Monday, February 10, 2014

This explains so much...


Never mind that, now I finally know what a "Montelimart" is.

Not that I was ever a big fan of this song - I almost always find Harrison's songs dreary and uninspired, both musically and lyrically, except for "I Need You" and "It's All Too Much" and this one is no exception. I found "Here Comes the Sun" just OK, and apparently Eric Clapton was practically a co-composer for that one. And "While My Guitar Gently Sleeps" - so many people claim to love that and I will never ever get it. It's so droning and boring and long. With every mistake we must surely be learning. Yeah whatever, blah blah blah. I'd rather listen to "Taxman" a song about a rich guy complaining about his taxes. Absolutely riveting.

The article this image is from is 10 Very British References in Beatles Songs from the ever informative  BBCAmerica web site. I knew most of the references thanks to years of reading Beatles lore, although I don't recall hearing about "Polythene Pat." And it hardly seems fair that only John and Paul's homes are National Trust sites.

Speaking of Beatle homes, I just saw "Good Ol' Freda" about the Beatles secretary, who ran the Beatles fan club, Freda Kelly - she's name-checked in the Beatles 1963 Christmas messages as "good ol' Freda". In the movie Freda tells an amusing story of Ringo (Or "Richie" - she naturally used his real name) when he first joined the Beatles - only getting 9 fan letters. They turned this into a joke in "Hard Day's Night." There's a scene where the Beatles' fan letters are delivered to them and at first it looks as though Ringo gets none, but then his fan letters arrive and he has more than the other three Beatles.

Freda suggested to Ringo that he have his mother answer his fan mail and Ringo asked her to show his mother how to do it, and so Freda went to the house to show her and she and Ringo's mum Elsie ended up the best of friends.

There's a scene in "Good Ol' Freda" where Freda, in the present time, goes into Ringo's family home and has a look around. She knew all the Beatles' parents - George's father tried to teach her how to ballroom dance - but she was especially close to Elsie, sharing her "girlhood secrets" with her. At the end of the movie Ringo appears, expressing his appreciation for Freda.