The Alternate Revolver

Carefully staged studio shots like the one below, taken at John's 26th birthday party, masked the tension underlying the recording of the Revolver album.

The Alternate Revolver

Show me the Alternate Revolver Tracklist

01 - Taxman - Junior Parker
02 - Eleanor Rigby - Cassia Eller
03 - I'm Only Sleeping - George Martin & His Orchestra
04 - Love You To - Sukilove
05 - Here, There and Everywhere - Claudine Longet
06 - Yellow Submarine - Akiko Kanazawa
07 - She Said She Said - Tom Newman
08 - Good Day Sunshine - Jimmy James & The Vagabonds
09 - And Your Bird Can Sing - Jim Reid
10 - For No One - Emmylou Harris
11 - Doctor Robert - Luke Temple
12 - I Want To Tell You - Thea Gilmore
13 - Got to Get You Into My Life - Marian Love
14 - Tomorrow Never Knows - Monsoon feat. Sheila Chandra

You'll begin by nodding absently to Junior Parker's cataleptic 'Taxman'. Then you'll be gaily picturing a sleazy striptease to George Martin's 'I'm Only Sleeping', wondering if any moment could be more joyful than the chorus of Akiko Kanazawa's 'Yellow Submarine', and penultimately rollicking along with Marian Love on 'Got to Get You into My Life'.

The Original Broadway Production of Guys and Dolls

Guys and Dolls (F. Loesser) - Original Broadway Cast - The Guys and Dolls Orchestra (dir. Irving Actman)

The original production - any praise I could give this would be superfluous, but if this record doesn't make you want to go and see the show, I don't know what will.

Although I know what won't: I'd personally avoid the film, which has dated in a way these songs haven't. Although, having said that, Sinatra's 'Sue Me' is unassailable. And Brando singing? Yeah, that's worth watching it for.

Decontextualised Graphs #3

Mussorgsky Song Cycle - Vladimir Rosing

 

Mussorgsky Song Cycle - Vladimir Rosing (Myers Foggin, piano)

I'm already in love with Rosing's rich, colourful voice, and this song cycle really demonstrates his range, but is anyone able translate the titles of the songs from the Russian for me?

Two Illustrations from 'Everyday Information'

I could post gems from this for the rest of my days. "How many of those people" R. Ewart Williams asks, on characteristically polemic form in the introduction, "who try to make up their minds whether to live in the town or in the country know the real advantages and disadvantages of each?"

We open with a typical twentieth century quandry: which is the rattle, which the whistle?

It tells us in the caption that "the modern police whistle was not used till the end of the nineteenth century." Why stop there? Why leave the reader thirsting for further knowledge, with that tantalising phrase "The modern police whistle" alluding to all manner of pre-modern whistles?