I Want You (She's So Heavy)

The title refers to the divisive Lennon song on the Beatles Abbey Road album. People either love it-I'm one of them-or hate it. Lyrically, there's not much to it; it being another paean to Yoko, and the three plus coda did not endear itself to many critics, but I digress.

I bring this up mostly because albums like Abbey Road were instrumental in how I learned to hear music and why I record and arrange my songs the way I do. The Beatles are acknowledged innovators in how they approached recording and arranging. You can hear their influence throughout the music of the 60's and 70's. Everyone who gushes about the sound of records from that era-I'm talking the vinyl crowd here-owe a debt of gratitude to George Martin and the Beatles!
When I listen to a song, I listen to more than the melody and lyrics. I listen to what instruments are used, how they're set up, how the signal is modified, where they are in the mix, how their panned-where you hear them left to right-and the dynamics of the production.
Abbey Road, the last Beatle album, is a recording artist's dream.
Whatever you think of the songs themselves, whether you like or dislike Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Octopus' Garden, or I want You (She's So Heavy), even Here Comes the Sun-yes, there were critics who didn't like that song, they were evocative of music the individual Beatles would produce over the course of the next two decades and yet have that Beatles sound, something that is found more on Paul's records, which point to his influence when the Beatles were in the studio.
Many people have written about the songs and arrangements so I'll leave it up to you to check that out; what I would ask is the next time you have a chance, listen to what's going on in the songs themselves. Listen for the amp hum during the breaks between the two segments of I Want You (She's So Heavy), the way the voices and guitars are continually panned back and for in Here Comes the Sun, the Moog synthesizers played throughout the record, and how prominent the drum sounds are, echoing the biggest change in rock music at the time. And listen to how all the song fragments are put together on side two and how well the medley works.

Song of the week:

No Wonder is from the Winter album, the record I'm making from a series of demos from way back (the 80's). At the time I decided that intimate love songs weren't working for me, but love and relationships are nearly impossible to ignore in this day and age, so I wanted to write about attitudes and perceptions that forever play into how we see or think relationships ought to be. The lyrics play with the idea that the singer is well aware of what everyone thinks they know about this relationship, but believes they're looking for the wrong things in it. Musically, it something of a jazzy tune based off the bass line. I wanted the song to give the impression of floating, of gliding on air.
You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce