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My Beatles Favorites, Part IV

Yeah, I know. I’m slacking. Here’s another 5 Beatles songs that I love too much to ever really discuss reasonably, but insist on analyzing even though I have a lot of other stuff I should be doing. 20 down, 25 to go!

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“Got to Get You Into My Life”

Album: Revolver

“Got to Get You Into My Life” is a boisterous track, featuring an atypically prominent horn section, remarkably little guitar, and an organ. The trumpets and saxophones are just a bit too energetic to be considered soul. Instead they allow the song to convey the same giddy sentiment as its lyrics.

On the surface, the song is about a guy who starts over and beings to look at his life in a different light by changing the way he lives. Along the way he falls in love at first sight. He decides immediately that the girl must be his.

His devotion is at once naïve and romantic. His declarations of “say we’ll be together everyday” and “you were meant to be near me” would be creepy but for the earnestness and simplicity with which they’re sung. As of yet, it appears that his love is unrequited, but there is no despair in the song. He’s purely hopeful that he’ll get her into his life.

More interesting are the lines “If I am true I’ll never leave and if I do I know they way there.” The conditions he proposes are quite contradictory. If he’s true he won’t ever leave her, but what if he isn’t? And even though he’ll never leave, if he does, he will come back. It seems he doesn’t understand his own feelings but is still desperate to act on them, and he sees himself potentially being unfaithful, but as someone who will always return in the end.

And then there’s the fact that I remember reading something about how this song was just about pot. I guess that works too.

“Happiness Is a Warm Gun”

Album: The Beatles

If there is one track that belongs on the masterfully disjointed White Album, it’s probably “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.” The song consists of five distinctly different pieces with their own musical and lyrical style, strung seamlessly together.

The first part is backed by a slow, calm guitar piece, played one climbing note at a time as Lennon mentions a girl. Almost immediately begin the sounds of short, stabbing guitar chords, followed by a series of powerfully evocative, yet confusing, unrhymed verse.

While lines such as the woman being “well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand” is almost overtly sexual, the rest of the lines perhaps need a bit more decoding.

From my understanding, the line about “the man in the crowd with the multi-colored mirrors on his hobnail boots” is a reference to an actual man who would wear mirrored boots to soccer games to look up women’s skirts, and the man “lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime” refers to another who would put prosthetic hands on shop counters while he used his real ones to stuff things in his pockets and the shopkeepers wouldn’t notice. And the line about “donat[ing] to the national trust” is apparently about public defecation. In about eight lines of song, Lennon covers a number of taboo subjects completely unsuspected.

Next, a buzzing guitar foreshadows the lyrics “I need a fix ‘cause I’m going down.” There’s no masking this blatant drug reference, but almost before they can even sink in, the listener is bombarded with the cryptic repeated line “mother superior jumped the gun.” Not even my wacky conjecture gives any precise meaning to what this may mean. It’s back with even more distortion, and guitar notes that climb, and then descend, and then climb yet again.

The song ends with a distorted doo-wop call and answer. The title of the song comes from a magazine cover. It struck Lennon as bizarre because it basically meant that happiness meant shooting something. It’s especially eerie considering his murder.

Given that the rest of the song is all over the place, it’s not a stretch to say that the “bang bang, shoot shoot” is not just the sound of a gun, but also possibly a reference to shooting up heroin, or even a sexual one. Lennon’s raspy spoken shout of “when I feel my finger on your trigger, don’t you know nobody can do me no harm” supports the last.

But more important than understanding what the hell Lennon was talking about is just enjoying the song… but I guess if you read this than it’s too late for you now.

“Helter Skelter”

Album: The Beatles

“Helter Skelter” can best be described as a very successful attempt at giving some of the harder 60’s bands a run for their money. Here, Paul gives his most powerful vocal performance over loud, buzzy guitars, repeated bending guitar notes, and almost equestrian-sounding percussion.

Before I wrote this, I had no idea that a helter skelter is a British term for a slide at a fair. More commonly it summons the idea of chaos, which is represented well by the song’s general sound of crashing percussion, distinctive guitar sound, sound effects reminiscent of wild animals, and  John and George’s choiry backing vocals.

