Brian Wilson - The Tote Bag

Last Friday Cindy and I and our friend Elaine went to Boston's Symphony Hall to hear the Boston Pops. Well, maybe more to hear their special guest, who used to be in this surf band. The guest was of course Brian Wilson, with Beach Boys alums Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin and a full band, in town to perform the group's 1966 album Pet Sounds. (The album was released in May of that year, making it both fifty years old AND ahead of its time. Sgt. Pepper's, the album it's most often compared to, wasn't released until June of 1967, a full year later.)

If you've seen Love and Mercy or know the Beach Boys' back story, you'd probably be wondering, like I was, if Brian was up to it - being the center of attention for a full evening, let alone being able to actually still sing. The orchestra wandered on, then the band, then, led by the stage manager, Brian himself, to a genuine hero's welcome by the crowd. Luckily there was no one behind me because I didn't sit down for the next hour.

The first set was Beach Boys' hits plus a few of Brian's solo recordings - everything but Pet Sounds - and Brian was engaged, introducing each song, sometimes funny but never ironic, much like his lyrics. He couldn't hit the high notes but did fine otherwise, and Al Jardine's son Matt added the falsetto that Brian lacked, sometimes taking over mid-line. The Beach Boys were already square when I started listening to music in the mid '60s, but 'In My Room' and 'Don't Worry Baby' were perfect singles then and were just as perfect in concert fifty years on. Blondie Chaplin came on for a few post-Pet Sounds tunes, 'Wild Honey' and 'Sail On Sailor,' and added some testosterone to balance Brian's romantic but chaste persona.

Set two was Pet Sounds, performed in its entirety - at least. With the full band of multiple guitarists, keyboardists, percussionists and singers, not to mention the full orchestra standing by, I bet every note on Pet Sounds was covered, even the theremin and car honks, and many were doubled. It was very nice, with some genuine highlights - Al Jardine's vocal on 'Sloop John B,' Brian and Al's call and response vocal on the tag of 'God Only Knows,' Nick Walusko's vintage Fender Jaguar on the tune 'Pet Sounds' - but it was more like a recital than a rock concert. Even the finale of the post-Pet Sounds single 'Good Vibrations' - one of the high points of the rock era - was a little too perfect to feel like rock'n'roll. But hey, I got to witness history, and I can only hope to perform as competently when I get to be Brian's age.

They let the orchestra go home, and Brian and the band came back on for an encore set of early Boys surf rock, with people twisting in the front rows. Fun, but still curiously harmless, like being at the taping of a PBS special. Then Love and Mercy, maybe his best solo song, given added poignancy by the movie's public airing of his private nightmare, and Brian was led offstage, band still playing. We happened to exit past the stage door, and saw Nick and some of the other band members greeting the crowd. Brian, we assumed, like Elvis, had left the building. But, unlike Elvis, Brian is still here to get the accolades he deserves. I don't call many people genius, but Brian is one of them. I dare anyone to write a song more romantic than 'Don't Talk, Put Your Head on My Shoulder,' more honest than 'In My Room,' or more heartbreaking than 'Caroline, No.' Long live Brian, and Al, and Pet Sounds. Elaine even bought the tote bag.

Emma's Possibilities

            Last night at the Club Passim open mic in Cambridge I heard a talented young woman sing a song I thought was called "Emma's Possibilities," about a girl about to graduate and go out into the world, and all that awaited her. About halfway through the song I realized she was saying "endless possibilities," but by that time I had a whole story in my head going on about Emma - what would await her here in 2016, and beyond?

            The singer, an art school student, was of Asian-American descent, and played a ukulele rather than the folk-standard guitar. I don't know what research the Census Bureau has done on ukes versus guitars, but they have declared that by 2044, somewhere around Emma's fiftieth birthday, the U.S. will become a minority-majority country. That is, less than fifty percent of the country will non-Hispanic white.

            A year ago that might not have seemed such a big deal. After all, we have an African-American president, and the Hispanic and Asian percentage of Americans has been growing for decades. But the 2016 election - the first presidential election Emma will be old enough to vote in - reveals that many Americans are not ready for the rainbow America is becoming.

