{"id":31510,"date":"2023-11-14T20:04:21","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T01:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=31510"},"modified":"2023-11-16T13:59:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T18:59:17","slug":"thoughts-now-and-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2023\/11\/thoughts-now-and-then\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts, Now and Then"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"\"<\/a>So, eight days after its release, I finally sat down at my office PC to give the Beatles’ Now\u00a0and\u00a0Then<\/em> music video<\/a> a proper hearing\/viewing on decent speakers\/monitor.\u00a0 (I could never have delayed the gratification in 1968.)\u00a0 The first word that came to mind was maudlin — <\/em>sad and sentimental in both mood and tempo.\u00a0 Competently done, as you would expect, perhaps too much so.\u00a0 Now and Then<\/em> came across to me as Free as a Bird<\/em> overlaid with Long and Winding Road<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a>My next thought was that the video depicted John as over-the-top crazy compared to the other Beatles, as if John were Harpo Marx, appearing mainly for comic relief.\u00a0 Yes, the video included a few bits of McCartney cutting up, but by-and-large I thought the scenes with Jiggly John not only made him look foolish but undercut the mood of the song and the finality of the Beatles.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a>Wasn’t it Paul prancing down the hill<\/a> 55 years ago as The Fool on the Hill<\/em>?\u00a0 Was Paul now attempting to even the score?\u00a0 Are we to conclude it was Paul all along who took the Beatles’ music seriously and was the real innovator in the group?\u00a0 Oh, stop it, I say to my teen-fan-self.\u00a0 We all heard what we heard.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a>And, in the end, Now and Then<\/em> resides in my head as a Paul self-indulgence, which wouldn’t be his first (have a taste of Wild Honey Pie<\/a>).\u00a0 It’s a song I’ll listen to 2 or 3 more times to see if I missed something, but it just doesn’t feel like Beatles canon.\u00a0 Plus, the cover art sucks<\/a>.\u00a0 Ed Ruscha should have stuck to gas stations<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a> Speaking of sucking:\u00a0 The Beatle-powers-that-be decided to re-mix I\u00a0Am the Walrus<\/em> for the newly-reissued Blue Album, and what a mistake that<\/em> was.\u00a0 Allow me to opine (like others<\/a>) that the 2023 mix<\/a> is an abomination — it over-emphasizes the beat, obscures the elements that made the original recording artsy and distinctive, and basically makes it unlistenable for long-time fans of the song.\u00a0 Can’t believe Paul and Ringo approved this.<\/p>\r\n

I still consider the 1967 Capitol mono single<\/a> to be the definitive and most well-balanced version of I Am the Walrus<\/em>.\u00a0 If only Giles Martin and company had started with that mix and used their AI to add some separation and presence, I would have been total on board.\u00a0 Goo goo g’joob.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, eight days after its release, I finally sat down at my office PC to give the Beatles’ Now\u00a0and\u00a0Then music video a proper hearing\/viewing on decent speakers\/monitor.\u00a0 (I could never have delayed the gratification in 1968.)\u00a0 The first word that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-at-large"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31510"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31569,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31510\/revisions\/31569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}