On different levels the song might be about a slide, or the fall of the Roman empire, or sex. It’s fraught with false ends, which just adds to the chaos of the song. Apparently the whole band got really keyed up during the recording of the song. George allegedly set an ashtray on fire and ran around holding it above his head. But it’s the sound of Ringo’s drumsticks hitting the ground and his exasperated “I got blisters on my fingers!” at the song’s end that are probably what got this track onto my list of favorites.

“Here Comes the Sun”

Album: Abbey Road

FINALLY I’m getting to the George songs on my list. Considering that he’s my favorite Beatle he’s been sadly underrepresented in my list so far. Rest assured that this is only because I feel that his best songs don’t come until later in the alphabet.

“Here Comes the Sun” was one of many songs that proved that George could write as well as John or Paul. I feel like the Lennon/McCartney repertoire was always bettered by the intense brotherhood and rivalry between John and Paul, who would always push each other to be better and always seek to one-up the other. George was always kind of on his own, but eventually his talents began to rival those of the group’s more celebrated writers.

The song goes straight into the chorus à la “She Loves You” and “Can’t Buy Me Love,” a Beatles technique that had all but been abandoned at this point. Immediately the pretty acoustic guitar riff, later accompanied with synthesizer, sets the straightforwardly cheery tone of the rest of the song, which is simply about realizing that things are changing for the better and embracing it.

And while George would never really infiltrate the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team, he did befriend and become very close to Eric Clapton. This is pertinent to this song in particular because George wrote it in Clapton’s garden on one of Clapton’s acoustic guitars.

“I Need You”

Album: Help!

After George’s first song to make the cut, “Don’t Bother Me,” it was quite a while before his next solo songwriting credit. During that hiatus he must have been doing something right, because his track on Help!, “I Need You,” shows a very apparent improvement, both lyrically and musically, that mirrors the changes that Paul and John were making on their songs.

In this song about unrequited love and wanting a loved one to return after a breakup, the lyrics are simple but relatable. In his desperation he views the situation as something that’s impossible to cope with unless he gets his girl back. In his lonely desperation he pleads with her, expecting her to accept his invitation back into his life.

In typical Beatles fashion, the music does a great job of playing precisely to the sentiment of the lyrics. The sharp pairs of guitar chords at the end of each line are almost discordant and nearly off-time, but not quite, so that they’re striking but not ugly. They seem almost the sonification of the singer’s desperation and heartache.

Oh, and the song has a cowbell. You can never go wrong with cowbell.

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If you enjoyed this, please check out the previous entries…

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Recipe for Disaster? Most Likely. CHOCOLATE BACON CAKE

I haven’t actually made this. Yet. I’m working off of recipes I’ve found and I plan on trying it. As soon as I do, I’ll let you guys know how it went. (Probably not well.)

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups sifted flour
• I ¼ teaspoons baking soda
• 2/3 cup shortening
• 1 teaspoon salt
• I ¼ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 scalded milk
• ½ lb. of bacon (or you know, however much bacon you want)

Frosting:

• 2 ¾ cups powdered sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 5 tablespoons evaporated milk
• 6 tablespoons butter (Try taking it out of the fridge before you start baking so that it softens at room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons Bacon Salt (or add to taste… yes this recipe calls for Bacon Salt because it is AWESOME.)

Making It! :

First, fry up your bacon, preferably to a crispy texture for this recipe. When it’s done, crumble it and set it aside. (The side of your bacon bits is up to you, just be mindful that it’s going in your cake mixture.)

Line the bottom of two greased cake pans with wax paper, then grease the paper. Sift the cocoa powder with 1/3 cup of sugar, pouring the milk in gradually, and stir until it’s blended well. Set this aside to cool.

Now sift together the flour, the other cup of sugar, and the salt and baking soda. Add the shortening and half of the cocoa mixture you made earlier. Beat the mixture. Now add the eggs, the vanilla, and the rest of your cocoa. Beat that for another two minutes before adding in your crumbled bacon. Try to get it evenly spread out in the cakes before  you pour it into your greased pans.

Now bake it at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes. When it’s done, let it cool for 5 minutes before you take the cakes out of the pans. Let them cool while you make the choco-bacon frosting!

Mix the cocoa and powdered sugar in a medium sized bowl and set that aside. In a larger bowl, cut your butter into inch-size pieces and mix them with a spoon until they’re smooth, gradually mixing in your sugar/cocoa mixture and the evaporated milk. Blend in vanilla and then add your Bacon Salt (probably best to do this to taste.) Beat the mixture until it’s light and fluffy, adding milk and sugar if you need to for the right consistency.