            In the 1980 election - the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in - we elected in a landslide a former B-movie actor who promised, in both his rhetoric and his policy proposals, to take us back to the 1950s, when life and politics were simple, and the world was divided into good (us), evil (the U.S.S.R.), and irrelevant (the rest of the world, except as chess pieces in the struggle between the two superpowers). We are generally regarded as having won that struggle, but life in the '80s was not so simple - along with images of the Berlin Wall coming down we should recall the bloody wars in Central America (in the name of fighting communism), our impotence in the Middle East (the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing which killed 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French servicemen), our tragically slow response to the AIDS epidemic, and, perhaps most tellingly, Reagan's removal of the solar panels which Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House.

            Here in 2016, the Republican candidates are promising to take us back to Reagan's '80s. But the world is even more complex, with more and bigger problems with no simple solutions. Driving many, if not most, of these problems is human population growth: Earth's population, around three billion when I was born, reached seven billion in 2011 and is expected by United Nations estimates to reach between eight and eleven billion by Emma's fifty-fifth birthday in 2050. So demand, and competition, for resources - water, food, housing, energy - will only increase, and the strain on all of our planet's already-taxed ecosystems to meet those demands will also increase. And we're crowding out other species as we grow.

            There has been progress - the development of renewable energies, new and more efficient methods of transportation and communication, great strides in medicine and genetics, greater acceptance of gays and other alternative identities in mainstream culture, and awareness of our planet as a finite resource - and hopefully Emma and her generation will continue to meet the many challenges we are leaving them. But it will be a bumpy ride. And until we resolve political problems like income inequality, access to health care, immigration status, money in politics, and institutional racism, it will be an uphill climb. And chances are that Emma and her classmates are starting that climb thousands of dollars in the hole from student loans.

            Despite all this, Emma's possibilities are endless. She may not have the blind faith in the American Dream that previous generations had, but that dream didn't apply to whole swaths of our country's population anyway. Emma will live on a warmer planet with more people, so she'll have to be resourceful, and she may have to re-invent herself multiple times as the world changes at an ever-faster pace. But the payoff is experiencing, and helping shape, the future, instead of trying to hide in the past. If you were at Club Passim last night hearing all about Emma's possibilities, you'd be hopeful too.

TK interview and song on Standing "O" and Art of the Song!

(photo of tk's new spring haircut by John Allen)

I was recently interviewed by Katie Mitchell for the Standing "O" Project about my song "Sequel," growing up in the '60s, going to college with Barry (Obama), & folk music and politics. You can listen here

http://standingoproject.libsyn.com/terry-kitchen-mid-week-coffee-break

 and on itunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/art-song-standing-o-project/id707128897?mt=2

& there are lots of other interesting interviews on the Standing "O" website

https://www.standingoproject.com/

(and I have a page there as well filled with fun facts & dark secrets). "Sequel" will also be featured on next week's Art of the Song radio program and podcast. Thanks Katie!

Instead of Donald Trump, Vote for Me!

     If you're wondering who to vote for on Super Tuesday (or any day this week), how about...Terry Kitchen? My new CD The Post-American Century is up for Album/EP of the Year (Solo) in Limelight Magazine's 8th Annual Music Awards. Please vote early and often - the poll's open from now until this Friday March 4 at 11:45 PM (EST), and you can vote up to 4 times from each IP address. Thanks for your support, and thanks to Limelight Magazine for supporting the Mass.-Rhode Island music scene!

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2607891/limelightmagazinereaderspoll2016


 

Goin' to Kansas City!

     The international Folk Alliance conference takes place this week in Kansas City, and I will be there to hype my new CD The Post-American Century, do some showcases with my friends Mara Levine, Janne Henshaw, Johnsmith and James Curley, and generally cause trouble. I'll arrive Thursday just in time for the Folk-DJ reception, then perform and schmooze as below. See you there!

Thursday Nite 12-12:30 LilFest  (room 727) w/ Mara Levine, Janne Henshaw

Thursday Nite 12:30-1  Access Film yellow  (room 755)  w/ Mara Levine 

Friday 10 AM-1 PM  Exhibit Hall Booth 605 w/ Mara Levine, Dennis Warner, Stuart Markus

Friday Nite 11-11:20  NERFA Presents  (room 625) w/ Mara Levine

Friday Nite 1-1:30  LilFest  (room 727)  w/ Mara Levine, John Smith

Friday Nite 2-2:30  Austin Skyline  (Room 607)  w/ James Curley

Saturday 10 AM-1 PM  Exhibit Hall Booth 605 w/ Mara Levine, Dennis Warner, Stuart Markus

