“Sgt. Pepper” is called the first concept album, but it doesn’t go anywhere. All my contributions to the album have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of Sgt. Pepper and his band; but it works ’cause we “said” it worked.
Beatles Quotes
On the “Pepper” stuff, I got into the more melodic bass lines. In fact, some of the best-paced bass playing I ever did was at that time.
Boomers can be tiresome when they natter on too long about the fun-swollen fabulousness of the 1960s. I mean, I was there: ‘Flower power’? Patchouli oil? Peter Max posters? Please. But even the mistiest of such geezers is likely to be right about the rock and soul music of that decade: Who could overstate its […]
I was quite interested in America – I still write about the different aspects of America – and to me, something was slipping away, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on how to express it. I was sitting up in this little house where I lived, and I just started to write this first […]
They would play (a song) in every kind of feel they could think of that would more or less suit that song. They would do it faster and slower and in 3/4 and 4/4 and 6/8. They’d try a whole bunch of things, drifting in and out of these with a lot of craziness in […]
It (-Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) was like throwing down a hat in the center of a ring, it was a tremendous challenge… It seemed like an almost insurmountable task to come up with anything even in the same ballpark.
I was really surprised when after we had finished that album (Let It Be) Paul came to me and said, ‘Let’s get back and record like we used to–would you produce an album like you used to?’ ‘Well, if you’d allow me to, I will.’ And that’s how we made “Abbey Road” It wasn’t quite […]
I love the second side of “Abbey Road”, where it’s all connected and disconnected. No one wanted to finish those songs, so we put them all together and it worked. I think that piece of that album is some of our finest work.
The idea for “Let It Be” was a brilliant one, and I think it was Paul’s. The original idea was that we should record an album of new material and rehearse it, then perform it before a live audience for the very first time–on record and film. In other words, make a live album of […]
Of course I’m ambitious. What’s wrong with that? Otherwise you sleep all day.
