• 

  Nothing to do this weekend? The Trib-Star's 'BASH offers suggestions

  Community Theatre of Terre Haute’s main stage season finale opens this Friday, with the hit Broadway comedy “Social Security,” directed by Sonni Crawford.

• 

  ISU plans hearing on proposed tuition/fees increase

  Indiana State University will conduct a public hearing at 2 p.m. June 4 to receive input on a proposed 1.95 percent increase in student tuition and mandatory fees for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years.

Mark Bennett Opinion

Search Results

Close Previous Now showing: of Next

Previous Next Close

picking just one

Choosing a favorite Beatles song can be difficult. Nonetheless, these folks gave it a try:
• “I really like ‘Two of Us,’ for it’s cheery feel, and great arrangement. Paul and John seem to be happy together for those 3 minutes, during a part of the Beatles’ career when they usually weren’t.”
— John England,
Terre Haute native, leader of the Nashville band the Western Swingers
• “ ‘Penny Lane’ just makes me think about people going about their everyday lives in their hometown. ‘Here Comes the Sun’ just makes me feel good, when feeling a little down; it gives hope, like a new day.”
— Rick Waggoner,
Wabash Valley Musicians Hall of Fame
• “I guess one that sticks with me, though, is ‘Eight Days a Week.’ When I was in junior high school in New Jersey, my family went on summer vacation with a another family down to Myrtle Beach, S.C. It was a great trip, and one night, the kids (my sister and I and the two older kids in the other family) went to a dance down at the pavilion on the boardwalk. It was a night I still remember vividly, and that song was played, and all of us teenagers just sang along at the top of our lungs. ... Good times!”
— Scott Buchanan,
Director of choral activities at Indiana State University
• “I’d have to say ‘Yesterday.’ That song just transports me to a place of pure sorrow. And I love that McCartney is singing about a break-up, but only mentions the actual event in one line.”
— Roxie Randle,
Hutsonville, Ill., native and Nashville singer-songwriter
• “My favorite Beatles song is ‘In My Life.’ It’s one of those songs that really makes you think of everyone you’ve loved in your life in the past and the present. And the song has the epic piano solo [Beatles producer] George Martin performed and recorded at half-speed due to its difficulty, which they later doubled the speed to fit the actual tempo. This gave it the harpsichord-like sound, but it was played on piano.”
— Marc Rogers,
Terre Haute musician and producer, former Nashville session guitarist
• “ ‘Across the Universe.’ The melody is very compelling. It’s beautiful. When I first heard this song, it was like I had heard it many times before. Every time I hear the song again, it brings the culture of the moment I first heard it in right back to me again. I love it when that happens!”
— Justin Hoeppner,
Associate pastor, Maryland Community Church, Christian recording artist
• “It’s a toss up for me between ‘When I’m 64’ with Paul McCartney on lead vocals, and ‘Something’ with George Harrison on lead vocals. I am a lyricist, and ‘When I’m 64’ has clever lyrics, and ‘Something’ has positive love lyrics, which I always relate to, since I DJ wedding receptions.”
— Matt Luecking,
Terre Haute disc jockey
• “My favorite song is at the end of ‘Abbey Road’ entitled, interestingly enough, ‘The End.’ I like the fact that the song is a surprise. That is, you feel as if the album is over and then …  But even more, the lyrics are touching and even (for me) true: ‘And in the end, the love you take/Is equal to the love you make.’ The older I get, the truer they seem.”
— Sherry Dailey,
ISU professor emeritus
• “I’d have to say ‘Here Comes The Sun.’ I’ve always favored George Harrison’s contributions to The Beatles, especially this song because of George’s emphasis on melody and the positive outlook for the future after a long winter and some rough times with the band and Apple Records. He wrote the song in Eric Clapton’s garden, and Harrison made exquisite use of his Moog IIIp synthesizer on the song, which contrasts wonderfully with the acoustic guitar capoed at the seventh fret. Brilliant production by George Martin and now the No. 1 Beatles song downloaded from iTunes.”
— Don Arney,
Terre Haute producer, Quantum Productions studio
• “Have to admit that I’m not a huge Beatles fan. If there were any song of the Beatles that I could listen over and over to, it would have to be ‘Blackbird’ on ‘The White Album.’ It’s credited to Lennon/McCartney but it was actually written by Paul. It is a solo performance with McCartney playing a Martin D 28 acoustic guitar. The track includes recordings of a blackbird and a metronome in the background. The structure of the song is very uneven and the timing changes frequently. But for some reason, it all works and comes together (no pun intended) very well. It also has special meaning because it was written as a symbol of the struggles of the African-American during the ’60s. It’s not only a song … it’s a life lesson.”
— Doc Long,
WTHI-FM “Hi-99” DJ
“Without a doubt ‘Let it Be’! I know this sounds corny, but when I hear this song I seriously get choked up … which seldom happens! Actually, few things in this world move me to tears, but music is definitely one of those things and ‘Let it Be’ never fails to reach my soul.”
— Connie Wrin,
Owner of The Verve, Blues at the Crossroads organizer
• “ ‘For No One.’ My love of unrequited love songs most likely stems from The Beatles.”
— Jon DaCosta,
Terre Haute songwriter, musician
• “I’m going to name ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ as a perennial favorite of mine. It’s an outright, simple love song in some ways, but the melody is just haunting with enough stretches and quirks in it to make it very interesting. Compared with the production complexity of much of their other output at the time (1966), this song was even more startling and comforting because of its sheer simplicity and beauty.”
— Ted Piechocinski,
ISU music business program director
• “My favorite Beatles song is ‘Let It Be.’ Of course, all their songs have stood the test of time, but this one is about life. Paul wrote the lyrics, and I think we can all relate to what he was feeling. In all things, good and bad, there will be an answer, let it be.”
— Nate Green,
Terre Haute financial adviser, former ISU basketball standout
• “My favorite Beatles tunes are both Harrison compositions: ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ which improves my mood instantly upon hearing it; and ‘Something,’ which, at least to my ears, features one of the most beautiful, evocative guitar solos in all of rock music. It’s truly fantastic.”
— Sean McDevitt,
Evansville Courier-Press, formerly of the Tribune-Star and Guitar magazine

