Tag Archives: 60s

Alice’s Restaurant

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If you haven’t ever listened to or haven’t recently listened to Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant, I suggest  make yourself a coffee, sit down and listen to it.

While I owned the record, I hadn’t listened to it for many years until it just appeared on a Spotify playlist I selected. Within a fraction of a second of it starting I knew exactly that it was Alice’s Restaurant and more scarily I  knew every word just as though I’d only heard it the day before. It had been a regular at our Friday night singalongs in the 70s.

I thankfully was too young to be in the Vietnam Draft but knew many who were either in the Conscription ballots or were called up to serve in Vietnam, so its significance is one I understood all too well.

As the song progressed I stopped what I was doing to listen again as I ‘d done so many times before, first chuckling internally and then just laughing out aloud. And there was plenty of time to do this as its more than 18 minutes long! Too long to fit on a 45 it filled  the whole of a side on an LP (Released 1967). It’s hilarious while at the same time having a pretty hard edge.

If you haven’t listened to it and want too click on the link – Alice’s Restaurant before reading on as there are spoilers below. Continue reading →

The Beatles – Boxed Set and a Book

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A few nights ago I was lying in bed listening to Overnights on the ABC and was captivated by Rod Qunin’s interview with Mark Lewisohn the author of a new Beatles biography, The Beatles: Tune In. I lay there completely captivated by the story of the group that like so many others had introduced me to music.

The book is the first part of a trilogy and it’s a healthy 980 pages as I found out when I went into Dymocks to buy it. I accompanied that purchase with the digitally remastered boxed set of The Beatles fourteen album set. Whilst I already owned many of the albums on CD and vinyl, I didn’t have them all, so the purchase was at least partially based on logic!

Abbey Road was the first LP I ever bought. I remember purchasing it with money given to me by my grandparents, who seemed not so much horrified that I was buying a Beatles record but that it cost $5.20. It must have been in late 1969 or early 1970. That started a love affair with music and The Beatles.

I am only a few pages into the book and enjoying learning about their family background and formative years. So many insights.

Walking to work, at work, the gym and at home, I have listened to The Beatles all week focussing on the early years. The joy of it. I started with Please Please Me a couple of listens and then onto With The Beatles, and Beatles For Sale, an album I always realise is better than I remembered. From there it was A Hard Days Night and Help. I’m just loving it.

When I started this post I didn’t plan to write about the individual songs thinking my focus would be on the the complete album. Well at least that was what I was thinking until Yesterday. It’s true classic, in its own way euphoric. Through a week’s listening to these early albums over and over again, enjoying each and everyone of them, Yesterday stands apart.

The Beatles music in this period seems simple and not at all pretentious. Hit after Hit, Love Song after Love Song. A collection of amazing songs driven off the back of the modern era’s greatest writing partnership Lennon and McCartney.

Whether next week is a progression to Rubber Soul and beyond remains an open question. For now it’s back to Help.