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 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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The Beatles
Charted: #4 in March 1968
Lady Madonna would have done practically any band proud. It had intriguing lyrics, its construction was impeccable, its melody was hummable, and the performance was spot-on. For the Beatles, though, it was hopelessly retro. With the baroque construction of most all their record releases since Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles had painted themselves into a corner. How much more complex, layered, and convoluted could they hope to get? Well, chuck all that, they must have thought, it was time to chill out and just play. “Lady Madonna” is a straightforward, piano-based composition with the only concession to gimmickry being the late addition of a saxophone quartet. The public must have been initially disappointed, because the single rose no higher than the #4 position, the group’s worst chart performance for an A side since 1964. In retrospect, though, “Lady Madonna” is much better than its initial reception indicated. The song moves at a rollicking pace and is perhaps their most energetic single since “Paperback Writer.” Again, the lyrics are obtuse and vague, but the music has a root-sy gustiness, inspired by the piano playing of Fats Domino and the vocals of Elvis Presley. John Lennon’s sardonic and equally stylized backing vocals (going “bup-bah-bah-bah bup-bah-bah-bah-bah”) seem to be passing commentary on Paul McCartney’s confusing imagery. In the scope of the Beatles’ thoroughly amazing career, “Lady Madonna” can be viewed as a throwaway or as a means to bide time, but judging from the distance of more than three decades, it is a very good song indeed, which has outlasted and even surpassed some of the Beatles’ more ornate compositions.
 
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