Sunday, December 5, 2010

The Beatles: "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"






I wanted to invest an upcoming sad anniversary for myself and other Beatles fans with a bit of what made John Lennon and his "mates" special. This is one of my favorites of their early work.

Many of us have been at a similar awkward place the singer of this tune is talking about, but this hope and infectious spirit Lennon and McCartney wrote into their music still comes through in the vibrant cords and seemingly effortless lyrical style.

From Wikipedia:

"I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" was written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney. It was released on the album "Beatles for Sale" in the United Kingdom in 1964. In the United States, Capitol released the song on the Beatles VI album and also as the B-side of the single "Eight Days a Week".

"The single peaked at number one in the United States; it was not released in the United Kingdom. "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" charted as a B-side, reaching number thirty-nine on Billboard."


12 comments:

  1. Great band Doug, one that changed the world. There was a special on the John Lennon an autobiography that was amazing to watch - it was a first of the like of what I have seen yet.
    The Fab Four literally made such an impact on music. I don't know that many that don't many that don't know at least a few of the Beatles songs.

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  2. There was an excellent documentary, "John Lennon in New York", that talked about his post-Beatles life. One of the funny things he said was that he would rather have been a member of Monty Python than The Beatles.
    Yes, Jack, I don't think The Beatles will ever go out of style.

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  3. That was the one Doug. They were the best of friends and then they all went their own directions but what I find is that these young men went through so many things and then now. Still Ringo and Paul must be amazed with how the legend of the Beatles is not a legend - It's almost as if it just like The Beatles have been kept alive in so many ways. And how even this very day the most all of their songs never are forgotten.

    Seemingly there songs and lyrics are everlasting.

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  4. Yes, when their songs came available on Itunes it was a huge news-worthy event, and millions of people downloaded songs that been available for years!

    Imagine another band getting that much attention

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  5. I wasn't around when the Beatles first came on the scene. I do know that they still have a huge following.

    Do you know why they chose that name for the group?

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  6. This is a Beatles song I don't ever remember hearing before (there aren't many of them) as you point out it wasn't on the UK release of the Beatles For Sale album, although Eight Days A Week was!
    I never thought I'd be hearing new Beatles tunes 46 years down the road Doug, amazing....thanks for posting it!

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  7. I'm in the same place as Aaran, never having heard this track.

    As you say Doug, what other group would be garnering such attention some forty years after they broke up. And look at the diversity of the covers around;

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  8. That is the most incredible cover of any Beatles song I think I have ever heard, absolutely amazing...the Swingle Singers I remember them from the 60s, Bach back then but this is nothing short of brilliant, thanks for posting it!

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  9. My pleasure Aaran, it got me to thinking a little about them and so there are a few more of their numbers over on my page.

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  10. A lot of their music seems to defy their age and time, Cassandra. Of course they were a group of young men of a certain post-war British lower middle-class environment, but nothing you hear in a song like "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1963 could prepare one for songs like "Strawberry Fields" or "Let it Be". As far as popular music could go in those days, they ran the gamut. I think this remarkable growth in song writing and musical innovation (with a nod to their producer, George Martin, of course) is a key to their inter-generational popularity.


    I'm surprised how many stories there are in books and the Internet on the inception of the name "Beatles". Here's one that sounds the most plausible to me after distilling a bit of background from Harry Harper, who wrote a book on them:
    "Stuart (Sutcliffe, an early member and friend of John) did think up the name Beetles because it was an insect and he wanted to associate it with Buddy Holly's group The Crickets as the Quarry Men used a lot of Holly's numbers in their repertoire. John did add the 'a'. They told me this at the time."

    Appparently John Lennon added the "a" to signal to the young fans that the Beatles played "Beat music" as in the Beat movement, which was part of the milieu they came out of wortking in Liverpool. Originally it was "The Silver Beatles" for whatever reason and they even tried "Johnny and the Moondogs" for a week or two!

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  11. You're most welcome AA. This was off one of the first original Beatles albums I bought when they were reissued about a decade later. I was never a 'serious" record collector like some of my pals, but after hearing so many of their hits on the two Apple double album releases of their hits, I decided I wanted to hear some songs that they covered or where just lost in the shuffle of top hits.

    It's easy to miss an enjoyable Beatles song--I finally heard a lot of their best stuff (in my opinion) when the "Anthology" CDs came out, including the cheeky "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) which is one of my favorites.

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  12. Thaks also for including the Swingle Singers cover. This song was also a big favorite of mine, one of the songs that got me through my high school years---literally.

    It is amazing how much enthusiasm there still is for a group that hasn't put out new music (apart from two songs released from an old Lennon demo tape and with added work by the others) since 1970.

    Thought I'd share just this bit of recent Beatlemania, from Billboard Magazine online, November 23 2010:


    "The initial Beatles sales figures are in: More than 450,000 albums and 2 million individual songs were sold on iTunes worldwide, according to Apple, since the Beatles catalog was made available Tuesday (Nov. 16). In U.S. the best-selling album was "Abbey Road" and best-selling song was "Here Comes the Sun."

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