Not necessarily apropos to the nth degree, but, nevertheless, I am embedding this video in honor of the memory of Vaclav Havel, whose nonfiction writings I have just discovered and about whom I will have more to say later. For now let it suffice to say that the essay I am examining these days like an MRI scanner appears in a cheap edition printed on thirsty pulp paper that begs for marginalia to be inscribed by my genuine Fisher bullet Space Pen.
Now, as to the featured tune, and this particular performance of it, the following:
I've always loved it. My brain originally perceived it as being off-kilter in a way I couldn't explain. First, there's that George rhythm guitar riff that filled the radio like an anthem, but more closely resembled the random tones and percussive, lurching rhythms of a pinball machine to my delicate ears. Then, there's that part---repeatedly---that sounds like a ritardando-slash-meltdown, which is in all cases slapped aside by an abrupt return to the Harrison riff with Ringo bashing his tubs. And finally, there are the words: a song that has nothing to do with girls or whatever that other mysterious stuff was that they were singing about when I was in 7th grade (such as "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine"). This was just a song about a guy who wanted to write paperback books like the ones I used to like to smell at the drugstore news stand next to the comic book racks. (Like
About 25 years ago the concert from which this clip was extracted was issued by some obscure Italian label which, if memory serves, could get away with selling this bootleg recording at that time due to European copyright laws pertaining to live performances. I enjoyed the rawness of it, and for the first time I heard that the little "meltdown" segments were actually an ear-ptical illusion: when played live, Ringo kept the rhythm audible in the background to keep the lads together. In the studio recording, though, it just seems as if the band holds together via ESP.
Unlike some people, I'm not fazed by all the technical flaws of this recording. It is a document from early days, when the stars set up their own equipment on tour and they probably had no way of hearing themselves in their puny stage monitors over the screeching crowd and arena reverberations. But it does present Paul (fighting with his wobbly mic much of the time) phrasing the melody less "up-and-down" than on the single. It's too bad we don't have some high-quality relaxed, live performances from this era of their careers.
Paperback Writer, The Beatles (live, 2 July 1966, Budokan Hall, Tokyo, provenance of recording unknown), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.
