Is it Worth the Effort: Learning About Stuff ---Music, mostly?

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On one hand, we all have stuff we like.  On the other hand, wherever we go, there are people trying to turn us on to something different.

For instance, when I was an infant, my father used to play music to us: Bach, Kathleen Ferrier, Carols, Kreisler, Menuhin, Alfred Cortot, Artur Schnabel.  I liked all these, and so there was a foundation for learning and liking more classics and light classics.  Then my aunt got into the act, and I discovered Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and the Strauss waltzes.

I began to pick up a liking for pop music from my friends, and sixties pop, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, The Beach Boys, and sundry other groups and individual artists were pretty painlessly incorporated into my list of likes.

Similarly with literature: children's books, then The Saint, James Bond, then Jane Austen, Baroness Orczy (Scarlet Pimpernel!), Dickens, Reader's Digest Condensed Books ... P.G. Wodehouse, C.P. Snow, James Thurber, Louisa May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Alexandre Dumas, Robert Stevenson, Walter Scott, etc.

It was during one Summer that I picked up a Terry Pratchett book, and I was hooked.  I mean, I do occasionally read books by random authors, but it is very occasionally.

So now, I imagine, if we pick someone at random, they (i) probably already have types of music that they like.  (Bear in mind that the Internet, and YouTube, and TV all conspire to keep throwing new songs and music in your face.  These are all selected by how much money is being spent on them, rather than how likely the person is to actually take a liking to them.  On the other hand, commercial musicians and artists are furiously trying to come up with something that most people will like, to maximize their chances of selling it.)  So, if you have an opportunity to check out some new sort of music, is it worth the effort?

The same goes for books.  There are books you like, and authors you like.  Is it better to re-read one of your favorites, or go to the local library and browse the shelves for something new?

I should have disclosed, right at the outset, that I really have no words of wisdom for this particular puzzle.  Music, books, movies, food: the question is, should we try something new?

If you're young, I say, absolutely, you should.  You've got to get stocked up with experiences and delights to last you for years, and the same old ones are not likely to satisfy you forever.  I still enjoy watching DVDs of movies from when I was young: The Ten Commandments, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, The Court Jester, etc, etc; these are all good fun whenever I watch them (especially with any friends who might have enjoyed the same movies, or who think a movie I like is a good risk!)  So the oldies might still be goodies when you get to be a hundred, but ... take risks.  An evening wasted is, after all, only an evening.

If you're a hundred already, you know, I'd say: stay with what works.  There really is no harm going off to see Avatar with a nephew or a granddaughter, just to see what turns them on, but you should be able to take it or leave it.  With music, you might get a bigger kick out of finding less known or rare pieces by your favorite musician or composer, than exploring completely new composers or musicians.  If you're one of these high-energy, youthful grandparents, you could keep studying everything new that comes along: it keeps you young, gets you tired, and you get a good night's sleep that way.

If you're in-between, this is a big decision.  This is the busiest time of your life; can you afford to be taking time out to scope out a new line of art or entertainment?  A new author, a new recipe, a new kind of music, a new movie?  Once you get into the swing of this, you can figure out exactly how much time you want to give it.  You also become more adept at finding friends who can give you an idea whether the project is worth the effort.  (This is where friends are useful.)

If your kids recommend something, I would do it.  (Unless the kid is a complete idiot, and has terrible taste, in which case you ought to do it as penance.)  Kids are usually sharp about what their parents would like; if they're out in left field on these things, something has to be done.  I mean, is it possible to bring up a child, and that child have no clue about the person you are?

To cut a long story short, it's more a matter of what kind of things to pursue than whether to pursue them.  Sometimes, if there is a team effort, it is a little more painless; this is especially true of recipes and movies.  Even watching a total loser of a movie with a good bunch of friends can be entertaining.

Well, gotta go.  Talk to you later,

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What happens after death

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Recently, I learned that my mother requested a hymn based on Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" be sung at her death.  I had known of this poem indirectly for some time, but had never really read it in its entirety.  Tennyson's poem is a mix of his retrospective view of his life, his hopes that those he left behind would not mourn him, and his yearning for his soul to seek ---and find--- relief and comfort [and understanding] after his death.