Related Photos

• Tribune-Star columnist Mark Bennett

  

Discussion

Welcome to our online comments feature. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including unpopular ones. We ask only that you keep the conversation civil and clean. We reserve the right to remove comments that are obscene, racist or abusive and statements that are false or unverifiable as well as posts that are attacking other users. Repeat offenders will be blocked. You may flag objectionable comments for review by a moderator.

comments powered by Disqus

December 5, 2010

MARK BENNETT: Apple peels The Beatles’ legacies down to the music

Mark Bennett The Tribune-Star The Tribune Star Sun Dec 05, 2010, 01:12 AM EST

TERRE HAUTE — It looked so minimal.

Thirteen albums. Two-hundred and 13 songs. Classic album artwork and photos. Lyrics that became part of the culture.

All reduced to a thin 6-inch by 8-inch piece of plastic.

Actually, the plastic holds little relevance. It’s simply an oversized gift card for any recordings sold by digital music retailer iTunes. At least, with a “Hey Jude” era picture of The Beatles on the card’s front, there’s some tiny, physical manifestation of their incredible body of work.

For children of the 1960s, such as myself, memories of The Beatles come in layers, with their joyful, strange and innovative music at the core. Coated around those sounds, like rings on a tree, are mental snippets of late-night arguments with friends about song meanings, news clips of their “Ed Sullivan Show” performance, videos of their unceremonious final concert on a London rooftop, where you were when you first heard “Abbey Road,” legends and fables about their breakup, and Howard Cosell’s announcement on ABC’s “Monday Night Football” that John Lennon had been shot and killed.