Saturday Nite 12:30-1  Access Film yellow (room 755) w/ Mara Levine, Stuart Markus

Saturday Nite  2-2:30  LilFest  (room 727)  w/ Mara Levine

More on the conference at folk.org 

Eternity - The Movie

    One of my favorite sub-genre of songs is 'songs that make getting older seem a little less scary.' I would include Jame Taylor's 'The Secret of Life' and Steve Seskin's 'When the Chain Links Up Again', and I wanted to try adding to the genre myself. The resulting song, 'Eternity', came out like an old-time country ballad, like the kind Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton used to sing, so I invited my friend Mara Levine to take the second verse, and the resulting duet is on my new CD The Post-American Century. Mara came to Boston recently to sing with me at the Nameless Coffeehouse, and the next day our friend Wayne Martin filmed this video of us singing 'Eternity'. Hope you enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owbfxo8v-BU

Filling out the video band are Norman Zocher (pedal steel) and John Coffey (bass), and special thanks to key grip/stylist Rebecca Lynch for making faces at us off camera. It was edited by Chris Constantine. I should also mention my lovely shirt was embroidered in the village of El Higueral in El Salvador, and that folksinger Dean Stevens sells their products here in the US. Thanks to Mara for being brave enough to try a few dance steps, and to all of my and my wife Cindy's relatives for contributing pix for the photo gallery. (There's a quick shot of my mother, four years old, dressed as a ballerina, and a beautiful still of Cindy on our wedding day.) I hope you enjoy the song, and I hope it makes the future seem just a little bit less scary.

The Post-American Century Is On the Radio! 

I'm happy to say my new CD The Post-American Century is on the airwaves! It's currently #19 on the national Folk-DJ airplay chart (after debuting at #20 last month) and I've been interviewed on a number of shows. Artie Martello devoted an entire podcast of his show Mostly Folk to the CD (I'm episode 117), and Jon Stein, host of WTBQ's Hootenanny Cafe, featured 8 of the CD's 11 tracks on his show. I've also chatted with Art Menius on WCOM's The Revolution Starts Now, Kelly Walker on the Sundilla Radio Hour, Jim Marino on CFMU's Freewheelin', Bill Wagman on KDVS's Saturday Morning Folk Show, Joe Pszonek on WMSC's Radio Nowhere, and David Goodman and Marc Stern on WMBR's Room with a View. (Honorable mention to Diane Crowe, host of WMCB's Music of the People - we didn't get to chat on the air due to technical difficulties, but she was kind enough to play 4 cuts anyway!)

WFUV in NYC has featured the CD on 2 of its shows, Sunday Supper with John Platt, and Woody's Children with Bob Sherman. John Platt has also invited me and Mara Levine (who sings on the CD, as well as on her own CDs) to perform in the WFUV-sponsored On Your Radar concert series at the Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen St. in NYC on Tuesday Jan. 12 (7 PM showtime). We're very excited and hope to see you there!

Since the holidays are upon us, I might mention The Post-American Century could be the perfect present for the folk music fan in your life. You can order CDs at www.terrykitchen.com and it's also available from iTunes

A Night to Remember

     This past Saturday night was the release concert for my new CD The Post-American Century. It turned into a special evening, so I thought I should acknowledge and thank everyone who was a part of it. As a 'solo' artist, it was a rare treat to have so much support onstage, and it was both musically satisfying and a heck of a lot of fun.

     My friend Mike Delaney, who generously lent me his mandolin for the recording sessions, was on hand to play it himself, and also did a very moving version of my song "Heaven Here on Earth." Tom Smith, who I often hear at our monthly NSAI songwriters' group, contributed a beautiful song about songwriters and other artists being keepers of the flame. Brian Middleton (joined by Brice Buchanan) did a song himself and then nailed the high harmony on my prison ballad "Can't Remember Life Before I Got Here." Amy Malkoff joined me for her beautiful harmony on "Tall Against the Wave" and then helped me twang it up with "Everything Makes Me Cry These Days Except the Rolling Stones." Mara Levine, who's on four tracks on the CD and who came all the way from New Jersey to be part of the show, sang her duet vocal on "Eternity" and her moving harmony on "Sequel" (which the album title is taken from).

