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A question for those old enough to remember when "Eleanor Rigby" came out

#61
pklima said:
Did the strings cause it to be perceived as a throwback to pre-rock instrumentation?

What I mean is, rock replaced/rebelled against/rejected earlier music traditions, and basically stopped using string and horn sections (though the occasional sax would still be used I suppose). Did "whoa, strings" make it seem like the Beatles are suddenly doing the music your parents or grandparents used to listen to, or was it not like that at all?
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I received that "Revolver" LP on my 16th birthday day in August 1966. That entire album was full of different sounding songs. The strings were a bit unusual because we really didn't hear strings played like that in Rock 'n Roll. If it had been a piano playing those notes, nobody would have thought twice about it. But it was strings!

In the chorus you have violins playing staccato while more violins are playing a very legato piece over it. And then you had the lyrics about a woman taking care of the pastor of a church who is living in a rectory that she maintains. Definitely different sound and far different lyrics than their recordings only a year earlier. I think the lyrics were particularly catchy as they told the store of an underappreciated woman spending her life taking care of the priests in the rectory and never really being seen by them or the parishioners. Nobody wrote stuff like that before in Top 40 music.

I had a Catholic upbringing and had been an altar boy in grade school so it all struck a note with me. It was much different than my experience though because, in our parish, the rectory caretakers were well known and also active in church events - not at all like the unknown, unrecognized, and invisible Eleanor Rigby.

Lots of different songs on Revolver. "Got to Get You Into My Life" used horns, also in a symphonic manner. That LP just had a lot of different types of songs on it.
 
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#62
matante said:
'Eleanor Rigby' is from 1966 and that Bach concert was from 1969. More to your point though, other bands were using strings before Eleanor Rigby. Someone mentioned the Beach Boys, Motown, and even the Beatles on an earlier song.

As much as I like the Beatles I think their reputation as experimenters is overblown. The real experiments in music were being done, as usual, by people who weren't famous. For example, we have all this experimental electronic music from people like Delia Derbyshire that would never get onto US radio in those days.

What the Beatles did was experiment within the framework of conventional pop music and expose the masses to that.
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George Martin had already dipped into experimental studio sounds before he met the Beatles. There were pioneering British engineers who were getting into all sorts of experimental recordings like reversing sounds and using odds and ends to create interesting recordings. They were never likely to gain much traction but when the Beatles started to use some of these ideas they were presenting them to the mainstream. Hence the general listening public thought it was they who invented the methods.
 
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#64
matante said:
'Eleanor Rigby' is from 1966 and that Bach concert was from 1969. More to your point though, other bands were using strings before Eleanor Rigby. Someone mentioned the Beach Boys, Motown, and even the Beatles on an earlier song.

As much as I like the Beatles I think their reputation as experimenters is overblown. The real experiments in music were being done, as usual, by people who weren't famous. For example, we have all this experimental electronic music from people like Delia Derbyshire that would never get onto US radio in those days.

What the Beatles did was experiment within the framework of conventional pop music and expose the masses to that.
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You're right, but the fact that they were pretty handy songwriters, that progressed from album to album in double quick time, had two distinctly different lead singers and a couple of descent backup vocalists for harmonies, helped. For seven years, they held center stage, set the pace and had albums that were eagerly waited for, like the word from above. They were not my favorite band in the 60's (I was eleven when they hit in 63), but I was growing into a teenager, in London England at the time, so they were a huge part of my high school years, because they were for everyone in my age group back then. They probably produced over a hundred songs over those years, that just about any band, singer, or songwriter, back then would have given their eye teeth to have penned. The first two records I ever bought were The Animals, House of the Rising Sun and the Beatles first EP. We didn't have a record player at home, but I rushed strait to a friends house, because they had one. His parents were not impressed. Heck, it was wonderful to be eleven years old then!
 
#65
Rather than "throw back" it was thought of more as "look at how the Beatles are pushing the envelope." Plenty of pop songs used strings as background, but I can't think of an earlier song in rock n roll that was nothing BUT strings. It was revolutionary at the time.

The other radical element of Eleanor Rigby was the lyrics. A pop song about despair, social isolation, and death. And not "my boyfriend died in a motorcycle accident" cheese.

"Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door." "Writing the words to sermon that no-one will hear." "Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave."

I mean, c'mon. This from a band that two years prior was singing "I wanna hold your hand."

Incredible.
 
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#67
pklima said:
....What I mean is, rock replaced/rebelled against/rejected earlier music traditions, and basically stopped using string and horn sections ....
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No, I think that's also an incorrect analysis. Rock was a naturally evolving and inclusively fusing musical genre, and strings and horns continued to be included by many groups. I remember going to see the "Fabulous Flippers" in the mid-60's who did top-40 rock covers with a marvelous stage show including an excellent brass section.

 
#68
Not like that at all. For me the brilliance and uniqueness of the composition (Eleonore Rigby) was front and center. The strings were a choice of the arranger. Strings were nothing taboo, nothing to be avoided at all costs. Even with the strings, there was room to interpret teenage angst. The West Banks "Just walk away Renee" comes to mind.
 
#70
Not old enough to remember the release but I was around shortly thereafter. My first record I bought was Johnny Cash live at Folsom, the second was Lady Madonna. Eleanor Rigby was on the radio at the time. Cruising the California highways in my mom’s Mustang listening to the music of the day was mind-blowing to a kid. I remember being drawn to the beautiful stings, percussive rhythm and the strong melody. I started playing cello around that time and I’m sure this song had something to do with it. Kids don’t analyze, just wonder. All the sounds around me were spectacular, consoling and awe-inspiring. The myriad of feelings created by these incredible songs. Lady Madonna simply blew me away, just the sounds, the quality of the recording, the horns, the profession and force of it. I guess you’d have to be a teenager at the time to actually reject it. Luckily I was a tiny kid, a little sponge, free and unfettered in an era of greatness on the radio.
 