Make sure the cakes are cooled before you stack and frost them. Hopefully they’ll be chockful of Bacon-chocolately goodness.

(Check out http://iheartbaconsalt.com/ if you love Bacon Salt too)

My Beatles Favorites, Part III

It’s been nearly a month since my last Beatles post. Ahhhh I’m really lagging. Anyway, here’s another of my 5 favorite Beatles tracks, and why. 15 tracks down, 30 to go.

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“Drive My Car”
Album: Rubber Soul

Laden with innuendo and bristling with the sound that would later be identified with the whole of 60’s rock, “Drive My Car” begins Rubber Soul with a little taste of the musical change that was only beginning to taking place. The Beatles themselves highly regarded Rubber Soul as “the pot album” (no pun intended), which may account for the slightly augmented lyrical as well as musical creativity. They didn’t smoke in the studio (because it made them way too giggly to get anything done) but the influence is readily apparent throughout the album.

The song starts with a guitar lick distinctive from nearly anything the Beatles had done before. Then the verses kick in, with one of McCartney’s rawer vocals telling the story of an aspiring actress who feigns a search for a chauffeur in order to find… well, a driver of a different kind. The verses are also backed by a lively cowbell (the most beloved livestock-related percussive instrument of all time).

And don’t forget the “beep beep ‘n beep beep, yeah!” that sometimes follows the chorus. It’s extremely hooky, even after we learn that the song isn’t really about a car. It’s also just fun to shout out loud when no one expects it.

“Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey”
Album: The Beatles

Loosely based on a saying frequently used by the maharishi whilst The Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in India, “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey” is the longest Beatles title ever. It’s anyone’s guess to whom or what the “and my monkey” refers, seeing as it wasn’t a part of the original adage, but it does well to suggest the frantic energy of the lead guitar that dominates the song.

It begins with three escalating guitar notes repeated over handclaps. The lyrics are nearly shouted over the backing handbell. John almost sounds like an excited kid who really wants to show you something. He shouts “take it easy” in a voice that suggests that he’s coaxing not just a listener but himself. Lennon said that the song was written about an especially paranoid period of the Beatles’ lives, at which point John felt like the only one of them who had a handle on things. The others argued that he was just as paranoid as the rest of them, if not more so. The song seems to convey this discrepancy between what John thought and what he felt.

The double lead guitars in the verses allow the guitar sound to be at once lazy and frenetic, which is again all too appropriate for the message that the song conveys. The ditty also came packaged with a semi-discreet drug endorsement in “the higher you fly the deeper you go,” which leads some to believe that Lennon’s “monkey” was really heroin (to which he was addicted at the time.) Whatever the song really meant to John, is lost on me, but the little energetic riff that ends each chorus more than makes up for that.

“For No One”
Album: Revolver

“For No One” is the lyrical antithesis of “She Loves You.” In this instance of McCartney as the middleman, he’s past trying to comfort his friend and is on to essentially saying “she doesn’t love you anymore.” Whereas in “She Loves You” the story is a matter of miscommunication and reconciliation, in “For No One” the mediator steps in because, despite the fact that the jilted boyfriend knows how his ex feels about him, he refuses to accept it.

McCartney masterfully conveys this sentiment through the tone of the music, making this melancholy tune one of the highlights of Revolver. The almost jaunty piano and clavichord tune that drives the verses gives them the air of blunt straightforwardness. It sounds almost happy, but underlying that happiness is the detectable sound of distress, as if Paul is really explaining this situation to you and you’re happily in denial until he breaks the barriers down.

The chorus is the most straightforward of all. The piano melody is more complex and sounds sincerely sad, accompanying the feelings of the man in the song whose complicated emotions seem closest to the surface during the choruses. The French horn compliments the sentiment precisely, and is especially impressive because it features a note that is allegedly out of the range of said instrument.

McCartney’s lyricism is especially excellent here as well. His clear and concise, yet poetic, lyricism make this one of the most emotionally evocative tracks of the Beatles catalog. “The tears cried for no one” are futile and aren’t going to make the girl love again, yet the song states that the love “should have lasted years,” as if the singer, too, is beginning to fall prey to denial. In the fourth verse the girl talks about her former lover as if he no longer exists, which told from the perspective of this third, uninvolved party is especially poignant.