     After a break in which my beautiful wife Cindy gave out slices of carrot cake in honor of my just-passed birthday, I invited members (both real and honorary) of my '80s band Loose Ties onstage to shake the rafters. Barry Singer contributed flute, sax and keyboards, Brice Buchanan stoked his Fender Telecaster, and even Bill "Fabulous" Kuhlman came up to sing "Heard It Through the Grapevine." Rebecca Lynch sang "Same Heart Twice" from the Next Big Thing soundtrack, Deede Bergeron came up for "I'll Make it Right," and John Coffey added bass throughout. We closed with a smokey "Rainy Night in Georgia" and then encored with everybody onstage to moan along with "Take Me Blues" from my very first CD.

     It was great to hear everybody do what they do, and have them add their talents to my music. Maybe we should start a band... I also thank everybody who came out to hear the show, and anyone who bought a CD and some of Mara's hand-made jewelry. And Raymond and the Paradise Cafe for having us. (And event photographer Susan Peisner, who took the above picture.) Traveling for gigs is often lonely, so it was great to have such a welcome homecoming and such a great send-off for the CD. Thanks if you were there, and if not you missed a good one.

  

    It's been about a year since my mother Carolyn (known as Peachy to her family and friends) took a turn for the worse. We spent last summer and fall visiting her as much as possible, and she passed away as an early snow fell. She'd really been leaving us in stages, as her Alzheimers progressed, so by the end it was no surprise or tragedy, but it was still hard, and I am grateful to her caregivers, our extended family and friends, and the members of her church who both kept my mother company and made us feel welcome and loved.

    The next stage was a combination of grief and scrambling to settle my mother's affairs - going through her house for mementos of not just my parents, but of my late sister, and my own childhood; donating her books to her AAUW group for their annual booksale; saying goodbye to her beloved summer cottage on the Delaware River; and finally selling the house and navigating the legal process of settling her estate.

    Along the way I was writing songs, and this spring and summer I had the chance to record them with some very talented friends. The result is my new CD, The Post-American Century. While the CD is dedicated to my mom, it reflects a wide range of stories and emotions, of life in all its messy glory at this particular moment in our country's, and and our generation's, ongoing history. I hope you enjoy it, and that it brings both joy and comfort to anyone who might need it.

     I'd like to thank all the talented singers and musicians who contributed - Bob Harris, who kicks the album off with some bluegrass mandolin on "So Much More to Home," Mara Levine, who adds a moving harmony to "Sequel" (among others) and duets with me on "Eternity," Roger Wiliams, whose Dobro shimmers through "Perelli's Barbershop," Amy Malkoff and Chris Devine, whose voice and fiddle break my heart in "Tall Against the Wave," Phyllis Capanna and Brice Buchanan, whose vocals and guitar do the same in "Stay Forever," and secret weapon Deede Bergeron, whose Arkansas twang makes "Rock of Ages" rattle the pews. I'd also like to thank my visually talented wife Cindy McKeown, who was willing to lay down in the sand for the amazing cover photo. (And special thanks for Linda and Jip for the perfect back cover photo!) Thank you for helping me turn all this feeling into music.

                                                                   Here's to Peachy.

Next Big Thing Audio Book!

I am happy to say my novel Next Big Thing (which the San Francisco Book Review called "a great debut novel," and who am I to disagree?) is now available as a downloadable audio book from audible.com
(and you can even get it for free with a trial membership). It was fun to read aloud, and I hope you enjoy listening to it. Now back to shoveling... anybody want set up a book tour of the Bahamas???

Remembering the Tam!

 

When my bandmates and I visited Boston on a scouting trip back in the early '80s, we stopped in at a little club in Brookline to see a band called the Martells. It was brighter and friendlier than the other clubs we visited, and people were dancing instead of just standing around trying to look cool. The place was called the Tam. I asked the singer of the band if Boston was a good town for music. "Great scene," he said, "but it's a bitch to make any money." We moved here anyway, and my band Loose Ties ended up playing the Tam many times, including our official "goodbye" show in the late '80s. We will be remembering the Tam in story and song this Thursday Oct 9 at the Brookline Library, 361 Washingston St., Brookline. The evening will feature the Memphis Rockabilly Band, Jay Feinstein of Push Push, and I'll read the 'Tam' scene from my novel Next Big Thing, and be joined some Loose Ties friends for some vintage Tam music. Hope you can be there!

