Mojo - The Music Magazine

Disc of the day

Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley

Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.

Disc of the day cover image

New issue

Click For CONTENTS

News

My White Album

6:00 AM GMT 28/07/2008

...NEXT

Glass Onion

Daily LSD use behind him, Lennon wakes up and smells the coffee. Surprise: it’s bitter.

Neal Casal (New Jersey songster): “It’s that classic vicious Lennon cynicism laced with surrealism, you know? He was starting to demistify The Beatles for the first time, realising what a monstrous phenomenon they’d become. I think he was completely freaked out by all that and was writing about it – a totally new kind of song really. In 1968, you could hear things turning dark, and here was Lennon signalling the end of the whole thing.

“I don’t think anyone wrote about being sick of things better than John Lennon. “Fixing a hole in the ocean?” – what a line! The ultimate pointless exercise. And “standing on the cast iron shore” – it’s the name of a stretch of the Mersey’s river bank, but it sounds even worse than that. It sounds like the grimmest place you could possibly be. Meanwhile, he’s perpetrating treachery: you can take that Strawberry Fields and bin it ‘cos I did that but I’m not sure if I believe in it any more. I’m totally pissed now and I’m unapologetic about it. Here you go, motherfuckers, this is what we’re talking about this year.

“As a musician, it’s easy to find The Beatles daunting. They came from a tough background, a hard-working band that played every night – 3, 4, 5 sets a night. I don’t think 99 per cent of bands working now can even relate to what those guys had to go through. And for them to take those experiences and turn them into what they did, and to just continually open their minds year after year, staying inspired, being inventive and constantly coming up with new ways to explore their music while still keeping an immediacy. They would open an entire universe to you in 2 and half minutes. They had it covered from the haircuts to the very last note on the very last record. No-one else has ever been that good.”

...NEXT

Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 28/07/2008

Related MOJO content:

Neal Casal , The Beatles

Comments

Comment on this post


Click here for House Rules

Comment on this post

end of body content back to top

Footer

Home

News

Features

Disc of the day

Newsletter Sign Up

Gallery

Tickets

Mojo Shop

Message Boards

Subscribe

Covers

About

Our pals:

We Like

Join us on:

  • myspace
  • youtube
  • twitter
  • facebook

© Copyright Bauer - all
rights reserved.
Reproduction of this
website, in whole or in
part, in any form or
medium without express
written permission from
Bauer is prohibited. All
use is subject to our
Terms of Use

end of footer back to top

Back to top