Tennyson wrote:
The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full and clear; ...
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,
Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;
As when a mighty people rejoice...
The Long and Winding Road was the Beatles' final release in America. That makes it a very sad song.
It's a beautiful song, too sentimental for some, but tastefully done. I'm quite fond of it.
Here's a twist, for those who don't know their Beatle history: Lennon liked the Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" treatment with lavish strings and a female chorus (George Martin had refused to work with the bellicose Beatles at this point, only to return with them to glory on their actual final album Abbey Road), while McCartney hated Spector's version, and was livid. You see, Spector did his thing on the original tapes with no Beatle direction.
It's hard to understand McCartney's objection to the orchestral The Long and Winding Road. However, for those of you who have heard Let it Be Naked, McCartney's fondness for the original version does make sense. I just think both versions are good, and I'll try to get my hands on the "naked" version for the good readers of TWS.
The swan song is a literal myth, but an artistic fact. The Beatles were no more.
No comments:
Post a Comment