When one gets to a certain age, it is perfectly understandable that you should look back on your life, and present it to your friends from your perspective.  Its total meaning, it seems obvious, depends on the point of view; what have you learned during the course of it?  What do you think of as its successes, and what are your regrets?  Your friends can think what they like, but you have the right to present a framework against which you wish you would be judged.

Your hopes for those you leave behind are worthy of putting on record.  Once you're gone, it could make a difference to your surviving friends and family to recall these aspirations, and in your absence, they could choose to take guidance, or encouragement, or warning from those thoughts.

As to your yearning for experiencing the infinite, for meeting your Pilot, that's a charming sentiment, but there is no pilot.  There is just a Universe that simply exists.  If you want to ascribe motives to the Universe, which is a conceit you could certainly indulge in, one imagines it must be on the lines of survival.  [There are Conservation Laws: what we observe is that matter conducts itself in such as way as to keep certain things the same: energy, mass, momentum.  This property seems to require no intervention; we non-religious types believe that it is automatic; mystics could pretend that God looks after it.]  You've done your worst; now the Universe has to try and shepherd the rest of itself along the trajectories established by circumstances beyond everyone's control.  A million fools out there are doing their darnedest to destroy the environment, a score [at least] of species have been obliterated, and the Universe stoically does nothing.  When I die, across the earth a thousand fellow-human beings die at the same time, and we only leave dust behind, in the material sense.

If something is to survive, it must be your kindness, your wisdom, your works, your memory, and your example.  You can't enjoy the survival of these, but you cannot deny their existence.

When I think of immortality, I immediately think of Johann Sebastian Bach.  He is alive today in a way in which he was never alive during his lifetime.  Thousands of people around the earth remember him with deep love and pleasure.  He undoubtedly expected to survive death in some fashion, and be united with that great, all-knowing Cantor in the sky.  Instead, he has a million human, mortal lovers, who pass on the love of his music to their children and their students and their friends.

To some, this is a poor substitute for the immortality that Bach craved in his lifetime.  But I could ask for no greater destiny than to be remembered with one hundredth the love with which Bach was remembered, for a hundredth of the length of time that he will be remembered, by one millionth of the people who remember Bach!

[Added later:

I had assumed that Tennyson, when he referred to My Pilot, was speaking of god, and inferred that he was a religious man, subscribing to the common Judaeo-Christian beliefs.  But why does he remark that he wants to meet the Pilot?  Is it (a) curiosity? (b) To express confidence in his ability to pass muster?  (c) A desire to ask for an explanation for his experiences?  One has to know a lot more than I do about Tennyson to read between the lines here, and decide which of these motives were the source of that line in the poem.  To us non-believers, however, all this curiosity is meaningless.  There are no hidden motives; we have to perceive the potential of every circumstance in which we find ourselves, and do the best we can; the best we can for ourselves, if we do not feel any external obligation, the best for all around us, if we do.]

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HOW COULD I FORGET????? Bach's Birthday!!

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Oh, I could kick myself: every year I try to celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach on March 21st, essentially the date of the Spring Equinox.  (As discussed in several earlier posts, at the time of his birth, different countries happened to be using different calendars, so his birthday was different in Germany and in Italy, for instance.  Still, during his lifetime he would have given his birthdate as March 21, so that's when I celebrate it.)

It so happened that I wrote about Karaoke on that day, which was Monday, which connects nicely with the fact that, once Bach moved to Leipzig, he used to visit the local water-hole, called Zimmermann's Cafe, at which it was customary to have an evening of chamber music.  (Many Germans are in the habit of gathering with an ---essentially fixed--- group of friends at a table in the local tavern, every week at the same time, and drinking beer, or coffee, or whatever.  In our little American city, a number of people who like to practice talking German do the same on a Friday Night at Froggie's, and I have often gone to watch them.  Of course, not knowing too much German, I talk to them in English, which throws them off their stride.)

