Pictured above: The Beatles in studio, 1967
After quitting touring and taking some time off from working on anything, The Beatles soon regrouped in November of 1966 to work on an album unlike any other they have done before.
"Well, you see, for Merseyside Summers, I was mostly inspired by Pet Sounds and A Quick One. I wanted to tell a story throughout the album of a Liverpudlian everyman called Billy Shears. I had quite a few ideas for the story, including him being part of this band in his teenage years called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but I ended up scrapping that part of the story. Either way I'm quite satisfied with how the story turned out in the end."
- Paul McCartney, 1981
The album followed Billy Shears' life through different phases in each side. Side A following his early childhood in Penny Lane, going to school, growing up, getting a job, finding love with a woman named Rita, and at the end of the side the couple adopting a little girl named Lucy in the Strawberry Field orphanage.
Side B took place years later, with the little girl, now grown up, running away from home. With the man devastated, he looks for comfort through drugs and spirituality. In the end he moves on from the loss of his daughter with help from his friends. The album concludes in an ambiguous note story-wise with A Day in The Life.
Most songs were written primarily by Paul McCartney, however John Lennon chipped in with the songs Good Morning Good Morning, Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite and Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds, while George Harrison chipped in with Blue Jay Way and Within You Without You.
While The Beatles were recording Merseyside Summers in Studio Two of EMI Studios, in Studio One a familiar face from across the Atlantic was working on an innovative album of their own.
Pictured above: The Beach Boys working on SMiLE, 1967
"I don't remember whose idea was it to come to the UK to work on SMiLE... I think it was either Brian or Van. Either way it was a nice change of scenery and it we hadn't done it we'd probably never have completed the album."
- Carl Wilson, 1971
"At first I thought they were crazy with wanting us to record SMiLE in England, we've always had recorded in America and I wasn't a fan of that changing. However I ended up warming up to the idea, and it was nice actually meeting The Beatles in-person working on an album."
- Mike Love, 1971
SMiLE was invisioned by The Beach Boys' primary songwriter and de facto leader Brian Wilson as a "teenage symphony to God", comprising of 12 songs made of different sections in similar style to the band's biggest hit by then, Good Vibrations. Despite having a difficult start at first, with Brian failing to explain the structure of the songs and albums to his fellow bandmates. However this was later facilitated due to Carl Wilson suggesting to his brother to write down the structure of the songs along with songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Van Dyke Parks.
"I remember Brian Wilson coming into Studio Two when we were working on Strawberry Fields Forever. Neither me or anyone else knew he had come to London and Paul in particular was honestly quite surprised to see him there. We showed him the song and asked him what he thought of it. He was actually speechless as he listened to it. And from then on it wasn't unusual for him and Paul would visit each other in studio to share song ideas and what not."
- John Lennon, 1975
Pictured above: The Pink Floyd, early 1967
The Pink Floyd, a band consisting of guitarist Syd Barrett, bassist Roger Waters, keyboardist Richard Wright and drummer Nick Mason (previously also rhythm guitarist Rado "Bob" Klose, although he departed in mid 1966 due to pressure from his family and teachers), signed with EMI in January of 1967. Soon enough they got to work on the single Arnold Layne and it's b-side Candy and a Currant Bun (previous titled Let's Roll Another One).
Recording of the single took less than a week and was released on January 30th, 1967, under EMI's Columbia Records label, reaching number 15 in the UK charts. With the moderate success of the single, EMI wanted to rush-release an album to capitalize on said success. Not having any new material yet, the band gave EMI their early recordings from 1966, along with a 15-minute live recording of an instrumental jam called Interstellar Overdrive.
A Seat at the Tea Set
Side A
- 01. Lucy Leave (2:57) [1]
- 02. Remember Me (2:45) [1]
- 03. Double O Bo (2:56) [1]
- 04. Walk with Me Sydney (3:11) [1]
- 05. Butterfly (3:00) [1]
- 06. Candy and a Currant Bun (2:46) [1]
Side B
- 07. Interstellar Overdrive (14:56) [2]
- 08. Arnold Layne (2:56) [1]
Released: February 2nd, 1967
Track sources:
[1] - 1965-67 Cambridge St/ation, 2016
[2] - The Syd Barrett Tapes - Bootleg, 2014
"Now I do not for the life of me remember who came up with such a bland title as "A Seat at the Tea Set". Sure it's a reference to what we were called back in the old days, but still. Another thing I don't get is why did they choose such an old picture for the cover, when Bob Klose was still around? Like, I get that he did participate in recording like 5 of the songs, but still."
- Roger Waters, 1986
The album is looked back by nearly everyone in the band as their worst output, and critics weren't as much of a fan either, criticizing the band for sounding "too much like The Rolling Stones".
"Yeah... A Seat at the Tea Set wasn't a very good record. It wasn't really Pink Floyd, fortunately we soon enough got our act together and we started work on what we were calling at the time Projection."
- Syd Barrett, 1968
Author's notes:
I know it's been a while since I last posted and I apologize for that. However I was busy for most of the week and only really had time and motivation to write now. This most likely won't be the only post for today, but I just wanted to get this out here to not have posts that are too long or cluttered.
No comments:
Post a Comment