“Mary and Joseph! Great to meet you. Congrats on the new baby, who is the Son of God and everything. He’s the most important person on the planet in the history of the world. So good luck raising him in this barn, and don’t expect any help from us. Here’s some presents, now we’re off.”
It’s always struck me as strange that they know who this kid is, travel to see him, and then just leave him alone for the next 30 years or so. You’d think if he was that important, they’d take him somewhere to be protected and to learn the religion and everything. I mean, come on, I’ve read plenty of books about babies born into prophecy — that’s what they do.
And what do Republicans do? They care about babies tremendously, until they’re born.
“Those Democrats with their radical agenda! They want to allow women to make their own medical decisions without government oversight! They want gay people in love to be able to get married! They think you shouldn’t have to be rich to get health care! They think higher education should be available to everyone no matter their income! They even think that we shouldn’t punish transgendered people!”
Voters: “These terrible Democrats! What were their names again so we can recognize them when we go into the voting booth?”
I know some local Republicans who are running for office, and they’re running for things like Clerk of Courts and Register of Wills and boring jobs that really have no political agenda or political power. So in some ways, you can say “What’s the big deal if I vote for this person?”
But you need to ask yourself how you could vote for someone who supports a party that stands for the following:
Discrimination against gays and lesbians
Eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency
Open carrying of firearms and reduction of any gun control laws
Lowering the minimum wage
Opposition to equal pay for women
Tax breaks for billionaires
Reproductive decisions made by government and employers
Deporting of refugee children
Denying of climate change and science
Creationism taught in school
Health care only for those who can afford it
Elimination of unions
Banning of books that they disagree with politically
Support for treasonous Presidents and denial of democracy
If I vote for a Republican Dog Catcher, am I thus supporting someone who believes in discrimination? That thinks my wife is a lesser person who can’t make her own decisions? Who supported overturning an election?
More importantly, why should I help that party at all? Every lower office run by a Republican helps the party raise money for the bigger offices, and legitimizes their positions.
So if and until the Republicans go back to the days when there were reasonable conservatives, don’t give them more power.
And it’s important to vote in every election. The GOP has spent its time filling our school boards with radicals who want to censor what your kids can learn, defund public schools to help private schools, and give us an educational crisis we haven’t seen in years, where dedicated teachers are leaving all over the country because of these extremists. Don’t just pay attention to election day every four years! Every election counts!
Be sure to vote, and only vote for Democrats. It’s the only way we’re going to stop them.
Back in the late 70s, when John wasn’t recording regularly, he’d still make music. With his trusty boombox, he’d record bits and pieces of song ideas he might use later. Then in 1980, he decided to make a full album again, which turned out to be “Double Fantasy.” Other songs were recorded at the same time but deemed not good enough for that album, and so were never finished. They later were finished by other musicians and released on John’s posthumous album “Milk and Honey.”
In the 90s, the three remaining Beatles were organizing a series of three collections known as the “Anthology” series. Yoko gave Paul some of the tapes John had made during the 70s, and with better technology, they were able take John’s voice and add new instruments and vocals to make the songs “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” which were placed on the first and second Anthologies respectively.
However, the third one, “Now and Then,” was just not good enough sound-wise to complete. John’s voice was overshadowed by the piano and other noises. George called it “rubbish” (although it’s not clear whether he meant the recording or the song itself) and so it was never completed.
Fast forward thirty years or so, and technology has improved. Peter Jackson’s company created a process by which a specific sound can be identified by the computer and isolated from all the sounds around it. This was used extensively in the “Get Back” movie he produced and directed. (Despite headlines saying “The Beatles used AI,” it’s really no more AI than any other sound-reducing technology that has been around for years — it’s just better at it.)
Anyway, with John’s voice now clear, Paul and Ringo worked to complete the song, using clips of George’s guitar playing and previous harmonies. And so we finally get “Now and Then.” It sounds great.
But… is it a great song?
Well, that’s the problem. We Beatles fans are thrilled to hear this, but honestly, the song underneath isn’t that great of a song. It’s certainly not up to Beatles standards.
But that’s understandable.
I’ve been in bands and written hundreds of songs, and I’ve written novels and short stories, and there’s one thing I can guarantee: the first drafts suck. You take your first ideas, throw them together, and then work at it until it’s what you want.
And these three songs of John’s were first drafts. They were all recorded prior to his last album and obviously, he didn’t think they were good enough to use on that album. The lyrics are rather pedestrian (especially for John) and while they’re still better than many songwriters could do (Come on, it’s John Lennon), they could have used work — because they were first drafts.
In the bands I have been in, I would take my new songs to the group and we’d work on them. If you have really good fellow musicians who also write songs, they will give suggestions on how to improve the song. Despite one person being the songwriter, making music like that is a group project, and I can’t think of a single example of a song I wrote that wasn’t improved by practicing with the other musicians.
And that’s true for the Beatles as well, as any Beatles scholar will tell you. Recordings of early versions of their songs and the final versions show how much the songs changed and improved thanks to the musicianship and suggestions of their fellows.
And, of course, with neither John nor George here to make those suggestions, there was only so much Paul and Ringo could do with that original recording of “Now and Then.”
Some people are using that to say it really isn’t a “Beatles” song, but I disagree. You don’t need all four together for that. There are many songs in the Beatles catalogue that don’t have all four playing (“I Me Mine,” “Yesterday,” “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” “Blackbird” and so on).
So let’s enjoy this new song while understanding the limitations Paul and Ringo were under. Yeah, it’s not a new classic, but to hear John’s voice clear again sure is wonderful.
(By the way, if you’re really a Beatles fan, shouldn’t you have my book “The Beatles on the Charts“?)
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