This song is just.... perfect... absolutely GODLIKE!

Classic song. No question.

Nope, don't like it.

This song must have driven the parents absolutely crazy.

Steve wrote:

Gave it a 9...but was tempted. Great song on many levels.

I need a Fix!!! oh yes. my favorite song!

i am like a lizard on a window pane...

love it...reminds me of college.

psycholynx wrote:
You can also hear this quite well on "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" when Robert Sings, "I can hear it calling me".

if I really had to choose my favorite beatles song I think this would be it.

An absolutely wonderful track, and open to so many translations. Tori Amos' is particularly interesting.

I need a fix

Especially after the Pixies... see The Breeders' cover.

This song was conspicuously absent during the Beatles A to Z the local classic-rock station was playing shortly after Lennon was murdered. (Speaking of, I've actually heard radio stations break side 2 of Abbey Road into little pieces so they can still keep the A to Z thing going...blasphemers!)

Skeletor wrote:

I listened for it but couldn't hear it. What you are describing though is tape "Print-Through" The most notable popular song with bleed through on an album is Led Zepplin's "Whole Lotta Love" when the music gets quiet and you hear Robert Plant sining in echo, slightly before he sings what was intended. This was originally a mistake but they though it sounded "cool" so they left it as is.

The tape is actually a thin plastic film that's coated with microscopic cigar-shaped permanent magnets (domains). These particles are aligned with the tape's length and can be magnetized in either of two directions--they can have their north magnetic poles pointing in the direction of tape motion or away from that direction. In a blank tape, the particles are magnetized randomly so that there are as many of them magnetized in one direction as the other. In this balanced arrangement, the tape is effectively non-magnetic. But in a recorded tape, the balance is upset and the tape has patches of strong magnetization. These magnetized patches represent sound.

It is caused because tape is actually consisted of little metal fragments called "domains" that are allinged my the recorder with a magnet. When tape is stored for a while these domains, then can actually effect each other.

PRINT-THROUGH
Transfer of the signal to adjacent layer(s) of the tape is commonly called "print-through" and is usually caused by overly high recording levels or improper storage practices. It manifests itself as a distracting secondary image (echo) of the sound. If you've ever heard a faint echo or pre-echo within the program, you have heard print-through.

Tapes must be stored properly to minimize print-through. They must be stored in a cool, dry environment. Direction of winding and tape tension during preparation for storage is important. Tapes must be played onto the take up reel and stored "tail out" (in the played out direction) to minimize audible print-through. By storing tail out, you cause any new print-through beneath the wanted signal therefore masking it.

John Lennon was <10 - Godlike>, and this song is one of my favorites from the White Album, but I hesitate to read too much into his lyrics from this period. His often-sublime poetry is usually interlaced with playful nonsense that simply fit the rhythm or even mocked earlier verses: see "I Dig A Pony" or "Sun King" for what I'm talking about.

It's kind of irrelevant to me whether it's about heroin, sex, death, nuns, or even guns. I think John was writing in a stream of consciousness, and his psyche was rich with varied imagery.

Found some cool 411 on this song -

0:43
Chewing/mouth noise

0:57
The mixers brought up a track too quickly. Originally, John sang the "I need a fix" line twice, but the first was supposed to be left out in the release. The end of the first "down," though, ended up on the master.

1:34
High pitched titter from the "female" backing voices. Caught unawares by an early drop in? * NEW * This has been attributed to John saying "shoot" or "shit" ...

1:50
"When I Hold you"
* NEW * The tempo changes into something like 6/8 here, but Ringo continues in 4/4. Not sure how this happened. Two possibilities -- they were doing something clever with arrangements by overlaying 2 rhythms.

Or, at the time the drum were recorded they intended it to be 4/4 and changed their minds later. It's clever. (There's a Queen song "The Miracle" where the song ends and goes into a guitar/bass/drums solo fade out, and a piece fades in over this at a different tempo and knits at key points (the start and end) so that it transits to a slower tempo without you really noticing.)

In the light of the "Mother superior" bit, which has an odd beat pattern of 3 6 3 7 3 6 3 7 3 6 3 7 beats, it may be deliberate andclever.

2:21
Print-through of the word "Gun".

Here's more from http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=154 -

The title came from an article in a gun magazine John Lennon saw. It was the slogan of the National Rifle Association.

The first half of one take was combined with the second half of another to form the complete song.

Lennon: "It's sort of a history of Rock 'n' Roll."

Much of the imagery was about John's sexual passion for Yoko.

Lennon considered this one of his favorites. It's also Paul McCartney's favorite song on The White Album.

In the last section of the song, the backing vocals are "Bang, Bang, Shoot, Shoot."

This was banned by the BBC for sexual symbolism. They thought the gun was a phallic symbol.

The original line "When I hold you in my arms and feel my finger on your trigger..." appears in unreleased, bootlegged versions of "I'm So Tired" as "When I hold you in your arms, when you show me each one of your charms, I wonder should I get up, and go to the funny farm." This could mean the line was originally sexual but was put in as a metaphor for a gun later on.

Tori Amos covered this on her 2001 album Strange Little Girls. All the songs on the album were written by men - Amos took on different characters to interpret them from a woman's point of view. Yoko Ono had to approve this, and she did.

Home_Alone_NC wrote:

One can only hope.

masterhead wrote:

Why? It's obvious they are not really talking about a gun, but a gal's anatomy

Happiness is a Big O

11.

Ponder on this, OK. Bang Bang Shoot Shoot...OK?

A Penis is a Warm Gun ? When I feel your finger on my trigger...?

Musing on what happiness means....

Bang Bang Shooooot Shoot.

Awesome.

It is Lennon at his awesome godlike best.

I heard it! I never noticed it until you mentioned it. Makes a great weird song even greater -- and weirder.

I love this song but it gives me the creeps each time I hear it...

THANKS, BILL!!! Perfect way to end my b-day!!! One of my Beatles favorites!!!

Next time you listen to this, listen very closely to the part where Lennon comes in with "I need a fix cause I'm going down, ....".

Immediately before he sings "I need a fix" is what sounds like the tail end of another vocal that was cut during the production. It sounds like they got part of "down" but all you hear is "--own...".

Is that weird or what?

Mark1970 wrote:

yep. this is probably one of the least predictable and/or boring songs from undoubtedly one of the least predictable and/or boring albums of all time. just try and accurately describe the music from "the beatles" (aka the white album) to someone else. it's almost like 3.175 solo albums in one. (ringo even had a couple on there)

Trustocity wrote:


Like me, I assume you rated it a 10.

Day sucks, Beatles come on, day does not suck.

RP, if you had lips, I'd kiss you. For now, my computer screen is sticky.

lizardman_tcs wrote:

I agree. Extremely difficult to understand those who consider all Beatles songs to be the same, no matter what category they are choosing. The diversity of their music is what made them so damn interesting.