barthanderson

"Working Class Hero" was always my favorite.

It's a great song. Absolutely.

"Hey Bulldog" is one of my top five favorite Beatles songs, and one of my favorite songs period -- it's nice to see it show up on somebody else's list of anything because mostly when I mention it, people scratch their heads and say "Huh?"

That whole side of "Yellow Submarine" is a treasure trove of shockingly underplayed songs and, yes yes, "Hey Bulldog" is the crown jewel. To think they fired off those songs on the fly, just so they could have some real live Beatle tunes on the movie album, is astounding.

I'd love to know where they swiped the syncopated funk-before-funk-was-funk rhythm for "Hey Bulldog." John and Paul were shameless pirates of American rock, so I'm assuming James Brown? I dunno. Can't think of too many pre-George Clinton, bass heavy, 5/4 pop song writers.

I'd guess Ray Charles was an influence for this one.

OK. I've always wanted to know, so I finally broke down and Googled "Hey Bulldog".

Wikipedia claims that the Beatles recorded "Hey Bulldog" in the same session as "Lady Madonna" (found that in a couple sources) which Lennon intended as a tribute to Fats Domino. By all accounts "Hey Bulldog" and most of the other Yellow Submarine tunes were half-baked compositions that didn't fit anywhere else - so maybe some of Lady Madonna's Fats Domino sloshed over into "Hey Bulldog"?

Works for me.

[For the record, I'm never Googling a Beatles title again! Jesus, people are STILL arguing over song meaning and why they broke up??1??]

That's a really good list, and I love "Hey Bulldog". I only need to hear the first few bars of that bangin' piano and I start howling.

And there aren't too many danceable Beatle tunes, beyond "Hey Bulldog".

"Tomorrow" and "Strawberry" but no "Walrus" (or "Across the Universe")? turn on, tune in man...

And a shout out to "Jealous Guy".

-- jan wildt (hi)

Love the walrus. Adore the walrus. I *am* the walrus! (I am across the universe, too.)

This list by no means disses songs that don't appear upon it, I swear. It's simply the mix I happened to have rolling on a sad and special night, you know?

And, hey, good to see ya, Jan!