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#71
AGCurry said:
No, I had no thought at all of its being a "throwback." It was such a powerful record - THAT'S what I remember. I remember being in a car in Bartlesville, Oklahoma the first time I heard it. I almost cried.
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What happened is bands started to do more using the studio to create great records even though they could not replicate it live. Procol Harum used strings and then the Moody Blues and Deep Purple played with an orchestra
 
#72
wiscoaster said:
No, I think that's also an incorrect analysis. Rock was a naturally evolving and inclusively fusing musical genre, and strings and horns continued to be included by many groups. I remember going to see the "Fabulous Flippers" in the mid-60's who did top-40 rock covers with a marvelous stage show including an excellent brass section.

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Eleanor Rigby isn't a rock song.
 
#75
pklima said:
Did the strings cause it to be perceived as a throwback to pre-rock instrumentation?

What I mean is, rock replaced/rebelled against/rejected earlier music traditions, and basically stopped using string and horn sections (though the occasional sax would still be used I suppose). Did "whoa, strings" make it seem like the Beatles are suddenly doing the music your parents or grandparents used to listen to, or was it not like that at all?
Click to expand...

My memory is that these kinds of changes occur gradually over years; no one decides, flips a switch, and changes the industry over night. And even when popular trends aggregate enough to become noticeable, we live in a very diverse world in which such trends come and go daily without most people ever noticing.

Living through these kinds of changes in the moment is a much different experience than drawing conclusions after the fact.
 
#76
Durham52 said:
You're right, but the fact that they were pretty handy songwriters, that progressed from album to album in double quick time, had two distinctly different lead singers and a couple of descent backup vocalists for harmonies, helped. For seven years, they held center stage, set the pace and had albums that were eagerly waited for, like the word from above. They were not my favorite band in the 60's (I was eleven when they hit in 63), but I was growing into a teenager, in London England at the time, so they were a huge part of my high school years, because they were for everyone in my age group back then. They probably produced over a hundred songs over those years, that just about any band, singer, or songwriter, back then would have given their eye teeth to have penned. The first two records I ever bought were The Animals, House of the Rising Sun and the Beatles first EP. We didn't have a record player at home, but I rushed strait to a friends house, because they had one. His parents were not impressed. Heck, it was wonderful to be eleven years old then!
Click to expand...
I wasn't questioning their quality or their creativity. If one wants to call them the best band ever I won't argue with that. I was saying that truly experimental music was going on at the time and the Beatles weren't a part of that. They benefited from some experimental techniques and made pop songs with hooks and catchy melodies, not experimental music.
wiscoaster said:
Well, I don't know how you define "rock" :rolleyes: (suspect a pretty narrow personal definition) - but it was most certainly "Billboard" top-40 rock radio genre.
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Think about that song with the exact same recording, notes, instrumentation, but Frank Sinatra singing it. Is it rock?

The only reason you say rock is because you know who recorded it. It's pop, not rock. Not all pop is rock.
 
#77
pklima said:
Did the strings cause it to be perceived as a throwback to pre-rock instrumentation?

What I mean is, rock replaced/rebelled against/rejected earlier music traditions, and basically stopped using string and horn sections (though the occasional sax would still be used I suppose). Did "whoa, strings" make it seem like the Beatles are suddenly doing the music your parents or grandparents used to listen to, or was it not like that at all?
Click to expand...


Not at all. 'Yesterday' was the first tune they did with strings anyway, beating Eleanor Rigby by a year.
 
#78
matante said:
I wasn't questioning their quality or their creativity. If one wants to call them the best band ever I won't argue with that. I was saying that truly experimental music was going on at the time and the Beatles weren't a part of that. They benefited from some experimental techniques and made pop songs with hooks and catchy melodies, not experimental music.

Think about that song with the exact same recording, notes, instrumentation, but Frank Sinatra singing it. Is it rock?

The only reason you say rock is because you know who recorded it. It's pop, not rock. Not all pop is rock.
Click to expand...

I guess there might be disagreement as to what qualifies as experimental. The Beatles weren't doing free jazz or tone rows or pure electronica, or whatever, but they did put out music that was a substantial departure from anything heard before. Again, Strawberry Fields was unique and novel, as was I Am the Walrus, another Lennon contribution. Or some of Harrison's east/west fusions. And getting back to Eleanor Rigby, nothing sounded like that, with its aggressive double string quartet driving a melodious and thought provoking vocal. All this done in COLLABORATION with their producers, engineers, etc. Sorry, in my view much of that counts as experimental. It doesn't have to be not popular to be experimental, imo. It darn sure wasn't by the book.
 
#80
matante said:
I wasn't questioning their quality or their creativity. If one wants to call them the best band ever I won't argue with that. I was saying that truly experimental music was going on at the time and the Beatles weren't a part of that. They benefited from some experimental techniques and made pop songs with hooks and catchy melodies, not experimental music.
Click to expand...
Explain why you think they weren't experimenting? I'm not sure I follow. They were doing things in popular music that had not been done before, including groundbreaking recording techniques. What's your definition of "experimental music" here?

I feel like this is in a box. I knew people in the 60's and 70's who thought "electronic music" was just synthesized sounds and that's not right at all. It feels like you're using "experimental" in the same way.
 

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