The Zimmermann's Coffee House weekly events (usually on Tuesdays, I believe) of Bach and his sons and some of his friends, was a relaxed, non-religious gathering, in contrast to the flavor of Bach's official duties as Cantor of St Thomas's School, and three of the churches of Leipzig, for which he provided music.  Already, in his days at Cothen and at Weimar, Bach had composed a number of wonderful concertos for various instruments: oboes, flutes, and violins, principally.  Bach himself played the violin and the viola, and he has been quoted as saying that he enjoyed playing the viola especially, and being "in the middle of the harmony."

By the time the family moved to Leipzig, where Bach lived for several decades, his oldest boys were becoming adept keyboardists.  So Bach re-wrote his violin concertos for keyboards instead, possibly to enable his sons to star in them, possibly because you could get away with a smaller ensemble with keyboard concertos.  (In Baroque times, an orchestral ensemble featured a keyboard anyway, most of the time, so using the keyboard as the solo instrument killed two birds with a single keyboard.)  In addition, it appears that Zimmermann's occasionally had two harpsichords available, which enabled double-concertos.

As I have said in earlier posts, tragically only these rewritten concertos have survived, in some instances, and musicologists have had to try and reconstruct the original violin concerto from the existing harpsichord "arrangements".  The reconstructed works have often become very popular indeed, and few people realize that they are actually conjectural realizations of lost concertos which were known to have existed at one time, but have not come down to us in their original form.

A famous instance is BWV 1064.  This one has survived in a 3 harpsichord version, but it was originally (as written in Cothen, we imagine) a concerto for violin, oboe, flute and orchestra.  Christopher Hogwood gave himself the challenge of reconstructing the original triple concerto, and I first heard it on WQED in 1980, or thereabouts.

Sadly, it appears that the reconstruction for flute, violin and oboe has lost favor, and is very rare.  A reconstruction for three violins is very common, and here is one on YouTube.  I'm reluctant to upload one for fear that the performance right holder will insist that it be taken down ...

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Who controls education in the US?

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If you think about it, the utilitarian approach we take in the USA towards education has lots of unintended consequences.  On the face of it, local schools are governed by a school board.  Who populates these school boards?  It is left up to the local residents, but one would expect that, ideally, there would be wide representation from parents, a lawyer or two, some teachers, or at least a couple of members with beyond the average level of education.

Unfortunately, though, in times of economic stress, the knee-jerk reaction of any community seems to be to hand the problems over to whom?  Businessmen.  Businessmen are supposed to be adept at cutting costs and making any operation efficient.  In actual fact, businessmen are trained to encourage others to increase their spending, and meanwhile to cut their own costs.

This general reliance on business to solve all problems does not always work.  One consequence of giving a bunch of bottom-liners control over school budgets is that they tend to cut out all programs that they perceive not to have utilitarian value.  Businessmen become the ultimate arbiters of which components in the curriculum have value.

In many of the poorer districts, this means cutting out arts, music and drama.  (Somehow athletics programs survive, because businessmen are often former meatheads.)

The Government, meanwhile, encourages this bottom-line approach to education.  They insist on high performance in measurability-friendly areas such as mathematics and literacy, which local school districts interpret as requiring additional staffing in those areas, and reductions in other areas.

I am not calling for reductions in mathematics and reading budgets, but just balance among all areas.  The bloated budgets of football programs could probably do with less; football is notoriously highly expensive, for very little return.  I suspect that sports such as tennis and roller-hockey require far less equipment (but I could be wrong).

I strongly believe in the value of a band program.  While playing in a band (even if the schmucks consider music boring) might not lead directly to a job, it fosters many skills and attitudes that are often helpful in many jobs and careers, skills that I do not even have names for, in addition to building concentration, a cooperative spirit, maintaining sustained interest in a project, an appreciation of the interrelatedness of things.

Luckily for everyone, in some localities, there are businessmen who have an appreciation of the arts, and who resist those who tend to consider The Arts as discretionary spending.  But these are in the minority.