The Lost Art of ... Great Album Sides

               

I was recently in Newbury Comics' Harvard Square location and I was stunned to see that half the music bins are now devoted to … vinyl LPs! And not vintage, used LPs from the '60s and '70s, but new vinyl records. I still have a turntable, and I kept all my favorite LPs from childhood and college, but I haven't bought a record since the '80s. But with the new vinyl renaissance comes the return of a lost art form: the great album side.

            CDs can cram 75 minutes of music into an uninterrupted flow, and iPods and computers can play on indefinitely. But LPs top out at about 25 minutes per side, so a ten song album has 2 track ones, 2 closing numbers, in effect 2 entirely different programs of music. Sometimes Side 1 is great but Side 2 sucks, sometimes vice versa (and only rarely are both sides of any album truly great). Here are a dozen of my picks for classic album sides. Feel free to argue and add your own!

 The Doors, The Doors (side 1)

1. Break On Through (to the Other Side)

2. Soul Kitchen

3. The Crystal Ship

4. Twentieth Century Fox

5. Alabama Song

6. Light My Fire

 
The Doors are mostly remembered for Jim Morrison's visionary, shamanistic excesses, but they wouldn't have meant shit if it weren't for the tight, hooky band behind him. It was guitarist Robby Krieger who wrote their break-through single, and keyboardist Ray Manzarek who supplied the musical hooks. Side 1 of The Doors is five killer originals, and a cover of a Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill art song from the 1920s that somehow fits right in. And, oh yeah, for a debut album by an unknown band fresh out of film school, Morrison sounds astoundingly confident.

Steve Forbert, Alive on Arrival (side 1)

1. Goin' Down to Laurel

2. Steve Forbert's Midsummer Night's Toast

3. Thinkin'

4. What Kinda Guy?

 5. It Isn't Gonna Be That Way

When this album arrived in 1978, disco sucked and rock pretty much sucked too, with the dinosaur bands of the '60s and early '70s running out of steam and the punk and nu wave bands just learning how to make music instead of noise. Enter Steve Forbert, an earnest Mississippi kid with a beat-up Martin acoustic and a self-effacing grin. Side 1 is the "Mississippi" side, which, happy or sad, sounds as organic and honest as sweat on a summer's day. Flip the record over, however, and the mood is immediately destroyed by the blaring New York saxophone on "Big City Cat."

Van Morrison, Moondance (side 1)

1. And It Stoned Me

2. Moondance

3. Crazy Love

4. Caravan

5. Into the Mystic

 I warned my first college girlfriend that if I ever showed up with Moondance under my arm she'd know I meant business. I did, and I did, and we did. I'm sure we weren't the first, or the last. Four of Van's best songs, in a row, perfectly sung and played and produced. Make-out music with a hint of spiritual yearning. So glad it wasn't Saturday Night Fever!

 Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street (side 4)

1. All Down the Line

2. Stop Breaking Down

3. Shine a Light

4. Soul Survivor

   

Pretty much everything the Stones do better than any other band on one concise LP side. "All Down the Line" is a classic uptempo rocker with great Mick Taylor slide guitar and killer r&b horn lines. "Stop Breaking Down" is the blues they grew up on, fed back through the prism of a decade's worth of decadence. "Shine a Light" is a back alley gospel hymn with great morning-after lyrics and church organ courtesy of Billy Preston. "Soul Survivor" is pure Jagger growl and Richards rhythm. Nobody does it better.

 George Harrison and Friends, The Concert for Bangladesh (side 5)

1. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

2. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry

3. Blowin' in the Wind

4. Mr. Tambourine Man

5. Just Like a Woman

The Dylan side. I'd never owned a Dylan record when I got this album in 9^th grade, and it still holds up as a perfect snapshot of Mr. Zimmerman at his best. He had nothing to prove and everything to prove on this evening in 1971 - post motorcycle accident and "retirement," nobody had seen him in years. He'd outgrown his smartass beat persona of the mid-'60s, and his voice is rich, warm and mature but with none of the road damage soon to follow. With simple backing from 2 Beatles (George and Ringo) and Leon Russell on bass.

Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II (side 2)

1. Heartbreaker

2. Living Loving Maid

3. Ramble On

4. Moby Dick

5. Bring It On Home

 
As heavy as heavy metal, as bluesy as the blues, but with pop/rock hooks and folk/Celtic underpinnings, Led Zeppelin II cut like a laser, and was a sonic quantum leap beyond any blues rock that had existed up to that point. "Heartbreaker" is pure testosterone, with an actual guitar solo - everybody else shuts the fuck up and listens to Jimmy play. "Maid" is as hooky as anything on AM radio. "Ramble On" has tender folky verses that hint at the Stairway yet to come, and "Moby Dick" and "Bring It On Home" are classic riff rock. Zeppelin moved forward, in many directions, after this, but they never rocked harder.

 

The Who, Live at Leeds (side 1)

1. Young Man Blues

2. Substitute

3. Summertime Blues

4. Shakin' All Over

 

Note this is the original vinyl LP side - the CD has extra tracks, which is a nice thought, but they are interspersed rather than at the end, so the CD listening experience is diluted significantly. But the original four song vinyl LP side shows why the Who in their prime were a killer live band -tight as hell, and full of punk/teen spirit years before the Sex Pistols or Nirvana - neither of whom could have covered Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues" the way these guys do. Forget Who Are You - this is The Who.

Elton John, Madman Across the Water (side 1)

1. Tiny Dancer

2. Levon

3. Razor Face

4. Madman Across the Water

 AM radio in the '60s was a haven for 2 minute, 30 second hook-driven hits. But by the early '70s, some longer, more complex records were getting through. Both "Tiny Dancer" and "Levon" were major hit singles featuring rich, beautifully recorded piano and lush orchestrations, and "Dancer" doesn't even hit the chorus until 2 minutes into the song. Add the title track's impressionistic strings and guitar harmonics, not to mention Elton's best singing, and you get one of the most impressive sides of progressive piano pop ever recorded.

Joni Mitchell, Blue (side 2)

1. California

2. This Flight Tonight

3. River

4. A Case of You

5. The Last Time I Saw Richard

Any album side that features "River" followed by "A Case of You" followed by "The Last Time I Saw Richard" wins, hands down, any confessional-singer-songwriter-poet competition you can dream up. Joni's singing here is boundless, the playing sparse and impressionistic, and the writing is perfect. Any guy who's having problems with his girlfriend should listen to this album a hundred times in a row.

Humble Pie, Town and Country (side 2)

1. Every Mother's Son

2. Heartbeat

3. Only You Can See

4. Silver Tongue

5. Home and Away

 
I'm not a huge fan of either Steve Marriot's Small Faces work, or his late-Humble Pie blues shouter incarnation, and I'm also not a slavish devotee of Peter Frampton's '70s solo albums. BUT, for the short time they joined forces in Humble Pie, they made some stellar music together and seemed to both bring out the out the best in each other and cancel out each other's faults. Town and Country is largely acoustic-guitar based, but features some great Frampton guitar work, and some of Steve's best singing (and vice versa). The song are melodic but still have an edge, and their cover of Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat" is a #1 single that never was. (Note the 1^st 2 Humble Pie LPs were released together in the States as the 2-LP set Lost and Found. Get it.)

David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (side 2)

1. Lady Stardust

2. Star

3. Hang on to Yourself

4. Ziggy Stardust

5. Suffragette City

6. Rock and Roll Suicide

 This album, in both defining glam and transcending it, lifted Bowie right past 'rock star' to 'object of worship.' Side 2's song cycle, about a Hendrix-esque guitar hero too divine to live, showcases Bowie's ability to create a character and a world and all the emotions therein - the definition of theater. He's also unbound by pop music's usual rules - try tracking the chords and structure of 'Rock and Roll Suicide' once it really gets going. It might be 'wrong' rule-wise, but it's absolutely right.

The Beatles, Abbey Road (side 2)

1. Here Comes the Sun

2. Because

3. You Never Give Me Your Money

4. Sun King

5. Mean Mr. Mustard

6. Polythene Pam

7. She Came in Through the Bathroom Window

8. Golden Slumbers

9. Carry That Weight

10. The End

11. Her Majesty

Okay, this album side was conceived of as an album side - individually the songs aren't that strong (with the exception of "Here Comes the Sun," which remains perfectly charming some forty years later), but it's the flow between the songs that makes this a work of art, and the climaxes (the reprise of "You Never Give Me Your Money" in "Carry That Weight," the drum solo and guitar jam leading to "The End") are as effective as anything recorded in the rock era.

            OK, that's my dozen. Long live the album side!