Beatles music has always come with baggage. Well-guarded baggage.

That’s why those iTunes gift cards seemed so slight when I spotted a cluster of them, hanging on a metal peg in Best Buy on Black Friday. The arrival, on Nov. 16, of The Beatles’ complete catalog — all 13 studio albums and 213 songs — on a digital format came with hype from Apple, owner of the iTunes online music service, calling it a day fans will “never forget.”

That’s doubtful. Even though long-running legal battles left The Beatles as one of the last holdouts to allow their profitable music to be digitally downloaded, that breakthrough day — Nov. 16, in case you’ve forgotten — will undoubtedly get lost alongside fans’ memories of the “Yellow Submarine” cartoons, Yoko and the Maharishi. The iTunes release date already is being overshadowed by an onslaught of Lennon-related films, timed to coincide with Wednesday’s 30th anniversary of his murder in New York.

Yet, there’s significant benefit to their step into 21st-century technology via iTunes.

It has the power to do what The Beatles themselves longed for — the format essentially strips away those coats of mental paint applied since the ’60s, leaving only the music for newcomers.

Sure, by downloading their entire catalog (for $149), buyers still get access to digital versions of lyric sheets, photographs and album cover art. But younger fans may not share the older generation’s fascination with such stuff. The Generation X’ers and Millennials have grown up listening to their music on iPods, Zunes and mp3 players, and have never spent an hour reading the liner notes inside Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” LP. Most kids have never unfolded a vinyl “White Album.” In fact, many got only brief exposure to the condensed visual images of albums on CD before switching to digital. They collect their favorite single songs, one by one, either through unauthorized digital filesharing or with legal purchases on services such as iTunes.

The concept of concept albums — an art form The Beatles created with 1967’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” — is fading.

“So there probably won’t be another ‘Tommy,’ ” said Glenn Gass, a music professor at Indiana University, where he teaches the history of rock and roll. “Tommy,” of course, was a 1969 double-album rock opera by The Who. Green Day’s “American Idiot,” a monster success from 2004, and various rap albums are among the few examples from the past decade of cohesive, song-by-song storytelling, Gass said. Instead, albums nowadays are simply a bundle of a dozen singles, just as they were before “Sgt. Pepper’s.”

Gass’ students and their peers typically grab digital versions of the songs they like best, by one or several artists. That’s a change from 1982, when Gass started teaching his rock history class at IU.

“The question they most often get wrong [now] is, ‘What album is this [song] from?’” he said. “And it didn’t used to be that way.”

The Beatles’ emergence on iTunes magnifies the change. As a band, Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr “worked hard to sequence [the songs on] their albums the way they wanted the songs to flow,” Gass said. The idea of a 20-year-old using a $1.29 digital download to pluck the song “Polythene Pam” from the medley on Side 2 of “Abbey Road” — a 16-minute, eight-song tour de force — may seem like heresy to a baby boomer. But such cherry picking will happen, because, as Gass said, “people just don’t listen that way” any more.

That’s a nostalgic wound. Hard as that is for aficionados such as me to accept, that shift is not necessarily a bad thing. Young listeners get to meet The Beatles just as their parents (or grandparents) did — through their songs. The Beatles stand out because of their musical skills as composers, singers, recording artists and instrumentalists. The rest is just details, layers of legends that can obscure their true uniqueness.

Without their guitars, drums and keyboards, their lives involved some unheroic circumstances. Lennon, abandoned as a child, wound up leaving his wife and child, too. McCartney did time in a Japanese jail on a drug charge. Harrison often reminded fans that he was actually a poor example of the religious person he was reputed to be. Ringo and the others argued like brothers, stopped speaking to each other for long stretches and sued one another.

Pretty ordinary … until you hear the four of them tear through “I Wanna Be Your Man” — sounding boisterous, yet tighter than steel cable.

“The music stands up,” Starr aptly told USA Today last year.

