Taxman transcription + Poll: Who is your favorite Beatle?

Hi, Jeremy.

It worked fine for me. Thanks!

Musically, I like Paul the best, John was the funniest. Ringo and George were the earth and the water balancing the fire and the air. I can think of a lot of reasons to choose any of them but it would be a gross oversimplification.

 

My favorite is Sir Paul, because of his wonderful bass playing, and his superior musicianship.

I love George's voice, and I think that he is a much better songwriter than he is given credit for. Kinda hard toiling under that Lennon and McCartney shadow.

John. Ah, John. Wonderful singing voice. Decent musician, great co-songwriter. IMHO the stuff he wrote after the breakup was proof that he needed Paul to bounce things off of and to argue/clash with to be at his best. Without that tension, the work just wasn't as outstanding.

Ringo. Great guy, good rock drummer. Forever to live in the shadow of the other 3, because his songwriting and lead voice weren't as strong. I believe that he had more songs that charted in the USA than any of the others though, IIRC. Or maybe it was the song that charted the highest??

 

George Martin

 

Cool, Jeremy.

The solo on Taxman was by Paul, however.

 

yea, I heard it was lennon playing the bass on that song.
cool bass line, I was messin around with that one today.

 

Great song.

Great album.

Great band.

My favourite Beatle is Paul cos of the bass thing, but my favourite songs are all John's. Except Here Comes The Sun King, which is George.

 

"Here comes the sun" is George's.

"Sun King" is John's.

 

He must have been feeling pretty nostalgic on his latest CD because he used mainly the Hofner.

I heard it was Harrison who played the bass line on Taxman since he and Paul switched and Paul assumed the lead guitar duties. I've also heard it argued that no one in the band could play the bass like that except Paul. Personally, I think it's Harrison who played the bass on Taxman.

 

why has no one voted for George on the poll?

 

oh, the guilt... i guess it's kinda harsh given the current circumstances... i voted for john because his beatles stuff rocked, but so did his solo stuff (i prefer it to paul's, and ringo's "Thomas the Tank Engine" narration could have been better)...

i dunno if voting for george out of guilt would make the situation any better, but i'll just say that i love the lot of 'em... it'll be a sadder world without the rock'n'rollers



simon a

 

I don't know if I could really pick one Beatle - it's like picking your favourite child.

Oh, and one interesting little Beatle fact that I picked up from the anthology book - Paul McCartney has never owned a Fender bass, as he still feels in a funny way as if he can't afford one. How, err, intruiging.

 

they wrote my favorite song of all times (in terms of lyrics) "with in and with out you" when i heard that the first time i could actualy feel my mind expand.

 

I caught the Beatle bug early on. When I was entering my early teens, I hadn't yet developed a musical taste, mostly because I had very little musical exposure. My first album was Kiss' Creatures of the night which I got because all my friends were into Iron Maiden, Motorhead and the like. Then Michael Jackson's Thriller came out and it was a little better, but I got into it because of Break dancing That was the first time I saw Paul McCartney's name ("The girl is mine" was the track). Finally, a Beatles compilation was released in the brazilian market. It was a reissue of "A collection of Beatles oldies" repackaged For some reason I asked for it as a birthday present or something. The first track was "She loves you", the second one was "We can work it out". By the third track ("Help"), the game was over. I was hooked. I've been a Beatle fan half my life.

I've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside, oh yeah...

Sorry, I got carried away.

I've got a feeling Paul only played piano on that track. Bass duties, AFAIK were handled by John, who played a Fender bass VI. I read an article somewhere, probably GP, where they say that the Beatles pretty much used stock, off-the-shelf instruments their entire career. Gretsches, Hofners, Epiphone (pre Gibson, of course) and Ludwig were the instruments they favored. Later, George also owned a Telecaster. The weirdest thing about the Beatles is that apparently Paul never played a Fender bass. If he did, I'm sure there's be a record somewhere. It seems Paul favors neck-through body basses, although he's not that much of a gearhead. I read in an interview that when asked "what kind of strings do you use?", he replied "Long, shiny ones".

Nah, not a baseball watcher, I. Didn't know Macca was one either.

Will

 

Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, the British prime minister and leader of the opposition at the time respectively. See, I know my pointless Beatle trivia too!

 

You must be thinking of I'm Only Sleeping from the same album, Revolver. I don't think the guitar solo for Taxman was looped backwards.