The way that the song hits these emotions directly on the head may be a result of turmoil in Paul McCartney’s relationship with Jane Asher at this period. It was written as their relationship was coming to a close, and it seems nearly impossible for Paul to have written this beautiful song without drawing from everything he was feeling during that time. Like many other Beatles songs, it is relatable because he emotion channeled into the song comes from somewhere very real.

“Getting Better”
Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The upbeat positivity that characterizes “Getting Better” is apparent from the second the song begins, and is reinforced immediately with the song’s first “It’s getting better all the time!” Throughout the song, McCartney goes through a laundry list of how his life used to be bad but, now that he’s found someone to be his, his life has gotten better.

The song showcases the Paul and John dynamic of the group, with most of the song being dominated by Paul’s optimistic theme of “getting better,” and only peppered with John’s pessimistic “It can’t get no worse.”

It’s almost charming that having a new girl should have little to no correlation with how his teachers in school are treating him. Instead, this new girl seems to help him with his anger issues, making him more likely to put up with nonsense at school. Also particularly interesting are the lines about being “cruel to [his] woman” and “ke[eping] her apart from the things that she loves,” which seem to suggest that he’s still with this woman, yet he’s gotten better since he’s been with this new one. Every aspect of this guy’s life has improved since he began this affair. But he is “doing the best that [he] can,” right?

“Good Day Sunshine”
Album: Revolver

I know quite a few people who absolutely can’t stand this song. Why? It’s way too happy. But I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with “too happy” in this case. The “good day sunshine!”  repeated throughout the song just makes you feel good, even if the reasons given in the song are kind of silly.

The first verse’s “when the sun is out I’ve got something I can laugh about” seems almost ridiculous out of context. Sunshine isn’t typically enough to make a elicit a chuckle (unless you of course consider that The Beatles were from England, where the weather was typically gloomy, but even here laughter seems unwarranted).

It’s better explained a couple of lines later with “I’m in love and it’s a sunny day.” It’s really a song about new love, and how it changes the way you feel, so that even the most minute things can induce drug-like bliss. Even the fact that the sun’s heat is such that he “burns [his] feet as they touch the ground” makes him happy. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

Here, George Martin’s piano perfectly compliments the sentiment. It is the epitome of the feel-good song, and if you don’t like it you’re probably just jealous that you don’t feel this good.

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And if you missed them, check out Part I and Part II !!!

Oh Crap, Bond’s an Old Guy

“the world is not enough” was on USA today and somehow i ended up watching it. twice. somewhere along the line i was like “wow, pierce brosnan is way, way older than all of these chicks he’s seducing.” and then that turned into me turning to wikipedia to see exactly how much older. somehow that ended in me making a list of all of the bond actors and how much older they were than the bond girls. here goes.

Sean Connery

“Dr. No”
o    Honey Ryder-(+4)

“From Russia With Love”
o    Tatiana Romanova (+10)

“Goldfinger”
o    Jill Masterson (+5)
o    Tilly Masterson (+9)
o    Pussy Galore (-5 –one of only two actresses older than the bond actor at the time)

“Thunderball”
o    Domino Derval (+10)
o    Fiona Volpe (+5)
o    Patricia Fearing (+11)

“You Only Live Twice”
o    Aki (+11)
o    Kissy Suzuki (+13)
o    Ling (+6)

“Diamonds are Forever”
o    Plenty O’Toole (+14)
o    Tiffany Case (+9)

George Lazenby

“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”
o    Tracy di Vicenzo (-1 – the other older actress, and just by a year)
o    Ruby Bartlett (+6)
o    Nancy (+3)

Roger Moore

“Live and Let Die”
o    Solitaire (+22)
o    Rosie Carver (+21)

“The Man with the Golden Gun”
o    Andrea Anders (+16)
o    Mary Goodnight (+14)

“The Spy Who Loved Me”
o    Anya Amasova (+19)

“Moonraker”
o    Holly Goodhead (+18)
o    Corinne Dufour  (+22)

“For Your Eyes Only”
o    Melina Havelock (+29)
o    Bibi Dahl (+31)

“Octopussy”
o    Octopussy (+16)