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Karaoke!!

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I recently visited a young family member ---OK, it was my daughter, right?  Anyway--- it turns out that she's into Karaoke.  It so happened that, midweek, she was joined by a friend of hers, who was touring with an off-Broadway production of the musical Legally Blonde.  So all of us: the two girls, my lady friend and myself, were all dragged along to this particular Karaoke bar.

I was warned before we left my daughter's house that it was not just any Karaoke bar, it was a lesbian bar.  I wasn't sure whether it was OK for us non-lesbian types to horn in on the action there, but the kid seemed to know what she was doing, so we went.

When we got there, a little after 8:00, a young lady was belting out Oh darling! by the Beatles.  Let's face it; that was hard for Paul McCartney to sing, in the first place; this poor girl was trying her best, but the song was getting the best of her.  We got ourselves a quiet table (there were only about ten tables, altogether, with a large space in the middle, with the microphone; I suppose there was dancing on certain nights of the week) and sat down.  There was an enormous binder on the table, which I discovered contained a huge list of songs.

Soon after we had sat down, junior filled out a tiny paper form with the first song she wanted to sing, hurried around to the woman who was conducting the Karaoke program, Ann, and handed it in, and hurried back, and the two girls began earnestly studying the list.

The young lady finished Oh darling!, and Ann announced the next singer, someone named John.  The first song I remember is also from John, a whole round later, when he sang Billy Joel's Moving Out.  In the middle of the song, I was informed that John was, in fact, a woman.  Man, did she ever do a great job with Moving Out.  I could never have known he was a she.

I'm embarrassed to--- oh, wait, it was Long Train Running by the Doobie Brothers!  I had almost forgotten the song Junior opened with.  Oh man, she totally rocked that room, but let's face it: it's a great song!  Generally, there was balance between songs that particular people wanted to sing, and songs they knew the audience would enjoy.  One of the best was California Dreaming (Mamas & Papas), sung by a tall, studious-looking girl who was sitting at the bar ---in the next room--- with a gang of friends.  With that song, of course, it was more fun to sing backup than the lead, and we had a great old time singing along!  Gotta remember that one, in case I ever do it again.  Must get someone else to sing it, and sing backup!

Just as I was getting into the groove of the thing, and had suggested to Junior to sing Love Shack (by the B52s), this young lady went up to sing it, joined by a young fellow to sing the rap portion.  Of course, we all sang along with the gal.  She sang some 5 or 6 songs throughout the evening, and was a fun person to watch and to listen to.  We were seated where we could see the words on the monitor ---as my readers must know, Karaoke is a music-minus-one system, combined with a display that shows the words; you sing along to the music, following the bouncing ball, or some equivalent of it--- and I learned the words to some songs for the very first time.  Just the titles to some of the songs she sang were hilarious, and she did a fabulous job with every song.  (Most of the young ladies present I would not have identified as lesbians; not that it matters whether I could have.  The singers interacted with each other in a perfectly relaxed manner, though there were several distinct groups that mostly hung out among themselves, only rarely interacting with the others, except to cheer enthusiastically, or make a --usually positive-- remark about a performance.

Junior and her friend sang Alone by Heart, which was totally awesome.  Her friend had a wonderful high soprano, and together they were better than almost anyone who could have sung that song, in my humble opinion, but you realize I have only been to just one of these things, so I was easily impressed.  They also sang Shoop (Salt 'n' Pepa), with considerably less success.

Then a young fellow went up to sing a fabulous torch song, which sounded familiar.  He couldn't reach some of the notes, and he urged the audience to help him out with gestures, and they responded beautifully.  I just remembered the song: it was Unbreak my Heart by Toni Braxton.  What a talent Toni Braxton was!  A decade ago when we had TV, we watched lots of the Top Ten - type TV shows (Solid Gold, etc), and MTV, and of course Toni Braxton was huge; I haven't been paying attention to the pop music scene enough to know what happened to the gorgeous woman.

