Happy or Sad

[beatlesquia]

This book Twilight of the Gods says that despite the Beatles music being so melodious etc, he cant help thinking there is an undertone of sadness to it.
As for me, I think it's joyous and full of life, except on Abbey Road , where only George seems to be the happy one.

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[bearkat77]

Haven't seen that book, but I'm going to move this topic to the Paperback Writer forum and close it here.

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[SF4-EVER]

I think you may have a point, beatlesquia (except for Abbey Road, since I don't think George is the only happy one on that album). When do you think the sadness crept in? The first couple of albums sound happy to me, but "If I Fell" on A Hard Day's Night has an element of sadness to it. Also, does it seem to you that John's songs are sadder than Paul's? That's my impression, and it makes sense, given all the losses John suffered when he was young.

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[Lucy]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By SF4-EVER:
When do you think the sadness crept in? The first couple of albums sound happy to me, but "If I Fell" on A Hard Day's Night has an element of sadness to it. Also, does it seem to you that John's songs are sadder than Paul's?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If you look at Please Please Me there is "Misery" screaming sorrow in your face...I mean the title alone says it all and there it is on their first album!!
I agree that John's songs are sadder than Paul's. All that auto-biographical stuff and everything in songs like "I'm A Loser" is so depressing - it makes great music though!!


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[Rellevart]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By SF4-EVER:
Also, does it seem to you that John's songs are sadder than Paul's?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Umm....maybe John has a higher percentage of sad songs than Paul, but I think some of Paul's are incredibly sad...."For No One" just kills me, for example.

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Hey, don't you know that I'm....always going back in time....

[beatlebangs1964]

"If I Fell," a John ballad gets to me every time. It was the very first song that I ever found moving. It is sad and beautiful. It really is.

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Then we will remember things we said today. Yeah.
-- Beatles, 1964

BB1964

[Lucy]

I was thinking...another early one from Please Please Me is "There's A Place" and that is soooooooo sad!!!! I think the sad ones did start early on.

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[bearkat77]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By beatlesquia:
Bearkat, sorry if i put the topic in the wrong place, I wanted to talk about the songs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm sorry, beatlesquia. When you mentioned a book, I thought that was what you wanted to talk about, so I moved it. Since you actually want to discuss songs, we can get it moved back.

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[beatlesquia]

Bearkat, sorry if i put the topic in the wrong place, I wanted to talk about the songs.
S4ever, ur right some of Paul's songs are very sad, but there is so much peace in them. Look at mother nature's son and I Will, I think is amazingly beautiful.

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[jtal909]

Early rock and roll songs were pretty much exclusively about love lost (sad), or love gained (happy). Bob Dylan opened the doors for other lyrical content.
With the Beatles, John was the more introspective and Paul the more whimsical. I'm not so sure that I would classify If I Fell for example as sad. I always thought of it as a love song with a beautiful melody which in itself made me feel good about it.

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[This Message Has Been Edited By jtal909 On August 11, 2001 07:33 AM]

[SF4-EVER]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By Lucy:
If you look at Please Please Me there is "Misery" screaming sorrow in your face...I mean the title alone says it all and there it is on their first album!!
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I completely forgot about "Misery," Lucy! Oops! Maybe that's because they always sounded to me as if they were singing it tongue-in-cheek. It's funny how sometimes the Beatles can take what you think would be a sad song, like "Help!" or "I'm Down," and sing it with so much energy you pay more attention to the energy than the lyrics. Also, John is shown in the Anthology video as saying that the image of the Beatles as cheeky moptops prevented people from seeing how unhappy he was when he sang "Help!"

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Author of "Move Over Ms. L." and the sequel "To Thine Own Self Be True,"
hosted at www.rooftopsessions.com (http://www.rooftopsessions.com)