“A View to a Kill”
o    Kimberley Jones (+29) (+)
o    Stacey Sutton (+26)
o    May Day (+19)

Timothy Dalton

“The Living Daylights”
o    Kara Milovy (+15)

“Licence to Kill”
o    Pam Bouvier (+14)
o    Lupe Lamora (+21)

Pierce Brosnan

“GoldenEye”
o    Natalya Simonova (+17)
o    Xenia Onatopp (+12)

“Tomorrow Never Dies”
o    Wai Lin (+10)
o    Paris Carver (+12)

“The World Is Not Enough”
o    Elektra King (+14)
o    Molly Warmflash (+9)
o    Christmas Jones (+17)

“Die Another Day”
o    Jinx (+14)
o    Miranda Frost (+25)

Daniel Craig

“Casino Royale”
o    Solange Dimitrios (+10)
o    Vesper Lynd (+12)

“Quantum of Solace”
o    Camille (+12)
o    Strawberry Fields (+17)

so on average, the bond actor has been 14.7 years older than the bond girl. i believe i have way too much time on my hands.

WeekGeeks Challenge #5!

The challenge:

My response:

Rate, subscribe, and do the weekgeeks challenge yourself and post it as a response to the challenge video!

Tom Riddle = Pete Campbell

re: @alexwolinetz

if you watch Mad Men and you’ve seen Harry Potter 6… you’ll know what I’m talking about. i thought about it during the movie until i saw someone tweet about it… so yeah.

WeekGeeks Challenge #4

every week, WeekGeeks posts a new challenge and question to be completed by each of our five members. here’s this week’s!

and here’s my response…

please rate and subscribe and partipate if you’d like!

My Beatles Favorites, Part II

Another 5 of my favorite Beatles songs… Don’t be phased by how much I revere them. Just read and try to accept my weird summer fandom.

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“A Day In the Life”
Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Best Beatles song ever? “A Day In the Life” is probably the only song I’ve ever gotten goosebumps just thinking about, and for good reason. From John’s haunting opening lines of “I read the news today, oh boy” to Paul’s jaunty middle “woke up, got out of bed” section and back, with George Martin’s brilliant instrumentation piecing the two together, every second of this song seems without flaw.

John’s inspiration for the song came from two unrelated articles from a newspaper. One affected him particularly because it concerned the fatal car accident of an acquaintance of the Beatles, which for the song was altered, perhaps more poignantly, to be a suicide.

The second story was of much less consequence; the potholes in Blackburn, Lancashire had been counted up and there were precisely four thousand of them. Still, the incident stuck in John’s head, and his abstract phraseology of the occurrence within the context of the song gives it nearly the same intellectually provocative weight as the death.

Paul’s upbeat, “woke up” middle section was written separately. It was part of a song that was going nowhere, and quite luckily eventually found its true calling in “A Day In the Life.” Not only does the song’s lively melody compliment John’s slower, sadder verses, but its mundane description of getting ready in the morning thematically adds to a song that’s really just about a day in someone’s life.

George Martin’s strengths as a composer and producer really shine here, especially considering what The Beatles always expected from him and likely took for granted. John and Paul, rather casually, asked him to orchestrate a sound like the end of the world for this track, and he delivered. Each of John’s dreamy “I’d love to turn you on”s is followed by a gorgeously jarring climax of sound that really brings the song together and makes it so cohesive.

Ridiculously enough, “A Day In the Life” was banned from radio stations when it was released because of what was thought to be a blatant marijuana reference. Paul’s remarks that he “had a smoke” and then “went into a dream” were enough to prevent the song from getting airtime, while the repeated “I’d love to turn you on,” was overlooked completely.

To precisely what John would like to turn you on isn’t explicit either, and all for the better. The ambiguity and duality of the lyrics are a big part of what make the song the masterpiece that it is.

“Day Tripper”
Album: Double A-side with “We Can Work It Out”

“Day Tripper” features one of the catchiest and most easily recognizable guitar riffs of the Beatles catalog (a riff which also serves the distinction of being the first piece of Beatles music I ever learned to play on guitar).

The real genius of the song, however, lies in the classic Beatles wordplay. I’m under the impression that, in 1965 when the song was released as a single, the title was innocuous enough that people didn’t think about it twice. Had the radio stations interpreted the title as anything more than the qualification of a girl who goes on day trips, it probably would have been banned like numerous other Beatles songs. Funny how, by the time I heard the song sometime in the 90’s, the more innocent meaning never crossed my mind and even as a little kid I immediately assumed the song was about drugs.

