, so if you liked "Mother Natures Son" but hated "Yer Blues", you had to sit through both, unless you got up and moved the needle. No cassettes, and the only recordable media at the time was reel to reel, which was "reel" expensive, and not many high school kids had one.
Today, if this album came out, we'd take the tunes we like, put them on our phones, and we'd never hear the other songs again.
So, these are the things I was thinking when I was listening to the SESSIONS track today in the car. I am so glad that I filed this album away 35+ year ago and never played it all the way through in that time. Now I can take the heavy rotation without reaching for the skip button.
That's one of the problems with these 50 year old releases. They're great (hopefully), we're happy to get them (finally), but the tunes, if they were good, are etched in our brains and float around dangerously at the saturation point.
This is why I am much happier listening to "Happiness is a Warm Gun" than say, "Revolution 1" or "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da". It's not that those two are not great tunes, they've just got a lot more miles on them. Ya know?