And that’s what a college kid, with ear buds plugged into her Zune, gets with a digital download of a Beatles song — time-tested, great music. She’s also making a commitment to this band from her dad’s youth, because iTunes charges more for Beatles downloads — $1.29 per song (instead of 99 cents) and $12.99 per album (rather than $9.99) — than nearly all of its other artists.

Like many of his age, the 54-year-old Gass wistfully mourns the evaporation of such experiences as sitting between two stereo speakers at 2 a.m. “with a friend beside you going, ‘Wow.’ ” But he also enthusiastically uses his iPod, enjoying its ability to retrieve a Fats Domino recording once out-of-print and unobtainable in the pre-digital era. McCartney, Gass pointed out, appreciates the technology, too, and “just likes hearing a good song.”

“I think that,” Gass added, “is a healthier attitude” than lamenting change.

A teenager who downloads “Blackbird” may miss out on the rest of “The White Album” and all of the drama that went into its making. On the other hand, with an uncluttered mind, he’ll spend 2 minutes and 19 seconds with just McCartney’s poetic message of encouragement for broken people. There’s purity in that, too.

Lennon once said The Beatles weren’t heroes; “We were four guys … We were just a band that made it very, very big. That’s all.”

Their quality of their art, the music, is the only reason the world is still listening 40 years later. The digital era reinforces that reality.



Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

Text Only | Photo Reprints

Copyright 2013 News From Terre Haute, Indiana. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Mark Bennett Opinion

• Mark Bennett: High-profile mural connects historical dots from city to river

  At 96 feet wide and 2 stories tall, the power, impact and value of the Wabash will be evident.

  May 19, 2013 2 Photos  

• MARK BENNETT: Life at face value: Mom’s simple advice still presents a valuable daily challenge

  Most moms don’t base their advice on scientific research.
  (Unless, of course, your mother is a scientific researcher. If so, carry a No. 2 pencil and take good notes.)

  May 12, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: Should I stay or should I go?

  Some have their Bill Clinton-era Cavalier packed (with the trunk bungee-ed shut), apartment cleaned (except for the fridge), and iPhone GPS locked onto the fastest route out of Terre Haute. Others are staying — until they find a better job, or because they’re starting a career here, or because this town feels like home. In each case, a new stage of life begins today.

  May 5, 2013 2 Photos 1 Story  

• College Class of '13 gets a little extra advice

  Local college grads will hear commencement speakers offer life and career advice this month. We’re offering them an extra dose here from folks who’ve found success in various vocations and regions of the nation. Many have Terre Haute roots.

  May 5, 2013 7 Photos  

• MARK BENNETT: Spirited response to a rising river

  The power within the Wabash revealed itself last week.

  April 28, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?

  Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.

  April 21, 2013 2 Photos  

• MARK BENNETT: Performing under the radar: Toiling for years behind the scenes, Terre Haute native J.T. Corenflos finally earned a splash of musical recognition

  People who diligently work to make others shine are a rare breed.

  April 14, 2013 3 Photos  

• Season of Day 2s arrives

  Calendars in Cincinnati contain one extra holiday — Opening Day, traditionally the first Monday in April.

  March 31, 2013 1 Photo  

• MARK BENNETT: Amid tragedy and chaos, the hopeful smiles of youth could not be repressed

  The image jars the viewer. On its own, the old photograph appears ordinary. Three smiling kids.

  March 24, 2013 6 Photos  

• MARK BENNETT: A century later, ‘On the Banks of the Wabash’ still rises above Indiana politics

  Music and politics share one commonality — people who like a style different from yours are nuts.

  March 17, 2013 4 Photos  

• MARK BENNETT: Digit dialing a thing of the past, but telephoning is still a numbers game

  You’ve heard of child prodigies who can play Mozart on piano or perform calculus at the age of 5.
  That wasn’t me.

