I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE BEATLES-A Hard Day’s Night (1964).

Despite my CD player trying to eat this disc, I still managed to listen to the whole thing.

This album came out just a few months after their second disc.  But it is quite a leap forward musically.  Rather than the simple rock and roll sound of the first two discs, there’s more depth of sound (attributable to George’s 12 string guitar?)  Perhaps also because of the use of the 4 track, rather than the 2 track mixer.  Also, Lennon and McCartney wrote all of the songs, so they weren’t bogged down by covers,

At first I thought that I had gotten to my first Beatles disc where I knew all the songs.  But that turned out not to be true.  I knew the first half of the disc (the songs that are in the movie).  But when we got to the second half (and I learned that the US version was different in that in included George Martin’s score for the movie (!)) there were a couple of tracks I didn’t know at all.

With the tracks sequenced as they are, you don’t get a big crunching finale at the end of the disc, like on the first two.  However, those first few songs are pretty classic (even if “Can’t Buy Me Love” completely contradicts the sentiment of “Money” from the previous album.  This is a really enjoyable fun disc from start to finish, even the songs I didn’t know.

I was pretty certain that after this disc, I’d recognize all of the songs.  But I had one more surprise waiting for me.

I also brought the movie home from the library one night but I couldn’t get through most of it.  Guess you had to be there.

[READ: May 13, 2010] “The Flight Album”

This is a memoir of the a Vancouver author’s stay in New York City.   I wasn’t really sure how interesting this story would be, I mean, there are a million stories in the City, so why should this transplant’s story be worth reading?

The piece starts with the author’s awkward assimilation to New York (and the almost offensive Dave Chapelle joke she relates to a cabbie).  His mild reaction lets her know that maybe she can make it there.

For me the best part was the author’s insert of Shit: A Guide to Canadian Usage.  The most notable difference between Canadians and Americans, she has found, is that Canadians use the word “shit” all over the place, and in many ways that Americans do not (in fact it is more all purpose than fuck.  The things that started it all was her use of the phrase “What the shit.”)  It is quite a funny section.

The final section of the story relates her creepy apartment and her creepier landlord.  They have a dog, Spirit, who lives outside 24/7.  She is bothered by this and offers to take the dog for a walk or something, but the landlord refuses. It is only as the piece comes to an end that the true story about Spirit is revealed, which was quite a twist.

None of these incidents is particularly noteworthy, and yet combined they offered an interesting picture of a writers’ years in New York.  Little snapshots that tell a complete story.