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White Album Remix- Glass Onion
Three songs have been released from the White Album remix which will be released in its entirety on November 9: Back in the USSR, Glass Onion and While My Guitar Gently Weeps. As the Twins have covered 2 of those songs, I’ll take a couple of paragraphs to give my thoughts. For those who don’t like my comparisons, read no further:
The remix of Guitar is great. It spices up the guitar and bass and George’s vocals are cleaner, less muddy. With that said, in its original form the song was already amazing and somehow with these noticeably positive improvements- the song really isn’t any better.
Glass Onion is another story. The drumming leaps out at you. The guitar, drumming, bass, vocals- it has a much more rockin feel and the remix is radically better.
There’s a story that’s told by everyone who wants to put down Ringo’s drumming that John said that Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles. The story is false- no date is ever applied to the story and John loved Ringo as a drummer, using him exclusively on the Plastic Ono Band album and was always complimentary of him.
Paul does the drumming on Back in the USSR as Ringo had temporarily quit the band. But the difference in drumming between Back in the USSR and Glass Onion- there’s a very wide gap. If anybody wants to pretend that Ringo wasn’t an excellent drummer, listen to his work on Glass Onion and compare it to Paul in USSR.
To me, the biggest difference between the Twins version of Glass Onion and The Beatles version is the drumming. But I’m less sure if the difference is between Ringo and Mona or Rudolf and George Martin. Mona’s drums aren’t as loud and simply don’t rock as much. It seems to me that this is more a decision of the engineering/arrangement than it is a limitation of the drummer.
I love the Twins version of Glass Onion. It is very close to the original but not so close to the remix- in my opinion. Glass Onion is a very brave cover. Many people want to put Mona and Lisa into a soft rock, ballad, harmonies bubble but they are so much more than that. If some of their more rocky covers don’t quite match the originals- they come awfully close. And sometimes- Time of the Season, Revolution, You Really Got Me- they surpass the original.
Ticked with the remix so far and can’t wait for the entire release! -
6 Replies
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Nice work again Tim. Not having the luxury of having copies of the Beatles new White Album remixes (how do you manage this!), I can’t comment. As for the Ringo not being the best drummer in the Beatles, the way I heard it was that one of those useless 60s music journalists asked Paul (not John), if he thought Ringo was the best drummer in the world and Paul replied “the best drummer in the world? He’s not even the best drummer in the Beatles!” There seemed to be some credence to this as during the recording sessions for the White Album, Ringo left the Beatles as he felt he wasn’t appreciated. He went on holidays in Sardinia and Paul played the drums on ‘Back in the USSR’ and ‘Dear Prudence’.
But they soon realized they needed Starr, and sent him a telegram asking him to return, saying that they thought he was the best rock n’ roll drummer in the world and that they loved him. While on holidays in Sardinia on Peter Sellers yacht, Ringo wrote his second song with the Beatles, ‘Octopus’s Garden’, which appeared on the Abbey Road album.
Who really said Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles?
Never said by John Lennon. Jasper Carrott’s office claimed it as 1983 gag; proof now it was said earlier, in BBC comedy Radio Active in Oct 1981. File here. Voice by Philip Pope. Written by Geoffrey Perkins. Not by John Lennon. Yes, there is audio available of the Radio Active recording.
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Great research, Howard. It just didn’t sound authentic so I appreciate your proof of that.
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Tim, Howard, great insight into the Beatles, especially about Ringo. Always learn something from your dialogue here. I did see a youtube video where John Lennon was talking about when they got rid of their superstar extraordinaire member Pete Best and replaced him with Ringo, John spoke very highly of Ringo’s drumming especially about Ringo’s great rhythm.
I am not familiar with the Beatles version of Glass Onion (will have to listen to it), and only just recently listened to the Beatles Hey Bulldog, so can’t offer any opinion on comparison to MLT versions, but I love MLTs versions of both songs in their own right. Fast becoming my top favorite MLT covers for me.
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Jung,
There is a fantastic book called Tune In: All Those Years Ago and it covers Pete Best as a drummer and member of The Beatles better than anywhere else. This post isn’t meant to disparage Pete in any way. He seems to be a wonderful person on a number of different levels but he was a mechanical drummer who didn’t keep good time and didn’t fit in or ever hang out with the other band members.
Pete was probably fine for the Hamburg clubs where a sober person in the audience would have been a rarity. He was even fine for the Cavern Club shows because he was good looking and the fans were reacting to the power of the sound- not the precision. George Martin gave one listen and told them he wasn’t good enough to play on studio recordings.
Tune In reveals they thought he sucked at Decca and on previous recordings in Germany with Tony Sheridan. There is a recording of Love Me Do recorded at Abbey Road with Pete on Anthology 1- it’s very early but he is hopelessly out of rhythm with the song. If you listen to demo recordings with Ringo- that’s simply never the case. -
Hi Tim. I was trying to be sarcastic about Pete Best being a superstar extraordinaire. 🙂
In that interview, John Lennon used some bright metaphors to describe his general disdain for Pete Best as a drummer.
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Hi Tim and Jung. John Lennon was renouned for his acerbic wit at times but I never thought he’d make the kind of remark about Ringo attributed to him. Fortunately, ‘urban myths’ like this can reasonably easily be debunked these days. It hasn’t always been the case, but we can thank the www for this now. Similarly, it would have been near impossible for MLT to pursue their career the way they are now 20 years ago.
Imagine living in Medieval times, or worse still, the Dark Ages where these ‘urban myths’ were considered to be truths and could get you hung, or worse!
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