  March 10, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: After years of preparation, 60 immigrants will gather in Terre Haute on March 14 to pledge their allegiance to the United States of America

  It will have been a long and difficult road, but it will be an emotional moment when they raise their right hands and begin the oath of citizenship

  March 3, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: The fall and rise of a ‘Young Titan’

  Broken. Humiliated. Discarded. Finished.
  Few of us think of Winston Churchill in such bleak terms.

  February 24, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: Trying to keep momentum of acceptance within the community a key part of Jeff Lorick’s job

  Second-graders’ eyes and minds function differently.
  They see the future unjaded. Their possibilities stand tall, not yet choked by the adult weeds of prejudice and bitterness.

  February 17, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: For Glenda Ritz, being educator, ‘not a politician’ still makes good political sense

  Educator, not a politician.
  Glenda Ritz emphasizes that distinction about herself.

  February 10, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: Falling short of the big prize will produce lessons nonetheless

  This is a day for Roman numerals.
  Americans seldom use them. And when we do, humility is not our purpose.

  February 3, 2013 1 Photo  

• MARK BENNETT: Forgotten Message: Advice from ‘The Mick’ should be remembered in wake of Lance Armstrong’s troubles

  The two comments were almost identical.

  January 27, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: A sense of Americana constant passenger as iconic Corvette motors through milestone birthday

  On my last ride at the wheel of a ’Vette, I was a wide-eyed teenager, guiding my brother’s almost-new, orange 1976 model.

  January 20, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: Sculptor from North Carolina to capture image of Indiana’s first black state legislator

  Well-meaning parents try to instill strong character in their kids.
  “Don’t be afraid to stand up for your beliefs,” moms and dads will insist, “even if you stand alone.”

  January 13, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: Heart ailments, avoidable health issues affect high numbers of Vigo residents

  Many folks in Vigo County will analyze digits on their bathroom scales this month. After all, January and fitness resolutions are traditional partners.

  January 6, 2013  

• MARK BENNETT: For some people in the Wabash Valley, happy holidays require a little help

  Picture yourself as a kid, not yet 5 years old, growing up in a small house in Terre Haute.

  December 16, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: Beware Ignorance and Want and reap the benefits of early education

  Pretend that Charles Dickens is about to become Indiana’s next governor.

  December 13, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: In spirit of season, calculate your fiscal cliff impact, then argue

  Envision “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”

  December 9, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: Members of Congress should be free to consider all sides of an issue

  Attempting to trump the U.S. Constitution requires some nerve.

  December 2, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: An unbudging Congress standing on opposing sides accomplishes little

  Sausage patties, hugging a scoop of scrambled eggs and a couple slices of toast on a plate, and chased with nearby steaming black coffee.

  November 29, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: Hoosier voters issue mandate on Bennett’s school reforms

  Mike Pence, Mitch Daniels and Indiana legislators should respect the votes of 1,315,026 Hoosiers.

  November 11, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: Elections, governing would look a lot different if everybody voted

  A raffle ticket purchase usually comes with a disclaimer — “you must be present to win.”

  November 4, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: On Election Day, as Vigo County goes, so goes the United States

  Hempstead sounds like a fine place.

  October 14, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: Upcoming PBS documentary focuses on nation’s voting irregularities, through Hoosier eyes

  As America prepares to choose its governmental leaders, voters are being relentlessly asked how much they trust elected officials.

  October 7, 2012  

• MARK BENNETT: Quest for knowledge keeps going as Elliott Gould prepares to speak in Terre Haute

  As our conversation began, Elliott Gould was in the midst of learning. He was reading a book.

  September 30, 2012 1 Photo  

• More Mark Bennett Opinion Headlines

© 2013 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. · CNHI Classified Advertising Network · CNHI News Service
Associated Press content © 2013. All rights reserved. AP content may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Our site is powered by Zope. Some parts of our site may require you to download the Flash Player Plugin.
Privacy Policy | AP News Registry privacy policy
Terms and Conditions
Advertiser Index

Events by eviesays.com

News From Terre Haute, Indiana 222 S 7th St Terre Haute, IN 47807