When it began to sink in that Ann's success was measured more in terms of how much alcohol was sold at the bar than in how many people got up to sing, I asked for an Irish Coffee, since the following day was St Patrick's Day.  It was brought out shortly after midnight, with green sprinkles on, after much complaint that it would take more than an hour to brew the coffee.  I wasn't about to be railroaded into drinking beer, because it messes me up, so I waited.  Ann herself came by to visit with Junior while someone else was singing (I forgot to say that Ann also sang, about 4 numbers throughout the evening, and was easily the most professional singer in the room), and kept urging the rest of us to sing.  Finally, just when she had been back for the third time, I found Can't buy me love (Beatles), and succumbed to temptation.

It was the first time I had ever sung into a microphone, and it was terrible.  I mean, I have sung into a little microphone in order to record a song for YouTube, etc.  But never to a live audience.  Oh, wait ... I have sung into a mike, back when I was, like, 19 or 20 ... I had managed to forget that little factoid ... it was Last night I had the Strangest Dream, after the Simon & Garfunkel performance on Wednesday Morning, 3 AM.

We left soon afterwards.  The girls insisted that my rendering of Can't buy me Love was adorable, but I got the impression that it was marginal.  (I was accustomed to singing it in A, but I suspect that the Karaoke version might have been in a lower key.)

I'm definitely hooked.  At some locations, I'm told, the rivalry between performers is a little oppressive, but Junior seems not to mind.  At busier places, however, it is a long wait between chances at the microphone, so the smaller venues are better for those who want to sing often throughout the evening.  Everyone cheers everyone ---except for me; only our table cheered, quite understandably--- and people are appreciative of everyone's attempts to sing.  A big meal before going in would be conducive to staying sober despite all the imbibing that goes on ... and of course, some of the performers need a drink or two to wet their whistles.

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The Boxer

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This song captures beautifully the woes of someone looking for a job, and the hostility of the big Eastern cities as seen by a vulnerable migrant from the heartland ...

Liberal Arts & The Bad Economy

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I have to admit, this is a tough call.  I don't feel qualified to express an opinion on what to do during a contracting economy (or the economy formerly described as contracting) such as we have now, since I really haven't tried to get a job recently.  But I have heard experts who are concerned with employment of young graduates speak about what qualifications are most useful when job-seeking, and the following keep cropping up (and I've written about them before, but who knows whether any of it was useful):

The ability to write.  This only applies to jobs where you're expected to write on behalf of your employer.  In addition, if you have to make a good impression on behalf of your employer, the ability to write good grammatical English becomes important.  On the other hand, for an employee of Chemlawn, just the ability to write "Needs cut and watered" is plenty.

The ability to use a computer.  Again, if you're just delivering pizza, the ability to use a cellphone is probably sufficient.  But think big.  You might move on to big Party Pizzas, and then ... the sky's the limit!

The ability to speak clearly.  Most important in any job.  You'll probably have to stick to jobs with your immediate family if you can't be understood by outsiders.  With big companies, the ability to give a good presentation on something you have prepared becomes more important.

Working with people.  People at the top don't like to deal with idiots, so the new hires become the front of any business.  You get to talk to everyone, and filter through anyone who needs to talk to the higher-ups.  This is where a liberal education comes in.

On the one hand, the more complex our society and its business becomes, the more one has to specialize.  Unfortunately, this is a two-edged sword: if you're highly specialized within a particular business, (A) it becomes harder for the company to replace you, because they have to train someone to do what you do.  On the other hand, (B) it's harder for you to find a job, because you're so accustomed to thinking in the specific ways you have been required to think at your present employment, that it's difficult to start new thought-patterns.

If you're too specialized, to begin with, e.g. graduated with a technical degree, you're already working with a disadvantage.  Liberal Arts graduates don't know a great deal about most things, but they do know a little of everything.  People like Ken Robinson seem to be saying that new specializations that no one has ever heard of are going to become increasingly important.  But when the economy turns sour, the variety of things you have been experiencing and learning suddenly become invaluable.  You used to counsel students, but you're suddenly fired, and now you're managing a warehouse.  You used to manage a department of a retail store, but suddenly you're selling make-up.  You used to sell make-up, but suddenly you're a relief school-bus driver who can't parallel park to save your life.  Don't write off any of your skills as unimportant.