And then there’s the fact that the “she’s a big teaser” line was originally “she’s a prick teaser.” So is the song about a girl who’s just a druggy on the weekends, or about sexual frustration? Knowing John Lennon’s sense of humor, it’s probably just about a day tripper.

“Dear Prudence”
Album: The Beatles

With the  relatively straightforward premise of asking a girl to come out of seclusion and enjoy the day, “Dear Prudence” is a song that I’ve always loved primarily because it’s pretty. The  twangy guitar melody that begins the song and continues throughout, combined with John’s gentle vocals, seem like just the thing to buoy the girl’s spirits, and it’s as if the bouncy bass riff that comes in toward the middle of the first verse is intended to finally get her to “come out and play.” The harmonizing in the “look around” bit carries the same heartening effect.

Lennon actually wrote the song while he and the rest of The Beatles were in India learning Transcendental Meditation. Among the others who were studying under the maharishi were Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence, who after learning meditation would lock herself in her room all day and do nothing but meditate.

And even though it’s not necessarily Beatles canon, I’m a big fan of the adaptation of “Dear Prudence” in the 2007 film Across the Universe. I like to think that it’s because it was done well, and not because the scene, in which they coax a girl who happens to be a lesbian out of a closet, was really funny.

“Dig a Pony”
Album: Let It Be

“Dig a Pony” features almost completely indecipherable lyrics, and being the type of person who tends to analyze songs until they can be analyzed no more, I’ve had some help reading way farther into it these lines than anyone really should. In fact, the only clear-cut message is in the chorus declaring “all I want is you,” in which the song acts as the simplest of love songs, most likely announcing John’s love for Yoko Ono. In terms of sound, the big, fuzzy bass sounds and the country-tinged guitar compliment the sentiment and the later confusion rather nicely.

Here’s where I’m stretching it. Toward the end of The Beatles, both John and Yoko were addicted to heroin. Another name for heroin? Horse. And what do you call a young horse? Hence the song title. And I always thought that the lyric was “I dig a pony,” but listening to it now I hear “High, high high, high high, dig a pony.” The double entendre is amazing, even if the more innocent meaning doesn’t really make any sense.

The song might also make references to groupies not being particular about where he stuck it, if you catch my drift, and to the Rolling Stones merely copying everyone around them to get to where as far as they did. Or it might not.

“Don’t Pass Me By”
Album: The Beatles

There’s something about this clunky Ringo tune that I find endearing, despite the almost awkwardly labored rhythm. It was the first of only two original Ringo compositions that he did for the Beatles (the other being the better known “Octopus’s Garden”), and reportedly was mentioned in interviews as early as 1964. With the White Album not being released until 1968, it seems as if he was working on it all that time.

Given those four years to write the song, it is perhaps overproduced. The piano and drum beat by themselves sound heavy even before the sleigh bells kick in. Not only do the bells produce a sound too reminiscent of Christmastime to belong in this type of song, but they seem to  come in a little off. Ringo’s country influence is apparent in the odd fiddle that shows up partway into the song. If not bringing cohesion, it at least makes it pretty interesting.

The song’s subject matter is relatively straightforward. Ringo’s lady keeps him waiting, but he learns that she’s been in a car crash and forgives her tardiness. I always thought that “and you lost your hair” was an odd addition to the lyrics, but Wikipedia insists that it’s an old English turn of phrase for getting upset.

So what is it about “Don’t Pass Me By” that I love? Besides Ringo’s counting to eight near the middle of the song, which makes me laugh every time I hear it, I don’t exactly know.

Also feel free to check out Part I and Part II

Casino Royale- And Why I Shouldn’t Take Notes When I Read

I reread Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale recently and tried to take in-depth notes on some of the aspects I find the most interesting within the novel. I just found those notes, and realize now that what ended up happening was the equivalent of a literary drinking game, after which I ended up with an extensive list of the instances in which Bond acts out of habit (particularly those of the smoking, drinking, and womanizing variety).

Though the list is lengthy, I probably missed a few key examples, and most likely they’re not all that interesting when they’re just grouped together like this. I still think it’s worth a look anyway. But that’s probably just the Bond fan in me talking at 2:30 in the morning.