A friend of mine who used to have a salaried job with a significant amount of responsibility was out of a job recently.  She wonders whether to be choosy about the jobs she takes, or go for anything.  This is the sort of choice that is hard to advise about: save yourself for that brilliant job that may come along, or take anything that pays money?

If this slump continues, it seems practical to take any job.  You can always keep looking while you're employed, and pretty soon the fact that you are employed, however humbly, may poison your resumé a lot less than having been unemployed for too long.

What about a Liberal Arts education in a good economy?

We were recently discussing the so-called general education requirement at our school.  This is the part where they insist that students take courses in a variety of subject areas, and not just in their area of specialization (or "major").  Why is this done?  Its origins may, indeed, lie in renaissance times when the idea of formal education was being invented.  Education was for the minority back then: initially the younger children of landowners and later, those of artisans and businessmen and tradesmen, who would help their families' ability to diversify; and the advantages of diversification were present back then just as they are today.  In the Industrial Age, as Robinson points out, public education was systematized and regularized, but the principle of a liberal ---i.e., a diverse--- education was retained.  At the upper level, it was impossible to enforce a common curriculum for everyone, since the natural inclinations of students would eventually lead them to concentrate on subjects that they enjoyed learning (or which their parents insisted they should learn).  But insisting on a certain variety in the curriculum had enormous advantages.  In addition to the fact that increasing complexity of life required a variety of skills, the liberal education provided a desperately needed social cohesion that offset the fragmentation of society along specialization lines.  Thus the businessmen and the engineers and the teachers had a core of experience in common, which enabled them to relate to each other (despite the different mini-cultures that develop within various trades).

Today, more than ever, this social cohesion is important.  Society is splintering now, along ideological lines.  Declining resources induce splitting in any society; the fragmentation of countries of the Third World in the 20^th Century were caused by increasing populations and decreasing incomes, which turned neighbors against each other, since they were all competing for the same jobs, and their children were competing for the same spots in schools and universities.  And we thought it couldn't happen here!  Haha.  But the situation would be much worse, if not for the fact that there is a certain amount of shared experience, at least within the middle class, and the educated segments of the working class.  We've all hated the same adverbial clauses and quadratic equations.  [Note: I have observed young people in very economically depressed areas in this country, and as of now I have not noticed any tendency to hostility between youths who are all competing for the same jobs.  On the other hand, they tend to gather together and drink, which is hardly a better thing.]

Increasingly important is cohesion within institutions of learning.  It used to be that the friends you made in college were your friends for life.  But increasingly the libertarians on campus have little to do with the social liberals.  If the requirements for a common, diverse curriculum were to be relaxed, it could be the last nail in the coffin of school identity, and more importantly, the demise of the slight social cohesion that college graduates take away with them.

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The Beatles: Let It Be

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My first opportunity to be totally overwhelmed by the Beatles was when our House won 2nd place in an inter-house drama competition, and we were allowed to go see A Hard Day's Night.  This was my first experience of not only The Beatles, but seeing this new wave of movies that were a lot darker than what I was used to.  A Hard Day's Night, of course, was shot in black-and-white by Richard Lester and co.

It so happened that I was away at boarding school, which explains why I did not have access to Beatles records; in any case, the stereo system we had at home could not possibly compare to the sound of the theater (or cinema).  I was simply blown away!  The songs that stood out for me were I should have known better, If I fell, And I love her, and I'm happy just to dance with you.

I can't remember the details of my whirlwind progress through the various stages of being a fan, but eventually I found myself in the theater (cinema) again, watching Let It Be with sadness; it was a bitter-sweet documentary of the breakup of the group.

Let It Be was a beautifully shot movie.  It is set entirely in the recording studio (which I very recently discovered was an unpleasant, cold room they had leased for Paul McCartney's project to show the group putting an album together.  You do see the musicians somewhat more heavily dressed than they would in a warmer room!)  The album let it be quite faithfully records the musical aspects of the sessions, and listening to the record brings back the images of the film for me very effectively (despite the improvements made by the infamous Phil Spector, the American record producer who was given the tapes, and asked to assemble them into an album.  Some of the production elements are widely considered to be excessive).

The album, if not the movie, opens with the song Two of us, which it turns out was a song written by Lennon and McCartney in their pre-Beatles days, or at least in the early days of the group.  (Notice that Paul is playing an acoustic guitar, while George ---the usual lead guitarist--- is playing bass.  Also notice Yoko Ono sitting next to John.)

The next song I remember is I dig a pony, which is a whimsical song sung mainly by John Lennon, and seems to epitomize the difference between Beatles songs, and songs the four musicians wrote and sang after they had split up.  In this clip, they're singing it on the Rooftop: a performance that famously caused traffic congestion on the street below.

A strange number that found its way into the album is I, me, mine, also sung either by Lennon or Harrison; I really can't tell!  (Harrison, now that I think about it).  The waltz rhythm is unusual in rock music.  It breaks into solid 12/8 for the chorus.  We also hear the distinctive sound of the electric organ played by Billy Preston, who had been invited to sit in with the band.

I seemed to have skipped over the magical and atmospheric Across the Universe by Lennon.  The version we got on the original album was heavily over-processed by Spector, but is for many the version that they remember the best.  "Words are pouring out, like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe ..."  In the album Let it be --Naked, this song was presented without the distortion introduced by Spector.  However, the choral background is missing.

The title track, Let it Be is an interesting and highly recognizable song by Paul McCartney.  In the movie, we see him at the piano, in close up, singing soulfully, gazing at the camera.  There is a little organ, a little guitar, and "Oo"s added; otherwise it's just voice and piano and percussion.  (It appears that McCartney had been drinking before this track was recorded.  These were very difficult days for the group.)

I've got a feeling is another song they dug out of their stock of songs from the old days.  This is a duet with John and Paul, and one of the last.

One after 909.  Another duet, from the early sixties (or possible even earlier).  The Wikipedia article on the album gives detailed information about which tracks from the Rooftop concert were actually used on the album, and which ones were from the studio sessions.

The Long and Winding Road.  Note that this clip is essentially the version we see in the film, rather than the the one with orchestrated overdubs added by Phil Spector.  That version is familiar since it is the one on the singles (or EPs) of the time, and the one heard most often on the radio.

A lot of McCartney's music is nostalgic, alluding to songs of the 30's and 40's that were heard in the McCartney home in his childhood.  The chord he uses are heavy on sevenths and (added) sixths, reminiscent of British music of that era.

For You Blue.  Harrison.  Lennon plays 'lap steel guitar'.

Part of the exercise of these recording sessions, the way McCartney looked at it, was to get the group playing together and having fun.  Their tastes in music had diverged over the years, but he was convinced that they could find something in common if they Got Back to their roots.  But you see, in the movie, how Paul McCartney's forceful leadership was irksome to the others, and how documenting it in film was embarrassing to them.  It is easy to see how Paul could eventually come to view it as a chronicle of his personal failure as a leader.  In retrospect, though, for those of us who were fans, we got a lot of insight into both the kind of music they had made in the early days, but more importantly, how they could not keep making that sort of music for an extended period of time.  Not that it was bad music, but that it wasn't grown up enough for all of them.

Several years later, McCartney showed up at George's home with a ukulele, and they reminisced about the good old days, and played music together.  Ringo, Paul and George were most satisfied with reaching back for their old music.  John Lennon, in his thirties, was impatient with all that.  He may have gotten to the point where it appealed to him---he had an impish sense of humor---but he died young, long before we could find out if he could relate to all that nostalgia.

Get Back.  This was the last song they performed together, in all our memories; at least the last performance filmed.  Notice Billy Preston playing the organ with great glee.

What a sad occasion, but what fantastic music!

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