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I think this is a crucial element of James Bond that the films have been avoiding long enough. More Daniel Craig taking cold shower scenes, please.

•    “Satisfied that his room had not been searched while he was at the casino, Bond undressed and took a cold shower.” (007)

•    “After a cold shower, he sat at the writing-table in front of the window.” (022)

•    “After a cold shower, Bond walked over to the Casino.” (041)

•    “Bond walked up to his room… took a long hot bath followed by an ice-cold shower and lay down on his bed.” (050)

Before there was Mad Men, there was James Bond.

•    “Then he lit his seventieth cigarette of the day…” (007)

•    “He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street…” (022)

•    “For a while they ate in silence, then they talked of other things while the coffee was served. They smoked.” (062)

•    “He took out his wide gunmetal cigarette-case and his black laughter and placed them on the green baize at his right elbow…Bond lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair.” (066)

•    “Bond lit a cigarette and settled himself in his chair” (070)

•    “He snapped open the tiny jaws of the Ronson and lit the cigarette and put the lighter back on the table. He took a deep lungful of smoke and expelled it between his teeth with a faint hiss.” (078)

•    “Bond softly exhaled a cloud of tobacco smoke.” (086)

•    “Bond sat back and lit a cigarette.” (088)

•    “He sat down and lit a cigarette.” (095)

“ ‘You must forgive me,’ he said. ‘I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It’s very pernickety and old-maidish, really, but then when I’m working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble.” (055)

Eat

•    “Bond liked a good breakfast… He looked out at the beautiful day and consumed half a pint of iced orange juice, three scrambled eggs and bacon and a double portion of coffee without sugar.” (022)

•    “Bond shook himself, then he picked up his knife and selected the thickest of the pieces of hot toast.” (040)

•    “…the waitress arrived with the caviar, a mound of hot toast, and small dishes containing finely chopped onion and grated hard-boiled egg, the white in one fish and the yolk in another. The caviar was heaped onto their plates and they ate for a time in silence.” (058)

•    “He paused while the strawberries came and the avocado pear.” (064)

•    “The scrambled eggs came and they ate in silence.” (095)

Drink

•    “Later, as Bond was finishing his first whisky ‘on the rocks’ and was contemplating the paté de foie gras and cold langouste which the water had just laid out for him, the telephone rang.” (039)

•    “ ‘A dry martini,’ he said, ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet… Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?” (045)

•    “On a small table beside him half a bottle of Clicquot and a glass had materialized. Without asking who the benefactor was, Bond filled the glass to the brim and drank it down in two long draughts.” (088)

•    “For a few minutes they discussed the game over a bottle of champagne.” (089)

•    “He drank champagne and talked a little about the happenings of the day…” (094)

•    “He drank a lot of champagne and ordered another bottle.” (095)

•    “He called for a bill and took a last mouthful of champagne.” (095)

•    “The champagne which Bond had ordered on their arrival stood on a plated wine-cooler beside their table and Bond poured out two full glasses.” (161)

•    “When the lobster had gone and the second bottle of champagne was half-empty and they had just ladled thick cream over their fraises des bois, Vesper gave a deep sigh of contentment.” (161)

•    “When they had had their coffee and Bond was sipping his brandy, Vesper picked up her bag and stood beside him.” (163)

Ridiculous Pleasure? (Bond sure does know how to treat a lady…)

•    “And then there was this pest of a girl. He sighed. Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to look out for them and take care of them.
‘Bitch,’ said Bond, and then remembering the Muntzes, he said ‘bitch’ again more loudly and walked out of the room.” (027)

•    “Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued.” (042)

•    “This was just what he had been afraid of. These blithering women who thought they could do a man’s work. Why the hell couldn’t they stay at home and mind the pots and the pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to the men. And now for this to happen to him, just when the job had come off so beautifully. For Vesper to fall for an old trick like that and get herself snatched and probably held to ransom like some bloody heroine in a strip cartoon. The silly bitch.” (099)

•    “She kept on patching up the edifice of her deceit until Bond wanted to spank her…” (166)

•    “Can you hear me? Pass this on at once. 3030 was a double-agent working for Redland.
Yes, dammit, I said ‘was’. The bitch is dead now.” (181)

Bond always wants to spank everyone. Probably why he’s one of my heroes.